Metropolitan Waterworks Museum facts for kids
 |
|
| Owner | Metropolitan Waterworks Museum Inc. |
|---|---|
| Public transit access |
Green Line (D branch)
Reservoir  or Chestnut Hill |
| Location | 2450 Beacon Street, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, US |
| Architect | Arthur H. Vinal |
| Architectural style(s) | Richardsonian Romanesque |
|
U.S. Historic district
Contributing property |
|
| Official name: Chestnut Hill High Service Pumping Station | |
| Designated | January 18, 1990 |
| Part of | Chestnut Hill Reservoir Historic District |
| Reference no. | 89002271 |
The Waterworks Museum is a cool museum located in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. It's inside a historic building that used to be a very important pumping station. This station was part of the Boston Metropolitan Waterworks system.
The museum shows off amazing old machines and engineering tools. These are housed in a beautiful building designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. At its busiest, this waterworks pumped over 100 million gallons of water every day! That's a lot of water.
The pumping station stopped working in the 1970s. Later, some of its buildings were turned into homes. After being unused for a while, the main pumping station was fixed up. In 2007, a group called the Waterworks Preservation Trust was formed. They worked to turn the old station into a museum. In March 2011, the building opened its doors to the public as the Waterworks Museum.
History of the Waterworks
In the 1850s, the city of Boston started to improve its water supply. Back then, people got water from wells, ponds, and pipes that brought water downhill from a reservoir in Natick.
By the 1870s, Boston's leaders knew they needed even more water. The city was growing fast. They decided to build bigger and better ways to clean and pump water.
In 1886, the "high service" pumping station was designed. It opened in 1887 as the Chestnut Hill pumping station. This was only a few years after the very first such station in the world opened in Germany. Water was pumped from this station up to the Fisher Hill reservoir. From there, gravity would help push the water to homes and businesses nearby.
In 1894, the station added its third water pump. This was a huge steam-powered pump designed by Erasmus Darwin Leavitt. It was called the Leavitt-Riedler Pumping Engine. When it was first shown, people said it was "the most efficient pumping engine in the world." It kept working until 1928. Later, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers named it a historic mechanical engineering landmark. The museum has fully restored this engine. It is now the main attraction on the museum's ground floor.
Fun Facts
- A famous actor, Mark Wahlberg, filmed part of his 1992 music video "You Gotta Believe" in the basement of this building.
- Look closely at the stonework on the building. You can find faces carved into the stone. These are the faces of the building's designer, Arthur H. Vinal, and his wife!
Gallery
bw.jpg)
bw.jpg)
See also
In Spanish: Museo Metropolitano de Waterworks para niños
