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Phase One: The Science
The Mannahatta Project has two overlapping goals. The first phase of the project has focused on the science of recreating detailed geographic models of Mannahatta using historical records and maps, natural history surveys, and the best science and scholarship available from New York City institutions over the last 200 years. Information gathered during the first stage of the project has been integrated and analyzed using geographic information systems (GIS) technology, and based on a detailed analysis of the British Headquarters Map of 1782. We are currently in the final stages of this portion of the project.
A project such as this requires great attention to detail. It took five years to complete this digital elevation model (a type of topographic map) of Mannahatta, using historical maps and current day GPS readings as sources of elevation data. This model is just one of hundreds of layers of geographical data created by The Mannahatta Project. Other layers include recreations of the 1609 shoreline; hill slope and aspect; wind exposure; locations of ponds, streams, and springs; bedrock geology; surficial geology; Lenape trails and settlement locations; as well as locations of the plant, animal, and fungi species and ecological communities that inhabited Mannahatta.
Our research shows that Mannahatta was an extraordinarily diverse place. With 56 ecological community types, it rivaled the biodiversity of Yellowstone. The photo above illustrates two of these community types, high salt marsh and low salt marsh, which could be found in many places on Mannahatta, (including the point indicated in red on the British Headquarter Map to the right) and can still be found today in nearby parks.
Based within the Landscape Ecology and Geographic Analysis Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society, The Mannahatta Project is coordinating an extensive team of scientists, ranging from historians and archaeologists to geographers, landscape ecologists, botanists, zoologists, educators, illustrators, and conservationists. Fortunately, many of these specialists are already part of the community of natural history and cultural institutions in New York City— including the American Museum of Natural History, the New York Botanical Garden, Columbia University, and of course, the Wildlife Conservation Society.
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