Downtown Manhattan used to harbor a system of canals during the 17th century. Of the city`s lost canals, including the Heere Graft, the largest of such conduits, which once ran down what is now Broad Street from Pearl to Beaver Streets.During the 17th-century, between the years 1646 to 1676, the Heere Graft emptied out into the East River. Both the Heere Graft and its &ldquo;narrower continuation,&rdquo; Prinzen Gracht,&rdquo; which ran from Beaver Street to south of Exchange Palace, were named after canals that had recently been built in Amsterdam. In the Castello Plan, the original city map of New Amsterdam created by Jacques Cortelyou in 1660. You can spot the inlet with three bridges spanning it.Unfortunately, the &ldquo;odorous length&rdquo; was akin to a sewer and the English, upon acquiring control of the land, ordered the Heere Gracht to be filled in in 1676.

Heere Gracht ('Gentleman's Canal')

 Less than a half-mile north of Broad Street, a brook flowed into the East River, its path marked today by Maiden Lane. The stream had its origins at Nassau Street and its mouth at Pearl Street. In colonial times, it was known as Maagde Paatje, Dutch for &ldquo;a footpath used by lovers along a rippling brook,&rdquo; according to &ldquo;The WPA Guide to New York City.&rdquo; Other historians have a less romantic theory for Maiden Lane`s name: that the river that ran there was used for washing sheets. As the city crept north, the stream was buried and covered with a paved road in 1698. 

Stream along Maiden Lane

 The canal that Canal Street was named after existed only for a short time. It was built in 1807 to drain the Collect Pond into the Hudson River. The pond and the canal were both buried by 1819, but Canal Street kept its name for eternity. 

Canal at Canal Street

The Collect Pond or Fresh Water Pond was a body of fresh water in what is now Chinatown, lower Manhattan in New York City. For the first two centuries of European settlement in Manhattan, it was the main water supply for the growing city. The former pond became the site of a jail and is now a city park, Collect Pond Park.As the city`s population increased, the water available in public wells became brackish and polluted by organic matter and inefficient in supply. A few wells had tapped into underground springs, some of which supplied the water to Collect Pond. This water was reputed to be fresh and of superior quality. A country addicted to tea as a beverage realized the importance of clean, fresh water to brew the tea leaves. One of the most famous springs, situated in a hollow near the junction of Chatham and Roosevelt Streets, just south of Collect Pond, was known as &ldquo;The Old Tea Water Pump.&rdquo; At the turn of the 19th century, though, even the tea water pump wells were becoming polluted, especially those closest to Collect Pond, now a stinking cesspool polluted by industry.

The pond was a large, sixty-foot deep pool fed by an underground spring. The waters derived their name from seventeenth century Dutch settlers, who called it &amp;ldquo;kolch&amp;rdquo; meaning &amp;ldquo;small body of water&amp;rdquo;.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Following the English capture of New Amsterdam (1664), the name was corrupted to &amp;ldquo;collect.&amp;rdquo;&amp;nbsp;  

By 1811, the City had completed the filling of Collect Pond. A neighborhood known as Paradise Square soon arose over the pond&amp;rsquo;s previous site. Unfortunately, due to the area&amp;rsquo;s extremely high water table, Paradise Square began to sink in the 1820&amp;rsquo;s. The neighborhood also began to emit a foul odor, prompting the most affluent residents to leave the community. By the 1830s, Paradise Square had become the notorious &amp;ldquo;Five Points,&amp;rdquo; an extremely poor and dangerous neighborhood renowned for its crime and filth.  

During this time, the pond was still clean enough to use for the area&amp;rsquo;s drinking water. By the early nineteenth century, however, New York City had transformed the sparkling waters into a communal open sewer. Disgusted, local authorities initiated a project to fill the sewer with earth from an adjacent hill.&amp;nbsp; 

  Art in the Parks - NYC Department of Parks and Recreation

Showing Collect pond as it existed in 1865 

Collect Pond Park

Collect Pond

 The ponds and canals of Lower Manhattan that were filled to create the downtown we know today. 

Hidden Ponds and Streams of New York City

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