Anna shared this amazing composite image of Manhattan that shows the left side of the island as it was 400 years ago and the right side as it looks today.
The image was created by Markley Boyer and used in a New York Times piece about the history and potential future of Manhattan island.
Per acre, Sanderson writes, Mannahatta had more ecological communities than Yellowstone, more native plant species than Yosemite, more birds than the Great Smoky Mountains.
“If Mannahatta existed today as it did then, it would be a national park,” Sanderson says. “It would be the crowning glory of American National Parks.”
But it doesn’t, which leaves Sanderson to wonder what New York will look like 400 years from now.
It’s weird to think that a city as big as New York could have potentially been a National Park. I didn’t even know it was as green as it was depicted here. But I guess that would make sense since everything 400 years ago was probably green all over.
they say before europeans colonized america, a squirrel could walk from the east coast to the great plains without touching the ground once. That is to say that the whole eastern part of the United States was covered with unbroken forest.