The fence installed around Central Park's reservoir in 2002 cost $ 2 million dollars and matches one of the fence designs found in Ridgewood Reservoir in Queens. The Parks Department has told that "outer borough" community however that using the same design would not meet code.
Reservoir Fencing
In a January 6th Daily News article, Kevin Quinn, director of Queens capital projects for the Parks Department, was quoted as saying that the historic fences at the reservoir needed to be removed because, the "spacing of the pickets no longer meets code as a guardrail." As far as I've been able to determine, the city's code requires that the spacing on railings be not more than 6".
There are two style of fences at the Ridgewood Reservoir. The first is a circa 1850s Hecla Ironworks fence that surrounds the central basin. In 2003, the department of parks had a replica of that fence created for the Central Park reservoir. The cost for the reproduction was $2 million. Here is a parks department 2003 press release about that installation. Welding Works, the company that built the fence received an industry award for the project.
The parks department was more than happy to spend $2 million to create a copy of the Ridgewood Reservoir fencing for Central Park. The same agency now wants to tear down the original, historic ones in Ridgewood for something that doesn't even try to look like a period piece. Why do you suppose they would do that?
Below is a series of photos which compare the replica fence around the Central Park Reservoir with the existing historic fence at the Ridgewood Reservoir.
Read More:
Save Ridgewood Reservoir - May 25, 2010
Fence ok for Central Park is"too dangerous" for Ridgewood Reservoir
Queens Crap - May 27, 2010
The city comptroller and investigative journalists need to look into what the real motives are for the parks department's wasting of taxpayer's dollars.
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