News 12 The Bronx is looking at the history of the Bronx River as the borough celebrates its 100th anniversary.

Gerry Segal, who grew up near the river, says traveling up and down the river gave him a look at the different cultures and neighborhoods in the borough. Mark Twain also spent his summers along the river at a French inn called L'Hermitage.

For most of the 20th century, the river served as a landfill where people would throw their garbage, despite the Department of Sanitations' attempts at discouraging this. Initial cleanup began in the 1920s after the Bronx River Parkway was built.

By the 1990s, environmentalists rallied to increase river cleanup, pulling cars, tires and even motorcycles out of the river. The river still has a long way to go, but Linda Cox of the Bronx River Alliance says a lot of progress has been made.