New York City
(officially The City of New York
) is the largest city in the United States, with its metropolitan area ranking among the largest urban areas in the world. Located on the country's east coast in New York State, it was founded as a commercial trading post by the Dutch in 1625, and has been the largest city in the United States since 1790. It also served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. Located on one of the world's finest natural harbors, New York is one of the world's major centers of commerce and finance. New York also exerts global influence in media, education, entertainment, arts, fashion and advertising. The city is also a major center for international affairs, hosting the headquarters of the United Nations.
New York City comprises five boroughs: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island each coterminous with the five counties of Bronx, Kings, New York, Queens, and Richmond respectively. With over 8.2 million residents within an area of , [3] [4] New York City is the most densely populated major city in the United States. [5] [6] [7]
Many of the city's neighborhoods and landmarks are known around the world. The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Wall Street, in Lower Manhattan, has been a dominant global financial center since World War II and is home to the New York Stock Exchange. The city has been home to several of the tallest buildings in the world, including the Empire State Building and the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
New York 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, [8] punk, [9] salsa, and Tin Pan Alley in music. It is the home of Broadway theatre.
In 2005, nearly 170 languages were spoken in the city and 36% of its population was born outside the United States. [10] [11] Through the years, New York City has acquired several nicknames. It can be called Gotham, or The Big Apple, while Broadway, the theatre center of the city, can be called The Main Stem, The Great White Way or The Realto. [12] New York is oftentimes just called "The City That Never Sleeps," due to its 24-hour subway and constant bustling of traffic and people. [13]
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History
Lower Manhattan in 1660, when it was part of New Amsterdam. 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
[14] by
Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Italian explorer in the service of the French crown, who called it "Nouvelle Angoulême" (
New Angoulême).
[15] 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 Minuit purchased the island of Manhattan from the Lenape in 1626 for a value of 60 guilders (legend, now disproved, says that Manhattan was purchased for $24 worth of glass beads).
[16] [17] In 1664, the English conquered the city and renamed it "New York" after the
English Duke of York and Albany.
[18] At the end of the
Second Anglo-Dutch War the Dutch gained control of
Run (a much more valuable asset at the time) in exchange for the English controlling New Amsterdam (New York) in North America. By 1700, the Lenape population was diminished to 200.
[19]
New York City grew in importance as a trading port while under
British rule. The city hosted the seminal
John Peter Zenger trial in 1735, helping to establish the
freedom 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.
The city emerged as the theater for a series of major battles known as the
New York Campaign during the
American Revolutionary War. After the
Battle of Fort Washington in upper Manhattan in 1776 the city became the British military and political base of operations in North America until military occupation ended in 1783. The assembly of the
Congress of the Confederation made New York City the national capital shortly thereafter; the
Constitution of the United States was ratified and in 1789 the first
President of the United States,
George Washington, was inaugurated there; the first
United States Congress 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.
Mulberry Street, on Manhattan's Lower East Side, circa 1900
In the 19th century, the city was transformed by immigration and development. 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.
[22] Local politics fell under the domination of
Tammany Hall, a
political machine supported by Irish immigrants.
[23] 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, as well as in 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.
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.
[24] In 1898, the modern City of New York was formed with the consolidation of Brooklyn (until then an independent 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.
[25] 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.
[26]
Midtown Manhattan, New York City, from Rockefeller Center, 1932
In the 1920s, New York City was a major 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. New York City became the most populous city in the world in 1948, overtaking
London, which had reigned for over a century. 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.
[27]
Returning
World War II veterans and
immigrants from Europe created a postwar economic boom and the development of huge housing tracts in eastern Queens. New York emerged from the war unscathed and the leading city of the world, with Wall Street leading America's ascendance as the world's dominant economic power, the
United Nations headquarters (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.
[28] In the 1960s, New York suffered from economic problems, rising crime rates and racial tension, which reached a peak in the 1970s.
The pre-9/11 skyline of Lower Manhattan, August 2001
In the 1980s, resurgence in the financial industry improved the city's fiscal health. By the 1990s, racial tensions had calmed, crime rates dropped dramatically, and waves of new immigrants arrived from Asia and Latin America. Important new sectors, such as
Silicon Alley, emerged in the city's economy and New York's population reached an all-time high in the
2000 census.
The city was one of the sites of the
September 11, 2001 attacks, when nearly 3,000 people died in the destruction of the
World Trade Center. The
Freedom Tower will be built on the site and is scheduled for completion in 2013.
Geography
Satellite image showing the core of the New York metropolitan area. Over 10 million people live in the imaged area
New York City is located in the
Northeastern United States, in southeastern
New York State, approximately halfway between
Washington, D.C. and
Boston.
[29] 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.
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.
[30] The Hudson separates the city from
New Jersey. The
East River, actually a tidal strait, flows from
Long Island Sound and separates the Bronx and Manhattan from Long Island. The
Harlem River, another tidal strait between the East and Hudson Rivers, separates Manhattan from the Bronx.
The city's land has been altered considerably by human intervention, with substantial
land reclamation along the waterfronts since Dutch colonial times. Reclamation is most notable in
Lower Manhattan, with developments such as
Battery Park City in the 1970s and 1980s.
[31] Some of the natural variations in topography have been evened out, particularly in Manhattan.
[32]
The city's land area is estimated at .
New York City's total area is . of this is water and 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.
[33] The summit of the ridge is largely covered in woodlands as part of the
Staten Island Greenbelt.
[34]
Climate
New York City has a
humid subtropical climate according to the
Köppen climate classification because coldest month average temperature is -1.5°C.
Summers are typically hot & humid with average high temperatures of 83°F (28°C) and lows of 68°F (20°C). Temperatures of 90°F (32°C) or higher occurs on average 18-25 days each summer,
but temperatures below 0°F (-18°C) or above 100°F (38°C) are uncommon.
Winters are cold but the city's coastal position keeps temperatures slightly milder than inland regions, with temperatures around freezing point.
[35] Spring and Fall are erratic, and could range from cool to hot, although they are usually pleasant with low humidity. New York City has on average 234 sunshine days and 132 cloudy days, but 96 of it is with precipitation.
[36]
The annual yearly precipitation that is fairly divided throughout the months is around 46 inches (1,180 mm) and about 25 to 35 inches (63.5 to 88.9 cm) of snow every winter season, but often without accumulation because temperatures are not low enough.
Thunderstorms, sometimes severe are common during the summer months.
Though not usually associated with
hurricanes, New York City is susceptible to them, notably the
1821 Norfolk and Long Island hurricane which flooded southern Manhattan, and the
New England Hurricane of 1938, which brushed the eastern end of the city. The city's long-term climate patterns have been affected by the
Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, a 70-year-long warming and cooling cycle in the Atlantic that influences the frequency and severity of coastal storms in the region.
[37]
Environment
Mass transit use in New York City is the highest in United States and gasoline consumption in the city is at the rate the national average was in the 1920s.
[39] New York City's high rate of transit use saved 1.8 billion gallons of oil in 2006; New York saves half of all the oil saved by transit nationwide.
[40] The city's population density, low automobile use and high transit utility make it among the most energy efficient cities in the United States.
[41] New York City's greenhouse gas emissions are 7.1
metric tons per person compared with the national average of 24.5.
New Yorkers are collectively responsible for one percent of the nation's total
greenhouse gas emissions
[42] though comprising 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 of
Dallas.
[43]
In recent years the city has focused on reducing its environmental impact. Large amounts of concentrated pollution in New York City lead to high incidence of
asthma and other respiratory conditions among the city's residents.
[44] The city government is required to purchase only the most energy-efficient equipment for use in city offices and public housing.
[45] 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.
[46] 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.
[47]
New York City is supplied with drinking water by the protected
Catskill Mountains watershed.
[48] As a result of the watershed's integrity and undisturbed natural water filtration process, New York is one of only five major cities in the United States with drinking water pure enough not to require purification by
water treatment plants.
[not in citation given] [49]
Cityscape
thumb skyline from the
Empire State Building
Architecture
The building form most closely associated with New York City is the
skyscraper that saw New York buildings shift from the low-scale European tradition to the vertical rise of business districts. New York City has about 5671 skyscrapers, with 48 completed building over 200 m, the most in the world.
[50] Surrounded mostly by water, the city's residential density and high real estate values in commercial districts saw the city amass the largest collection of individual, free-standing office and
residential towers in the world.
[51]
19th-century brownstone rowhouses in Brooklyn
New York has architecturally significant 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.
[52] The
Art Deco design 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.
[53] 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 important example of
green design in American skyscrapers.
The character of New York's large residential districts is often defined by the elegant
brownstone rowhouses,
townhouses, and shabby
tenements that were built during a period of rapid expansion from 1870 to 1930.
[54] 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.
[55] Unlike Paris, which for centuries was built from its own limestone bedrock, New York has always drawn its building stone from a far-flung network of quarries and its stone buildings have a variety of textures and hues.
[56] A distinctive feature of many of the city's buildings is the presence of 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 burst municipal water pipes.
[57] Garden apartments became popular during the 1920s in outlying areas, including
Jackson Heights in Queens, which became more accessible with expansion of the subway.
[58]
Boroughs
New York City is comprised of five
boroughs, an unusual form of government used to administer the five constituent counties that make up the city.
[59] 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.
- The Bronx
(Bronx County: Pop. 1,373,659)
The five boroughs: Manhattan
, Brooklyn
, Queens
, The Bronx
, Staten Island
- Brooklyn
(Kings County: Pop. 2,528,050) [62] 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 unique architectural heritage. It is also the only borough outside of Manhattan with a distinct downtown area. The borough features a long beachfront and Coney Island, established in the 1870s as one of the earliest amusement grounds in the country. [63]
- Manhattan
(New York County: Pop. 1,620,867)
- Queens
(Queens County: Pop. 2,270,338)
- Staten Island
(Richmond County: Pop. 481,613)
Culture and contemporary life
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the largest museums in the world
"Culture just seems to be in the air, like part of the weather", the writer
Tom Wolfe has said of New York City.
[66] 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 the epicenter 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.
Entertainment and performing arts
thumb at
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
The city is also important in the American film industry.
Manhatta
(1920), an early
avant-garde film, was filmed in the city.
[67] 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.
[68] The city government funds the arts with a larger annual budget than the
National Endowment for the Arts.
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 theatre productions, and in the 1880s New York City theaters on
Broadway and along 42nd Street began showcasing a new stage form that came to be known as the
Broadway musical.
Strongly influenced by the city's immigrants, 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 mainstay of the New York theatre scene. The city's 39 largest theatres (with more than 500 seats) are collectively known as "
Broadway," after the
major thoroughfare that crosses the
Times Square theatre district.
[69]
The
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, which includes
Jazz at Lincoln Center, the
Metropolitan Opera, the
New York City Opera, the
New York Philharmonic, the
New York City Ballet, the
Vivian Beaumont Theatre, the
Juilliard School and
Alice Tully Hall, is the largest performing arts center in the United States.
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.
[70]
New York City is considered by many to be the heart of
stand-up comedy in the United States.
[71] [72]
Tourism
Tourism is important to New York City, with about 40 million foreign and American tourists visiting each year.
[73] Major destinations include the
Empire State Building,
Ellis Island, Broadway theatre productions, museums such as the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, and other tourist attractions including
Central Park,
Washington Square Park,
Rockefeller Center,
Times Square, the
Bronx Zoo,
New York Botanical Garden, luxury shopping along
Fifth and
Madison Avenues, and events such as the
Halloween Parade in
Greenwich Village, the
Tribeca Film Festival, and free performances in Central Park at Summerstage. The Statue of Liberty is a major tourist attraction and one of the most recognizable icons of the United States.
[74] Many of the city's ethnic enclaves, such as
Jackson Heights,
Flushing, and
Brighton Beach are major shopping destinations for first and second generation Americans up and down the East Coast.
New York's food culture, influenced by the city's immigrants and large number of dining patrons, is diverse. Jewish 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 contemporary New York street food, although hot dogs and pretzels are still the main street fare.
[75] The city is also home to many of the finest
haute cuisine restaurants in the United States.
[76]
Central Park is the most visited city park in the United States [77]
New York City has over 28,000 acres (113 km²) of municipal parkland and 14 miles (22 km) of public beaches.
[78] 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 of marsh islands and water taking up most of
Jamaica Bay and included. 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 — 10 million more than
Lincoln Park in Chicago, which is 2nd.
in Brooklyn, also designed by Olmsted and Vaux, has a 90 acre (36
hectare) meadow.
[79] Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, the city's third largest, was the setting for the
1939 World's Fair and
1964 World's Fair.
Media
New York's use of mass transit gives the city a large newspaper readership base [80]
New York is a global 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).
[81] Some of the city's media conglomerates include
Time Warner, the
News Corporation, the
Hearst Corporation, and
Viacom. Seven of the world's top eight global
advertising agency networks are headquartered in New York.
[82] Three of the "
Big Four" record labels are also based in the city, as well as in Los Angeles. One-third of all American
independent films are produced in New York.
[83] More than 200 newspapers and 350 consumer magazines have an office in the city
and the book-publishing industry employs about 25,000 people.
[84]
Two of the three national daily newspapers in the United States are New York papers:
The Wall Street Journal
and
The New York Times
. Major tabloid newspapers in the city include
The New York Daily News
and
The New York Post
, founded in 1801 by
Alexander Hamilton. The city also has a major ethnic press, with 270 newspapers and magazines published in more than 40 languages.
[85] El Diario La Prensa
is New York's largest Spanish-language daily and the oldest in the nation.
[86] The New York Amsterdam News
, published in Harlem, is a prominent African American newspaper.
The Village Voice
is the largest
alternative newspaper.
.JPG/180px-Rockefeller_Center_(2006).JPG)
Rockefeller Center is home to NBC Studios
The television industry developed in New York and is a significant employer in the city's economy. The four major American broadcast networks,
ABC,
CBS,
FOX and
NBC, are all headquartered in New York. Many cable channels are based in the city as well, including
MTV,
Fox News,
HBO and
Comedy Central. In 2005, there were more than 100 television shows taped in New York City.
[87]
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.
[88] WNET is the city's major public television station and a primary provider of national
PBS programming.
WNYC, a public radio station owned by the city until 1997, has the largest public radio audience in the United States.
[89] 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, as well as city government.
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 often considered to be one of the most recognizable accents within
American English.
[90] 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.
[
]
The traditional New York area accent is non-rhotic, so that the sound does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant; hence the pronunciation of the city as "New Yawk."[ There is no in words like park
(with vowel raised due to the low-back chain shift), butter
, or here
. In another feature called the low back chain shift, the vowel sound of words like talk
, law
, cross
, and coffee
and the often homophonous 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" both become a diphthong . 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).[ The character Archie Bunker from the 1970s sitcom All in the Family
was a good example of a speaker who had this feature. This particular speech pattern is no longer very prevalent. [91]
]
Sports
thumb is home to the New York Yankees
New York City has teams in the four major North American professional sports leagues, each of which also has its headquarters in the city.
New York is one of the few areas of the United States where baseball, rather than football, remains the most popular sport. 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 26 world titles, while the Mets have taken the Series twice. 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 Giants Stadium in nearby New Jersey.
The New York City Marathon is the largest marathon in the world
In soccer, New York is represented by the Major League Soccer side, Red Bull New York. The "Red Bulls" also play their home games at the Giants Stadium in New Jersey.
The city's National Basketball Association team is the New York Knicks and the city's Women's National Basketball Association team is the New York Liberty. The first national college-level basketball championship, the National Invitation Tournament, was held in New York in 1938 and remains in the city. [92] 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
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. [94]
Economy
The New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street is the largest stock exchange in the world by dollar volume
New York City is home to some of the nations—and the world's—most valuable real estate. 450 Park 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. [99]
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. [100] Financial services account for more than 35% of the city's employment income. [101] 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. [102] The Time Warner Center is the property with the highest-listed market value in the city, at $1.1 billion in 2006.
Times Square has been dubbed "the Crossroads of the World"
Manufacturing accounts for a large but declining share of employment. Garments, chemicals, metal products, processed foods, and furniture are some of the principal products. [106] The food-processing industry is the most stable major manufacturing sector in the city. [107] Food making is a $5 billion industry that employs more than 19,000 residents, many of them immigrants who speak little English. Chocolate is New York City's leading specialty-food export, with $234 million worth of exports each year.
Demographics
| 2000 Census
| NY City
| NY State
| U.S.
|
| Total population
| 8,008,278 | 18,976,457
| 281,421,906
|
| Population, percent change, 1990 to 2000
| +9.4%
| +5.5%
| +13.1%
|
| Population density
| 26,403/sq mi
| 402/sq mi
| 80/sq mi
|
| Median household income (1999)
| $38,293
| $43,393
| $41,994
|
| Bachelor's degree or higher
| 27%
| 27%
| 29%
|
| Foreign born
| 36%
| 20%
| 11%
|
| White
| 45%
| 68%
| 75%
|
| White (non-Hispanic)
| 37%
| 62%
| 67%
|
| Black
| 28%
| 16%
| 12%
|
| Hispanic (any race)
| 27%
| 15%
| 11%
|
| Asian
| 10%
| 6%
| 4%
|
New York is the most populous city in the United States, with an estimated 2007 population of 8,274,527 (up from 7.3 million in 1990).
New York's two key demographic features are its population density and cultural diversity. The city's population density of 26,403 people per square mile (10,194/km²) makes it the most densely populated American municipality with a population above 100,000. [109] Manhattan's population density is 66,940 people per square mile (25,846/km²), highest of any county in the United States. [110] [111]
| Historical populations
|
| Census
| Pop.
|
| %±
|
| 1790
| | | — |
| 1800
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| 1810
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| 1820
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| 1830
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| 1840
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| 1850
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| 1860
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| 1870
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| 1880
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| 1890
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| 1900
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| 1910
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| 1920
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| 1930
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| 1940
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| 1950
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| 1960
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| 1970
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| 1980
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| 1990
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| 2000
| | | ;;"> |