Williamsbridge Reservoir Keeper's House
3400 Reservoir Oval East | Norwood | built 1890
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1889
Work starts on a stone keeper's house for the new Williamsbridge Reservoir
Architect Douglas Smyth had drawn a stone keeper's house with a corner tower, but that design was apparently dropped for something plainer. In February 1889 George W. Birdsall, chief engineer of the Croton Aqueduct, approved a design for a stone house of two and a half stories at the reservoir's northeast end; contractor Terence A. Smith signed in March, and work began that September. The reservoir land, bought by the city in August 1882, took in part of the Valentine-Varian farm.
- 1890
The keeper's house is finished in gneiss and granite for $8,749
The exterior stonework was done by March 1890 and the house was completed that June, at a total cost of $8,749. The L-shaped building is rock-faced, gray-tan gneiss ashlar with smooth, speckled granite trim and keyed surrounds, and it first had three wooden porches. Massive and plain, it follows the custom of stone buildings for both Croton aqueducts, and it is the only building left in the city from the Bronx and Byram Rivers water system.
- 1890
Irish immigrant Matthew Mallahan moves in as the reservoir's first keeper
The first keeper, whose job was to maintain and guard the reservoir, was Matthew Mallahan (1834-1913), an Irish immigrant who held the post from 1890 until about 1911. He had come to the United States in 1875 and in the 1880s worked as a Bronx hotel keeper and liquor dealer. Mallahan lived in the house with several relatives, and the building also held an office for the keeper on its first story.
“The first reservoir keeper, whose job it was to maintain and guard the reservoir, was Irish immigrant Matthew Mallahan (1834-1913), in this position from 1890 to about 1911.”
- 1946
Physicist Isaac Barkey and his wife Dorothy talk the city out of a library and buy the house
The reservoir was drained in 1925 and later turned into Williamsbridge Oval Playground, opened in 1937 under Parks Commissioner Robert Moses. The city abandoned the keeper's house and in the 1930s planned to turn it into a branch library. Physicist and engineer Dr. Isaac H. Barkey and his wife, Dorothy, wanted the house for themselves; they persuaded the city to build a new library nearby instead, bought the property in 1946 and lived there for five decades.
“Dr. Isaac H. Barkey, a physicist and engineer, and his wife Dorothy, interested in purchasing the house, convinced the city to build a new library nearby…”
- 1998
The Mosholu Preservation Corporation buys the house for its offices
In 1998 the Barkeys sold the house to the Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a nonprofit that Montefiore Medical Center founded in 1981 to tackle housing abandonment and decay in Norwood, and that publishes the Norwood News. It planned to renovate the building for its own offices, a neighborhood meeting space and a summer jobs center for young people. In September 1999 the house joined the National Register of Historic Places.
“After five decades in residence, the Barkeys sold the house in 1998 to the Mosholu Preservation Corp.”
- 2000
The Williamsbridge Reservoir Keeper's House becomes a city landmark
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the keeper's house on February 8, 2000. At the December 1999 hearing, speakers from the Bronx Landmarks Task Force, the Historic Districts Council, the owner Mosholu Preservation Corp. and the New York Landmarks Conservancy all supported it, and letters of support came from State Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz and Councilwoman June M. Eisland.
“…the Commission received letters in support of designation from Councilwoman June M. Eisland, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, and State Senator Eric T. Schneiderman.”
Further reading
Nearby
- The Lenru3388 Wayne Avenue | 2 entries
- Valentine-Varian House3266 Bainbridge Avenue | 5 entries
- Montefiore Hospital, Moses Division111 East 210th Street | 3 entries
- Church of St. Brendan333 East 206th Street | 3 entries
- North Central Bronx Hospital3424 Kossuth Avenue | 3 entries
- Mosholu Jewish Center3044 Hull Avenue | 3 entries