This Guy Wants To Add “Land” to the New York Harbor To Make Manhattan Bigger

Just what we need. An even bigger New York City, right?

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A professor at Rutgers has suggested expanding Manhattan further into the New York Harbor to make it bigger and we are pretty conflicted about this.

Part of us (those of us who live in upstate New York) thinks this is a fantastic idea because maybe it'll mean fewer people from downstate coming up to quaint upstate, gobbling up the land, and then trying to turn upstate into a mini version of downstate.

The other part of us is like, New York is already huge and jammed with people. Do we need to add more space to the city only to turn around and cram more people into it?

Jason Barr, professor at Rutgers University published an opinion piece in the New York Times pointing out how expensive it is to live in New York City and how much more housing the city needs.

Barr's proposal? New York City should expand Manhattan by adding more land to the bottom of it. Now, if you've been to Manhattan, then you know at the bottom of Manhattan sits New York Harbor which is the United State's third-largest container port, the largest petroleum importing port, and where thousands of vessels dock each year.

Barr's plan involves adding 1,760 acres at the bottom of Manhattan, eating up a chunk of New York Harbor by using landfill to add the acreage which would make Manhattan jut out further into the New York Harbor.

Barr says that the extra 1,760 acres would allow room for an additional 180,000 apartments as well as for some huge walls to be built to fight back against rising sea levels.

Manhattan is currently made up of 10,890 acres so Barr's plan of adding 1,760 acres would make Manhattan grow by about 16 percent.

Oh, and while Barr isn't able to give an exact figure as far as how much such a project would cost to complete, he does suggest that this new acreage be called "New Mannahatta."