When Stony Brook was tamed

It was news to Charles (and, OK, me, too), that Stony Brook runs under Doyle's in JP - it being of little actual interest to pretty much anybody until the city decided to auction off the land and somebody outbid Doyle's. Charles digs up the history of the brook, specifically, the Boston Street Department's 1892 annual report, which discusses progress in controlling the brook after the Great Stony Brook Flood of 1886 by basically turning it into a sewer:

... Stony Brook, the largest of the city's watercourses, is now provided with an ample outlet, and gives little trouble. The effect of the development of its water-shed can be seen, however, in the increasing rapidity and height to which it rises now at every rain, compared to what it did eight years ago, although now its outlet is ample in size, and then it was not. ...

He adds that if one looks carefully, you can still find remnants of some of the industrial buildings built along the brook.