Cal Anderson Park
Urban park with a soccer field and walking paths built atop a buried underground water reservoir.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Cal Anderson Park in Seattle poses a puzzle: a reservoir built in 1901 to hold twenty-one million gallons now sits under this hilltop holding barely half that. It follows the story from the open drinking-water pool that served the city for a century, through health officials' decision to shut it down by 2001, to the engineers who gutted it and poured concrete vaults into its footprint. Walk the path ringing the open lawn and you are tracing the old reservoir's rim, above two windowless rooms still doing its old job in the dark.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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