Before reading this paper written by Sanderson and Brown, I knew that the Manhattan I grew up knowing was not always a busy, populous city. The skyscrapers and other human made structures did not exist. There were more trees, more hills and more bodies of water. However, that was the extent of my knowledge. I never thought of asking myself how much more natural areas were there? How much of the island was covered in trees and forests? How diverse were the ecological communities? What did Manhattan look like?
After reading this paper, it felt eye-opening to learn in-depth about the natural environment of Manhattan before substantial human settlement. It is difficult for me to imagine a Manhattan that used to be 99.9% natural areas when I have seen Manhattan and New York City overall as a place covered in large skyscrapers and buildings (552).This fact made me curious to see some visual images of the Mannahatta Project. On the project website, they had a Google Earth application where I was able to see an overview of Mannahatta. I typed in my address and the application had a lot information regarding what the surrounding environment was like. I learned that most of my neighborhood used to be an oak-tulip forest home to a diverse amount of wildlife such as Eastern Chipmunks, Red-Tailed Hawks, and Brown Snakes. Today, it is just a neighborhood consisting of
brick buildings, a few trees on the sidewalk, some pigeons, and some squirrels. If I could have saw my neighborhood with this much environmental diversity, it would be amazing.
One point that Sanderson makes in the paper is that there is a trade-off between the progress of human society and the well-being of the environment. As Manhattan and New York City expanded in its commercial development, more of the environment needed to destroyed or modified in order to suit the needs of the City and its growing population. In particular, 1825 was a significant year as the completion of the Erie Canal made the City a very important port according to Sanderson (547). However, even before 1825, we can see from the table on page 552 that human-dedicated areas increased from 0.1% in 1609 to 16% in 1782 while natural areas decreased from 99.9% to 84%. In less than 400 years by 2004, only 3% of natural areas remained and have become eclipsed by human-dedicated areas which occupy 97% of Manhattan’s land (553). The natural environment of Manhattan which had been developing for thousands of years was destroyed in less than 400 years for the sake of society’s progress. If the trend continues, more of the natural areas would be destroyed to provide society with the resources it needs. Eventually, those resources will likely be exhausted. Society will also lose many of the benefits nature can provide such as stress relief and medical advancements.
Overall, I thought Sanderson’s paper did a great job at exploring in-depth the environmental landscape of Manhattan before human development. It impresses me that with one historical document, Sanderson and Brown were able to extract so much information and create an entire project off of the map.