Shatemuc (Hudson River) The Lenape called the Hudson River Shatemuc, meaning “the river that flows both ways”. The river is an estuary and therefore flows both north and south. The Lenape utilized Shatemuc as an important water route to visit and trade with other neighboring villages along the water’s edge.

Kapsee (State Street) Kapsee is located at the southernmost tip of Manhattan. Kapsee translates to “sharp rock place” and did not serve as a place to inhabit because it was likely difficult to fish or to launch a canoe from.

Werpoes Village (Foley Square) Foley Square was once home to a Lenape settlement centered around a pond with a stream that connected to Shatemuc (Hudson River). The Lenape had access to fresh water to catch fish and harvest shellfish from, and practiced a form of shifting horticulture which allowed the land to replenish itself over cycles.

Aquehonga (Staten Island) The island was first inhabited by the Lenape tribe who called the island Aquehonga, meaning “place of high sandy banks.”

LENAPE ROUTE \[BROADWAY] The Lenape used this trail that ran from Kapsee (Battery Park) at the southern tip of Manhattan, through Inwood Hill and all the way to Boston, Massachusetts. This route was used by the Lenape and other New England tribes for travel and to trade with other inland and coastal villages.

LENAPE SHELL HEAP \[PEARL STREET] At the time of the Lenape, Pearl street was the eastern shoreline of the southern part of the island. The Lenape left excess seashells in this area, most likely after eating the meat inside them.

This photo shows Native American chiefs with Rodman Wanamaker at the 1913 groundbreaking ceremony for the National American Indian Memorial (unrealized) at Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island. (left to right) Cheyenne Chief Wooden Leg, Cheyenne Chief Two Moons, Rodman Wanamaker, Crow Chief Plenty Coups, Crow Chief Medicine Crow, Crow Indian White Man Runs Him, and Oglala Sioux Chief Jack Red Cloud. George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress).

This photo shows Crow chiefs at the 1913 groundbreaking ceremony for the National American Indian Memorial (unrealized) at Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island. (left to right) White Man Runs Him (ca. 1855-1925), Plenty Coups (1848-1932), and Medicine Crow. George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress).

This photo shows President William Howard Taft at the 1913 groundbreaking ceremony for the National American Indian Memorial (unrealized) at Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island. George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress).

Conceptual drawing of the National American Indian Memorial at Fort Wadsworth by Thomas Hastings. Public Domain.

The American Indian Memorial project had a unique affiliation with Yale University. Thomas Hastings and his firm worked on projects for the university, including the Yale University Quadrangle, Woolsey Hall, and University Commons. Furthermore, Henry Roe Cloud, a member of the Winnebago Nation of Nebraska and the first American Indian to attend Yale, served as a liaison between tribal leaders and collaborators for the memorial project. Roe Cloud graduated from Yale with a B.A. in psychology and philosophy (1910) and a M.A. degree in anthropology (1912). He ultimately became an important in the transformation of American Indian higher education and government policies. He was also the only American Indian co-author of “The Problem of Indian Administration,” commonly referred to as “The Meriam Report,” an extensive survey made at the request of the Secretary of the Interior that evidenced the failures of federal Indian policy in the early twentieth century. This survey, presented to Congress in 1928, helped set in motion many of the subsequent reforms of the Indian New Deal of 1934. Black and white photographic portrait of Henry Roe Cloud, Native American member of Yale College Class of 1910, possibly taken as a Yale class portrait. I Image courtesy of the Yale University Manuscripts & Digital Images Database, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

Photographic portrait of architect Thomas Hastings, circa 1910. Courtesy of the New York Public Library Digital Collection.

Located on the site of Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island, NY, Four Waters Formative is a Living Laboratory for Indigenous ecological knowledge, integrating adaptive design, land remediation, and historical preservation. Fort Wadsworth (here renamed Four Waters Formative),is a federally owned site that is considered part of the Gateway National Recreation Area. Four Waters Formative reinterprets the National Park and the historically preserved military site, serving as a place to promote the collaboration between the greater public, tribes, and federal programs through the introduction of on-site education. Image courtesy of Anjelica S. Gallegos.

In the early 20th century, Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island was set to become the site for the National American Indian Memorial. The memorial, a depiction of an American Indian man perpetuating the truth and dignity of First Americans, was meant to support the preservation of the character and lifeways of American Indians. The project’s program, which would include a museum, an art gallery, a library, and garden grounds, was to cover every aspect of American Indian lifeways, from regalia and artwork to architecture. The statue was designed by Daniel Chester, known for the statue of Abraham Lincoln in Washington, DC’s Lincoln Memorial. At 580 feet tall, it would have been taller than the Statue of Liberty. Its completion would have also represented a feat of modern engineering, showcasing an innovative press, bolt, and anchor construction method utilizing cement. The statue was designed to stand atop a Neo-Aztec pyramid, with an Egyptian Revival-style complex serving as its foundation, all designed by Thomas Hastings, a partner at Carrère and Hastings. George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress).

In the fall of 2020, ISAPD co-founder Anjelica S. Gallegos participated in the advanced design studio, “Productive Uncertainty: Indeterminacy, Impermanence, and the Architectural Imagination” at Yale University. Taught by Marc Tsurumaki and Violette de la Selle, the studio engaged the fundamental paradox of uncertain impermanence in a practice predicated on permanence. It questioned how the material conditions of architecture might engage with the increasing volatility that characterizes our collective relationship to emergent environmental, climatological, biological, political, and social conditions. Topics explored included the membrane as a mediator of perception, the influence of the gaze, and the fortification of natural elements, including water. For her project, Gallegos worked on a design for the Four Waters Formative, a Living Laboratory for Indigenous Ecological Knowledge. Image Courtesy of Anjelica S. Gallegos.

Located on the site of Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island, NY, Four Waters Formative is a Living Laboratory for Indigenous ecological knowledge, integrating adaptive design, land remediation, and historical preservation. Fort Wadsworth (here renamed Four Waters Formative),is a federally owned site that is considered part of the Gateway National Recreation Area. Four Waters Formative reinterprets the National Park and the historically preserved military site, serving as a place to promote the collaboration between the greater public, tribes, and federal programs through the introduction of on-site education. Image courtesy of Anjelica S. Gallegos.

Focusing on incremental adaptation, the range of site interventions have varied onset times and serve different connected members of the community, including animals. The projects system of paths weaves together these interventions, which include gazing pods, artificial reefs, pollinator batteries, and earth works, creating a series of varied garden spaces. The Formative’s built interventions preserve, reference, and rebuild historical structures with historical and proposed materials while also introducing new original designs. Image courtesy of Anjelica S. Gallegos.

Image courtesy of Anjelica S. Gallegos.

Image courtesy of Anjelica S. Gallegos.

Image courtesy of Anjelica S. Gallegos.

Image courtesy of Anjelica S. Gallegos.

Image Courtesy of Anjelica S. Gallegos.

Image Courtesy of Anjelica S. Gallegos.

Falcon Bridge, which runs parallel to the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge, promotes the livelihood of the site’s peregrine falcons by way of built structures for nesting, while also serving as a gauge to monitor change in water level. Image courtesy of Anjelica S. Gallegos.

The program centers around the Stronghold, which serves as a gathering place with redesigned spaces that act as small and large offices and presentation rooms. Shatemuc Pavilion, named after the Lenape name for the Hudson River, is built on a renovated dock, where the sounds of the river and wind patterns can be experienced by way of PV tubes. Image courtesy of Anjelica S. Gallegos.

The Deer House is a partially submerged former battery that incorporates growing greenery within its rebuilt walls. Image courtesy of Anjelica S. Gallegos.

The Longhouse, a lounge and library, welcomes the Staten Island community and the greater public to enjoy curated material focusing on Indigenous ecological practices and Staten Island’s unique Indigenous and American history. A cafe upstairs frames a view of the surrounding riparian environment and the Deer House. Image courtesy of Anjelica S. Gallegos.

Image courtesy of Anjelica S. Gallegos.

In the early 20th century, Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island was set to become the site for the National American Indian Memorial. Depicting an American Indian man perpetuating the truth and dignity of First Americans, the memorial was meant to promote the preservation of the character and lifeways of American Indians through a program that included a museum, an art gallery, a library, and garden grounds. In response to this historic proposal, Gallegos designed a monument that celebrates Indigenous resiliency. The stance, reference to the local Lenape tribe, and its dynamism of the monument are meant to respectfully transform the meaning of the monument. Image courtesy of Anjelica S. Gallegos.

To emphasize the uniqueness of Indigenous ecological relationships, the monument serves as a physical gauge, data collector, and visual indicator of live environmental information. As the water level rises in the adjacent Hudson River, the height of the monument changes as well. Image courtesy of Anjelica S. Gallegos.

The monument also tracks contaminants in the river and air pollutants over the Staten Island area, dispersing the live data through the network of gazing pods along the path system. The project leverages technology as a tool to rekindle and remediate ecological knowledge and visualize interconnection. Image courtesy of Anjelica S. Gallegos.

In the spring of 2020 Anjelica S. Gallegos participated in the “City, Renew” Yale School of Architecture Urban Design Studio IV, taught by Bimal Mendis. Amid the clamor of past, present, and future voices of the site’s urban renewal, students engaged with Fordham Landing in the Bronx as their site. Student’s selected an issue of the city they defined as a crisis and proposed solutions through their definition of the program, interpretation of the site and diverse design interventions. The studio considered the urban situation of the city at large – its larger social,cultural, economic, and historical context – as much as the specific parameters of the site. Fordham Landing was approached as a testing ground for addressing problems beyond its physical boundaries. For her design proposal, the Nature Culture Nexus Plan, Gallegos identified the loss of ecological consciousness as an urban crisis which stems from the coupled erasure of ecological knowledge and forced displacement of the communities who know these environments thoroughly; the Indigenous communities. The dependency humans have on the ecological environment has been ubiquitous for time immemorial and yet many natural processes are unacknowledged and often directly contradicted by human activities. For example, pollinators are the agents that release over 80% of the world’s flowering and food plants. Without pollinators humans and all of Earth’s terrestrial ecosystems would not survive. In New York State between 42% and 68% of managed and commercial bee colonies have died each year since 2010. This phenomenon is coupled with extreme loss in the native pollinator community and the natural habitat that sustains it. The loss of ecological consciousness is an urban crisis and stems from the coupled erasure of ecological knowledge and forced displacement of the communities who know these environments thoroughly; the Indigenous communities. The Nature-Culture Nexus Plan begins to restore the Indigenous knowledge and practices of historical ecological consciousness of Inwood, Manhattan and Fordham Landing, Bronx. The design interventions reveal the unseen interdependencies with the natural world, recharging the reciprocal relationship between the collective of people, animals, plants, fungi and ecosystems, ultimately reengaging the built environment with the natural environment. The plan is designed to be a framework to sow across both ecosystems and urban places, while recognizing and strengthening the unique histories and current conditions of each site. The plan is carefully complementary to sustainable policy including the Green New Deal and the Pollinator Protection Plan of New York State. Weaving community, state and federal partners and programs strengthens the collective and provides new knowledge and application. The seven step plan includes methodology within Indigenous traditional knowledge covering, cultural resources, responsive landscape technology, site heritage and cross-pollinating programming. View the plan packet at: https://anjelicasgallegos.cargo.site/ https://www.are.na/natalie-broton/anjelica Gallegos worked with 3 different sites in Northern Manhattan. Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

Pollinator Island Harlem River Route Pollinator Island is an occupiable ecosystem service island to promote native animalia pollinator species using native flora and fauna species. Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

Virtual Tracker Network - Live Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality Various installations through each site record and display environmental data and live video. The underwater river tracker is under pollinator island and is displayed on screens on other sites as augmented reality. Augmented reality provides information about the river species that are on the screen creating an educational experience for viewers. Element Poles and Heritage Poles display live feed and virtual reality where historical stories and education about that particular site is displayed. People can communicate in real time across sites. Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

Site Section Cut Data Core Samples: Pollinators Animalia Mannahatta 1609 Ecological Communities 2020 Endangered Species Manhattan Bronx Site Ecological Communities Topography Harlem River Soil Types Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

Centrifugal I Site Existing Conditions Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

Centrifugal I Site Program and Spatial Proposal Non-Wire Alternatives Laboratory Riparian Environment Integration Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

Centrifugal I Site Outdoor Learning Center for Off-Grid Energy Generation and Connection Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

Pollinator Island Detail Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

Pollinator Island Module Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

Virtual Tracker Network - Live Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality Various installations through each site record and display environmental data and live video. The underwater river tracker is under pollinator island and is displayed on screens on other sites as augmented reality. Augmented reality provides information about the river species that are on the screen creating an educational experience for viewers. Element Poles and Heritage Poles display live feed and virtual reality where historical stories and education about that particular site is displayed. People can communicate in real time across sites. Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

Virtual Tracker Network - Live Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality Various installations through each site record and display environmental data and live video. The underwater river tracker is under pollinator island and is displayed on screens on other sites as augmented reality. Augmented reality provides information about the river species that are on the screen creating an educational experience for viewers. Element Poles and Heritage Poles display live feed and virtual reality where historical stories and education about that particular site is displayed. People can communicate in real time across sites. Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

Threshold Site Existing Conditions Broadway is the busiest street here where there are commercial programs, private residential apartment buildings, one school, a few abandoned buildings. 215 has a step street which is specific to the hilliest northern areas of New York. Historically there used to be an Inwood Hill Quarry for marble until around 1850. Inwood Hill Park is where the primary Lenape village of Manhattan used to be called ‘Shorakkopoh’. The Indian Caves served as seasonal dwellings and are the oldest ruins in New York. This tree of peace marker is where the largest Tulip Tree of New York used to be and was where the 'purchase' of the state took place though both cultures had entirely different concepts of land ownership. Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

Threshold Site Program and Spatial Proposal Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

A perspectival wall installation designed to highlight ascension - descension using Lightweight FiberOptic Filament. Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

The stairs were designed to highlight ascension into the sky using reflective water and to highlight descension into the earth by way of using native flora and fauna and Inwood marble from the historical Inwood quarry. Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

The stair step street is a popular icon for Inwood Hill and a historical relationship with the rolling hills of northern New York. It’s also along the most populated street in Inwood so wanted to utilize this area as an attractor. Here re-design and programming was used to maximize the amount of stair platforms to be utilized for social and educational visual and informational opportunities. Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

The majority of buildings along 215 Street are apartment buildings that have limited access to a gathering space that is now surrounded by cars. The plaza allows for the Inwood Community to have open program space to associate, have community events, and a traditional hearth setting often found only outside of the city. Element Lodge Poles display data collected from the centrifugal site. Sky Cycle installations are tilted upward with hyper reflective material making the inhabitor feel like they are among the clouds. Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

Indian Hill Park and the caves once served as a large seasonal camp site for the Lenape and other Algonquin speaking tribes. Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

Centrifugal II Site Existing Conditions Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

The Inwood Hill Collective Center (IHCC) stewards and reveals histories and future projections of the 197 acres of Inwood Hill Park while managing and creating respectful nature based recreation. Serves as a place for pollinator island to dock. Also provides service with Indigenous land stewards, biologists, ecologists, artists, designers, and historians who assist with consulting, planning, and designing local places. Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

Shorakkopoh House serves as a gathering space for all relatives. To reference the history of the site, the physical structure follows the same grid as the Lenape longhouse structure. Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

In the place of the Tulip Tree - a reflective healing pool will be surrounded by 7 tulip trees. The circular arbor structure is used today by indigenous communities for cultural celebrations. The Central Gathering space has virtual and augmented reality screens along the periphery. This is the place where the natural environment, built environment and the virtual world come together to celebrate and reveal the unseen interdependencies between the collective of people, animals, plants, fungi and ecosystems. Image Courtesy: Anjelica S. Gallegos

Mohawk Skywalkers of New York Mohawks have been contributing toward the construction of New York City for over 100 years and across six generations. In 1886, in exchange for the Canadian Pacific railroad to construct a cantilever bridge across the St.Lawrence River from the Kahn­awake Reservation, the railroad and its contractor agreed to employ Mohawks during construction. The Mohawk workers especially became interested in riveting. Riveting is the act of fastening or securing two plates with one or more rivets, a dangerous and often avoided job that paid higher than other skillsets. There were few workers who had the qualifications to rivet; this created a high demand for the skill. The contractor, the Dominion Bridge Co., trained 12 Mohawk men to become riveters, and they began to train other apprentices as they were building more and more bridges. By 1907 the number grew to 70 Mohawk skilled structural workers. According to a 1949 New Yorker article, Joseph Mitchell of the Dominion Bridge Co. stated, “They would climb up and onto the spans and walk around up there as cool and collected as the toughest of our riveters, most of whom were old sailing-ship men especially picked for their experience in working aloft”. In 1907, a Quebec Bridge designed by American structural engineer Theodore Cooper failed during construction, killing 75 men. Of the 75, 33 were Mohawk. Though this did not deter their interest in the high rise and risky trade, the women of the Mohawk tribe insisted the Mohawk men work on different construction projects in order to avoid such a great loss for the tribe again. The Mohawk men began to disperse to different parts of New York and the city. Throughout the 20th century the Mohawk men worked on the most notable buildings of the century including the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the George Washington and Triborough Bridges, Madison Square Garden, and the World Trade Center. They continued to work on bridges including the George Washington Bridge, the Bayonne Bridge, the Triborough Bridge, the Henry Hudson Bridge, the Hell’s Gate Bridge, the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, and more. Because of the 12 hours plus drive from their Canadian border communities, many Mohawk workers and their families moved to Brooklyn. By 1960 a Mohawk steelworker community of about 800 grew near Fourth Avenue and Atlantic Avenue, with local grocery stores offering a common Mohawk cornmeal and churches offering services in their native language. Eventually many Mohawk returned home after the newly built Adiron­dack Northway halved the time to commute for work. The Mohawk ironworkers from the Akwesasne (which straddles Ontario, Quebec, and New York State) and the Kahnawake (near Montreal) are part of the Iroquois Confederacy, which has, as historian Richard Hill, Sr. (Tuscarora) notes, a long history of building structures. In fact, he says, the Iroquois’s name for themselves- hodinoso:ni’—means “they build longhouses.” Many Mohawk workers still construct buildings throughout the city today. Because of the 12 hours plus drive from their Canadian border communities, many Mohawk workers and their families moved to Brooklyn. By 1960 a Mohawk steelworker community of about 800 grew near Fourth Avenue and Atlantic Avenue, with local grocery stores offering a common Mohawk cornmeal and churches offering services in their native language. Eventually many Mohawk returned home after the newly built Adiron­dack Northway halved the time to commute for work.

Joe Regis (Mohawk), Chase Manhattan Bank, New York City, late 1960's. Courtesy of Bethlehem Steel. Color postcard advertising the "Booming Out: Mohawk Ironworkers Build New York" exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian. Two Mohawk men are on an iron structure high up in the city. Courtesy of Smithsonian Smithsonian Institution Archives.