✈️ To Air is Human • No. 9 • June 2024 • How a Resurrected Dead Pond Shaped the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse Area
🐸 THE POND HAS RISEN!!!
Photo: Walking toward the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse at sundown on Thursday, May 30, 2024. (No filter needed).
Dearest Ladies & Germs,
I can’t imagine how elated devastated you’ve been without your monthly dose of To Air is Human. I’m sorry to go AWOL. It was an acutely busy spell, and well, I’m only humman. (See what I did there?) (Wait, what’s that? You didn’t even notice or care?!?! Impossible! 😉 I kid. That said, the center of the universe is a very crowded place, and I, too, spend far too much time there.)
Anyway, on Thursday, May 30, 2024, I walked toward the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse at sundown. I’m not entirely sure what was happening, but it looked like some sort of event. Lots of cops. Lots of cameras. Lots of baggy-eyed reporters eating cold pizza. Maybe WrestleMania 42? (I thought I saw 1980s WWF superstar Nikolai Volkoff giving his WrestleMania hot-take near a hotdog stand, but then, sadly, I realized Volkoff died in 2018).
Photo: Wrestlemania 42 poster of a random wrestler
None of it mattered to me. I was there to learn about the history of Collect Pond Park, the green space across from the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, and how its namesake pond transformed the area from a natural wonderland to a lavish neighborhood to the nation’s first great slum to the New York Civic Center.
The Versch Water of New Amsterdam
In the early 1600s, a 60-foot-deep pond sprawled over five acres across the land that now holds the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse. Known as Versch Water, or simply “the kolch,” by early Dutch settlers, the subterranean-spring-fed pond, once a cherished spot of the Lenape tribes, was hedged in by wooded hills that stretched across New Amsterdam, the 17th-century Dutch settlement at the southern tip of present-day Manhattan.
Kolch to Collect
On September 8, 1664, after 40 years of Dutch rule, the English seized New Amsterdam and renamed the settlement “New York.” At the same time, they bastardized the word “kolch,” a Dutch term for “small body of water,” to “collect.” Collect Pond was born.
Halcyon Days & Human Waste
In the 17th and early 18th centuries, Collect Pond was a hub for fishing, skating, and general merriment, but as New York grew (and grew and grew), waste from nearby tanneries and slaughterhouses and coal-burning factories poisoned the pond.
“Suds and filth are emptied into this pond,” reported the New York Journal in 1785, “besides dead dogs, cats, etc. thrown in daily, and no doubt, many buckets (of human excrements) from that quarter of town.”
Eleven years later, in 1796, a city engineer declared Collect Pond, now a cesspool, “foul.” The city decided to bury the disease-breeding bog.
Putrid Paradise
With the dead pond buried, the city built Paradise Square, a ritzy New York neighborhood. But soon, like Christ, Collect Pond rose from the dead and condemned the rich (only in reverse). Seriously, Collect Pond refused to die, so the city began filling the land. By 1808, an acres-long heap of scummy mud stretched near Paradise Square. Four years later, a grand jury declared the area held “great quantities of stagnant water … dead animals and filth of all kinds.”
So, the wealthy pulled their stakes and skipped town. In the early 19th century, a less fortunate crowd moved into the undesirable area. Their dirty ways mirrored the mire once known as Collect Pond, turning the neighborhood into Five Points, the nation’s first great slum, home to the infamous gangs of New York. In the 20th century, the city then transformed the lawless Five Points region into the New York Civic Center, home to City Hall, courthouses, and federal buildings—a hub of law and order.
Today, directly across from Collect Pond Park, the site of the old Collect Pond, New Yorkers, many accused of unclean crimes, face their fates at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse.
Also, WrestleMania 42.
Tootles,
Leo
Writings
Hey, I published something new. Hope you enjoyed the eclipse.
How Ancient Humans Studied—And Predicted—Solar Eclipses
Dragon bones, mysterious carvings and simple math reveal ancient eclipses
Fun Project
I’m still working on a fun project. Remember: It’s fun to have fun!
Lulu’s Corner
Okay, we’ve once again come to the best part of To Air is Human, Lulu’s Corner, where I share photos of our adorable daughter, Jane Louise “Lulu” DeLuca. Lu turned 20 months old on June 10. Claire and I love this babe dearly. She’s the light of our lives.
Lincoln Road Playground.
A late-spring stoop popsicle. (She looks so big here!)
Goldfish + lensless plastic glasses + Vanderbilt Playground.
What wonder.
Sources
New York City Department of Parks & Recreation
The Gotham Center for New York City History
Tenement Museum
Collect Pond Park interpretive signs