Stuyvesant

In 1609, the area on 15^th street between 1^st and 2^nd avenues looked very different. While there are still creatures roaming around, they are rats and cockroaches as opposed to the white-footed mice, beavers, wood ducks and red tailed hawks that were previously in abundance. These animals lived in the tulip tree forest growing on the stratified drift ground surface.   Although the Lenape most likely did not reside in this area, they used it for gathering the Mayapple, summer grape, and the oneseed burr cucumber. The nearest Lenape encampment was around 1700 meters away from here. It is intriguing to see what this area has become considering that around 400 years ago it was not considered very suitable for living.