Video Feature: Lenape Edible Estate

Introduction by Leslie Boden

Long before Henry Hudson and the crew of his ship, the Half Moon, arrived four hundred years ago on the shores of the river that would eventually bear his name, the Lenape people made their home on the small, lush, and ecologically diverse island they called Mannahatta.

FSNYC’s video this month is the short film by Jacinto Astiazarán, “The Story of Mannahatta and the Lenape Edible Estate,” which evokes the quiet and rich natural world of the Lenape, including their wisdom in growing, gathering, and using plants and animals for food, medicine, and daily necessities.  It features the Lenape Edible Estate garden at the Elliott-Chelsea Houses, created this past June in partnership with New York Restoration Project and Friends of the High Line as part of artist/architect/designer Fritz Haeg’s Edible Estate project. The garden, on West 26^th Street at 10^th Avenue, demonstrates the use of native plants and the Lenape’s sustainable growing methods to create a small-scale contemporary urban edible landscape.