Changes

Two hundred years ago, instead of being littered with gleaming glass towers and skyscrapers, Manhattan was home to thousands of wandering pigs and livestock. Antebellum Manhattan bore little resemblance to modern Manhattan's gleaming skyline. Catherine McNeur, assistant professor at Portland State University, has written a new book, [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674725093/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0674725093&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=MA232S6F4LDPJ4ZW Taming Manhattan: Environmental Battles in the Antebellum City], published by Harvard University Press that explores a Manhattan filled with shanty towns, farmland and domesticated animals running loose in the streets. Her book examines the battle between upper class Manhattanites and poor New Yorkers over the direction and shape of the city. While poor Manhattanites depended on farming, domesticated animals and recycling the city's garbage for their survival, wealthier residents were deeply concerned about sanitation, the threat of fires and epidemics, and the deepening poverty of the city. If you want to see more of her work, visit [http://www.catherinemcneur.com www.catherinemcneur.com].

Here is our interview:

As an undergrad at NYU I wrote an honors thesis about an architect who worked in antebellum Manhattan. I loved taking walks around the city, finding remnants of that era in the brick rowhouses and other buildings that are mixed in with more recent structures. The antebellum period felt both familiar and foreign and I loved that.

A few years later after I had started grad school, I was searching for a topic for a research seminar and remembered reading about the hog riots that had occurred in the 1820s. The mere idea of that was amusing to me—hogs roaming the streets of Manhattan?!—and I wanted to look into it further. As I started doing research, the topic quickly expanded to include food, parks, shantytowns, sanitation and the like.

'''How would you summarize your book?'''

[[File:Taming_Manhattan.jpg|thumbnail|Taming Manhattan:Environmental Battles in Antebellum City]]