16 N.Y.S. 97 | New York City Court | 1891
Previous to 1876, Thirty-Hinth street, Brooklyn, was ungraded, and the plaintiffs were owners of a lot 25x100 feet on north side thereof, between Sixth and Seventh avenues. There the surface waters flowed in a natural course, which commenced in the woods, back of Forty-Fourth street and Seventh avenue, traversed the land between that place and plaintiffs’ lot, entering the rear thereof, continued through a gulley, made by its own action, along said lot and across Thirty-Hinth street, then ungraded, to the river. This flow of such waters had continued in this way for a great many years. The city had authority of law to grade streets, build sewers, and also to construct drains to carry off surface waters, when