In a moving Cognoscenti essay about the significance of reclaiming—or “unburying”—urban waterways, Berklee College of Music professor Jan Donley writes about river daylighting as a necessary restorative process for the environment, communities, and individuals. The Saw Mill River in Yonkers, New York is one of many rivers that, having become “a snake-like yellow scrawl of scum,” was routed underground and covered with a parking lot. “The [polluted] waterways, once places that sustained life, had become dangerous. Too often, the human-made solution to that which no longer works is to bury the evidence.”
It’s a cautionary tale that Muddy River advocates know only too well.
Across the globe, in Vienna, London, Moscow, Toyko, and Seoul, not to mention many US cities, the story of daylighting, or “bringing something out of the shadows and into the sun—allowing its essence to flow—is, after all, a poetic story.
“…as it turns out, burying rivers isn’t a sustainable solution. But daylighting rivers—the evidence shows—can help us adapt to climate change and can also improve our quality of life.
For Jan Donley, the process of unburying has had deep personal resonance. Read her essay.
