Preservation

James Bremner ( aka Friends VP, Bob Kornfeld ) welcomed the community to the beautiful house where he lived from the mid 1800s to his death in 1872. On a sunny June afternoon Keeper James Bremner told of his duties as keeper of this section of the Aqueduct, how he kept the water flowing as it traveled from the Croton Dam to the final reservoir at 42nd street. Maybe he anticipated that his home would one day be a National Historic Landmark making the entire community swell with pride.

The 1905 vintage 1000 pound cast iron gate valve actuator from the upper gatehouse of the New Croton Dam has been donated by the NYC DEP to NYS Parks for use as an exhibit at the Keepers House. The hand cranked mechanism that used to control the effluent gates at the dam was picked up from the current Croton gatehouse in Yorktown on Wednesday Dec. 9, to be processed for safe public display by the Peebles Island restoration office of NYS Parks. Once installed, visitors to the Keepers House will be able to get a closeup look.

Work is moving along! Exterior paint completed. Landscape terraced for events. Interior doors painted and ready to install. Bike racks installed.

At the beginning of June, without fanfare, the long awaited stairway to and from the Quarry Trail to Warburton Avenue opened! Now, anyone on the Aqueduct Trail can walk down Quarry Trail and walk up the stairs to Warburton Avenue. Close by is Antoinette’s Patisserie, a Hasting’s favorite for its own brand of coffee, pastries and gelato. Also across the street from Antoinette’s is a shady park which is open to the public.