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*many [[ferry|ferries]] run by [[NY Waterway]], [[New York Water Taxi]], and other operators
*many [[ferry|ferries]] run by [[NY Waterway]], [[New York Water Taxi]], and other operators
*[[Port Authority of New York and New Jersey]] operates:
*[[Port Authority of New York and New Jersey]] operates:
**three local [[airport]]s: [[JFK International Airport]] in [[Jamaica, New York]]City, New York, [[Newark Liberty International]] in [[Newark, New Jersey]], and [[LaGuardia Airport]] in [[Flushing, New York]]City, New York
**three local [[airport]]s: [[JFK International Airport]] in [[Jamaica, New York]] City, New York, [[Newark Liberty International]] in [[Newark, New Jersey]], and [[LaGuardia Airport]] in [[Flushing, New York]] City, New York
**[[Port Authority Trans Hudson]] (PATH) railroad
**[[Port Authority Trans Hudson]] (PATH) railroad
**[[Port Authority Bus Terminal]] for long-distance buses (operated by other companies)
**[[Port Authority Bus Terminal]] for long-distance buses (operated by other companies)

Revision as of 03:55, 26 September 2003


New York—often called New York City to distinguish it from the state in which it is located—is the largest city in the state of New York and in the United States. Affectionately known as "The Big Apple," New York is by many measures one of the most important cities in the world. The city is probably the world's most important financial center, and one of the most important cultural centers of the Western world. The United Nations headquarters is in New York, giving some credence to the city's self-designation as "capital of the world".

Political divisions

The City of New York is composed of 5 boroughs, each a county of New York State:

(Population figures from 2000 United States Census, see http://www.census.gov/ for more information).

The boroughs, although legally counties, do not have separate county governments. Each borough elects a Borough President, but under the current city charter, the Borough President's powers are limited--he or she has a small discretionary budget to spend on projects within the borough. (The last significant power of the borough presidents -- to appoint a member of the Board of Education -- was abolished, with the board, on June 30, 2002.)

New York City is among the most densely populated places in the United States. The population of the City of New York is more than eight million (2000 US Census), the land area of the city is 831 square kilometers; hence the density is ca. 10,000 / sq km.

New York City is part of the New York metropolitan area with a population of around 20 million. See also [1].

A resident of New York City is a New Yorker. Residents of Brooklyn sometimes call themselves Brooklynites and residents of Staten Island, Staten Islanders. Residents generally refer to New York City (or just Manhattan) as "New York" or "the city". Ambiguity is resolved by writing "NYS" for the state and "NYC" for the city.

History

Before the arrival of Europeans the Canarsie people fished the rich estuaries and wetlands from permanent settlements around New York harbor.

Although the first European to see the harbor was Giovanni da Verrazano, during his expedition of 1524, and Henry Hudson explored the area in 1609, the written history of New York City properly begins with the Dutch settlement of 1624. That town, at the southern tip of Manhattan, was called New Amsterdam (Nieuw Amsterdam), and was the main city of the Dutch colony of New Netherlands. The Dutch origins can still be seen in many names in New York City, such as Brooklyn (from Breukelen), Harlem (from Haarlem), The Bronx (from Pieter Bronck) and Staten Island. The island of Manhattan was in some measure self-selected as a future metropolis by its extraordinary natural harbor formed by New York Bay (actually the drowned lower river valley of the Hudson River, enclosed by glacial moraines), the East River (actually a tidal strait) and the Hudson River, all of which are confluent at the southern tip, from which all later development spread. Also of prime importance was the presence of deep fresh water aquifers near the southern tip, especially the Collect Pond.

In 1664, British ships captured the city, with minimal resistance: the governor at the time, Peter Stuyvesant, was unpopular with the residents of the city. The British renamed the colony New York, after the king's brother James, Duke of York and appointed Thomas Willett the first of the mayors of New york. The city grew northward, and remained the largest and most important city in the colony of New York.

New York was cosmopolitan from the first, established and governed largely as a strategic trading post. Jews expelled from Brazil were welcome in New York. St. Patrick's Day was celebrated in New York City for the first time at the Crown and Thistle Tavern on March 17, 1756. This holiday has since become a yearly city-wide celebration that is famous around the world as the St. Patrick's Day Parade.

The city itself was roundly Tory during the Revolutionary War; Several retreats and skirmishes were fought in Long Island and north of the city, in which the British defeated George Washington's troops, and held the city until 1783. 'Evacuation Day' was long celebrated in New York..

New York, then the nation's second largest city, was briefly the capital of the new United States of America, in 1789 and 1790, and George Washington was inaugurated as President in New York on the steps of Federal Hall. .

The opening of the Erie Canal, in 1825, helped the city grow further by increasing river traffic upstate and to the west, making it the Atlantic gateway to the heart of the continent. By 1835 Manhattan overtook Philadelphia as the most populous American city and was in the throes of the first of its building booms, cut short by the Panic of 1837. The city recovered and by mid-century established itself as the financial and mercantile capital of the western hemisphere. The raw excesses of unregulated capitalism created a large upper-middle and upper class, but its need for manpower encouraged immigration on an unprecedented scale, with mixed results. The famed melting pot was brought into being, from which multitudes have since arisen in the successful pursuit of the "American Dream". But countless others failed to rise, or entire generations were forced to plough themselves under for their children or grandchildren to rise. In the mid-1800s these antipodes could be found in the rich stretches of lower Broadway, Washington Square and Lafayette Street (wealth that would later take up more extravagant residences on Fifth Avenue) and the almost unbelievably squalid enclave of Five Points (abject poverty later to occupy the Lower East Side).

During the American Civil War on July 13, 1863 draft opponents began three days of rioting, the 'Draft Riots' that for a century would be regarded as the worst in United States history. The post-war period was noted for the corruption and graft for which Tammany Hall has become proverbial, but equally for the foundation of New York's pre-eminent cultural institutions, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, ther Metropolitan Opera, the American Museum of Natural History, while the Brooklyn Museum of Art was a major institution of New York's independent sister city. The Brooklyn Bridge epitomized the heroic confidence of a generation and tied the two cities inexorably together.

The modern city of New York -- the five boroughs -- was created in 1898, as the merger of the cities of New York (then Manhattan and the Bronx) and Brooklyn with the largely rural areas of Queens and Staten Island.

The building of the New York subway, as the separate IRT and BMT systems, and the later IND, was a later force for population spread and development. The first IRT line opened in 1904.

The world-famous Grand Central Terminal opened as the world's largest train station on February 1, 1913. Twice a New York World's Fair has mixed entertainment with a little progressivist instruction.

Starting in the early 1900s, New York City became known for its daring and impressive architecture. The city was a center for the Beaux-Arts movement, with architects like Stanford White, and Carrere and Hastings. New York's skyscrapers include the Flatiron Building (1902) where Fifth Avenue crosses Broadway at Madison Square, Cass Gilbert's Woolworth Building (1913) a neo-Gothic "Cathedral of Commerce" overlooking City Hall, the Chrysler Building (1929) the purest expression of the Art Deco skyscraper and the Empire State Building (1931) are all skyscraper icons. Modernist architect Raymond Hood and after World War II the''cf'' Lever Building began the clusters of 'glass boxes' that transformed the more classic previous skyline of the 1930s. When the World Trade Center towers were completed in 1973 many felt them to be sterile monstrosities, but most New Yorkers became fond of "The Twin Towers" and after the initial horror for the loss of life in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack there came great sadness for the loss of the buildings.

After Jerome Kern's 'Showboat' the Broadway musical developed into a characteristically American art, while Tin Pan Alley cranked out the tunes America danced to before rock and roll.

Culturally New York became a truly international city, rather than a great American city, with the influx of intellectual, musical and artistic European refugees that started in the late 1930s. After the war New York inherited the role of Paris as center of the art world with Abstract Expressionism, and became a rival to London as an art market.

An electrical blackout hit the City of New York on July 13, 1977, lasting for 25 hours and resulted in looting and other disorder. Nine months later a small baby boom hit the city.

Financial crisis hit the city in the mid-1970s, when it briefly appeared that the city might have to declare bankruptcy (see John Lindsay). The fiscal crisis resulted largely from the combination of generous welfare spending by the city government in the 1960s and the stock market and economic stagnation of the 1970s. President Gerald R. Ford earned the enmity of many New Yorkers when he refused to use federal money to "bail out" the city. The New York Daily News famously summarized Ford's decision in a headline: "Ford to City: Drop Dead".

The city rebounded in the 1990s due to an unprecedented expansion in the national economy and the stock market boom (or bubble) of the same decade. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor, is credited by many for revitalizing Times Square and making the city more "liveable" by cracking down on crime. Critics argue, however, that the drop in crime came at the price of greater friction between police and the city's people of color, and less concern for civil liberties, while others point out that other cities achieved similar drops in crime. Supporters of the former mayor reply that crime in the city fell more rapidly during Giuliani's term than in most other major U.S. cities, such as Detroit or Los Angeles.

New Yorkers lived through the city's bloodiest and perhaps most tragic day on September 11, 2001, when hijackers linked to the jihadist organization Al-Qaeda piloted jumbo jets into each of the World Trade Center towers. The airplanes, designated for cross-country flights and therefore engorged with jet fuel, slammed into the towers in the early morning hours of September 11. The crashes ripped gaping holes into the buildings, and ignited fires that brought the towers down. Nearly 2800 people, including both New Yorkers and visitors to the city, perished in the attack, including several hundred police officers and firefighters.

On February 27, 2003, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC), after receiving input from thousands of people all over the world, revealed the design for the World Trade Center site. Designed primarily by renowned architect Daniel Libeskind, the plans envision a 1,776-foot-tall tower to help restore the Manhattan skyline to its former grandeur. The site pays homage to the tragedy by leaving intact the slurry wall (which withstood the force of the destruction and held the waters of the Hudson river back), and by keeping the footprints of the towers available as a memorial site.

An electrical blackout rolled through the Northeastern United States and Southern Canada on August 14, 2003 at 4:11 PM, leaving many areas, including NYC, without electricity for over a day. There was no major looting or other crime, unlike in the blackout of 1977 (see 2003 US-Canada blackout).

Crime

New York has had a reputation as a crime-ridden city, partly due to the hundreds of TV and movie crime dramas set in it. However, in recent years it has been ranked in the top ten safest large cities in the United States by City Crime Rankings (9th edition, 2003). In addition, New York has been growing safer for most of the last decade--FBI data indicate that the murder rate in 2000 was the lowest since 1967.

There have been some notorious crime sprees, however. For example, on July 29, 1976 the "Son of Sam" pulled a gun from a paper bag killing one person and seriously wounding another in the first of a series of attacks that terrorized the city for the next year.

Politics

The current mayor of New York City is Michael Bloomberg, elected in 2001 on the Republican ticket. Bloomberg had come to prominence as an expert on Wall Street, which had brought him great wealth, but the mayoralty is his first political office. Bloomberg had been a Democrat until only a short time earlier, but switched to the Republican Party to run for mayor, in order to avoid a crowded Democratic primary. Bloomberg succeeded Rudy Giuliani, who actively supported Bloomberg as his successor.

Giuliani had been a very controversial mayor. His bid for United States Senator from New York State was aborted by treatment for cancer and controversy over his affair with Judith Nathan. He handled the aftermath of the World Trade Center disaster well, providing much-needed leadership, and greatly increased his popularity.

The Bronx Borough President is Adolfo Carrión, Jr., of Brooklyn, Marty Markowitz, of Staten Island, James P. Molinaro, of Queens, Helen Marshall, and Manhattan, C. Virgina Fields. The City Council is made up of 51 Counsel Members. The head of the City Council is called the Speaker, currently Gifford Miller. Local "Community Boards" are the decision-making bodies that take care of neighborhood based issues such as zoning variances and other local concerns.

The court system

The court system of New York City differs from that of the courts of other counties in New York State. Rather than County Courts, New York City has a special New York City Civil Court, which functions much like the civil jurisdiction of the County Court in other counties of New York State. The difference is the reach of the New York City Civil Court in each county; the court's jurisdiction is extended to the other counties of New York City so that a resident of one county does not have to use the Civil Court of another county. The New York City Civil Court generally has jurisdiction of controversies up to $25,000 and also supervise small claims and housing cases.

Each county in New York City also has a Criminal Court that handles lesser criminal cases and family related domestic violence offenses (a shared jurisdiction with Family Court). Unlike other New York State counties, Family Court judges in New York City are not elected, but appointed for terms of ten years by the Mayor.

Like all other counties, each New York City county has a sitting Supreme Court. In New York City, Supreme Court handles criminal cases on indictment, which in other counties of the state are handled by the County Court. As in the rest of the state, Supreme Court also handles larger civil cases. Grand juries sit in each of the counties as well.

Manhattan and the Bronx are in the first appellate department of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court. The First Department sits at the Court House on Madison Avenue and 25th Street. Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island (as well as the rest of Long Island and Westchester, Putnam, Dutchess, Rockland and Orange County) being in the second appellate department. The Second Department sits in Brooklyn at the Court House on Pierrepont Street and Morgan Place.

The borough of Brooklyn is also home to the Red Hook Community Justice Center, which opened in 2000 as the nation's first multi-jurisdictional community court which was built with city, state, and federal assistance in an attempt to alleviate the chronic lack of access to justice services in the isolated Red Hook area in Brooklyn. The court combines family court, civil and housing court and minor criminal court functions and takes a community development approach to justice through such programs as the Youth Court where teenagers are trained and act as mediators to help their peers resolve disputes.

Geography

New York City comprises Manhattan Island, Staten Island, the western part of Long Island, part of the North American mainland (the Bronx), and several small islands in New York Harbor.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 1,214.4 km² (468.9 mi²). 785.6 km² (303.3 mi²) of it is land and 428.8 km² (165.6 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 35.31% water.

Demographics

The median income for a household in the city is $38,293, and the median income for a family is $41,887. Males have a median income of $37,435 versus $32,949 for females. The per capita income for the city is $22,402. 21.2% of the population and 18.5% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total people living in poverty, 30.0% are under the age of 18 and 17.8% are 65 or older.

As of of 2000, there are 8,008,278 people, 3,021,588 households, and 1,852,233 families residing in the city. The population density is 10,194.2/km² (26,402.9/mi²). There are 3,200,912 housing units at an average density of 4,074.6/km² (10,553.2/mi²). The racial makeup of the city is 44.66% White, 26.59% African American, 0.52% Native American, 9.83% Asian, 0.07% Pacific Islander, 13.42% from other races, and 4.92% from two or more races. 26.98% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There are 3,021,588 households out of which 29.7% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 37.2% are married couples living together, 19.1% have a female householder with no husband present, and 38.7% are non-families. 31.9% of all households are made up of individuals and 9.9% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.59 and the average family size is 3.32.

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

Famous buildings, sites, and monuments

Stadiums

Museums

Public transport

See also New York City Transit Police.

Events

Crimes, Disasters, Assassinations

  • On 23 July 2003, 31-year-old Othniel Askew, a Brooklyn resident and political rival of City Councilmember James E. Davis, fired multiple gunshots in the City Hall chambers of the New York City Council, killing Davis. New York City Police Officer Richard Burt, who was on a special security detail in the Council Chamber, shot and killed Askew. According to news reports, Askew appeared at Councilmember Davis's Brooklyn office and drove with him to the New York City Hall. The security guards permitted both men to circumvent the security posts. (Under an agreement between the City and the City Council, councilmembers and their staff and guests were allowed to enter the building without a security check.) Since the shooting, however, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced that everyone (including himself) wishing to enter City Hall must go through the security checkpoints.

Further reading

  • Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Oxford University Press, 1998, hardcover, 1416 pages, ISBN 0195116348, trade paperback, 2000, 1424 pages, ISBN 0195140494


See also Mayors of NYC, New York City Police Department, New York Minute

New York, New York is also a pop standard, with a famous rendition by Frank Sinatra. The song gave its name to a film directed by Martin Scorsese (see New York, New York (film)). It is the New York Yankees' theme song.

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