"When Henry Hudson dropped anchor in 1609, Mannahatta was a vast forest inhabited by the Lenape Indians ... Over the years it gave way to an onslaught managed by thousands, from Governor John Montgomerie, who turned water lots into land, and John Randel, who imposed the grid plan on Manhattan, to Robert Moses, Donald Trump, and Michael Bloomberg ... Here, in full, glorious detail is an epic 400 years in the making. It is the story of New York's struggle with the natural world, of the lives and decisions that transformed waterscape and landscape so as to accommodate 6 percent of the nation's entire population. It is the story of Gotham Unbound."--Jacket.