Polvorín de San Jerónimo

Polvorín de San Jerónimo is one of four gunpowder and artillery supply magazines built on the San Juan Islet during the second half of the 18th century as part of a comprehensive effort to modernize the city's defenses. Designed in 1769 by engineer Thomas O'Daly and built by engineer Juan Francisco Mestre, it is a rectangular masonry structure with a thick hip roof and blast-proof walls that stored gunpowder for the artillery and small arms of the first line of defense. It also collected rainwater in drinking-water cisterns. Its outer perimeter was protected by an additional wall thirteen feet high and one foot thick, with sentry boxes at two corners, and like the other magazines it had a separate guardhouse nearby for the soldiers assigned to it. When Luis Muñoz Rivera Park was designed in 1925, the structure remained within the park and became a key element in its design. In 1935 it was used as a natural history museum, and in 1945 a zoo was established in its exterior galleries. During a 1992 restoration by the National Parks Trust of Puerto Rico, changes made to the magazine in the 1940s were removed.

San Juan, Puerto Rico · United States