Crystal Lake (New Rochelle)

‘’’Crystal Lake’’’ (also known as "Ice Pond”)

> was the name of a former lake in the village of New Rochelle in Westchester County, New York. This lake was originally a mill pond that supplied the early mills with water power. It was fed by Stephenson Brook which rises just north of Paine Lake, flowing south along the eastern side of Huguenot Lake before it is piped-underground, and drains the large watershed adjacent to North Avenue from beyond Quaker Ridge Road.

The lake itself appears to have existed as a natural sheet of water near the end of the brook, having two outlets into the Sound, one at the present Stephenson Boulevard, and the other at the east side of Lispenard Avenue. These outlets had an abrupt fall in the few yards between the lake's southern edge and the Long Island Sound shore, of approximately twenty to twenty-five feet. This was the greatest natural fall of any stream emptying into the Sound between New York City and Connecticut, and, from a very early date, the value of it for water power was recognized.