It is hard to imagine now but Manhattan was once a thick forest. The names of streets in the Financial District echo this past - Pine Street, Cedar Street. Now the Thain Family Forest at the New York Botanical Gardens is a 50-acre remnant of this forest. One of the biggest trees in the forest is tagged '111' - a red oak. I visited the forest on a steaming day in August, when it felt akin to being in a rainforest, and then on a snowy/rainy day in December when the water collected on the forest floor was frozen.