High Bridge Water Tower

Saturday, October 4, 2008 was part of Open House New York Weekend. We decided to take advantage and see a couple of things that are normally closed to the public. The first thing we did was walk up to the High Bridge Water Tower to ascend the stairs inside and get a 360-degree view of Upper Manhattan and the Bronx.

This graceful water tower, located in Manhattan’s Highbridge Park at 174th Street, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It has been a visual landmark on the heights of Manhattan overlooking the Harlem River since 1872. The tower was not part of the original Croton Aqueduct. It was added to serve the growing number of residents in the villages of north Manhattan, which were at an elevation higher than the Croton Aqueduct. (The Croton Aqueduct was a large and complex water distribution system constructed for New York City between 1837 and 1842. It brought water by the force of gravity alone 41 miles (66 km) from the Croton River in Westchester County into reservoirs in Manhattan, where local water resources had become polluted and inadequate for the growing population of the city.)

After water from the Aqueduct crossed the High Bridge, it was pumped up to a seven-acre, 10.8-million-gallon reservoir next to the tower. The Highbridge Pool was built inside the old reservoir in 1936. The water tank in the tower served the small number of customers at an even higher elevation. Extending up the 185-foot height of the octagonal granite tower are two iron pipes that reached to a 47,000-gallon tank, now gone. The water was pumped up one pipe to the tank, and flowed down the other.

View to the top of the tower from the bottom of the stairs with the 2 huge pipes.

Stairs

Window

Ella, mom, Grandma, Lexi & Dad at the top of the platform. Those huge windows behind us were open. We had to hold on to Lexi & Ella very tightly to make sure there were no *unfortunate accidents*.

The view to the north- The bridge in the foreground is the Alexander Hamilton Bridge, which connects the Cross Bronx Expressway to the George Washington Bridge. In the background is the Washington Bridge, which connects the Cross Bronx to West 181st St. You're also looking at the Harlem River with Manhattan on the left and the Bronx on the right.

The view east- the High Bridge into the Bronx. The bridge, which connects High Bridge Park near West 174th Street, Manhattan, and West170th Street in the Bronx, is the oldest bridge connecting two boroughs. When it was built between 1837 and 1848 it actually connected two separate towns, since that area of the mainland would not become a part of New York County until 1874 (and the Bronx would not become a separate county until 1914!)

High Bridge has featured a walkway since the 1860s, although it never had roads for auto or horse traffic. But in 1960, the walkway was closed, never to again reopen, because of local knuckleheads throwing objects from the bridge onto Circle Line boats in the Harlem River.
In recent years, High Bridge Park (on the Manhattan side at Amsterdam Avenue and West 174th Street) has been spruced up by New York Restoration Project, a group spearheaded by Bette Midler.

View to the west- The George Washington Bridge and to the left of that you'll see 3 tall buildings we call "the Towers". That's where Columbia Medical & Dental students live and we have several friends that have lived in those buildings. Just behind the GWBridge & the towers is New Jersey. In the foreground is the (drained) pool that we visited many times this past summer.

View to the south: On the left are a bunch of housing projects that are in the former location of the Polo Grounds (home to the New York Giants baseball team- of Willie Mays fame). That big red x is where our building is- it's actually behind the white building that the x is on... it is shorter than that building, so you really can't even see it in this photo, but it gives you an idea of where we live in relation to the water tower. And if you click on the picture to enlarge it, you may even be able to see the Empire State Building out in the distance.

View to the southeast: Can you see the new & old Yankee Stadiums behind that row of 4 housing projects?? That highway is the Major Deegan, aka the NY State Thruway, aka I-87. And a slice of the Harlem River. And some of the commuter rail tracks, MetroNorth.