Finish the Aqueduct Trail: The missing Manhattan trail markers from the public library to Highbridge Park must finally be installed
Yesterday was a celebration of the 175th anniversary of New York’s oldest bridge, the High Bridge, completed in 1848 to carry clean water over the Harlem River into thirsty Manhattan, having traveled from northern Westchester’s Croton Reservoir down through the Bronx.
School kids and bands marched from each end and met in the middle, with commissioners from Parks and Transportation and Design and Construction, and plenty of people from Environmental Protection (befitting the High Bridge’s former life as an aqueduct). And there was bi-boroism with two borough presidents, as an FDNY fireboat sprayed 140 feet below in the Harlem River.
The lofty pedestrian promenade was reopened in 2015, having been shuttered for decades. And that reopening was the culmination stretching back to the span’s 150th anniversary: For a single day, May 16, 1998, park rangers unlocked the Bronx gate (the Manhattan gate was welded shut). We were one of the lucky few present and were floored by the astounding views. Two days later (at the MSG premiere of the forgettable “Godzilla”) we told a top aide to Deputy Mayor Rudy Washington. Washington went to look and agreed that the High Bridge must reopen and started the very long process.
We learned all we could about the High Bridge and the Croton Aqueduct, even completing a 10-part, 41-mile long trek from the 42nd St. public library (the final 1848 destination of the water) to the Croton Reservoir. On March 11, 2001, we published a special, full page editorial including a map calling for a trail from the Bronx/Yonkers line to 42nd St., with markers along the way and the re-opened glorious High Bridge at the center.
There were to be 13 signs. All seven in the Bronx were installed in 2017, as were two in Manhattan in Highbridge Park, but the other four signs, running down to the library, were never installed. Manhattan BP Mark Levine is all in favor of finishing the job. Do it and then paint a blue line on the trail to connect New York to its past.
