The March issue of Harper's includes an article by Elizabeth Royte called "The Hidden Rivers of Brooklyn," which begins with a discussion of the view from a parapet on the tower of Litchfield Villa, on the western edge of Prospect Park. "I was barely able to make out -- over treetops and tall buildings -- a glint of Gowanus Bay, roughly two miles away. Edwin Litchfield ... would have had no trouble seeing the bay and much of his land holdings out of a second-floor window." Thus, she has set up her themes, of development, Brooklyn's history, and water. Two paragraphs later she introduces us to Eymund Diegel, a sort of hydrological Adrian Monk, and she follows him, carrying the reader along, as he tries to reconstruct the one-time flow of water over the area, as it would have run back before the water was corralled into pipes. A few grafs further on, we're treated to this description, which is worth the price of the issue at a newsstand: Wanderi...
