This park occupies the eighteenth century site of Collect Pond.  The pond was a large, sixty-foot deep pool fed by an underground spring. The waters derived their name from seventeenth century Dutch settlers, who called it “kolch” meaning “small body of water”. Following the English capture of New Amsterdam (1664), the name was corrupted to “collect.”

In 1805, in order to drain the garbage-infested waters, designers opened a forty-foot wide canal that today is known as Canal Street.  By 1811, the City had completed the filling of Collect Pond. A neighborhood known as Paradise Square soon arose over the pond’s previous site. Unfortunately, due to the area’s extremely high water table, Paradise Square began to sink in the 1820’s. The neighborhood also began to emit a foul odor, prompting the most affluent residents to leave the community. By the 1830s, Paradise Square had become the notorious “Five Points,” an extremely poor and dangerous neighborhood renowned for its crime and filth.

Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Collect Pond was a favorite spot for picnics and ice-skating. 

In 1796, John Fitch (1743-1798) launched one of the first experimental steamboats on the waters.   During this time, the pond was still clean enough to use for the area’s drinking water. By the early nineteenth century, however, New York City had transformed the sparkling waters into a communal open sewer. Disgusted, local authorities initiated a project to fill the sewer with earth from an adjacent hill.

Located on Leonard Street between Centre and Lafayette Streets