Figure: Bedrock Topography of Manhattan.

This figure shows the bedrock depths relative to sea level. The blue parts are where the bedrock is below the sea level and the orange parts where it is above. The deepest bedrock is in the Lower East Side (but that’s not why there are no skyscrapers there). Most of Manhattan island’s bedrock is some form of schist, though marble makes up part of northern Manhattan and East Harlem. Today most skyscrapers rest directly on the bedrock giving them a firm foundation. Click here to see a helicopter tour.
Source: Jason Barr, Dimitris Ntarlagiannis, and Jan Olchowski

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure: Fertile Manhattan.

Caption: This map shows the location of the relatively fertile soils on the island (and which are correlated with the bedrock depths). The Dutch and English settlers were attracted to these regions of the island and their location choices later encouraged real estate development and transportation investments, which would greatly influence the location of skyscrapers in the 20^th century. Source: Soils data is courtesy of Eric Sanderson, the Mannahatta Project, Wildlife Conservation Society.