Watercourses

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

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'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.

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?

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 [email protected]. 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

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

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 Sewer

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.