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This two minute timelapse reconstructs the 400 year evolution of Lower Manhattan's skyline. Watch as the city evolves from a small village into a glistening metropolis.

This is also a film about the history of technology. Changing methods of representing urban space influence our perception of time and the city. When New York City was founded, Dutch settlers captured their town’s appearance through 17thcentury drawings and paintings. As the city grew, people started using printing presses to reproduce images of the city in the 18th and 19thcenturies. In the 20th century, photographers started capturing their city from above through aerial photos. For the first time, New Yorkers could view the entire city in a single panoramic photo.

In tribute to this long artistic tradition, this film constructs the city as each generation of New Yorkers would have represented it: through the subsequent technologies of drawing, printing, photography, and film.

0:10 Dutch colonial city
0:28 British colonial city
0:45 Midlate 19th century
1:00 1920s
1:07 1930s
1:19 1960s
1:30 1970s
1:37 1990s
1:41 September 11, 2001
1:50 Today