In 1919, New York State passed a bill in order to straighten the western end of the creek feeding into the Hudson. At the time, the creek was diverted south to avoid a peninsula that housed the Johnson Iron Works foundry. The foundry held out until 1923 when it vacated the premises, and in 1927 was awarded $3.28 million in compensation, just over a third of their original demand of $11.53 million. Plans to excavate the channel were finalized in 1935, and the channel was excavated from 1937 to 1938. The work severed the Johnson foundry's 13.5-acre peninsula of land from the Bronx, which was then absorbed into Manhattan's Inwood Hill Park; the peninsula now contains the park's Nature Center.