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 “narrower continuation,” Prinzen Gracht,” 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 “odorous length” was akin to a sewer and the English, upon acquiring control of the land, ordered the Heere Gracht to be filled in in 1676.
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