Then & Now

New York Magazine has an interesting article this week about what the island of Manhattan used to look like back when it was still, you know, natural. They have 2 great pictures juxtaposed each other, one how the city looks today and the other a computer simulation of what it used to look like when the Lenape "the real people" used to live here. I keep staring at the two photos side by side trying to grasp this concept. I wish I could go back in time and see the island as it originally was. According to the article

"there were more ecological communities per acre than Yellowstone, more native plant species per acre than Yosemite"

Pretty amazing to think about. and look at it now. kinda sad, but inevitable I guess. I wonder what it is about this little stretch of land that has drawn man to it since it was shaped by glaciers 14,000 yrs ago? The whole raison d'etre for the short article was to promote an upcoming exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York opening in May about this very topic. I am surely going to check it out.