Silent and Surreal: Inside the Old Croton Aqueduct

Critical-and admittedly romantic-urban impressions of the Old Croton Aqueduct, present and past, outside and in.

One of the most important pieces of infrastructure in New York’s history, the famous channel now exists as a strange, glorious ruin, nearly hidden in plain sight. Travel inside, and you submerge into a landscape that is at once alien and oddly human-urban history writ on a monumental scale.

More than thirty miles north of Midtown Manhattan, deep in New York State’s Westchester County, the Sing Sing Kill cuts a jagged, rocky ravine into the steep, riverine countryside. A small creek, it winds its way through the equally small town of Ossining, its waters carving out a succession of scenic vistas as they make their way down to the Hudson River. Its name alone is arresting. A dramatic juxtaposition, it combines the anglicized name of a Native American tribe-before it was appropriated, this land belonged to the Sintsink, part of the larger Algonquin-speaking Wappinger-with kill, an old Dutch word for creek. What has truly made the name infamous, however, is the…