MANAHATTA.

MANAHATTA. here is the website for the Manahatta Project. There is also a book and an exhibit—“Manahatta”— at the Museum of the City of New York through October 12. You can click on the map and see what your street looked like in 1609. I clicked on 14th Street, where we used to live, and on streets in Greenwich Village which we knew well. A difficulty is that in 1609, as the map shows, most of Manahatta was covered with trees so that landmarks like streams don’t show up. An article by Carrie Sloan in the New York Post differentiates among the trees. The Garment District was a forest of tulip trees and Times Square was a red maple swamp. The Lenape, a Native American tribe, named the island “Mannahatta” for “land of many hills.” I was never aware of hills in Manhattan except when I was jogging. The “Science” button on the site is recommended. It reports that the island had over 570 hills and 55 different ecological community types. The Collect Pond, 70 feet deep, was the main water source for the city. It is on the spot where the steps of the Manhattan Supreme court are now—think of “Law and Order.”