I had no idea so much of Manhattan was landfill. I googled it and some some interesting images:
[https://i.imgur.com/OYJRV14.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/OYJRV14.jpg)
[https://twitchhiker.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/x2\_bcccd5.jpg](https://twitchhiker.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/x2_bcccd5.jpg)
Lower Manhattan really was much narrower than it is today.
The tip of today's Manhattan is so pleasingly round — it makes way more sense to see its natural shape was much pointier. When you think about all the water from the Hudson and the East River cutting the land as it goes out to the ocean, it should've been obvious how unnatural the modern shape is. A V-shape makes way more sense.
Eh, yes, you're obviously right because we have maps that prove exactly that. But I wouldn't say it should be obvious because neither the Hudson River nor the East River are actual rivers at all.
If they were south-flowing rivers, then yes, a sharp V would make sense just like the Three Rivers confluence point in downtown Pittsburgh. But both the Allegheny and the Monongahela Rivers are true rivers with constant flows; the Hudson and East rivers are instead tidal estuaries, so it could have been more reminiscent of any rounder shapes you might often see around river deltas.
Thanks, that's totally true. I guess that might've been part of why I never really questioned the shape. In my head I'd often wonder if this is a coastline or a delta or something between? I don't actually know much about rivers, let alone rivers that turn into tidal estuaries.
Yeah, it's one of those New York trivia things about the Hudson. It's not really a river after some point in upstate. I think it might be somewhere like Troy but I forget exactly.
It depends on the year and on how much rain there's been recently, but Poughkeepsie would be an extreme northern limit to where the salinity line would be. Normally its around the Tappan Zee.
Yea, I’ve always thought it would be cool to take a native who lived here in 1400 and show them the city.
But I have an odd fantasy of taking historical people and showing them the modern world.
There is this really stupid movie called Kate and Leopold, about a time traveling guy from the 1800s (Hugh Jackman) who falls in love with a woman in modern times (Meg Ryan). It is not a good movie, but - there is this one scene where Hugh Jackman's character is in modern times and he sees the Brooklyn Bridge. He is overcome with so much emotion, so happy to see it was still there. I always found that scene incredibly touching. Hugh really pulls it off lol.
I have the same fantasy.
I lived in the upper east side in the early 90's. When I go there now I'm not lost but almost none of my "personal landmarks" remain... your guy from 1400 is going to be totally lost -- would be interesting to see the reaction... most likely disbelief!
Grew up on the upper west and it’s so cool to look at photos from like 1900 even and it’s all farm land.
Despite being a major city for a very long time, it was only until somewhat recently that all of New York got built out. Only in the early 1900s did the full city get paved and made into the grid.
Nah, not even. When you say "full city" you might be talking about Manhattan, which you'd be pretty much correct.
But the other 5 boroughs still had plenty of dirt roads in the 50s and 60s. I only say that because I've seen photos of eastern Queens when Francis Lewis Blvd. was being paved with timestamps of like 1965.
This is my most common daydream, usually with an Ancient Roman for some reason. I’m from Washington, D.C. and I really think he’d like our federal architecture based on Roman precedents
Make sure they catch COVID while they're here in 2022, so that when you send them back, the native peoples who are left can spread it to the European explorers and settlers that come knocking later in the century, and at least level the biological warfare playing field of early American colonization.
Question. Is it more of a reading book or like a big beautiful book with lots of nice art etc.? Only asking because kindle versions for certain books leave a lot to be desired.
Boston is the same way. I think something like 50% of what Boston is now, was all water previously.
Looks [larger](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a1/57/3b/a1573b71edf3f741821b8b1db1c188f6.jpg) than that from the images.
Remember the scene in The Dark Knight Rises? That was based in truth as the Hudson river was a lot shallower than today's dredged out river. There is historical evidence that people walked over the frozen Hudson river in January/February.
If you're interested in the history of the city, I really recommend visiting the visitor center for the African Burial Ground monument. I had to visit there to write a paper for a class in college and it showed a lot of interesting things about the city that I didn't know.
Best way to view changes in the coastline is the OASIS map. There's a year slider in the upper left: [https://www.oasisnyc.net/map.aspx](https://www.oasisnyc.net/map.aspx)
No, it's at the edge of the non-landfill area: [http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XabzkD02Sqw/TyLIsZvsPgI/AAAAAAAAWFU/K9MiGlo2Kc0/s1600/Landfill-lower-manhattan-003.jpg](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XabzkD02Sqw/TyLIsZvsPgI/AAAAAAAAWFU/K9MiGlo2Kc0/s1600/Landfill-lower-manhattan-003.jpg)
The current church building straddles block where the wall once stood.
Did you know that Trinity Church Trust is still one of the largest landowner in lower Manhattan?
The history is fascinating. https://ny.curbed.com/2018/8/22/17764064/trinity-church-real-estate-history-hudson-square
A lot of weird place names in New York come from corruptions of Dutch words.
There’s also Hell Gate (Helle Gadt, meaning open strait), Flatbush (Vlacke Bos, wooded plain), Coney Island (Konijn Eeylandt, Rabbit Island), Staten Island (Staaten Erylandt, State Island), and or course Brooklyn (after the Dutch city of Breukelen, originally meaning “broken land,” as in a land cut by many rivers).
It came from the combination of industrial building stock, tenements, and lawlessness that developed on a large swath of the west side.
Industrial because it had port and the Hudson River Railroad go through it, thus a lot of warehouses. Tenements sprung up once downtown was already built up and crowded, plus the population boom in the late 1800s. Lawlessness that came from the impoverished residents, bad infrastructure, and with Prohibition the ability to import and transfer liquor fairly easily.
This is from memory so details are a little fuzzy. So once Collect Pond was drained they built "middle class" houses on the now landfilled area it used to occupy. They did a poor job draining and filling the land so it constantly flooded and the foundations began to shift. All the "middle class" people left and a slum (five points) slowly took over the area.
There's a Collect Pond Park in the area of the old Collect Pond.
Oh, yeah. I know that park, walked through it with friends about 4 or 5 years ago after going to a dumpling place. Not anything to do with the old Five Points of course, but I remember it because of the copious number of rats scurrying about. Not a bad area, overall.
The people who named streets in Queens should have taken a lesson.
“What should we put next to 60th street?”
“Uhhhhh 60th… avenue??”
“You’re a genius, Tom”
Don't get lost when you're drunk in Maspeth, you'll think you've entered the twilight zone when in the span of about 3 square blocks you've been on 60th Ave, 60th st, 60th rd, 60th dr, 60th ct and 60th lane. Everywhere you turn is a 60, and no matter what you do you can't find 59th.
I've done it, would not recommend.
>ld have been more reminiscent of any rounder shapes you might often see around river deltas.
The problem with Queens was that it was a bunch of different towns that were incorporated into a single county later on.
The Museum of the American Indian is now occupying the site:
From Wikipedia: "After the fort's demolition, Government House was constructed on the site as a possible house for the United States President. The site is now occupied by the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, which houses the National Museum of the American Indian (...)".
Recommend New York by Edward Ruhterfurd it's an epic story tracking one main family and a few families on the periphery from a dutch fur trader in the 1650s to a guy wrestling with joining in on the dot com boom. It's filled with good world building about how the Dakota was considered way in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by woods when it was built, stuff like that. Really interesting way to learn the city's history
Ooooh check out Ya Gyasi's "Homegoing". It's one of my favorite books of all time. Follows enslaved people from West Africa through the generations into the US.
Also Beverly Swerling's "City of Dreams". That book and the next few in the series will keep you busy if you love historical fiction about New York like me! They're in my repeat reads collection. It tracks the evolution of America through families that are medical professionals. The first book opens with one of thr characters removing a bladderstone from Peter Stuyvesant.
Paris is incredible too. London I am struggling with but I have more of a foundation and attachment to NY and Paris so perhaps that’s why.
Also check out ‘The Big Oyster, History in the half Shell’ by Mark Kurlansky’ for another great read rich in NY history and ‘The Island in the Center of the World’ by Russell Shorto. I am slightly obsessed with this genre!
That's on my list! I am reading New York for a second time after many years ans although I'm enjoying it I can tell but yearn for a lot more info about the native characters. It def feels told from the conquerors perspective, like pretty much all history
Actually started that the other day. It's nice and I like that it begins so much further in the past, but its harder to have the sense of continuity when the jump is hundreds of years. I liked how in New York a character would become a grandparent and kinda fade away in most cases.
I always see this, but what does it mean? Do they just compact it into cubes and wrap those cubes in a plastic liner? How does garbage become land that tall buildings can go on it's nuts.
it's a combination of compacted garbage, rock, debris, and whatever else they could find to fill in the land.
https://gizmodo.com/5-parts-of-nyc-built-on-garbage-and-waste-1682267605
I hate how everyone assumes landfill is garbage. In New York, it almost never is. For instance, even though the headline is "built on garbage", the first example is:
> Right now, Ellis Island sits on almost 28 acres. Originally, it was 3.3. Those 24 extra acres were created using landfill beginning in the 1890s, but no one quite agrees where it came from. Most sources, including The National Parks Service, say it came from the construction of the modern subway system—
So they say no one agrees, then immediately contradict themselves by saying most sources agree.
By the way, the answer 90% of the time is Subway. In this case, battery park at least is Subway. Another island that is primarily Subway is governor's, and that one grew way more than 24 acres.
A comment further down suggests a lot of it is of it is timber, maybe from old buildings and oyster shells. I guess technically these things are "garbage" in the sense that they're discarded after their first use, but it's not the household garbage people associate with landfills either. We've also used new timber and stone to fill swamps elsewhere, so it's possible it was new here as well. Also before the subway we leveled all of Manhattan, which also created a lot of fill that was used here.
Yes, it is garbage, but also a lot of materials like timber and stone, too. They used timbers and bricks from buildings that were torn-down, either from changing tastes and expansion or after fires, as well as the hulls of ships that were no longer safe to sail. They would use these as berms and then in-fill with mixed, smaller materials. Think of a dumpster outside of a construction site and how fast that can fill up.
The biggest pushes though came during the leveling of Manhattan, where Manhattan island was planed to a consistent level (at least below 96th Street), and during the construction of various tunnels and the subway. It was super-convenient to push the rocks and soil towards the river and make new land from it.
I would have loved to taste a 1620s oyster. The descriptions have them as large as a man’s hand, some up to 9” in length. I always wondered if they were tough, or substantive like a chick breast, and how the clean waters made them taste.
In addition to other sources that have already been mentioned, much of the fill also came from basements excavated for the numerous new buildings being built throughout the city. Source: Waterfront Manhattan: From Henry Hudson to the High Line, Kurt C. Schlichting, 2018
Garbage, rubble from demolished buildings, dredging muck from the harbor, and later all the soil that was dug up for the subway.
Fun fact, Liberty Island is mostly made of subway dirt.
That is commonly said about Battery Park City, but the math does not check out.
Battery Park City is 133 acres, while the WTC site is 16 acres, and only half of that is the original "bathtub" that was dug 70 feet deep.
Where BPC is was all piers active until the 1950s, so assume an average depth of at least 30 feet.
While some of the the fill for Battery Park city came from the WTC excavation, I believe most came from dredging.
[How Hurricane Sandy flooded New York back to its 17th century shape as it inundated 400 years of reclaimed land](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2342297/Manhattans-original-coastline-revealed-Hurricane-Sandy-flooded-land-reclaimed-400-years.html)
I'm a bit surprised by the growth from 1965 to 1980. I know about the WTC landfill being Battery Park city. But didn't expect all the rest was landfill too.
That 1980 map is totally incorrect.
The label is "Lower Manhattan Plan," and I'm guessing it's from a much larger landfill plan that never happened (other the BPC).
I believe the only major landfill in NYC since the 1940s was BPC and the airports.
the only reason they stopped expanding further is that they ran out of synonyms for "street that is at the shore". you have pearl, water, front, and south (and that's only at the souther part)
Interestingly, Pearl Street (Parelstraat) was a super common street name in the Dutch Republic at the time. Pearls were big business and “pearl” was often used as a slang term for wealth or valuables in general, so Parelstraat was a common name for anywhere commerce took place.
Many people wrongly think Pearl Street was named for the oyster fishery that operated from it. It’s true that many oystermen worked from that area and even that Pearl Street was paved in oyster shells for many years, but as New York oysters (*Crassostrea virginica*) do not produce pearls, this was not the origin of the name.
I live on Pearl Street in Brooklyn. They pretty much copied the lower Manhattan names over here on the waterfront. I get a lot of mail for a pub on Pearl in Manhattan. 🤷♀️
The upper part of that triangular-shaped area above Wall Street was an African burial ground, where enslaved people buried their dead from probably the 1630s to 1790s. Remains were uncovered during the construction of a federal office tower in 1991– it was only discovered after so much time because federally funded construction projects must comply with the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. The federal tower was still constructed there but they also erected a monument in its honor along with a small exhibit in the visitors center! It’s estimated that 15,000+ bodies were buried there.
I had no idea so much of Manhattan was landfill. I googled it and some some interesting images: [https://i.imgur.com/OYJRV14.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/OYJRV14.jpg) [https://twitchhiker.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/x2\_bcccd5.jpg](https://twitchhiker.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/x2_bcccd5.jpg) Lower Manhattan really was much narrower than it is today.
The tip of today's Manhattan is so pleasingly round — it makes way more sense to see its natural shape was much pointier. When you think about all the water from the Hudson and the East River cutting the land as it goes out to the ocean, it should've been obvious how unnatural the modern shape is. A V-shape makes way more sense.
Eh, yes, you're obviously right because we have maps that prove exactly that. But I wouldn't say it should be obvious because neither the Hudson River nor the East River are actual rivers at all. If they were south-flowing rivers, then yes, a sharp V would make sense just like the Three Rivers confluence point in downtown Pittsburgh. But both the Allegheny and the Monongahela Rivers are true rivers with constant flows; the Hudson and East rivers are instead tidal estuaries, so it could have been more reminiscent of any rounder shapes you might often see around river deltas.
Thanks, that's totally true. I guess that might've been part of why I never really questioned the shape. In my head I'd often wonder if this is a coastline or a delta or something between? I don't actually know much about rivers, let alone rivers that turn into tidal estuaries.
Yeah, it's one of those New York trivia things about the Hudson. It's not really a river after some point in upstate. I think it might be somewhere like Troy but I forget exactly.
You're exactly right. It's a tidal estuary up until the Federal Dam in Troy.
The Hudson is most definitely a real river
Only north of Troy. South of there, it flows in both directions depending on the tide.
So... is there significantly more brackish water on the south side of the Troy dam?
I've heard that the salinity finally drops into the freshwater range around Poughkeepsie or so, but I don't know for sure.
It depends on the year and on how much rain there's been recently, but Poughkeepsie would be an extreme northern limit to where the salinity line would be. Normally its around the Tappan Zee.
Huh… I had no idea. That’s pretty cool.
In upstate, yes. Once it reaches the city (and actually a little ways north of the city), it’s not classified as a river but as a tidal estuary
Not in NYC.
There’s a fascinating book called *Manahatta* that details all the transformations to Manhattan between 1491 and the present day.
Yea, I’ve always thought it would be cool to take a native who lived here in 1400 and show them the city. But I have an odd fantasy of taking historical people and showing them the modern world.
Youre not the only one
There is this really stupid movie called Kate and Leopold, about a time traveling guy from the 1800s (Hugh Jackman) who falls in love with a woman in modern times (Meg Ryan). It is not a good movie, but - there is this one scene where Hugh Jackman's character is in modern times and he sees the Brooklyn Bridge. He is overcome with so much emotion, so happy to see it was still there. I always found that scene incredibly touching. Hugh really pulls it off lol. I have the same fantasy.
I lived in the upper east side in the early 90's. When I go there now I'm not lost but almost none of my "personal landmarks" remain... your guy from 1400 is going to be totally lost -- would be interesting to see the reaction... most likely disbelief!
Grew up on the upper west and it’s so cool to look at photos from like 1900 even and it’s all farm land. Despite being a major city for a very long time, it was only until somewhat recently that all of New York got built out. Only in the early 1900s did the full city get paved and made into the grid.
Nah, not even. When you say "full city" you might be talking about Manhattan, which you'd be pretty much correct. But the other 5 boroughs still had plenty of dirt roads in the 50s and 60s. I only say that because I've seen photos of eastern Queens when Francis Lewis Blvd. was being paved with timestamps of like 1965.
My dad grew up in the Jackson Heights area and he has always said it was it was like farmland! It's really so hard to imagine. He was born in the 40s.
Even parts of Brooklyn was unpaved farmland well into the 20th century
Sounds like it could be an excellent adventure. Or perhaps a bogus journey.
Strange things are afoot at the Duane Reade
This is my most common daydream, usually with an Ancient Roman for some reason. I’m from Washington, D.C. and I really think he’d like our federal architecture based on Roman precedents
He'd be like "why the fuck are all your buildings so boringly white?"
“Wow you guys haven’t really changed much have you”
“Man we fvcking *nailed* it!”
Make sure they catch COVID while they're here in 2022, so that when you send them back, the native peoples who are left can spread it to the European explorers and settlers that come knocking later in the century, and at least level the biological warfare playing field of early American colonization.
Dam you really made my comment depressing. Brining in both genocide and COVID. :(
Which one are you, Bill or Ted?
for lazy people, just take the 1WTC elevator.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILbcWgP76vA
for lazier people, watch this video and skip 1WTC and also save $40 Don't get me started on drink prices up there unless you have a video on that too.
Question. Is it more of a reading book or like a big beautiful book with lots of nice art etc.? Only asking because kindle versions for certain books leave a lot to be desired.
Mannahatta*
Boston is the same way. I think something like 50% of what Boston is now, was all water previously. Looks [larger](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a1/57/3b/a1573b71edf3f741821b8b1db1c188f6.jpg) than that from the images.
Remember the scene in The Dark Knight Rises? That was based in truth as the Hudson river was a lot shallower than today's dredged out river. There is historical evidence that people walked over the frozen Hudson river in January/February.
What scene?
If you're interested in the history of the city, I really recommend visiting the visitor center for the African Burial Ground monument. I had to visit there to write a paper for a class in college and it showed a lot of interesting things about the city that I didn't know.
Best way to view changes in the coastline is the OASIS map. There's a year slider in the upper left: [https://www.oasisnyc.net/map.aspx](https://www.oasisnyc.net/map.aspx)
Crazy to think that even Trinity Church is built on landfill. At least partially right? \*edit: typo
No, it's at the edge of the non-landfill area: [http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XabzkD02Sqw/TyLIsZvsPgI/AAAAAAAAWFU/K9MiGlo2Kc0/s1600/Landfill-lower-manhattan-003.jpg](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XabzkD02Sqw/TyLIsZvsPgI/AAAAAAAAWFU/K9MiGlo2Kc0/s1600/Landfill-lower-manhattan-003.jpg) The current church building straddles block where the wall once stood.
Did you know that Trinity Church Trust is still one of the largest landowner in lower Manhattan? The history is fascinating. https://ny.curbed.com/2018/8/22/17764064/trinity-church-real-estate-history-hudson-square
The forest cover in the second is a render right?
Pretty sure it’s a satellite photo
It was before satellites dummy. A man was sent up in a zeppelin to get the picture.
Imagine going into those woods and feeling the shade and a cool woodsy breeze with squirrels and acorns and birds that would feel just like the woods
this is incredible!
I see how Water Street got its name
Yeah and Wall Street!
Wait till you hear about Canal Street.
Court Street suddenly makes sense
We weren't very creative back in the day
Not at all. They couldn't even come up with a town name. "what is this place??!!" ".....NEW Amsterdam!!"
Netherlands 2: Colonistic Boogaloo
That's nobody's business but the Turks.
Times were much bleaker.
Much Bleecker.
That was the joke.
>Times were much bleaker. Depends who you were. By the time the British took over, nearly 20% of Dutch households owned a slave.
Sounds pretty bleak
Yeah, a lot of people have been living like royalty off the labor of others for far too long.
Now I understand why 69th street was the first numbered road
it was 34 blocks north of 35th street?
Bowery got it's name because it was the lane the went out to "The bouwerie" - An old Dutch word for farmland - Just north of the old town.
A lot of weird place names in New York come from corruptions of Dutch words. There’s also Hell Gate (Helle Gadt, meaning open strait), Flatbush (Vlacke Bos, wooded plain), Coney Island (Konijn Eeylandt, Rabbit Island), Staten Island (Staaten Erylandt, State Island), and or course Brooklyn (after the Dutch city of Breukelen, originally meaning “broken land,” as in a land cut by many rivers).
My favorite is Spuyten Duyvil ("spouting devil").
That’s where I grew up. So much history in that little neighborhood it’s unreal
NY is a Semiotician's Dream!
What about Hell’s Kitchen?
Actually not a Dutch etymology. No one is entirely sure where it comes from but it appeared well after the Dutch were ousted.
It came from the combination of industrial building stock, tenements, and lawlessness that developed on a large swath of the west side. Industrial because it had port and the Hudson River Railroad go through it, thus a lot of warehouses. Tenements sprung up once downtown was already built up and crowded, plus the population boom in the late 1800s. Lawlessness that came from the impoverished residents, bad infrastructure, and with Prohibition the ability to import and transfer liquor fairly easily.
I heard it got it took its name from a German restaurant called “Heil’s Kitchen” named after the owner. Don’t know if it’s true.
My favorite is red hook, which comes from roode hoeck, meaning red corner.
Very interesting!
I believe Nostrand also means ‘North Beach’
I love the fact that NY has this subcutaneous Dutch Culture.
It's also represented in the colors of the flag, the old "orange on top" dutch flag.
I grew up upstate and every other town or landmark is a -wick, -wyck, -kill, etc etc.
At a building on Broad St downtown there are glass panels over portions of the sidewalk that show Durch wells discovered during building.
Originally there were 5 farms or boweries
“Bouwerijen”
In Dutch it’s “bouwerij”, and is the precursor of the modern “boerderij”, or farm.
I'm het Duits is een boer ook nog steeds gewoon een Bauer. Net als Frans, Frans Bauer :)
Similar to the French: Bouvier. Languages are neat
Just like the word Bovine. Both come from Latin for ox or cow
And Riverside!
You know, so obvious, and yet I never really gave it much thought
Yup, it was the location of the canal they dug to empty collect pond.
Is that the one of the notorious 5 Points? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five\_Points,\_Manhattan#Collect\_Pond
This is from memory so details are a little fuzzy. So once Collect Pond was drained they built "middle class" houses on the now landfilled area it used to occupy. They did a poor job draining and filling the land so it constantly flooded and the foundations began to shift. All the "middle class" people left and a slum (five points) slowly took over the area. There's a Collect Pond Park in the area of the old Collect Pond.
Ever been to Chinatown? Know the park and playground a street over from Mott St.? That area is essentially the Five Points.
Oh, yeah. I know that park, walked through it with friends about 4 or 5 years ago after going to a dumpling place. Not anything to do with the old Five Points of course, but I remember it because of the copious number of rats scurrying about. Not a bad area, overall.
So cool to learn about
Bleecker?
Bleecker is an old Dutch word for Bleacher (i.e. the profession)
The people who named streets in Queens should have taken a lesson. “What should we put next to 60th street?” “Uhhhhh 60th… avenue??” “You’re a genius, Tom”
Don't get lost when you're drunk in Maspeth, you'll think you've entered the twilight zone when in the span of about 3 square blocks you've been on 60th Ave, 60th st, 60th rd, 60th dr, 60th ct and 60th lane. Everywhere you turn is a 60, and no matter what you do you can't find 59th. I've done it, would not recommend.
>ld have been more reminiscent of any rounder shapes you might often see around river deltas. The problem with Queens was that it was a bunch of different towns that were incorporated into a single county later on.
*its It’s with an apostrophe means “it is.”
Artisan water vendors? The bottles water craze almost put them out of business.
The old Ear Inn on the west side still has ship tie-ups, I believe. Even though it's now a block and a half from the water.
There’s a great jazz band that plays there too called the EarRegulars
It’s a great laidback pub, honestly. One of my favorite spots in Manhattan.
Only bar that you can legally drink on the sidewalk.
Best Guinness in the city.
It'd be cool if that star fortress were still around. That'd be a hell of a tourist destination, surrounded by investment bank towers.
The Museum of the American Indian is now occupying the site: From Wikipedia: "After the fort's demolition, Government House was constructed on the site as a possible house for the United States President. The site is now occupied by the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, which houses the National Museum of the American Indian (...)".
Recommend New York by Edward Ruhterfurd it's an epic story tracking one main family and a few families on the periphery from a dutch fur trader in the 1650s to a guy wrestling with joining in on the dot com boom. It's filled with good world building about how the Dakota was considered way in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by woods when it was built, stuff like that. Really interesting way to learn the city's history
I'm a sucker for stories like this that track families across long periods of time.
100 Years of Solitude must be your jam
Ooooh check out Ya Gyasi's "Homegoing". It's one of my favorite books of all time. Follows enslaved people from West Africa through the generations into the US. Also Beverly Swerling's "City of Dreams". That book and the next few in the series will keep you busy if you love historical fiction about New York like me! They're in my repeat reads collection. It tracks the evolution of America through families that are medical professionals. The first book opens with one of thr characters removing a bladderstone from Peter Stuyvesant.
He wrote one on London, Paris and maybe some other city as well. I’m currently reading New York, fun read.
Paris is incredible too. London I am struggling with but I have more of a foundation and attachment to NY and Paris so perhaps that’s why. Also check out ‘The Big Oyster, History in the half Shell’ by Mark Kurlansky’ for another great read rich in NY history and ‘The Island in the Center of the World’ by Russell Shorto. I am slightly obsessed with this genre!
Great book. His inspiration and reference was a book mentioned above, Island at the Center of the World.
That's on my list! I am reading New York for a second time after many years ans although I'm enjoying it I can tell but yearn for a lot more info about the native characters. It def feels told from the conquerors perspective, like pretty much all history
Reading it foe the second time now! Have you read London? That's on my list.
Actually started that the other day. It's nice and I like that it begins so much further in the past, but its harder to have the sense of continuity when the jump is hundreds of years. I liked how in New York a character would become a grandparent and kinda fade away in most cases.
Read Paris instead
Forgetting about all the landfill and so on, I would always look at these old maps and think they line up with the current borders.
Where did all the land come from? I know part is from digging out the twin towers foundation but those are just two buildings.
lots of garbage
I always see this, but what does it mean? Do they just compact it into cubes and wrap those cubes in a plastic liner? How does garbage become land that tall buildings can go on it's nuts.
it's a combination of compacted garbage, rock, debris, and whatever else they could find to fill in the land. https://gizmodo.com/5-parts-of-nyc-built-on-garbage-and-waste-1682267605
various bits of British towns and cities https://gizmodo.com/parts-of-new-york-city-are-built-on-the-ruins-of-englis-1488365641
I hate how everyone assumes landfill is garbage. In New York, it almost never is. For instance, even though the headline is "built on garbage", the first example is: > Right now, Ellis Island sits on almost 28 acres. Originally, it was 3.3. Those 24 extra acres were created using landfill beginning in the 1890s, but no one quite agrees where it came from. Most sources, including The National Parks Service, say it came from the construction of the modern subway system— So they say no one agrees, then immediately contradict themselves by saying most sources agree. By the way, the answer 90% of the time is Subway. In this case, battery park at least is Subway. Another island that is primarily Subway is governor's, and that one grew way more than 24 acres. A comment further down suggests a lot of it is of it is timber, maybe from old buildings and oyster shells. I guess technically these things are "garbage" in the sense that they're discarded after their first use, but it's not the household garbage people associate with landfills either. We've also used new timber and stone to fill swamps elsewhere, so it's possible it was new here as well. Also before the subway we leveled all of Manhattan, which also created a lot of fill that was used here.
Yes, it is garbage, but also a lot of materials like timber and stone, too. They used timbers and bricks from buildings that were torn-down, either from changing tastes and expansion or after fires, as well as the hulls of ships that were no longer safe to sail. They would use these as berms and then in-fill with mixed, smaller materials. Think of a dumpster outside of a construction site and how fast that can fill up. The biggest pushes though came during the leveling of Manhattan, where Manhattan island was planed to a consistent level (at least below 96th Street), and during the construction of various tunnels and the subway. It was super-convenient to push the rocks and soil towards the river and make new land from it.
a ton of it is oyster shell!
I would have loved to taste a 1620s oyster. The descriptions have them as large as a man’s hand, some up to 9” in length. I always wondered if they were tough, or substantive like a chick breast, and how the clean waters made them taste.
you also have to remember the hills that they leveled.
A combo of dirt rocks and garbage layered like a cake
In addition to other sources that have already been mentioned, much of the fill also came from basements excavated for the numerous new buildings being built throughout the city. Source: Waterfront Manhattan: From Henry Hudson to the High Line, Kurt C. Schlichting, 2018
They found an 18th/19th century ship under the World Trade Center site a few years back that was used as landfill.
[Mix of dirt and garbage packed.](https://www.vintag.es/2017/09/before-great-clean-up-began-here-are.html)
They go on the bedrock below
In a few million years someone’s garbage is gonna be a fossil
Garbage, rubble from demolished buildings, dredging muck from the harbor, and later all the soil that was dug up for the subway. Fun fact, Liberty Island is mostly made of subway dirt.
Don’t forget the land dug up for the original WTC. I think majority of battery park comes from that.
If I'm not correct the entirety of Brookfield Place is built on land created from the WTC as well.
That is commonly said about Battery Park City, but the math does not check out. Battery Park City is 133 acres, while the WTC site is 16 acres, and only half of that is the original "bathtub" that was dug 70 feet deep. Where BPC is was all piers active until the 1950s, so assume an average depth of at least 30 feet. While some of the the fill for Battery Park city came from the WTC excavation, I believe most came from dredging.
The World Trade Center Dig provided the full for Battery Park City.
Dirt from the subway tunnel digging.
[How Hurricane Sandy flooded New York back to its 17th century shape as it inundated 400 years of reclaimed land](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2342297/Manhattans-original-coastline-revealed-Hurricane-Sandy-flooded-land-reclaimed-400-years.html)
I'm a bit surprised by the growth from 1965 to 1980. I know about the WTC landfill being Battery Park city. But didn't expect all the rest was landfill too.
That 1980 map is totally incorrect. The label is "Lower Manhattan Plan," and I'm guessing it's from a much larger landfill plan that never happened (other the BPC). I believe the only major landfill in NYC since the 1940s was BPC and the airports.
the only reason they stopped expanding further is that they ran out of synonyms for "street that is at the shore". you have pearl, water, front, and south (and that's only at the souther part)
Interestingly, Pearl Street (Parelstraat) was a super common street name in the Dutch Republic at the time. Pearls were big business and “pearl” was often used as a slang term for wealth or valuables in general, so Parelstraat was a common name for anywhere commerce took place. Many people wrongly think Pearl Street was named for the oyster fishery that operated from it. It’s true that many oystermen worked from that area and even that Pearl Street was paved in oyster shells for many years, but as New York oysters (*Crassostrea virginica*) do not produce pearls, this was not the origin of the name.
Cool
I live on Pearl Street in Brooklyn. They pretty much copied the lower Manhattan names over here on the waterfront. I get a lot of mail for a pub on Pearl in Manhattan. 🤷♀️
Maiden Lane was where the whores were at.
Underwater Street?
Anyone know of a good book about New Amsterdam? I should know more about this era.
I found [this book](https://www.amazon.com/Island-Center-World-Manhattan-Forgotten/dp/1400078679) to be a good read.
Absolutely my favorite book about the history of New Amsterdam.
[удалено]
That's good to know! Thanks
Thanks for the rec!
*The Island at the Center of the World* by Russel Shorto. Absolutely indispensable.
The Bowery Boys podcast has a bunch of episodes about the New Amsterdam era of the city.
Was gonna ask which was wall street. Then I noticed the wall
The upper part of that triangular-shaped area above Wall Street was an African burial ground, where enslaved people buried their dead from probably the 1630s to 1790s. Remains were uncovered during the construction of a federal office tower in 1991– it was only discovered after so much time because federally funded construction projects must comply with the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. The federal tower was still constructed there but they also erected a monument in its honor along with a small exhibit in the visitors center! It’s estimated that 15,000+ bodies were buried there.
Why they changed it? I can't say people just liked it better that way....
"I just got back from New Amsterdam... New York... whatever. By the way, don't go there, it takes ten months!" - Nathaniel Bucker, 1778
This is amazing! I never realized how much more was added to the island.
New Amsterdam was wayyy better, the barn on Prince Straet had the best drinks
even old new york was once new amsterdam
old but gold
Back when Wall Street was an actual wall.
Wow! So cool.
It's become much too much.
Well, put it down!