If you're a collector of rare and valuable books, then this is an item you definitely don't want to miss out on! This incredible book from 1925 delves into the fascinating history of East River New York and the many century-old residential buildings that have stood the test of time. Discover the stories behind these incredible architectural wonders and learn about the efforts being made to restore them to their former glory. With stunning photographs and detailed descriptions, this book is the perfect addition to any collection of antiquarian and collectible items.

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The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary or strait in New York City. The waterway, which is actually not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island, with the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, from Manhattan Island, and from the Bronx on the North American mainland.

Because of its connection to Long Island Sound, it was once also known as the Sound River.[2] The tidal strait changes its direction of flow regularly, and is subject to strong fluctuations in its current, which are accentuated by its narrowness and variety of depths. The waterway is navigable for its entire length of 16 miles (26 km), and was historically the center of maritime activities in the city.

Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the land north of the East River was occupied by the Siwanoys, one of many groups of Algonquin-speaking Lenapes in the area. Those of the Lenapes who lived in the northern part of Manhattan Island in a campsite known as Konaande Kongh used a landing at around the current location of East 119th street to paddle into the river in canoes fashioned from tree trunks in order to fish.[15]

Dutch settlement of what became New Amsterdam began in 1623.[16] Some of the earliest of the small settlements in the area were along the west bank of the East River on sites that had previously been Native American settlements. As with the Native Americans, the river was central to their lives for transportation for trading and for fishing.[17] They gathered marsh grass to feed their cattle, and the East River's tides helped to power mills which ground grain to flour. By 1642 there was a ferry running on the river between Manhattan island and what is now Brooklyn, and the first pier on the river was built in 1647 at Pearl and Broad Streets. After the British took over the colony in 1664, which was renamed "New York", the development of the waterfront continued, and a shipbuilding industry grew up once New York started exporting flour. By the end of the 17th century, the Great Dock, located at Corlear's Hook on the East River, had been built.[16]

Narrowing the river

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Historically, the lower portion of the strait, which separates Manhattan from Brooklyn, was one of the busiest and most important channels in the world, particularly during the first three centuries of New York City's history. Because the water along the lower Manhattan shoreline was too shallow for large boats to tie up and unload their goods, from 1686 on – after the signing of the Dongan Charter, which allowed intertidal land to be owned and sold – the shoreline was "wharfed out" to the high-water mark by constructing retaining walls that were filled in with every conceivable kind of landfill: excrement, dead animals, ships deliberately sunk in place, ship ballast, and muck dredged from the bottom of the river. On the new land were built warehouses and other structures necessary for the burgeoning sea trade. Many of the "water-lot" grants went to the rich and powerful families of the merchant class, although some went to tradesmen. By 1700, the Manhattan bank of the river had been "wharfed-out" up to around Whitehall Street, narrowing the strait of the river.[18]

A "bird's-eye" view of New York City from 1859; Wallabout Bay and the East River are in the foreground, the Hudson River and New York Bay in the background

After the signing of the Montgomerie Charter in the late 1720s, another 127 acres of land along the Manhattan shore of the East River was authorized to be filled-in, this time to a point 400 feet beyond the low-water mark; the parts that had already been expanded to the low water mark – much of which had been devastated by a coastal storm in the early 1720s and a nor'easter in 1723 – were also expanded, narrowing the channel even further. What had been quiet beach land was to become new streets and buildings, and the core of the city's sea-borne trade. This infilling went as far north as Corlear's Hook. In addition, the city was given control of the western shore of the river from Wallabout Bay south.[19]

American Revolution

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Expansion of the waterfront halted during the American Revolution, in which the East River played an important role early in the conflict. On August 28, 1776, while British and Hessian troops rested after besting the Americans at the Battle of Long Island, General George Washington was rounding up all the boats on the east shore of the river, in what is now Brooklyn, and used them to successfully move his troops across the river – under cover of night, rain, and fog – to Manhattan island, before the British could press their advantage. Thus, though the battle was a victory for the British, the failure of Sir William Howe to destroy the Continental Army when he had the opportunity allowed the Americans to continue fighting. Without the stealthy withdrawal across the East River, the American Revolution might have ended much earlier.[20]

Wallabout Bay on the River was the site of most of the British prison ships – most notoriously HMS Jersey – where thousands of American prisoners of war were held in terrible conditions. These prisoners had come into the hands of the British after the fall of New York City on September 15, 1776, after the American loss at the Battle of Long Island and the loss of Fort Washington on November 16. Prisoners began to be housed on the broken-down warships and transports in December; about 24 ships were used in total, but generally only 5 or 6 at a time. Almost twice as many Americans died from neglect in these ships than did from all the battles in the war: as many as 12,000 soldiers, sailors and civilians. The bodies were thrown overboard or were buried in shallow graves on the riverbanks, but their bones – some of which were collected when they washed ashore – were later relocated and are now inside the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument in nearby Fort Greene Park. The existence of the ships and the conditions the men were held in was widely known at the time through letters, diaries and memoirs, and was a factor not only in the attitude of Americans toward the British, but in the negotiations to formally end the war.[21]

Development begins again

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After the war, East River waterfront development continued once more. New York State legislation, which in 1807 had authorized what would become the Commissioners Plan of 1811, authorized the creation of new land out to 400 feet from the low water mark into the river, and with the advent of gridded streets along the new waterline – Joseph Mangin had laid out such a grid in 1803 in his A Plan and Regulation of the City of New York, which was rejected by the city, but established the concept – the coastline become regularized at the same time that the strait became even narrower.[22]

One result of the narrowing of the East River along the shoreline of Manhattan and, later, Brooklyn – which continued until the mid-19th century when the state put a stop to it – was an increase in the speed of its current. Buttermilk Channel, the strait that divides Governors Island from Red Hook in Brooklyn, and which is located directly south of the "mouth" of the East River, was in the early 17th century a fordable waterway across which cattle could be driven. Further investigation by Colonel Jonathan Williams determined that the channel was by 1776 three fathoms deep (18 feet (5.5 m)), five fathoms deep (30 feet (9.1 m)) in the same spot by 1798, and when surveyed by Williams in 1807 had deepened to 7 fathoms (42 feet (13 m)) at low tide. What had been almost a bridge between two landforms that were once connected had become a fully navigable channel, thanks to the constriction of the East River and the increased flow it caused. Soon, the current in the East River had become so strong that larger ships had to use auxiliary steam power in order to turn.[23] The continued narrowing of the channel on both side may have been the reasoning behind the suggestion of one New York State Senator, who wanted to fill in the East River and annex Brooklyn, with the cost of doing so being covered by selling the newly made land.[24] Others proposed a dam at Roosevelt Island (then Blackwell's Island) to create a wet basin for shipping.

Filling in part of the river was also proposed in 1867 by engineer James E. Serrell, later a city surveyor, but with emphasis on solving the problem of Hell Gate. Serrell proposed filling in Hell Gate and building a "New East River" through Queens with an extension to Westchester County.[25][26][27] Serrell's plan – which he publicized with maps, essay and lectures as well as presentations to the city, state and federal governments – would have filled in the river from 14th Street to 125th Street. The New East River through Queens would be about three times the average width of the existing one at an even 3,600 feet (1,100 m) throughout, and would run as straight as an arrow for five miles (8.0 km). The new land, and the portions of Queens which would become part of Manhattan, adding 2,500 acres (1,000 ha), would be covered with an extension of the existing street grid of Manhattan.[28]

Variations on Serrell's plan would be floated over the years. A pseudonymous "Terra Firma" brought up filling in the East River again in the Evening Post and Scientific American in 1904, and Thomas Alva Edison took it up in 1906. Then Thomas Kennard Thompson, a bridge and railway engineer, proposed in 1913 to fill in the river from Hell Gate to the tip of Manhattan and, as Serrell had suggested, make a new canalized East River, only this time from Flushing Bay to Jamaica Bay. He would also expand Brooklyn into the Upper Harbor, put up a dam from Brooklyn to Staten Island, and make extensive landfill in the Lower Bay. At around the same time, in the 1920s, John A. Harriss, New York City's chief traffic engineer, who had developed the first traffic signals in the city, also had plans for the river. Harriss wanted to dam the East River at Hell Gate and the Williamsburg Bridge, then remove the water, put a roof over it on stilts, and build boulevards and pedestrian lanes on the roof along with "majestic structures", with transportation services below. The East River's course would, once again, be shifted to run through Queens, and this time Brooklyn as well, to channel it to the Harbor.[29]

Clearing Hell Gate

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Main article: Removal of Hell Gate rocks

Periodically, merchants and other interested parties would try to get something done about the difficulty of navigating through Hell Gate. In 1832, the New York State legislature was presented with a petition for a canal to be built through nearby Hallet's Point, thus avoiding Hell Gate altogether. Instead, the legislature responded by providing ships with pilots trained to navigate the shoals for the next 15 years.[30]

In 1849, a French engineer whose specialty was underwater blasting, Benjamin Maillefert, had cleared some of the rocks which, along with the mix of tides, made the Hell Gate stretch of the river so dangerous to navigate. Ebenezer Meriam had organized a subscription to pay Maillefert $6,000 to, for instance, reduce "Pot Rock" to provide 24 feet (7.3 m) of depth at low-mean water. While ships continued to run aground (in the 1850s about 2% of ships did so) and petitions continued to call for action, the federal government undertook surveys of the area which ended in 1851 with a detailed and accurate map.[30] By then Maillefert had cleared the rock "Baldheaded Billy", and it was reported that Pot Rock had been reduced to 20.5 feet (6.2 m), which encouraged the United States Congress to appropriate $20,000 for further clearing of the strait. However, a more accurate survey showed that the depth of Pot Rock was actually a little more than 18 feet (5.5 m), and eventually Congress withdrew its funding.[31]

With the main shipping channels through The Narrows into the harbor silting up with sand due to littoral drift, thus providing ships with less depth, and a new generation of larger ships coming online – epitomized by Isambard Kingdom Brunel's SS Great Eastern, popularly known as "Leviathan" – New York began to be concerned that it would start to lose its status as a great port if a "back door" entrance into the harbor was not created.[32] In the 1850s the depth continued to lessen – the harbor commission said in 1850 that the mean water low was 24 feet (7.3 m) and the extreme water low was 23 feet (7.0 m) – while the draft required by the new ships continued to increase, meaning it was only safe for them to enter the harbor at high tide.[33]

The U.S. Congress, realizing that the problem needed to be addressed, appropriated $20,000 for the Army Corps of Engineers to continue Maillefert's work.[34] In 1851, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, "under Lt. Bartlett of the Army Corps of Engineers," [35] began to do the job, in an operation which was to span 70 years.[36] The appropriated money was soon spent without appreciable change in the hazards of navigating the strait. An advisory council recommended in 1856 that the strait be cleared of all obstacles, but nothing was done, and the Civil War soon broke out

In the late 1860s, after the Civil War, Congress realized the military importance of having easily navigable waterways, and charged the Army Corps of Engineers with clearing Hell Gate. Newton estimated that the operation would cost about half as much as the annual losses in shipping. The 2021 book by Thomas Barthel titled Opening the East River: John Newton and the Blasting of Hell Gate traces Newton's work on this project from 1866 to 1885. On September 24, 1876, the Corps used 50,000 pounds (23,000 kg) of explosives to blast the rocks, which was followed by further blasting.[37] The process was started by excavating under Hallets reef from Astoria. Cornish miners, assisted by steam drills, dug galleries under the reef, which were then interconnected. They later drilled holes for explosives. A patent was issued for the detonating device. After the explosion, the rock debris was dredged and dropped into a deep part of the river. This was not repeated at the later Flood Rock explosion.

On October 10, 1885, the Corps carried out the largest explosion in this process, annihilating Flood Rock with 300,000 pounds (140,000 kg) of explosives.[38] The blast was felt as far away as Princeton, New Jersey (50 miles).[38] It sent a geyser of water 250 feet (76 m) in the air.[39] The blast has been described as "the largest planned explosion before testing began for the atomic bomb",[39] although the detonation at the Battle of Messines in 1917 was larger. Some of the rubble from the detonation was used in 1890 to fill the gap between Great Mill Rock and Little Mill Rock, merging the two islands into a single island, Mill Rock.[38]

At the same time that Hell Gate was being cleared, the Harlem River Ship Canal was being planned. When it was completed in 1895, the "back door" to New York's center of ship-borne trade in the docks and warehouses of the East River was open from two directions, through the cleared East River, and from the Hudson River through the Harlem River to the East River.[40] Ironically, though, while both forks of the northern shipping entrance to the city were now open, modern dredging techniques had cut through the sandbars of the Atlantic Ocean entrance, allowing new, even larger ships to use that traditional passage into New York's docks.[41]

At the beginning of the 19th century, the East River was the center of New York's shipping industry, but by the end of the century, much of it had moved to the Hudson River, leaving the East River wharves and slips to begin a long process of decay, until the area was finally rehabilitated in the mid-1960s, and the South Street Seaport Museum was opened in 1967.[42]

A new seawall

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By 1870, the condition of the Port of New York along both the East and Hudson Rivers had so deteriorated that the New York State legislature created the Department of Docks to renovate the port and keep New York competitive with other ports on the American East Coast. The Department of Docks was given the task of creating the master plan for the waterfront, and General George B. McClellan was engaged to head the project. McClellan held public hearings and invited plans to be submitted, ultimately receiving 70 of them, although in the end he and his successors put his own plan into effect. That plan called for the building of a seawall around Manhattan island from West 61st Street on the Hudson, around The Battery, and up to East 51st Street on the East River. The area behind the masonry wall (mostly concrete but in some parts granite blocks) would be filled in with landfill, and wide streets would be laid down on the new land. In this way, a new edge for the island (or at least the part of it used as a commercial port) would be created.[43]

The department had surveyed 13,700 feet (4,200 m) of shoreline by 1878, as well as documenting the currents and tides. By 1900, 75 miles (121 km) had been surveyed and core samples had been taken to inform the builders of how deep the bedrock was. The work was completed just as World War I began, allowing the Port of New York to be a major point of embarkation for troops and materiel.[43]

The new seawall helps protect Manhattan island from storm surges, although it is only 5 feet (1.5 m) above the mean sea level, so that particularly dangerous storms, such as the nor'easter of 1992 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which hit the city in a way to create surges which are much higher, can still do significant damage. (The Hurricane of September 3, 1821, created the biggest storm surge on record in New York City: a rise of 13 feet (4.0 m) in one hour at the Battery, flooding all of lower Manhattan up to Canal Street.) Still, the new seawall begun in 1871 gave the island a firmer edge, improved the quality of the port, and continues to protect Manhattan from normal storm surges.[43]

Bridges and tunnels

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See also: § Crossings

The Brooklyn Bridge, completed in 1883, was the first bridge to span the East River, connecting the cities of New York and Brooklyn, and all but replacing the frequent ferry service between them, which did not return until the late 20th century. The bridge offered cable car service across the span. The Brooklyn Bridge was followed by the Williamsburg Bridge (1903), the Queensboro Bridge (1909), the Manhattan Bridge (1912) and the Hell Gate Railroad Bridge (1916). Later would come the Triborough Bridge (1936), the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge (1939), the Throgs Neck Bridge (1961) and the Rikers Island Bridge (1966). In addition, numerous rail tunnels pass under the East River – most of them part of the New York City Subway system – as does the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. (See Crossings below for details.) Also under the river is Water Tunnel #1 of the New York City water supply system, built in 1917 to extend the Manhattan portion of the tunnel to Brooklyn, and via City Tunnel #2 (1936) to Queens; these boroughs became part of New York City after the city's consolidation in 1898.[44][45] City Tunnel #3 will also run under the river, under the northern tip of Roosevelt Island, and is expected to not be completed until at least 2026;[46][47] the Manhattan portion of the tunnel went into service in 2013.

Philanthropist John D. Rockefeller founded what is now Rockefeller University in 1901, between 63rd and 64th Streets on the river side of York Avenue, overlooking the river. The university is a research university for doctoral and post-doctoral scholars, primarily in the fields of medicine and biological science. North of it is one of the major medical centers in the city, NewYork Presbyterian / Weill Cornell Medical Center, which is associated with the medical schools of both Columbia University and Cornell University. Although it can trace its history back to 1771, the center on York Avenue, much of which overlooks the river, was built in 1932.

The East River was the site of one of the greatest disasters in the history of New York City when, in June 1904, the PS General Slocum sank near North Brother Island due to a fire. It was carrying 1,400 German-Americans to a picnic site on Long Island for an annual outing. There were only 321 survivors of the disaster, one of the worst losses of life in the city's long history, and a devastating blow to the Little Germany neighborhood on the Lower East Side. The captain of the ship and the managers of the company that owned it were indicted, but only the captain was convicted; he spent 3 and a half years of his 10-year sentence at Sing Sing Prison before being released by a Federal parole board, and then pardoned by President William Howard Taft.[49][50]

Beginning in 1934, and then again from 1948 to 1966, the Manhattan shore of the river became the location for the limited-access East River Drive, which was later renamed after Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and is universally known by New Yorkers as the "FDR Drive". The road is sometimes at grade, sometimes runs under locations such as the site of the Headquarters of the United Nations and Carl Schurz Park and Gracie Mansion – the mayor's official residence, and is at time double-decked, because Hell Gate provides no room for more landfill.[9] It begins at Battery Park, runs past the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg and Queensboro Bridges, and the Ward's Island Footbridge, and terminates just before the Robert F. Kennedy Triboro Bridge when it connects to the Harlem River Drive. Between most of the FDR Drive and the River is the East River Greenway, part of the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway. The East River Greenway was primarily built in connection with the building of the FDR Drive, although some portions were built as recently as 2002, and other sections are still incomplete.[51][52][53]

In 1963, Con Edison built the Ravenswood Generating Station on the Long Island City shore of the river, on land some of which was once stone quarries which provided granite and marble slabs for Manhattan's buildings. The plant has since been owned by KeySpan. National Grid and TransCanada, the result of deregulation of the electrical power industry. The station, which can generate about 20% of the electrical needs of New York City – approximately 2,500 megawatts – receives some of its fuel by oil barge.[54]

North of the power plant can be found Socrates Sculpture Park, an illegal dumpsite and abandoned landfill that in 1986 was turned into an outdoor museum, exhibition space for artists, and public park by sculptor Mark di Suvero and local activists. The area also contains Rainey Park, which honors Thomas C. Rainey, who attempted for 40 years to get a bridge built in that location from Manhattan to Queens. The Queensboro Bridge was eventually built south of this location.[54]

21st century

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In 2011, NY Waterway started operating its East River Ferry line.[55] The route was a 7-stop East River service that runs in a loop between East 34th Street and Hunters Point, making two intermediate stops in Brooklyn and three in Queens. The ferry, an alternative to the New York City Subway, cost $4 per one-way ticket.[55] It was instantly popular: from June to November 2011, the ferry saw 350,000 riders, over 250% of the initial ridership forecast of 134,000 riders.[56] In December 2016, in preparation for the start of NYC Ferry service the next year, Hornblower Cruises purchased the rights to operate the East River Ferry.[57][58] NYC Ferry started service on May 1, 2017, with the East River Ferry as part of the system.[59][60]

In February 2012 the federal government announced an agreement with Verdant Power to install 30 tidal turbines in the channel of the East River. The turbines were projected to begin operations in 2015 and are supposed to produce 1.05 megawatts of power.[61] The strength of the current foiled an earlier effort in 2007 to tap the river for tidal power.[62]

On May 7, 2017, the catastrophic failure of a Con Edison substation in Brooklyn caused a spill into the river of over 5,000 US gallons (18,927 L; 4,163 imp gal) of dielectric fluid, a synthetic mineral oil used to cool electrical equipment and prevent electrical discharges. (See below.)

At the end of 2022, gold miner John Reeves claimed that up to 50 tons of ice age artifacts bound for the American Museum of Natural History , including mammoth remains, had been dumped into the East River near 65th Street. Although the museum denied that any fossils had been dumped into the river, Reeves's allegations prompted commercial divers to search the river for evidence of mammoth bones.