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Alternate use: New York, New York (song)

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].

History

First settlements

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 Walloon families in 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), Flushing (from Vlissingen) 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, and an unusually varied geography ranging from marshland to large outcrops of Manhattan schist, an extremely hard granitic rock that is ideal as an anchor for the foundations of large buildings.

Arrival of British

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. Freedom of worship was part of the city's foundation, and the trial for libel in 1735 of John Peter Zenger, editor of the New-York Weekly Journal established the principle of freedom of the press in the British colonies.

Though the lead statue of George III in Bowling Green was melted down for bullets in the first enthusiasm of the Revolution, the city itself was roundly Tory during the 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. In 1792 a group of merchants began meeting under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street, beginning the New York Stock Exchange, while a yellow fever epidemic that summer sent New Yorkers fleeing to nearby healthful Greenwich Village.

The Erie Canal

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, unfazed by the summer of cholera in 1832 but 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 contrast between 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).

In 1857 Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman physician, founded the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children.

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, the 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.

New York newspapers were read across the continent as editors James Gordon Bennett, Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst battled for readership.

The flood of immigration from Europe passed through Ellis Island in New York Harbor, under the eye of the Statue of Liberty (1886).

City of five boroughs

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, replacing an earlier terminal on the site. It was preceded by Pennsylvania Station, several blocks to the south. Twice a New York World's Fair has mixed entertainment with a little progressivist instruction.

New architecture

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 Lever House 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 attacks 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.

Multicultural impact

The era of graft and corruption, unfairly epitomized by mayor Jimmy Walker was followed by the reformer Fiorello La Guardia, arguably New York's greatest mayor, and the rise of the bridges, parks and parkways coordinator, Robert Moses, the greatest proponent of automobile-centered modernist urbanism.

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. However, the city lost two baseball teams to California, the Dodgers and the Giants, in the late 1950s. They were replaced by the Mets.

Financial crisis

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".

An electrical blackout hit the City of New York on July 13, 1977, lasting for 25 hours and resulted in looting and other disorder.

Adult entertainment sites filled the Times Square district beginning sometime in the 1960s, and continuing until the Disneyfication of the area in the 1990s. There are still such sites in the vicinity.

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 some of the city's ethnic groups, 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.

September 11, 2001

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 two airliners 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 a 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 U.S.-Canada blackout).

Historical population

1800: 79,200 inhabitants
1830: 242,300
1850: 696,100
1880: 1,912,000
1900: 3,347,000
1928: 6,018,000

For each year, this list shows the total number of inhabitants of the five boroughs of New York.

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.

As soon as the Sicilian Mafia moved to New York in the 1920's, they became infamous with their hits on businesses that did not pay money to them. They had also set up smuggling rings and fixed boxing matches. The Mafia flourished due to a distrust of the police in the Italian-American communities in New York. The five largest crime families in New York were the Bonnanos, the Colombos, the Gambinos, the Genovese, and the Luchese. The assimilation of the Italian-American population is choking the Mafia in New York, although they still operate.

Politics

Satellite Image of New York City New York city, viewed from the TERRA satellite.The prominent green rectangle is Central Park, on Manhattan island. Ground Zero can just be distinguished, as the largest of the pale spots near the southern tip of Manhattan.
Larger Version

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 Councilmembers. 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 and climate

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.

New York has a humid continental climate. The city is adjacent to water, so temperature changes are not as drastic as those inland. Every winter, it snows in New York due to its latitude. Because of its key position, New York had been king in the shipping passenger trade between Europe and the Americas for quite some time, until the airplane came into wider use across the Atlantic.

Staten Island is hilly, and is the least populated borough of the boroughs in New York City. Space is sparse on Manhattan, therefore tall buildings are preferred.

The city will be threatened if the current patterns of global warming continue to rise the sea level.

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 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.

Economy

New York is a center of many industries in the United States. It was the early center of the American film industry, until it moved to Los Angeles, and still has some movie and television production. New York is also a financial center for the country, containing the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. The New York financial industry is based in Wall Street, lower Manhattan. New York is also the center of the clothing industry in the United States. Many fashions come out of New York from different designers. New York also has a lot of book publishers, which often have New York as the very first city in publishing. New York also has a large tourism industry. See below for more details about the tourism industry.

Major Corporations based in New York

Chrysler Corporation was based here until it merged with Daimler-Benz into Stuttgart based DaimlerChrysler AG. Altria was based here under its former name Phillip Morris. Altria moved its headquarters to Richmond, Virginia. Texaco was based here until it merged with Chevron into San Ramon, California based ChevronTexaco.

People of New York

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.

New York has been more of an international city than an "American" city, due to the large influx of immigrants. Only Los Angeles receives more immigrants. Hundreds of languages are spoken in New York City. Irish, Italian and Jewish areas of the city still exist. New York has a higher Jewish population than Jerusalem, Israel does. New York has also received a lot of Puerto Ricans whom migrated from their commonwealth to New York City.

Before September 11, the perception of New Yorkers was often as rude and brusque, but since the World Trade Center destruction, many people empathized with New Yorkers, and so, the stereotype has largely faded away.

New York has an intense rivalry with the city of Boston, Massachusetts. This is perhaps the most infamous city rivalry in the United States.

Tourism

Tourism is a very large business in New York. Many people visit the Radio City Music Hall, the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge, Ellis Island, and several other famous New York City landmarks. The World Trade Center was a famous tourist destination before 9/11. Now, Ground Zero is a famous tourist destination. The most famous FAO Schwarz is located in Manhattan. It is so popular that long lines to enter are seen as one approaches the building.

Coney Island, in the south of Brooklyn, has New York's roller coasters and amusement parks.

The first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was held in New York on November 27, 1924. Since then this has been a annual event drawing tens of thousands of spectators and in later years millions of television viewers.

Many people characterize the tourist-filled Manhattan as "New York". New York is actually more diverse than that, since Staten Island and Queens have shorter buildings than Manhattan does.

Famous buildings, sites, and monuments

A common saying about con artists is to say that they are selling "pieces of the Brooklyn Bridge."

Sports teams and stadiums

Unlike most major cities, New York has two teams for most types of sports, one for each division.

The New York Islanders reside in the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum of Uniondale, New York. This arena is also home to the New York Dragons of the Arena Football League. The rest of New York's teams reside in the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The New York Giants (National Football League), the New York Jets (NFL), and the MetroStars (Major League Soccer) play in Giants Stadium. The New Jersey Nets (NBA) and the New Jersey Devils (NHL) are based in the Continental Airlines Arena.

Ebbetts Field is the former home of the Brooklyn Dodgers until 1958 (Now known as the Los Angeles Dodgers)

New York City is also home to two minor league baseball teams. Both play in the short-season Class A New York-Penn League, and each is an affiliate of one of the city's major-league teams. The Brooklyn Cyclones are a Mets affiliate, and the Staten Island Yankees are (obviously) affiliated with the Yankees.

Museums

Public transport

Unlike most of America's car-oriented urban areas, public Transportation is the common way of travel for New York City residents. High parking fees, alternate side of the street parking rules and traffic jams discourage driving, and a fast, efficient, but not always clean, subway system provides the best alternative. People living in the suburbs in eastern Long Island, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and upstate New York tend to use the automobile to work in New York City.

High tollway fees on bridges and underground tunnels help raise revenue and discourage too many commuters from using the crossings. New Yorkers who live in the city tend to take taxis, buses, subways (the underground in British English), and elevated trains. Ferries are also taken between Manhattan and New Jersey, as well as other parts of New York City.

Most New Yorkers fly domestic flights out of La Guardia Airport, while many flying domestically into Newark and JFK are not from the New York area. While Newark was the first airport in the area, and the closest to Manhattan, it is in New Jersey.

See also New York City Transit Police.

Events

Crimes, disasters, and assassinations

  • July 11-13, 1863 - Approximately 50,000 people riot in protest of President Lincoln's announcement of a draft for troops to fight in the civil war.
  • March 12-13, 1888 - A record blizzard drops 21 inches of snow on the city. An estimated 800 people die.
  • June 14, 1904 - The General Slocum catches fire while cruising the East River. Over 1000 passengers are killed.
  • June 25, 1906 - Stanford White is shot and killed by Harry K. Thaw. The murder would soon be dubbed "the Crime of the Century".
  • March 25, 1911 - 145 employees, mostly women, are killed in the Triangle Factory fire.
  • July 28, 1945 - A B-25 Mitchell bomber accidentally crashs into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building, killing 13 people.
  • March 13, 1964 - Kitty Genovese is stabbed to death. The crime is witnessed by dozens of people, none of whom aid Genovese or call for help.
  • November 9, 1965 - New York City is affected by a power blackout that affects several states.
  • July 29, 1976 - David Berkowitz (aka the "Son of Sam") kills one person and seriously wounds another in the first of a series of attacks that terrorized the city for the next year
  • July 13-14, 1977 - New York City again loses power in a blackout. Unlike the previous blackout twelve years earlier, this blackout is followed by widespread rioting and looting.
  • December 8, 1980 - John Lennon is killed in front of his home, The Dakota building.
  • December 22, 1984 - Bernhard Goetz shoots four men on a subway who tried to rob him.
  • April 14, 1989 - Trisha Meili (aka the Central Park Jogger) is violently raped and beaten while jogging in Central Park. The crime is later attributed to a group of young men who were practicing an activity they called "wilding". However, DNA evidence later proved the originally charged teens innocent; a convicted serial rapist confessed to the crime.
  • February 26, 1993 - A bomb planted by terrorists explodes in the World Trade Center's underground garage, killing six people and injuring over a thousand.
  • December 7, 1993 - Colin Ferguson shoots 25 passengers on a commuter train out of Penn Station.
  • July 17, 1996 - TWA Flight 800 crashes in Long Island Sound. Some people allege the plane was struck by a missile.
  • September 11, 2001 - The World Trade Center towers and several surrounding buildings are destroyed by a terrorist attack. Approximately 3000 people are killed.
  • 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.
  • August 14, 2003 - New York loses power in a blackout that affects eight states as well as in parts of Canada.
  • October 15, 2003 - At about 3:30 pm, the Staten Island Ferry boat the Andrew J. Barberi collided with a pier on the eastern end of the St. George Ferry Terminal in Staten Island killing at least ten people, seriously injuring many others, and tearing a huge slash through the lowest of the three passenger decks. It is the worst mass transit disaster in New York City in over a century.

Plays and Musicals set in New York

Movies and TV Shows set in New York

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

Sources

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