Here is copy of story from Tenement Museum June 2005 ...That Canal Street was once the site of a man-made canal. During the 1810s, an eight-foot ditch was dug along what is today Canal Street in order to drain Collect Pond, which existed near present-day Foley Square. Once pristine, the pond had become "a shocking hole…foul with excrement."* Neighboring breweries and tanneries dumped their refuse into the pond, which created a polluted hole that posed serious economic and public health conditions. The canal only exacerbated these problems. Because it did not flow smoothly, the canal became a fetid open sewer. And, although it was covered in 1819, city engineers failed to install air traps, creating a stinking covered sewer instead. Moreover, city leaders failed to realize that the pond was fed not by collected rain water, but by underground springs. By the 1830s, these springs helped create New York's first slum, the Five Points, whose streets became muddy lanes obstructed by putrid muck. -- Dave Favaloro, Research Coordinator Jerry Rosenthal