Interactive map of Manhattan in 1609
The Mannahatta Project is an interactive map of Manhattan as it appeared in 1609, indexed by streets. You can enter a landmark name or address and zoom into your favorite New York neighborhood as it appeared in a more primeval time. Shown here, the site of the iconic Flatiron Building: 23rd and 5th.
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Whenever I see a bear and a wolf hangin' out together, I think Mowgli must be nearby.
But that's neither here nor there - can all y'all search all the ports and settlements and see if Henry Hudson is in here somewhere landing or dealing with the, er, natives? Think of it as a big ol' 3D googlemap version of Where's Waldo.
Winner gets... a... air kiss? Blown at them? From afar?
kthxbai
'Primeval' is hardly 1609
How exactly would they know where trees and shrubs were 400 hears ago? My guess is somebody created a random forested area, then simply changed the elevations to match the landscape of Manhattan.
@#2: How exactly would they know where trees and shrubs were 400 [y]ears ago?
Um, quite obviously, they wouldn't. That's not the point of this at all.
@ Doctorow: Thanks! This is a great companion piece to your recent Detroit houses link.
Also, I love the word Mannahatta. Very Walt Whitman.
it tickles me to my very core that you consider 1609 to be 'primeval'!
More about the Manahatta Project in Sept. National Geographic:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/09/manhattan/miller-text
Sad to see what has been lost for a concrete and asphalt desert.
@ #2 If you had the patience to look through a very methodical, fascinating and carefully made presentation on the Manahatta Project Website, you would have known that it took a group of really geeky (compliment) scientists five years to geo-reference old maps and scientific models to work out the smallest of details like the type of soil to be expected at any given point. The exact position of trees of course is not given, however does it matter what each atom does if you know how the molecule behaves?
This is not a cobbled together "eye-candy" presentation to loosen your wallet into giving some of you hard earned to an environmental charity, but a really cool, hardcore, fascinating reconstruction of world now lost.
"supernova", take a few minutes, with your fav brew in your hand and watch what the creators have to say! http://themannahattaproject.org/download/presentations/
It's gonna tickle those presumptions right out of you!
cm
Time travel back to 1609 via photographic reconstructions is an entertaining concept. I don't think these reconstructions are very exact, but at least they are interesting.
I just checked the Vistoria's Secret store in Soho and I swear there is a photograph of a family of beavers.