Historic Evidence of Site Differences

At the very beginning of the semester when doing my site analysis, I noticed a smaller shoreline at the southern tip of Roosevelt Island in several historical maps. Unsure whether this was an error in hand drawn maps in an oft forgotten corner of the city or something more significant, I have been searching for photographic evidence that could give a conclusive date to these differences. Up to half of our project site could potentially sit on man-made land.

I found the image below that shows the smallpox hospital building, and current day ruin, sitting on the very edge of the island terrain. In the bottom right hand corner, the photo is identified with "Fairchild Aerial Surveys, INC., N.Y.C."

Doing some research on the company, it looks most likely like the photo was taken on August 4, 1921, when a large set of aerial photographs was taken of Manhattan to produce an aggregrate photographic reconstruction of the entire island that garnered some public notice shortly thereafter.

sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Fairchild, http://www.papainternational.org/history.html