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🏘️ Croton Local History
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the Croton River during the 19th century the Van Cortlandt Bridge (also known as the Long Bridge and the Wagon Bridge) suffered regular damage from storms, ice and spring freshets and it was repeatedly repaired and rebuilt. Until at least 1871 the
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long bridge on the Ossining side was a drawbridge, to allow boats to sail up the lower Croton River. 6 This detail from an 1871 survey of the mouth of the Croton River shows that at one point there was a drawbridge on the southern end of the Van
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Cortlandt bridge. The strip in the river marked with dotted lines was a channel for ships. Also note the small building at the end of the causeway on the left. This is the building shown in the stereoview above. By 1912 the drawbridge had been
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removed and the simple iron bridge carried early automobiles over the river until 1922 when the state removed the old span and replaced it with an elegant Beaux-Art reinforced concrete structure. What happened to that bridge? That sad story will be
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the subject of a future post. Photo-auto maps. (New York to Albany and Saratoga Springs, Saratoga Springs to Albany and New York) . . . Compiled by Gardner S. Chapin and Arthur H. Schumacher. Published by the Motor Car Supply Co., Chicago, Ill.,
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1907. ↩ See Henri Cartier-Bresson . ↩ The Photo-auto maps book provided two versions of every route, with photos taken from each direction. ↩ For the act see Laws of the State of New York Passed at the 83rd Session of the Legislature . Weed, Parsons
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and Company, 1860. Chap. 268. For photos and information about High Bridge see this previous post . ↩ See this detail from Lloyd’s topographical map of the Hudson River . . . , published in 1864. ↩ The railroad bridge had a drawbridge section until
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1899. ↩ Share this: Print (Opens in new window) Print Email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Share on X (Opens in new window) X Share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest Share on
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Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn Like Loading... Related Tagged Albany Post Road Crossining Bridge Croton Bay Pumping Station Crotonville School Harmon Indian Brook Reservoir Nikko Inn Ossining
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water system Parker-Bale American Legion Post No. 1597 Van Cortlandt Bridge Westchester County Historical Society Published August 19, 2013 October 15, 2017
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In 1925, when Alvah P. French published his multi-volume History of Westchester County New York most of the photographs he included were contemporary, showing the county as it was in the 1920s. 1 One can imagine a photographer, driving all over
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Westchester with a list of historic sites, stopping to take this unusual view of Ossining’s famous Double Arch. Is that the photographer’s car? For more traditional images, see this post , celebrating the recent restoration of the Double Arch
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promenade. French left us more than his book. The Westchester County Historical Society has his “42 volumes of scrapbooks filled with clippings from Mount Vernon and other Westchester newspapers. The clippings, which cover the period from about 1880
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until 1920, include obituaries, marriage notices, biographical sketches and other articles about the people of Westchester.” See the “scrapbooks” descriptions here . ↩ Share this: Print (Opens in new window) Print Email a link to a friend (Opens in
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new window) Email Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Share on X (Opens in new window) X Share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
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Like Loading... Related Tagged Double Arch Sing Sing Kill Published August 22, 2013
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Unknown photographer, [Ninth Avenue from Gansevoort Street looking North], ca. 1870-1880. Gelatin silver print. New-York Historical Society Here’s a rare photograph of the tracks of the West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway Company from the Tumblr
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blog of the New York Historical Society . As we recounted in a previous post Richard T. Underhill, the “Grape King” of Croton Point, was an investor in this company—which began the New York City transportation system. Click on the photo to enlarge
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it. Share this: Print (Opens in new window) Print Email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Share on X (Opens in new window) X Share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest Share on
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Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn Like Loading... Related Tagged Richard T. Underhill Underhill Vineyard West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway Company Published August 23, 2013 August 23, 2013
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Here are two priceless “bird’s eye” views of the Croton Aqueduct, made eight years apart during the period when New York City was rapidly outgrowing the capacity of what we now call the Old Croton Aqueduct. One map looks north, showing the burgeoning
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metropolis in 1879—straining the water supply system with its unrelenting growth. The other looks south—to the future—showing both the path of the New Croton Aqueduct tunnel and the then-planned location (later abandoned) of “the most massive
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structure of its kind in the world,” the Quaker Bridge Dam. The City of New York. Will L. Taylor, chief draughtsman. New York, Galt & Hoy, 1879. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Click to enlarge. Taylor’s 1879 New York City Map In a fascinating
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article about three-dimensional maps of New York City, the website Codex 99 calls this map “the first true attempt at a perspective map of the city . . . [The] four-sheet engraving, published by Galt & Hoy, attempted to label all roads and piers and
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depict buildings to (at least a more appropriate) scale using a vanishing perspective. It was a stunning achievement for the time.” 1 The map is so detailed that it shows all three major components of the Old Croton Aqueduct in New York City: High
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Bridge and the High Bridge Water Tower The Receiving Reservoir in Central Park The Distributing Reservoir at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, now the site of the New York Public Library High Bridge and the High Bridge Water Tower. Click to enlarge. The
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Receiving Reservoir in Central Park. Click to enlarge. The Distributing Reservoir at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. Click to enlarge. Scientific American , 1887 The cover of the June 4, 1887 issue of Scientific American featured a bird’s eye view map
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looking south, from the Putnam County border to New York City and beyond. The accompanying article said the map “clearly presents the course of the Croton River, the location of Muscoot, Croton, and the proposed Quaker Bridge dams, and in the dotted
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line shows the line of the old aqueduct and in the full black line shows the course of the new aqueduct.” The Old and New Croton Aqueduct System, looking south from Putnam County. Scientific American , 1887. Click to enlarge. When this map was
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published the New Croton Aqueduct tunnel was three years away from completion and the dam was still in the planning stages. 2 The narrow part of the Croton, where today’s Quaker Bridge crosses the river, was one of several areas subjected to