Daylighting Tibbetts Brook Projects

Tibbetts Brook is the terminus of a massive watershed that includes thousands of acres in Westchester and the Bronx. In 1912 New York City diverted the brook into the Broadway sewer.

A proposal to daylight Tibbetts Brook has been incorporated into the 2034 Van Cortlandt Park Master Plan to purchase and adapt the abandoned CSX rail bed. Two projects presented here raised awareness of the daylighting project. SLO Architecture (Alexander Levi & Amanda Schachter) built Finding Tibbetts 2.0, a micro-wetlands on a mobile truck bed that traveled to a variety of sites, from Van Cortlandt Lake to the Harlem River, that are in view of, or adjacent to, the proposed course for daylighting. In coordination with SLO’s project, Bob Braine conducted a series of events, Estuary Tattoos, to reflect on the history of the buried wetlands and deepen the public’s empathy for urban ecology.

Daylighting Tibbetts Brook projects are part of the CALL Broadway: 1000 Steps initiative that links efforts to make sustainability tangible through the arts up and down the avenue. CALL was founded by artist Mary Miss to support artists and designers in projects and programs, which engage local communities to raise awareness of the environmental risks that affect everyday urban residents—concerns about the quality of the air they breathe, the threat of heat waves, flooding, storm surges, and food safety.