A Riverside Drive sewer cover from 1872 predates the Drive by eight years

Does this sewer cover on Riverside Drive and West 77th Street—placed there under the supervision of the Department of Public Works, created by the new City Charter in 1870—actually date back to 1872?

If the cover isn’t a reproduction, then it’s eight years older than the Drive itself—which officially opened as Riverside Avenue in 1880.

But the Drive, along with Riverside Park, was already in the planning stages. It was conceived by Frederick Law Olmsted, the co-designer of Central Park, as “a winding drive that would be comfortable for horses and pleasure driving, provide shaded walks for pedestrians, and yet would give easy access to real estate bordering it on the east,” states the 1980 Landmarks Preservation Commission report.

Explore more about the backstory of Riverside Drive by joining Ephemeral New York on a walking tour of the Drive! Signups for an upcoming tour on Sunday, October 29 can be found here, and a link to signing up for the next tour on November 12 can be accessed here.