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In the 1950s, they were functioning sand filtration silos with underground catacombs with sand banked knee-high at the corners. In 1987, they were long abandoned and sold to the District, where they would sit for thirty-seven years as nothing more than a spot for DMV urbex. In 2024, they were renovated into a public park for families— and not only that, but a sand silo-themed playground. If urbex is nothing more than a playground for grunge adults, McMillan Reservoir is a rare success story. After over three decades of decay, it would have been a typical urbex storyline for the park to be bulldozed to make space for something new and clean. Instead, the district chose to preserve the silos and catacombs. As quoted in this Washington Post article at the time of the renovation: It gives the 6.2-acre park somewhat of an otherworldly feel, an unlikely cross between industrial and recreational. From the indoor pool, you can peer through the glass windows into the eerie catacombs, which once held sand for the city’s 20th-century water filtration system. The city leaned into the theme: The playground has a sandpit, a slide that pays homage to the shape of the silos, and a miniature play “regulator house” that mimics the brick control rooms next to the old sand towers. To visit, you can enter McMillan Sand Filtration Site into your GPS. It's located at the corner of Michigan Avenue and North Capitol Street in Washington, D.C.
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