Beginning in 1982, Maria Manhattan contributed to the earliest Internet experiments. Her first computer piece "Nancy Reagan Takes The Subway" produced at the Alternate Media Center at NYU, under a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, received wide recognition as the first interactive comic strip.

 

As an art director in the computer graphics world Maria Manhattan specialized in designing educational software. Her clients included Children's Television Workshop, The United Nations, South Carolina Educational TV, Bank Street College of Education and Classroom Inc.

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Previously Maria provided graphics and ideas for early interactive research and development. She ran a computer graphics lab for AT&T and worked on user interface design projects for RCA Labs at The David Sarnoff Research Center. At NBC she illustrated top stories for an early interactive news service. At Citibank she designed graphics to demonstrate how an ATM might work.

 

In 2000 Manhattan had the great pleasure to design the web site for the Broadway show, Gore Vidal's The Best Man.

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She taught for 15 years at the School of Visual Arts in both the MFA program in Computer Art and in the Illustration & Cartooning department, and for two years at the New School for Social Research​.