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Fall offers us some of New York’s best weather. It is also a fine season to visit the High Bridge, the centerpiece of the original (“Old”) Croton Aqueduct, completed in 1848 and today the city’s oldest bridge. The High Bridge carried pure, plentiful Croton River water — the beginning of the city’s world-famed water supply — from the mainland, across the Harlem River, to Manhattan Island at a time when New York City existed only at the south tip of the island. The water pipes are still there, beneath the bridge’s deck where visitors stroll.

The New York City Department of Environmental Protection closed the public walkway atop New Croton Dam for five days earlier this month, creating a safe work zone for an inspection of the dam.

The closure allowed a team of rope-access technicians to rappell down the face of the dam and inspect the stones that were used to build the structure 115 years ago. It was the largest dam in the world when it was completed in 1905.