Gotham unbound : the ecological history of greater New York / Ted Steinberg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Steinberg, Theodore, 1961-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Natural history--New York (State)--New York.

Natural history.

New York (State)--New York.

Physical Description:

xxii, 517 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Simon & Schuster, [2014].

Summary:

From Henry Hudson's discovery of Manhattan to Hurricane Sandy, Steinberg provides a sweeping ecological history of one of the most man-made spots on earth. He recounts the four-century history of how hundreds of square miles of open marshlands became home to six percent of the nation's population. You will see the metropolitan area anew, not just as a dense urban goliath but as an estuary once home to miles of oyster reefs, wolves, whales, and blueberry bog thickets.

"When Henry Hudson dropped anchor in 1609, Mannahatta was a vast forest inhabited by the Lenape Indians...Over the years it gave way to an onslaught managed by thousands, from Governor John Montgomerie, who turned water lots into land, and John Randel, who imposed the grid plan on Manhattan, to Robert Moses, Donald Trump, and Michael Bloomberg...Here, in full, glorious detail is an epic 400 years in the making. It is the story of New York's struggle with the natural world, of the lives and decisions that transformed waterscape and landscape so as to accommodate 6 percent of the nation's entire population. It is the story of Gotham Unbound." -- Book jacket.

Contents:

Part One. Under water, 1609-1789 : Entrepôt

George Washington stepped here

Part Two. The great transformation, 1790-1920 : The reticulation

Adventures in drainage

The revenge of Thomas Dongan

The open loop

The exploding metropolis

Two-dimensional Gotham

Part Three. Night comes to the marshes, 1900-1980 : The road to Hermitville

The landscapers of Queens

The wilds of Staten Island

The massifs of Fresh Kills

The great Hackensack disappearing act

Part Four. The green colossus, 1960-2012 : The age of limits

The Big Apple biome

The future of New York.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781476741246

1476741247

9781476741284

147674128X

9781476741307

1476741301

OCLC:

857754181