Picture a much smaller island, one-half its current size. A forest of oak and pine on the rise where Fort Jay sits. Tulip trees over by Buttermilk Channel. Probably some white pine, away from the salt spray. Hawks, bobwhites. Sandy beaches! No Lenape?
That's Governors Island before Henry Hudson sailed by in 1609. Research by the Wildlife Conservation Society yielded the fascinating Mannahatta / Manhattan exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, establishing that all of the above was probably true. Ecologist Eric Sanderson, associate director of the society's Living Landscapes Program, headed the team that put it together and comes to the Island to talk about it for the National Park Service on Saturday, September 19. The museum exhibit runs through October 12.
That's Governors Island before Henry Hudson sailed by in 1609. Research by the Wildlife Conservation Society yielded the fascinating Mannahatta / Manhattan exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, establishing that all of the above was probably true. Ecologist Eric Sanderson, associate director of the society's Living Landscapes Program, headed the team that put it together and comes to the Island to talk about it for the National Park Service on Saturday, September 19. The museum exhibit runs through October 12.
Using geographic data, soil type, hydrology and other revealing perspectives, the Mannahatta Project concluded there weren't many mammals or snakes, possibly because it was hard for them to get there, and not many hogans for shelter because it was inhospitable to humans. "There is some evidence of native Lenape people using the Island," Sanderson says, "but it is doubtful that they stayed long since there doesn't seem to have been any permanent water."
The Island was ringed by sand, with outcroppings of rock along the shore and a salt marsh behind the sandy strip on Buttermilk Channel. Besides trees and birds mentioned above, the project assigned a 50 percent probability to ground cover like Virginia creeper, fleabane and prickly greenbrier, white-footed mice and deer mice, and many species of birds - among them, robin, passenger pigeon and wild turkey. Fish and shellfish were abundant, including cod, flounder, blues, shad and the less familiar silverside, stickleback, rock gunnel and, of course, oysters.
Do your own research: Find Manhattan neighborhoods at themannahattaproject.org. Click on 'explore,' type in an address or a landmark (Battery Park, NYU) and you're there 400 years ago.
The Island was ringed by sand, with outcroppings of rock along the shore and a salt marsh behind the sandy strip on Buttermilk Channel. Besides trees and birds mentioned above, the project assigned a 50 percent probability to ground cover like Virginia creeper, fleabane and prickly greenbrier, white-footed mice and deer mice, and many species of birds - among them, robin, passenger pigeon and wild turkey. Fish and shellfish were abundant, including cod, flounder, blues, shad and the less familiar silverside, stickleback, rock gunnel and, of course, oysters.
Do your own research: Find Manhattan neighborhoods at themannahattaproject.org. Click on 'explore,' type in an address or a landmark (Battery Park, NYU) and you're there 400 years ago.