croton reservoir

There used to be a big reservoir where the NYPL and Bryant Park are now, and Edgar Allan Poe wrote that it provided a "delightful scene at night, with the moonlight dancing on the water."

As part of our month-long Dear NYC series, we're looking at city gems hidden away at the New York Public Library. Today: a reservoir in Midtown, which Edgar Allan Poe called "beautiful."

'It smells and tastes like mold,” said one resident of Peter Cooper Village. 'Every once and a while your water has a bleach sort of smell to it, or if you’re used to hard water it’s like a metallic taste, but it’s not like that at all. It’s really very much like mold.'

This reservoir used to be where the NYPL is today, and you can still see pieces of it.

You can still see remnants of it inside of the New York Public Library's main branch.

In an 1844 edition of the Columbia Spy, Edgar Allen Poe wrote,