Aqueduct Walk

Aqueduct Walk is a five-acre linear park following the route of the Old Croton Aqueduct through the University Heights section of the Bronx. The walk traces the path of the historic tunnel that carried fresh water from the Croton Reservoir to Manhattan beginning in 1842, solving the chronic water shortages that had plagued New York City.

The Old Croton Aqueduct was one of the greatest engineering achievements of 19th-century America, stretching 41 miles from the Croton Dam in Westchester County to distributing reservoirs in Manhattan. The aqueduct's construction transformed New York from a disease-ridden city dependent on contaminated wells to a modern metropolis with reliable clean water.

The walk provides a landscaped pedestrian corridor through a residential neighborhood, with benches, plantings, and interpretive markers that explain the aqueduct's history and engineering. The path follows the route of the underground tunnel, which still exists beneath the surface.

University Heights takes its name from the former campus of New York University, which occupied a hilltop site nearby from 1894 to 1973. The Hall of Fame for Great Americans, a colonnade featuring busts of distinguished Americans, was built on the NYU campus and is now part of Bronx Community College.

Aqueduct Walk connects the modern Bronx to the infrastructure that made New York City's growth possible, providing a green corridor that preserves the memory of the engineers and laborers who built the water system that sustains the city to this day.