The Mannahatta Project

[braxtonantoine]

I'd rather live free with the Indians. They lived thousands of years there with nature-no stress, no pollution, no bills, & everyone just did their share of work so the whole society could succeed. They travelled in canoes & kept fit, explored new lands, saw great views. Now I have to pay to enjoy a weekend canoeing at a campground and the garbage cans are always overflowing with non-decomposables after. We've lost basic outdoor skills, knowledge of medicinal plants, & edible plants & flowers.

[NeverBeBored08]

About 392 years after Hudson landed on Manhattan, the Twin Towers collapsed. That's pretty creepy!

[NeverBeBored08]

About 382 years after Hudson landed on Manhattan, the Twin Towers collapsed, that's pretty creepy

[interstellarwonder]

did you intentionally remove every reference to the native populations?i'm pretty sure there were Abenaki towns and corn fields, but the painting & drawings removed these references for political reasons.

[1RadicalOne]

What I do not like about these sorts of videos is the implication that somehow the area was better before, that it would have been better that the city - and presumably other cities - never existed.

That is not only a defeatist and at times self-destructive attitude, it is simply not true. Compare the standards of living now with those of the stone age. Which would you rather live in?

[WCSMedia]

@1RadicalOne The goal of the Mannahatta Project is absolutely not to compare or even imply that the value and standards of life of predeveloped Mannahatta to current day Manhattan were better. To do so would indeed be pretty defeatist. The goal s simply to discover what Mannahatta was like before it became the great Metropolis it is today and ask "Are there aspects of this area's historical ecology that we can re-incorporate or at least appreciate in modern day life?"

[1RadicalOne]

Except that there are lines like "humans interfering" or "humans meddling with nature" here, and in some similar projects like this, it is even more overt.

[ColinNekritz]

@1RadicalOne Yes, because the standards of living in NYC with the rich elite driving out the common man making it impossible to afford to live here and the ugly side of capitalism is working so well in Manhattan that it's better off? [eyeroll]

[1RadicalOne]

I do not fully understand what you are trying to say - though I suspect it is something I would largely agree with, if it is what I think it is.

Moving on, no matter who has the power or the money, life in the stone age would be much, much harsher, harder, and more unpleasant. Do you really doubt that? Do you really think living by scavenging with no protection is preferable to anything?

[chenzy22]

@1RadicalOne I think our standard of living has been transformed because of oil, and to presume that this resource will last forever is self destructive. At the rate we are going with our expansion over nature and our destruction of eco systems we need projects like Mannahatta to help us see who we are, and where we are going. There is nothing negative about it. It's the discovery of self; Past and future.

[1RadicalOne]

It is not oil directly or inherently - it is the energy and raw materials it provides.

These, particularly the former, can be easily found from other sources.

But those benefits would be useless without a civilization and its knowledge to "process" them; Give the ancient romans nuclear power and all they will have is a meltdown, not a new revolution of development and increase of standard of living.

[phalanxfilm]

Great video but the sound was a little off. If anyone is interested about seeing an undeveloped part of Manhattan then you can visit Inwood Park at the very northern tip of the island. It used to belong to a very rich family, maybe the Rockefellers, when uptown was all giant estates before the subway. They donated the mostly undeveloped land to the city.

[kencroken]

I look forward to working with Dr. Sanderson and "Quintet of the Americas" to help the inhabitants of the Tri-State area and it's visitors realize a healthier relationship between nature and humans; literally and psychologically.

[IanHunedoara8]

"Human beings interfering" I'm sorry but that attitude is a problem.

[plekka]

There is a plot of land . developed by NYU I think, which is supposed to be a replica of pre-historic New York; It is bordered by Houston Street, and University

[LatinPunk4eva]

Interesting ...