New York City’s Pristine Collect Pond Was a Fresh Water Source for New Yorkers for Nearly Two Hundred Years. What Happened to it?
Once, where now large buildings crowd downtown Manhattan, a substantial and beautiful pond spread out in a pristine valley between the forested countryside. Collect Pond, or Fresh Water Pond, was a body of fresh water near the southern tip of Manhattan in New York City, that covered approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and ran as …