Times Square in New York City through the years, from stardust to stardust:
-5,000,000,000: The atoms that will make up Time Square are part of a dust cloud between the stars, blasted there by the death of a star. The dust is forming into the Sun and the planets.
-1,000,000,000: Times Square is near South Africa as part of the supercontinent of Rodinia. There are no plants or animals – just blue-green algae covering the oceans far away.
-500,000,000: At the bottom of the sea. Will remain there till the Appalachian mountains start to rise up out of the ocean in about 50 million years.
-250,000,000: In the tropics. Crosses north of the equator. Near north-west Africa as part of the supercontinent of Pangea.
-1,800,000: Ice ages begin.
-1,000,000: Between ice ages, fairly warm, but dangerous: there are hyenas (Chasmaporthetes), dire wolves (Canis dirus) and sabre-toothed cats (Smilodon fatalis, pictured). There are also birds, squirrels, deer, wolves and black bears.
-20,0000: under the giant glacier that gives us Staten Island, Long Island and much of the present landscape.
-8,000: The ice is gone. No earthworms yet – they are still crawling north from Virginia. And no people either: they are still walking east from Asia. Mastodons (Mammut americanum, pictured) are dying out.
-7,000: The first people.
1000: An old growth forest with wolves, coyotes, mountain lions (Puma concolor) and passenger pigeons (Ectopistes migratorius, pictured). Deer too, but not as many as you would think. By now the Delaware (aka Lenape) have arrived.
1609: There is now an Indian trail. It will become Broadway. You might see bald eagles, passenger pigeons, ducks, hawks, ravens, robins, crows, mice, voles, turtles, frogs, maple trees, chestnut trees and black cherries. You might see the Delaware hunting, but it is unlikely any of them live there. Main language: Munsee.
1776: It is now a farm, belonging to John Morin Scott, an Anglo American who raises horses and fights under George Washington.
1803: John Jacob Astor buys Scott’s farm and makes a fortune as New York City spreads north and land values go up.
1872: Centre of the city’s horse carriage industry.
1898: A place of electric lights, theatres, cafes and restaurants.
1904: The New York Times builds its headquarters at 42nd and Broadway. Times Square gets its name, its first electrified sign and its first New Year’s Eve celebration.
1907: The New Year’s Eve ball drops for the first time.
2017: Now.
1,000,000: Glaciers have ground the Time Square we know to dust. All that is left is a buried layer of shredded plastic, the remains of Coke bottles, shopping bags, etc.
250,000,000: Times Square is once again in the middle of a supercontinent near South Africa, but this time it is high in a mountain range.
1,000,000,000: The Sun has grown so hot that the oceans have boiled away. The sky is no longer blue: it is always covered in cloud. The Earth is like Venus.
5,000,000,000: The atoms that made up Time Square are part of a dust cloud between the stars, blasted there by the Sun when it became so big it destroyed the Earth.
– Abagond, 2017.
Sources: Mainly Google Images (2017); “What If?” (2014) by Randall Munroe; Mannahatta Project; PaleoMap Project; Smithsonian; BuzzFeed.
Update (July 5th 2021): Here is a video of Times Square by the Time Travel Artist, going from 2019 to 1898 and back again:
See also:
- When things began
- Fatboy Slim: Right Here, Right Now
- Human evolution: the last 4 billion years
- The Delaware
- Anglo Americans
- New York City
- How daily life has changed in the last 30 years – New York from 1984 to 2014
- New York English
- New York Times
- The Ford – upon which New York taxis were based till about 2008.
- Nathaniel Wyeth – inventor of the plastic Coke bottle
- 1949 according to this blog
691
Whoa…….
Darn Mastodon, driving up the rent for us hyenas.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This post is SO. FREAKIN’. COOL. Fascinating!
LikeLiked by 1 person
This post reminds me of the Sci-Fi movie, Lucy with Morgan Freeman and Scarlett Johansson.
There was a scene near the end of the video when her super enhanced brain permitted her to travel back in time from present day Times Square all the way back to the Big Bang – the creation/origin of the universe.
LikeLike
If the world should stop
Revolving spinning
Slowly down to die
I’d spend the end with you
And when the world was through
Then one by one
The stars would all go out
Then you and I
Would simply fly away
-If (by Bread)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wonderful post.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Listen to Mos Defs verse in “Respiration”. Then realize that, on these time scales, it barely matters.
LikeLike
Beautiful post Abagond
LikeLike
“No earthworms yet – they are still crawling north from Virginia.”
What an awesome mind-blowing sentence! How do scientists even know this? How does someone trace the path of earthworm migration thousands of years ago!?
LikeLike
Darn Mastodon, driving up the rent for us hyenas.
Personally, I prefer the sabre-toothed tiger. I’ve heard mastodon steaks are utterly delicious!
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Solitaire
In the early 1600s when the English arrived on the east coast of North America they noticed there were earthworms in Virginia but not New England. Scientists think they had been wiped out by the ice age and had to crawl their way back north, not having reached New England yet by 1600.
LikeLike
^ I read that most, if not all of the earthworms in New England are not native North American species at all, but invasive species from Europe or Asia.
LikeLike
One thing this post proves is that in the very long run, real estate is always a bad investment.
LikeLike
@ Abagond
@ Jefe
Thank you both for the information!
It was a surprise to me because I’d always assumed that there must be earthworms in any place with agriculture. Most likely because when I was growing up, my family emphasized the importance of earthworms in the gardens and to respect them and not kill them unnecessarily.
It was, however, a narrowly provinicial assumption on my part, considering the wide variance of soil types and environmental conditions throughout all the places humans have been able to practice agriculture.
I just skimmed the Wiki article on earthworms and was also suprised to find out that invasive species of earthworms can be harmful to the native flora. It makes sense — the worms change the location of the nutrients in the soil, the density of the soil, etc. It just goes against my whole simplistic conception of earthworms as being an absolute good.
There is so much to learn out there, and so little time to do it.
LikeLike
This post gives some depth to the old saying: “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
The thought of a layer of plastic at 1 million BCE is truly sad. The technology exists today to clean up the gyres of plastic in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. Of course they are not the only collections of plastic waste. I’ve read about how polluting the single serving containers of coffee are and how they clog up the waste stream in various cities.
In my area, the city collects kitchen waste such as bones, pizza boxes, fruit and vegetable peelings, eggshells, etc. and composts them. The resulting compost often has small amounts of plastic from the stupid stickers grocers put on fruit and vegetables.
I wonder if the plastic will revert back to hydrocarbons someday? Perhaps millions of years in the future?
LikeLike
“The thought of a layer of plastic at 1 million BCE is truly sad. The technology exists today to clean up the gyres of plastic in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. Of course they are not the only collections of plastic waste. I’ve read about how polluting the single serving containers of coffee are and how they clog up the waste stream in various cities.”
….
“I wonder if the plastic will revert back to hydrocarbons someday? Perhaps millions of years in the future?”
.
For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. Isa_65:17
Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. 2Pe_3:13
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. Rev_21:1
LikeLike
Evolution is a ridiculous fairy tale for grown-ups.
LikeLike
How about devolution?
LikeLike
@eric
A fairy tale with with empirical evidence such as bones & fossilized remains of plants and animals. You are free to deny facts, but your denial doesn’t change facts.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Fan
The ancients lacked a lot of technology, but had a great deal of wisdom.
LikeLike
where is nod in this scenario?
so you accept as valid the scientific explanation of our current understanding of the universe?
Also you left out because (how could you know) the numerous possible future societies and species (including what we may evolve into) between 2017 and 1,000,000 years from now.
Afrofem
could you provide some specific examples ,you know like
dates ,eras, geographic region and culture?
I would be most interested.
satanforce
“Respiration”.
After 20 years five of which I spent hearing snippets but not able to get the name or artist and thus the whole song
marketpace on npr combined with the app shazam I get the whole song
about a month ago
and its one of the best ,a definite classic, hip hop and rap before they became racist.
I mean you still hear a good rap song every now and then, but now every black person even if not a drug dealer or prostitute is unquestionably, without any reflection , insight ,empathy or remorse much less integrity a n—r.
LikeLike
Update: Here is a video of Times Square by the Time Travel Artist, going from 2019 to 1898 and back again:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT6lYXl8RG0)
LikeLike