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Thursday, May 27, 2010

New york city history

Giovanni da Verrazzano, the first European to explore New York Harbor
New Amsterdam, now Lower Manhattan, in 1660. North is to the right.

The region was inhabited by about 5,000 Lenape Native Americans at the time of its European discovery in 1524[10] by Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Italian explorer in the service of the French crown, who called it "Nouvelle Angoulême" (New Angoulême).[11] European settlement began with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement, later called "Nieuw Amsterdam" (New Amsterdam), on the southern tip of Manhattan in 1614. Dutch colonial Director-General Peter Minuitpurchased the island of Manhattan from the Lenape in 1626 for a value of 60guilders (about $1000 in 2006);[12] a disproved legend says that Manhattan was purchased for $24 worth of glass beads.[13][14]

In 1664, the city was surrendered to the English and renamed "New York" after the English Duke of York and Albany.[15] At the end of the Second Anglo-Dutch War the Dutch gained control of Run (then a much more valuable asset) in exchange for the English controlling New Amsterdam (New York) in North America. Several intertribal wars among the Native Americans and some epidemics brought on by the arrival of the Europeans caused sizable population losses for the Lenape between the years 1660 and 1670.[16] By 1700, the Lenape population had diminished to 200.[17] In 1702, city lost 10% of its population toyellow fever.[18] New York underwent no less than seven important yellow fever epidemics from 1702 to 1800.[19]

New York City grew in importance as a trading port while under British rule. The city hosted the influential John Peter Zenger trial in 1735, helping to establish thefreedom of the press in North America. In 1754, Columbia University was founded under charter by George II of Great Britain as King's College in Lower Manhattan.[20] The Stamp Act Congress met in New York in October of 1765 as the Sons of Liberty organized in the city, skirmishing over the next ten years with British troops stationed there.

During the American Revolutionary War, the area emerged as the theater for a series of crucial battles known as the New York Campaign. After the upper Manhattan Battle of Fort Washington in 1776 the city became the British military and political base of operations in North America, and a haven for Loyalistrefugees, until military occupation ended in 1783. A major fire during the occupation led to the destruction of about a quarter of the city. The assembly of the Congress of the Confederation made New York City the national capital shortly after the war: the Constitution of the United States was ratified and in 1789 the first President of the United States, George Washington, was inaugurated; the firstUnited States Congress and the United States Supreme Court each assembled for the first time in 1789, and the United States Bill of Rights drafted, all at Federal Hall on Wall Street.[21]By 1790, New York City had surpassed Philadelphia as the largest city in the United States.

Maps and Tables
Lower Manhattan in 1660
Weather Averages
The Five Boroughs
Largest corporations
Historical Populations
Sister Cities

In the 19th century, the city was transformed by immigration and development.[22] A visionary development proposal, the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, expanded the city street grid to encompass all of Manhattan, and the 1819 opening of the Erie Canal connected the Atlantic port to the vast agricultural markets of the North American interior.[23] Local politics fell under the domination of Tammany Hall, a political machine supported by Irish immigrants.[24]Public-minded members of the old merchant aristocracy lobbied for the establishment of Central Park, which became the first landscaped park in an American city in 1857. A significant free-black population also existed in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Slaves had been held in New York through 1827, but during the 1830s New York became a center of interracial abolitionist activism in the North. New York's black population was over 16,000 in 1840.[25] The Great Irish Famine brought a large influx of Irish immigrants, and by 1860, one in four New Yorkers – over 200,000 – had been born in Ireland.[26]

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.[27]

In 1898, the modern City of New York was formed with the consolidation of Brooklyn (until then a separate city), the County of New York (which then included parts of the Bronx), the County of Richmond, and the western portion of the County of Queens.[28] 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. However, this development did not come without a price. In 1904, the steamship General Slocum caught fire in the East River, killing 1,021 people on board.

In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the city's worst industrial disaster, took the lives of 146 garment workers and spurred the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and major improvements in factory safety standards.[29]

New York's nonwhite population was 36,620 in 1890.[30] In the 1920s, New York City was a prime destination for African Americans during the Great Migration from the American South. By 1916, New York City was home to the largest urban African diaspora in North America. The Harlem Renaissance flourished during the era of Prohibition, coincident with a larger economic boom that saw the skyline develop with the construction of competing skyscrapers.

Midtown Manhattan, New York City, fromRockefeller Center, 1932

New York City became the most populous urbanized area in the world in early 1920s, overtaking London, and the metropolitan area surpassed the 10 million mark in early 1930s becoming the first megacity in human history.[31] The difficult years of the Great Depression saw the election of reformer Fiorello LaGuardia as mayor and the fall of Tammany Hall after eighty years of political dominance.[32]

Returning World War II veterans created a postwar economic boom and the development of large 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 (completed in 1950) emphasizing New York's political influence, and the rise of abstract expressionism in the city precipitating New York's displacement of Paris as the center of the art world.[33]

The pre-9/11 skyline of Lower Manhattan, August 2001
A rendering of the rebuilt World Trade Center, with the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, currently under construction.

In the 1960s, New York suffered from economic problems, rising crime rates, which reached a peak in the 1970s. In the 1980s, resurgence in the financial industry improved the city's economic health. By the 1990s, crime rates dropped dramatically, many American transplants 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 died in the destruction of the World Trade Center.[34] A new 1 World Trade Center (previously known as the Freedom Tower), along with a memorial and three other office towers, will be built on the site and is scheduled for completion in 2013.[35]

On December 19, 2006, the first steel columns were installed in the building's foundation. Three other high-rise office buildings are planned for the site along Greenwich Street, and they will surround the World Trade Center Memorial, which is under construction. The area will also be home to a museum dedicated to the history of the site.

February 2007 estimates put the cost for construction of 1 WTC at $3 billion, or $1,150 per square foot ($12,380 per square meter).[36]Approximately $1 billion of insurance money recouped by Silverstein is slated for construction of the Freedom Tower.[36]

The State of New York is expected to provide $250 million toward construction costs, and the Port Authority would finance another $1 billion for 1 WTC, through bonds.[37]

Geography

New York City is located in the Northeastern United States, in southeastern New York State, approximately halfway between Washington, D.C.and Boston.[38] The location at the mouth of the Hudson River, which feeds into a naturally sheltered harbor and then into the Atlantic Ocean, has 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 Long Island, making land scarce and encouraging a high population density.

Satellite image showing the core of the New York metropolitan area. Over 10 million people live in the imaged area. Note that the picture does not include all of the area of New York City, missing parts of Staten Island and Queens, but does include populous communities in nearby New Jersey.

The Hudson River flows through the Hudson Valley into New York Bay. Between New York City and Troy, New York, the river is an estuary.[39] The Hudson separates the city from New Jersey. The East River – 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 substantially by human intervention, with considerable land reclamation along the waterfronts since Dutch colonial times. Reclamation is most prominent in Lower Manhattan, with developments such as Battery Park City in the 1970s and 1980s.[40] Some of the natural variations in topography have been evened out, especially in Manhattan.[41]

The city's land area is estimated at 304.8 square miles (789 km2).[3][4] Its total area is 468.9 square miles (1,214 km2). 164.1 square miles (425 km2) of this are water and 304.8 square miles (789 km2) is land. 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.[42] The summit of the ridge is mostly covered in woodlands as part of the Staten Island Greenbelt.[43]

Climate

New York has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa), and using the 0 °C standard, it is the northernmost major city in North America with this type of climate. The area averages 234 days with at least some sunshine annually, for an average of 2680 hours of bright sunshine per year .[44]

Winters are cold, and prevailing wind patterns that blow offshore minimizes the effect of the Atlantic Ocean. Yet, the Atlantic Ocean keeps the city warmer in the winter than inland North American cities located at similar latitudes such as Chicago, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. The average temperature in January, the area's coldest month, is 32.1 °F (0.1 °C). However temperatures in winter could for few days be as low as 10 °F (−12 °C) and as high as the 50s °F (10-15 °C).[45] Spring and autumn are unpredictable, and can range from chilly to warm, although they are usually pleasantly mild with low humidity. Summers are typically hot and humid with a July average high of 84.2 °F (29.0 °C) and low of 68.8 °F (20.4 °C). Nighttime conditions are often exacerbated by the urban heat island phenomenon, and temperatures exceed 90 °F (32 °C) on average of 16 – 19 days each summer and can exceed 100 °F (38 °C) every 4–6 years.[46]

New York City receives 49.7 inches (1,260 mm) of precipitation annually, which is fairly spread throughout the year. Average winter snowfall is about 28.1 inches (71 cm), but this usually varies considerably from year to year, and snow cover usually remains little.[44] Hurricanes and tropical storms are rare in the New York area, but are not unheard of and always have the potential to strike the area.


Environment

Mass transit use in New York City is the highest in the United States, and gasoline consumption in the city is the same rate as the national average in the 1920s.[49] New York City's high level of mass transit use saved 1.8 billion gallons of oil in 2006; New York saves half of all the oil saved by transit nationwide.[50] The city's population density, low automobile use and high transit utility make it among the most energy efficient cities in the United States.[51] New York City's greenhouse gas emissions are 7.1 metric tons per person compared with the national average of 24.5.[52] New Yorkers are collectively responsible for one percent of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions[52] though they comprise 2.7% of the nation's population. The average New Yorker consumes less than half the electricity used by a resident of San Francisco and nearly one-quarter the electricity consumed by a resident ofDallas.[53]

In recent years, the city has focused on reducing its environmental impact. Large amounts of concentrated pollution in New York City led to a high incidence of asthma and other respiratory conditions among the city's residents.[54] The city government is required to purchase only the most energy-efficient equipment for use in city offices and public housing.[55]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.[56] The city government was a petitioner in the landmark Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency Supreme Court case forcing the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants. The city is also a leader in the construction of energy-efficient green office buildings, including the Hearst Tower among others.[57]

New York City is supplied with drinking water by the protected Catskill Mountains watershed.[58] As a result of the watershed's integrity and undisturbed natural water filtration system, New York is one of only four major cities in the United States with drinking water pure enough not to require purification by water treatment plants.[59]

Cityscape

daytime skyline of a city, with a large body of water in front
A panorama of New York City taken from Hoboken, NJ. Beginning at the George Washington Bridge on the far left to Midtown Manhattan in the middle and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge at the far right.
View of the Midtown Manhattan skyline, looking north from the Empire State Building

Architecture

Brownstone rowhouses in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn

The building design most closely associated with New York City is the skyscraper, whose introduction and widespread adoption saw New York buildings shift from the low-scale European convention to the vertical rise of business districts.

As of August 2008, New York City has 5,538 highrise buildings,[60] with 50 completed skyscrapers taller than 656 feet (200 m). This is more than any other city in United States, and second in the world behind Hong Kong.[61]

New York has architecturally noteworthy buildings in a wide range of styles. These include the Woolworth Building (1913), an early gothic revival skyscraper built with massively scaled gothic detailing able to be read from street level several hundred feet below. The 1916 Zoning Resolution required setback in new buildings, and restricted towers to a percentage of the lot size, to allow sunlight to reach the streets below.[62]

Manhattan's architectural skyline is universally recognized, and the city has been home to several of the tallest buildings in the world. The original Chinatown in Lower Manhattan is one of the most prominent ethnic Chinese enclaves outside of Asia and draws throngs of tourists to its bustling sidewalks, restaurants, and discount retail establishments.

The Art Deco style of the Chrysler Building (1930), with its tapered top and steel spire, reflected the zoning requirements. The building is considered by many historians and architects to be New York's finest building, with its distinctive ornamentation such as replicas at the corners of the 61st floor of the 1928 Chrysler eagle hood ornaments and V-shaped lighting inserts capped by a steel spire at the tower's crown.[63]

A highly influential example of the international style in the United States is the Seagram Building (1957), distinctive for its facade using visible bronze-toned I-beams to evoke the building's structure. The Condé Nast Building (2000) is an prominent example of green design in American skyscrapers.[57]

New York's large residential districts are often defined by the classic brownstone rowhouses, townhouses, and shabby tenements that were built during a period of rapid growth from 1870 to 1930.[64] 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.[65]

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 contain a variety of textures and hues.[66]

A distinctive feature of many of the city's buildings is the wooden roof-mounted water towers. In the 1800s, the city required their installation on buildings higher than six stories to prevent the need for excessively high water pressures at lower elevations, which could break municipal water pipes.[67]

Garden apartments became popular during the 1920s in outlying areas, including Jackson Heights in Queens, which became more accessible with expansion of the subway.[68]

Parks

1) Central Park 2) Van Cortlandt Park 3) Bronx Park 4) Pelham Bay Park 5) Flushing Meadows Park 6) Forest Park 7) Prospect Park 8)Floyd Bennett Field 9) Jamaica Bay A) Jacob Riis Park and Fort TildenB) Fort Wadsworth C) Miller Field D) Great Kills Park

New York City has over 28,000 acres (110 km2) of municipal parkland and 14 miles (23 km) of public beaches.[69] This parkland is augmented by thousands of acres of Gateway National Recreation Area, part of the National Park system, that lie within city boundaries.

The Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, the only wildlife refuge in the National Park System, alone is over 9,000 acres (36 km2) of wetland islands and water taking up most of Jamaica Bay.

Manhattan's Central Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, is the most visited city park in the United States with 30 million visitors each year.[70] While much of the park looks natural, it is almost entirely landscaped.

It contains several natural-looking lakes and ponds, extensive walking tracks, bridle paths, two ice-skating rinks one of which is a swimming pool in July and August, the Central Park Zoo, the Central Park Conservatory Garden, a wildlife sanctuary, a large expanse of natural woods, a 106-acre (43 ha) billion gallon reservoir with an encircling running track, and an outdoor amphitheatercalled the Delacorte Theater which hosts the "Shakespeare in the Park" summer festivals. Indoor attractions include Belvedere Castle with its nature center, the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre, and the historic Carousel.

In addition there are numerous major and minor grassy areas. Some are used for informal or team sports, some are set aside as quiet areas, and some are enclosed as playgrounds for children. The park has its own wildlife and serves as an oasis for migrating birds, especially in the fall and the spring, making it a significant attraction for bird watchers; 200 species of birds are regularly seen. The 6 miles (10 km) of drives within the park are used by joggers, bicyclists and inline skaters, especially on weekends, and in the evenings after 7:00 p.m., when automobile traffic is banned. Prospect Park in Brooklyn, also designed by Olmsted and Vaux, has a 90-acre (360,000 m2) meadow.[71]

Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, the city's third largest, was the setting for the 1939 World's Fair and the 1964 World's Fair.

Over a fifth of the Bronx's area, 7,000 acres (28 km2), is given over to open space and parks, including Van Cortlandt Park, Pelham Bay Park, the Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Gardens.[72]

Central Park

Boroughs

New York City is composed of five boroughs, an unusual form of government[clarification needed].[73] Each borough is coextensive with a respective county of New York State as shown below. Throughout the boroughs there are hundreds of distinct neighborhoods, many with a definable history and character to call 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.

New York's Five Boroughs at a Glance
JurisdictionPopulationLand Area
Borough ofCounty ofestimate for
1 July 2008
square
miles
square
km
ManhattanNew York1,634,7952359
the BronxBronx1,391,90342109
BrooklynKings2,556,59871183
QueensQueens2,293,007109283
Staten IslandRichmond487,40758151
City of New York
8,363,710303786
19,490,29747,214122,284
Source: United States Census Bureau[74][75][76]

The Bronx (Bronx County: Pop. 1,391,903)[77] is New York City's northernmost borough, the location of Yankee Stadium, home of the New York Yankees, and home to the largest cooperatively owned housing complex in the United States, Co-op City.[78] Except for a small section of Manhattan known as Marble Hill, the Bronx is the only section of the city that is part of the United States mainland. It is home to the Bronx Zoo, the largest metropolitan zoo in the United States, which spans 265 acres (1.07 km2) and is home to over 6,000 animals.[79] The Bronx is the birthplace of rap and hip hop culture.[80]

Manhattan (New York County: Pop. 1,620,867)[77] is the most densely populated borough and is home to Central Park and most of the city's skyscrapers. The borough is the financial center of the city and contains the headquarters of many major corporations, theUnited Nations, a number of important universities, and many cultural attractions. Manhattan is loosely divided into Lower, Midtown, and Uptown regions. Uptown Manhattan is divided by Central Park into the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side, and above the park is Harlem.

The five boroughs:

1.Manhattan,
2.Brooklyn,
3.Queens,
4.The Bronx,
5.Staten Island

Brooklyn (Kings County: Pop. 2,528,050) [77], on the western tip of Long Island, is the city's most populous borough and was an independent city until 1898. Brooklyn is known for its cultural, social and ethnic diversity, an independent art scene, distinct neighborhoods and a distinctive architectural heritage.

It is also the only borough outside of Manhattan with a distinct downtown neighborhood. The borough features a long beachfront andConey Island, established in the 1870s as one of the earliest amusement grounds in the country.[81]

Queens (Queens County: Pop. 2,270,338)[77] is geographically the largest borough and the most ethnically diverse county in the United States,[82] and may overtake Brooklyn as the city's most populous borough due to its growth. Historically a collection of small towns and villages founded by the Dutch, today the borough is predominantly residential and middle class. Queens County is the only large county in the United States where the median income among African Americans, approximately $52,000 a year, is higher than that of White Americans.[83] Queens is the site of Citi Field, the home of the New York Mets, and annually hosts the U.S. Open tennis tournament. Additionally, it is home to two of the three major airports serving the New York metropolitan area, LaGuardia Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport. (The third is Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark,New Jersey.)

Staten Island (Richmond County: Pop. 481,613)[77] is the most suburban in character of the five boroughs. Staten Island is connected to Brooklyn by the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and to Manhattan by way of the free Staten Island Ferry. The Staten Island Ferry is one of the most popular tourist attractions in New York City as it provides unsurpassed views of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and lower Manhattan. Located in central Staten Island, the 25 km² Greenbelt has some 35 miles (56 km) of walking trails and one of the last undisturbed forests in the city. Designated in 1984 to protect the island's natural lands, the Greenbelt comprises seven city parks. The FDR Boardwalk along South Beach is 2.5 miles (4.0 km) long, the fourth largest in the world.[citation needed]

Culture and contemporary life

"Culture just seems to be in the air, like part of the weather", the writer Tom Wolfe has said of New York City.[84]

Numerous major American cultural movements began in the city, such as the Harlem Renaissance, which established the African-American literary canon in the United States.

The city was a center of jazz in the 1940s, abstract expressionism in the 1950s and the birthplace of hip hop in the 1970s. The city's punk and hardcore scenes were influential in the 1970s and 1980s, and the city has long had a flourishing scene for Jewish American literature.

Prominent indie rock bands coming out of New York in recent years include The Strokes, Interpol, The Bravery, Scissor Sisters, and They Might Be Giants.

The city prominently excels in its spheres of art, cuisine, dance, music, opera, theater, independent film, fashion, museums, and literature. The city is the birthplace of many cultural movements, including the Harlem Renaissance in literature and visual art; abstract expressionism (also known as the New York School) in painting; and hip hop,[80] punk,[85] salsa,disco, freestyle, and Tin Pan Alley in music. New York City is also widely celebrated in popular lore, featured frequently as the setting for books, movies, and television programs.

Entertainment and performing arts

The city is also prominent in the American film industry. Manhatta (1920), an early avant-garde film, was filmed in the city.[86]

Today, New York City is the second largest center for the film industry in the United States. The city has more than 2,000 arts and cultural organizations and more than 500 art galleries of all sizes.[87]

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the largest museums in the world.

The city government funds the arts with a larger annual budget than the National Endowment for the Arts.[87] Wealthy industrialists in the 19th century built a network of major cultural institutions, such as the famed Carnegie Hall and Metropolitan Museum of Art, that would become internationally established. The advent of electric lighting led to elaborate theater productions, and in the 1880s New York City theaters on Broadway and along 42nd Street began featuring a new stage form that became known as the Broadway musical.

Strongly influenced by the city's immigrants, productions such as those of Harrigan and Hart, George M. Cohan and others used song in narratives that often reflected themes of hope and ambition. Today these productions are a staple of the New York theater scene.

The city's 39 largest theaters (with more than 500 seats) are collectively known as "Broadway," after the major thoroughfare that crosses the Times Squaretheater district.[88] This area is sometimes referred to as The Main Stem, The Great White Way or The Realto.

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is home to 12 influential arts organizations, making it the largest performing arts complex in the United States.

The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, includes...

Central Park SummerStage presents performances of free plays and music in Central Park and 1,200 free concerts, dance, and theater events across all five boroughs in the summer months.[89]

Tourism

Times Square has been dubbed "The Crossroads of the World."[90]

Tourism is vital to New York City, with about 47 million foreign and American tourists visiting each year.[91]Major destinations include the Empire State Building; Ellis Island; Broadway theater productions; museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art; greenspaces such as Central Park and Washington Square Park;Rockefeller Center; Times Square; the Bronx Zoo; the New York Botanical Garden; luxury shopping along Fifthand Madison Avenues; and events such as the Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the St. Patrick's Day parade, the Tribeca Film Festival, and free performances in Central Park at Summerstage. Additionally, the Statue of Liberty is a leading tourist attraction and one of the most recognizable icons of the United States.[92]

Many of the city's ethnic enclaves, such as Jackson Heights, Flushing, and Brighton Beach are prime shopping destinations for first and second generation Americans up and down the East Coast.

Media

New York's MTA gives the city a large newspaper readership base.[93]

New York is a center for the television, advertising, music, newspaper and book publishing industries and is also the largest media market in North America (followed by Los Angeles, Chicago, and Toronto)[94].

Some of the city's media conglomerates include Time Warner, the Thomson Reuters Corporation, the News Corporation, the Hearst Corporation, and Viacom. Seven of the world's top eight global advertising agency networks have their headquarters in New York[95]. The New York Times has won more Pulitzer Prizes for journalism than any other news publication.

Four "major labels" dominate recorded music —

One-third of all American independent films are produced in New York[97].

More than 200 newspapers and 350 consumer magazines have an office in the city[97] and the book-publishing industry employs about 25,000 people[98].

Two of the three national daily newspapers in the United States are New York papers:

Major tabloid newspapers in the city include:

The city also has a major ethnic press, with 270 newspapers and magazines published in more than 40 languages.[99] El Diario La Prensa is New York's largest Spanish-language daily and the oldest in the nation[100]. The New York Amsterdam News, published in Harlem, is a prominent African American newspaper.

The Village Voice is the largest alternative newspaper.

The television industry developed in New York and is a significant employer in the city's economy.

The four major American broadcast networks are:

Many cable channels are based in the city as well, including

In 2005, there were more than 100 television shows taped in New York City[101].

New York is also a major center for non-commercial media.

The oldest public-access television channel in the United States is the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, founded in 1971.[102] *WNET is the city's major public television station and a primary source 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[103].

The City of New York operates a public broadcast service, nyctv, that produces several original Emmy Award-winning shows covering music and culture in city neighborhoods and city government.

Cuisine

New York's food culture, influenced by the city's immigrants and large number of dining patrons, is diverse.

Eastern European and Italian immigrants have made the city famous for bagels, cheesecake, 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 modern New York street food, although hot dogs and pretzels are still the main street fare.[104]

The city is also home to many of the finest haute cuisine restaurants in the United States.[105] New York City's variety of world cuisines is also varied.

Examples could include:

Accent

The New York City area has a distinctive regional speech pattern called the New York dialect, alternatively known as Brooklynese or New Yorkese. It is generally considered one of the most recognizable accents within American English.[106] The classic version of this dialect is centered on middle and working class people of European American descent, and the influx of non-European immigrants in recent decades has led to changes in this distinctive dialect.[107]

The traditional New York area accent is non-rhotic, so that the sound [ɹ] does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant; hence the pronunciation of the city name as "New Yawk."[107] There is no [ɹ] in words like park [pɔːk] (with vowel raised due to the low-back chain shift), butter [bʌɾə], or here [hiə]. In another feature called the low back chain shift, the [ɔ] vowel sound of words like talk, law, cross, and coffee and the often homophonous [ɔr] in core and more are tensed and usually raised more than in General American.

In the most old-fashioned and extreme versions of the New York dialect, the vowel sounds of words like "girl" and of words like "oil" become a diphthong [ɜɪ]. This is often misperceived by speakers of other accents as a reversal of the er and oy sounds, so that girl is pronounced "goil" and oil is pronounced "erl"; this leads to the caricature of New Yorkers saying things like "Joizey" (Jersey), "Toidy-Toid Street" (33rd St.) and "terlet" (toilet).[107] The character Archie Bunker from the 1970s sitcom All in the Family was a good example of a speaker who had this feature. This speech pattern is no longer prevalent.[107]

Sports

The new Yankee Stadium has been home to the New York Yankees since 2009.

New York City has teams in the four major North American professional sports leagues, and has won 43 championships in these leagues, as of May 2010.[citation needed]

There have been fourteen World Series championship series between New York City teams, in matchups called Subway Series. New York is one of only five metro areas (Chicago, Washington-Baltimore, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area being the others) to have two baseball teams. The city's two current Major League Baseball teams are the New York Yankees and the New York Mets, who compete in six games every regular season. The Yankees have enjoyed 27 championships, while the Mets have won the World Series on two occasions. The city also was once home to the New York Giants (now the San Francisco Giants) and the Brooklyn Dodgers (now the Los Angeles Dodgers). Both teams moved to California in 1958. There are also two minor league baseball teams in the city, the Staten Island Yankees and Brooklyn Cyclones.

The city is represented in the National Football League by the New York Jets and New York Giants (officially the New York Football Giants), although both teams play their home games in Meadowlands Stadium in nearby East Rutherford, New Jersey.

The New York City Marathon is the largest marathon in the world.

The New York Rangers represent the city in the National Hockey League. Within the metro area are two other teams, the New Jersey Devilsand the New York Islanders, who play on Long Island. This is the only instance of a metro area having 3 teams within one of the 4 major North American professional sports leagues.

The city's National Basketball Association team is the New York Knicks and the city's Women's National Basketball Association team is theNew York Liberty. Also within the metro area is the NBA team New Jersey Nets Who will move to nearby Brooklyn to the Barclays Center as early as 2012. The first national college-level basketball championship, the National Invitation Tournament, was held in New York in 1938 and remains in the city.[108] Rucker Park in Harlem is a celebrated court where many professional athletes play in the summer league.

The U.S. Tennis Open (held in Queens) is the fourth and final event of the Grand Slam tennis tournaments.

In soccer, New York is represented by the Major League Soccer side, Red Bull New York. The "Red Bulls" play their home games at Red Bull Arena in New Jersey.

As a global city, New York supports many events outside these sports. Queens is host of the U.S. Tennis Open, one of the four Grand Slam tournaments. The New York City Marathon is one of the world's largest, and the 2004–2006 runnings hold the top three places in the marathons with the largest number of finishers, including 37,866 finishers in 2006.[109] The Millrose Games is an annual track and field meet whose featured event is the Wanamaker Mile. Boxing is also a prominent part of the city's sporting scene, with events like the Amateur Boxing Golden Gloves being held at Madison Square Garden each year.

Many sports are associated with New York's immigrant communities. Stickball, a street version of baseball, was popularized by youths in working class Italian, German, and Irish neighborhoods in the 1930s. Stickball is still commonly played, as a street in The Bronx has been renamed Stickball Blvd. as tribute to New York's most known street sport. In recent years several amateur cricket leagues have emerged with the arrival of immigrants from South Asia and the Caribbean. Street hockey, football, and baseball are also commonly seen being played on the streets of New York. New York City is often called "The World's Biggest Urban Playground," as street sports are commonly played by people of all ages.[110]

New York city's rugby league team the New York Knights play in the AMNRL. They won the 2009 AMNRL Championship Final against the Jacksonville Axemen 32-12.[111]

Economy

The Top 25 Fortune 500 Companies
in New York City in 2010
(ranked by 2009-10 revenues)
with New York and U.S. ranks
NYCcorporationUS
1J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.9
2Citigroup12
3Verizon Communications13
4American International Group16
5Goldman Sachs Group39
6Pfizer40
7MetLife51
8New York Life Insurance64
9Morgan Stanley70
10News Corp.76
11Hess79
12Time Warner82
13American Express88
14TIAA-CREF90
15Philip Morris International94
16The Travelers Companies98
17Bristol-Myers Squibb114
18Alcoa127
19Time Warner Cable131
20L-3 Communications148
21Colgate-Palmolive151
22Loews165
23Viacom170
24Consolidated Edison175
25CBS177
Notes
Revenues for year ending before April 2010
Finance, insurance & securities (12 co's)
Entertainment (4 companies)
An earlier, more detailed table and notes
are in
Economy of New York City

Source: Fortune [112]

The New York Stock Exchange onWall Street is the largest stock exchange in the world by dollar volume.

New York City is a global hub of international business and commerce and is one of three "command centers" for the world economy (along with London and Tokyo).[113] The city is a major center for finance, insurance, real estate, media and the arts in the United States.

The New York metropolitan area had approximately gross metropolitan product of $1.13 trillion in 2005,[114][115] making it the largest regional economy in the United States and, according to IT Week, the second largest city economy in the world.[116] According to Cinco Dias, New York controlled 40% of the world's finances by the end of 2008, making it the largest financial center in the world.[117][118][119]

Many major corporations are headquartered in New York City, including 42 Fortune 500companies.[120] New York is also unique among American cities for its large number of foreign corporations. One out of ten private sector jobs in the city is with a foreign company.[121]

New York City is home to some of the nation's—and the world's—most valuable real estate. 450Park Avenue was sold on July 2, 2007 for $510 million, about $1,589 per square foot ($17,104/m²), breaking the barely month-old record for an American office building of $1,476 per square foot ($15,887/m²) set in the June 2007 sale of 660 Madison Avenue.[122]

Manhattan had 353.7 million square feet (32,860,000 m²) of office space in 2001.[123]

Midtown Manhattan is the largest central business district in the United States and is home to the highest concentration of the city's skyscrapers. Lower Manhattan is the third largest central business district in the United States, and is home to The New York Stock Exchange, located on Wall Street, and the NASDAQ, representing the world's first and second largest stock exchanges, respectively, when measured by average daily trading volume and overall market capitalization.[124] Financial services account for more than 35% of the city's employment income.[125] Real estate is a major force in the city's economy, as the total value of all New York City property was $802.4 billion in 2006.[126] The Time Warner Center is the property with the highest-listed market value in the city, at $1.1 billion in 2006.[126]

The city's television and film industry is the second largest in the country after Hollywood.[127] Creative industries such as new media, advertising, fashion, design and architecture account for a growing share of employment, with New York City possessing a strong competitive advantage in these industries.[128] High-tech industries like biotechnology, software development, game design, and internet services are also growing, bolstered by the city's position at the terminus of several transatlantic fiber optic trunk lines.[129] Other important sectors include medical research and technology, non-profit institutions, and universities.

Manufacturing accounts for a large but declining share of employment. Garments, chemicals, metal products, processed foods, and furniture are some of the principal products.[130] The food-processing industry is the most stable major manufacturing sector in the city.[131] Food making is a $5 billion industry that employs more than 19,000 residents. Chocolate is New York City's leading specialty-food export, with $234 million worth of exports each year.[131]

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