I was just reading an article on MSNBC on the greatest business blunders.
They mention the selling of Manhattan by Native Americans back then, but then they give a quote as to the actual real estate value of all of Manhattan today.
Take your best guess and here is the estimated value, should you decide to buy it all:
Take the Canarsee natives, who, in 1626, traded for trinkets a now rather stylish plot: Manhattan (then called New Amsterdam). The island fondly dubbed “the center of the universe” by many New Yorkers is now worth a cool $1 trillion, estimates Matthew Mondanile of Cushman & Wakefield, a global commercial real estate firm.
To be honest, I would have guessed it to be worth even more.
I agree: low estimate. Considering all of the infrastructure in place like subways, ground mass-transit, hospitals, power/electrical/steam grid, and communications systems, that estimate seems kind of low. If they’d multiplied it by a factor of ten or so, then I’d say it was ‘ballpark’.
But it has a wonderful ocean view and easy access to transit. Too bad about the climate, though vacations north and south are easily arranged and reasonably affordable.
The Boston “Big Dig” cost about $15,000,000,000 or so and that was just for some tunnels that leak and kill newlywed brides from collapsing structures on the way to the honeymoon. I fail to see how Manhattan would be worth anywhere near $1 trillion dollars. That is way too low.
Anyway, I think the Canarsies believed they were selling just hunting and fishing rights, which aren’t worth that much now. Unless you’re really into eating rats and pigeons and toxic fish.
Maybe $1Trillion is just the value of the land, and doesn’t include the development? After all, the natives only sold a mound of dirt, not a mound of dirt full of theatres and subways and hospitals and coops and drunks in the alley and Central Park.
