October 29, 2004

Touring Gotham's archaeology with book in hand

Earlier this month I trekked out to Liberty and Ellis islands toting a new book, "Touring Gotham's Archaeological Past: 8 Self-Guided Walking Tours through New York City." It's by Diana diZerega Wall and Ann-Marie Cantwell, the same team who produced "Unearthing Gotham: The Archaeology of New York City."

The first "walk" in the new book makes an excellent companion to the official offerings of the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island tour, though it may best be read ahead of time as I found it hard keeping my nose in the book while the whole of the Manhattan skyline bobbed off the ferry's deck.

By far the coolest thing the book alerted me to was the remains of the sunken ferry Ellis Island, still stuck in the mud at the old ferry slip near the spot where tourists arrive today via Circle Line's boats. Although a section of the hull is visible, there are absolutely no markers indicating the wreckage. Only because I had my book, I learned that from 1904 to 1954, the boat was the only regular ferry connecting the island to Manhattan. After the immigration center closed, the ferry was left docked in the slip, where it sank in 1968.

The 23-pages in the Harbor Islands walk chronicles the Ice Age, (21,000 years ago, New York was covered by a sheet of ice 9,000 feet thick in some areas,) and the arrival of humans, (11,000 years ago, when the first New Yorkers arrived, Ellis, Liberty and Governor's islands weren't islands, but hillocks, rising above the plains filled with mastodon, caribou, moose, elk and rabbits.)

Other good facts: There is a 1,000-year-old Native American site on the west side of Liberty Island covered by an 18th or 19th Century trash heap; landfill was used to enlarge Ellis Island to nine times its original size; the main building on Ellis Island is probably built on a Native American burial ground; and during World War II, Ellis Island was used as an internment camp for Japanese, Italian and German aliens.

The remainder of the book covers lower Manhattan, Greenwich Village, northern Manhattan, the Bronx shore, farms and towns of Queens, Brooklyn and Southern Brooklyn.

I've only flipped through those sections, but did learn that the site of the building where I first met my husband is notable for explaining the cause of the cholera epidemics that swept the city in the 19th Century. At 199 Water Street, archaeologists found "brick cisterns used for drinking water right next to the stone privy pits from outhouses." Ah, love - in a place of cholera.

October 29, 2004 10:15 AM in Downtown, History

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