Source of Westchester Creek, Bronx

Westchester Creek is a head-scratcher for travelers as it is named after the county north of The Bronx, but doesn’t flow anywhere near it and never did. Prior to 1895, eastern Bronx was part of Westchester County and the neighborhood near this stream is named Westchester Square. This explains the stream’s name.

The present Westchester Creek is a tidal inlet of the East River with its head at East Tremont Avenue. Prior to the 1950s, the creek flowed further inland where the Bronx Psychiatric Center and the Hutchinson Metro Center stand today. When there’s enough rainfall, a vernal pond next to this office complex hints at the phantom stream that flowed here.

Trump Links at Ferry Point Park

In the course of choosing which waterways to profile in my book, the city’s golf courses hold many of them, including natural streams, inlets of the sea and artificial ponds used as water traps. Generally, I avoided those designed as part of a course with no natural history predating the links.

And then there’s Trump Links at Ferry Point Park in the Bronx, an upscale course that transformed a former trash landfill into a landscape of rolling hills reminiscent of Trump’s two courses in Scotland.

Westchester Creek, Bronx

On my travels north from home, I often use the Whitestone Bridge, whose roadway continues north as the Huthinson River Parkway. After emerging from the tangle of ramps it shares with Cross Bronx Expressway and Bruckner Expressway, it follows a stream for nearly a mile. But it’s not the parkway’s namesake. Not yet.

It’s an obscure inlet that shares its name with the county to the city’s north. This is the story of Westchester Creek.

A book and a blog

What inspired me to write a book about the hidden waterways within New York City? Read on…