One of the things that made Manhattan Island such a suitable
place for European settlement was the fact that it had its own water supply
-- not only was there ample ground water, there was a fresh water pond
about half a mile from the tip of the island drained by a little stream
and a marsh. The Natives who sold Peter Minuit the island
in 1624 had used the pond as a resource for water and fish. The
early Dutch settlers could not help but remark upon the idyllic setting
of the pond, which they may or may not have called de Kaltchhook1
or Kolch.
When Nieuw Amsterdam was captured by the English, they
gave it a much more prosaic name, "Fresh Water Pond", but a form of the
Dutch name, "The Collect", was more common.
As New York grew northward, its water needs increased. Wells were sunk
near The Collect, and water was drawn directly from the pond. A brewery
was built at the southeast corner of the pond. On a small island
in the pond, a gallows was erected. However, the area around the
pond remained undeveloped.
By the late 18th Century, however, the area around The Collect had become
a center of slaughterhouses and tanneries, which polluted the
pond beyond all usefulness. It became so noisome that in 1805,
a canal was dug to the Hudson River to drain it, and the pond was filled
in.
The springs that fed the pond would not die, and the material used to
fill the pond came from the slaughterhouses and tanneries. The dirt floors
of the shabby houses that were built there were always muddy. The infamous
Tombs prison was built on part of the fill; its basement cells
were frequently flooded, practically guaranteeing a death by yellow fever
or tuberculosis for inmates placed there.
East of The Tombs, the brewery became the center of the notorious Five
Points slum, from where the 1863 New York Draft Riot erupted, a neighborhood
so rough that police kept away for fear of being killed, and from which infamous organized crime syndicates (such as La Cosa Nostra) emerged.
Today, the Five Points has been wiped out, replaced with Columbus Park
and a courthouse; The Tombs has been replaced twice but still can't shake
its nickname. The city's water comes from much further away, and through
much more sophisticated conduits than the log pipes that used to carry
water from The Collect. However, the Collect's shores can be seen in the
street patterns of Lower Manhattan. The pond was roughly bounded
by Elm Street (now Lafayette Street), White Street, Orange Street (now
Baxter Street), and Worth Street, with a southern extension into what is
now Foley Square. The canal was filled in in 1815, and the western
part of Canal Street now follows its course.
1Many thanks to Dutch noders Professor Pi, fuzzy and
blue, and sloebertje, who pretty much agree that "Kaltchhook" can't
possibly be a Dutch word, even an archaic one. Professor Pi suggests that
"Kaatshoeck", which might refer to a good fishing spot, is a more
likely name.
The Street Book: An Encyclopedia of Manhattan's Street Names and their
ORigins, Henry Moscow, Hagstrom, NY, 1978
ISBN 0-910684-07-03
The City of New York Department of Environmental Protection, New York
City's Water Supply System: History
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/history.html
Re-Covering the Cityscape: Impressions of History Underfoot
http://www.recoveringthecityscape.com/collect_layout.html
The Street Necrology of the Lower East Side
http://www.forgotten-ny.com/streetnecrology/lowereast/lowereast.html
A Tale of The Tombs
http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/nycdoc/html/histry3a.html
The Five Points Site
http://r2.gsa.gov/fivept/fphome.htm