View of Washington Bridge with High Bridge in the foreground, viewed from the Bronx side, 1913.

Opened in 1842, High Bridge is New York city's oldest surviving bridge. A preeminent example of yankee ingenuity in conquering tremendous technological obstacles, it was designed by and its construction overseen by John Bloomfield Jervis, chief engineer of the Erie Canal. Jervis, for whom Port Jervis, New York was named, created a Roman-style aqueduct to carry water from the Croton Aqueduct pipes over the Harlem River from The Bronx to Manhattan, overcoming problems of varying land levels and difficult rock formations on both sides. Its beauty and innovative technology made the bridge an instant attraction for visitors, especially engineers from the United States and abroad, and a popular subject for painters and printmakers. The Croton enterprise introduced water from an upstate source to a rapidly growing New York City. Having crossed High Bridge, the Croton pipes continued down through Manhattan the the distributing reservoir at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. In 1927, when neighbors of High Bridge on both the Bronx and the Manhattan sides protested the proposed demolition of the bridge to enable movement of large naval vessels through the Harlem River, the compromise was the removal of five arches. This modification altered the appearance of the graceful structure, but saved it as a walkway. In a sense, High Bridge is a very early example of preservation. Although the bridge was designated a landmark by the New York Landmarks Commission in 1970, today it is fenced off.

Large wooden houses at the corner of Edgecombe Avenue and Jumel Place, 1932. Today, the site is the NYPD’s 33rd precinct, designed by Dattner Architects and built between 1997-2002.

Storefronts selling “fancy groceries,” tobacco products, stationery, and “premium hams & bacon” along Amsterdam Avenue, 1914. Note the cobblestoned roadway.

View of Washington Bridge, from the Manhattan side of the High Bridge, 1926. The Harlem River Speedway is visible along the water's edge.

563-565 West 170th Street, 1932. The building at left (no.565) remains, though you might not realize it. Looking at the current structure directly from the sidewalk in front, it looks to be a late 20th century structure: simple, red brick, no style. But, if one walks just slightly down the block to the east and looks back, the wood-frame house, complete with peaked roof, is visible.

Highbridge Park Center, June 20, 1940. The land next to the 1848 High Bridge is an appropriate location for a municipal swimming pool, being the original location of the old High Bridge Reservoir. The pool and play center opened July 14, 1936. The play center was designed in the same simplified Art Moderne style of the other 1936 pool houses. The building is particularly notable for its ashlar construction. Ashlar construction means the stones used to create the walls were finely and uniformly cut into their shape and as such create very thin joints between blocks. This type of masonry is visible in the long retaining wall that runs along Amsterdam Avenue. Another unique feature of the building was the lobby murals by artist Charles Clarke. The pool facilities have been renovated a number of times since the 1960s.The earliest work either covered up or destroyed the lobby murals. Along with a number of the other WPA pools, High Bridge underwent a renovation project in the early 1980s that updated the heating, ventilation, electrical, and filtration systems and made the facilities handicap accessible. More recent work on the pool occurred in the late 1990s and in 2015 the actual High Bridge itself was reopened to the public after being closed for more than 40 years.

High bridge, viewed from the Bronx side, 1892. Built between 1837 and 1848, the original stone arch bridge was designed to carry fresh water, via the Croton Aqueduct without impeding shipping traffic on the Harlem River below. In 1864, a pedestrian walkway was added to the bridge. In 1929, five of the masonry arches above the river were replaced with a single steel arch, simplifying navigation. The bridge continued to carry Manhattan-bound drinking water until 1949. After water supply use was discontinued, the promenade was closed due to safety and vandalism concerns in the 1970s. A refurbished walkway reopened in June 2015.

High Bridge Water Tower, ca. 1912. This 200-feet-tall stone tower was designed in the Romanesque Revival and neo-Grecian styles by John B. Jervis, who designed the Erie Canal and supervised the construction of the High Bridge Aqueduct. Though this tower resembles the watchtower of a medieval fortification, it once served a unique purpose in New York City's first reliable and uninterrupted water system. The High Bridge Water Tower was built between 1866 and 1872 to provide water and pressure to New York's ever-growing population. The height of the tower helped generate enough pressure to power the flushable toilets which were entering use for the first time. The tower's tank held 47,000 gallons of water, which were lifted from the reservoir that was already one-hundred feet above the ground. The interior of the structure included an elegantly designed iron spiral stair, with paired windows overlooking various vistas. After the building of the New Croton Aqueduct, the use of the High Bridge Tower diminished. Fears of threats to the city's water system during World War I ultimately closed the structure. In 1934, it was acquired by the Parks Department. The Parks Department largely left the tower alone, though the reservoir that once fed it was turned into a swimming pool. An arson set the timber framing of the roof on fire in 1984. This was replaced from 1989 to 1990, at the time New York Times columnist Christopher Gray wrote of it: "Its rock-faced granite gives the tower a chunky, fortified appearance as if it were a lookout for a much larger cast complex that was never built... The granite is competently handled, but the details are not very inspired or elegant. The tower is more picturesque than beautiful." The High Bridge Water Tower was designated a New York City Landmark in 1967.

First navigated by the Lenape, and then owned by the Dutch, the "Harlaem" River has long been a waterway important to the history of New York. This story highlights some of the structures built over the Harlem to connect Manhattan to the broader world.