It’s hard to imagine now, but Manhattan was once almost entirely wilderness. Long before skyscrapers, traffic, and concrete streets, the island was covered in forests, wetlands, streams, and rugged coastline home to an ecosystem so diverse it barely resembles the Manhattan we know today. These images come from the Mannahatta Project, an extraordinary effort led by landscape ecologist Eric Sanderson to reconstruct what Manhattan likely looked like in 1609, when Henry Hudson first arrived. Over many years, researchers mapped the island’s original ecology in remarkable detail, creating “before and after” comparisons that reveal just how dramatically the landscape has been transformed. And the differences are almost unbelievable. The shoreline of Manhattan was once far more irregular and natural, shaped by coves, marshes, and rocky edges rather than straight seawalls and engineered waterfronts. Large parts of areas like Battery Park City and sections of today’s Financial District didn’t even exist yet they were later built on reclaimed land, extending the island outward using rock, soil, debris, and even sunken ships. Elsewhere, places that are now dense urban streets were once completely different environments. The area around Manhattan Avenue, for example, used to be a patchwork of wetlands and open meadows, crossed by natural streams that were eventually buried underground to make room for roads and infrastructure. Even Roosevelt Island looked entirely different. Known to the Lenape people as Minnehanonck, it was once heavily forested, surrounded by river systems that have since been reshaped through embankments, seawalls, and urban engineering. What’s most surprising is the scale of biodiversity the island once supported. Before the modern city emerged, Manhattan contained more than 55 different ecosystems, including freshwater wetlands, beaches, forests, and streams stretching for over 60 miles. Wildlife such as black bears, wolves, elk, and countless bird species once moved through areas that are now among the most densely built-up places on Earth. The project doesn’t just show how cities are built it reveals what was erased to build them. And looking at these comparisons, it becomes clear that beneath the streets and skyscrapers of modern Manhattan… there’s an entirely different landscape hidden underneath. #newyork #newyorkcity #usa #city #thenandnow - @lucasvisual