Fresh Creek/Fresh Kill (Canarsie), Brooklyn

The Fresh Creek was an inlet on the south shore of Brooklyn from Jamaica Bay. Today there is still an inlet called "Fresh Creek," but it seems that the creek used to flow much further inland.
Question for readers: was this purely a tidal inlet and drainage route, or was there a real creek from a source further inland?
A local landmark was the Vanderveer Mill, also known as the Red Mill because it was painted barn-red. This was a tide mill built either in the late 1600s or sometime around 1770; I haven't yet been able to deterimine when exactly it first started operating. (It may have been that an earlier mill operated in the late 17th century, and was replaced by the better-known Red Mill around 1770). It lasted until 1879 which it burned down (According to Brooklyn by Name: How the Neighborhoods, Streets, Parks, Bridges, and More Got Their Names, By Leonard Benardo & Jennifer Weiss; NYU Press, 2006). It was built by Cornelius Van Der Veer (or Van Der Veer), or possibly his descendents. He and his descendents also owned a massive farm covering much of today's Flatbush and Canarsie, Brooklyn.
Forgotten-NY's excellent page mentioning this area:
http://www.forgotten-ny.com/NEIGHBORHOODS/canarsie/canarsie.html
and from the same page, map showing area in 1898:
http://www.forgotten-ny.com/NEIGHBORHOODS/canarsie/canarsie1898.html
From http://www.veerhuis.org/genealogy/VanDerVeer.html

Cornelius Janszen Van Der Veer b. 1622 or ~1642 d. bef 22 Feb 1703 aka Cornelius de Seeuw, Cornelius de Zeeuw, Cornelius Dominicus


He is believed to have departed Amsterdam and arrived in America on Feb 17, 1659 on the ship De Otter , taking up residence in Midwout, what is now Flatbush, NY.
On 13 Jun 1661 Cornelius was one of six persons who petitioned Gov Stuyvesant for a patent of land, who authorized a survey.
In Feb 1678 he purchased a farm in Flatbush for about 2600 guilders.
In 1683 The Assement Roll of Midwout lists him as having 100 acres.
This land became known as the 26th and 32nd ward of Brooklyn and was owned by his descendents until 1906.
The Vanderveer Park addition was the last remaining section of the original property and is located near Brooklyn College.
He and his son-in-law Daniel Polhemus, erected a grist mill on Fresh
Kill in Flatbush, later known as Vanderveer Mills, which came into the
hands of his son Dominicus, and later his grandson Cornelius.
He died in Feb, 1703 in Flatbush, NY.

(image from NYPL-- their photo/image archive also has more; if you find links to other images please post in comments.)



Map of the area:


View Larger Map

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Williams+Ave+%26+Flatlands+Ave,+brooklyn&sll=40.651276,-73.88649&sspn=0.016801,0.040898&ie=UTF8&ll=40.646196,-73.885074&spn=0.016802,0.040898&z=15


I am not at all sure about this, but I have seen a reference to the "Canarsie Van Der Veer House" at 106 Flatlands Avenue as part of the Fresh Creek Mill, located here:





View Larger Map

Old Mill Creek/Bull Creek [Brooklyn - East NY/Canarsie]

Known both as Bull Creek and as Old Mill Creek

Bull Creek was a small, tide-affected creek on the southern shore of Brooklyn in the Canarsie/East New York area, most notable for its utility to tide mills in the 18th and 19th centuries (and possibly 17th century?) Tide mills were water mills that used tide action to fill their reservoirs or mill ponds, and then when the tide went out the water drained and powered the water wheel. They could run for about 6 hours two times a day, from mid-tide as the tide was going out until mid-tide of the incoming tide (when the water was any higher, usually, the inertia of the water was too great to turn the wheel, and the differential between the stored high-tide water and the outside water was probably too little anyway.)
The area is near Spring Creek Park, and just east of the end of Flatlands Avenue. In the 18th century a tide-mill built by Van Brunt was located about a little inland along the stream, which was called Bull Creek. About 1810 the mill was taken apart and moved a half-mile south, under the ownership of Jacob Lott Van Wicklen. The creek became known as "Old Mill Creek," presumably because of the 18th-century mill, which was an old mill despite its new location; this mill was in operation at least until 1855.
The above information all comes from http://campus.houghton.edu/webs/employees/jvanwicklin/home%20page/genealogy/FamPages/jlottmill.htm, which also says the following:
(the below is quoted from the website mentioned above, which cites it as an account from area residents Peter Rapelje and his son, Jacob Rapelje, as relayed to the Wicklen family geneologist by a Richard McCool)

Description of the Old Mill at the foot of Crescent Street, Brooklyn



This community consisted of the Mill itself, a two and one half story frame hotel with cupola, a few boat houses on each side of
the creek; I wouldn't say more than six to eight on each side.


The Old Mill [Creek] ran north and south. At the south end it widened to form a landing. The bank of the creek at the landing was
protected by a timber bulkhead which ran about 150 feet southward from the southwest corner of the mill and then broke at
right angles westward for another 100 feet and then again at right angles southward to the beginning of the row of boat houses
on the west bank.



The Mill itself was a tide mill facing south, a two story frame building with a platform on the west side and double doors
opening from the mill building upon a platform and another door in the second story with a loading beam above it. The
platform was used for receiving the grain from the farm wagons and shipping the four and bran. The undershot wheel was on
the east side of the flood gates opening. As I understand, the mill pond was more or less artificial and was an offshoot of
Spring Creek to the east. The water for the mill was held back by two flood gates, one at the east end of the mill and the other
down about 800 feet south of the mill across the original Spring Creek. The straight north and south creek to the Old Mill was
a dugout. Just south of the mill and flood gate at that point was the basin where the larger boats were anchored. This basin was
roughly 200 to 300 feet square.



When I first remember, there were not more than a half dozen of the larger sloops anchored there. One of them was the
Cornelia, owned first by Dave Van Wicklen and later by Andrus Forbell. At one time Dick Van Wicklen's schooner, Scud, was
anchored there. Sand boats and manure boats came up the creek from time to time.

A map of the region today:




View Larger Map




http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=crescent+street+%26+Old+Mill+Road,+brooklyn&sll=40.660823,-73.865&sspn=0.0042,0.010225&ie=UTF8&ll=40.662541,-73.86471&spn=0.008399,0.020449&z=16&iwloc=addr

Deleware Aqueduct Inspection, 2003

http://home2.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/press_releases/03-31pr.shtml

Flushing Tunnel for Gowanus Canal [Brooklyn]

Alert reader Elizabeth Barry wrote:

so i've been wondering about the path of the engineered watercourse that allegedly runs beneath Brooklyn carrying water from the East River to the Gowanus Canal. Common knowledge about the "Flushing Tunnel" is that its purpose is to flush out the stagnant water at the top of gowanus canal, the remnant of a pre-red hook tidal wetlands. I've heard that the tunnel and pump has been revived in the past 10 years or so, with some work done by Hydroqual.  Its path under BK is not self-evident - I'd like to find out where the inlet is from the East River, and the course it takes.....

The Flushing Tunnel flushes water between New York Harbor and the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, to help reduce stagnation in the heavily polluted canal. It was created in 1911 using a steam-driven propeller to drive the water; it broke in the 1960s, and was repaired finally in 1999. The city offers a press release from 1999 telling about the canal:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/press_releases/99-28pr.shtml
Below is a very basic map of the tunnel, taken from gothamist, which in turn apparently got it from the DEP:


The Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club has an excellent history of the canal and neighborhood:
http://www.waterfrontmuseum.org/dredger/history.html
Other links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gowanus_Canal
http://www.brooklyncb6.org/neighborhoods/?a=detail&content_id=58
http://gothamist.com/2007/04/09/gowanus_flushin.php
http://home2.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/press_releases/05-07pr.shtml

A nice map showing the location of the pumping station at the head of the canal:
http://www.communitywalk.com/view/172018#00046gIi

Montanye's Rivulet, Manhattan

From Old Wells and Watercourses of the Island of Manhattan, by George Everett Hill and George E. Waring, Jr. in Historic New York: the First Series of the Half Moon Papers (New York, 1899)

    Along the southern edge of The Flats [the area north of 112th Street and east of 8th avenue, approximately] ran a considerable creek, twenty feet deep and one hundred feet wide where it emptied into Hell Gate Bay, near the foot of One hundred and sixth Street. One of its branches rose in the rocks east of Bloomingdale [present site of Columbia University], entered what is now Central Park near the line of One hundred and first Street, then curved northeast and east, and joined the main stream near where One hundred and ninth Street now enters Fifth Avenue. In its course, it flowed through McGowan's Pass, rapidly, but in nothing like so much of a hurry as the stream of redcoats which ran through it, pursued by Washington's troops, after the battle of Harlem Plains. ...to the east, upon Mount St. Vincent and a neighboring elevation, arose, at a later date, Fort Clinton and Fort Fish. This brook was long known as Montanye's Rivulet, and, in the development of Central Park, was used to feed the Pool, the Loch, and Harlem Lake. (p. 363-364)

    Montanye's Rivulet apparently still exists and still feeds the Harlem Lake at least. I don't know if the stream flows partially underground, or if it merely ends at the lake.

For more on the history of McGown's Pass, see the Parks Department page

Maiden Lane, Manhattan

From Old Wells and Watercourses of the Island of Manhattan, by George Everett Hill and George E. Waring, Jr. in Historic New York: the First Series of the Half Moon Papers (New York, 1899):

In a depression which followed the line of the present Maiden Lane from Nassau Street to the East River, a little stream of sparkling spring water rippled and danced over a pebbly bottom. The southerly bank was steep, but not abrupt, while, on the north, a gentle grassy slope extended from the water to a sharper rise just beyond. The spot presented such facilities for the washing and bleaching of linen that it became a resort for laundry women, and because of this it was first called Maagde Paetje, or Virgins' Path. (p. 311)

Broad Street Canal/Heere Graft

Broad Street Canal, also known as Heere Graft:

From Old Wells and Watercourses of the Island of Manhattan, by George Everett Hill and George E. Waring, Jr. in Historic New York: the First Series of the Half Moon Papers (New York, 1899):

    In 1671, further repairs to the big ditch were made.... but in 1676...the edict went forth that the precious canal must be made way with, and the inhabitants were ordered to cover it and fill it up level with the street....

    So De Heere Graft was buried and its place became Broad Street....

    Under the street, the canal, turned into a sewer, still serves as outlet for the drainage of about thirty-eight acres of closely built territory; and the extensive system of piling, needed to support heavy buildings on the site of the old swamp, still call to mind the original condition of the ground.

Kissing Bridges over NYC Streams

From the NY Times, 2006 - Link to article here
F.Y.I.

By MICHAEL POLLAK

Published: February 12, 2006

Pucker Up

Q. I recently came
across a mention of a bridge known in the 18th century as the Kissing
Bridge, near the present Third Avenue and 77th Street. Tell me more.

A.
That particular bridge was on or near the old Boston Post Road, and would have then been about four miles north of town. A requirement for a good kissing bridge, as with a lover's lane, is that it be picturesque, or off the beaten path to offer seclusion, or both.

According to the New-York Historical Society, there seem to have been at least three Kissing Bridges on the Boston Post Road in 18th-century Manhattan. The one by present-day 77th Street was also called the Sawkill Bridge, from the name of the stream it crossed. There was one around what is now East 51st Street and one at Roosevelt Street, which no longer exists, but ran southeast from Pearl Street at Park Row. (The Gov. Alfred E. Smith Houses are there now.)

The bridge at Roosevelt Street crossed the Old Kill, or Old Wreck Brook, and the 51st Street bridge crossed the De Voor's Mill Stream.


A 1740 English visitor to New York, Archdeacon Burnaby of Leicester, kept a
diary of his travels and mentioned that the Kissing Bridge was so-named
because etiquette had it that a gentleman was supposed to kiss a lady
in his company when upon the bridge,'' Eric Robinson, a reference
assistant at the society, wrote in an e-mail message. ''Although it is
somewhat unclear to me, it seems the archdeacon was referring
specifically to the crossing around Roosevelt Street.''

Exploring Tibbets Brook, Bronx

Below-- Images of Tibbet's Brook today. After running
underground through a section of Van Cortlandt Park, it merges with a
large double-channeled arched brick sewer for the rest of the route
south.
Amazing brick construction.

Sawmill River, Yonkers

Around 1650, long before Yonkers was established as a city and well
before New York became New York, a Dutch lawyer and landowner named
Adriaen van der Donck built a water-powered sawmill on Nepperhan Creek,
near the spot where that creek flowed out into Hudson River. That
sawmill became the center of a growing town on van der Donck’s land.
Eventually the town become known as Yonkers, a name that was derived
from van der Donck’s Dutch honorific “Jonkheer” (which roughly
translates as “gentleman" or "squire”).

The sawmill that Van der
Donck built also gave a new name to Nepperhan Creek, and it has known
as the Sawmill River ever since. The Sawmill is the Hudson’s longest
tributary, at 23 miles long, but it is still a fairly small river, and
as Yonkers grew, it grew around and over the small river. As more
industrial and residential buildings were built in the 19th century,
some straddled the river. Sections of it were shunted through
underground flumes, and road bridges were built across other parts of
it, until eventually the city decided to simply cover over the last
exposed sections of the river. By the early 1900s, the river was
completely underground for the half-mile section that passes through
downtown Yonkers.

See posts related to the Sawmill River

Linden Brook, Queens

From Long Island City by Thomas Jackson & Richard Melnick:

Pot
Cove was the site of a Native American settlement. Fresh water came
from a small stream, later called Linden Brook, that flowed along
Astoria Park South. Here, they cleared woodlands to grow corn,
harvested oysters and clams, and caught fish.

Linden Brook is hard to find on maps. Apparently it was a small
stream, and by the time the area was settled enough for good maps to be
produced, it had mostly disappeared underneath urbanization. However,
the 1873 Beers maps of Long Island City and region show it, though just
barely. Below is a large section of the map. Pot Cove is the area
directly below Hell Gate and Ward's Island, above the spur of land that
juts out above Hallet's Cove.

Below is a closer crop of the Pot Cove area. The Linden Brook is visible as a wavy line in the upper right, below Linden Street.








And below is a very close crop of the area; Linden Brook is the wavy
line on the right, and outlets into the water on the left. Linden
Street, obviously, is named after the brook; today this is the line of
Hoyt Avenue and Astoria Park South.








See posts about Linden Brook

Indian Spring & Tiemann's Fountain, Manhattan

In his book Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx (New-York Historical Society, 1938; written in 1916), James Ruel Smith documented several springs in the area near Broadway and 125th St which were still flowing at the time-- between 1890 and 1915. The Tiemann drinking fountain, Smith says, "was one stop that nearly every driver of the old Broadway stages and trolleys might be counted upon to make several times during the day..." (p. 59). The source was a large spring; a Mr. Daniel Tiemann, 73rd Mayor of NYC, had built a color works/dye factory on the site in the mid-19th century, and the water from this spring was used in the factory. The nearby "Indian Spring" was noted for its quantity and purity of water, though it was not built into a drinking fountain but remained in a bed of rocks, covered with a wooden grating. As of 1897, Smith said that the spring "is used only for drinking purposes, and the requirements of the rough shanty accomodations for several truckman's horses that are grouped about it a few yards to the south." As of 1898, the Board of Health condemned the spring as too polluted to be potable (p. 55).
Some of Smith's plates below, with their captions giving locations:













Below are images of the same area from Viele's water map.



 
Though it's hard to be sure which original watercourse from pre-urban times became a specific spring seen in the 19th or 20th century, I believe that the small pond outlined below, on 124th St just west of Amsterdam Ave, is the site of Ruel Smith's Indian Spring.

 


Prentis Hall, a Columbia University building on the south side of 125th St just west of Broadway, has seen the modern incarnation of one of these springs flowing through its basement for many years. The story i've heard is that after the building was constructed, the basement kept flooding, until eventually a tunnel was dug in a basement wall and the water now flows into a channel in the basement and out through a pipe that connects it with a sewer along 125th. The photo below is this basement river in 2006. (photo by steve duncan).



 


See other posts about the Indian Spring & Tiemann's Fountain area

Flushing Creek, Queens

Flushing River still exists, though it is a far different
watercourse than it was originally. When the town of Flushing was
settled in 1645 along the marshy streams in what is now Flushing
Meadows/Corona Park, the creek ran from Kew Gardens (where the old site
of the headwaters of the creek is marked by the street Vleigh Place,
after the Dutch for Valley).

The marshy land watered by the creek
in Flushing Meadows, which today is a green and landscaped expanse—was
famously turned into a giant ash dump in the 19th century, run by the
Brooklyn Ash Removal company under “Fishhooks” McCarthy.

In the novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald describes how the area looked in the 1920s:

“This
is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into
ridges and hills and grotesque gardens, where ashes take the forms of
houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent
effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery
air….
The valley of ashes is bounded on one side by a small foul
river, and, when the drawbridge is up to let barges through, the
passengers on waiting trains can stare at the dismal scene for as long
as half an hour.”

Other than the ashes, swamps occupied
the land, fed by the marshy drainage ditch of Flushing River. But in
just three years, between 1936 and 1939, the city covered the vast
fields of ashes, dug out a new channel for the river, filled in the
swamps, created the new Meadow Lake, and landscaped 1,200 acres to
create the utopian World’s Fair of 1939.

Robert Moses, who was a
driving force behind the transformation, wrote that his teams “leveled
the ash mountains, and rats big enough to wear saddles, with white
whiskers a foot long, gazed wistfully at the bulldozers and junkies who
disturbed their ancient solitary reign.”  By 1939 it was impossible to
see any evidence of either the ash landfill, or of the natural
topography that had replaced it.

For more information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flushing_River.
The article mentions that Flushing Creek received water from Fly Creek,
Ireland Creek, and Horse Brook; please email me if you know anything
more about any of these other watercourses.

See posts about Flushing Creek

Canal Street Drainage/Sewer, Manhattan

From Old Wells and Watercourses of the Island of Manhattan, by George Everett Hill and George E. Waring, Jr. in Historic New York: the First Series of the Half Moon Papers (New York, 1899):

    The western outlet of the Collect was a small stream which left the pond at its northern end and flowed, nearly on the line of the present Canal Street, to the Hudson. ....there spread the broad pasture land, swamps, and salt marshes of Lispenard Meadows, which extended to the shore line (just beyond Greenwich Street) and from Duane Street on the south to Spring Street on the north. Through these meadows the stream from the Collect flowed sluggishly, spreading out over the low land, but maintaining enough of a channel to permit the passage of small boats from the river to the pond. A little brook, draining another swampy valley whcih lay at the foot of the western slope of the Kalch Hoek, followed, substantially, the line of West Broadway from Reade Street, and entered the larger stream nearly at a right angle. On the northern side a tiny rivulet trickled down from a fine spring whcih gave the name Spring Street to the road which passed it, leading to Broadway.

    The Canal Street stream was apparently large enough that prior to the european settlements, the natives of the region could canoe (at least at high tide) from the Hudson river, along the stream, and into the Collect Pond, carrying deliveries of oysters that would be opened and dried for winter food. According to Old Wells and Watercourses..., this helped create the huge mounds of shells that the Dutch found around the Collect pond. This led to it being called "Kalch Hoek," meaning Shell Point, which was probably corrupted into "Collect" later.

A 1766 map showing the line of the drainage canal and the surrounding marsh (close-up view first; second image is entire map):

Posts about the Canal Street Drainage/Sewer

Broad Street Canal/Heere Graft, Manhattan

From Old Wells and Watercourses of the Island of Manhattan, by George Everett Hill and George E. Waring, Jr. in Historic New York: the First Series of the Half Moon Papers (New York, 1899):

[During the early Dutch settlement] an inlet of the bay, which could be made to do duty as a canal, extended inland for about a quarter of a mile on the line of the present Broad Street. This ditch was the natural outlet for a marshy section of considerable size lying above what soon came to be known as The Beaver Path, now Beaver Street. A brook tricked through this marsh, from the common lying north of it, called the Shaape Waytie, or Sheep Pasture, and recieved the flow of a small stream which ran through the Company's Valley, as that portion of the The Beaver Path was named whcih lay between Heer Straat (Broadway) and the junction of these two rivulets. From the latter point, the Heere Gracht-- or Heere Graft as it was soon called, stretched its odorous length to the bay.
    Around this ditch gathered much of the social and business life of the new community....

From http://www.oldstreets.com/index.asp?letter=C:

By the late 1640s the canals were
lined with sheet piling to stabilize both their banks and the narrow
streets on either side. The largest canal was the Heere Gracht, which
is now Broad Street from Pearl to Beaver Streets. Its narrower
continuation, from Beaver Street to a point just south of Exchange
Place, was called the Prinzen Gracht. Both were named, perhaps in jest,
after two elegant canals that had recently been built in Amsterdam. The
Bever Gracht was a branch canal along what is now Beaver Street from
Broadway west to about the present New Street. A drawback of the canals
was that they also served as open sewers and stank terribly. The
British filled them up in 1676.

A mid-19th century map showing the original lots of the Dutch settlement in the 17th century shows both the marsh and the Broad St Canal (first image is entire map, second image is close-up). Note how close Broadway ("The Great Highway") is to the Hudson ("The North River"); almost all the land west of Broadway at the south end of Manhattan is landfill.

Viele's Water Map shows both the Broad Street Canal and the Maiden Lane stream:

By 1766, in this view from a British map, the ditch is filled in and only the "wet dock" remains at the East River end.

See posts on the Broad Street Canal

Spuyten Duyvil Creek, Manhattan/Bronx

A
1776 map showing the northern tip of Manhattan and Spuyten Duyvil
Creek, which is crossed by both Kingsbridge and Dyckman's Bridge.
(Taken from map image linked below).

   
Upper Manhattan and the Bronx were seperated by only a narrow tidal
strait until the end of the 19th century. This narrow, meandering, but
fast-flowing strait was the Spuyten Duyvil Creek (various alternative
spellings are also valid). New York's waterfront sees about a five-foot
variation between low tide and high tide, and as the tide came in and
out there was often a difference in water level between the Hudson
River and the East River, which is affected by the slow and massive
tidal movements of Long Island Sound. This differential created
dangerous currents.
    In his (fictional) book The Knickerbocker History of New York,
Washington Irving tells an apocryphal story of how the strait got its
name, and how violent the water could be. (The character in this
passage is Antony Corlear, a trumpeter sent by 17th-century governor of
New Amsterdam Peter Stuyvesant to warn residents that the British were
coming.)

It was a dark and stormy night when the good Antony arrived at the creek

(sagely denominated Haerlem river) which separates the island of

Manna-hata from the mainland. The wind was high, the elements were in an

uproar, and no Charon could be found to ferry the adventurous sounder of

brass across the water. For a short time he vapored like an impatient

ghost upon the brink, and then, bethinking himself of the urgency of his

errand, took a hearty embrace of his stone bottle, swore most valorously

that he would swim across in spite of the devil (spyt den duyvel), and

daringly plunged into the stream. Luckless Antony! scarce had he buffeted

half-way over when he was observed to struggle violently, as if battling

with the spirit of the waters. Instinctively he put his trumpet to his

mouth, and giving a vehement blast sank for ever to the bottom.



The clangor of his trumpet, like that of the ivory horn of the renowned

Paladin Orlando, when expiring in the glorious field of Roncesvalles, rang

far and wide through the country, alarming the neighbors round, who

hurried in amazement to the spot. Here an old Dutch burgher, famed for his

veracity, and who had been a witness of the fact, related to them the

melancholy affair; with the fearful addition (to which I am slow of giving

belief) that he saw the duyvel, in the shape of a huge mossbonker, seize

the sturdy Antony by the leg and drag him beneath the waves. Certain it

is, the place, with the adjoining promontory, which projects into the

Hudson, has been called Spyt den Duyvel ever since; the ghost of the

unfortunate Antony still haunts the surrounding solitudes, and his trumpet

has often been heard by the neighbors of a stormy night, mingling with the

howling of the blast.



Nobody ever attempts to swim across the creek after dark; on the contrary,

a bridge has been built to guard against such melancholy accidents in the

future; and as to moss-bonkers, they are held in such abhorrence that no

true Dutchman will admit them to his table who loves good fish and hates

the devil.

During
the era of the drowned Van Corlear, the normal way across Spuyten
Duyivil Creek during high tide was a ferry, operated until 1673 by
Johannes Verveelen. (During low tide it was often possible to wade
across, whether for travelers on foot or farmers bringing livestock to
the city—probably the origin of the name “Fordham” in the Bronx). But
in 1693, Manhattan got its first bridge, a wooden toll-bridge structure
run by the Philippse family, and built over the old fording spot so
that those crossing the Spuyten Duyvil were forced to pay the toll. The
charter mandated that the king of England and his representatives,
British soldiers, could cross for free, and so it was known as the
King’s Bridge.
    Around 1713, the Philipse family replaced the
wooden span with a new, 24-foot-wide bridge with a wooden deck laid
over rough stone supports. It would remain the only bridge across the
Harlem River until about 1758, when locals built the aptly-named Free
Bridge to avoid tolls on Kingsbridge. Amazingly, the Kingsbridge
structure built in 1713 lasted until 1917—after which it was destroyed
and buried in the landfill around Marble Hill, over the protests of
local historians.  But with a lifetime of more than two centuries, this
humble stone-and-wood structure remains the longest-lasting bridge that
New York City has ever had.

    Spuyten Duyvil Creek was far too
shallow for larger boats or ships,
and ship traffic between the upper Hudson and Long Island Sound had to
take
a 25-mile detour around lower Manhattan. In 1895, the Harlem River Ship
Canal was opened after nine years of
work by the Army Corps of Engineers, connecting the Hudson and Harlem
Rivers with a navigable channel for ships across the very northern end
of Manhattan. At the opening ceremonies, it
was said that “the opening of the Harlem Ship Canal was a greater event
than the opening of the Erie Canal.” Spuyten Duyvil Creek was filled
in; the historic Kingsbridge was demolished and buried in the landfill.
Today the curves of Spuyten Duyvil creek are apparent in the curving
border of New York County (Manhattan), which extends around the Marble
Hill section of the Bronx-side mainland of the Ship Canal.

See posts related to Spuyten Duyvil Creek

Adriaen Van Der Donck and the Sawmill River

    The Sawmill River flows into the Hudson at Yonkers, a few miles north of New York City. At 23 miles long, the Sawmill is the longest tributary of the Hudson. Over time, however, the section that passes through downtown Yonkers was slowly covered over—first with individual bridges and then by a few industrial bridges that spanned the stream in the quest for more space, until finally the city built concrete tunnels around what little of the river remained exposed. Now, it travels a winding and invisible path under streets, parking lots, and buildings. It still flows out into the Hudson, although it’s only a shadow of the river it once was—much of its watershed is now urbanized, and storm drains and sewers carry away much of the water that once fed it.
    This river had originally been called the Nepperhan Creek; it became the Sawmill sometime after 1646, when a Dutch lawyer named Adriaen Van Der Donck built a water-powered sawmill on the Nepperhan near its junction with the Hudson. Van Der Donck had received the land—a 24,000 acre estate-- from New Amsterdam Governer William Kieft, as a reward for his help in establishing a peace between New Amsterdam and local groups of Native Americans. (The belligerent Kieft needed help in establishing peace; the previous two years, known as “Kieft’s War,” had involved a series of incredibly bloody massacres of Indians by Dutch soldiers, motivating the Algonquian tribes to unite against the colonists.)
    Van Der Donck was arguably one of the first great American patriots, and at the very least he was an early, enthusiastic booster for what would become New York. He was a tireless proponent of a local, republican government for the colony to replace the control of the West India Company, and his book Beschryvinge van Nieuw-Nederlant (Description of New Netherland) was a glowing description of the New York region that attracted many colonists.
    Trained as a lawyer, he first arrived in New Amsterdam in 1641 at the tender age of 23, with a job as “schout” (a prosecutor, sheriff, and tax-collector) for Kiliaen van Rensselaer’s domain near where Albany is now located. Astounded at the beauty of the Hudson Valley, Van Der Donck spent much of his time exploring the countryside instead of attending to his duties. He learned the language of the Mahicans and the Mohawks, which would lead to his key role in establishing peace with the Algonquins.
    Yonkers itself, under which the Sawmill River now flows, had taken its name from Van Der Donck. With his new status as a major landowner, he had received the Dutch honorific “Jonkheer,” approximately translated as “young gentleman” or “young lord.” His estate was therefore “De Jonkheer’s Landt” in Dutch, which would eventually be anglicized to “The Yonkers” before it became shortened to “Yonkers.” In the 1840s, New York’s first railroads connected the bucolic riverside town to New York City, spurring a rapid growth. Yonkers was officially incorporated as a village in 1855, and was recognized as a city in 1872.
    With its enviable site on the Hudson, Yonkers grew quickly in the 19th century. Elisha Graves Otis installed the first prototype of his revolutionary “safety elevator” in a factory in Yonkers. But as it grew, the river that had given birth to the city became an obstacle to growth. As more industrial buildings were built in the 19th century, some straddled the river. Sections of the river were shunted through underground flumes, and road bridges were built across other parts of it, until eventually the city decided to simply cover over the last exposed sections of the river. By the early 1900s, the river was completely underground for the section that passes through downtown Yonkers.
    The many years of change and growth are along the underground river. Stone arches from the 19th century sit next to sections of 20th century concrete, and next to these there are small sections where the span of an old bridge was supported on rough-hewn logs.

Minetta Brook fountains

Famously, it's known that the water of Minetta Brook can be seen from the surface at a marble fountain in the inner lobby of #2 Fifth Avenue (which is just on the north side of the park-- where Fifth Avenue hits Washington Square North).

However, it seems likely that the fountain is no longer supplied by the historic stream, if it ever was. A 1930 NY Times article told about the exposure of the brook in this fountain, but I suspect whatever supplied it has been replaced by standard NYC water supply water (if it ever was Minetta water, and not just a publicity stunt.)

According to the Native's Guide to New York by Richard Laermer (W. W. Norton & Company, 2002), for example, Minetta Brook "dried up in the mid-1800s" and the 2 Fifth Ave fountain merely "symbolizes" Minetta Brook. (Although the plaque on the fountain says that "A brook winds its erratic way beneath this site," and explains that over time Minetta Brook-- sometimes referred to by its nickname 'Devil's Water'-- "has settled underground.")

Despite the improbability, other walking tours and guidebooks still suggest that the fountain is truly Minetta Brook water. Does anyone know any more about this? Please email me if you know! Also if you have a snapshot of the fountain, I'd love to add that to this post-- email me at lostriversnyc@gmail.com. Thanks!

I've also been told the stream is visible in a fountain at at 33 Washington Square West, which is at the western edge of the park.

References:
Native's Guide to New York: Advice With Attitude for People Who Live Here--And Visitors We Like
By Richard Laermer
Published by W. W. Norton & Company, 2002

Washington Square Park

Minetta Brook originally flowed into a marshy region that is now Washington Square Park. (Some brief information on the Parks Department site at http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/washingtonsquarepark/).

A schematic of Washington Square Park from the parks department; this shows planned renovations, including moving the fountain slightly to bring it into line with the Arch, but is very close to the plan of the park as it exists today.

Washington Square Park does not have any obvious signs of the old watercourse. Between the development of the park and the real estate development around it in the 19th century, it's been changed many times from its original form. However the water still has to go somewhere, and today there are three parallel combined sewers (carrying both drainage water and sewage) running east to west: one on the north side of the park (Waverly Place/Washington Square North), in a pipe 4'2" by 4"; another on the south side of the park (West 4th St), 4' by 3'; and one through the middle of the park, with a diameter of 54" (4.5 feet). These are shown on the sewer diagram below; probably all three are brick tunnels, from mid- to late-nineteenth century construction. Which, if any of these, carries the remnants of the Minetta Brook?

Collect Pond's Name

From the excellent site http://www.oldstreets.com:

Collect Pond: A large freshwater pond, irregular in shape, in the area roughly
bounded by today's Duane, Centre, Walker, Canal and Mulberry Streets,
and Cardinal Hayes Place. The name derives from the Dutch Kalck,
meaning chalk or lime, and probably refers to the piles of shells left
by Indians who had harvested oysters nearby. The name is also found
spelled Kolck, Kalk, etc. The pond was an important source of drinking
water in colonial times but became progressively more polluted. It was
filled in between 1802 and 1813. See also Five Points.

Minetta Brook, Manhattan

From the Viele Water Map:

More information on Minetta Brook:

http://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2008/06/18/minetta-brook-beneath-the-village/

From the New York Times, March 27 1901:

 

From the New York Times, December 4 1930:

See posts about the Minetta Brook

Collect Pond, Manhattan

The Collect Pond was essentially at the site of today's Columbus Park, just south of Canal Street, and it supplied the city's water until it became horribly polluted by the growing city in the 18th century. It's outlet had always been a marshy streamlet that ran west to the Hudson River, created a swampy area in the area now occupied by the western end of Canal Street, but the channel was dug out and straightened and became the namesake for Canal Street.

The Collect Pond in 1755, and below that the larger view of the map that this image was taken from:

The pond in 1766 (to the left is the triangle of City Hall Park):

And again in 1766, showing the line of the drainage canal and the surrounding marsh:

Posts about the Collect Pond

Wallabout Creek, Brooklyn

Wallabout Creek seems to actually be the name of two separate watercourses, both of which outletted into Wallabout Bay, in the Navy Yard in Brooklyn. They can both be seen in the 1766 map shown here-- below and just to the right and to the left of the words "Wallabout Bay." At least the western branch (on the left) was used to supply power to mills, and though it's hard at this scale you can just make out the words "Mill Dam" to the left of "Wallabout Bay." I don't know if the eastern branch was also dammed and used for power. Today, the western branch has disappeared as far as I know, but the eastern branch at least left its mark on the city: there is a Wallabout Street which follows the approximate course of the old stream, and underneath Wallabout Street is a 19th-century circular brick sewer, sixteen feet in diameter at its largest points.

Wallabout Bay and streams in 1766:

View Larger Map

Sunfish Creek, Manhattan

The watercourse that fed the Sunfish Pond along 32nd Street and then flowed on to the East River along the route of 34th Street was one of the most prominent features of the area until the 19th century. The stream's outlet to the East River was a cove called Kip's Bay, after an early Dutch landowner whose farm had been just south of the stream; Murray Hill, today's name for the neighborhood, came from the estate of Robert Murray, whose house was built on a hill at Park Avenue and 36th Street, overlooking Sunfish Pond. (For more, see Barry Popik's excellent site.)

Many revolutionary war battles could be pointed to as pivotal moments in the formation of the young United States, but Kips Bay played host to a particularly memorable moment of the war. British troops had been massing on the shore of Queens, preparing a multitude of boats to bring about 4,000 troops across the East River for what would later be called "The Battle of Manhattan." Crossing the river and borne southward on the tide, they mostly landed around the Kips Bay area, where they promptly routed the Americans, who fled to northern Manhattan-- to the consternation of George Washington, who is said to have thrown his hat to the ground in a fit of impotent anger at the flight. (In their defense, the American milita were vastly outnumbered.

A 1931 article (found here) eulogizing the old 34th Street location of the Waldorf Astoria hotel gave a more poetic account of the battle, and of Mrs. Murray's apocryphal role:

Rich in historical associations was
this farmland site of the Waldorf. Once a lively battle of the
Revolutionary War took place there. In fact, Historian Albert Ullman
claims that America came near to losing the Revolution within the
Thirty-fourth Street district of Manhattan. That was when the British
succeeded in landing their army at Kips Bay Farm, at the foot of
Thirty-fourth Street on September 15, 1776, after the disastrous battle
of Long Island.

It was at this time that stray shots
began to fall in the present Fifth Avenue in what became known as the
"battle of the cornfield." Washington had rushed down from his
headquarters in the Jumel mansion, which still stands in 160th Street.
He took up his position on a knoll about where the New York Public
Library stands today. His army was in rout, running toward him. There
was every indication the British would break through, cross the Sunfish
Creek and trap 3,500 troops still in the city at the tip of Manhattan
Island. In the letters of his aide-de-camp it is told how Washington
"laid his cane over many of the officers who shewed their men the
example of running.,.

Reinforced with more troops a rally was
staged and General Putnam was sent down Sunfish Creek and Bloomingdale
Road to rescue and direct the 3,500 men out of the city. The battle was
fought on the famous Murray Farm, from which Murray Hill was named.

In the Murray house, which stood in the
bed of Park Avenue at Thirty-seventh Street, Mrs. Murray "saved the
army." Deliberately she dined and wined the red-coated British officers
so well that Putnam was able to slip past the Waldorf block with his
army and join Washington in the retirement to Harlem Heights.

Sunfish Creek seems to have completely disappeared, in terms of any recognizible remnants, although I'd still like to find the route that drains the springs that were part of its sources. One spring seems to have been essentially in the middle of Times Square-- very close to 46th Street and 7th Avenue.

Below is a section of Viele's water map showing the stream. I have never run accross any name for the second stream, further north, that also outlets into Kip's bay.

See posts about Sunfish Creek

106th St/McGown's Pass

A very wide stream ran into the East River between 106th Street and 107th Street, according to Viele's Water Map. One source of the stream came from the west side of Manhattan, and the water flowed to the east side near McGowan's (or McGowns) Pass, which was the pass used by the Kingsbridge Road to cross the low rocky cliffs that rose above 106th St at the time.

The images below show the stream as it was in 1776, as seen by the British. The first image is the whole map for context, and then the next is just a small cropped section to see the detail of the stream itself. The bottom of the map is at about 110th Street. (This was an area of Manhattan that saw a great deal of fighting during the first part of the Revolutionary War; the official title of this map is "A map of part of New-York Island showing a plan of Fort Washington, now call'd Ft. Kniphausen with the rebels lines on the south part, from which they were driven on the 16th of November 1776 by the troupes under the orders of the Earl of Percy. Survey'd the same day by order of His Lordship by C. J. Sauthier.")

Near the bottom of the map, "McGowan's Pass" is marked. This was a key passageway for Revolutionary War troops, and George Washington's men kept a lookout for the British from the higher ground north of 106th Street. The Parks Department has more information on McGowan's Pass on one of their excellent historical signs.

I am having a hard time corrolating the British views with Viele's Water Map of the same area; is the watercourse shown on the British map merely the northern extension
of what is shown on the Viele map? If so, then it must have hooked East just past the bottom of the British map. The southern extension of the stream, which connects to other sources and flows to the East River, will be for a seperate post.

I have seen no traces of these streams on the surface of the modern city. There is also little trace of the challenging McGowan's Pass Road, which was described as late as 1893 as "wild and precipitous." However, there is a 5-foot diameter sewer underneath 106th Street east of Central Park, and there is an 8-foot by 12-foot sewer underneath East 110th St, both of which were built in the 1870s; was the stream re-routed through one of these sewers?

Sunfish Pond, Manhattan

Sunfish Pond was located between Madison and Lexington Avenues, and covered what is now Park Avenue, between 31st and 32nd Streets.

....a little lake called Sunfish Pond, which extended to Fourth Avenue and covered the site of the present car-stables. Sunfish Pond, Mines tells us, was famous for its eels, as well as sunfish and flounders. He adds that the brook which fed it was almost dry in summer, but in times of freshet overflowed its banks and spread from the northern line of the present Madison Square to Murray Hill, more than once compelling those who lived along its lower course to resort to boats as the only means of reaching the avenue. (From New York: Old & New: Its Story, Streets, and Landmarks; By Rufus Rockwell Wilson; J.B. Lippincott company, 1902)

Viele shows the pond in his famous water map, along with the stream that supplied it. The pond is approximately in the center of this crop.
























A tighter crop of the area of the pond from Viele's map. I haven't been able to find any trace of this pond in the present New York-- is it completely gone?












See posts related to Sunswick Pond

Tibbets Brook, Bronx

A 1776 British military view of Tibbet's Brook (the windy stream on the left). In this image, north is at a diagonal up and to the left. Tibbets Brook flowed-- and still does flow-- south from Van Cortlandt Park, down to the water separating Manhattan and the Bronx. In the lower half of this image, Tibbets Brook meets Spuyten Duyvil Creek, a meandering tidal strait that seperated the island of Manhattan and the Bronx until the straighter, larger Harlem River Ship Canal was dug in the 1890s.

See posts about Tibbets Brook

Spring in Alley Pond Park, Queens

In Alley Pond Park, in northeastern Queens, I found an above-ground spring in the city for the first time.

Sunswick Creek, Queens

Sunswick Creek ran through Queens until the late 19th century, originating in the south of the Ravenswood area. These maps below are from 1873.

 

The waterway was above ground at least through the 1870s. Eventually, however, it was completely covered over, though it's apparent inside the thing that different parts of the tunnel were covered over at different times.

Sanitary & Topological Map of the City and Island of New York

Col. Egbert L. Viele's "water map" of 1874 has been used for over a century as a reference for the location of old watercourses. Though Manhattan's natural topography was already much changed by 1874, Viele used historic maps and surveys to reconstruct the original hydrology of Manhattan Island, which is shown in great detail underneath the current street grid.

To see a high-res and flash-zoomable version of this map, go to http://kottke.org/plus/viele-map/

About this project

"Looking for..." is a project in which I'm trying to discover New York City's lost streams, kills, rivers, brooks, ponds, lakes, burns, brakes, and springs, and I hope that YOU will help.

As part of Conflux 2008, this is a collaborative project to try to peel back a bit of the present cityscape and to see the topography and hydrographic features that underlie the present-day city. For a sense of the rich variety of waterways that were characteristic of the New York region before the city was founded, take a look at the Viele Water Map from 1874.

During the Conflux weekend (Sept 13-14th), I'll be leading a walking tour on Saturday September 13th from noon-2pm, and another walking tour on Sunday September 14th from 4-6pm.

The walking tours will leave from Conflux 2008 venue at 536 LaGuardia Place, just below Washington Square Park, and we will wander around and try to find the old watercourses in the area-- or, at least, some clues and hints about that watercourses that once existed. I'll also be handing out some information about New York City's lost streams, springs, and rivers in other parts of the city, so that Conflux visitors will be able to know what to look for when they go into other parts of the city, and email it in as part of building this blog into a great resource.

So what exactly are we looking for? I'm not completely sure. There are clues and symbols throughout the city that reference watercourse that once existed or might still exist in some form. Many streams and springs have been diverted from their original course, routed through sewers or drains. I've been amazed already to find a handful of underground streams in NYC, covered over and turned into sewers as the city grew, that are large enough to wade or float. But I'm also looking for any hints or references to the old topography and hydrology of the city: street signs that reference old streams, stories of basements flooded by some forgotten spring, and photos, stories, maps, or anecdotes that relate. Come on my walking tours during Conflux and email in your own posts-- together we can peel back the centuries of urbanization and see what lies beneath.