For displaced, misplaced,
and nostalgic ex-Bronxites
| The Bronx River Cleanup and Activities |
 
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Posted by Alvin L. on Wed, Jun 12, 2024 Viewed a recent video of a kayaker going down 8 miles of the Bronx River from the northern boundary through Bronx Park and West Farms and finishing up where it meets the East River. The river looks to be in great shape compared to the murky waters of the 1950s & 1960s. Anyone have fond memories of doing things in the water or on the adjacent trails in the good old days? E.g. Fishing, Boating, Hiking etc Reference ID: bx92378 |
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Posted by John S on Thu, Jun 13, 2024 Sure ,lots of fun. At the bottom of the E180 falls ,there was always a pile of wood of all sizes.Us kids would wade over to the pile,and snag as much as we could.Usually there was rope,wire.chains to be found. So we would try to put a raft together .Of course someones mom would be watching.Usually we were lucky if the dam thing floated 10 feet or so before falling apart.One actually went past E180,heading to west farms.We crashed before any bad stuff happened.Every week or so,we would try again.And while I never tried it,walking across the top of the falls was a thing Reference ID: bx92379 |
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Posted by Lobo on Tue, Jun 18, 2024 My earliest memories of the BR goes back to about 1964. I had a fascinating for butterflies. My older brother took me to the banks to search & harvest a Monarch Caterpillar. This was at the site of the old Williams Bridge Crossing, roughly between Gun Hill & White Plains Road, on the eastern banks of the river. We found a clump of the Monarch's host plant along the shore (milkweed) and dug a plant up that had a Monarch caterpillar on it to bring back home & raise it to adult in our apt. on Hull Ave. I had never seen a Monarch before this! 55 years later, often recalling that time with fondness over the years, I planted a crop of milkweed in my yard to attract the Monarchs during the summer. Been doing this for about 5 years now. Every release of a new Monarch in my yard brings back those memories! Reference ID: bx92392 |
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Posted by Lobo on Tue, Jun 18, 2024 Sadly, from day one of the European settlers in NY, our native waterways started becoming cesspools of waste and contamination. The Collect Pond in Manhattan, the Bronx & Saw Mill Rivers, and Tibbett's Brook all fell victim to European colonization. The only thing that kept these waterways from becoming totally unpotable and able to sustain wildlife was that they were continuously being fed fresh waters from their sources upstream. That ended when these upstate sources north of NYC became populated as well. By the early 1800's or so, downstream BR was all but wastewater due to industry & human waste contamination starting in lower Westchester down through the Bronx. Even today, as I understand the below, the east bank of the BR in the northern Bronx can still be prone to contamination of raw sewage waste under excessive flooding conditions. This is due to the sewer & rainwater runoff "traps" engineered to accommodate the large buildings of the early/mid 20th. Century expansion (east bank of Shoelace Park & south). The factories, mills and homes that fed raw sewage may all be gone, but the city sewage system can still be a potential source of contamination when heavy rainfall overfills the roadway runoff drains (they normally empty into the Bx. River). When overfilled, the excess rainwater causes the overfill traps to divert the rainwater to the raw sewage pipe system (this does not empty into the Bx. River). This overflow, if excessive in turn can cause backflow back into the rainwater runoff pipes going into the Bx. River! This backflow is now a mix of raw sewage and rainwater. I do not believe that up to this day that has been resolved, but my understanding is that it occurs only under extreme conditions (when the traps become overfilled). Reference ID: bx92393 |
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Posted by Lobo To John S on Tue, Jun 18, 2024 A great story! Reference ID: bx92394 |