COMMUNITY
THE CISTERN
History and our modern world quite literally collide on the opposite end of Buffalo Bayou Park . It ’ s hard to miss the lush beauty of Buffalo Bayou Park nestled in between Memorial Drive and Allen Parkway as you drive towards Downtown . Bursting in shades of green , full of life and bustling with activity and visitors . But last month the park unveiled a very different entity at its entry : 12 feet below the streets surface sits the cavernous Buffalo Bayou Cistern .
Tours must be reserved online ; upon arrival , visitors are led through a pair of non-descript doors into a dimly lit tunnel whose walls are made of smooth , cold , curving concrete imprinted with the wood grain from the wood that set the material in its place . There ’ s a warm glow provided by lighting on the floors along the curving walls . My mind quickly wanders imagining gladiators being led with torches underground to an arena . The tunnel quickly opens up to an arena-like large cistern – a large reservoir for holding rainwater – that used to be our city ’ s water supply when it was built in 1926 . I imagine Houstonians using this water well before our times of filtered , clean water as we walk the perimeter of the space on a new concrete path with guardrails . Tours share the cistern ’ s history from its inception to its decommission in 2007 , stopping along the way to offer dazzling views of reflected columns dancing with our lines of perception along the horizon of the waterline to create a sensory explosion of sight and sound . It ’ s impossible not to be blown away by the majesty of the space .
www . buffalobayou . org
By Carla Valencia de Martinéz | Photography by Katya Horner
40 L O C A L | june 16