New York City is a cosmopolitan city on the east coast of the
United States. It is located in the state of New York and is the
most populous city in the country with around 8.8 million
inhabitants.
The New York metropolitan region with 20
million inhabitants is one of the most important economic areas
and trading centers in the world, the headquarters of many
international corporations and organizations such as the United
Nations and an important seaport and inland port on the American
east coast and the Hudson. With its large number of sights, 500
galleries, around 200 museums, more than 150 theaters and more
than 18,000 restaurants, the city enjoys a worldwide reputation
in the fields of art and culture and records around 50 million
visitors every year, almost 12 million of them from abroad .
According to Forbes Magazine, New York City is the city with the
highest cost of living in the United States and one of the most
expensive cities in the world.
The city is generally
considered one of the most important centers of world diplomacy.
Along with Geneva (ICRC and European UN headquarters), Basel
(Bank for International Settlements) and Strasbourg (Council of
Europe), New York City is one of the few cities in the world to
serve as the headquarters of what is commonly considered the
most important international organization without however, to be
the capital of a country.
After Giovanni da Verrazzano in
1524 and Henry Hudson in 1609 had explored the area of today's
New York, Dutch merchants settled on the southern tip of the
island of Manna-Hatta from 1610 and soon afterwards on the
western tip of Long Island, today's Brooklyn. According to
legend, in 1626 Peter Minuit bought the island of Manna-hatta
from the locals, probably Lenni-Lenape Indians, for goods worth
60 guilders. The settlement was given the name Nieuw Amsterdam
and was initially the capital of the Nieuw Nederland colony
until it was conquered by the British in 1664 and the city was
given the name that has been in use ever since. Its rise to
global status began in 1825 with the completion of the Erie
Canal.
The New York-Newark-Jersey City metropolitan area
generated economic output of $1.718 trillion in 2017. Among the
cities in the world, it ranks second behind Tokyo and would be
counted as a separate state among the 20 largest economies in
the world.
New York is divided into various districts and neighborhoods by the
locals, and there are also several administrative subdivisions. The
actual city of New York consists of five boroughs, which at the same
time represent five separate counties. Each borough is administered by
both a district and a county administration and has its own cultural
characteristics - each of them could practically be a city in its own
right.
Manhattan (New York County) has 1,601,948 inhabitants (as of 2011)
and a land mass of 59.5 km². The borough consists primarily of Manhattan
Island, which is bounded by the Hudson River to the west, the East River
to the east, and the Harlem River to the northeast, as well as other
smaller islands including Roosevelt Island, Belmont Island, Governors
Island and a small stretch from the mainland, Marble Hill. Marble Hill
was part of Manhattan Island until the Harlem River Ship Canal was built
in the 19th century.
Brooklyn (Kings County) has a population of
2,532,645, making it the most populous borough of New York. It is
located in the southeast of the city, at the western end of Long Island
and has an area of 182.9 km². The city of Brooklyn was named after the
Dutch city of Breukelen and was incorporated into New York City in 1898.
Queens (Queens County) has a population of 2,247,848 and is the
largest of the five boroughs of New York with an area of 282.9 km². It
is located on the western part of Long Island. Queens was founded on
November 1, 1683 when the colony of New York was divided into counties.
In 1898 the district was incorporated into New York. There are also the
two largest airports in New York, John F. Kennedy International Airport
and LaGuardia Airport.
The Bronx (Bronx County) has 1,392,002
inhabitants and an area of 108.9 km². The formerly independent city has
been the northernmost part of New York since January 1, 1874. It was
named after the first settler in this area, Jonas Bronck, who emigrated
from what is now Sweden. At the time, to announce a visit to his farm,
it was said: "We are going to the Broncks"; the name is spelled
differently today, but the article prefix has been retained, ie "The
Bronx". The Bronx is also the only borough of New York that is on the
mainland.
Staten Island (Richmond County) has 470,467 inhabitants
and a land mass of 151.5 km². It is southwest of the island of Manhattan
and west of the borough of Brooklyn on Long Island. The island is
connected to Brooklyn via the Verrazzano-Narrows toll bridge and to
Manhattan via the free Staten Island Ferry. To the west and north,
Staten Island is separated from the state of New Jersey by the narrow
Arthur Kill and the Kill van Kull. The Goethals Bridge, the Bayonne
Bridge and the Outerbridge Crossing lead to New Jersey. The highest
point on the island, Todt Hill, is also the highest point in the city of
New York. Staten Island used to be a landfill site for all of the city's
trash, which still causes some odor problems to this day. The debris
from the World Trade Center was also brought to Staten Island.
English is the main language in New York and is widely spoken. However, in the many different communities one can hear languages from all over the world. There are many Spanish-speaking neighborhoods with large Latino and Hispanic communities. It's possible to get by in New York with just Spanish without speaking English, but it's quite difficult. Many establishments in the commercial and tourist areas have Spanish-speaking staff. City government services are available in English, Chinese and Spanish.
New York City has a humid continental climate and all four seasons
are noticeable. June to September is hot and humid, September to
December is cool and dry autumn, December to March is cold winter and
March to June is wet spring.
The temperatures vary a lot. The
coldest month is January with an average daily temperature of just 3°C.
The warmest month is July with an average daily temperature of 29 °C.
Most of the time, temperatures fluctuate between -18 °C and 38 °C over
the course of the year, although there can also be deviations in some
cases. It is not uncommon for a sunny day in January at 16°C to be
followed by a snowy day at -3°C. Furthermore, New York is occasionally
hit by snowstorms, which can bring up to 60 cm of fresh snow in up to 48
hours. Even if snow flurries are common during the winter months, the
snow usually only stays for a few days. Snowstorms tend to occur between
the earliest of Thanksgiving (the fourth Thursday in November) and no
later than the second week of April, but this long range is not the
norm.
Tropical storms can also occur during the summer and fall.
The diversity ranges from the richest, most famous people in America to the homeless. Since the city was founded by the Dutch, a diverse and culturally rich city has developed over time.
New York City is accessible by plane from almost every country in the
world. There are three large and several small airports in the region.
John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) and Newark Liberty
International Airport (EWR) are major international airports, while
LaGuardia Airport serves a dense network of domestic flights and some
routes to Canada.
major airports
There are two major airports
in the metropolitan area of New York City:
1 John F Kennedy
International Airport (IATA: JFK). This major airport, which has direct
flights from many airports in Europe, is located on the southern edge of
Queens. For details about this airport, see the article on JFK.
2
LaGuardia Airport (IATA: LGA) LaGuardia is located in north Queens, it
is much faster to reach Manhattan from here than from JFK, but this
airport handles almost exclusively domestic flights. See the LaGuardia
article for details about this airport.
The airport is located
west of New York City in Newark, but closer to downtown Manhattan than
the aforementioned airports
3 Newark Liberty International Airport
(IATA: EWR). A good alternative is the Newark Liberty International,
which is located in Newark, New Jersey and is therefore often overlooked
by European tourists, but offers a faster connection to many points in
New York City (including Manhattan) than JFK. Like JFK, EWR is directly
served by many airports in Europe - some airlines, such as Lufthansa,
also fly to both. Due to its location in New Jersey, car rentals are
significantly cheaper than in New York.
Other airports
A few
other airports in the New York Metropolitan Area (outside the
metropolitan area of New York City) are mainly considered for domestic
flights:
Long Island MacArthur Airport (IATA: ISP), on the
outskirts of Bohemia, Long Island. A smaller airport about 86km east of
Manhattan. See the Long Island article for details about this airport.
4 Teterboro Airport (IATA: TEB), on the outskirts of Hackensack, New
Jersey. A smaller airport just over 20km northwest of Manhattan, very
popular with business and private jets.
Westchester County Airport
(IATA: HPN), on the edge of White Plains in Westchester County. Email:
airportweb@westchestergov.com. A smaller airport 30 miles north of
Manhattan that many American and Canadian travelers choose when their
destination is north of the New York metropolitan area (e.g. in The
Bronx, Mount Vernon, New Rochelle or Yonkers). See the Westchester
County article for details about this airport.
Inter airport
transfer
Bus/Subway - Traveling between airports by bus/subway/PATH
trains is the cheapest option but requires frequent transfers and allow
at least 2 hours for this.
Taxi – The quickest option to change
airports is to use a taxi. A cab between JFK and LGA costs between $25
and $29 and takes about 30 minutes. A taxi between LGA and EWR costs
around $78 plus toll and takes around 60-75 minutes. A taxi between JFK
and EEA costs around $85 plus toll and also takes 60-75 minutes.
There are two heliports in Manhattan:
Downtown Manhattan
Heliport(IATA: JRB) lands on business travelers arriving by scheduled
helicopter for sightseeing flights over the city.
See the Manhattan
article for details about this airport.
Sightseeing flights also
depart from the VIP Heliport (IATA: JRA) (W 30th St, on the banks of the
Hudson River).
The following transit companies serve terminals in the metropolitan
area of New York City with their trains:
Long-distance trains from
the national railroad company Amtrak serve 14 of their lines to
Pennsylvania_Station (Penn Station) in Manhattan.
Metropolitan
Transportation Authority (MTA) regional trains connect Penn Station to
locations in New Jersey, Queens, Brooklyn and other Long Island
locations. MTA trains from northern and northeastern suburbs and
neighboring cities stop at Grand Central Station and Harlem-125th St
Station. MTA also operates a rail line on Staten Island.
The New
Jersey Transit (NJ Transit) regional transit company connects Penn
Station to various locations in New Jersey.
Port Authority
Trans-Hudson (PATH), a regional transit company, serves several stops in
southern Manhattan from New Jersey.
The most important bus station, which is used not only by the
nationwide operating bus company Greyhound, but also by many regional
providers, including airport buses, is the Port Authority Bus Terminal
in Manhattan. Other bus stations in the city area are (details in the
district articles):
Brooklyn (288 Livingston St, Corner Bond St)
Manhattan: Corner of State St & Bridge St (serves only occasionally)
Manhattan: Corner of Church St & Chambers St (serves only occasionally)
Manhattan: Corner of Church St & Worth St (serves only occasionally)
Queens: Queens Village (corner of Hillside Ave & Springfield Blvd)
The following regional transit companies operate bus routes in New
York City and beyond:
Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)
operates a dense network of regional and local buses in all five
boroughs of New York City and in Nassau County.
New Jersey Transit
(NJ Transit) operates many regional and local bus routes in New Jersey,
some of which also serve Manhattan.
In the street
Irrespective
of the fact that you should think twice about driving to New York (the
city has the traffic of a real metropolis and the understanding of New
Yorkers for drivers who are uncertainly looking for their way is limited
and it will be really exciting to get rid of the car), numerous highways
reach the city, including the east coast highway Interstate 95, which
runs from Florida to Maine. It should be noted that four of New York's
five boroughs are on islands and can only be reached via bridges or
tunnels, all of which are toll roads.
Since New Yorkers and
people coming to New York for work tend to leave the city for the
weekend, expect the roads leading out of the city to be congested from
Friday afternoon through Saturday morning. Conversely, on Sunday
afternoons, the roads leading into the city are congested. The New York
traffic jam calendar can shift slightly around the American holidays. As
a rule of thumb, however, if you have to travel to New York City by car,
the best time to do so is on weekends. Parking is usually cheaper on
weekends than on weekdays.
You can also arrive by ship. In the spring of 2004, the Queen Mary 2 of the Cunard fleet took over the liner service from Southampton to New York, and a few times each summer it also starts from Hamburg to New York. The terminal of the QM2 is in the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. Other cruise terminals include Manhattan Cruise Terminal and Cape Liberty Cruise Port in Bayonne, NJ.
Better not to drive into town unless it is unavoidable! A "gridlock" in particular - when the intersections are blocked again and nothing is moving forward or backward - can be very nerve-wracking. Parking space is also scarce and expensive, especially in Manhattan. Half an hour of parking can cost $10
Yellow cabs mostly move in Manhattan or are at the airports. In other
districts they are rarely found. Pricing starts at $2.50 base fee and
$0.50 in taxes, with an additional $0.40 for every half mile. There is
also a night surcharge of $0.50 between 8pm and 6am and a rush hour
surcharge of $1 between 4pm and 8pm Monday through Friday. Tipping is
common practice in all parts of America. All Yellow Taxis accept Visa,
MasterCard and AmericanExpress for payment. In the unlikely event that
the card reader is defective, the taxi driver will point this out to you
before the journey. To hail a taxi, stand at the curb (not in the way of
traffic) and raise your arm above your head. The illuminated sign on the
taxi provides information about the status of the taxi:
When the
lighted sign is off, the taxi is occupied or otherwise unavailable.
If the sign is on, you can use the taxi.
Borough Taxis were
introduced outside of Manhattan in 2013 due to the shortage of Yellow
Cabs. In contrast to the yellow cabs, the taxis are light green. These
vehicles are not allowed to pick up parts of Manhattan and the airports,
although they are allowed to drop off passengers in these areas as well.
The tariffs and rules are otherwise identical to those of the Yellow
Cabs.
Gray or black cars, better known as "car services" or "livery
cabs", can only be requested by phone and are not tied to taxi rates. Be
sure to ask about the tariff on the phone so that you don't get any
nasty surprises. The underside of the license plates says "Livery" or
"TLC".
All licensed taxis (yellow for Manhattan and green for other boroughs) and limousines are authorized to carry four passengers, three in the back seat and one in the front passenger seat. Some newer minivans and SUVs are licensed to accommodate more than four passengers. Larger vehicles can be ordered from one of the many companies in the yellow pages, which is also useful for arriving at or departing from the airport with a lot of luggage.
The best way to see New York is to walk through the urban canyons.
But if it rains again or your feet hurt, you can take a ride on the New
York subway. A one-way fare is $2.75 when purchased from the bus driver.
Otherwise you use a MetroCard, on which you load credit. The single ride
then costs $2.75 (reduced $1.35), the weekly ticket $33 (price 2020).
The card itself, with no credit, costs $1.
By 2024, the MetroCard
will be replaced by OMNY, which can be used directly with contactless
credit cards and via NFC smartphones (Apple Pay, Google Pay). Instead of
holding the MetroCard, you simply hold it directly at the
entrances/entrances and at the end of the day you pay for the required
day pass at most. However, like today's MetroCard, OMNY is still
available as a plastic card.
Caution is advised when choosing
trains/lines: Expressways do not stop at all stations, so it can happen
that you suddenly find yourself in an area that you didn't want to go to
(or that you even want to leave as quickly as possible). There are also
the locals who stop at every station. When it comes to buses, it should
be noted that there are also express buses that cost $6 and where the
weekly pass is not valid.
New York is a city on the water, so some distances can also be
covered by boat. It's rarely the quickest way. However, in any case,
there is also the aspect of the view.
Staten Island Ferry. (Line
1Line R South Ferry - Whitehall Street) offers a complimentary
sightseeing cruise with good views of the Manhattan skyline and the
Statue of Liberty. The ferry runs every 20 minutes and it is best to try
to be quite far ahead when getting off so that you can go back again
straight away. Simply sitting down is not allowed and usually not
worthwhile either, as another ferry leaves earlier. It is best to be at
the ferry terminal as early as possible and try to get on the ship as
early as possible in order to get a good place to stand at the railing.
On the right side of the ferry (from Manhattan towards Staten Island)
you can see the Statue of Liberty and have a very good view of
Manhattan.
East River Ferry. The East River Ferry is also an
alternative to the subway and. In addition, you have a very nice view of
the skyline of the eastern part of Manhattan. Above all, you can see the
Brooklyn Bridge very well from it. It starts in Manhattan on East 34th
Street and travels through Brooklyn to Wall Street. A single ride costs
$2.75.
The network of bike lanes in New York is constantly being expanded and cyclists have long been a common sight in the urban canyons of Manhattan. Even as a tourist you can stay on the surface if the weather is right and simply take the bike instead of the subway.
The distances in Manhattan are enormous. For example, it takes about
1.5 hours to drive from Battery Park (southern tip of Manhattan) to
Central Park. The distance is 7.7 km (!). On the sidewalks (especially
on the avenues) there is a dense stream of pedestrians, so that you
can't move too quickly there either. As a result, New York isn't all
that pedestrian-friendly, although side streets are often far more
laid-back. Therefore, if possible, you should use the subway, at least
for longer distances.
In addition to the usual bicycle rental
options, Citi Bike is a rental system in New York that can be used by
everyone with fixed locations (similar to the Call-a-Bike system in
Germany). Here you need a credit card with which you can make the
booking at the machines, you pay $12.00 for 24 hours or $24.00 for three
days and can then rent a bike anywhere for a maximum of 30 minutes as
often as you like within this time. Use and return at any station.
Surcharges apply for longer use in one go. Rentals lasting several hours
(i.e. for bicycle tours outside the station area) are therefore
unattractively expensive. The next bike can be borrowed from 2 minutes
after a successful return. Attention: A security deposit of $101 per
bike will be blocked on the credit card with use! The station density is
medium and the area served includes almost all of Manhattan and parts of
Brooklyn. A road map with cycle paths and all stations is available at
each station, so that you can also plan longer tours through the city,
including changing bikes.
A maximum of two bicycles can be rented
with one credit card. Groups should therefore have several credit cards
with them.
Caution: when returning the bike to the station, make
sure that the bike clicks into place correctly (first yellow, then green
light and confirmation tone), otherwise the bike will not be considered
returned and it can get really expensive. Sometimes it helps to lift the
bike up at the back.
For prospect addicts
The best-known vantage points are where the
city is built dramatically vertically: in Manhattan. Observation decks
are z. B. on the Empire State Building (Tenderloin) and on the
Rockefeller Center (Midtown). The observation deck on the 100th floor of
One World Trade Center (Financial District) has also been open since
2015. However, the spectacular view that can be enjoyed from the
following points is completely free:
Brooklyn Bridge
Frank Sinatra
Drive in Hoboken, NJ
The largest number of museums can be found in Manhattan (see there).
These include famous institutions such as the American Museum of Natural
History, the Guggenheim and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
What
is less well known is that New York City's other boroughs are also home
to many top-notch museums:
The Bronx is home to Fort Schuyler and the
Maritime Industry Museum.
In Brooklyn one can visit the Brooklyn
Children's Museum, the Brooklyn Historical Society Collections, the
Brooklyn Museum, the Jewish Children's Museum, the Living Torah Museum,
the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, the New York Transit
Museum and the Weeksville Heritage Center.
Queens is home to the
American Museum of the Moving Image, Fisher Landau Center (now closed
and no longer open to the public), Museum of African Art, New York Hall
of Science, Noguchi Museum, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Queens County
Farm Museum, Queens Museum of Art, SculptureCenter and Socrates
Sculpture Park.
Staten Island is home to Historic Richmond Town, the
Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art, the Staten Island Children's
Museum and the Staten Island Institute of Arts.
1 Bronx Zoo (Bronx) . the largest and most attractive zoo in the
city.
2 Central Park Zoo (Manhattan) . small animal park in Central
Park
3 New York Aquarium (Brooklyn) .
4 Prospect Park Zoo
(Brooklyn) .
5 Queen's Zoo (Queens) .
6 Staten Island Zoo (Staten
Island) .
The 7 American Museum of Natural History on Manhattan's
Upper West Side has a Butterfly Conservatory. You can see animals in the
pet shop for free. Many pet shops offer a wide variety of crawling
animals, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and small mammals and are as
entertaining as parks where you have to pay to enter. It's worth
checking the Yellow Pages.
Not every tourist is interested in American history. Some memorials
are still worth seeing.
National Monuments - found in New York
City
1 Castle Clinton National Monument. Fortifications in Battery
Park City
2 Governors Island National Monument . Fortifications on
Governors Island
3Statue of Liberty National Monument. Statue of
Liberty and Immigration Museum.
4 African Burial Ground. historic
burial ground in the Civic Center neighborhood
5 Federal Hall (in the Financial District) . This is where George
Washington took his oath of office and this is where the Bill of Rights
was passed.
6 General Grant National Memorial . Mausoleum of the 18th
President of the USA in the Morningside Heights district
7 Hamilton
Grange National Memorial. Home of Alexander Hamilton, one of the
Founding Fathers of the USA, Hamilton Heights
New York City is deservedly famous for its unique stage and theater
scene. The majority of theaters are located in Manhattan and here again
especially in the Times Square area. Opera lovers will get their money's
worth at the Met and the New York City Opera (both on the Upper West
Side).
For stages and theaters in Manhattan see there.
But
there are also stages and ensembles in the other boroughs that don't
need to hide:
In the Bronx you can visit the Bronx Opera.
Brooklyn is home to the Opera Company of Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Academy
of Music, and the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts.
New York City expanded from the island of Manhattan, which is now
downtown. The city is located at 40.42° north latitude and 74.00° west
longitude on the east coast of the United States in New York Bay and in
close proximity to Jersey City. The main arm of the mouth of the Hudson
River in the Atlantic Ocean and the East River called tributary of this
estuary are located in the urban area. The terrain on which New York was
built rises an average of six meters above sea level. The outskirts of
New York and its neighboring cities intersect within sprawling suburban
areas. The actual urban area has a land area of 785.6 km² (Berlin 891.85
km²), the entire continuously built-up area (the agglomeration) extends
over 8683.2 km². The New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island
Metropolitan Statistical Area covers 17,405 km², the slightly wider New
York-Newark-Bridgeport Combined Statistical Area 30,671 km² (the state
of Brandenburg 29,478.61 km²).
Manhattan stands on rocky ground,
which makes it possible to erect higher structures. It is surrounded by
numerous natural harbors that can be approached by ships with deep
drafts. The Hudson opens the main natural route inland, allowing access
via the Mohawk River and Lake Champlain to the Great Lakes in the
northwest and the St. Lawrence River in the north, respectively. The
main masses of European immigrants have settled south of the area, which
is more at risk from icebergs. Thanks to these geographical conditions,
New York has been able to achieve a prominent position in the US and
world economy.
The New York City area is located at the northern end of the Atlantic
Coastal Plain, bordering the Newark Basin and the North Appalachian
Mountains.
On the surface of the city there are mainly glacial
deposits of the Pleistocene. A terminal moraine of the Wisconsin
glaciation (corresponds to the Vistula glaciation in northern central
Europe), the so-called Harbor Hill Moraine, runs parallel to the coast
from the southern tip of Staten Island and further to the northeast
across Brooklyn and Queens (Long Island). It represents the maximum
advance of the Laurentide Ice Sheet in the younger part of the Wisconsin
glaciation (Woodfordian) about 22,000 years ago.[20] The terminal
moraine is adjoined on the coast side by a sander area (as well as a
narrow strip of gravelly-sandy Holocene coastal deposits in the form of
the Rockaway Peninsula, among other things) and a ground moraine facing
away from the coast.
However, the quaternary deposits are often
only a few meters thick and rocks of the metamorphic basement rock are
relatively close to the surface or even superficial, especially
north-west of the terminal moraine on Staten Island, in Manhattan and in
the Bronx. Also known as the Manhattan Prong (as a counterpart to the
Reading Prong west of the Newark Basin in New Jersey and Pennsylvania),
this basement spur, only a few kilometers wide, thrusts from the north
between the Newark Basin and the coastal plain. The basement belongs
regionally to the Appalachian geology and consists of crystalline
schists (mainly garnet mica schist), marble and various gneisses. They
are Cambro-Ordovician marine sediments, formed in the Ordovician during
one of the early phases of the Caledonian Orogeny (Takonian and
Saline phases) were intensively folded and (partially with partial
melting) metamorphically overprinted (Hartland Formation, Manhattan
Formation, Inwood Marble), as well as around their Proterozoic
("Grenville") basement (Fordham Gneiss). The rocks of the Manhattan
Formation are of particular importance for the New York skyline, because
they form the stable foundation for the skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan.
The basement units form a saddle structure with NNE-SSW trending
fold axis. The Hartland Formation is traditionally identified as the
stratigraphically highest member of the Manhattan Formation, but today
it is also interpreted as an allochthonous unit that was tectonically
transported from a greater distance to its present position during the
orogeny and pushed onto the other units. According to this, it
represented a continental fragment (Perigondwanian terrane) originating
from the large southern continent of Gondwana, which was attached to
what was then "Ur-North America" (Laurentia). Although the Manhattan
Formation with thrust contact is also situated on the Inwood Marble, it
is only considered to be parautochthonous, i. H. simply represents a
more distal depositional space of the Laurentian continental margin.
Also considered allochthonous is the Staten Island Serpentinite, a large
body of serpentinite. Due to its comparatively high resistance to
weathering and erosion, it builds the highest elevation on Staten
Island, Todt Hill.
The Staten Island Serpentinite forms the
southern end of the Manhattan Prong. It is covered by Mesozoic rocks
(below the Quaternary). In the northwest these are the basal arkoses of
the infill of the Newark Basin (Doswell* and/or Stockton Formation of
the Newark Supergroup, Lower Upper Triassic), in the southwest and
southeast, in the area of the Atlantic coastal plain, the weakly
consolidated, predominantly argillaceous marine ones Upper Cretaceous
sediments. While the Newark Basin is only part of the New York
metropolitan area on Staten Island, where sand, silt and mudstones of
the Passaic Formation ("Brunswick Formation", higher Upper Triassic)
join to the northwest to the border with New Jersey The Doswell/Stockton
Formation are separated by a thick Early Jurassic dolerite sill, the
Palisade Diabase, in the subsoil of Brooklyn and Queens, in the area of
the Atlantic Coastal Plain, weakly consolidated siliciclastic marine
sediments of the Lower and Upper Upper Cretaceous are extensive. These
are deformed near the surface by Pleistocene glacial activity and scaled
into the terminal moraine.
The city is divided into five boroughs, each of which corresponds to
a county in New York State. Each borough reports to a borough president.
Manhattan (New York County) has 1,601,948 inhabitants (as of 2011)
and a land mass of 59.5 km². The borough consists primarily of Manhattan
Island, which is bounded by the Hudson River to the west, the East River
to the east, and the Harlem River to the northeast, as well as other
smaller islands including Roosevelt Island, Belmont Island, Governors
Island and a small stretch from the mainland, Marble Hill. Marble Hill
was part of Manhattan Island until the Harlem River Ship Canal was built
in the 19th century.
Brooklyn (Kings County) has a population of
2,532,645, making it the most populous borough of New York. It is
located in the southeast of the city, at the western end of Long Island
and has an area of 182.9 km². The city of Brooklyn was named after the
Dutch city of Breukelen and was incorporated into New York City in 1898.
Queens (Queens County) has a population of 2,247,848 and is the
largest of the five boroughs of New York with an area of 282.9 km². It
is located west of Long Island. Queens was founded on November 1, 1683
when the colony of New York was divided into counties. In 1898 the
district was incorporated into New York. There are also the two largest
airports in New York, John F. Kennedy International Airport and
LaGuardia Airport.
The Bronx (Bronx County) has 1,392,002
inhabitants and an area of 108.9 km². The formerly independent city has
been the northernmost part of New York since January 1, 1874. It was
named after the first settler in this area, Jonas Bronck, who emigrated
from what is now Sweden. At the time, to announce a visit to his farm,
it was said: "We are going to the Broncks"; the name is spelled
differently today, but the article prefix has been retained, ie "The
Bronx". The Bronx is also the only borough of New York that is on the
mainland.
Staten Island (Richmond County) has 470,467 inhabitants
and a land mass of 151.5 km². It is southwest of the island of Manhattan
and west of the borough of Brooklyn on Long Island. The island is
connected to Brooklyn via the Verrazzano-Narrows toll bridge and to
Manhattan via the free Staten Island Ferry. To the west and north,
Staten Island is separated from the state of New Jersey by the narrow
Arthur Kill and the Kill van Kull. The Goethals Bridge, the Bayonne
Bridge and the Outerbridge Crossing lead to New Jersey. The highest
point on the island, Todt Hill, is also the highest point in the city of
New York. Staten Island used to be a landfill site for all of the city's
trash, which still causes some odor problems to this day. The debris
from the World Trade Center was also brought to Staten Island.
The average annual temperature is 12.5 °C and the average annual
rainfall is 1056.4 millimeters. The warmest month is July with an
average of 24.7 °C and the coldest January with an average of −0.4 °C.
Most precipitation falls in April with an average of 99.1 millimeters,
the least in October with an average of 73.2 millimeters. The city is
located in the temperate climate zone. New York's weather is
predominantly influenced by the continental landmasses to the west.
Summers are generally tropically warm and winters are cold. According to
W. Köppen and R. Geiger, New York City is located in the warm, humid
temperate climate zone.
The temperature in July and August often
rises above 30 °C, in addition there is high humidity with sometimes
heavy rainfall, often thunderstorms, which often makes the summer
weather quite unpleasant. In January, the values can fall below -20 °C,
although it is often sunny. Occasionally, sea air (the Northeasters)
brings moisture from the Atlantic Ocean, as well as strong winds and
heavy rain or snow. One of the heaviest and most consequential of these
snowstorms was the Great Blizzard of 1888 with a snow depth of around 51
cm and around 100 deaths in New York City alone. The previous record
snow depth since weather records began was measured at 68 cm in February
2006.
The lowest temperature ever recorded is −26 °C in January
and the highest is 41 °C in July.
Water temperatures on the New
York coast vary between an average of 3 °C and 23 °C.
New York is affected by global warming due to rising sea levels and the increasing risk of storm surges. It is estimated that as a result of the climate crisis, the water level in New York could rise by 1.80 meters by the year 2100 and the number of severe storms and storm surges could increase significantly. According to official forecasts, by 2050 about 37% of the buildings on the southern tip of Manhattan will be at risk of storm surges and by 2100 20% of the streets in this area will be flooded daily. One strategy for adapting to global warming is to strengthen the 850 km of coastline.
With 8.5 million people, New York City is the largest city in the
United States and one of the largest cities in the world. The population
has doubled since the beginning of the 20th century. Since 1825, the
city's location on the Atlantic Ocean and the inland waterway of the
Hudson River have been the focal point for immigrants from around the
world. Further development made New York the largest industrial city and
financial metropolis.
The population of the city is divided into
different strata. The upper class mostly lives just outside the city or
in the expensive district of Manhattan. There are numerous social
housing measures in New York, and the NYCHA municipal housing
association manages a total of 178,000 social housing units for socially
disadvantaged people and families, in which around 400,000 people live.
In a 2018 ranking of cities based on their quality of life, New York
City ranked 45th out of 231 cities surveyed worldwide.
In 2019, the city of New York had a population of 8,336,817. The
population density is 10,356 inhabitants per km². The New York-Newark
agglomeration has 18,351,295 inhabitants with a population density of
5,319 inhabitants per km² (as of 2010). 18,897,109 people (April 1,
2010) live in the New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island metropolitan
region, which corresponds to a population density of 1,086 inhabitants
per km² in an area of 17,405 km². The New York-Newark-Bridgeport
Combined Statistical Area even has 22,085,649 inhabitants (April 1,
2010) and thus a population density of 720 inhabitants per km².
The following overviews show the population figures according to the
respective territorial status. Up to 1775 these are estimates, from 1790
to 2010 they are census results from the United States Census Bureau.
The composition of the population of New York is very heterogeneous
and reflects all waves of immigration in American history. The largest
group is non-Hispanic white (Caucasian) at 35%. Two out of five
residents were not born in the United States; most of the immigrants of
European origin come from Italy (8%), Ireland (5%) and Germany (3%).
Around 972,000 residents are of Jewish faith or of Jewish descent,
making up 12% of the total population. In Manhattan, the proportion is
even around 20%. This makes New York City the city with the largest
Jewish community in the world, as there are more Jews living here than
there are residents in all of Jerusalem.
The proportion of
non-Hispanic blacks or African Americans is 24% and, like that of
whites, is declining in line with the overall American trend. In
contrast, Hispanics (Latinos) now form the second largest population
group with a total of 27%. Asians are the fastest growing group, now
accounting for 12% of New York's population.
African Americans,
Whites, Asians, and Hispanics each tend to be concentrated in specific
neighborhoods. Manhattan (Downtown and Midtown up to Central Park), with
the exception of Chinatown, is predominantly a residential area for
whites; north-western Brooklyn is predominantly black, as are the
streets north of Central Park (Harlem); in the north-west counties of
Queens, south of La Guardia, predominantly Latinos and a few Asians
settle; Hardly any whites live in the Bronx, but mostly Hispanics and
some blacks, and in the south of Brooklyn (Coney Island) there are
people of Russian origin in particular. In recent years, however, there
have been some opposing tendencies here; For example, Harlem now
accounts for less than 50% of African Americans, as Latinos and whites
have moved to what has long been an almost exclusively black
neighborhood.
40.6% of residents are non-US born, including 19.2%
in Latin America (excluding Puerto Rico), 9.4% in Asia, and 6.4% in
Europe.
The following two tables show the statistical data on the
population groups (race and ethnicity) of the residents of New York in
detail. All data are self-reported by the respondents.
Before the arrival of the first European settlers, the area of present-day New York was inhabited by Algonquian peoples, including the Lenni Lenape, whose homeland stretched from Staten Island through Manhattan, the Bronx and western Long Island into the lower Hudson Valley.
The first voyages of discovery to what is now New York were made in
1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano and in 1609 by Henry Hudson. From 1610,
Dutch merchants began a lucrative fur trade with the native Indians
living there. On March 27, 1614, the newly formed Compagnie van
Nieuwnederlant (New Netherlands Company) was granted a monopoly over
trade in the area by the States General.
In October 1618, ten
months after the trading monopoly had expired, the company applied for a
new charter. At that time, however, the States General were already
considering the establishment of a new company, the Dutch West India
Company (WIC). On June 3, 1621, the WIC received charter from the
Republic of the Seven United Provinces to trade in America alone.
Colonization began in 1624 when 30 Dutch, Walloon and French families
settled on the island of Manhattan and in the Delaware area.
According to legend, in 1626 Peter Minuit bought the island for 60
guilders from the locals, probably a branch of the Lenni-Lenape Indians,
who called the island "Manna-hatta". The newly established settlement
was named Nieuw Amsterdam and became the capital of the Nieuw Nederland
colony. Chaotic conditions soon prevailed in the settlement. Under the
rule of corrupt governors, crime increased enormously.
In 1647
the Dutch West India Company decided to restore order. Petrus Stuyvesant
was to take on this task. During his 17-year tenure as governor, the
first hospital, prison, and school were built. In 1652, to protect
against raids, he had a wall built across the island in the north of the
city, which would later give the street that ran there its name, Wall
Street. On February 2, 1653, Nieuw Amsterdam received city rights.
On 8 September 1664 the town surrendered without a fight to a Royal
Navy fleet led by Richard Nicolls. The English named the city and colony
of New York after their then commander James, Duke of York, the brother
of Charles II of England, who later became king himself. In 1667, the
Dutch gave up all claims to the colony in the Treaty of Breda, in which
they were granted rights to Suriname in return. In the Third Anglo-Dutch
War that followed, the Dutch briefly retook the colony in 1673 through
Cornelis Evertsen before finally having to give up the country by
signing the Treaty of Westminster on February 19, 1674.
By 1700 the number of Lenape in New York's population had dwindled to
200 individuals. In 1703, 42% of households had slaves, and about 40% of
New York's population were slaves. In 1712, African slaves revolted,
which was quickly and extremely brutally put down.
In 1741 there
were several fires and mass hysteria spread. Blacks were accused of
burning down the city in a conspiracy with poor whites. 13 blacks were
burned alive and four whites and 18 blacks were hanged.
In 1754,
Columbia University was founded under the name of King's College by King
George II in Lower Manhattan. It was only renamed after the American
Revolution.
The Stamp Act of 1765 and other measures led to
popular resentment, and the Sons of Liberty engaged in skirmishes with
the British between 1766 and 1776. New York was actively involved in the
independence movement. In 1776, the city was George Washington's
headquarters for a short time, but was then occupied by the British. In
the same year, a fire destroyed large parts of New York. The British
occupiers only left the city in 1783, after American independence was
also recognized by European countries including Great Britain. In 1785
another catastrophic fire devastated other areas of the city.
New
York was the capital of the United States from 1788 to 1790. George
Washington was sworn in as the first President in 1789 on the balcony of
Federal Hall in New York. In the difficult economic times after the war,
on May 17, 1792, securities traders founded the New York Stock Exchange.
On April 13, 1796, the first elephant in America arrived in New York
Harbor. In 1797 Albany was designated as the capital of the state of New
York in place of New York and has remained so to this day.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the city was growing faster
than ever. In 1811, the city planners decided with the Commissioners'
Plan to cover the entire island of Manhattan, of which only the southern
tip was built up, with a grid-shaped street network. With a few
exceptions - the most important being Broadway - this plan was
implemented consistently.
A turning point in the history of the
city was the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825. This construction had
been pushed through by the governor of New York, DeWitt Clinton, against
considerable political resistance. He created a connection between New
York, the Great Lakes and thus the Midwest. The city quickly became the
largest trading center on the American east coast.
At the same
time, the urban landscape changed. So-called "brownstone houses" (mostly
two- to four-storey houses made of brick) have shaped the cityscape so
far. With the expansion and the ever scarce living space, large
multi-storey apartment buildings were introduced. These opulently
designed residential buildings, which can still be seen today in the
Upper West Side on Broadway at the corners of 70th and 74th Street, had
luxurious furnishings, including central dining rooms in which the
residents also met for social occasions. In order to increase confidence
in the new location, the city planners deliberately placed impressive
institutions in the new urban spaces, many of which are now New York's
National Historic Landmarks. An example of this is the monumental
Broadway bank building at the corner of 73rd Street or Carnegie Hall at
the corner of 57th Street and 7th Avenue.
However, despite the
rise of the city, epidemics were favored by the large population growth,
the poverty and the lack of a sewage system in the slums. Cholera
epidemics broke out in 1832 and 1849, typhus spread in 1837 and spotted
fever in 1842. The economic crisis of 1837 had devastating effects, a
third of the workers and ten percent of the total population were
unemployed at that time, and there were repeated riots.
Planning
for a large city park, the so-called Central Park, began in the mid-19th
century. The construction work for it began in 1858 and was mostly
completed in 1866. In the second half of the 19th century, the stream of
immigrants steadily increased. Irish, Italians, Germans all came hoping
for a better life, but most spent many years in slums like Five Points
and the Bowery. Conflicts sometimes erupted violently, as in the draft
riots, which plunged the city into the greatest chaos in its history.
Due to the strong growth, the administration had to be changed. In
1898, today's five boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Richmond (now Staten
Island), Queens and the Bronx merged to form Greater New York. Parts of
the Bronx were part of New York City as early as 1874. Before the
merger, Brooklyn was already one of the largest cities in the country.
To this day, the individual parts of the city within the city districts
have retained a certain degree of independence, both in terms of
administration and in the self-image of their residents. For example,
Little Italy is the name of a district that is mainly inhabited by
Americans of Italian origin.
In the first half of the 20th century, the city became a center of
industry and trade. In the "roaring twenties" New York fell into a stock
market frenzy that came to an abrupt end on October 24, 1929, Black
Thursday. The economic crisis hit New York hard and the incompetent,
corrupt city government of Mayor Jimmy Walker was completely overwhelmed
and the city was heavily indebted.
The unemployment rate rose to
over 25%. People lost their jobs and their homes. The turning point came
through the aid and construction programs launched by Mayor Fiorello
LaGuardia after his election in 1933. The first skyscrapers, such as the
Woolworth Building (1913), the Chrysler Building (1930) and the Empire
State Building (1931), also emerged at the beginning of the 20th century
and became symbols of the city.
After the USA entered the Second
World War, New York was the starting point for the important SC and HX
convoys to Great Britain from September 1942. The two important
transatlantic convoys existed until May 1945.
After the war,
after a brief period of optimism, things quickly went downhill. The
middle class moved to the suburbs and industry moved away. Like many
other US cities, New York suffered from race riots in the 1960s. New
waves of low-skilled immigrants (mainly from Puerto Rico) and the exodus
of traditional industries drastically increased the number of people
dependent on welfare. Due to the ongoing migration of the middle class
since the 1950s, the city administration had fewer and fewer tax funds
available for increasingly extensive expenditure. Infrastructure such as
the subway fell into disrepair, and the city could no longer cope with
elementary tasks such as clearing snow. From the 1970s to the 1990s, New
York had high unemployment (8%), a booming trade in cheap drugs and high
crime with an extreme murder rate. Due to the city's lack of money,
50,000 city employees, including many police officers, were laid off. In
1975, the city had to declare bankruptcy on a Chapter 9 basis. People
fled the city to escape crime, nearly 1 million in the late 1970s. In
1964, the year of the World's Fair in New York, the murder rate was
still 550 dead; in 1972, the figure tripled to 1,691 murders. In 1990
the highest murder rate was 2245 dead. Increased police forces in 1998
saw the homicide rate drop to 630, halving it to below 300 in 2017 and
2018. On July 13, 1977, there was a 25-hour power outage, resulting in
looting and fires. This blackout made the city's run-down state plainly
visible to all.
The relatively affordable housing (often adapted
from vacant industrial buildings) in neighborhoods like the Lower East
Side and Brooklyn attracted a new generation of artists, musicians, and
independent filmmakers from the mid-1970s through well into the 1980s.
During this time, completely new music genres such as hip-hop or no wave
emerged, and artists as diverse as Jim Jarmusch, Madonna or Keith Haring
started their careers here.
Ed Koch reorganized the city budget
during his tenure as mayor (1978-1989). In the economic boom of the
1980s, Wall Street again took on a leading role in the financial world.
In the 1990s, the popular mayor Rudolph Giuliani achieved considerable
success with the so-called zero tolerance strategy, the crime rate fell
drastically, also with the participation of the civil protection
organization Guardian Angels. Overall crime fell by 77% between 1990 and
2007, leaving New York City below the top 200 crime rates in America.
However, critics objected that Giuliani did not eliminate the crime, but
only pushed it into the surrounding area. Be that as it may, with
massively improved security and economic recovery, living in New York
has become fashionable again. As a result, the resident population rose
from 7.3 million to a good 8 million in the 1990s alone.
On September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center (WTC) was destroyed by
a terrorist attack of unprecedented proportions. The complex had already
been rocked in 1993 by a bomb attack in the complex's underground car
park (killing six and injuring hundreds). It was not until May 2002 that
the clean-up work at Ground Zero, the area where the WTC had stood,
could be completed. The 541 meter high One World Trade Center was built
on Ground Zero from 2006 to 2014, which has been the tallest structure
in the USA since its completion. A memorial was also erected and opened
in May 2014. A new train station at the World Trade Center was partially
opened in February 2014. On March 3, 2016, the station's main concourse,
dubbed the Oculus, opened. Since the attacks, all of New York has been
on a permanent high alert; the police presence was once again massively
increased. The cost of living in Manhattan has skyrocketed since 2001;
they are considered by far the highest in the USA. At the end of 2002,
more tourists came to New York than in the years before the terrorist
attacks.
The 2004 Republican Convention was held at Madison
Square Garden in New York. In 2004 the decision was made for the
aforementioned memorial – the memorial for the victims of the terrorist
attacks in 2001 – at Ground Zero. Architects Michael Arad and Max Bond
and landscape designer Peter Walkers were awarded the contract for their
design “Reflecting Absence”. The memorial will consist of several water
basins, a paved stone field and various groups of trees, which are
intended to symbolize life after the destruction of the WTC. A museum
will be set up underground to commemorate the victims and the
destruction. Visitors will be able to get into the museum past the last
remains of the WTC building.
On October 29 and 30, 2012,
Hurricane Sandy caused significant damage in New York. In the urban
area, 47 people were killed by the effects of the storm. Because the
storm surge coincided with a spring tide, the water level in Battery
Park on the southern tip of Manhattan reached a new high, surpassing the
previous high recorded when Hurricane Donna passed through in 1960. As a
result, several New York City Subway tunnels were flooded for the first
time in over 100 years. The Hudson River temporarily burst its banks and
flooded a number of streets. The New York Stock Exchange was closed for
the first time since 1888 (Great Blizzard) for two days in a row due to
a storm.
In 2014, the One World Trade Center was officially
opened. At 541 meters, it is the tallest building in the United States.
The City of New York is headed by the Mayor, who is elected by the
people for a four-year term. He appoints responsible commissioners as
heads of the administrative parts (aldermen for the departments). The
New York City Council (Council) consists of 51 members and is also
elected every four years. Both the mayor and council members can only be
elected for three consecutive terms, but can then stand for re-election
after four years. New York City has its own responsibilities for
schools, corrections, libraries, public safety, recreation, water and
sanitation, and public welfare.
Eric Adams (Democrat) has been
the new mayor of New York since January 1, 2022. He succeeded Bill de
Blasio, who ran the city from 2014 to 2021. de Blasio was elected on
November 5, 2013. After more than two decades, a Democrat was once again
at the head of the New York city government. Bill de Blasio replaced
Michael Bloomberg after 12 years in office. From January 1, 2002 to
December 31, 2013, Bloomberg served as the 108th mayor of New York. He
is best known as the founder of information services, news and media
company Bloomberg L.P. with headquarters in New York. In 2001 he won the
mayoral election and succeeded Rudolph Giuliani. In order not to have to
compete in the primaries, Democrat Bloomberg switched parties before the
election and joined the Republicans. In 2005 he was re-elected with
58.5% of the votes cast. His challenger Fernando Ferrer of the
Democratic Party received 38.7%. In 2009, Bloomberg was re-elected again
with 50.6%, while Ferrer got 46% of the vote.
Bloomberg's
predecessor, Rudolph Giuliani, was the 107th mayor of New York from
January 1, 1994 to December 31, 2001 and was best known for his rigorous
crime fighter and his actions following the September 11, 2001 terrorist
attacks on the World Trade Center. In the race to succeed outgoing mayor
Ed Koch, Giuliani lost in 1989 as a candidate for the Republican Party
and the Liberal Party to Democrat David Dinkins, who became the first
black mayor of New York.
Five years later, Giuliani successfully
ran against incumbent Dinkins in an election that divided the city along
ethnic lines. Giuliani also benefited from the support of the then very
unpopular US President Bill Clinton in favor of the Democrat Dinkins.
Giuliani was confirmed in office by a large majority in 1997. During his
first term (1994-1997), Giuliani addressed crime through a strict law
and order policy. He introduced a very offensive police surveillance,
which led to a sharp decrease in the number of cases in almost all crime
categories. Giuliani implemented the so-called zero tolerance strategy
in New York.
This policy changed the image of New York in the
eyes of tourists and citizens. The impression of a crime-ridden,
impoverished metropolis that existed in the two decades prior to his
tenure gave way to that of a vibrant, safe cosmopolitan city. There was
less graffiti on the subways and an economic boom because people felt
safe outdoors again at night. However, critics complained that the
increased police presence in NYC had not only led to crime being pushed
away to the previously safe suburbs, but also to greater distrust among
blacks and other minorities towards law enforcement officers. Notable
incidents of police brutality during Giuliani's tenure include the death
of unarmed Amadou Diallo and the use of force against Abner Louima while
in police custody.
New York has numerous architectural sights, 500 galleries, around 200
museums, more than 150 theaters, numerous department stores and over
18,000 restaurants. The city is regarded as the cultural and artistic
center of the East Coast of the USA and also as a global influential in
these areas. Many cultural sights are located in Manhattan in
particular. Here, especially in downtown and midtown, skyscrapers
determine the cityscape. Opened in 1902, the triangular Flatiron
Building was the city's first skyscraper. Others include the 1913
Woolworth Building, the 1930 Art Deco Chrysler Building, and the 1939
Rockefeller Center complex housing the NBC studio. The Empire State
Building, built in 1931, is one of the most visited monuments in the
world. Around 3.5 million visitors look down on New York from its
observation deck every year.
The cityscape is also marked by many
churches, for example Saint Patrick's Cathedral, completed in 1879, the
Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine (construction began in 1892),
Trinity Church at the end of Wall Street, the "United Synagogue of
Conservative Judaism" and the "Armenian Apostolic Church of America
Eastern Prelacy".
The symbol of New York is the Statue of Liberty
from 1886 on Liberty Island, south of Manhattan. Other notable
structures include New York's main train station, Grand Central
Terminal, which opened in 1913, the Brooklyn Bridge, which connects
Manhattan and Brooklyn, the Madison Square Garden arena, and Carnegie
Hall, a concert hall. The United Nations building complex is located on
the East River in Manhattan.
Tourist attractions continue to
include Brooklyn Heights, an old residential area, as well as Greenwich
Village with its triumphal arch and the Jefferson Market Courthouse,
which houses a library, Ground Zero, where the World Trade Center stood
- it was when it was completed the world's tallest building at 417
meters in 1973 - and Ellis Island, the former immigration reception
center on the Hudson River.
Well-known hotels include the Regent
on Wall Street (opened 1842), the Peninsula on 5th Avenue and 55th
Street (opened 1900), The Plaza on 5th Avenue and Central Park (opened
1907). and now condominiums), the Waldorf Astoria on Park Avenue (opened
1930), the "Carlyle" on 76th Street (opened 1931), and the "Four
Seasons" on 57th Street (opened 1993).
The National Park Service
designates 116 National Historic Landmarks for New York City. The city
has 923 structures and sites listed on the National Register of Historic
Places (NRHP) as of November 19, 2018.
The center of theater life in New York is Broadway with musical
performances for every taste. Broadway is the theater district in Times
Square between 41st Street and 53rd Street and between Sixth and Ninth
Avenue. This area has about 40 major theaters and about 1500 so-called
"Off-Broadway" and "Off-off-Broadway" performances per year in smaller
theaters.
The first theater to move to Times Square from the
former theater district of Herald Square was the Empire Theater. Charles
Frohman had the building built in 1893 with about 1000 seats. It was
directly opposite the Metropolitan Opera, which opened in 1883, at its
old location between 39th and 40th Streets - corner of Broadway.
Between the years 1910 and 1930 Broadway saw a number of theatrical
re-establishments. The oldest continuously used theater from this period
is the Lyceum, which opened on November 2, 1903. It was originally
called the "New Lyceum Theatre" because the previous 1885 Lyceum Theater
at 45th Street and Broadway had been demolished for the new building. It
was also the first theater to have electric lights throughout, installed
by Thomas Alva Edison.
In the 1980s there was a "dying out of
theatres" on Broadway, but today (2008) the crisis has been overcome
thanks to urban planning measures, austerity measures and the engagement
of big names. In 1988, the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission
decided to designate most historic theater buildings as historic sites.
Big Broadway successes were Cats, 42nd Street, Les Misérables, The Lion
King and The Producers.
Near Central Park is the Metropolitan
Opera House, MET for short, home of the Metropolitan Opera Company and
the American Ballet Theatre. It is part of the Lincoln Center for the
Performing Arts complex, as well as the Avery Fisher Hall, home of the
New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the New York State Theater, which hosts
performances by the New York City Opera and the New York City Ballets
shows Carnegie Hall and the Juilliard School. The "Radio City Music
Hall" offers changing events.
Along with Los Angeles, New Orleans and Chicago, New York is one of the most important music centers in the United States. In addition to numerous performance venues for classical music, e.g. there are countless jazz and rock clubs in the Metropolitan Opera. Since the late 1920s, New York has always been the starting point and center of a wide variety of musical developments. With the district of Harlem, inhabited primarily by African Americans, New York has been a focal point of African American culture since the 1920s. Not only swing, bebop and free jazz had their starting point here. Disco, punk rock, and new wave are also associated with New York. To this day, New York is the undisputed “capital” of jazz. It is also where hip-hop culture originated, which has since become one of the country's top cultural exports and was declared a New York City Heritage Site in 2005.
Well-known science, history and technology museums in New York
include the American Craft Museum, the Brooklyn Museum and the Intrepid
Sea-Air-Space Museum. The American Museum of Natural History (on the
corner of Central Park West and 79th Street) is one of the largest
natural history museums in the world. Almost the entire history of
mankind is covered on five floors, from the Stone Age to the space age.
The collection is so extensive that one day is hardly enough to visit
the museum. It has over 30 million samples and exhibits ready for its
visitors. These include the 563-carat "Star of India", the largest
sapphire ever found, a life-size blue whale, the 19.2 meter long
single-logged cedar war canoe of the Haida Indians and many dinosaur
skeletons, to name just a small selection. The complex also includes the
"Rose Center for Earth and Space" with the "Hayden Planetarium". The
American Museum of Natural History has its own IMAX theater and subway
station. There is a Theodore Roosevelt monument in front of the main
entrance towards Central Park.
The better-known museums for fine
arts and design include the "Metropolitan Museum of Art" (exhibits from
ancient Egyptian temples to modern art, opened in 1880), the "Museum of
Modern Art" (Museum of Modern Art, or MoMA for short, opened in 1929 )
and its Queens branch P, S. 1., the Frick Collection (opened 1935) and
the Whitney Museum of American Art (opened 1966), also a branch of the
National Museum of the American Indian, [68] the Cooper-Hewitt National
Design Museum, the American Museum of the Moving Image, the
International Center of Photography, the Pierpont Morgan Library. The
"MoMA" is considered the world's most important museum for contemporary
art from the western world and was reopened in 2004 after extensive
expansion in a new building. Some of the above museums make up the
Museum Mile on 5th Avenue in the Upper East Side.
The spiral
structure of the "Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum" (1071 5th Avenue) was
designed by the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright and resembles a
snail shell in structure. Lloyd Wright's only building in New York, it
opened in 1959 and houses a collection of contemporary paintings and
sculptures, including classics by Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso and
Paul Klee.
Not far from Liberty Island with the Statue of Liberty
is Ellis Island, once the first checkpoint for over twelve million
immigrants. Under the name Gibbert Island, the island served the English
as a prison camp for pirates. In 1892, an outpost of the immigration
authorities was set up there, primarily to deal with the huge influx of
immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. When the outpost closed in
1954, a massive complex stood on the island, which had been enlarged by
landfill. The towered central building now houses the Ellis Island
Immigration Museum.
With around 5,800 buildings with more than twelve floors, New York is a city of high-rise buildings and skyscrapers. The 50th tallest building in New York measures over 200 meters, which would make it one of the tallest in Europe. The twin towers of the World Trade Center were the tallest buildings in the city until they were destroyed in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the slightly higher north tower measured 417 meters (527 meters with antenna) and the south tower 415 meters.
The Statue of Liberty (Statue of Liberty), colloquially known as
"Miss Liberty" or "Lady Liberty", was dedicated on October 28, 1886 in
front of New York Harbor to welcome homecomers and newcomers. A gift
from France to the United States, it was originally intended to be
completed in 1876 to commemorate the centenary of the 1776 Declaration
of Independence. The statue stands on Liberty Island and is part of the
Statue of Liberty National Monument along with Ellis Island. It was
declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
The statue was designed
by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi and Gustave Eiffel, designer of the Eiffel
Tower, designed the inner iron skeleton. It has a height of 46 meters
without a base, with a base it reaches 93 meters. Her exterior consists
of a copper shell supported by an inner iron framework. Over time, the
copper has formed a green patina layer. The stone base houses a museum
and was built on top of a star-shaped fort modeled after the old
fortifications on the same site.
The goddess of liberty stands
with one foot on broken chains symbolizing slavery. In her left hand she
holds a tablet with the inscription "JULY IV MDCCLXXVI" - July 4, 1776 -
the date of the American Declaration of Independence. With her right
hand she holds aloft a torch with a gold-coated flame. The statue is
adorned with a seven-rayed crown, in which there are 25 windows. The
seven rays symbolize the seven seas and continents and the 25 windows
symbolize the 25 gems of the world. The pedestal is engraved with the
poem The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus, a reference to the Colossus of
Rhodes.
Liberty Island (“Liberty Island”) is a small, uninhabited
island in Upper New York Bay, originally named Bedloe's Island. On
August 3, 1956, Eisenhower renamed the island. It is owned by the US
federal government and managed and maintained by the National Park
Service. The island is located 600 meters from Liberty State Park in
Jersey City, New Jersey. The island is 1.6 miles from Battery Park in
Manhattan. Although the island is not New Jersey territory, it is on the
New Jersey side of the New Jersey–New York state boundary. It therefore
forms an exclave of New York in the waters of New Jersey. The distance
to the nearby Ellis Island, which has a similar status, is approximately
1.6 kilometers.
Completed in 1902, the Flatiron Building (175 5th Avenue) at the intersection of Broadway, Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street was never the tallest building in the city at 300 feet (91 meters), but it has always been a tourist destination. It was built to plans by architect Daniel Burnham. The idiosyncratic triangular floor plan gave the building the name "Flatiron Building" (= "iron building"). The shape of New York's oldest surviving skyscraper means that strong winds blow on the street. Due to its size, the building is no longer conspicuous today, although after its construction it towered over everything else with its twenty floors. Shortly after its completion, the building served as a motif for one of the most well-known photographs by the American photographer Alfred Stieglitz.
One of the city's most iconic structures is the Chrysler Building on Lexington Avenue. The Art Deco building has a gleaming stepped stainless steel spire with arches and triangular windows and stands 319 meters including the spire. It measures 282 meters to the roof. It was designed in 1930 by the architect William Van Alen on behalf of the automobile manufacturer Walter Percy Chrysler (1875-1940). For a year it was the tallest building in the world, then the Empire State Building was completed.
The Empire State Building is an Art Deco skyscraper on Fifth Avenue in Midtown. It rises 381 meters to the roof, including the antenna even 443 meters into the sky. From its completion in 1931 to 1972 it was the tallest building in the world. From September 11, 2001 until the topping-out ceremony for One World Trade Center at 541 meters on May 10, 2013, it was again the tallest building in New York City. Since its completion, around 120 million visitors have viewed the panorama of the city from the visitor platform on the 86th floor.
On the 102nd floor, the top floor, is another observation deck. However, this is located inside the building. On special holidays and occasions, the top of the tower shines in different colored lights. The building also played a significant role in several well-known motion pictures, including King Kong and the White Woman, Independence Day and The Love of My Life.
Brookfield Place (until 2014 World Financial Center) is located in Lower Manhattan in the Battery Park City district on the Hudson River in the immediate vicinity of the World Trade Center. This complex was designed by Cesar Pelli & Associates. American Express, CIBC World Markets, Dow Jones, Merrill Lynch and other major companies have their headquarters in the four towers. The focal point is the Winter Garden Atrium, which features tall palm trees from Arizona's Sonoran Desert. The complex also has restaurants, shops and a piazza overlooking the marina on the Hudson River. The various cultural events and demonstrations are free of charge. The conservatory and other parts were badly damaged by the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The repair work in the conservatory was completed in September 2002.
Completed in 1933, the center is located in midtown Manhattan between 48th and 51st streets. 19 individual buildings make up the complex. Among other things, the US television station NBC is based there. The "Top of the Rock" observation deck is one of currently 4 outdoor observation decks on Manhattan (One World Trade Center, Empire State Building, The Edge).
The Bank of America Tower, completed in 2009, is the tallest building
after the Empire State Building. The 366 meter high skyscraper belongs
to a new generation of high-rise buildings in New York that are very
modern and environmentally friendly. This also includes the New York
Times Tower, the new headquarters of the New York Times, which was
completed in 2007 and, at 319 meters, is the same height as the Chrysler
Building.
The tallest building in the United States is One World
Trade Center (formerly Freedom Tower) in the new World Trade Center,
completed on November 3, 2014. At 541 meters, this building towers far
above the Empire State Building, and One World Trade Center is also over
120 meters higher than its predecessors: the twin towers of the old
World Trade Center, built from 1966 to 1972/73, destroyed during the
September 11 attacks. September 2001, were 417 meters high.
The
Hearst Tower, designed by Norman Foster, with an idiosyncratic façade,
is the first high-rise to be built with particular ecological
considerations in mind.
A characteristic feature of the New York
Life Insurance Company building (51 Madison Avenue) is the golden
pyramidal roof. Architect Cass Gilbert designed the neo-Gothic building
in 1928.
The Paramount Building at 1501 Broadway was designed by
Rapp and Rapp in 1927. Striking is the stepped top, crowned by a clock
and a globe.
The international-style Seagram Building (375 Park
Avenue) opened in 1958. The block of bronze glass and steel was designed
by the German architect Mies van der Rohe. The posh restaurant Four
Seasons was also located in this building.
Like the World Trade
Center, the Deutsche Bank Center (formerly Time Warner Center, 10
Columbus Circle) consists of twin towers. Since its completion in 2004,
it is the first building complex to be completed after the 2001
terrorist attacks and one of the most modern centers. In the Deutsche
Bank Center there are offices, a shopping center, television studios, a
concert hall, a theater as well as a hotel and condominiums.
The
multi-millionaire Donald Trump had a luxury office and apartment tower,
the Trump Tower (725 5th Avenue), built in the postmodern style. The
magnificent atrium extends over six floors. On the lower floors of the
building there are boutiques, jewelers and other exclusive shops for the
discerning, on the upper floors there are apartments.
The UN
Headquarters on 1st Avenue between 42nd and 48th Streets consists of
several buildings, streets and parks. In 1952, the United Nations was
able to move into its headquarters after John D. Rockefeller II
(1874-1960) donated $8.5 million to purchase the property and because
the United States borrowed money without interest. Administration is
housed in the 39-story green glass tower, and the curved General
Assembly Building houses the Assembly Hall and visitor entrance.
The Waldorf Astoria (301 Park Avenue), built in the Art Deco style, has
been one of the largest luxury hotels in New York since 1931. In the
twin towers there are pompous rooms for the wealthy and famous people.
The lobby of the building features marble columns, bronze and mahogany.
The Woolworth Building (322 Broadway) was completed in 1913 and was
the tallest building in the world until 1930. Designed by architect Cass
Gilbert, the elegant Gothic skyscraper is topped with a pyramidal roof
and adorned with many animal ornaments. In addition to the headquarters
of the F.W. Woolworth Company had shops and a restaurant in the
high-rise.
In the 2010s, Manhattan at the southern end of Central
Park underwent a major visual change with the construction of
Billionaires' Row. Among other things, slim, more than 300 meter high
"super skyscrapers" such as the building 432 Park Avenue were built
there.
Not far from Times Square, another new building ensemble
has been developed in the west of Manhattan with the Hudson Yards. This
extends between 7th Avenue, 12th Avenue, West 43rd Street and West 30th
Street.
The Brooklyn Bridge was completed in 1883 and was the longest
suspension bridge in the world at the time. It spans the East River and
was the first bridge to connect Manhattan to Brooklyn. Engineer John
Augustus Roebling (1806-1869) constructed this engineering marvel but
did not live to see its completion. His son completed the work. To test
the bridge's ability to support large weights, the Barnum Circus was
sent across with numerous elephants.
From the higher walkway, the
Manhattan skyline can be seen in the distance and the Gothic arches of
the bridge piers can be seen up close. The elegant "River Café" is
located almost directly under the bridge in the Brooklyn district.
The SoHo neighborhood (South of Houston Street) is home to numerous
galleries, antique shops, cafes, and museums, including the Guggenheim
Museum branch, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Museum of
African Art.
The warehouses from the years 1860 to 1890 with
their beautifully decorated, cast-iron facades are worth seeing. The
Cast-Iron Historic District has been designated a National Monument.
Many of these buildings are now used as lofts or studios. SoHo has
become a popular district and is home to a large collection of cast iron
architecture. Cast iron was discovered in search of ways to construct
buildings quickly and relatively inexpensively. Instead of heavy
masonry, iron girders were used to support the storeys, thereby gaining
space for larger windows and, above all, for facades. Almost every
architect's idea could be realized with cast iron. The builders designed
SoHo's factories with Baroque balustrades and Renaissance columns.
Religion also plays a major role in New York architecture. Uptown is
the "Biblical Garden", various sculptures and the unfinished Cathedral
of St. John the Divine with its mixture of Romanesque and Gothic
elements.
Construction on the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine
began in 1892, was halted when war broke out in 1939, and resumed
sporadically in the early 1990s despite much controversy and financial
worries. Only two thirds of the cathedral are finished. If ever
completed as planned, it would be the largest church in the world as it
stands, large enough to contain Notre-Dame de Paris and Chartres
Cathedral.
Uptown is also the Riverside Church with the 120 meter
high bell tower. The architects were Charles Collens and Henry C.
Pelton, the construction lasted from 1927 to 1933 and the financier was
John D. Rockefeller II.
Construction on the neo-Gothic St.
Patrick's Cathedral at Fifth Avenue and 50th Street was completed in
1888. Its builder, James Renwick, meticulously compiled all the details
of the Gothic style.
At the west end of Wall Street, on Broadway
between Rector and Church Streets, is the neo-Gothic Trinity Church, in
whose cemetery many well-known personalities from the history of the
founding of the United States are buried. Built in 1846 to plans by
architect Richard Upjohn, it was the city's tallest structure for 50
years.
The Reformed Middle Collegiate Church was built in 1892 in
a neo-Gothic style.
Grand Central Terminal was built in downtown Midtown at the corner of East 42nd Street and Park Avenue between 1903 and 1913 by the Minnesota team of architects Warren & Wetmore. The building combines the romance of travel on the one hand and the history of a magnificent station building from that time on the other. Thanks to the efforts of New York celebrities such as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the station was saved from demolition and became a city landmark. After being used only for transit for a long time, Grand Central Terminal now has many exclusive shops and restaurants after extensive renovations in the 1990s. The renovation cost over $200 million. The twelve-story station hall is 142 meters long, 50 meters wide and 46 meters high. Over 2,500 stars twinkle in zodiac constellations from the vaulted ceiling, and the huge windows ensure sun-filled halls.
The New York Public Library is one of the top libraries in the United
States and one of the three public libraries in New York. The New York
Public Library on Fifth Avenue, between 40th and 42nd Streets, was
designed in 1897 by architects Carrère and Hastings.
Built in
1911 in the Beaux-Arts style, the library offers space for more than
seven million books and 10,000 magazines. Its status as one of the
world's leading libraries is evidenced by its possession of, for
example, a Gutenberg Bible, a copy of the Philosophiae Naturalis
Principia Mathematica and Thomas Jefferson's handwritten Declaration of
Independence. The first books are by Johann Jakob Astor (1763-1848).
The luxury apartment building The Dakota (also known as the Dakota
Building) on the corner of 72nd Street and Central Park West was
designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh between 1880 and 1884 and built in what
was then a poor area. It is one of the few surviving examples of Gothic
Revival architecture in New York. Hardenbergh was also the architect of
the famous New York Plaza Hotel. The builder of the "Dakota" was Edward
Clark, the owner of the Singer sewing machine group, who, however, did
not live to see the completion.
The name is said to have come
about during the construction phase because the property was so far
outside of the built-up area of the city that it was jokingly claimed
that it was already in the tribal area of the Dakota, a Native American
people whose settlement area was in the north of the USA. A natural
stone sculpture of an Indian head is embedded above the main entrance as
a sign.
There are a total of 65 luxury suites in the residence,
in which artists such as Judy Garland, Leonard Bernstein, Boris Karloff
and John Lennon have lived. The former Beatles member was shot dead in
front of the Dakota in 1980. His widow Yoko Ono still lives there today.
The building can only be visited from the outside.
See also List of Parks in New York City for an overview of all parks in the city.
Central Park was established as a landscape park in 1853 and has
since been used as a public park. Today it stretches four kilometers
from 59th Street to 110th Street and is 750 meters wide between Fifth
and Eighth Avenues and is also known as New York's green lung. With
about 340 hectares, it takes up about five percent of Manhattan's floor
space. It is the city's largest park and one of the largest in the
world.
In recent decades, Central Park has grown into an imposing
park area. Numerous joggers and inline skaters use the paved roads in
the park to do sports. In the summer, many New Yorkers go to Central
Park on the weekends to relax with an extensive picnic.
In the
south of the park there is a zoo and a baseball field, among other
things, and in the middle is a large lake, the "Jacqueline Kennedy
Onassis Reservoir" and the "Metropolitan Museum of Art". In the 1990s,
the area above 110th Street was to be avoided because of its proximity
to Harlem and its once-high crime rate. However, New York is now one of
the safest major cities in the USA.
Battery Park is a park on the southern tip of Manhattan. Located at Battery Park, the harbor serves as a departure point for ferries to Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, Staten Island, and Governors Island in the summer. In the park itself there are numerous other monuments in addition to the monument to the Swedish engineer and inventor John Ericsson. The park takes its name from the guns that were once stationed here to defend the harbour. However, due to silting up and deposits, today's coastline has advanced somewhat. The landfill was created with the help of excavation during the construction of the World Trade Center.
The Bronx Zoo was established in 1899. At more than 300 acres, it is the largest zoo in New York and the largest city zoo in the United States. The New York Botanical Garden, which adjoins to the north, is also part of the zoo. The Bronx Zoo is home to many animal species that are now extinct in the wild.
Edgar Allan Poe's last home is now a lovingly restored memorial that is open to the public. He lived here in what was then the Fordham suburb from 1846 to 1849. This is where his wife and cousin Virginia Clemm Poe, the model for his Annabel Lee, died. Poe Cottage was moved 140 meters from its original location in 1913. It is located across from Poe Park on Kingsbridge Road in the Bronx.
Governors Island, south of Manhattan, will be developed into a new amusement park in the heart of New York by the National Park Service over the next few years. The historic northern section, home to Castle Williams and Fort Jay, has been open to the public during the summer months for a number of years (the ferry is right next to the Staten Island Ferry). The island has a good view of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, New Jersey, the southern tip of Manhattan and the Brooklyn docks.
Since 2006, a park has been under construction on a former elevated railway line in western Manhattan. The first section opened to the public on June 8, 2009, followed by the second on June 7, 2011. The final section between 30th and 34th Streets is still in the planning stage. The city government invested US$50 million in the project; further construction costs are covered by donations.
Of the many professional sports teams in the New York Metropolitan
Area, some of the better known include:
Major League Baseball: New
York Yankees and New York Mets
National Football League: New York
Giants and New York Jets
National Basketball Association: New York
Knicks and Brooklyn Nets
National Hockey League: New York Rangers and
New York Islanders
Major League Soccer: New York City FC and New York
Red Bulls
Notable teams that were formerly based in the city include
the Los Angeles Dodgers (since 1957, formerly the Brooklyn Dodgers) and
the San Francisco Giants (since 1957, formerly the New York Gothams
(1883–85) and New York Giants (1885 –1957)).
Founded in 1901 and
based at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, the New York Yankees have been the
most successful club in American professional sports since the 1920s.
They have won the World Series, the highest trophy in American baseball,
27 times, most recently in 2009. The club has thus collected the most
titles of all teams in the four major professional leagues MLB, NFL, NBA
and NHL. The championship competitions against the then Brooklyn
Dodgers, today's San Francisco Giants and the New York Mets, which are
called the Subway Series, are particularly famous.
Five world
chess championships took place in whole or in part in New York City: The
first official world championship in 1886 between Wilhelm Steinitz and
Johannes Hermann Zukertort was opened there on January 11, 1886, eight
years later Steinitz lost his title in 1894 against Emanuel Lasker after
the first part of the title fight had again been held in New York City.
Before the chess world split, the 1990 World Chess Championship was held
between Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov in New York City and Lyon.
Five years later, Kasparov and Viswanathan Anand dueled in the South
Tower of the 1995 World Trade Center. In November 2016, New York City
was the site of the 2016 World Chess Championship between Magnus Carlsen
and Sergei Karjakin.
Among New York's many annual celebrations is the Chinese New Year,
which begins in January or February and lasts ten days. Saint Patrick's
Day, Ireland's national holiday, is celebrated every year on March 17
with a grand parade down Fifth Avenue. Christopher Street Day, the gay
festival that originated here, is celebrated each summer in New York and
around the world, and the Steuben Parade parade down Fifth Avenue to
Central Park on the third Saturday in September each year.
Other
events include Columbus Day, a grand parade held each year on the second
Monday in October, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which has
attracted tens of thousands of visitors each year since 1924 and has
been televised for a number of years, the US Open Tennis Championships
in Flushing Meadows, Queens, the New York City Marathon from Staten
Island to Central Park and New Year's Eve in Times Square.
The multitude and diversity of its residents is also reflected in New
York's cuisine. The city has about 17,300 restaurants offering food from
around the world. The restaurants of the different population groups
offer Italian, kosher, Asian and Indian dishes, among others. The
so-called delis are a New York institution and offer a wide range; its
central element is a hot and cold buffet.
Typical New York foods
include bagels, pancakes, cheesecake, Waldorf salad, pizza, hot dogs and
burgers, but also soul food and sushi. A special specialty from the
Jewish tradition is the so-called Knisch (roughly potato pocket), which
can be bought at almost every deli.
Some internationally renowned
chefs and restaurateurs such as Mario Batali, David Bouley, Daniel
Boulud, Alain Ducasse, Thomas Keller, Nobu Matsuhisa, Danny Meyer, Masa
Takayama and Jean-Georges Vongerichten operate restaurants in New York.
The renowned Michelin restaurant guide, of which there is a special
edition for New York, gives more awards than in any other tested city
apart from Paris.
New York's role as a global financial center impacts the businesses and residents of the city and region. Bill Hyers, an advisor to former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, said in 2014 that economic pressures were creating a collective concern that could almost be smelled like pheromones across the city. “There are 40 billionaires; 400,000 millionaires. That means there are eight million people who have to live, work and survive in this very expensive city.”
The New York metropolitan area is one of the most important economic
areas on earth and, along with London and Tokyo, is one of the largest
financial centers in the world. The most important economic sectors
include the chemical and electrical engineering industries, the printing
industry, the textile industry and the service sector.
In the
south of Manhattan (Lower Manhattan, Downtown) is the main business
center with the financial district around Wall Street and Broad Street.
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the largest stock exchange in the
world, is also located here. Its foundation was laid on May 17, 1792,
when 24 brokers and dealers signed the Buttonwood Convention. At that
time, just five securities were traded in New York: the shares of two
banks and three government bonds issued in 1790. Today, approximately
2,800 companies are listed on the NYSE (460 of which are based outside
the United States) and the trading volume averages approximately US$45
billion per day (as of November 2004). Other major stock exchanges in
New York City include NASDAQ, New York Mercantile Exchange (largest
commodity futures exchange in the world), American Stock Exchange and
New York Board of Trade.
Numerous global corporations have their
headquarters in New York. These include Altria Group (one of the world's
largest tobacco, food and beverage companies), American International
Group (world's largest insurance and financial services group), Pfizer
(world's second largest pharmaceutical company), Sony Music (world's
second largest record company), Bristol-Myers Squibb (pharmaceutical
company), Jetblue Airways (airline company), DC Comics (comic book
publisher) and Estée Lauder (cosmetics company) as well as Steinway &
Sons (wing manufacturer). The city is also the seat of many law firms of
international renown.
New York is an important media location.
The city is home to the global media corporations Time Warner and
Viacom, several major publishers, music companies, production studios
and the headquarters or sub-headquarters of four major American
television, film and radio networks: ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX.
Brooklyn and the Bronx are home to extensive docks, warehouses and
manufacturing operations. The port facilities (waterfront) in the Bronx
district have a length of about 130 kilometers. Over 50% of air freight
to other states is handled via John F. Kennedy International Airport in
the New York borough of Queens, while LaGuardia and Newark Liberty
International Airports are mainly used for domestic traffic. Since the
port in the state of New Jersey has taken over much of New York's
freight traffic, passenger and freight traffic is becoming less
important throughout the metropolitan area.
Tourism also plays a
very important role in the cosmopolitan city. New York City registers
almost 60 million guests every year, including over 12 million from
abroad (mainly from Canada and Great Britain), including 632,000
visitors from Germany. New York City benefits from vacationer spending
of around 42 billion US dollars (all tourism information as of 2015).
Harbor
The port of New York, both the natural harbor in the Upper
Bay and the port facilities all around, takes up a large area on the
east coast. It is only partly part of the urban area and partly in New
Jersey. The two neighboring states have formed a joint Port Authority,
the PANYNJ, and the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor (WCNYH) to
coordinate their interests.
The port is the third largest in
terms of cargo handling, but the largest port in the United States in
terms of area. It serves as an international deep-sea port and, via the
Hudson, also as an inland port for parts of the USA (Northeast) and
eastern Canada.
New York's economic importance today is related
to its use for the handling of goods and historically to the transport
of people by ship. With the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825, a
convenient route to the Great Lakes was opened up and New York rose to
become the most important trading port on the east coast. In addition,
New York has been and remains a major immigration center for the United
States. Millions of immigrants landed here and passed through its
facilities, of which Ellis Island is a relatively new one. After
immigration, which used to be more important, tourism now dominates
passenger shipping in New York Harbor.
streets
New York is
connected to the rest of the country by numerous freeways. There are
several ways to get here by car: Route 495, which becomes Interstate 495
in New York, goes through the Lincoln Tunnel coming from New Jersey and
through the Queens-Midtown Tunnel to Midtown Manhattan coming from the
east.
From the southwest, Interstate Highways I-95 (New Jersey
Turnpike) and I-78 pass through the Holland Tunnel to Canal Street and
Spring Street, respectively, near SoHo and Tribeca. From the north, I-87
(New York State Thruway) and I-95 enter Manhattan's ring roads. There
are always traffic jams, especially at the tunnels and bridges, also
because tolls are usually collected there.
According to a study,
New York was the most congested city in the United States in 2021.
airports
There are two airports in New York: John F. Kennedy
International Airport and LaGuardia Airport. The two airports are in
Queens, with LaGuardia being used primarily for domestic flights.
There's also Newark Liberty International Airport, which is the closest
airport to Manhattan and the oldest airport in the New York area, but is
located in Newark, New Jersey. The airports carry a total of over 90
million passengers with over a million flights each year. Due to its
proximity to the city, Teterboro Airport is primarily used for business
travel.
train connections
There are two main train stations in
New York: Grand Central Terminal and Pennsylvania Station. Grand Central
is on the East Side in Midtown, while Penn Station is on the West Side.
Both stations have connections to numerous bus and underground lines.
Grand Central Terminal (often referred to as Grand Central Station)
currently terminates the Metro-North Commuter Railroad's commuter trains
bound for Westchester County, Putnam County, Dutchess County, Fairfield
County, and New Haven County. Grand Central Terminal was inaugurated as
a terminus on February 2, 1913 and has since been the largest train
station in the world - it has 44 platforms, where 67 tracks end. The
station is on two levels, 41 tracks end on the upper level and 26 on the
lower level.
Long-distance trains from several railroad
companies, including Amtrak trains, stop at Penn Station. Pennsylvania
Station is a hub for several subway lines, along with Port Authority Bus
Terminal and George Washington Bus Station.
roads, taxis
The streets of New York are 10,200 kilometers long.
The grid of streets in Manhattan is numbered and divided into East and
West (with the division at 5th Avenue). The exception here is the lowest
downtown, where this grid system ends. In Brooklyn and Queens there are
similar grids, but for historical reasons they have a rather irregular
structure characterized by breaks.
In terms of transportation,
New York is a very un-American city, with most residents using public
transportation. Only about 50 percent of private vehicles drive on the
streets of Manhattan - the picture is characterized above all by the
more than 12,000 yellow taxis ("yellow cabs"). The reason for this is,
among other things, high parking fees and high fees for bridges and
tunnels.
Local public transport
The New York subway network,
which offers 24-hour service in large areas, is one of the largest in
the world. The first section of tunnel was opened on October 28, 1904 by
the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT). Around 6,000 subway cars operate
on 27 lines with 476 stations. The network has a length of 407.2
kilometers - of which 393.3 kilometers are intended for public
transport. 371.1 kilometers are operated by the New York City Transit
Authority (NYCTA) and 22.2 kilometers by the Port Authority Trans-Hudson
(PATH). The latter runs between Manhattan and New Jersey. The subway
transports 4.5 million passengers every weekday and 1.5 billion
passengers every year. 7,400 train journeys are made every day.
The Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) is responsible for commuter traffic
towards Long Island. New Jersey Transit's commuter trains transport
commuters from New Jersey to New York. The Staten Island Railway
operates on Staten Island; the island is connected to Brooklyn by the
Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and to Manhattan by the Staten Island Ferry.
There is also a well-developed bus network. The city has over 4,000
buses on 235 routes, carrying over two million weekday passengers (666
million annually). Trolleybuses ran in New York between October 8, 1921
and July 26, 1960.
On November 26, 1832, the New York and Harlem
Railroad opened the world's first horse-drawn streetcar in the city.
From 1893 the tram network was partially electrified, the ban on
overhead lines and the technically more complex sub-lines ensured that
New York had one of the last horse-drawn trams in the USA. The majority
of the network was discontinued before 1922. In 1956, the last streetcar
from Jersey City, where it has been running again since April 15, 2000,
drove over the George Washington Bridge to Manhattan.
A light
rail route is currently being planned with the Interborough Express,
which is intended to supplement the subway in Brooklyn and Queens as a
tangential connection and better open up areas that are currently not
covered, whereby the route is to use existing routes, most of which are
currently used for freight traffic . In addition, the Brooklyn-Queens
Connector, a streetcar line, is being planned, which will also connect
Brooklyn and Queens near the East River and will run in the street
space. In addition, a feasibility study was commissioned in 2017 to
investigate the feasibility of a streetcar route in Staten Island with
an optional link to the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail.
29 permanent and seasonal ferry lines operate in New York. The free
Staten Island Ferry connects Manhattan and Staten Island. In addition,
there are numerous commercial ferries across the Hudson and various
ferries on the East River connecting the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens,
Bronx and Manhattan, including the six-route NYC Ferry.
There are
2,027 bridges in New York City. The longest bridge is the
Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge between Staten Island and Brooklyn. The
bridges to Manhattan across the East River on the northeast bank are
called (from north to south): Throgs Neck Bridge, Bronx Whitsstone
Bridge, the railroad bridge from Randalls Wards or Park Ave, Third Ave
Bridge, Willis Ave Bridge, Triborough Bridge, Queensboro Bridge ,
Williamsburg Bridge, Manhattan Bridge and Brooklyn Bridge. On the west
bank there is the Bear Mountain Bridge in the far north, then the Tappan
Zee Bridge (Dewey Thruway) and in the center the George Washington
Bridge over the Hudson. In addition to these main bridges to/from
Manhattan, there are 25 moveable bridges throughout New York, in
addition to many normal ones: two drawbridges, seven swing bridges, four
lifting bridges and twelve drawbridges. The city's bridges and tunnels
are maintained by the New York City Department of Transportation, and
the MTA Bridges and Tunnels is responsible for some toll bridges and
tunnels.
print media
A large number of daily and weekly newspapers are
published in New York. Major daily newspapers include the New York
Times, Post, Daily News and the Wall Street Journal.
The Times is
published nationally. She is considered serious and politically liberal
to left-liberal. Founded in 1851, it has won 91 Pulitzer Prizes, far
more than any other daily newspaper.
The Wall Street Journal,
which first appeared in 1889 and is devoted primarily to economic
issues, is politically conservative, is one of the highest-circulation
newspapers in the United States and has its own European and Asian
editions.
Other regional dailies include Newsday, AM New York,
Metro New York and Staten Island Advance. In addition, there are a large
number of newspapers whose reports focus, for example, on population
groups, districts or quarters of the city, or appear in the languages of
the original countries of origin of the population groups.
Major
regional weekly newspapers and magazines include the New York Observer,
New York Press, Village Voice and Time Out NY. Street News is published
every six days and BIGNew once a month.
The Village Voice,
founded in 1955, was the first and is the best known of the publications
called alternative weeklies. The print edition was discontinued in 2017.
However, the online edition will continue to appear.
National
magazines published in New York include Time, Newsweek, The New Yorker,
Vogue, Vanity Fair and Architectural Digest.
radio and television
New York is home to global media corporations (Time Warner, Viacom) and
large television and radio networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC). Dozens of New
York City and numerous national and international radio and television
stations are available via cable and satellite. Around 10,000
journalists report from the city all over the world on politics,
business and culture.
Over 3000 film and series productions,
including dozens of blockbusters, have been filmed in and around the
city. Many well-known entertainment programs and talk shows are recorded
in the city. Late night show host Jimmy Fallon welcomes guests to The
Tonight Show. The "Saturday Night Live" show, which has existed since
1975, also broadcasts from Manhattan. Other shows produced here include
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Inside the Actors Studio, The Daily
Show, Good Morning America, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The
Today Show, Red Eye and Live with Kelly. MTV and Comedy Central are also
based in the city.
Among the many outstanding higher education institutions are Columbia
University (opened 1754), the Cooper Union for the Advancement of
Science and Art, the City University of New York, Barnard College, New
York University, the Pratt Institute opened in 1887, the Fordham
University, the New School, Rockefeller University, the Juilliard School
of Music, Dance and Drama, the Manhattan School of Music (opened 1917),
and the Culinary Institute of America (opened 1946). The City of New
York also operates a number of secondary schools to encourage gifted
students. The Bronx High School of Science, Stuyvesant High School and
Brooklyn Technical High School are among the oldest and most renowned of
these schools.
Columbia University is located in Morningside
Heights, just north of the Upper West Side, in the borough of Manhattan
and belongs to the so-called "Ivy League", the elite universities in the
Northeast of the USA (like Yale, Princeton, Harvard and others). Founded
in 1754 as King's College by royal decree of King George II, it is the
oldest high school in New York State and the fifth oldest in the
country. Columbia is considered one of the most respected universities
in the world.
New York University (NYU) is a world-renowned elite
university. It is the largest private university in the United States
with a total of 39,408 students (fall 2004) - of which 20,212 are
undergraduate students, 15,884 graduate students and 3,312 graduate
students. 4,000 of the students come from over 100 countries. The
university campus is located in Greenwich Village in Manhattan. The
university consists of 14 faculties and colleges. Founded on April 21,
1831 by a group of prominent New Yorkers, including former US Treasury
Secretary Albert Gallatin, it is renowned for its faculties of
economics, economics, law, medicine, computer science, mathematics,
philosophy, political science and neuroscience .
In the rankings
of the U.S. News & World Report and other publications, the university's
faculties are regularly found in the top 25, such as the NYU Stern
School of Business, the School of Law, the Robert F. Wagner School of
Public Service. The Tisch School of the Arts is one of the most famous
centers for music, theater, directing and stage training. The Faculty of
Philosophy is widely recognized as one of the best in the country.
Admission to the university is very selective, depending on the faculty.
It has been named the "#1 Dream School" in Princeton Report polls of
college applicants, and in 2004 and 2005 it received the highest number
of applications of any North American university.
The most
important libraries in the city include the New York Public Library with
around ten million books and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black
Culture.
New York City is home to Fort Hamilton, which is the only US military
facility on active duty within the city. Founded in Brooklyn in 1825 on
the site of a small battery used during the American Revolution, it is
one of the oldest military forts still in operation today. Today, Fort
Hamilton serves as the headquarters of the North Atlantic Division of
the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the New York City
Recruiting Battalion. It is also home to the 1179th Transportation
Brigade, the 772nd Aeromedical Supply Squadron and a military muster
station.
Other formerly active military installations still used
for military training or reserve and National Guard operations in the
city include Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island and Fort Totten in Queens.