Manhattan Before & After
October 26, 2012
“And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailor’s eyes—a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.”
–F. Scott Fitzgerald
Let A Thousand Nations Bloom 
I think Manhattan was a beauty before. No doubt that the city has witnessed a lot of development but it is at the cost of nature and its beauty. Nobody can recognize that it is Manhattan in the previous photograph.