Show A CITY ON AVATKKS 1 SWAMPS AND LAKES OF OLD NEW YORK I Loiter Yew lurk tilth II Lnernnt lIolIlnor once ClINly Marieti aler Tint the Urooll or Irue lly Us Illildr nn TAiit HUN > nine ftrnam which Is I now bothering both-ering the contractor Iy contrac-tor In nn cxciun t 0e t < tloii at the corner JJLl of Sixth avenue Via and Twelfth street Is but one of the onew rtot tk many water rtb4 Ilt co u rues which have been cocr dup d-up In blue extension exten-sion of New Yorks building ground and only wait tho chance nffordnl by thccxcaatorsplck to show that though forgotten they are not lead Now York city nnd especially the loner end of It appears to be ground sollil < nod Is I colored < with Inaeees of buildings build-ings so enormous that It Is hard to be Hot that a largo portion of It han been built up on pools swamps stream and < made ground Yet such Is I Ibo fact sajs a New York paper The peninsular tip of Manhattan liland must have been as WIt and swampy ns old Holland llaolf when New Amsterdam wa founded beelilo the roarali which ran up to Ilroad street from the lut river and In nil probability It was this fury swampy ness that led tho Dutchmen to Meet It at their new home This particular piece of marah land ended In a swampy pasture which ran almost up to Wall street and was drained by n canal with two lateral branches along llrlilgu street called the Common Ditch This woe tho smallest of tho marshes A short walk beyond Uie wall would lead the burghers to a large wet field called Ileokmans swamp which covered cov-ered nearly nil of tho area bounded by rYnnkfort IuHon and William streets anti tho then water front Ito fond this going east came a little narrow neck of solid land and then n atlll larger swamp called tho Itoose veil swnmp which extended almost up lo Park row and cohered nil the area now Include by that street tho waterfront water-front as It was and JAm < II and Icnrl street Through It ran quite a stream called tho Auld Kill This stream began be-gan about tho junction of Kooftcrelt street and Park row In n narrow band of marah which on tho other side of Pnrlc Row opened Into a big I swamp lying around two pool of fresh water called tho Collect ponds This snamp land ran up as far as Ornnil treot and which filled In nearly tho whole of hue space between Droodway and tho 1 low cry as far south M Franklin street narrowed to a small outlet at tho Junction of Canal street and I Ilroadway anil then spread out Into an extensive torlcs of swamps Ono of Uieto extended as far south as the corner cor-ner of rranklln and Hudson streets another known as Ilopenarda swamp or meadows ran almost up to Houston street whllo a third reached far Inland In-land < In a northcstcrly direction ns far up as tho corner of Twelfth street and Sixth avenue It will bo seen therefore there-fore that this series of swamps pools and streams extending diagonally across town from the foot of Itoote volt shoot to the Hudson river practically practic-ally divided Manhattan Island Into two parts and mado a subsidiary Into of the downtown portion Through the upper arm of the great wostorn chain of swnmp there flowed the stream which has no bothered the contrnctor referred to In blue opening paragraph For sumo reason or other this stream scorns to have been n subject of as much u1 entity of opinion among tho early topographers na It hat been among the later goialps of Greenwich illlage Tho Dutch map makers did not apparently venture ns far north na this but In a map mado by Col John Montrcsor I In tho winter of 1775 for limo lion Thomas Gage major Ren I oral nnd commandcrlnchlef of hit majoet a roc In North America this stream Is I found set down It U plotted as a croek which apparently drained oho swamp land that reached from beyond tho Obclltk roll to limo Greenwich rood that Is from about I Greenwich avenue to Greenwich street along the lino of Christopher street I botwven tho high land on which Lady Warrens homo was built and the UllU I bock of which lay tho Uspennrd wampi The peculiarity of oho stream into ococordlng to Montrcoor that It I had neither sourco nor mouth It Just lay there |