Collect Pond (Manhattan)

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The Collect Pond was a body of fresh water near the southern tip of Manhattan in New York City, covering approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and running as deep as 50 feet (15 m). It was located just north of today's Foley Square and just west of modern Chinatown. It has since been drained and converted into a city park.

On a modern map, "the Collect" (as it was at the beginning of the 19th century) would be bordered by Duane Street, Centre Street, Walker Street, Canal Street and Mulberry Street, and Cardinal Hayes Place.^[1]

As the city grew northward in the colonial era the Collect became an important source of fresh water. As municipal growth continued into the late 18th century, the pond (really a small lake) became polluted by seepage from privies and run-off from small industries, including tanneries, slaughterhouses and breweries.

Due to the extreme pollution, which had been implicated in small scale outbreaks of cholera and typhus, the Collect was condemned, and drained and filled in stages. A drainage canal was dug to both the Hudson and East rivers and was later filled in (present day Canal Street was built over it). Several decades would go by before New York City obtained a new, plentiful supply of fresh water from the Croton Aqueduct. The Five Points neighborhood, a notorious but vibrant slum, developed just off the former eastern bank of the Collect and owed its existence in some measure to the poor landfill job (completed in 1811) which created swampy, mosquito-ridden conditions on land that had originally attracted more well-to-do residents.

New York's Tombs Prison, built on Centre Street in 1838, also stood over the site of the pond and was constructed on a huge platform of hemlock logs in an attempt to give it secure foundations. The prison building began to subside almost as soon as it was completed and was notorious for leaks on its lowest tier and for its general dampness throughout its life. When the original Tombs building was condemned and pulled down at the end of the century, builders sank enormous concrete caissons to bedrock, up to 140 feet below street level, in order to give its replacement more secure foundations.

In 1960, the site of the Collect was turned over to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation for conversion into a park. Originally, the park was named "Civil Court Park" due to its proximity to the surrounding courthouse buildings. However, the park was renamed "Collect Pond Park" to more accurately reflect its history.