ABORIGINAL CITY

The year 2009 is drawing to a close. Before it does, The Mulberry Bend would like to recognize that it was this year that stood as the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's historic arrival into Hudson Bay. He did this of course on his good ship The Half Moon on Sept 12th, 1609.

Manhattan was a very different place back then. More like The Hamptons actually, without the sweater shawls & khakis. Sound enchanting? We have no doubt that it was. Which is why the Dutch decided to move right in. Legend tells of men wading into the waters and plucking whole lobsters with their bare hands. Now if that doesn't make you wonder, perhaps a trip over to The Mannahatta Project will set wind in your sails.



Although it's been around for a little while now, The Mannahatta Project founded by Dr. Eric Sanderson, an Californian ecologist, now offers downloadable data and resources. Information about Mannahatta's once strong biodiversity and the over 55 ecological communities that once thrived in on this island is there for the plundering. Furthermore, if pictures and maps are your speed, you can mess with The Mannahatta Project's 10 different layers of time on the Google Map based overview of the island. That means you can type in your address and rewind time to see what once existed where you do now. Whatever it was, it was probably cleaner and looked a hell of a lot better than you do anyway.