IN THE BEGINNING

Manhattan Island is of very recent ori of very recent gin, in geological time.

Its creation as an island is one of the latest episodes in the long history of the titanic forces that have altered the landscape of New York.

It has been rocked by massive earthquakes, squeezed, shaped, and twisted. Periods of volcanic activity spewed forth molten lava. At one time a vast inland freshwater sea covered the entire area.

Geologists take the birth of Manhattan back more than a billion years. They record three eras of major high-mountain formation. Erosion, wind, rain, and ice slowly reduced those ancient alps in the ongoing process of land transformation.

About 70 million years ago the present island shape of Manhattan began to be formed, well before the great ice ages first appeared two million years ago.

Then, 10,000 to 18,000 years ago, the forward edge of the last great ice sheet ground inexorably southward, pushing gravel and enormous rocks, scouring the earth, and burying Manhattan Island under a massive wall of solid ice. The sheet of ice moved forward onto Staten Island, along the reach of Long Island ... and stopped.

So great was the amount of water locked into this vast worldwide ice formation that the ocean level at Manhattan was 330 feet—100 meters—lower than it is today.

As this ice slowly melted and the glacial front retreated northward, torrents of rushing water carved the bed of the Hudson River ever deeper, the ocean rose to its present level, and New York's great natural harbor was formed.

The earth's outer, solid continuous crust, its bedrock, now lay just below and sometimes above the surface of Manhattan Island in two distinct areas: the downtown tip of the island and at midtown.

It is primarily on these two areas that Manhattan's skyscrapers have been built. Their tremendous height and weight rest securely on this solid bedrock, which is chiefly a silvery gray rock known as Manhattan schist.

THE MANHATTAN INDIANS

These Manhattan Island Indians lived in Manhattan in family groups, or clans, under their sachems. Or chiefs, whose title was passed on through the female line in each family. Their tribe, the LENAPE, was made up of the many family groups. Archaeologic evidence indicates that their ancestors were living on Manhattan Island and along the Atlantic Coast at least 3,000 years ago.

These Indians had few material possessions but had achieved a remarkable ability to live in harmony with their natural surroundings. Over thousands of years they had adapted from a nomadic hunting people to an agricultural society. They believed in the magic power of all objects in nature, good and evil spirits, an afterlife, and a supreme being, the "Great Spirit."

Their many festivals were held in relation to the earth's seasons. They painted themselves with natural colors mixed with animal fat, and adorned themselves with ornaments of metal, bone, feathers, and shells. They had great powers of endurance.

We know the names of some of these Manhattan clan groupings: Rechtank, Werpoes, Shepmoes, Sapohanikan, Rechewanis, Co-·nykeeks, Muskuta, Machicanituk, Penadnik, Shorakapkok, Nipnichsen.

They had no concept of owning land, freely using what they needed and moving on to another locality within their tribe's territory when the fertility of the land where they had been living was exhausted. They and their ancestors had lived on Manhattan for untold generations. They would vanish soon after the arrival of the European white man, leaving behind only some artifacts, some trails which would become roadways such as the Bowery and Broadway, and the name of the island — Manhattan.

AND THEN THE DUTCH CAME

While Giovanni da Verrazano, for France, and Estavan Gomez, for Spain, had sailed separately into the waters of New York Bay many years earlier, the first European to explore thoroughly the waters around Manhattan Island was Henry Hudson. An Englishman in the service of the Dutch, he came in 1609, looking for a northwest passage to the Orient.

Instead, he found Manhattan Island, heavily wooded, with great stands of hickory, oak, and other hardwoods. Large clams and oysters, as well as much small game, provided food for the Indians, who, it was reported, were dressed in "Mantles of Feathers, and some in Skinnes of divers sorts of good Furres."

The lower tip of the island had many hills, which in later years would be leveled down, while the northern part was of a much greater height, with rocky outcroppings. Small streams, swamps, and ponds were all about. Robert Juet, an officer of Hudson's ship, wrote, "This is a very good Land to fall with, and a pleasant Land to see."

In 1613, Adriaen Block, who had been to...