And suddenly, the waterfalls disappeared

Chasing Fall River's lost subterranean cascades

Boston’s Muddy River as it disappears beneath Storrow Drive

If you’ve ever set foot in an American city, you’ve probably had the strange experience of stumbling upon a park or a transit center named after a pleasant-sounding river or stream, only to find no such waterway within sight. A few years back, my subway stop here in Boston was Stony Brook station, along the MBTA’s Orange Line. The station is located right on a pedestrian and cyclist greenway flanked by triple deckers. But any trace of a stony brook that once existed in this area of Boston has long since dried up.

Or has it?

Not too long ago, I found out that Stony Brook is a real, active waterway that flows more than 8 miles beneath the city of Boston. It starts from Turtle Pond, in the woods near Dedham, and bubbles beside a busy parkway for half a mile before disappearing into a culvert. From here, the brook sloshes beneath Roxbury and Jamaica Plain through conduits before emptying into the Charles River. Adam Gaffin of Universal Hub called Stony Brook “Boston’s Stygian river” in an impressively detailed historic account of how Boston decided to re-route the naturally occurring brook into long underground pipes. (The brook caused flooding around Roxbury during the spring.)

It’s rather eerie to imagine these lost rivers churning beneath our feet as we amble around cities like Boston or New York—the latter of which is now unearthing one of these subterranean streams. Tibbetts Brook, which flows under The Bronx, is going to be exhumed by the city over the next few years. The conceit is that “daylighting” the forgotten brook will prevent flooding in the sewer system by creating more open-air reservoirs for excess waters during coastal storms. But the daylit brook could also be paired with new public green spaces that offer multi-use trails and rejuvenated flora.

Daylighting projects are happening in major cities across the world, from Seattle to Seoul. But it’s not just the major cities that stand to benefit from restoring their lost rivers. One of the most dramatic examples of a city covering up its watery features is rooted in Fall River, Massachusetts. Many people are familiar with Fall River due to its once booming textile mills and for its rich history of true crime (Lizzie Borden lived here, as did the murderous cultists who helped fuel the Satanic Panic of the 1980s.) Less spotlit is the Quequechan River, which ripples northwest from South Watuppa Pond through central Fall River. The word “quequechan” is Wampanoag for “falling waters” or “falling river.” And sure enough, the Quequechan River includes several waterfalls that occur right where the Quequechan runs through downtown Fall River.

But you can’t see them. The waterfalls were re-routed into culverts during the 1960s as the state constructed the interstate highway I-95. For decades, the disappearing falls have rumbled away in solitude beneath the city. Even in 2015, when Fall River decided to improve pedestrian access to the Quequechan by building the Alfred J. Lima Rail Trail along 1.4 miles of the riverbanks, the falls of Fall River remained underground.
So naturally, I decided to go there and chase them—to find whatever traces I could.