The Mannahatta Project was an urban ecological study to imagine what Manhattan would be like if there were no settlers. &nbsp;

Manhattan circa 1609 and 2009 - Eric Sanderson, senior ecologist of the Mannahatta Project of the Wildlife Conservation Society, applied computational geography to 18th century British war maps to visualize the original landscape of Manhattan in the hours before Henry Hudson arrived. “Right on the tip of Manhattan there would have been a sandy beach,” says Sanderson. “One of the things that’s common through a lot of the accounts is the description of the air. Apparently, it was very sweet smelling. You could smell it for hundreds of miles off shore. There were streams, over 66 miles of streams and about 21 fresh water ponds and salt ponds all over the island.”<a href="https://culturenow.org/people/a52f63a6-9f96-47c6-8768-8ac4665891fe?name=National_Parks_of_New_York_Harbor_Conservancy">[1]</a>The original settlers, the Lenni-Lenape, called it Mannahatta or Island of Hills because there were over 500 hills, some as high as 270 feet. “If Mannahatta existed today as it did then, it would be a national park — it would be the crowning glory of American national parks,” says Sanderson, also author of Mannahatta: The National History of New York City, with illustrations by Markley Boyer (Manhattan, circa 1609 and 2009 on this page).<a href="https://culturenow.org/people/a52f63a6-9f96-47c6-8768-8ac4665891fe?name=National_Parks_of_New_York_Harbor_Conservancy">[2]</a>

The Mannahatta Project

Maps

IN THIS PHOTO / THEN AND NOW