AQUEDUCT Walk in Fordham is seen here on West Fordham Road between University and Grand avenues. Back in June 2018 I walked a good deal of the walk, which in many ways was NYC’s first “High Line” as it turned a former conduit into a linear park.
New York’s first water system was built between 1837 and 1842. Prior to those years, water was obtained from cisterns, wells and barrels from rain. Construction began in 1837 on a series of mostly underground conduits that would bring water from the Croton River in northern Westchester County to NYC’s spigots. Amazingly, it took only five years to finish the first connection given the technology available at the time.
Two reservoirs were built in New York City, one between the present-day lines of 6th and 7th Avenues and 79th and 85th Streets, and a smaller distributing reservoir on 5th and 42nd. The former was drained in 1930 and its site is now occupied by Central Park’s Great Lawn. The latter was torn down to make room for the main branch of the New York Public Library, which rose in 1911. Those reservoirs were replaced by two huge tunnels that were built in 1917 and 1937; a third is still under construction. Central Park’s present Reservoir, now named for Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, was begun in 1858 and was a part of NYC’s water distribution system all the way to 1991.
Many of the Old Croton Aqueduct’s New York City remnants are visible in the Bronx and even in upper Manhattan, as are some reminders of the New Croton Aqueduct, built in 1890 to replace the older. Aqueduct Walk was constructed in the late 1930s and opened in 1940 on an embankment over the Old Croton Aqueduct from University Avenue just north of West Tremont Avenue north to West Kingsbridge Road just south of what was the Jerome Park Reservoir.
I may decide to use my 2018 photos for a lengthier study of Aqueduct Walk, or walk it again to see if I missed anything.
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2/11/26