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