BoingBoing: “Eric W. Sanderson is a landscape ecologist, and Vice President for Urban Conservation Strategy at the New York Botanical Garden, who has embarked on a project to digitally recreate all of New York City as it existed in 1609, the year Henry Hudson sailed into New York harbor. He has already successfully completed the project for the borough of Manhattan, and wrote a gorgeous book about his findings called Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City — Manahatta which was the Lenape Native American word for the island. As his website describes the project:

As a landscape ecologist, Dr. Sanderson uses spatial analysis techniques to protect wildlife in modern landscapes. His idea was to apply these techniques to recreate an extinct, historic landscape in detail, that is, to recreate, in digital form using mapping software, each and every hill, valley, stream, spring, beach, forest, cave, wetland, and pond that existed on Mannahatta.

Sanderson and the Wildlife Conservation Society created an interactive “Map Explorer,” on which you can explore a map of 1609 Mannahatta and get information about the probable wildlife, landscape, and Lenape use for every single “block” of Manhattan.”