Site 10. 24th Street
Ghost Rivers: Sumwalt Run
It’s easy to believe that the landscape we have inherited cannot be changed.
But hidden rivers and hidden histories do not always stay buried. People have radically transformed the landscape and climate in just a handful of generations. 200 years ago there was no Remington, only rolling countryside dotted with farms, valleys, and streams. In 200 years, how will our cities look? How will our relationship to the land and water be different? How will we perceive and live with our fellow humans, plants, and animals?
Many cities are taking the radical step of unburying or “daylighting” parts of their underground streams. In 2005, Seoul, South Korea removed the highway covering Cheonggyecheon creek to create a hugely popular public park. Successful daylighting projects in Caldwell, ID, Seattle, WA, Yonkers, NY, and other cities have helped to revitalize neighborhoods as well as streams. Paris is working on an ambitious plan to partially unearth its long-buried Bièvre river. Although full daylighting may not be practical in dense neighborhoods like Remington, it remains an option for rivers that are not completely covered by occupied buildings.
In Baltimore many residents have called for the demolition of the I-83 expressway and the tunnel that entombs the Jones Falls river. Portions of other buried streams around the region could also be uncovered and restored, these ghost rivers returning to life. The future is a landscape of possibilities.
Daylighting Rivers
For nearly a century the Saw Mill River in downtown Yonkers, NY was hidden beneath parking lots, roads, and warehouses. Since 2012 a daylighting project has slowly been bringing the Saw Mill back to the surface, creating new public spaces and wildlife habitats.
(Photos of Saw Mill River by Nathan Kensinger, 2016)
““I wanna be like water if I can, ‘cause water doesn’t give a damn.””
Sumwalt Run today runs through a culvert buried deep below the streets of Remington.
““All [the land] down through here was filled in. They brought all this [debris] up here from the great Baltimore fire… with horse and buggies, because this was a valley down through here. And they just started and kept filling in and filling in… until they couldn’t put any more in and stopped.””
Resources & Readings
A 2011 conceptual proposal by Marc Szarkowski to daylight the Jones Falls and create a riverfront promenade — full PDF here
Hidden Waters explores the history, burial, and opportunities to daylight the Jones Falls (2016)
Paris Buried a River 100 Years Ago. Now The City Needs To Resurface It to Combat Climate Change. (Time, 2022)
Shining ‘daylight’ on the Chesapeake Bay’s buried streams by Jeremy Cox. (Bay Journal, 2023)
Daylighting Tibbetts Brook in New York City by Nathan Kensinger. (Curbed, 2018)
