Inside The Cistern in Buffalo Bayou Park, downtown Houston TX.
The guide does give you a warning before doing it, and an explanation of why they want you to experience the absolute silence and darkness of The Cistern.
Still, when the lights snap off, even for only a few moments, it can be a little creepy. When you clap your hands, the echo and reverberation last a long time – 17 seconds.
I mostly found it a relief to be out of the hot midday sun and away from the urban noise of sprawling Houston.
This former city drinking water reservoir is about the size of 1 1/2 American football fields. It was built in 1926 and held 15 million gallons of water underground. Decommissioned and abandoned in 2007 because of irreparable leaks, it was re-opened in 2016 as an historical landmark and is also used for art installations and musical performances called Underground Sounds.
The Buffalo Bayou nonprofit that revitalized it didn’t do a whole lot more than to add an entrance, a six-foot-wide walkway with a railing, ventilation, and lighting around the perimeter.
Several sets of steps lead to the bottom of the Cistern so that workers could conduct repairs and maintenance when it was an active reservoir.
You can still see the various ways that Houston’s reservoir maintenance people climbed around to check and fix things – there are access ladders all around including vertical ones from up above.
Of course the water level was lowered so that humans could get in there when needed. Nobody did scuba-assisted repairs in the pitch dark that I’m aware of.
An elegant set of 221 columns march along in rows throughout the space. Each is 25 feet tall. They add a sense of visual drama to what would otherwise be a big open area without much to see.
There was an identification system for the columns – numbers in one direction and letters in another, so you could direct maintenance or repair people to “the area by column C18” for example. Some of the numbers and letters are still visible on the walls.
The author surrounded by the underground sound of silence in The Cistern.
The Cistern is not totally dry.
At the bottom, 10 inches of water keep the concrete from drying out and cracking; it also adds as a reflector for the lights and columns because the water is so still. Again, a simple feature that adds visual interest.
Our tour was partially guided at the beginning, then we were free to wander around and walk the perimeter for 20-25 minutes.
I’d definitely go again on a Saturday or Sunday when their 30-minute Sound Healing Meditation (US$15) includes chimes and singing bowls. You bring your own mat and sit on the walkway, marveling at the acoustics and hopefully having a few moments of inner peace.
It’s dead silent in there, so I added some music to the quick video below . . .
No children under 9 are allowed inside. There is a small gift shop nearby where you buy tour tickets if you didn’t already get them online. It’s staffed with knowledgeable volunteers and guides who can tell you not only about The Cistern, but other attractions around Buffalo Bayou and Houston as a whole, including my long-time favorite the Art Car Museum.
For more ideas of things to see and do in the area, look into the Houston Experience Marketplace for tickets and packages.
All photos by the author.
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