COURIER L 18 IFE, MARCH 22–28, 2019 M BR B G
WELL DONE: Local landmarking advocates awarded the Prospect Park Alliance with a prestigious
preservation honor for its restoration of a historic wellhouse in the meadow.
New York Landmarks Conservancy
Preservationists
honor park’s loo
Prospect Park bathroom wins award
BY COLIN MIXSON
It’s a win for this number-two building!
A group of local landmarking advocates
honored Prospect Park’s caretakers
with a prestigious award for their
restoration of a 150-year-old building
located within the sprawling green
space. The group’s leader praised park
keepers’ decision to transform the historic
structure into a high-tech outhouse,
which she called a prime example
of preservation done right.
“It’s the fi rst time we’ve given the
award for a bathroom,” said New York
Landmarks Conservancy President
Peg Breen. “We always say that historic
buildings can be repurposed for
modern uses and here is one more
good example!”
The Prospect Park Alliance beat out
a few dozen competitors to net one of the
Conservancy’s Lucy G. Moses Awards
for its restoration of the Prospect Park
Wellhouse, a historic structure workers
recently equipped with a high-tech
green latrine that uses 97-percent less
water than standard toilets, and converts
human waste into plant food.
The wellhouse, built in 1869, is the
only building within Prospect Park
that was designed by meadow architects
Frederick Law Olmsted and
Calvert Vaux. So the structure not
only has considerable historic value,
but it looks snazzy too, with lively
Gothic embellishments and a vibrant
paint job, according to Breen.
“We think it’s a very important
building, and it’s really quite elaborate,
with all kinds of Gothic and stylistic
details,” she said.
The building was used to pump
fresh water into Prospect Park Lake
until sometime after 1914, when the
park began drawing water from municipal
aquifers. Workers would eventually
fi ll in the building’s namesake
well, and over the next century the
structure suffered considerable damage
and deterioration.
As part of the Alliance’s $2.34-million
renovation project, workers dug
exploratory holes that revealed a large
void beneath the building. Further excavation
unearthed the Wellhouse’s
original cellar, along with a tunnel
and a bluestone stairwell linking the
newly uncovered lower level to the
surface.
All that additional space made the
wellhouse the perfect spot for a hightech
loo, which requires a living ecosystem
of bacteria and other organisms
to break human poop down into
usable compost. The new lavatory also
features an irrigation system that
takes undrinkable waste water from
the bathroom and sprinkles it over
nearby plants — which will save the
park a whopping 250,000 gallons of water
per year.
The Landmarks Conservancy will
present the honor to the Prospect Park
Alliance and four other Lucy G. Moses
Award winners — all of which are located
in Brooklyn — at a snazzy gala
in Manhattan on April 23.