While many take the fascinating skyline and size of New York City for granted, one Penn State researcher has dug deeper and discovered the city as nature had intended.

Reuben Skye Rose-Redwood, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geography, used maps and surveys from the early 1800s to develop a 3-D model of the landscape of Manhattan Island. He hopes to use this data to study ways in which the grid system that was developed for New York City has transformed the land and the people.

His model can also be used as an education tool or for historical purposes such as a reference for archaeologists -- when considering digs in the city, they will use his model to study the original topography of the island to determine where to dig.

In addition, he was recently interviewed as an expert for The Discovery Channel's "We Built this City: New York," a documentary which chronicled New York's growth since it was first colonized.

Rose-Redwood, originally from the New York City area, has always had an interest in the city and its people. With a background in sociology and environmental sciences, he came to Penn State to obtain a Master's degree in geography and began studying urbanization in New York City. Eventually, his work focused on interpreting the city's famous grid plan.

The New York City grid plan, developed in the early 19th century, set the groundwork for the development and growth of the city. As the name suggests, the grid plan sets a rigid framework of streets and avenues that is still used today.

Before the grid plan could be developed, surveys of Manhattan Island had to be completed, explained Rose-Redwood. One man, John Randel, Jr., is given credit for surveying the island and developing a series of maps that have the grid plan superimposed onto the land features.

While a daunting task in itself, Randel encountered quite a bit of trouble in developing his maps.

"There are stories of Randel having vegetables thrown at him while surveying in an old woman's kitchen and of dogs being unleashed on him," Rose-Redwood said. "Randel was also arrested by the local sheriff for trespassing and damage of property and had to be bailed out by a previous mayor of New York City."

Prior to Randel's surveys and the development of the grid system, Manhattan was a jumble of grids, with each landowner's own grid system overlapping neighboring lands. Rose-Redwood stressed the futuristic thinking of the New York City commissioners and their intuition in devising the grid plan.

"The city's commissioners were attempting to standardize the landscape. They were very imaginative in considering the possibility of obliterating the pre-grid landscape and inscribing a grid system," Rose-Redwood said.

James McCarthy, a Penn State assistant professor of geography and Rose-Redwood's advisor, further explained the importance of his work.

"I think it has implications for planning or future sighting of parks, it has environmental management implications and it is important in understanding the grid itself and how the implementation of the grid changed Manhattan," he said.

Funded by the EPA's STAR Graduate Fellowship, Rose-Redwood began reading over map after map drawn by Randel in an attempt to update his information. Once he had found a way to convert Randel's data to units used today, he was able to input this information into a computer and develop his 3-D model of Manhattan's landscape and topography.

Randel originally took elevation readings where he surveyed major intersections in the grid to be, which aided Rose-Redwood's development of the model. However, where no elevation data was given in Randel's maps, Rose-Redwood had to extrapolate the data himself. Luckily, much of Randel's data is so accurate, that his converted values are still used today.

While some of Randel's data made Rose-Redwood's research easier, it was still no easy task, McCarthy said.

"[Reuben] has been unusually ambitious in the scope of his project," McCarthy said. "The application of trying to retroactively reconstruct the landscape of an urban area is completely new."

While this type of research could possibly be conducted in other cities, Randel's maps made New York City an exception, Rose-Redwood explained.

"There are surveys for other cities, but whether or not they are as specific or thorough is questionable. Many surveyors used shading instead of topographical lines; Randel was one of the first to apply quantitative elevation to an American city," he said.

By laying out the grid plan, the city commissioners attempted to facilitate the expansion of the city, and along with the importance of the Erie Canal, the grid plan helped make New York City great, explained Rose-Redwood.

As simple as the grid appeared on paper, there were still problems in implementing it he explained.

"There were significant problems with implementing the grid plan, for example, 12th Avenue was in the middle of the Hudson River and in terms of hills, the West side was significantly more hilly than the East side, which developed first," said Rose-Redwood.

For his Ph.D., Rose-Redwood is continuing his research on the construction of rationalized landscapes by examining the history of what he calls sequential landscape numbering.

"I am interested in exploring the link between governmental knowledge and power and how the numbering of streets and individual houses has simplified the landscape, thereby facilitating social control while also increasing the flow of people and commodities throughout the city," he said.