On Saturday, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) will cut the ribbon to open the Reservoir Park Recreation Center at the old sand filtration site.
Thirty-seven years after the District purchased the defunct McMillan Sand Filtration Site, where rows of ivy-covered concrete silos became D.C. icons along North Capitol Street, the sprawling acreage has finally become something new: a city park.
once held sand for the city’s 20th-century water filtration system. The city leaned into the theme: The playground has a sandpit, a slide that pays homage to the shape of the silos, and a miniature play “regulator house” that mimics the brick control rooms next to the old sand towers. a typical recreational center. The site, she said, will soon have a “walking museum” that tells the story of the place on an existing path around the perimeter — a path originally designed by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., the son of the famed architect, in the early 20th century.
Neighboring the McMillan Reservoir, the McMillan Sand Filtration Site was a public works marvel of its time when it opened around the turn of the 20th century, filtering water from the Potomac River and delivering it to faucets across the District, including the White House. The site closed in 1986 when a new treatment plant made it obsolete — and within a year, the D.C. government had purchased it for $9.3 million from the federal government and began plans for development.
Vining and members of his group were passionate about keeping the underground catacombs intact, putting them to creative use. “The magic and the mystery is seeing this park on the top, and then you’d be able to go underneath into the catacombs of Rome,” Vining said.
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