Van Cortlandt Lake
Park · Van Cortlandt Park, New York
The largest freshwater lake in the Bronx: 18 acres, 4 to 8 feet deep, inside Van Cortlandt Park. Largemouth bass, carp, perch and catfish have been recorded in it. It is fed by Tibbetts Brook, a stream originating in Yonkers which runs through a series of culverts before draining into the south edge of the lake.
History
Jacobus Van Cortlandt dammed Tibbetts Brook in 1699 to power a sawmill and gristmill, creating the lake as a mill pond. It faced severe pollution between the 1960s and the 1980s, and restoration began in 1978.
Visit
Photo "Van Cortlandt Lake": Mbochart, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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