Sunswick Creek, New York City
Sunswick Creek in the Queens neighborhood of New York City fell prey to expanding concrete in the late 1800s. Appearing on maps in the 1870s, Sunswick Creek was soon completely covered over. Now, it exists only as a meager flow through buried sewer-like pipes, as documented in this photo by Steve Duncan. Duncan notes that the burial process appears to have occurred in multiple phases, based on his explorations of the dank channels.
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11 Rivers Forced Underground
From London to Vienna, Hartford to New York, these rivers were buried by developers, permanently changing the landscape.
Some of the world's great rivers, from the Colorado to the Indus, don't always reach their ends because people have diverted so much water for agriculture, industry, and municipal uses. Other rivers have been completely covered over by development, as people attempted to "tame" nature by ending flooding and maximizing usable land area.
But what happens to once-thriving freshwater ecosystems when the rivers they depend on are entombed in sewer pipes beneath layers of concrete and soil? Few species can make the transition to subterranean living. Ironically, it was often rivers and streams that attracted people in the first place, but those very sources of life can fall victim to the expanding concrete jungle.
Sunswick Creek in the Queens neighborhood of
