Mad River, Waterbury

On the east side of Waterbury, the post-industrial Connecticut city that used to manufacture brass products and clocks, there is a partially covered stream with a crazy name. Its flow once powered the mills that made Waterbury prosper but after the mills departed in search of cheap labor, nature returned to the banks of Mad River.

The covered portion of Mad River flows beneath a shopping center’s parking lot, a missed opportunity for daylighting. In other places, it is obscured by highways running along its course, such as McMahon Street, which itself is in the shadow of Baldwin Street, seen above.

Harlem Meer, Manhattan

The northernmost of Central Park’s lakes shares its name with the neighborhood to its immediate north. Harlem Meer occupies the former confluence of Montayne’s Rivulet and Harlem Creek, a point where these two freshwater streams widened into a brackish estuary on their way towards the East River.

In the initial allocation of land for Central Park, the site of Harlem Meer would have been excluded from the park, its untouched terrain  would likely have been buried beneath urban development. In 1863, the park was expanded north to 110th Street, encompassing the North Woods, a set of abandoned fortifications from the War of 1812 and the marsh where the creeks met.