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Newsletter Articles
Newsletter Articles
March 15, 2019 | Katharine Gates | Newsletter Articles
Lesser-Known Tales of the Old Croton Aqueduct: The Angel of the Waters
Photo: CentralPark.com While every New Yorker is familiar with the magnificent fountain at the center of Bethesda Terrace in Manhattan’s Central Park, few are aware of the fascinating story behind …
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February 4, 2019 | FOCAAdmin | Newsletter Articles
A Tribute to Water System Guardians
In light of strengthened security for the New York City-Westchester water supply system following the September 11th attacks, we reprint here from our December 1998 issue the text and photograph of…
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February 24, 2016 | DAlden | Newsletter Articles
New Year’s Resolution: Rid the Trail of Invasives!
In this 2013 I Love My Park Day photo, volunteers working in the northern section of the trail are pruning and pulling down porcelainberry vines that were obscuring an historic stone wall and overw…
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March 18, 2013 | George O'Lear | Newsletter Articles
Head North Hikers! A Favorite Aqueduct Hike
The author, a veteran hike leader for the Appalachian Mountain Club and Westchester Trails Association, lives in Tarrytown. Two section maps for both the Westchester and New York City Aqueduct rout…
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October 20, 2012 | Anne Megaro | Newsletter Articles
Broccoli on the OCA!
Five hundred feet off Yonkers Avenue on Walnut Street in Yonkers is a new community garden. And, yes, it’s part of the Old Croton Aqueduct (OCA)! At first sight, it doesn’t look like part of the tr…
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June 22, 2012 | Katharine Gates | Newsletter Articles
Electronic Music Composer Inspired by Sounds of the Aqueduct Tunnel
Ever since the days of the Hudson River School, the landscape of the Rivertowns has inspired artists’ attempts to capture on canvas our unique golden Hudson River light or the classical drama of th…
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January 11, 2011 | Charlotte Fahn | Newsletter Articles
The High Bridge’s Harlem River Fountain
This year marks the 160th anniversary of the 1848 completion of the High Bridge. With last year’s Earth Day announcement by Mayor Bloomberg that the city will fund the bridge’s restoration and reop…
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January 8, 2011 | Christopher Tompkins | Newsletter Articles
The Long Shadow of the Croton – Part 2
This completes a two-part memoir of the author’s grandfather, John Matthew Tompkins (“Poppy”), longtime superintendent of the Croton Aqueduct gatehouse in Yorktown. Part one was in the Winter 2006/…
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January 8, 2011 | Christopher Tompkins | Newsletter Articles
The Long Shadow of the Croton
I vividly recall the sound of rushing water, the sound of our steps echoing off the stone walls, and the winding staircase disappearing into the depths of the gatehouse. My grandfather held my hand…
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January 8, 2011 | Charlotte Fahn | Newsletter Articles
An Elephant’s Tale
Master raconteur Ed Rondthaler of Croton responded to the back-page image, “High Bridge Over the Croton” by Benson Lossing, 1866, in the Spring newsletter (no. 29). The covered bridge spanned the …
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January 8, 2011 | Charlotte Fahn | Newsletter Articles
The Early Days of the Aqueduct: A Perilous Dependency
Note: The following excerpts from the chapter “The Extension of the Croton System” by Kevin Bone (pp. 60ff, in “Water-Works: The Architecture and Engineering of the New York City Water Supply,” Ke…
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January 8, 2011 | Charlotte Fahn | Newsletter Articles
New Spillway Bridge at Croton Dam To Evoke Historic Design
To the delight of many, the bridge now under construction across the spectacular spillway of the New Croton Dam will resemble the well-loved 1905 original, whose image has graced so many postcards,…
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January 8, 2011 | John Middlebrooks | Newsletter Articles
A Memoir of the Archville Bridge
The first issue of the Friends’ newsletter, dated April 1998, opened with a few short paragraphs titled “Putting the Arch Back in Archville.” It reported that a new bridge had been set in place the…
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January 7, 2011 | Charlotte Fahn | Newsletter Articles
Two 19th Century Engineering Lives
The “other lives” of David Bates Douglass (1790-1849), first chief engineer of the Croton Aqueduct, and his successor, John Bloomfield Jervis (1795-1885), apart from their Aqueduct service, were th…
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January 7, 2011 | Charlotte Fahn | Newsletter Articles
Was the Murray Hill Reservoir in Bryant Park?
The short answer to the title question seems to be no, for most of the reservoir’s life, and then yes, for its last year. The Murray Hill Reservoir was the terminal, or distributing, reservoir of t…
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January 7, 2011 | Gerard Koeppel | Newsletter Articles
Historic Wooden Water Pipes Unearthed
In the late afternoon of last October 21st at Coenties Slip and Water Street in Manhattan, a backhoe operated by a Parks Department contractor struck something hard and unexpected, four feet below…
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January 7, 2011 | Charlotte Fahn | Newsletter Articles
Croton Taverns, Then and Now
The charming edifice pictured here was Croton Cottage, at Fifth Ave. and 40th St. in Manhattan. The illustration is from the 1924 book, Fifth Avenue Old and New 1824-1924 by Henry Collins Brown, w…
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January 7, 2011 | Robert Kornfeld, Jr | Newsletter Articles
Operating the Aqueduct
Histories of the Aqueduct often stop with the completion of its construction. This account gives an overview of the system’s operation in the succeeding decades. – Ed. The Old Croton Aqueduct was …
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January 7, 2011 | Charlotte Fahn | Newsletter Articles
Inspecting the Tunnel, ca. 1877
Our previous issue asked for help in identifying this print, captioned ” Local Inspection of Croton Aqueduct — The Return Against the Current.” Through the Fall 1990 Hastings Historian, we traced…
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January 7, 2011 | FOCAAdmin | Newsletter Articles
Picnic at Croton Lake, 1873
by Cecelia Cleveland (reprint from 1873 account) Our thanks to Al Hulin for sending in this charming account of a 19th-century picnic at the original (now submerged) Croton Dam, from the archives o…
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January 7, 2011 | Dale Ramsay | Newsletter Articles
Poe Walking on the High Bridge
Edgar Allan Poe was an Aqueduct walker. Poe readers who still own a copy of his Tales in the Great Illustrated Classics edition from 1952 may remember the dramatic image of a melancholy Poe walkin…
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January 7, 2011 | FOCAAdmin | Newsletter Articles
Location of Manhattan Ventilator Discovered
Can a Family Have the Aqueduct in its Genes? Bill Logan is starting to suspect the answer to the above question is yes. Bill has strong ties to the Aqueduct. He is a member of the Board of the Frie…
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January 7, 2011 | Brian Goodman | Newsletter Articles
What’s it’s Really Like in the Tunnel
Have you ever wondered what it’s like inside most of the Aqueduct, the part that hasn’t been cleaned, polished, and ventilated for visits by the public? Trail Manager Brian Goodman offers a glimpse.
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