A Brief History of Albany's Water Works System

Some posts and questions arose on the FB group, Albany... the way it was, regarding some of Albany's past reservoirs. I found some info on these former reservoirs and put this together. Below is a picture of part of a Sampson & Murdock 1902 Albany map that shows part of the Patroon Creek to the left of where West Albany is listed. This pond-like portion of water is the same water that can easily be seen today between I90 and the former Tobin's First Prize building.  Two other reservoirs can be seen in the western portion of the city, the Bleecker and the Prospect reservoirs.  A brief history of these water works is below.

The following information comes from pamphlets that were included with city water bills back in the late 1990s. The old Water Works Company, formed in 1802, created Watervliet Lakes, also known as Tivoli Lakes in the 1840s. These lakes were behind Phillip Livingston school.  Only one small lake remains today. In 1850, three streams at the Patroon's headwaters were dammed near Fuller Road to create Rensselaer Lake or Six-Mile Waterworks. A four mile long underground brick conduit would deliver Rensselaer Lake water to Bleecker Reservoir, site of today's Bleecker Stadium. More than four million bricks were used to construct the egg shaped conduit. Bleecker Reservoir held 30 million gallons of water. The reservoir was converted to Bleecker Stadium in 1935.

In the late 19th Century, Patroon Creek, east of Fuller Road, would feed a newly constructed Tivoli system, which provided drinking water to the City until the early 1920s. This system consisted of Sand Creek Reservoir (I believe this might be the pond-like area off I90), Russell Road Reservoir (located on Russell Road just north of Sand Creek Road), and Tivoli Reservoir (located north of Livingston Avenue between Ontario and Quail Streets).

In 1875, a new pumping station was built at the northwest corner of Montgomery and Quackenbush Streets. Hudson River water was pumped from a pier in the river to a 30 inch cast iron main located beneath Clinton Avenue. The water would supplement the existing water in Bleecker Reservoir.

A second storage reservoir, Prospect Hill was constructed in 1877 to better supply elevated sections of the City. The new reservoir held 7.5 million gallons and was built on a sandy knoll, known as Powder House Hill, between Colby Street and Manning Boulevard.