Origins of the Bronx River Parkway

The Bronx Valley Sewer Commission

The Bronx River Parkway Reservation was primarily conceived as a pollution-control project to relieve the severe contamination of the Bronx River in the late nineteenth century. Like most urban streams of the era, the Bronx River served as an open sewer and public dumping ground. According to parkway promoters, numerous factories, housing developments, small farms, and businesses located between the Bronx and White Plains were using the river as "promiscuous dumping grounds for refuse of all kinds." Periodic flooding compounded the problems, especially during spring freshets. After floodwaters receded, low-lying areas along the river were covered with sewage and mosquito-breeding pools that threatened public health.(12)

The earliest mention of a roadway along the Bronx River came in 1895, when the New York State Legislature created a commission to study the feasibility of building a sewer and highway along the Bronx River through New York and Westchester counties. The Bronx Valley Sewer Commission’s 1896 report detailed the situation along the river, noting that "all kinds of sewage refuse and factory waste" were dumped into the river. "Barnyards, privies, cesspools, gas-house refuse, the watery part of White Plains’ sewage disposal works, drains from houses," continued the report, added "unsanitary and foul-smelling contributions." The commission’s public hearings confirmed that the Bronx River had become an open sewer.(13)

The Bronx Valley Sewer Commission evaluated several options for solving the pollution problems, including covering the river and directing all sewage into it. This solution was both expensive and impractical as the river lacked the necessary water volume to keep the sewage moving during the dry season. Enclosing the river in this fashion would also cause problems in periods of high water, since it would not be able to accommodate the water volume generated by heavy rains and spring floods. Another proposed solution was to build a single sewage disposal plant or a series of disposal works along the river, but this was deemed too expensive. Engineers instead recommended that a sewer be constructed along the river and that the Bronx River be deepened and straightened to improve drainage and control flooding.(14)

The commission reported that a road through the Bronx Valley could be built over the sewer. It acknowledged that there was already a dirt track known as the "pipeline road" through most of the distance of the valley and that this driveway could be made continuous if desired. If the pipeline road did not meet acceptable standards, a more substantial highway could be built at minimal cost within the sewer reservation and could be constructed as community needs demanded. The road’s grades would be light as it could be built on the low-lying land. The commission also pointed out that a highway through the sewer reservation would provide direct and easy communication between New York City’s park and boulevard systems and city lands around Lake Kensico in Westchester County. "This highway, and the reservation with the river flowing through it," the study advised, could become "a beautiful and picturesque feature of the section at a very small expense . . . since it is naturally very picturesque."(15) This statement appears to be the earliest written suggestion of a Bronx River reservation dedicated to recreation and scenic appreciation.

(12)Downer, "Public Parks in Westchester County," 961.
(13)Bronx Valley Sewer Commission, "Report of the Bronx Valley Sewer Commission, Organized Under Chapter 1021, Laws of 1895" (New York: Martin B. Brown), 1, 4.
(14)"Report of the Bronx Valley Sewer Commission," 5-6.
(15)"Report of the Bronx Valley Sewer Commission," 40-41.