This water storage facility, which also controls Bangor’s water pressure, has been in constant use since 1897. And in It, it’s the inspiration for the Standpipe in Derry, where Stan first encounters Pennywise. There are no recorded drowning accidents in the standpipe, but for anyone who has read the book or seen either the film or the miniseries, this is an incredibly eerie place to be – even though you’re just staring at an old water tower. Which tells you everything you need to know about the power of King’s writing.
Bangor’s most famous resident Stephen King lives a few blocks away from the standpipe. According to him, he also wrote a significant portion of his book “It” in the standpipe’s shadow. In the early 1980s, he would walk down the street, sit on a park bench in the small park beneath the standpipe, and write the book. It is said that the tragic stairwell death of the boy in 1940 influenced the creation of the book’s character Pennywise the Clown. In the 2017 remake of the movie “It,” one of the characters bikes by a standpipe in the fictional town of Derry – which is King’s thinly disguised version of Bangor. The standpipe was CGI-generated and the movie was filmed in Toronto. There are also references to the standpipe in his other books “Dreamcatcher” and “11/22/63.”
