South Gate House

South Gate House is a historic water-control building located at the southern edge of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in Central Park, Manhattan, New York City. Constructed during the development of the reservoir in the early 1860s, the granite building has a fortress-like design with narrow windows, projecting corner sections and a clock above its main entrance. It originally controlled the flow of water leaving the reservoir and entering the distribution system supplying Manhattan. The reservoir was removed from the city’s drinking-water system in 1993, although the gatehouse continues to contain operational equipment connected to the water level.

South Gate House has appeared in Marathon Man (1976), where it provides the setting for the film’s climactic confrontation between Thomas “Babe” Levy and Nazi war criminal Christian Szell.

In Marathon Man (1976), Babe forces Szell at gunpoint into the waterworks inside South Gate House after Szell retrieves a collection of diamonds taken from Jews during the Holocaust. Babe tells him that he may keep as many diamonds as he can swallow and begins throwing the remaining stones towards the water. Szell attempts to attack Babe with the blade concealed in his sleeve, but falls onto his own weapon while trying to recover the diamonds and tumbles over the railing into the water. Babe then leaves the gatehouse and throws his gun into the reservoir, bringing the film’s central conflict to an end.

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