Oak Ridge Reservoir, in Jefferson, NJ, is not a place that warrants the most attention. That is, most of the time— if you’re on local social media, there’s a good chance you’ve recently heard of some sort of “ghost bridge” in Northern NJ, which, like it did mine, might pique your interest. You might, like I did, do some research into what this odd structure was. Maybe you even drag your family out to go and see it. Maybe, like I was, you’re awestruck by the quality of the newly formed landscape— maybe, just maybe, you decide to spread the word. If you haven’t gone down this rabbit hole yet, let me spin you a tale and give you a whole-hearted recommendation.
Contrary to what you’d think, the desolate reservoir is, at best, tangentially related to the recent droughts in the Garden State— the drainage was entirely man-made and started a while before the adverse weather. While the goal is simply to conduct maintenance on one of the project’s dams and its main gatehouse, it does yield a wonderful side effect— out of the lowering waters, a stone structure rises.
Oak Ridge Reservoir wasn’t named Oak Ridge for no reason. It comes from a village of the same name— when the reservoir was initially built in 1891, the existing town was vacated and subsequently demolished. The bridge connecting the town to the main road (the road that would eventually become Route 23), however, wasn’t— deeming it useful for construction, it was spared by authorities. After construction had finished, the bridge simply stayed— costly to remove, it was left to be swallowed by the reservoir. That was one hundred and thirty-three years ago.
The structure itself is simple in construction. The Richardsonian stone patternwork is made up of, most likely, limestone. Three arches straddle what was presumably a stream. The bridge lacks a railing. Its remarkably average quality makes it all the more alien in the landscape, standing in defiance as barely a fragment of what used to be there. In fact, you’ll hear that word a lot if you’re learning about this reservoir. Alien.
The landscape looks either apocalyptic or extraterrestrial, depending on your preferred flavor of pessimism. Not a single thing breaks the surface of the dried-up reservoir— not a plant, not a footprint, not a speck of debris, however minute— only the occasional boulder sits complacently against the sky. The ground, a grey and dried mud, kicks up dust in the distance where a few dirtbikes scramble. I went in the mid-afternoon— in autumn, that means the sky is like that of the early evening, and the sun hung low over the last curling remnant of water in the reservoir. The stream looks like mercury in the silvery light. A ghost shows its hand, and the bridge makes itself known.
It’s a step down to first get to the bed of the manmade lake— parking off the highway, there’s a few ways to make it to the bridge, but they all involve that step down. At the same time, you might garner, the tree line stops— you’ve passed through a threshold. The presence of humanity, or rather lack thereof, is possibly the most impactful thing about the experience— while there are people, there’s no centralized attraction. There are no restrictions, no ownership, no single place to go and see— in an increasingly sensationalized world, this feels like a step back. A shared experience. You’re people, from all walks of life, who have found themselves in an awe-inspiring place. There’s no wrong way to experience this, so people have taken to using it how they please— couples taking photos atop rocky outcroppings, kids wading in the small stream, those dirt bikers in the distance, none of them are wrong in experiencing such an alien landscape like this. They’re all extending themselves onto an unfathomable experience.
As surreal and genuinely humbling the scale of this place is, it’s inherently temporary. Though no official date has been given, the City of Newark Department of Water and Sewer Utilities, which owns the infrastructure, has publicly stated that it will be, despite the droughts, refilled according to schedule once construction finishes. The bridge, the boulders, the stream, and all manners of the parched landscape will once again disappear for who-knows-how-long.
So go. Go and watch the dust kicked up from dirtbikes catch the afternoon light, see the silvery waters and the dried-up ground, and linger under the watch of the old bridge’s arches. Let yourself wander through this fragile and alien landscape. Cross the bridge, you won’t get another chance for a long time. However fleeting it is, it’s still true— for the first time in over a hundred years, the town of Oak Ridge sees open sky.
