This is a story of big government that began in the era of Martin Van Buren and the grandest of Roman aqueducts coming to America. A story about what was once both the first reliable Manhattan water supply system and a pedestrian bridge that was actually used by Edgar Allen Poe.
This is an early connection, the oldest bridge in New York City that connects two boroughs actually connected two different towns when it opened. From end to end this national historic landmark originally consisted of 15 circular masonry arches that were 80 feet long over the Harlem River. With the stones still intact over the Bronx the bridge still measures 1,450 feet in length. In 1848, the High Bridge went into the service for the first time.
Sadly that pedestrian bridge that was once a great tourist attraction and part of the lovely Croton Aqueduct Hiking Trail was closed to the public by small minded government forty years ago. Today the High Bridge is noticed by drivers in traffic jams on their way to Yankee games, children asking "What is that bridge called?" and most parents answering "I don't know."
The Manhattan Watchtower completed in 1872 gets more notice but few visitors. That will change soon because the High Bridge is making a comeback.
This New York City story should probably start at the source in northern Westchester county. This story really started with the Cholera Epidemic in 1832 where cisterns and polluted wells were given responsibility for the deaths and the great fire of 1835 making it obvious that a growing city needed pressurized water.
In Westchester county about fifty miles north of downtown Manhattan, the Croton River was chosen as New York City's first source of water that was not actually located in the city. In 1842, with construction already underway of the 41 mile Croton aqueduct and the High Bridge that would become the centerpiece of the great municipal project the Old Croton Dam was completed. The old dam that would become the prototype for many municipal water supply dams during the mid-nineteenth century was the first large masonry dam in the United States and the Croton River was soon renamed Croton Lake.
As a the needs of New York City grew the Croton Lake would also grow and when the New Croton Dam was completed in 1907 that lake would be renamed the Croton Reservoir. But back then when fresh water was new to the city, the Croton Reservoir was in midtown Manhattan. It was a fortified distribution reservoir that took up 40th to 42nd Street from 5th to 6th Avenue, an area now occupied by the "Main Branch" of the New York Public Library and Bryant Park.
In the coming years New York City's water supply would grow out to the Catskills and Delaware county creating several bonus greenways and a municipal army to keep it green and clean. Few people realize how much protection New York City offers to the environment beyond the city limits. In choosing clean pure drinking water over expensive filtration systems the Department of Environmental protection became the enforcement arm of a watershed to prevent upstate communities developing too close to the water supply. Today a bonus of the New York City water supply is a watershed of over 154,000 acres of city owned land and a total of 1.2 million acres that are protected from development in the Catskill/Delaware and Croton systems, which cover parts of eight counties in New York State.
Today the Croton Reservoir that has a capacity of about 34 billion gallons of water with a watershed covering 375 miles of land is the smallest reservoir in the water supply for New York City. That body of water is only an emergency supply now and New Yorkers have not drank water from Croton since the summer of 2008. I don't have a photo of the new Croton Dam, if you want to call 1907 new but I did steal a photo of the 200 foot tall dam that submerged the original 50 foot tall dam from Hiking Lite.
This story could start at the historic Old Croton Dam that still exists but is now submerged by the New Croton Dam. The story could follow the Old Croton Aqueduct that no longer supplying water to New York City still serves New York hikers and bicyclist but then this would be a very long diary.
Seen from the air, the Old Croton Aqueduct gives the impression that a giant mole had tunneled its way south from the Croton River to New York City, throwing up the slight bulge that is the telltale sign of the animal's passage through a lawn. Now a public right of way, the aqueduct was purchased by New York State from New York City's Bureau of Water Supply in 1968. Listed on both the New York State and the National Registers of Historic Places in 1974, most of it is open for walking and cycling.
This elongated but little-used state park extends all the way to the heart of New York City. In its northern reaches, it closely parallels the Hudson River. Comparatively straight and somewhat narrow as parks go, it sometimes follows city streets and highways; at other times it traverses meadows and wooded areas. It was built with a singleness of purpose: to carry water to a thirsty, disease-ridden, fire-threatened city more than a century and a half ago. In selecting its route, engineers were mindful that the water coursing through it would be impelled only by gravity. The total drop between Croton and Manhattan is 43.63 feet, or 13-1/4 inches per mile.
Another place this story could begin is with Edgar Allen Poe. Chronologically few fact about the High Bridge are a fascinating as
Poe walking across the bridge from the Bronx to Manhattan 162 years ago and 55 years before
John A. Roebling would connect the cities of Brooklyn and New York.
Standing 100 feet above the East River must have been an inspiration for Poe's story, "The Imp of the Perverse."
We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss—we grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink from the danger. Unaccountably we remain. By slow degrees our sickness and dizziness and horror become merged in a cloud of unnamable feeling... the idea of what would be our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a height. And this fall -- this rushing annihilation -- for the very reason that it involves that one most ghastly and loathsome of all the most ghastly and loathsome images of death and suffering which have ever presented themselves to our imagination -- for this very cause do we now the most vividly desire it. And because our reason violently deters us from the brink, therefore do we the most impetuously approach it. There is no passion in nature so demoniacally impatient as that of him who, shuddering upon the edge of a precipice, thus meditates a plunge. If there be no friendly arm to check us, or if we fail in a sudden effort to prostrate ourselves backward from the abyss, we plunge, and are destroyed.
The Poe Cottage still stands on the Grand Concourse and Kingsbridge Road in the Bronx but back when Edgar Allen Poe lived there it was called Fordham Village. Here is Poe's Cozy Nook as it appears in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx today.
This walk to the High Bridge Watchtower could begin from the towers of the Kingsbridge Armory in Edgar Allen Poe's old neighborhood.
And then take the Croton Aqueduct Walkway that Poe must have walked surrounded by green but now offers a green path through very urban neighborhoods.
Aqueduct Avenue begins at Kingsbridge Road and goes south for a few blocks. At first the walk is parkland where the aqueduct is buried underground besides multiple unit buildings and two family homes. Here’s a view of the corner of 192nd Street and Aqueduct Avenue that offers both Skully and a Jonnie Pump, once two of my favorite Bronx views.
Then the views change to this very narrow walking and bicycle path that is first surrounded by trees and grass, then the view is buildings and fire escapes. It seems dark and mysterious and has gone through much change over the years but it is a far better view than most Bronx tenements. The windows decorations have gone from shamrocks to gates to keep intruders out as the walkway went from a pleasant stroll many years ago to a dangerous walk in the 70’s and 80’s and then returned to as safe place for an afternoon walk during the Clinton administration. Now I would even walk there at night. The only constant is that the city Department of Parks never took an interest in the Croton Aqueduct Walkway.
Today people take pride in their view of the Croton Aqueduct Walkway and it is a green belt that has been appreciated for many years.
But walking the entire "Ackie" as it was affectionately called in my youth would also be too long a walk for me. Before the starting point for this story, a little appreciation for the youth today who keep the Croton Aqueduct Walkway clean.
Where this story of the High Bridge begins is where it began for me, a childhood memory. In the early 1960's I went to a day camp at Christ the King on the Grand Concourse and 170th Street. Once a week we walked from that school to the Highbridge pool and crossed that great bridge on the way.
170th Street is the same street in the Bronx where the High Bridge crosses over to Manhattan. From the Grand Concourse you can see the High Bridge Watchtower and the George Washington Bridge.
It seems so close but as I recall it was not close at all. The Grand Concourse is at the top of of hill and so is the Highbridge section of the Bronx. When I was a little boy in the early 1960's my day camp would make the walk downhill to River Road and then back uphill to Highbridge, across the bridge and up another hill so we could take a much needed dip in the Highbridge swimming pool.
But before the walk, a few blocks south to what everyone called The Fish Building on the Grand Concourse. Just one of the many entertaining building that can be found on the Champs-Élysées of the Bronx.
On the walk down to River Road we would pass another park with showers in anticipation for our dip in the pool.
In retracing my steps from so long ago I came across something I found upsetting. A dank windowless building that I remember for my childhood as being a body and fender shop underneath the elevated subway is now a Charter School. Besides undermining the Teacher's Union how did this ugly building without any amenities and not even a window become the local and federal government's answer to education problems in America?
Oh well, up the long hill to the Highbridge section of the Bronx for a first close view of the tower.
But this is no way to treat the oldest bridge in New York.
The old camera through the steel door trick.
This is the best view I can get of the bridge from the Bronx.
So I'm going to need to find a detour and check out the view from the other side, the Manhattan Highbridge Park on Coogan's Bluff.
Looking good here on the Manhattan side. I can see Edgar Allen Poe's view of the East River from here.
Still not the most inviting bridge.
But this side offers a guided tour. Gotta love that Department of Parks.
Check out the fancy iron work.
And there's that last staircase I remember from childhood.
Well actually this was the last stair case where we lined up and were counted before the dash to the locker room for our wire baskets with brass tags on wrist wrap bungee cords. No lockers for us kids but those baskets bring back fond memories.
Finally at Watchtower level.
Where the pool sure looks inviting and it is also free so don't let the big fence put you off.
But we are going to the top!
How did I come up with that idea on a 100 degree day? Well at least it was ten degrees cooler inside.
The view from the first window is a good place to point out that the stones were demolished and replaced with steel around World War I to accommodate wider ships.
From a window at midpoint you can see the swimming pool that is where there was once a reservoir. The pool was built during the Great Depression by the WPA.
There is also a good view of the George Washington Bridge.
Finally at the top you can see a higher view of the bridge that will once again be opened to public. The bridge that I have not crossed since I was a little boy.
Or perhaps I should have stayed downstairs.
Or how about a view of the East River with a slew of highways.
The daring few who made the walk. Yes those big pipes did something, I'm not sure what, equalized or aerated the water but the Watchtower was not built just for show.
And the final spiral staircase that I would have never gone up if I'd seen that broken piece of orange tape. There was no view at the top of that rickety stair.
Wow that was a long climb on a hot day but something I've been meaning to do ever since I read "The Lord of the Rings." Here I am after the long decent on a one hundred degree day.
I hope you enjoyed the tour.
Oh and I promised these two Grand Concourse youngsters a photo in this diary. The High Bridge has been closed since 1970 but both of them have walked across it.