mannahatta

Have you ever wondered what New York was like before it was a city? Welcome to Mannahatta, 1609.

Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City is the

revelation, in words and pictures, of a quiet, wooded

island at the mouth of a great river, with a temperate

climate and a gentle and enduring people, destined

to become one of the greatest cities on Earth. The

explorer Henry Hudson was looking for Oriental

riches when he came to Manhattan Island’s shore on

September 12, 1609, but instead he found something

much more valuable. Mannahatta, the “island of

many hills,” was home to over fifty-five different eco-

systems, with thousands of species (including wolves,

black bears, bald eagles, passenger pigeons, and

sea-run trout) thriving in a landscape shaped over the

millennia, an example of the abundance and diversity

of nature undiminished by the human footprint.

Eric Sanderson is a landscape ecologist with the

Wildlife Conservation Society, and this book culmi-

nates ten years of primary research into the ecological

history of Manhattan—The Mannahatta Project.

Sanderson and his colleagues have reconstructed

Mannahatta at the scale of a city block using the latest

techniques in computational geography and visual-

ization that allow them to recreate what Manhattan

looked like in the hours before Hudson arrived. The

story of the project’s creation touches on George

Washington and the American Revolution; the origi-

nal Native American people, the Lenape, who lived on

Mannahatta; the remarkable hills, streams, and dales

of a lost landscape; and the new science of Muir webs,

which describe the interconnections that make nature

and cities work.

More than a history, Mannahatta: A Natural History of

New York City is a call for us to stretch our imaginations

not just back to 1609, but ahead to cities and a world

where people and wildlife can thrive for hundreds of

years into the future.

eric w. sanderson is the Associate Director

for Landscape Ecology and Geographic Analysis

in the Living Landscape Program of the Wildlife

Conservation Society at the Bronx Zoo. He is an

expert in the application of geographic principles and

techniques to problems in wildlife, landscape, and

ecological conservation, and has published numerous

articles on the subject. He lives in New York City.

markley boyer has worked with the Wildlife

Conservation Society creating maps and visualiza-

tions for a new series of national parks in Gabon in

central Africa. He is also a silversmith, exploring

similar themes of geomorphology in metal and wood.

He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

U.S. $40.00Canada $44.00

U.K. £19.99

Jacket front: Mannahatta—the original Native American name for Manhattan—is shown here (bottom) the way it appeared on September 12, 1609, just before European discovery, and as it appears today (top). courtesy markley boyer/wildlife conservation society (bottom) and digitalglobe (top). Jacket back: Midtown Manhattan, four hundred years ago (top) and today (bottom). courtesy markley boyer/wildlife conservation society (top) and stephen amiaga (bottom).

115 West 18th StreetNew York, NY 10011www.abramsbooks.com

Abrams is an imprint of

Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York CityBy Eric W. SandersonIllustrations by Markley Boyer 120 full-color illustrations352 pages, 7 ½ x 10" Hardcover with jacket

ISBN: 978-0-8109-9633-5U.S. $40.00 Can. $44.00 U.K. £19.99

Nature and HistoryRights: WorldPub month: May

To place an order:Please call your sales repre-sentative or Hachette Book Group at 800.759.0190 or fax 800.286.9471

To inquire about publicity:Please call 212.519.1232 or fax 212.366.0809

MANNAHATTAA NATURAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY

ERIC W. SANDERSON

ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARKLEY BOYER

zAbrams

Chapter OneTheMannahatta Project 8

Chapter TwoAMap Found 34

Chapter ThreeThe Fundamentals of Mannahatta 66

Chapter FourThe Lenape 102

Chapter FiveEcological Neighborhoods 136

Chapter SixMuirWebs: Connecting the Parts 170

Chapter SevenManhattan 2409 208

Appendix A: Natural Features 244Appendix B: Lenape Sites 258Appendix C: Flora and Fauna 264Notes 291Bibliography 310Illustration Credits 330Acknowledgments 333Index 336

Manna_Blad_INT.qxd:Layout 1 10/1/08 11:10 AM Page 1

The MannahattaProject

As the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to

melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island

here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes—a fresh,

green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees . . . had

once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all

human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment

man must have held his breath in the presence of this

continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation

he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the

last time in history with something commensurate to

his capacity for wonder.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby 1925

Chapter One

Mannahatta, 1609.


The first time I walked through New York City I wondered what giant or godhad created such a place. Buildings like cliffs, avenues like canyons, trafficflowing like rivers, parks brimming with forests and urban fields, a landscapepopulated by people seemingly from every nation and all parts of the conti-nent, moving rapidly andwith a deliberate attitude about their business, evenif that businesswas none at all. I was intoxicated. I felt amazed at the ambitionof the place and humbled by the power that had created it, for neither giantsnor gods had built the “awful & grand” city; generations of NewYorkers, poorand wealthy, native and immigrant, had created the metropolis over a span ofnearly four hundred years. Those people had each come for their own reasons,with their own peculiar visions, to this particular piece of land and shore anddecided through some strange, collective logic, to raise a city on a scale beyondthe power of the imagination to conceive.

A law professor once described to me lying beneath the pillars of theGeorgeWashington Bridge as a child, cupping his hands around his eyes, andpeering up the river to imagine the view that Henry Hudson might have seenas he sailed in on his small wooden ship. Jacob Astor, the industrialist, imag-ined a city where the wealth of an entire continent could accumulate in thehands of just a fewmen (and preferably one). RobertMoses, the planner, had avision for NewYork City that included the automobile and access to ball fieldsand swimming pools and, in the midst of the Great Depression, reconfiguredthe city for the future. Michael Bloomberg, the recent mayor and billionaire,envisioned a future where the economy always hummed, with less trafficcongestion, no smoking, and better subways.

Hudson’s vision, to the extent that he had one, was to get rich andthen get out of town.Adrian van der Donck, the Jonkheerwho gave his name toYonkers, New York, came to New Netherland in 1641, stayed, and becamewealthy. He wanted others to join him and populate his lands; he wrote alengthy paean to his new home called the Narrative of New Netherland (1650),describing the land as “naturally fruitful and capable of supporting a largepopulation, if it were judiciously allotted according to location. . . . [It] isadapted to the production of all kinds of winter and summer fruits, and withless trouble and tilling than in the Netherlands. . . . The air is pleasant here,andmore temperate. . . . ”

Many others agreed, describing not only the “sweetness of the air”(Daniel Denton, 1670), but also the “wonderful size of the trees” (Johann deLaet, 1633), “all sorts of fowls, such as cranes, bitterns, swans, geese, ducks,

36 chapter two


introduction 5

top The Visscher Map, circa 1651, shows northeastern North America as the Dutch understood it in the years following Henry Hudson’svoyage.Manhattan is at the center of the map, at the mouth of the Hudson River, which in turn is the focus of the NewNetherland colony.Europeans at the time knew the outlines of the continent, but were only beginning to explore its heart. bottom The inset image shows thesmall village of NewAmsterdam as it appeared from just off the tip of Manhattan. Note the windmill, gallows, and rolling hills.


The British Headquarters Map, circa 1782–83, once described as a “topographical and historical encyclopedia” ofManhattan before modern development, shows most of the original hills, streams, shoreline, and wetlands of the island.


top Freshwater wetlands form complex mosaics that vary according to how often and how deeply they flood. Sunny and wet, they are strongholdsof biodiversity. These wetlands in Sterling Forest State Park, in Orange County, New York, are similar to those that were found onMannahatta.bottom Deep emergent marshes, like these recreated at the New York Botanical Garden, form in deep standing waters.


top Swamps are forested wetlands. Times Square was once at least in part a red-maple swamp, like this one in Sterling Forest State Park.bottom Highbush blueberry bogs were once a favorite of black bears in Central Park. A similar community occurred where Belvedere Lake is today.


TheMannahatta Muir web. Computer algorithmsmap the structure based on the numbers of relationships between elements,putting related elements close together. The true Muir web structure is multi-dimensional.


these elements function as a subject, other times as an object. Each connectionis a relationship based on food, shelter,water, or reproduction, or in the case ofabiotic elements, on physical process dependencies like soil formation or howtopography defines slope and slope determines water flow. In honor of Muirand his insight, I called these new networks “Muir webs.” They became thekey, the magic decoder ring, to mapping where all the plants and animals ofMannahatta occurred those four hundred years ago.

In its initial iteration, the Muir web built on the list of likely speciescontained a total of 1,623 elements, comprised of 80 percent species or groupsof species, 10 percent abiotic elements or groups of elements, 5 percent ecolog-ical communities or groups of communities, and 5 percent “combinations,”composed of living and nonliving elements. In other words, speciesdominated the network, but the abiotic environment (the “fundamentals” ofMannahatta) was also strongly present, and various combinations of elements—whether of ecological communities or of life and not-life (the aspens nearthe stream)—were critically important.

If species are like thepeople in a city, thenby analogy this suggests thatnot only are relationshipsbetweenpeople important,but so are our relationshipsto the infrastructure of the city (the buildings, the cars, the streets), to the neigh-borhoods (akin to ecological communities), and to the restaurants, offices,parks,andotherplaces thatonly functionwhenpeoplecometogether (thecombinations).

Between those 1,623 elements, we wrote 8,245 explicit habitatsentences based on descriptions available in field guides and natural historiesof the food, water, shelter, and, where applicable, reproductive requirements,of the plants and animals of Mannahatta. Many species are just passingthrough in September; they aren’t staying to reproduce (which is largely aspring- and summertime activity in the temperate northern latitudes), so theirreproductive requirements are not included in the Mannahatta Muir web. Ofthe relationships in the 8,245 habitat sentences, 55 percent were central orprimary relationships with other elements—the bread and butter of habitatrelationships; 37 percent were relationships identifying membership withingroups; and 6 percent were enhancing relationships—that is, relationshipsthat were positive but not required parts of the habitat. The remaining rela-tionships involved a small number of elements of lesser strength; very fewwere negative relationships that attenuated or excluded another species.These kinds of negative relationshipswere probablymore important than thisinitial analysis would suggest, as we didn’t include the not-so-nice sides ofnature—competition,parasitism,anddisease.They represent thenext frontier

muir webs: connecting the parts 193


Have you ever wondered what New York was like before it was a city? Welcome to Mannahatta, 1609.

Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City is the

revelation, in words and pictures, of a quiet, wooded

island at the mouth of a great river, with a temperate

climate and a gentle and enduring people, destined

to become one of the greatest cities on Earth. The

explorer Henry Hudson was looking for Oriental

riches when he came to Manhattan Island’s shore on

September 12, 1609, but instead he found something

much more valuable. Mannahatta, the “island of

many hills,” was home to over fifty-five different eco-

systems, with thousands of species (including wolves,

black bears, bald eagles, passenger pigeons, and

sea-run trout) thriving in a landscape shaped over the

millennia, an example of the abundance and diversity

of nature undiminished by the human footprint.

Eric Sanderson is a landscape ecologist with the

Wildlife Conservation Society, and this book culmi-

nates ten years of primary research into the ecological

history of Manhattan—The Mannahatta Project.

Sanderson and his colleagues have reconstructed

Mannahatta at the scale of a city block using the latest

techniques in computational geography and visual-

ization that allow them to recreate what Manhattan

looked like in the hours before Hudson arrived. The

story of the project’s creation touches on George

Washington and the American Revolution; the origi-

nal Native American people, the Lenape, who lived on

Mannahatta; the remarkable hills, streams, and dales

of a lost landscape; and the new science of Muir webs,

which describe the interconnections that make nature

and cities work.

More than a history, Mannahatta: A Natural History of

New York City is a call for us to stretch our imaginations

not just back to 1609, but ahead to cities and a world

where people and wildlife can thrive for hundreds of

years into the future.

eric w. sanderson is the Associate Director

for Landscape Ecology and Geographic Analysis

in the Living Landscape Program of the Wildlife

Conservation Society at the Bronx Zoo. He is an

expert in the application of geographic principles and

techniques to problems in wildlife, landscape, and

ecological conservation, and has published numerous

articles on the subject. He lives in New York City.

markley boyer has worked with the Wildlife

Conservation Society creating maps and visualiza-

tions for a new series of national parks in Gabon in

central Africa. He is also a silversmith, exploring

similar themes of geomorphology in metal and wood.

He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

U.S. $40.00Canada $44.00

U.K. £19.99

Jacket front: Mannahatta—the original Native American name for Manhattan—is shown here (bottom) the way it appeared on September 12, 1609, just before European discovery, and as it appears today (top). courtesy markley boyer/wildlife conservation society (bottom) and digitalglobe (top). Jacket back: Midtown Manhattan, four hundred years ago (top) and today (bottom). courtesy markley boyer/wildlife conservation society (top) and stephen amiaga (bottom).

115 West 18th StreetNew York, NY 10011www.abramsbooks.com

Abrams is an imprint of

Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York CityBy Eric W. SandersonIllustrations by Markley Boyer 120 full-color illustrations352 pages, 7 ½ x 10" Hardcover with jacket

ISBN: 978-0-8109-9633-5U.S. $40.00 Can. $44.00 U.K. £19.99

Nature and HistoryRights: WorldPub month: May

To place an order:Please call your sales repre-sentative or Hachette Book Group at 800.759.0190 or fax 800.286.9471

To inquire about publicity:Please call 212.519.1232 or fax 212.366.0809

MANNAHATTAA NATURAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY

ERIC W. SANDERSON

ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARKLEY BOYER

zAbrams

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