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1) What kind of shape was the Brook in before it was paved over ?
a) were there fish and other wildlife in it ?
b) or were raw sewage and industrial wastes allowed to flow into it ? Was garbage routinely tossed into it ?
c) did the citizenry respect it or was it considered a nuisance ?
d) in one of the maps in the Hedley Hall thread the future site of Gaelic Park shows the Brook meandering through it and also a whimsical sounding Tibbetts Brook Dock Club.
I doubt the Brook was navigable – was this maybe a private Club/Tavern ?
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Hi there.
From what I have read…
1A) There were fish and other wildlife in the brook. In this forum thread, you can see a photo of a man fishing where Gaelic Park is today. Kingsbridge was well known as a good fishing spot.
1B) I have not seen anything about industrial waste or sewage flowing into it. While there was no sewer system until the 20th century, the homes had outhouses in their back yards. Locals swam in Tibbetts Brook so it probably was not too bad.
1C) I think the large landholders that owned property in Kingsbridge stood to gain financially from burying Tibbetts Brook. Once the land was dry, it became valuable for development. The neighborhood was prone to flooding as well from all of the waterways and locals were agitating to have sewers installed. There is more information about that in this forum thread.
The salt marshes adjacent to the brook were not desirable by the late 1800s. This is from an 1869 Yonkers Statesman newspaper article:
1D) Tibbetts Brook could not have been navigable for large boats but it was for smaller ones. There was a town dock near the site of Gaelic Park. It was used a landing back in the 1700s and it was called “Stony Brook Landing.”
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