to
the Fresh Water brook that ran from Collect Pond to the East River, and
this hillside was so steep that in order to avoid the abrupt declivity
another road of easier grade was formed "diverging from the main road
(the Bowery Boston road) eastward, about on the present line of Duane
and Rose Streets to the junction with Pearl Street."
Old
Harlem Creek once wound its tortuous way through Harlem, when that
populous section was thinly settled and an outlying village of New
York. The creek flowed out of Goldfish Pond, which occupied a basin
between Lenox and 7th Avenues, and 117th and 119th Streets. At 110th
Street it crossed the fields to 5th Avenue, and poured into the Harlem
Meer, filling a bowl at 110th Street, which is now a portion of
Central Park.
McGowan's
Creek was also in this neighborhood, flowing apparently in 106th Street
across to 5th Avenue, and formerly (fifty or sixty years ago) crossed
by a bridge at 3d Avenue and 106th Street.
The
threaded and inundated character of the old shores, now filled in and
occupied with bulk-heads, is shown by this extract from Dr. John Flavel
Mines (Felix Oldboy) : " Manhattan Island was the name given to a high
knoll of ground on the East River, above the foot of Rivington Street,
containing about an acre of land, surrounded by creeks and salt-marsh,
and at high tide partly covered with sea-water. . . . Just north of
Manhattan Island a natural creek ran up through the center of the
present Tompkins Square to the vicinity of 1st Avenue." Here was Burnt
Mill Point, to reach which several creeks were crossed on small wooden
bridges, and the bridges themselves " were attainable only after a
decidedly moist tramp through soggy meadows and salt-marshes."
ROCKS OF MANHATTAN ISLAND
We have seen that the first topographical section of Manhattan Island, that generally south of 23d Street, is a drift
