HISTORY NOW!
Collect Pond to the Holland Tunnel-Canal Street
By Brian J Pape, AIA, LEED-AP
Where Canal Street terminates at West Street there is Canal Park, a small fenced triangular garden surrounded by busy streets. This park and Canal Street are only two blocks south of the West Village border, still within the Community Board 2 district. The history behind this unremarkable park reflects the timeline of the growth of New York City. Credit: Brian J Pape, AIA.
For the large, irregularly shaped, spring-fed, pond, Collect Pond was the English name, derived from the Dutch Kalck, meaning chalk or lime, probably referring to oysters, according to oldstreets.com. The pond was an important source of drinking water in colonial times, but as humans tend to foul their own nests, it became progressively more polluted. Since the water was an environmental hazard, the city rejected Pierre L’Enfant’s plan to clean up the pond and chose a crude way to resolve the problem; they dug a 40-foot-wide canal to drain the Collect into the Hudson River and filled in the swampy pond between 1802 and 1813, as noted in Wikipedia.org.
Like other parts of Manhattan after the 1811 grid, the city evened out the depression by excavating the nearby Bayard’s Mount and Bunker Hill, the highest points in Manhattan. But the fill was poorly done, and for years after the fill has continued emitting methane, and settling, cracking sidewalks, streets and buildings.
The infamous Five Points neighborhood near the five-way intersection of Anthony, Cross and Park streets was mainly built on the poorly filled-in Collect Pond. From the 1820s to the early 1900s, this slum was notorious for its crime and squalor. Most of the neighborhood buildings were replaced by courthouses and other public buildings in the early 20th century, and the neighborhood is now centered on Columbus Park, although there is also a small Collect Pond Park along Centre Street.
Initially, the canal was bordered by two tree-lined thoroughfares running at a diagonal line to the northwest following a natural ravine, conveying a stream from the underground spring that had fed the pond. By 1821 the canal was turned into an underground sewer, with a street built above which runs the same course as Canal Street today.
At the other end of Canal Street, near the Hudson River, a basin was built in 1810, occupying the area between Spring Street and the projected line of Broome Street. In 1820, the basin was filled in and Canal Street was continued through it, dividing it into two triangles. The southerly triangle partly became Canal (Street) Park. The northerly triangle was later partly the site of the Clinton Market before becoming the city Salt Shed Building, completed in 2015 by Dattner Architects and WXY Architects.
That would not be the end of the water connection of Canal Street. Plans for a fixed vehicular crossing across the Hudson River were first proposed in 1906, when both a bridge and a tunnel were considered. The tunnel wasn’t started until 1920, opening in 1927. Initially considered the Canal Street Tunnel, it was ultimately named the Holland Tunnel in memory of Clifford Milburn Holland, its initial chief engineer who died suddenly in 1924.
The location of The Holland Tunnel was the natural geological cleavage that occurs at Canal Street. The westbound traffic tube ramp originates at Broome Street between Varick and Hudson Streets, then tunnels under Spring Street until it converges with Canal Street.
This street map of the western end of Canal Street shows the angle of Canal Street relative to the other streets and the tunnel crossing the Hudson River. Credit: Apple maps.
Once a major freshwater water source in lower Manhattan, the spring-fed Collect Pond occupied the land in the area roughly bounded by today’s Duane, Centre, Walker, Canal and Mulberry Streets, and Cardinal Hayes Place. Credit: Apple maps with VV notes.
The eastbound tube ramp comes up under Canal Street until it ends at the Holland Tunnel Rotary just south of Canal. In its early years, the tunnel ended at Canal Street, creating a huge traffic problem.
At the time of its opening, it was the longest continuous underwater tunnel for vehicular traffic in the world and was the world’s first mechanically ventilated tunnel. Each tube has a 29.5-foot diameter and the two tubes are spaced 15 feet apart. The lowest point of the roadways is about 93 feet below mean high water.
The tunnel was designated a National Historic Civil and Mechanical Engineering Landmark in 1982 and a National Historic Landmark in 1993.
In 2013-14, the Hudson Square Connection (a BID) and the Port Authority planned improvements for Freeman Plaza on the north side of Canal, originally used as the toll plazas until 1971. Now open to the public with trees and seating, it allows pedestrian use among the incessant traffic.
Today, Canal Street still suffers from the volume of trucks and cars entering Manhattan from New Jersey through the tunnel. DOT has promised for years to make Canal safer and easier to use, but we’re still waiting to see some results.
