Old forests, rolling hills, abundant wildlife and expansive wetlands. This doesn’t sound much like home. But this was what Henry Hudson and a fleet of Dutch and English sailors perceived when they first landed on Manhattan 400 years ago, a new exhibition on the Upper East Side shows.
“Manhatta / Manhattan: A Natural History of New York City,” which is currently on display at the Museum of the City of New York depicts the Big Apple before there were cars, skyscrapers and densely-packed groups of people – or much of civilization, as we now know it.
The exhibition, organized by the museum with the Wildlife Conservation Society, marks the quadricentennial anniversary of when Hudson completed his voyage across the Atlantic Ocean into what is now the Hudson River. He landed on Manhattan on September 12, 1609.
Displays including digital images, paintings and artifacts show a lush Manhattan filled with lions, bears, hens and streams.
Times Square is illustrated as the meeting point of two streams with a red maple swamp and a beaver pond.
For Shavell Ennis, a 29-year-old who works as a contract administrator in midtown Manhattan, the sight of her hometown so long ago was baffling.
“I can’t believe New York was anything like this,” Ennis said wide eyed. “It looks like somewhere else or something you would have seen in a movie.”
Susan Henshaw Jones, who is a director at Museum of the City of New York and a curator of the exhibition, said that if population growth and industrial development never took place on Manhattan, it would be as “diverse and awe-inspiring as Yellowstone.”
When Hudson arrived in Manhattan, or “Manhatta” (“island of many hills”), as it was then called by natives, there were 55 different ecosystems, with more than 200 varieties of birds and plants, according to the project.
To simulate how Manhattan looked in 1609, artists used techniques in computational geography and visualization.
Manhatta / Manhattan: A Natural History of New York City is on display until October 12 as part of the Museum of the City of New York’s quadricentennial celebration of Hudson’s voyage.
“Amsterdam/New Amsterdam: The Worlds of Henry Hudson,” tracing the emergence of distinctively Dutch culture, politics, and society; “Seen: New York Rediscovered,” exploring New York and New Yorkers through a Dutch perspective; and “The Edge of New York: Waterfront Photographs,” showing the revolution that took place on the waterfront in the 20th century, are also on display for the anniversary.
