Posted By Les Conklin on Jun 12, 2021

May 30, 2021

Desert Les At Large: Reversing Urbanization

Howdie Pardner,

Yup. It’s good to see you again. Desert Les is back. Not because them Peak readers demanded it but because the fool editor told Desert Les to fill this here white space with interestin’ doings and seeings.

Many folks in these parts are concerned ’bout the impact of urban sprawl on the natural environment. Well, Desert Les read some dang good  writin’ ’by Russell Scotto bout a new-fangled machine that reversed Manhattan Island’s built environment. Yup, all the way back to before the Europeans arrived.

Before revealing information ‘bout his machine, Scotto asked his readers to ponder ’bout New York City. How that place makes you think of  power – “If I can make it there, I can make it anywhere”, concrete , glass, masses of folks,  organized chaos and hubbub. Next, Scotto asked us to board something he called a “time machine,” and then

“To put the time machine into full reverse. To un-fill the massive landfills and undo the extensive levelling program that flattened hills and filled gullies. To return streams from the underground sewers they were forced into back to their original meandering or rushing course. To witness the return of waterfalls. To watch freshwater ponds form in place of asphalt intersections. To let buildings, vanish and watch stands of  sweet gum, and bass wood take their place. To imagine the return of mud flats, salt ponds and grasslands, of leopard frogs, bitterns, greens and cormorants. To discover newly pure estuaries encrusting themselves with scallops, cahougs, oysters, lamp oysters and clams. To encounter maple-ringed meadows, see the return of deer with higher elevations patrolled by wolves.”

“Then stop the time machine. Let it hover over the south-most point of an island poised between the Atlantic Ocean and  civilized Europe on one side and a virgin continent on the other.”

“Let that moment swell. imagining the sound of screeching gulls and the slap of waves, birds and waves, and then imagine regular interruptions of the sound of wracking storms, unchanging for dozens of centuries. Then have the time machine start forward again until something comes into view on the horizon. SAILS.” 

From The Island Of the Center of the World by  Russell Scotto.

Desert Les apologizes folks, but the time machine ain’t real. It’s fake journey was just a way to reverse urbanize Manhattan. It’s probably best to try to manage growth and  try to save the environment we have.

You know Pardner that time machine delivered another message to Desert Les. It’s ’bout history and how it, like the natural environment can be altered over time.

Up until he left to start college, Desert Les was Jersey Boy Les, living  in a quiet town ’bout 40 miles from Manhattan. Yup. Back then, Desert Les learned enough in history classes to know that Henry Hudson claimed  Manhattan Island for the Dutch and the “SAILS” above were those of Hudson’s ship Half Moon.  But Pardner, in them history classes in New Jersey, near where the Dutch once lived, we learned much more about the Mayflower and the Pilgrims than the Half Moon and the Dutch who founded New Amsterdam, the trading center and fort that became New York City. Pardner, Victors get to write the history and them English took over the Dutch Colony of New Netherlands before the end of the17th century.

Pardner, Just like there’s no time machine there’s no escaping the truth. We’re going to have to work to prevent urban sprawl and protect our heritage  Let’s not let the developers write the history of our “island” in the center of the desert.

Note. :Desert Les is dang happy that Desert Les didn’t have to eat the food or use the privy while he was back in New Amsterdam. Seriously, Scotto’s book is an excellent read and important historical contribution.

In the first half of the 19^th century, the Dutch government in Holland accidentally sold all the records of the Dutch West India Company from the first decades of the New Netherlands Colony’s existence.. Tens of thousands of pounds of records were sold as scrap paper. Recently, colonial records have been found and are being translated. Scotto’s book includes some of this recovered history.

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