Collect Pond Park Finally Gets Its 'Pond' Water Back

With the reflecting pools of Collect Pond Park nearly filled, Adem Hot of the Parks Department begins to put away a hose. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

Collect Pond Park’s long dry spell has finally come to an end.

Almost a year to the day after the newly opened, $4.6 million park, between Centre and Lafayette Streets, was drained of its reflecting pool due to a series of mechanical failures, Adem Hot, a city Parks Department maintenance worker, turned on the hoses Sunday morning, July 26, and the 100-foot-long basin became a pool once again.

Angela Jenkins was among the first to sit beside the water Sunday morning and appreciate the park as it was designed.

“I said, ‘Wow, they finally put some water in there,’” said Jenkins, who works in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office across the street at 100 Centre Street. “It’s a long time coming. I’m glad they finally made it.”

In addition to the pond, the park includes a pond-spanning bridge, children’s sprinkler, seating and tables, grass plantings, and historical markers that trace the area's rich, 300-year history. Just two months after its May 2014 opening (already two years behind schedule because of improper waterproof sheeting), the water was drained due to leaks in the pool systems, a problem that the Parks Department at the time said would be fixed “soon.”

But as the months wore on, the construction problems appeared to have been more complex than thought.

“There were at least two, maybe three waterline breaks due to improper settings and equipment not operating correctly,” Lawrence Mauro, a Parks Dept. project manager, told a Community Board 1 committee this month, adding that there also needed to be changes in the “sanitary requirements”—new valves—that would prevent water from the pool from accidentally backflowing into the children’s sprinkler.

Restoring the pools, Mauro said, was a matter of “progressively correcting what was wrong with it. We opened it up. We ran the system, we had a pipe break. There were a number of things that went wrong. I think we filled it maybe four times.”

But this time was a charm, especially for one early visitor, said Steven Ferrara, a Parks Dept. supervisor who was skimming the water with a net, scooping up leaves and debris that threatened to clog the filters and drains. “As soon as they turned the water on and we had a small puddle here,” Ferarra recalled, “a hawk came in and took a bath.”