Ghost Rivers

December 10, 2024 6:45 AM

Baltimore Buried These Streams. Now an Artist Is Bringing One Back. The new “Ghost Rivers” installation is a reminder of Baltimore’s hidden streams — and the visible costs of trying to control our urban waterways. Also: Daylighting: A Case Study of the Jones Falls River and How ‘Daylighting’ Buried Waterways Is Revitalizing Cities Across America.
posted by HumanComplex (18 comments total)

A coworker of mine excitedly appeared at my cubicle in a large law firm on Capitol Hill here in DC telling me to follow them, they had made an amazing discovery. Down down we went past the gym, past the print shop, down below the law library where there was a quiet study room that was hardly ever used in the art deco former bank and insurance company building. Back behind the shelves of dusty aging law journals was an unmarked, nondescript door. We looked around to make sure we weren't followed and opened the door.

Behind it was an brick platform with stairs leading down to a landing designed for gondolas to ply the hidden, massive brick tunnel in which still flowed the long hidden Tiber creek. DC was once envisioned to be laid out on a series of canals like Venice with the Tiber serving as the main artery, however modern roadways won out over gondolas. But not before at least a small section was laid out for boats to carry passengers along the Mall in brick tubes. Apparently in the 90s during the construction of the Ronald Reagan building, much of this infrastructure was forgotten or destroyed, leading to a back up of flow and massive flooding to basement levels of several buildings along the Mall and even damage to the foundations of the National Archives and IRS headquarters!

I don't know if the Tiber is actually still navigable at this point in history, but if the writers of the next National Treasure franchise sequel are reading this, I want credit for your use of gondolas for Nick Cage's big chase scene (a la Moonraker).
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 7:37 AM on December 10, 2024 [29 favorites]

Metafilter's own adamg did a great post over on UHub tracing Boston's Stony Brook.

Note: The links to get real time water levels has since broken. You can find that information here: Stony Brook water levels.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:47 AM on December 10, 2024 [3 favorites]

More about DC's zombie rivers.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 7:59 AM on December 10, 2024 [1 favorite]

I worked on a master plan for a project that was to be a mixed-use development circa 2008. Not sure where it ended up after the building/housing bubble burst because, you know, I got laid off. But, I had so much fun, imagining a canal in the center of the project that would connect to a currently covered-over natural spring. Daylighting that spring and creating new riparian waterway zones was part of the project!
posted by amanda at 8:06 AM on December 10, 2024 [7 favorites]

Now do Manhattan.
posted by Melismata at 8:52 AM on December 10, 2024 [1 favorite]

10th Reg, that's a great article, and a real revelation to me as to just how badly screwed DC is not only now but in the near future. I went to DC in 2016, and the park ranger at Ford's Theater talked about how the Washington Canal (which I guess partially replaced Tiber Creek for a while) ended up becoming a sort of open-air sewer, which occasionally had dead horses dumped into it (disposal of dead horses in urban areas used to be a serious problem before the advent of municipal garbage disposal services), and the Lincolns would live in a summer cottage away from the capital to escape the literally shitty atmosphere.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:03 AM on December 10, 2024 [2 favorites]

I'm having difficulty finding an online reference, but the Providence River Walk (rehabbed in the 90s) includes "palimpsest" pavers that show the original path of the river.
posted by HeroZero at 10:03 AM on December 10, 2024 [1 favorite]

London started in 2000.
posted by j_curiouser at 12:21 PM on December 10, 2024

Daylighting waterways is making a pretty significant comeback in the stormwater management field. I'm not a civil engineer but I work with lots of them, and it's one of the things that gets them most excited about working on drainage infrastructure and stormwater management projects. In some situations it can significantly reduce or eliminate "nuisance" flooding and even make a big difference in major rain events. It can also have a bunch of positive environmental and community impacts. It ain't easy to do in most places, but very cool when it works.
posted by that's candlepin at 12:58 PM on December 10, 2024 [3 favorites]

Toronto has number of hidden streams and rivers.
There is a website called lost rivers that is dedicated to them
Here's a map of the disappearing rivers
The site also has a points of interest section which contains a lot of local history.

cbc has done a story on daylighting hidden rivers
posted by yyz at 1:35 PM on December 10, 2024 [2 favorites]

There was a cool similar art project in Atlanta: Emergence. The spring at the Capitol is the beginning of Intrenchment Creek, which has been seriously damaged by the construction of Cop City.
posted by hydropsyche at 1:40 PM on December 10, 2024

The south San Francisco Bay Area has many such creeks crossing its flood plain, sometimes hidden beneath culverts and other times flowing openly between property parcels. Jenny Odell wrote one of them up a while back in this excellent essay.
posted by migurski at 2:09 PM on December 10, 2024

For those interested in the ghost river phenomenon, here’s a similar article about Seattle’s lost rivers & creeks.
posted by abraxasaxarba at 5:56 PM on December 10, 2024 [1 favorite]

Thanks to RonButNotStupid for both the kinds words on one of my favorite articles (even if my obsession on researching Boston's underground river drove my wife and daughter a bit nuts) and the update on the page with Stony Brook water levels - I've updated the article.

Across the country, Ghost Arroyos maps and describes the underground waterways of San Francisco.
posted by adamg at 7:18 PM on December 10, 2024 [2 favorites]

In Old City Philadelphia back in 2008, there was a project called Drawing Dock Creek which highlighted the path of an important historical water feature (now, like so many others, culverted into a sewer) - I particularly like when blue bungee cords were strung across the creek.

The oldest part of Philadelphia is on a grid, except for a couple of exceptions. Passyunk Avenue cuts southwest at an angle, and likely started out as a trail used by the Lenape people. And out east, there's a wiggly road called Willow Street. Beneath it runs a river (a sewer), once called Pegg's Run, originally called something like Cohoquinoque - more or less "the river among the tall pines". When I'm catch a cab home from the airport, I almost always end up on Willow Street, where I take it as my duty to inform the driver that ships once sailed the street we are on.

Willow Street was interrupted by highways, but when it rains real good, I can look out my back window to the area next to 95 and under the elevated ramps to 676 - and the creek seeps back up, if just for a while. I'm not sure anyone else makes the connection, but I love to see that.
posted by Leviathant at 8:54 PM on December 10, 2024 [1 favorite]

Some more urban underground stream links:
Hidden Hydrology
Philly Water History
posted by sepviva at 5:59 AM on December 11, 2024

I'm having difficulty finding an online reference, but the Providence River Walk (rehabbed in the 90s) includes "palimpsest" pavers that show the original path of the river.

Really? I am in Providence and I also have a professional interest in these-- I spend a lot of time in that area and had no idea. Do you know what they look like or where they are located? I would love to know more.
posted by ambulanceambiance at 11:24 AM on December 11, 2024

Mod note: [oooh, great post and comments! We've added it and The 10th Regiment of Foot's comment to the sidebar and Best Of blog! Thank you, everyone!]
posted by taz (staff) at 1:55 AM on December 14, 2024