The Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. The Reservoir was built between 1858 and 1862, to the design for Central Park of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, who designed its two pumphouses of Manhattan schist with granite facings. It was never a collecting reservoir; it was used to receive water from the Croton Aqueduct and distribute it to Manhattan. After 131 years of service, it was decommissioned in 1993, after it was deemed obsolete because of a new main under 79th Street that connected with the