The huge hole in the ground on Joralemon Street once held 15 million gallons of water. The Newark Reservoir, built in 1869 to supply water to the city of Newark, is twenty-two feet deep. Originally, water was pumped into it from the Passaic River; a pumping station on Main Street moved the waste from the river through a large pipe.

In 1885, a survey of Newark's water supply indicated that both the Passaic River and 75% of the city's wells were polluted. Newarkers searched for another source of clean water. In 1891, they tapped the distant Pequannock watershed in the northern part of New Jersey and piped the water into the reservoir at Belleville. Twenty-one miles of pipeline carried the water from the Pequannock River to the reservoir.

The four-acre reservoir site contains two stone gate-houses. Water was drained from the reservoir in 1986. Its future use, if any, is undetermined.

Source: Belleville: 150th-Anniversary Historical Highlights 1839-1989 by Robert B. Burnett and the Belleville 150th-Anniversary Committee Belleville, New Jersey. 1991.