From Wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia
New York City (officially the
City of New York) is the
most populous city in the
United States of America. Its
business, financial and trading
organizations are significant players in
the nation's economy and in the world.[1]
The city is also one of the world's most
important cultural centers with hundreds
of world-class museums, galleries, and
performance venues. Home of the
United Nations, the city is also
perhaps the world's largest diplomatic
center.
The city is divided up into five
boroughs (The
Bronx,
Brooklyn,
Manhattan,
Queens, and
Staten Island) and has a population
of 8.2 million (2005 estimate)[2]
within a land area of 321 square miles
(830 km²).[3]
With a population of 22.4 million, the
New York metropolitan area is one of
the
largest urban areas in the world.[4]
New York City has been an important
world financial center since World War
II. It is the location of one of the
world's most influential stock markets
and some of the world's largest
financial institutions. In addition, it
is the birthplace of many American
cultural movements, including the
Harlem Renaissance in literature and
visual art,
abstract expressionism in painting,
and certain varieties of
hip hop in music. The city's
cultural vitality has been fueled by
immigration since its founding by Dutch
settlers in 1623. In 2005, 36.6% of the
city's population was foreign born.[5]
New York City is also notable for having
the lowest crime rate[6]
and the highest tax burden[7]
among the ten largest American cities.
[edit]
History
-
The region was inhabited by the
Lenape
Native Americans at the time of its
European discovery by an Italian,
Giovanni da Verrazzano, who called
it "La Nouvelle Angoulême" (New
Angoulême) after
Francis I of France,
Count of Angoulême. The area was not
mapped, however, until the
1609 voyage of Englishman
Henry Hudson, who was working for
the Dutch.[8]
European settlement began with the
founding of the Dutch
fur trading settlement, later called
New Amsterdam, on the southern tip
of
Manhattan in
1614. In
1626,
Peter Minuit established a long
tradition of shrewd
real estate investing when he
purchased Manhattan Island and Staten
Island from native people in exchange
for trade goods (legend, now long
disproved, has it that Manhattan was
purchased for $24 worth of glass beads).
New Amsterdam was formally
incorporated as a city
February 2,
1653. In
1664, the
British conquered the city and
renamed it "New York" after the English
Duke of York and Albany.
Under
British rule New York grew in
importance as a trading port. The city
emerged as the theater for a series of
major battles known as the
New York Campaign during the
American Revolutionary War. The
Continental Congress met in New York
City and on
April 30,
1789 the first
President of the United States,
George Washington, was inaugurated
at
Federal Hall on
Wall Street. New York was selected
as the interim capital until
1790.
During the
19th century, the city was
transformed by
immigration, a visionary development
proposal called the
Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which
expanded the city street grid to
encompass all of Manhattan, and the
opening of the
Erie Canal, which connected the
Atlantic port to the vast agricultural
markets of the Mid-western United States
and Canada in
1819. By
1835, New York City had surpassed
Philadelphia as the largest city in
the United States. Local politics fell
under the domination of
Tammany Hall, a
political machine supported by Irish
immigrants. Public-minded members of the
old merchant aristocracy pressed for
Central Park, which became the first
landscaped park in an American city in
1857.
Anger at military conscription during
the
American Civil War (1861–1865) led
to the
Draft Riots of 1863, one of the
worst incidents of civil unrest in
American history. After the Civil War,
immigration from Europe grew steeply,
and New York became the first stop for
millions seeking a new and better life
in the United States. The city's
population boomed and in 1898 the modern
City of New York was formed with the
consolidation of Brooklyn (until then an
independent city), Manhattan and
municipalities in the other boroughs.
The opening of the
New York City Subway in 1904 helped
bind the new city together. Throughout
the first half of the 20th century, the
city became a world center for industry,
commerce, and communication. In 1911 the
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire,
the city's worst industrial disaster,
took the lives of 146 garment workers
and led to important advancements in
safety standards, building codes, and
improvements at the city's fire
department.
In the 1920s New York City was a
destination for
African Americans during the
Great Migration from the American
South. By 1916, New York City was home
of the largest urban African Diaspora in
North America. The
Harlem Renaissance flourished, part
of a larger boom time in the
Prohibition era that saw
construction of dueling
skyscrapers in the skyline. New York
City became the most populous city in
the world in 1925, overtaking
London, which had reigned for a
century. The difficult years of the
Great Depression saw the election of
reformer
Fiorello LaGuardia and the fall of
Tammany Hall after eighty years of
political dominance.
Returning
World War II veterans and immigrants
from Europe created a postwar economic
boom and the development of huge housing
tracts in eastern Queens. New York
emerged from the war unscathed and the
leading city of the world, with
Wall Street leading America's
ascendance as the world's dominant
economic power, the
United Nations headquarters (built
in 1952) emphasizing New York's
political influence, and the rise of
Abstract Expressionism in the city
displacing Paris as the center of the
art world.[9]
Yet like many large American cities New
York suffered a decline in manufacturing
and rising crime rates, race riots, and
white flight in the 1960s. By the
1970s the city had gained a reputation
as a crime-ridden relic of history. In
1975, the city government avoided
bankruptcy only with help from the
federal government. The city's malaise
seemed confirmed by the twin
catastrophes of anarchic looting during
the
New York City blackout of 1977 and
the
Son of Sam serial murderer's
continued slayings in the late 1970s.
Reformist mayor
Ed Koch was elected for three terms
beginning in 1978 and is credited with
restoring fiscal stability to the city.
New York's social and economic
upheavals abated in the 1980s as a
resurgence in the critical financial
industry improved the city's fiscal
health. By the 1990s racial tensions had
calmed, crime rates dropped
dramatically, and waves of new
immigrants arrived from Asia and Latin
America. Important new sectors, such as
Silicon Alley, emerged in the city's
economy and New York's population
reached an all-time high in the
2000 census.
The city was one of the sites of the
September 11, 2001 attacks, when
nearly 3,000 people were killed in the
destruction of the city's tallest
buildings, Towers 1 and 2 of the
World Trade Center. This was the
second time in which terrorists have
inflicted major damage to the city. The
attack was the largest to occur in U.S.
soil. The
Freedom Tower, intended to be
exactly 1,776 feet tall, (commemorating
the date of the
Declaration of Independence), is to
be built on the site and is scheduled
for completion in 2012.
[edit]
Geography
-
Satellite image showing most
of the five boroughs,
portions of eastern New
Jersey, and the main
waterways around New York
harbor.
[edit]
Topography
New York City is located on the coast
of the
Northeastern United States at the
mouth of the
Hudson River in southeastern
New York state. The city's geography
is characterized by its coastal position
at the meeting of the Hudson River and
the
Atlantic Ocean in a naturally
sheltered harbor. This position helped
the city grow in significance as a
trading city. Much of New York is built
on the three islands of
Manhattan,
Staten Island, and western
Long Island, making land scarce and
driving the city's high population
density. Environmental issues are
chiefly concerned with managing this
density, which is also a factor in
making New York among the most energy
efficient and least automobile-dependent
cities in the United States.
The Hudson River flows from the
Hudson Valley into
New York Bay, becoming a
tidal estuary that separates the
city from
New Jersey. The
East River, actually a tidal strait,
flows from
Long Island Sound and separates the
Bronx and Manhattan from Long Island.
The
Harlem River, another tidal strait
between the East and Hudson Rivers,
separates Manhattan from the Bronx.
The city's land has been altered
considerably by human intervention, with
substantial
land reclamation along the
waterfronts since Dutch colonial times.
Reclamation is most notable in
Lower Manhattan with modern
developments like
Battery Park City. Much of the
natural variations in topography have
been evened out, particularly in
Manhattan.[10]
The city's total land area is 303
square miles (785.5 km²). The highest
point in the city is
Todt Hill on Staten Island, which at
409.8 feet (124.9 m) above sea level is
the highest point on the Eastern
Seaboard south of
Maine. The summit of the ridge is
largely covered in woodlands as part of
the
Staten Island Greenbelt.
[edit]
Climate
Although located at a slightly more
southern latitude than the Italian
capital city of
Rome, New York has a
humid continental climate resulting
from prevailing wind patterns that bring
cool air from the interior of the North
American continent. New York winters are
typically cold with moderate snowfall
averaging a total of about two feet
(around 62 cm) annually. The Atlantic
Ocean helps keep temperatures warmer in
the city than in the interior Northeast
and Mid-Atlantic, and has on average a
220-day frost-free period between
seasonal freezes. However, there has
never been a winter since record keeping
began in 1869 in which enough snow to
cover the ground did not fall at least
once. April, May, and November are
usually the wettest months. Spring and
fall in New York City are mild while
summer is very warm and humid.
|
Month |
Jan |
Feb |
Mar |
Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
Year |
|
Avg high °F (°C) |
38
(3) |
40
(4) |
50
(10) |
61
(15) |
72
(22) |
80
(27) |
85
(30) |
84
(29) |
76
(24) |
65
(18) |
54
(12) |
42
(6) |
62
(17) |
|
Avg low temperature °F (°C) |
25
(-4) |
27
(-3) |
35
(2) |
44
(7) |
54
(12) |
63
(17) |
68
(20) |
67
(19) |
60
(16) |
50
(10) |
41
(5) |
31
(-1) |
47
(8) |
|
Rainfall in. (mm) |
3.4
(86) |
3.3
(84) |
3.9
(99) |
4.0
(102) |
4.4
(112) |
3.7
(95) |
4.4
(112) |
4.1
(104) |
3.9
(99) |
3.6
(91) |
4.5
(127) |
3.9
(99) |
46.7
(1124) |
|
Source:
Weatherbase |
[edit]
Environment
-
New York's population density has
environmental benefits and dangers. It
facilitates the highest
mass transit use in the United
States, but also concentrates pollution.
Although gasoline consumption in the
city is at the rate the national average
was in the 1920s,[11]
New York City has some of the dirtiest
air in the United States. Pollution
varies greatly from borough to borough,
and residents of Manhattan face the
highest risk in the country of
developing cancer from chemicals in the
air.[12]
Recently , the city has focused on
reducing its environmental impact. The
city government is required to purchase
only the most energy-efficient equipment
for use in city offices and public
housing.[13]
New York has the largest clean-air
diesel-hybrid
and
compressed natural gas bus fleet in
the country, and some of the first
hybrid taxis.[14]
The city is also a leader in
energy-efficient "green" office
buildings, such as
Hearst Tower and
7 World Trade Center.[15]
The average New Yorker consumes less
than half of the electricity of someone
who lives in San Francisco and nearly
one-quarter the electricity consumed by
someone who lives in Dallas.[16]
The city is supplied with water by
the vast
Catskill Mountains
watershed, one of the largest
protected wilderness areas in the United
States. As a result of the watershed's
integrity and undisturbed natural water
filtration process, New York City
drinking water that originates from this
reservoir does not require purification
by
water treatment plants, and under
normal conditions, only
chlorination is necessary to ensure
its purity at the tap.[17][18]
[edit]
Cityscape
[edit]
Architecture
-
The building form most closely
associated with New York City is the
skyscraper, a pioneering urban form
that saw city building shift from the
low-scale European tradition to the
vertical rise of business districts.
Surrounded mostly by water, New York's
residential density and extremely high
real estate values in commercial
districts saw the city amass the largest
collection of individual, free-standing
office and
residential towers in the world.[19][20]
New York actually has three
separately recognizable skylines:
Midtown Manhattan,
Lower Manhattan, and
Downtown Brooklyn. The city has
architecturally important buildings in a
variety of styles, including
French Second Empire (the
Kings County Savings Bank Building),
gothic revival (the
Woolworth Building),
Art Deco (the
Empire State Building and
Chrysler Building),
international style (the
Seagram Building and
Lever House), and
post-modern (the
AT&T Building). The
Condé Nast Building is an important
example of
green design in American
skyscrapers.[15]
The historic residential parts of the
city have a distinctive character
defined by the elegant
brownstone
rowhouses and
apartment buildings which were built
during the city's rapid expansion from
1870–1930. Stone and brick became the
city's building materials of choice
after the construction of wood-frame
houses was limited in the aftermath of
the Great Fire of 1835. Unlike Paris,
which for centuries was built from its
own limestone bedrock, New York has
always drawn its building stone from a
far-flung network of quarries and its
stone buildings have a variety of
textures and hues.[21]
[edit]
Boroughs
-
The five boroughs:
1: Manhattan,
2: Brooklyn,
3: Queens,
4: Bronx,
5: Staten Island
New York City is comprised of five
boroughs, an unusual form of
government used to administer the five
constituent counties that make up the
city. Throughout the boroughs there are
hundreds of distinct
neighborhoods, many with a definable
history and character all their own. If
the boroughs were each independent
cities, four of the boroughs (Brooklyn,
Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx) would
be among the ten most populous cities in
the United States.
-
The Bronx (pop. 1,357,589)[22]
is New York City's northernmost
borough. It is the birthplace of
rap and
hip hop culture,[23]
the site of
Yankee Stadium and of the
largest cooperatively owned housing
complex in the United States,
Co-op City. Except for a small
section of Manhattan known as
Marble Hill, the Bronx is the
only borough of the city that is
part of the United States mainland.
-
Brooklyn (pop. 2,486,235)[22]
is the city's most populous borough
and was an independent city until
1898. Brooklyn is known for its
cultural diversity, cutting-edge art
scene, and neighborhoods full of
preserved Nineteenth Century
architecture. The borough also
features a long beachfront and
Coney Island, famous as one of
the earliest amusement grounds in
the country.
-
Manhattan (pop. 1,593,200)[22]
is the most densely populated
borough, home to most of the city's
skyscrapers. Manhattan contains
the major business centers of the
city and many cultural attractions.
Manhattan is loosely divided into
downtown,
midtown, and
uptown regions.
[edit]
Culture
-
Writer
Tom Wolfe said of New York that
"Culture just seems to be in the air,
like part of the weather." Many major
American cultural movements began in the
city. The
Harlem Renaissance established the
African-American literary canon in the
United States. The city was the
epicenter of
jazz in the 1940s,
abstract expressionism in the 1950s,
and the birthplace of
hip hop in the 1970s.
Punk rock developed in the 1970s and
1980s, and the city has also been a
flourishing scene for
Jewish American literature.
[edit]
Entertainment
Wealthy industrialists in the 19th
century built a network of major
cultural institutions, such as
Carnegie Hall and the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, that
became internationally established.
Artists are drawn to the city by
opportunity, as well; there are 2,000
arts and cultural non-profits and 500
art galleries of all sizes, and the city
government funds the arts with a larger
annual budget than the
National Endowment for the Arts.[25]
The advent of electric lighting led
to elaborate theatre productions, and in
the 1880s New York City theaters on
Broadway and along 42nd Street began
showcasing a new stage form that came to
be known as the
Broadway musical. Strongly
influenced by the city's immigrants,
these productions used song in
narratives that often reflected themes
of hope and ambition. Today these
productions are a mainstay of the New
York theatre scene. The city's 39
largest theatres (with more than 500
seats) are collectively known as "Broadway,"
after the
major thoroughfare that crosses the
Times Square theatre district. The
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts,
which includes
Jazz at Lincoln Center, the
Metropolitan Opera, the
New York City Opera, the
New York Philharmonic and the
New York City Ballet, is the largest
performing arts center in the United
States.
City Parks Foundation is one of the
largest presenters of performing arts in
the city, offering Central Park
Summerstage among 1,200 free
concerts, dance, and theater events
across all five boroughs.
-
See also:
Broadway theatre,
Music of New York City, and
List of museums and cultural
institutions in New York City
[edit]
Tourism
-
40 million foreign and American
tourists visit New York City each year.[26]
Major destinations include the
Empire State Building, the
Statue of Liberty, Broadway
productions, scores of museums from the
El Museo del Barrio to the
Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum
(closed until 2008 for repairs),
Washington Square Park, the
Bronx Zoo and
New York Botanical Garden, luxury
shopping along
Fifth and
Madison Avenues, and events such as
the
Halloween Parade in
Greenwich Village, the
Tribeca Film Festival, and free
performances in Central Park at
Summerstage. Many of the city's
ethnic enclaves, such as
Jackson Heights,
Flushing, and
Brighton Beach are major shopping
destinations for first and second
generation Americans up and down the
East Coast.
New York City has 28,000 acres
(113 km²) of parkland and 14 miles
(22 km) of public beaches. Manhattan's
Central Park, designed by
Frederick Law Olmsted and
Calvert Vaux, is the most visited
city park in the United States.[27]
Prospect Park in Brooklyn, also
designed by Olmsted and Vaux, has a 90
acre (36 Hectare) meadow.
Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, the
city's third largest, was the setting
for the
1939 World's Fair and
1964 World's Fair.
New York's food culture, influenced
by the city's immigrants and large
number of dining patrons, is diverse.
Jewish and Italian immigrants made the
city famous for
bagels and
New York style pizza. Some 4,000
mobile food vendors licensed by the
city, many immigrant-owned, have made
Middle Eastern foods such as
falafels and
kebabs standbys of contemporary New
York street food.[28]
The city is also home to many of the
finest
haute cuisine restaurants in the
United States.
[edit]
Sports
-
New York is home to teams in each of
the major American professional sports
leagues.
Baseball is the city's most closely
followed sport. There have been fourteen
World Series championship series
between New York City teams; such
matchups are called
Subway Series. The city's two
current
Major League Baseball teams are the
New York Yankees and the
New York Mets, which enjoy a fierce
rivalry. New York City is also home to
two
minor league baseball teams, the
Brooklyn Cyclones and
Staten Island Yankees.
The city is represented in the
National Football League by the
New York Giants and
New York Jets, who share
Giants Stadium outside the city
limits in
East Rutherford, New Jersey, and in
the
National Hockey League by the
New York Rangers and the
New York Islanders. The National
Hockey League is headquartered in
Manhattan.
New York City has a rich
basketball history. The first
national college-level basketball
championship, the
National Invitation Tournament, was
held in New York in 1938 and remains in
the city.
Rucker Park in
Harlem is a celebrated court where
many professional athletes play in the
summer league. The city's
National Basketball Association team
is the
New York Knicks.
As a global city, New York supports
many events outside the big four
American sports, including the
U.S. Tennis Open, the
New York City Marathon and the
Millrose Games of track and field
held at
Madison Square Garden.
Red Bull New York, formerly known as
the MetroStars, is a professional soccer
club based in New Jersey that
participates in
Major League Soccer. Many sports are
associated with New York's immigrant
communities;
stickball, a street version of
baseball, was popularized by youths in
working class Italian and Irish
neighborhoods in the 1930s. In recent
years several amateur
cricket leagues have emerged with
the arrival of immigrants from South
Asia and the Caribbean.
-
New York's use of
mass transit gives the
city a large newspaper
readership base.
[29]
New York is a major global center for
the television, advertising, music,
newspaper and book publishing industries
and is also the largest media market in
the United States. Some of the city's
media conglomerates include
Time Warner, the
News Corporation, the
Hearst Corporation, and
Viacom. Six of the world's top ten
global advertising agencies are
headquartered in New York. Three of the
"Big
Four" record labels are also based
in the city. One-third of all
independent films in the world are
produced in New York. More than 200
newspapers and 350 consumer magazines
have an office in the city. The
book-publishing industry employs about
13,000 people.[30]
Two of the three national daily
newspapers in the United States are New
York papers,
The Wall Street Journal
(circulation 2.1 million) and
The New York Times (circulation
1.1 million). Other major newspapers in
the city include
The New York Daily News
(circulation 730,000) and
The New York Post (circulation
650,000), founded in 1801 by
Alexander Hamilton. The city also
has a major ethnic press, with
newspapers published in more than twenty
languages.
El Diario La Prensa (circulation
265,000) is New York's largest
Spanish-language daily and the oldest in
the nation.[31]
The New York Amsterdam News,
published in Harlem, is a prominent
African-American newspaper.
The television industry developed in
New York and is a major employer in the
city's economy. The four major American
broadcast networks,
ABC,
CBS,
FOX and
NBC, are all headquartered in New
York. Many cable channels are based in
the city as well, including
MTV,
BET,
Fox News,
HBO,
The Food Network, and
Comedy Central. In 2005 there were
more than 100 television shows taped in
New York City.[32]
New York is also a center for
non-commercial media.
Public access television began in
the city in 1968.
WNET is the city's major public
television station and a primary
provider of national
PBS programming.
WNYC, a public radio station owned
by the city until 1997, has the largest
public radio audience in the United
States.[33]
The City of New York runs
NYC-TV that broadcasts several
original Emmy Award-winning shows
covering music, culture and vast
ethnicities in city neighborhoods.
CUNY TV is the
City University of New York's 24/7
educational cable channel providing
educational, cultural and multi-lingual
programming.
[edit]
Economy
-
New York City is a global hub of
international business and commerce and
it is one of four "command centers" for
the world economy (along with
London,
Hong Kong, and
Tokyo).[34]
The city is a major center for finance,
insurance, real estate, media and the
arts in the United States. Other
important sectors include the city's
television and film industry, second
largest in the country after Hollywood;
medical research and technology;
non-profit institutions and
universities; and fashion. Real estate
is a major force in the city's economy.
The total value of all New York City
property was $802.4 billion in 2006.[35]
The
Time Warner Center is the property
with the highest-listed market value in
the city, at $1.1 billion in 2006.
The New York metropolitan area had an
estimated
gross metropolitan product of $952.6
billion in 2005, the largest in the
United States. The city's economy
accounts for the majority of the
economic activity in the states of New
Jersey and New York.[36]
In 2006 the average weekly wage in
Manhattan was $1,453, the highest among
the 325 largest counties in the United
States. The national average was $784.[37]
Wages in Manhattan were also the fastest
growing among the nation's 10 largest
counties.[37]
The city's stock exchanges are among
the most important in the world. The
New York Stock Exchange is the
world's largest stock exchange by dollar
volume, while the
NASDAQ is the world's largest by
number of listings. Many major
corporations have headquarters in New
York; it has more
Fortune 500 companies than any other
city.[38]
New York is also unique among American
cities for its large number of foreign
corporations. 1 out of 10 private sector
jobs in the city is with a foreign
company.[39]
Creative industries, like new media,
advertising, design and architecture
account for a growing share of
employment. High-tech industries like
software development, game design, and
Internet services are also growing;
because of its position at the terminus
of the
transatlantic fiber optic trunk line
New York City is the leading Internet
gateway in the United States.[40]
Manufacturing accounts for a large
but declining share of employment.
Garments, chemicals, metal products,
processed foods, and furniture are some
of the principal products.[41]
The food-processing industry is the most
stable major manufacturing sector in the
city.[42]
Food making is a $5 billion industry
that employs more than 19,000 residents,
many of them immigrants who speak little
English. Chocolate is New York City's
No. 1 specialty-food export, with $234
million worth of exports each year.[42]
[edit]
Demographics
-
| New York City
Compared |
|
2005 Census |
NY City |
NY State |
U.S. |
| Total population |
8,143,197 |
18,976,457 |
281,421,906 |
| Population, percent change,
1990 to 2000 |
+9.4% |
+5.5% |
+13.1% |
| Population density |
26,403/mi² |
402/mi² |
80/mi² |
| Median household income
(1999) |
$38,293 |
$43,393 |
$41,994 |
| Bachelor's degree or higher |
27% |
27% |
29% |
| Foreign born |
36% |
20% |
11% |
| White (non-Hispanic) |
37% |
62% |
67% |
| Black |
28% |
16% |
12% |
| Hispanic (any race) |
27% |
15% |
11% |
| Asian |
10% |
6% |
4% |
New York is the largest city in the
United States, with a population more
than double the next largest city,
Los Angeles. The estimated 2005
population of New York City is 8,213,839
(up from 7.3 million in 1990).[22]
This amounts to about 40% of New York
State's population and a similar
percentage of the metropolitan regional
population. Over the last decade the
city has been growing rapidly.
Demographers estimate New York's
population will reach 9.4 million by
2025.[43]
New York's two key demographic
features are its density and diversity.
The city has an extremely high
population density of 26,403 people per
square mile (10,194.2/km²), about 10,000
more people per square mile than the
next densest large American city,
San Francisco.[44]
Manhattan's population density is
66,940.1 people per square mile
(25,845.7/km²).[45]
New York City is exceptionally
diverse. Throughout its history the city
has been a major point of entry for
immigrants; the term "melting
pot" was first coined to describe
densely populated immigrant
neighborhoods on the
Lower East Side, and according to
some estimates, as many as 1 out of 4
Americans trace their ancestry roots
back to New York City. In 2000, 36% of
the city's population was foreign-born.
Among American cities, this proportion
was higher only in Los Angeles and
Miami.[45]
While the immigrant communities in those
cities are dominated by a few
nationalities, in New York no single
country or region of origin dominates.
The eight largest countries of origin
are the
Dominican Republic,
China,
Jamaica,
Russia,
Italy,
Poland,
India and
Romania.
The city and its metropolitan area is
home to the largest
Jewish community outside of
Israel. It is also home to nearly a
quarter of the nation's
Indian-Americans, and the largest
African American community of any
city in the country. Among
Latino New Yorkers
Puerto Ricans have long been the
city's largest ethnic group, but that
has begun to change with new immigration
from other Latin American nations. There
is also a sizeable
Filipino community in Brooklyn.
Another historically significant ethnic
group in the city are
Italians, particularly southern
Italians who emigrated in large numbers
from
Sicily and
Naples in the early twentieth
century. The
Irish also have a notable presence;
a 2006 genetic survey by
Trinity College in
Dublin,
Ireland found that one in 50 New
Yorkers of European origin carry a
distinctive genetic signature on their Y
chromosomes inherited from
Niall of the Nine Hostages, an Irish
high king of the fifth century A.D.[46]
[edit]
Government
-
Since its consolidation in 1898, New
York City has been a
metropolitan municipality with a
"strong"
mayor-council form of government.
The government of New York is more
centralized than that of most other U.S.
cities. In New York City, the central
government is responsible for public
education, correctional institutions,
libraries, public safety, recreational
facilities, sanitation, water supply,
and welfare services.
The
mayor and
councillors are elected to four-year
terms. The
New York City Council is a
unicameral body consisting of 51
Council members whose districts are
defined by geographic population
boundaries. The mayor and councilors are
limited to two four-year terms.
The
Democratic Party holds the majority
of public offices. 66% of registered
voters in the city are Democrats.[47]
Party platforms center on affordable
housing, education and economic
development. Labor politics are
important in the city. New York is the
most important source of political
fundraising in the United States. Four
of the top five
zip codes in the nation for
political contributions are in
Manhattan. The top zip code, 10021 on
the
Upper East Side, generated the most
money for the 2004 presidential
campaigns of both
George W. Bush and
John Kerry.[48]
The city has a strong imbalance of
payments with the national and state
governments. New York City receives 83
cents in services for every $1 it sends
to the federal government in
taxes (or annually sends $11.4
billion more than it receives back). The
city also sends an additional $11
billion more each year to the state of
New York than it receives back.[49]
The mayor is
Michael Bloomberg, a former Democrat
elected as a
Republican in 2001 and re-elected in
2005 with 59% of the vote.[50]
He is known for taking control of the
city's education system from the state,
rezoning and economic development, sound
fiscal management, and aggressive public
health policy. In his second term he has
made school reform, poverty reduction,
and strict gun control central
priorities of his administration.
As the host of the
United Nations, New York City is
home to the world's largest
international
consular corps, comprising 122
consulates, consulates general and
honorary consulate offices.[51]
-
New York City has the highest raw
number of violent crimes among the 25
largest cities in the United States even
though its rate per 100,000 is the
lowest .[52]
The city has seen a continuous trend of
decreasing crime since 1991, with
violent crime dropping 75% since then.
Neighborhoods that were once considered
dangerous are now much safer. The murder
rate in 2005 was at its lowest level
since 1963. Overall, New York City had a
rate of 2,802 crimes per 100,000 people
in 2004, compared with 8,960 in Dallas;
7,904 in Detroit; 7,402 in Phoenix;
7,347 in San Antonio; 7,195 in Houston;
5,471 in Philadelphia; 4,376 in Los
Angeles; and 4,103 in San Diego.[53]
[edit]
Education
-
The city's public school system,
managed by the
New York City Department of Education,
is the largest in the United States.
Over one million students are taught in
more than 1,200 separate primary and
secondary schools. New York is also home
to many major libraries, universities,
and research centers.
There are also about 1,000 additional
privately run secular and religious
schools in New York. These include some
of the most prestigious private schools
in the United States. There are about
1.1 million in the public system.
Much of the scientific research in
the city is done in medicine and the
life sciences. New York has the most
post-graduate life sciences degrees
awarded annually in the United States,
40,000 licensed physicians, and 127
Nobel laureates with roots in local
institutions. The city receives the
second-highest amount of annual funding
from the
National Institutes of Health among
all U.S. cities.[54]
Major biomedical research institutions
include
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center,
Rockefeller University,
Albert Einstein College of Medicine,
Mount Sinai School of Medicine and
Weill Cornell Medical College.
Though it does not enjoy a reputation
as a "College
Town", New York City is home to more
colleges and universities than Boston or
Philadelphia. As a result, there are
approximately 594,000 university
students in New York City, the highest
number of any city in the United States.[55]
The
City University of New York, the
nation's third-largest public university
system, provides post-secondary higher
education in all five boroughs. There
are also many private universities,
including
Columbia University, a prestigious
Ivy League university established in
1754 and the oldest educational
institution in the state, and
New York University, the largest
private,
non-profit university in the United
States. The city is also home to two
campuses of
Fordham University, the only
Jesuit university in New York City
and the first
Catholic institution of higher
learning in the
Northeastern United States.
The
New York Public Library is one of
the largest public library systems in
the country. Its Library for the
Humanities research center has 39
million items in its collection, among
them the first five folios of
Shakespeare's plays, ancient
Torah scrolls, and
Alexander Hamilton's handwritten
draft of the
United States Constitution.
[edit]
Infrastructure
-
New York City is home to the most
complex and extensive transportation
network in the United States, with more
than 12,000 iconic yellow cabs,[56]
120,000 daily cyclists,[57]
subway, bus and railroad systems,
immense airports, landmark bridges and
tunnels, ferry service and even an
aerial commuter tramway. While
nearly 90% of Americans drive to their
jobs, only about 30% of New Yorkers do;
about 1 in 3 users of mass transit in
the United States and two-thirds of the
nation's rail riders live in New York
and its suburbs.[58][59]
Data from the 2000 U.S. Census reveals
that New York City is the only major
city in the United States where more
than half of all
households do not own a car (the
figure is even higher in Manhattan, over
75%; nationally, the rate is 8%).[45][59]
New York's high rate of
public transit use and its
pedestrian-friendly character makes
it one of the most energy-efficient
cities in the country. A study by the
environmental organization SustainLane
found New York to be the city in the
United States best able to endure an oil
crisis with an extended gasoline price
shock in the range of US$3 to US$8 per
gallon.[60]
The
New York City Subway is the largest
subway system in the world when measured
by track mileage (656 miles or 1,056 km
of mainline track) and the world's
fourth largest when measured by annual
ridership (1.449 billion passenger trips
in 2005).[61]
New York City's public
bus fleet and vast commuter rail
network are the largest in North
America. The rail network, which
connects the suburbs in the
tri-state region to the city, has
more than 250 stations and 20 rail
lines.[62]
The commuter rail system converges at
the two busiest rail stations in the
United States, both in Manhattan,
Grand Central Terminal and
Penn Station, the latter also served
by long-distance
Amtrak trains.[63]
Long-haul buses depart from the
Port Authority Bus Terminal, the
nation's busiest bus station.[64]
Three major airports serve New York City
and its surrounding suburbs:
John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)
and
LaGuardia Airport (LGA), both in
Queens, and
Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR)
in nearby
Newark, New Jersey. About 100
million travelers used these New
York–area airports in 2005 as the
metropolitan region surpassed Chicago to
become the busiest air gateway in the
nation.[65]
Rail service is now available to Kennedy
Airport via
AirTrain JFK. The service connects
with the Long Island Rail Road and the
city subway system at
Jamaica and with the subway also at
Howard Beach; it runs down the
median divider of the
Van Wyck Expressway for much of its
length.
