THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 2020 Y C5
known as Frog Hollow. The name presum-
ably derived from the fact that a stream
called Ice Pond Brook flowed along the val-
ley and was a habitat for green frogs, bull-
frogs, other relatives. You know Egbert
Viele? He made the water map of Manhat-
tan that everybody talks about all the time.
KIMMELMAN Who can talk about anything
else? Yes, I believe Viele was a surveyor
and engineer for Central and Prospect
Parks, then became commissioner of parks
in the 1880s.
SANDERSONRight. He theorized that buried
watercourses caused malaria and yellow fe-
ver. His water map of Manhattan in 1865
was meant to be a public health tool. He also
made maps of the Bronx during the 1870s
that show Ice Pond Brook and just south of
it, the ice pond, which became a source of
refrigeration for the city.
KIMMELMANI have read that the Bronx
back then was especially big in the frozen
water trade, harvesting ice from ponds fed
by the Bronx River, which was prized for be-
ing pure.
SANDERSON This was one of those kinds of
ponds. We know from an 1891 map that it
was eventually filled in to make a rail yard.
Speaking of the Bronx River, if we contin-
ue east on 161st Street, across a couple moreridges, past a few more ancient streams, we
can catch the BX21 bus, which passes the
site of Pudding Rock, another glacial errat-
ic, gone now.
KIMMELMANApparently its shape and pur-
plish color put English colonists in mind of a
plum pudding.
SANDERSONThere are descriptions of views
from the top of Pudding Rock, toward the
Palisades in New Jersey and down to the
East River and Long Island Sound. Four
hundred years ago, if we were at Pudding
Rock we’d be looking over hills covered with
dark green trees descending to salt
marshes, threaded with streams and riversand grassy plains. The old accounts can
seem overwrought and almost unbeliev-
able to us today, because we’ve lost the ca-
pacity to imagine the city could ever be so
different. But it wasn’t that long ago, in the
greater scheme of things, that the Bronx
was an ecological wonderland.
KIMMELMANToday it’s possible not even to
notice the hills and valleys because they’re
overlaid by a man-made topography.
SANDERSONThat’s why the forest at the
New York Botanical Garden is revelatory.
It’s the only old growth forest left in the city.
There were poems written in the 19th cen-
tury about it. People would make excur-
sions from the city and describe sitting un-
der the cool boughs of the hemlock. My wife
works at the Botanical Garden. She runs
horticulture for a Saturday morning pro-
gram that lets kids plant gardens and grow
vegetables. When our son was little, we
would sometimes arrive early so we could
take him for a walk in the forest. We were so
lucky, we had the place to ourselves. It was
transformative. I remember the first day
our son could walk all the way across the
forest by himself, he was maybe 3 or 4. He
was so proud.
KIMMELMANHow old is he now?
SANDERSONNineteen. He’s doing a degree
in environmental science and applied eco-
nomics.
The bus lets us off at the southern end of
the Bronx Zoo, where boats used to sail up
the Bronx River, collecting agricultural
goods for the city.
KIMMELMANThe river is a saga in itself. It
used to be notorious as one of the filthiest
waterways in America, a poster child for ur-
ban decline and environmental ruin. A com-
munity group called the Bronx River Alli-
ance has helped turn it around, making its
rejuvenation a tool for community revital-
ization as well. I’ve gone kayaking with kids
from a local youth development organiza-
tion, Rocking the Boat, that teaches teens
about wetland ecology and boat building.
The transformation of the river is mind-
boggling. Wildlife is back. Oysters. Alewife.
Egrets.
SANDERSONColleagues of mine have found
American eels also returning to the river.
The Bronx River is proof that given half a
chance, nature finds a way back. You know
the story of José.
KIMMELMANNo. Who is José?
SANDERSONOh, well. Back in 2007 I was in
my office at the zoo one afternoon when
some colleagues came by and said that on
their lunch break, walking along the Bronx
River, they saw a beaver. I said: “No, guys,
you didn’t see a beaver, you saw a muskrat.
There haven’t been beavers on the Bronx
River for 200 years.”
They were, like, “We know what a beaver
is, Eric.”
So the next day, I go with them to look,
and sure enough, there were markings on a
tree that were not made by a muskrat. They
resembled the carvings of beaver teeth. A
few days later a photographer got pictures
of the beaver. Nobody knew what sex it was
— probably a male because males disperse
a lot farther. It was named after José E. Ser-
rano, the United States congressman from
the Bronx who directed federal money to
help clean up the river.
Everybody had thought the closest bea-
ver population was up in northern West-
chester or Putnam County, which meant
that José must have traveled all the way
downriver, through Scarsdale, through
Bronxville, through these really lovely, ritzy
neighborhoods in Westchester — and de-
cided to live in the Bronx!
In the Bronx Zoo!
The beaver built a couple of lodges and
knocked down a couple of big trees.
KIMMELMANJosé knocked trees down?
SANDERSONWell, the wind did, with an as-
sist from the beaver. At the zoo everybody
was like, OK, all right, that’s what beavers
do.
But the Botanical Garden was less happy
about the whole situation. They put some
metal guards around some of the trees.
Then a few years ago another beaver
showed up. So, now there were two of them.
The Bronx River Alliance had the idea to
ask schoolchildren in the neighborhood
what they should call the new beaver. And
the kids decided on Justin.
Justin Beaver.
KIMMELMANSo now José and Justin live in
the Bronx?
SANDERSONI haven’t seen either one of
them in a while.
KIMMELMANHmm. Eric, do you think may-
be they’ve moved back to the suburbs?
SANDERSONYes. Maybe.During the 1951 World Series, above, Mickey Mantle tripped and fell during the second game as Joe DiMaggio looked on at the old Yankee Stadium,
which was built on the edge of what was once a salt marsh. Right, a view looking up 161st Street toward the Bronx County Courthouse.This page, clockwise
from top: the New York
Botanical Garden, home
to the only old growth
forest left in the city; a
rare beaver sighted in
the river at the Bronx
Zoo in 2007; a stretch of
the Bronx River today;
and a detail from a
19th-century map of the
Bronx by Egbert Viele.ZACK DeZON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES GETTY IMAGES ZACK DeZON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESDAVID RUMSEY MAP COLLECTION, DAVID RUMSEY MAP CENTER, STANFORD LIBRARIESZACK DeZON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESZACK DeZON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESJULIE LARSEN MAHER/WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY