New York City: Encyclopedia - New York City

New York City

New York City, officially the City of New York, is the most populous city in the United States, and the most densely populated major city in North America.

The city is at the center of international finance, politics, entertainment, and culture, and is one of the world's major global cities (along with London, Tokyo and Paris) with a virtually unrivaled collection of museums, galleries, performance venues, media outlets, international corporations, and stock exchanges. The city is also home to the United Nations, along with all of the international missions associated with it.

Located in the state of New York, New York City has a population of 8.2 million^[1] within an area of 309 square miles (800 km²). It is at the heart of the New York Metropolitan Area, which at a population of over 22 million is one of the largest urban conglomerations in the world. The city proper comprises five boroughs: the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. Each of these boroughs, except for Staten Island, contains over a million people and would each be among the nation's largest cities if considered independently.

New York City attracts large numbers of immigrants from over 180 countries, as well as many people from all over the United States, who come to the city for its culture, energy, cosmopolitanism, and by their own hope of making it big in the "Big Apple." The city is also distinguished for being the safest large city in America,^[2] despite its size and population density.

Serving as an enormous engine for the global economy—with an estimated Gross Metropolitan Product of nearly $500 billion within its city limits^[3]—New York City is home to more Fortune 500 companies than any other place in the United States. If the city were a nation, it would have the 17th highest gross domestic product in the world, exceeding that of Switzerland ($377 billion) and nearly equaling that of Russia ($586 billion).

Location in the state of New York

New York City - History of New York City

Prehistory in the area began with the geological formation of the peculiar territory of what is today New York City. The area was long inhabited by the Lenape; after initial European exploration, the Dutch established New Amsterdam and New Netherland in 1613. In 1640, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed governor and the colony was granted self-government in 1652. In 1664, the British conquered the area and renamed it New York. The Dutch regained it in August 1673, renaming the city "New Orange", then ceded New Netherland permanently to the English in November 1674.

Periods
Lenape and New Netherland
British and Revolution
Federal and early American
Tammany and Consolidation
Early 20th century
Post–World War II
Modern and post-9/11

Under British the newly renamed City of New York and surrounding areas continued to develop. There was a growing sentiment for greater political independence among some, but the area was decidedly split in its loyalties. The site of modern New York City was the theatre of the New York Campaign, a series of major battles in the early American Revolutionary War. After that, the city was under British occupation until the end of the war, and was the last port British ships evacuated in 1783.

New York City became the temporary capital of the newly formed United States on September 13, 1788 under the U.S. Constitutional Convention. New York City remained the capital of the U.S. until 1790. The city grew as an economic center with the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, and Tammany Hall began to grow in influence with the support of many of the immigrant Irish, a trend culminating with the election of the first Tammany mayor, Fernando Wood, in 1854.

There was chaos during the American Civil War, with major rioting in the New York Draft Riots. Later years saw the rise of the Gilded Age which saw prosperity for the city's upper classes amid the further growth of a poor immigrant working class, and an increasing consolidation, both economic and municipal, of what would become the five boroughs in 1898.

A series of new transportation links, most notably the New York City Subway, first opened in 1904, helped bind the newly consolidated city together. The height of European immigration brought social upheaval. Later, in the 1920s, the city saw the influx of African-Americans as part of the Great Migration from the American South, and the Harlem Renaissance, part of a larger boom time in the Prohibition era that saw dueling skyscrapers in the skyline. The city suffered during the Great Depression, which saw the election of Republican reformer Fiorello LaGuardia and the fall of Tammany Hall after eighty years of political dominance. The city also played a significant part in World War II.

After World War II New York emerged as the unquestioned leading city of the world. However, after peaking in population in 1950, the city slowly declined with changes in industry and commerce, urban sprawl outside the city and crime, and fell into something of a crisis period in the 1970s.

The 1980s was a period of modest boom and bust, followed by a major boom in the 1990s. Racial tensions calmed in latter years; a dramatic fall in crime rates, improvements in quality of life and a major reinvigoration of immigration and growth pushed the city’s population past the eight million mark for the first time in its history. In the late 1990s, the city benefited disproportionately from the success of the financial services industry during the dot com boom, one of the factors in a decade of booming residential and commercial real estate value increases.

New York City was the site of a terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, when nearly 3,000 people were killed by a terrorist strike on the World Trade Center, including those employed in the buildings, passengers and crew on two commercial jetliners, and hundreds of firemen, policemen, and rescue workers who came to the aid of the disaster. Thick, acrid smoke continued to pour out of its ruins for months following the Twin Towers' fiery collapse. The city has since rebounded and the physical cleanup of the World Trade Center site was completed ahead of schedule. The Freedom Tower, intended to be exactly 1,776 feet tall (a number symbolic of the year the Declaration of Independence was written), is to be built on the site and is slated for construction between 2006 and 2010.

New York City - Boroughs and neighborhoods

New York City is comprised of "the Five Boroughs". Throughout the boroughs there are hundreds of neighborhoods in the city, many with a definable history and character all their own.

• Manhattan (New York County, pop. 1,564,798) is the business center of the city, and the most superlatively urban. It is the most densely populated, and the home of most of the city's skyscrapers.
  Further information: List of Manhattan neighborhoods, and [[{{{2}}}]], and [[{{{3}}}]], and [[{{{4}}}]], and [[{{{5}}}]], and [[{{{6}}}]], and [[{{{7}}}]], and [[{{{8}}}]], and [[{{{9}}}]]

• The Bronx (Bronx County, pop. 1,363,198) is known as the purported birthplace of hip hop culture, as well as being the home of the New York Yankees. Excluding its minor islands, the Bronx is the only borough of the city that is on the mainland of the United States.
  Further information: List of Bronx neighborhoods, and [[{{{2}}}]], and [[{{{3}}}]], and [[{{{4}}}]], and [[{{{5}}}]], and [[{{{6}}}]], and [[{{{7}}}]], and [[{{{8}}}]], and [[{{{9}}}]]

• Brooklyn (Kings County, pop. 2,472,523) is the most populous borough, with a strong native identity. It ranges from a modern business district downtown to large historic residential neighborhoods in the central and south-eastern areas. It is also home to a long beachfront and Coney Island, famous as one of the earliest amusement grounds in the country.
  Further information: List of Brooklyn neighborhoods, and [[{{{2}}}]], and [[{{{3}}}]], and [[{{{4}}}]], and [[{{{5}}}]], and [[{{{6}}}]], and [[{{{7}}}]], and [[{{{8}}}]], and [[{{{9}}}]]

• Queens (Queens County, pop. 2,225,486) is the most diverse county in the U.S., with more immigrants than anywhere else. Geographically it is the largest of the boroughs, and the legacy of its old constituent towns is still evident. It is also the borough that houses Shea Stadium, home of the New York Mets; two of the region's three major airports, (the other lies in Newark, New Jersey); Flushing Meadows Corona Park home to the 1939 and 1964 World Fairs; and Arthur Ashe Stadium, site of the annual U.S. Open.
  Further information: List of Queens neighborhoods, and [[{{{2}}}]], and [[{{{3}}}]], and [[{{{4}}}]], and [[{{{5}}}]], and [[{{{6}}}]], and [[{{{7}}}]], and [[{{{8}}}]], and [[{{{9}}}]]

• Staten Island (Richmond County, pop. 459,737) is quiet, somewhat isolated and the most suburban in character of the five boroughs, but has become gradually more integrated into city life in recent decades, particularly since the opening of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in 1964, an event that bred controversy and even a recent attempt at secession.
  Further information: List of Staten Island neighborhoods, and [[{{{2}}}]], and [[{{{3}}}]], and [[{{{4}}}]], and [[{{{5}}}]], and [[{{{6}}}]], and [[{{{7}}}]], and [[{{{8}}}]], and [[{{{9}}}]]

New York City - New York City government

New York City is governed pursuant to the New York City Charter, as amended. The charter is enacted and amended by the New York State legislature, and occasionally through referendum. Though subservient to the State of New York, the city enjoys a high degree of legislative and executive autonomy. Like most governmental entities in the United States, the city government is divided into executive, legislative and judicial branches.

New York City's political geography is rather unique among American cities, as it is made up of five individual counties, each coterminous with a borough: Manhattan is New York County, Queens is Queens County, Brooklyn is Kings County, The Bronx is Bronx County and Staten Island is Richmond County. In 1898, when New York City was consolidated into its present form, all previous town and county governments within it were abolished in favor of the present five boroughs and unified, centralized city government.

The executive branch of New York City is headed by the Mayor, who is elected by direct popular vote. The Mayor of New York City appoints several Deputy Mayors to head major offices within the executive branch of the city government. Deputy Mayors report directly to the Mayor. They are: Deputy Mayor for Operations, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding, Deputy Mayor for Policy, Deputy Mayor for Administration, Deputy Mayor for Legal Affairs.

Legislative power in New York City is vested in a unicameral City Council, which contains 51 members, each representing a district of approximately 157,000 people. Council members are elected every four years, and the leader of the majority party is called the Speaker. Like most legislative bodies, the City Council is divided into committees which have oversight of various functions of the city government. Bills passed by a simple majority are sent to the mayor, who may sign it into law. If the mayor vetoes the bill, the Council has 30 days to override the veto by a two-thirds majority vote.

Unlike the rest of New York State, New York City does not have typical county courts. Instead, there is a single Civil Court, with a presence in each borough and city-wide jurisdiction, and a Criminal Court for each New York City county which handles lesser criminal offenses and domestic violence cases, a responsibility shared with the Family Court. Unlike other counties in New York, judges for Family Courts in New York City are appointed for ten year terms by the mayor, instead of being elected.

New York City - The Seal of New York City

The seal of the City of New York, adopted in an earlier form in 1686, bears the legend SIGILUM CIVITATIS NOVI EBORACUM which simply means "The Seal of the City of New York": Eboracum was the Roman name for York, the titular seat of James II as Duke of York. The two supporters represent the unity between native American and colonist, the four windmill sails recall the city's Dutch history as New Amsterdam, and the beavers and flour barrels the city's earliest trade goods (see History of New York City). The crest over the seal is the American eagle added after the Revolution and at the bottom the date, 1625, of the founding of the city.

New York City - Geography climate and environmental issues

New York City - Geography

• 40°42′51″N, 74°0′23″W

New York City is located in the middle of the BosWash megalopolis, 218 mi (350 km) driving distance from Boston and 232 mi (373 km) from Washington, D.C. The city is situated on the three major islands of Manhattan, Staten Island, and on western Long Island (Brooklyn and Queens), as well as on the mainland in the Bronx. There are also some smaller islands in the surrounding waters, including Ellis Island, Governors Island, Liberty Island, Roosevelt Island, and small islands located in Jamaica Bay.

The Hudson River flows from the Hudson Valley into New York Bay, becoming a tidal estuary that separates the Bronx and Manhattan from New Jersey. The East River, really a tidal strait, stretches from the Long Island Sound to New York Bay, separating the Bronx and Manhattan from Long Island. The Harlem River, another tidal strait between the East and Hudson Rivers, separates Manhattan from the Bronx.

Upper New York Bay is surrounded by Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and the coast of New Jersey, and is connected by the Narrows between Brooklyn and Staten Island to Lower New York Bay, which is partially surrounded by Brooklyn, Staten Island, and the coast of New Jersey, and opens to the Atlantic Ocean.

The shape of the land has been altered substantially by human intervention, with considerable land reclamation along the waterfronts since Dutch times, most dramatically in Lower Manhattan, and continuing in modern developments like Battery Park City. Much of the natural variations in topography have been evened out, particularly in Manhattan (one possible meaning for Manhattan is "island of hills"; in fact, the island was quite hilly before European settlement). A number of smaller islands have been artificially enlarged, and the map of islands in Jamaica Bay has been completely transformed.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 1,214.4 km² (468.9 mi²). 785.6 km² (303.3 mi²) of it is land and 428.8 km² (165.6 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 35.31% water. Although most of the city is adequately above sea level, parts of it could be threatened in the future if the current patterns of global warming continue.

New York City - Climate

New York has a humid continental climate, though being adjacent to water it suffers less temperature fluctuation than inland areas. New York winters are typically cold, but milder than inland Eastern and Midwestern cities at similar latitude (Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh). The sea does moderate temperatures somewhat, especially in winter. Temperatures below 0 °F (-18 °C) only occur about once per decade on average, but temperatures in the 10's and 20's are quite common at the height of winter. Springs are typically mild, averaging in the 50s °F (10 to 15 °C) in late March to the lower 80s °F (25 to 30 °C) in early June. Summers in New York are hot and humid, with temperatures commonly exceeding 90 °F (32 °C), although high temperatures above 100 °F (38 °C) are about as rare as subzero (F) lows in winter. humidity levels are usually quite high in July and August. Autumns are comfortable in New York and similar to spring in temperature. Officially (based on the Central Park observation), the last 100+ degree day was on August 9, 2001 and the last below zero day was on January 19, 1994; however, unofficial observations in other parts of the city show a 100+ degree temperature on August 13, 2005 and a below zero reading on January 10, 2004 (Central Park temperatures were 99-deg and 1-deg F respectively). Travelers are advised to check forecasts and bring several layers of clothing in late fall and in the early spring months (e.g., November, March, April) as temperatures can flucuate quickly at these times of year.

New York City - Environmental issues

Facing growing energy demands and limited space, New York has introduced a series of innovative environmental policies since the 1990s. Although cities like Seattle, Washington or Portland, Oregon are often thought to be more "green" than most American cities, New York is one of the most energy efficient cities in the United States. The vast size of New York City's economy makes it influential in environmental policy circles. Environmental groups make large efforts to help shape legislation in New York because they see the strategy as an efficient way to influence national programs. Manufacturers are also attuned to New York's latest trends and needs because the market is simply too big to ignore.

New York is also a leader in energy-efficient green office buildings, like 7 World Trade Center, which recycles rainwater and uses it in toilets and for irrigation, and computer-controlled heating and lighting. The city's mass transit system, multifamily housing, mixed neighborhoods and the fact that developments no longer go up on virgin land make building in New York very energy efficient.

The city's water supply is fed by a vast watershed in the Catskill Mountains. Because the watershed is in one the largest protected land areas in the United States the water passes through natural filtration systems and does not require processing by water treatment plants.

New York's air quality, however, is not pristine. While not as polluted as the air in such cities as Los Angeles or Houston, New York has high levels of ozone and particulates. Scientists have associated high rates of asthma and other respiratory problems to diesel emissions. To address these problems the city has introduced low-emissions hybrid vehicles into its bus and taxi fleets.

This section drawn from the New York Times article 'Never Sleeps, But It Douses The Lights'[4]

New York City - Demographics

As of the census^GR2 of 2000, there are 8,008,278 people, 3,021,588 households, and 1,852,233 families residing in the city. The population density is 10,194.2/km² (26,402.9/mi²). There are 3,200,912 housing units at an average density of 4,074.6/km² (10,553.2/mi²). The racial makeup of the city is 44.66% White, 26.59% Black or African American, 0.52% Native American, 9.83% Asian, 0.07% Pacific Islander, 13.42% from other races, and 4.92% from two or more races. 26.98% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. 35.9% of the population was born outside the United States of America (18.9% born in Latin America, 8.6% Asia, 7.0% Europe). The ethnic makeup is 11.5% African-American, 9.8% Puerto Rican, 8.7% Italian, 5.3% Irish, 5.1% Dominican, 4.5% Chinese, 2.1% Asian Indian, 1.8% Filipino and 1.6% Korean.

New York City is also home to the nation's largest community of American Jews, both Ashkenazic and Sephardic, with an estimate of 972,000 in 2002, and is the worldwide headquarters of the Hasidic Lubavitch movement and the Bobover and Satmar branches of Hasidism.

There are 3,021,588 households with a median income of $38,293; 29.7% contain children under the age of 18 and 37.2% are married couples living together. 19.1% have a single female householder, and 38.7% are non-families. 31.9% of all households are made up of individuals and 9.9% are single residents 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.59 and the average family size is 3.32.

Per capita income is $22,402; men and women have a median income of $37,435 and $32,949 respectively. 21.2% of the population and 18.5% of families are below the poverty line, of whom 30.0% are under the age of 18 and 17.8% are 65 and older.

In the city, the population is spread out with 24.2% under the age of 18, 10.0% from 18 to 24, 32.9% from 25 to 44, 21.2% from 45 to 64, and 11.7% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 34 years. For every 100 females there are 90.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 85.9 males.

New York City's unemployment rate in March of 2005 was 5.2%, identical to the nationwide rate.

According to the U.S. Census, New York City has the largest estimated daytime population, at more than 8.5 million persons. The increase of more than half a million people over the nighttime population is bigger than that found in any other area. However, the 7 percent increase puts New York in the middle of the pack on percentage change among cities with more than a million residents.

New York City - Crime

Since 1991, New York City has seen a continuous seventeen-year trend of decreasing crime and is now the safest large city in the United States. Neighborhoods that were once considered dangerous are now thriving with new businesses and housing, and many residents feel safe to walk the streets late at night. Violent crime in the city has dropped by 75% in the last twelve years and the murder rate in 2004 was at its lowest level in over forty years: there were 559 murders that year, for a murder rate of 7 per 100,000 people, compared to 2,245 murders in 1990. As of December 30, 2005 there had been 537 killings in the city, according to the department's latest marking-period reports that are issued weekly. Some feel that the implementation of COMPSTAT crime analysis by the New York Police Department in 1994 is responsible for the positive changes.

Overall, New York City had a rate of 2,801.6 crimes per 100,000 people in 2004, compared with 8,959.7 in Dallas; 7,903.7 in Detroit; 7,402.3 in Phoenix; 7,346.8 in San Antonio; 7,194.8 in Houston; 5,470.5 in Philadelphia; 4,376.0 in Los Angeles; and 4,102.7 in San Diego.

New Yorkers are famous for doing things "bigger and better," and this sometimes applies to criminal activity: Organized crime has been associated with New York City since the early 20th Century, when legendary mobsters Arnold Rothstein, Meyer Lansky, and Lucky Luciano transformed it, although later decades are more famous for Mafia prosecutions (and prosecutors like Rudolph Giuliani) than for the influence of the Five Families. Another notorious crime story is the serial killings by the "Son of Sam", who on July 29, 1976 began a series of attacks that terrorized the city for the next year.

For New York City crime Statistics see the NYPD's Precinct Crime Statistics page.

New York City - Economy

Historically, the city developed because of New York Harbor, widely considered one of the finest natural ports in the world. The value of this port was greatly expanded upon in 1819 with the opening of the Erie Canal, which gave New York an enormous advantage over the competing ports of Boston and Philadelphia. The old port facility was at the South Street Seaport in Manhattan, but today there is still residual activity remaining at Red Hook in Brooklyn, and the Howland Hook Marine Terminal in Staten Island. Red Hook, for instance, handles the majority of the cacao bean imports to the United States. Since the 1950s, most shipping activity in the area has shifted to Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal in New Jersey. But despite changes in international shipping, trade and the tertiary sector have always remained the real basis of New York's economy.

Manufacturing first became a major economic base for New York City in the mid-nineteenth century with the advent of industrialization and the railroad. New York was formerly a national center for clothing manufacture, and some continues, sometimes in sweatshops. There are still around 120,000 manufacturing jobs in the city compared to over a million in the middle of the 20th century. Like international shipping, though, manufacturing gradually declined in the late-twentieth century with rising land values. The city was also a first center of the American film industry, along with Chicago, Illinois, until it moved to Hollywood, California, and still has some television and movie production.

Today, New York City is a major center of finance in the world economy, with Wall Street in Lower Manhattan's Financial District. Financial markets based in the city include the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, American Stock Exchange, New York Mercantile Exchange, and New York Board of Trade. This contributes to New York City being a major financial service exporter, both within the United States and globally. Many corporations also have their headquarters in New York.

New York is also the center of many of the service sector industries in the U.S., with more Fortune 500 companies headquartered in the city than anywhere else in the country (including companies as prominent and diverse as Altria Group, Time Warner, American International Group, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, JetBlue, DC Comics, Estée Lauder, Sony Music Entertainment, and many others). The city is by far the most important center for American mass media, journalism and publishing. Manhattan's Madison Avenue is synonymous with the American advertising industry, while Seventh Avenue is nicknamed "fashion avenue" as it serves as an important center for the fashion industry. Ninety percent of the diamonds imported to the United States pass through New York, and most of these are handled and cut in the city's Diamond District on 47th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. New York also has among the most important scenes for art, music, and theater in the U.S., with an increasingly active artists' community. The city also has a large tourism industry.

New York City's estimated gross metropolitan product of US$488.8 billion in 2003 was the largest of any city in the U.S. and the sixth largest if compared to any U.S. State. If it were a nation, the city would have the 17th highest gross domestic product in the world, exceeding that of Switzerland ($377 million) and the second highest per capita GDP in the world, at about $59,000/head, about $7,000/head lower than Luxembourg.

New York City - Culture of New Yorkers

New York City, sometimes called "The City That Never Sleeps," is famously fast-paced and active, and the American idiom "in a New York minute" means "immediately." The stereotypical "hard-boiled New Yorker" has a reputation as tough, rude, and impatient, and takes pride in the crowds, noise, and hardships of city life and often writes-off other cities as "not real cities". New York City residents are called "New Yorkers," although this term may also refer to suburbanites, and there is some use of such borough-specific identifications as Manhattanites, Bronxites, Brooklynites, Queensites and Staten Islanders. Residents of the metropolitan area generally refer to New York City (or sometimes just Manhattan) as simply "The City," or use the acronym "NYC" instead of "NY" to avoid confusing references to the State of New York. Manhattanites occasionally use the phrase "bridge and tunnel people" to refer to residents of the rest of the city and New Jersey, referring to the fact that they must cross one to get into Manhattan. Other nicknames attributed to New York City include "the Big Apple," "Gotham," "the Naked City," "the Capital of the World," and the slogan introduced in 2005 by Mayor Bloomberg in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to win a bid for the 2012 Olympic Games, "the World's Second Home."

New York City - Immigration and cosmopolitanism

New York absorbs a greater diversity of immigrant groups than any other American city, and it absorbs a larger number of immigrants every day than any other U.S. city except Los Angeles, giving New York a global, international feel. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, 48 percent of New Yorkers speak a language other than English at home; the city government employs translators in 180 languages. The city is so diverse that more Jews live in New York than in Jerusalem and more Irish live in New York than in Dublin.

The five boroughs are home to many distinct ethnic enclaves of Irish, Italians, Filipinos, Greeks, Chinese, Romanians, Koreans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Jamaicans, African-Americans, Haitians, Iranians, Arabs, Jews, South Asians, Russians and many others, and there are also many multi-ethnic neighborhoods where people of different backgrounds coexist comfortably. Regardless of ethnic origin, everyone in the city shares a common identity as New Yorkers.

Some celebrated ethnic neighborhoods include Harlem, Little Italy, Flushing, Jackson Heights, Chinatown, Washington Heights, Briarwood, the Lower East Side and Brighton Beach.

The term "melting pot" derives from the play The Melting Pot, by Israel Zangwill, who adapted Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to a setting in the Lower East Side. The phrase referred to the densely populated neighborhoods of lower Manhattan, where droves of immigrants from diverse European nations in the early 1900s learned to live together in tenements and row houses for the first time.

New York City - Commuter culture

Four of every five commuters in Manhattan, including many middle class professionals, travel by bus and subway, making the everyday lifestyle and "pedestrian culture" of New Yorkers substantially different from the "car culture" that dominates most American cities. Even the city's billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg, is a "straphanger" (subway commuter), and can be encountered on the train to City Hall each morning.

New York's commuting culture is unique in other ways. According to the New York City Department of Planning, 80,000 city residents travel to work by bicycle and New Yorkers each walk an average of seven miles over the course of a day.[6] Walk/bicycle modes of travel account for 21 percent of all modes for trips in the city and its suburbs, according to the 1995 Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey; nationally the rate for metro regions is eight percent. New York's "pedestrian culture" is a contributor to the city's famous street life, which in turn has inspired cultural developments like break-dancing. The extensive subway system is also commonly utilized for cultural purposes, with more than 100 musicians - ranging in genre from classical to Cajun, bluegrass, African, South American and jazz - assembling each week to give over 150 performances sanctioned by New York City Transit at 25 locations throughout the subway system.[7] The subways of New York have even served as occassional venues for beauty pageants and guerrilla theater.

New York City - Current issues

No other American city has experienced the effects of gentrification to the same degree that New York City has. Beginning primarily in the 1990s, although in some cases earlier, neighborhoods that had been seen as less desirable or unsafe became entirely transformed by the arrival of young professionals, often preceded by artists and "hipsters". This process is exemplified by the cases of Williamsburg in Brooklyn and Manhattan's East Village and Lower East Side. Even such cultural landmarks such as CBGB are being forced to close because of the process. Although gentrification generally has led to lower crime, more business activity, and higher land values, many of the native residents of these communities have been adversely affected by the skyrocketing housing costs associated with these rapid changes.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, pride in the city and the New York way of life increased for many. Nationally, Americans felt increased solidarity with New Yorkers. Today, there is a palpable sense of optimism in New York, fear of terrorism has lessened dramatically, and a massive confluence of transportation infrastructure projects promises to greatly expand the city's economic potential. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made making the city's public school system "second to none" the signature issue of his tenure. Although many national education experts regard New York as national pioneer in reform, the quality of the city's school system remains an important political issue in the city. Drastic reductions in crime have changed "the ungovernable city" of the past into a remarkably civilized place, and recent polls show that a vast majority of New Yorkers think the city "is moving in the right direction."

New York City - Tourism and recreation

Tourism is a major local industry, with hundreds of attractions and 39 million tourists visiting the city each year on average. Many visitors make it a point to visit the Empire State Building, Times Square, Radio City Music Hall, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Wall Street, United Nations Headquarters, the American Museum of Natural History, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Fifth Avenue, and the Brooklyn Bridge, among other attractions.

There are over 28,000 acres (113 km²) of parkland found throughout New York City, comprising over 1,700 separate parks and playgrounds. The best known of these is Central Park, which is one of the finest examples of landscape architecture in the world, as well as a major source of recreation for New Yorkers and tourists alike. Other major parks in the city include Riverside Park, Battery Park, Bryant Park, Prospect Park, Flushing Meadow-Corona Park, Washington Square Park, and Forest Park. The city also has 578 miles (930 km) of waterfront and over 14 miles (22 km) of public beaches.

Maritime attractions include the South Street Seaport, site of a historic port, and the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, housed in a World War II aircraft carrier docked on the Hudson River.

Shopping is popular with many visitors, with Fifth Avenue being a famous shopping corridor for luxury items. Macy's, the nation's largest department store, and the surrounding area of Herald Square are a major destination for more moderately-priced goods. In recent years 23rd Street has become a major location for "big-box" retailers. In southern Manhattan, Greenwich Village is home to hundreds of independent music and book stores, while the East Village continues to prevail as purveyors of all things "strange" and unusual which you can't find anywhere else. The "diamond district" (located on 47th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues) is the city's main location for jewelry shopping, and SoHo, formerly the center of the New York art scene, is now famous for high-priced clothing boutiques, and the art galleries are now concentrated in Chelsea. There are also large shopping districts found in Downtown Brooklyn and along Queens Boulevard in Queens.

The first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was held in New York on November 27, 1924. Since then this has been an annual event drawing tens of thousands of spectators and in later years millions of television viewers. Annually on New Year's Eve, hundreds of thousands of people congregate in Times Square to watch the ball drop as millions watch on television.

The World Trade Center was an important tourist destination before the September 11, 2001 attacks, which devastated the city and its tourist industry. The city was nearly devoid of tourists for months, and it took two years for the numbers to fully rebound with fewer international, but more domestic visitors. Now the World Trade Center site has itself become an important place for visitors to see.

Many tourists only think of New York in terms of Manhattan, but there are four other boroughs which, if they can't compete in skyscrapers, still offer other kinds of attractions. Brooklyn's old Coney Island is still a center of seaside recreation, with its beach, boardwalk, and amusement parks. Many enjoy the spectacular views available from the deck of the Staten Island Ferry. The Bronx Zoo is world-famous, and the Bronx Bombers don't play in Manhattan. Flushing, Queens is home to the legacy of the 1964 New York World's Fair (including the Unisphere), the U.S. Open in tennis and Shea Stadium.

New York City - Arts and Cultural Institutions

New York is a city of great museums with the Metropolitan Museum of Art's assemblage of historic art, the Museum of Modern Art and Guggenheim Museum's 20th century collection, and the American Museum of Natural History and its Hayden Planetarium focusing on the sciences. There are also many smaller specialty museums, from El Museo del Barrio with a focus on Latin American cultures to the Cooper-Hewitt National Museum of Design to the International Center of Photography and The Museum of Television and Radio. There is even a Museum of the City of New York. A number of the city's museums are located along the Museum Mile section of Fifth Avenue.

In addition to these museums, the city is also home to a vast array of spaces for opera, symphony, and dance performances. The largest of these is Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, which is actually a complex of buildings housing 12 separate companies, including the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Opera, the New York City Ballet, and Jazz at Lincoln Center. Other notable performance halls include Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

The central wing of the New York Public Library (pictured), is one of the most important research libraries in the world, as well as serving as an important exhibition space for various historic collections.

New York City - Film

Because of its sheer size and cultural influence, New York City has been the subject of many different, and often contradictory, portrayals in mass media. From the sophisticated and worldly metropolis seen in many Woody Allen films, to the chaotic urban jungle depicted in such movies as Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, New York has served as the unwitting backdrop for virtually every conceivable viewpoint on big city life. New York’s portrayal on television is similarly varied, with a disproportionate number of crime dramas taking place in the city despite the fact that it is one of the safest cities in the United States.

As the capital of independent American cinema, New York is home to a number of important film festivals, including the Tribeca Film Festival, the New York Film Festival and the Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

New York City - Music

With its connection to media and communications and its mix of cultures and immigrants, New York City has had a long history of association with American music. The city has served as an important center for many different genres of music ranging from Big Band Era and jazz, from Punk Rock to Goth and Hip-hop (the latter of which is generally acknowledged as having originated in the Bronx around 1973).

The East Village and Lower East Side continue to shine as the city's premier destination for music (rock, blues, jazz, dance), art (mixed media) and indie theater (experimental, off-broadway.) From CBGB's to LaMama Theater to the Amato Opera House, this area is famous for having a "venue on every block." New York is also home to the controversial talk show host Howard Stern.

New York City - Visual arts

The city's vibrant visual art scene gave birth to such giants as Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein, who defined the American pop art movement. Abstract expressionism, which developed in New York in the post-World War II period, became the first truly original school of painting in America. The New York artists who defined this style, including Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, were known as the New York School.

New York City - Literature

New York has also been the setting for countless works of literature, many of them produced by the city’s famously large population of writers, including Jonathan Franzen, Don DeLillo, Jhumpa Lahiri, Jonathan Safran Foer, Jonathan Lethem, Thomas Pynchon, Susan Sontag, and many others.

New York has also long been an African-American cultural center, with such significant writers as Langston Hughes during the Harlem Renaissance to artists like Run-D.M.C., who pioneered rap music.

New York City - Theater

New York City boasts a highly active and influential theater district, which is centered around Times Square in Manhattan. It serves both as the center of American theater and is a major attraction for visitors from around the world. The dozens of theaters in this district are responsible for tens of thousands of jobs, and help contribute billions of dollars every year to the city's economy. Along with those of London’s West End theater district, Broadway theaters are considered to be of the highest quality in the world. Despite the name, many "Broadway" theaters do not lie on Broadway the street, and the distinction with Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway (which tend more toward experimental theater) is simply a reference to the seating capacity of the theater.

New York City - Media and Broadcasting

New York is the nation’s number-one media market with nearly 7 percent of the country’s television-viewing households. Three of the Big Four music recording companies have their headquarters in the city. One-third of all independent films are produced in the Big Apple. More than 200 newspapers and 350 consumer magazines have an office in the city. The book publishing industry alone employs 13,000 people. For these reasons, New York is often called "the media capital of the world."

New York City - Newspapers

The city boasts over forty daily hometown newspapers in several different languages, including such national heavyweights as The Wall Street Journal (daily circulation of 2.1 million) and The New York Times (1.6 million), and America's oldest continuously-published newspaper, The New York Post, founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton. The city also has several alternative left-leaning newspapers with strong reputations, including the New York Press and The Village Voice. The conservative New York Sun was founded in 2002. A 1991 study by New York University identified a vibrant ethnic press numbering eighty foreign language daily and weekly newspapers in the five boroughs. These papers, in languages ranging from Korean, French, Arabic, Spanish and Mandarin, to Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Portugese and many others, serve New York's diverse immigrant communities. The city also boasts several highly respected magazines with national profiles, including The New Yorker, New York Magazine, and The New York Review of Books.

New York City - Radio

New York is home to an influential and nationally significant radio broadcasting sector. WNYC, New York's flagship public radio station formerly owned by the city government, has the largest audience of any public radio station in the United States and produces several news and cultural programs for international syndication. WFMU in Jersey City is considered by music industry insiders to be one of the most influential open-format indie radio stations in the country. WBAI in Manhattan, with news and information programming, is one of the few socialist radio stations operating in the United States.

New York City - Television

New York City also has studios, and is the home and broadcasting capital for the four major U.S. television networks, ABC, CBS the Fox Network, and NBC, as well as news organization CNN, and while the local film industry is dwarfed by that of Hollywood, its billions of dollars in revenue make it the second largest in the nation.

See also

• List of books set in New York City
• List of New York City newspapers and magazines
• List of New York City Television and Film studios
• List of television shows set in New York City
• List of movies set in New York City

New York City - Professional sports

Although in much of the rest of the country American football has become the most popular professional sport, in New York City baseball arguably still stirs the most passion and interest. A "Subway Series" between city teams is a time of great excitement, and any World Series championship by either the New York Yankees or the New York Mets is considered to be worthy of the highest celebration, including a ticker-tape parade for the victorious team. For most American baseball fans, the most intense rivalry is between the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, but in the city the rivalry between the Yankees and the Mets almost as fierce. Outsiders are frequently unaware that few baseball fans in New York are fans of both teams at once.

The New York metropolitan area is the only one in the United States with more than one team in each of the four major sports, with nine such franchises. At Madison Square Garden, 'the world's most famous arena,' New Yorkers can see the New York Knicks play NBA basketball, the New York Rangers play hockey, and the New York Liberty of the WNBA. New York's NFL teams, the New York Giants and New York Jets, play at Giants Stadium in New Jersey's Meadowlands, along with Major League Soccer's MetroStars. At the Continental Airlines Arena also in the Meadowlands the New Jersey Nets play NBA basketball and the New Jersey Devils play NHL hockey. The New York Islanders are the third NHL team in the Metro area; they play their home games in Nassau Coliseum in Long Island. Nassau Coliseum is also the home of the New York Dragons of the Arena Football League. Aqueduct Racetrack and Belmont Park feature horse racing all months of the year except August.

New York City is also home to two minor league baseball teams that play in the short-season Class A New York - Penn League. The Brooklyn Cyclones are a New York Mets affiliate, and the Staten Island Yankees are affiliated with the New York Yankees.

New York has also buried more sports history than most American cities ever experience: Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1913 until 1957, was torn down in 1960, and the Polo Grounds in northern Harlem, just across the river from the Bronx's Yankee Stadium, was the home of the New York Giants of Major League Baseball from 1911 to 1957 (and the first home of the New York Mets) before being demolished in 1964. Also, many outsiders are unaware that the current Madison Square Garden is actually the fourth separate building to use that name; the first two were near Madison Square, hence the name, and the third was at 50th Street and Eighth Avenue.

Current sports issues include Bruce Ratner's proposal to move the New Jersey Nets to a new Brooklyn Nets Arena, and a proposal to build a West Side Stadium in Manhattan for the New York Jets in 2008. Both of these construction proposals have stirred considerable opposition, and may have had an impact on the City's bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics (which went to London in the end). The West Side Stadium plan has been abandonded. After searching for other possible sites to locate a stadium, such as Flushing Meadows in Queens, the Jets finally signed an agreement with the Giants to build a new stadium to host both teams in the Meadowlands.

New York City was also the host of the 1998 Goodwill Games.

New York City - Transportation

Unlike most of America's car-oriented urban areas, public transportation is the main form of travel for New York City residents. Data from the 2000 U.S. Census reveals that New York City is the only locality in the United States where more than half of all households do not own a car (the figure is even higher in Manhattan, over 75 percent). About one in every three users of mass transit in the United States and two-thirds of the nation's rail riders live in New York and its suburbs.[8]

New York City - Mass transit

New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the largest public transit system in North America, moves 2.4 billion people a year. The world-famous New York City Subway is a subsidiary of the MTA and is one of the oldest and one of the most extensive subway systems in the world when measured by track mileage (656 miles of mainline track). New York's subway is the world's fifth largest when measured by annual ridership (1.4 billion passenger trips in 2004). There are 734 subway stations in the network. The system connects all boroughs except Staten Island, which is served by the Staten Island Railway and is connected to Manhattan by the Staten Island Ferry, which in turn sails to an intermodal terminal in Lower Manhattan served by the 1 subway line. A second subway system operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's PATH connects Manhattan to New Jersey and Newark Liberty International Airport. New York City, along with Chicago, are the only two cities in the United States to offer 24 hour rapid transit and subway service. At one time one of the most modern systems in the world, New York's subway fell into severe disrepair in the fiscal crisis of the 1970s. After billions of dollars of reinvestment its cleanliness and on-time performance has now returned to historic levels, and ongoing multi-billion dollar projects are seeing the upgrading of signalling systems, refurbishment of stations, construction of new tunnels and introduction of sleek computerized subway cars.

In addition to their comprehensive subway network, New Yorkers rely on hundreds of bus lines operated by the MTA. The MTA runs the largest fleet of electric-diesel hybrid buses in North America. Because of the city's density and extensive mass transit system, more than half of city residents do not own cars or even driver's licenses.

On December 20, 2005, the local Transit Workers Union (TWU) voted to go on an illegal strike, costing New York City an estimated US$300 million in lost revenue per day. The TWU and MTA had failed to negotiate a new contract for the 33,700 MTA employees. On December 23, facing mounting public pressure, TWU voted to break the strike and return to their job without a new contract. The parent TWU did not support the local branch in the strike.

Responsibility for providing public transportation falls to a variety of government agencies and private corporations. Amtrak provides long-distance rail service. Commuter rail networks are operated by New Jersey Transit, the MTA (serving Long Island, Connecticut and regions in New York State north of the city as the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad), and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which also operates regional bus terminals. These rail systems terminate at the two busiest rail stations in the United States, Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal, both in Manhattan.

New York City - Airports

The Port Authority also owns and operates four airports in the New York metropolitan area. Two are in New York City, John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in Jamaica, Queens and La Guardia Airport in Flushing, Queens. The other two, Newark Liberty International Airport and Teterboro Airport are in New Jersey. JFK is the major entry point for international arrivals in the United States and handles the largest amount of air cargo in North America. La Guardia handles domestic flights, while Newark handles both international and domestic; Teterboro is New York's primary general aviation airport, handling heavy business jet traffic together with cargo and medevac flights. There is also a smaller airport, Westchester County Airport, that services the northern suburbs as well as smaller scale and private air traffic from New York City (including business executives and professional sports teams). The first airport in the city was Floyd Bennett Field, now closed as an airport and today part of Gateway National Recreation Area. The Port Authority also operates the AirTrain service, a train which connects the JFK and Newark airports to local subway and rail systems.

New York City - Taxis

Over 12,000 taxicabs are operated by private companies and licensed by the New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission (the TLC). There are two officially recognized car services in the city. "Medallion taxis," the familiar yellow cabs that are New York icons, are legally permitted to pick up passengers hailing them on the street. The TLC also regulates and licenses livery cars, known locally as "car services", which are legally permitted to pick up only those customers who have called the car service's dispatcher and requested a car, although most of these pick up hailing passengers as well. Car services that are independently owned, and will solicit passengers on the street, are known in New York City lingo as "Gypsy Cabs". They are often found in areas not routinely visited by regular cabs, such as northern Manhattan.

In 2005 New York introduced incentives to replace its yellow cabs, most of which are heavy gasoline-powered American sedans, with efficient hybrid vehicles such as the Toyota Prius.

New York City - Ferries

Except for the Bronx, every borough in New York is situated on an island. Given this geography and the city's intense demand for efficient mass transit, high-speed ferries are an ideal solution. Many private ferries are run by NY Waterway, which runs several routes across the Hudson River to New Jersey. New York Water Taxi runs boats that connect Brooklyn and Manhattan, while other operators ply routes on the East River and Long Island Sound. Perhaps the best known ferry, with its bright orange livery and spectacular route across New York Harbor, is the free Staten Island Ferry between Manhattan and Staten Island. It is operated by the New York City Department of Transportation.

New York City - Highways

A less favored alternative to commuting by rail and boat is the region's outdated and congested highway network, designed by Robert Moses. The city's extensive network of parkways and expressways includes four primary Interstate Highways: I-78, I-80, I-87 (also known as the Major Deegan Expressway in the city and the New York State Thruway for points north) and I-95 (which is also the New Jersey Turnpike in that state until it crosses the Hudson River at the George Washington Bridge, when it becomes the New England Thruway, finally ending up as the Connecticut Turnpike when it enters that portion of the tri-state area). I-287 serves as a partial beltway around the city, and there are numerous three-digit Interstates of I-78 and I-95.

New York City - Education and scientific research

New York City - Colleges and universities

New York City is served by the publicly-run City University of New York (CUNY), the largest urban university in the United States, which has a number of campuses throughout the five boroughs. The city is also home to a number of other institutions of higher learning, some of national or even international reputation, including Columbia University, Fordham University, Manhattan College, New York University, the Juilliard School, The Cooper Union, Marymount Manhattan College, Wagner College, Pace University, Yeshiva University, St. John's University, Long Island University, St. Joseph's College, St. Francis College, and The New School.

New York City is also a major center of academic medicine. Manhattan contains the campuses of the world-class Rockefeller University, Weill Cornell Medical College, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, as well as Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center and NYU Medical Center and their medical schools. In the Bronx, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University is a major academic center. Jonas Salk, developer of the vaccine for polio, was an intern at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Upper Manhattan. Brooklyn also hosts one of the country's leading urban medical centers: SUNY Downstate Medical Center, an academic medical center, the oldest hospital-based medical school in the United States. Professor Raymond Vahan Damadian, a pioneer in magnetic resonance imaging research, was part of the faculty from 1967 - 1977 and built the first MRI machine, the Indomnitable, there.

New York City is home to several of the nation's top schools of art and design, including Pratt Institute, the School of Visual Arts, the Fashion Institute of Technology, and Parsons School of Design.

New York City - Schools

New York City contains the largest public school system in the country, with over one million students taught in 1,200 separate schools. There are also approximately 1,000 additional privately run secular and religious schools in the five boroughs. The city-run New York City Department of Education covers the entire city limits and operates almost all of the city's public schools. One exception is Hunter College High School, which is run by Hunter College and charges no tuition.

Dedication to the sciences starts early for many New Yorkers, who have the chance to attend such selective specialized high schools as Manhattan's Stuyvesant High School, CUNY-run Hunter College High School (the public school which sends the highest percentage of its graduates to Ivy League schools in the United States), Bronx High School of Science (which boasts the largest number of graduates who are Nobel Laureates of any high school in the world) and Brooklyn Technical High School. The Brooklyn High School of the Arts is the only high school in the United States with a curriculum in Historic Preservation.

Because of its immense size - there are more students in the system than people in eight US states - the New York City public school system is the most influential in the United States. New experiments in education, text book revisions, and new teaching methods must work in New York to be viable in the rest of the country.

New York City is also home to some of the most prestigious private schools in the United States, such as The Dalton School, The Brearley School, and Horace Mann.

See also

• List of colleges and universities in New York City
• List of high schools in New York City
• Category:New York City public education

New York City - Skyline

New York City has one of the most famous skylines in the world; because of both its high residential density, and the extremely high real estate values found in the city's central business districts, New York has amassed the largest collection of office and residential towers in the world. In fact, New York actually has three separately recognizable skylines: Midtown Manhattan, Downtown Manhattan (also known as Lower Manhattan), and Downtown Brooklyn. The largest of these skylines is in Midtown, which is the largest central business district in the world, and also home to such notable buildings as the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, and Rockefeller Center. The Downtown skyline comprises the third largest central business district in the U.S. (after Midtown and Chicago's Loop), and was once characterized by the presence of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Today it is undergoing the rapid reconstruction of Lower Manhattan, and will include the new One World Trade Center Freedom Tower, which will rise to a height of 1776 ft. when completed in 2010. The Downtown skyline will also be getting notable additions soon from such architects as Santiago Calatrava and Frank Gehry. Also, Goldman Sachs is building a 225 meter(750 feet) tall, 43 floor building across the street from the World Trade Center site.

New York City has a long history of tall buildings. It has been home to 10 buildings that have held the world's tallest fully inhabitable building title at some point in history, although half have since been demolished. The first building to bring the world's tallest title to New York was the New York World Building, in 1890. Later, New York City was home to the world's tallest building for 75 continuous years, starting with the Park Row Building in 1899 and ending with 1 World Trade Center upon completion of the Sears Tower in 1974. One of the world's earliest skyscrapers, still standing in the city, is the Park Row Building, built in 1899.

The Downtown Brooklyn skyline is the smallest of the three New York City skylines, and is centered around a major transportation hub in Northwestern Brooklyn. The borough of Queens has also been developing its own skyline in recent years with a Citigroup office building (which is currently the tallest building in NYC outside Manhattan), and the City Lights development of several residential towers along the East River waterfront.

New York City - Trivia

see also List of New York City lists

• With over 8 million residents, New York City has a larger population than 39 U.S. states. It has more than twice the population of Los Angeles, the second largest city in the country, and more than 27 times the population of Buffalo, the second largest city in the state of New York.
• If each borough — Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island — were to become an independent city, they would rank as the 3rd, 4th, 6th, 9th, and 42nd largest cities in the U.S., respectively.
• Approximately two out of five New York State residents live in New York City.
• More than a third of the actors in the United States are based in New York. ("Creative New York," Center for an Urban Future, December 2005)
• Of the five boroughs, four are on islands and only the Bronx is part of the mainland United States. However, there is an island that is part of the Bronx and yet feels like a New England fishing village: City Island, a marine-related community offering fishing, boating, and a wide range of restaurants and snack bars.
• The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is so long – 4,260 feet – that the towers are a few inches out of parallel to accommodate the curvature of the earth.
• Downtown Manhattan was the site of the nation's first capital.
• 46 percent of leisure visitors to downtown Manhattan come from outside the United States.^{[citation needed]}
• Central Park is nearly twice as big as the world's second-smallest country, Monaco.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "New York City", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki