New York City

In 1664, New York was named in honor of the Duke of York, who would become King James II of England.^[49] James's elder brother, King Charles II, appointed the Duke as proprietor of the former territory of New Netherland, including the city of New Amsterdam, when England seized it from Dutch control.^[50]

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Nicknames of New York City

Nicknames of New York City

During its four-century history, New York City has been known by a variety of alternative names and euphemisms, both officially and unofficially. Frequently shortened to simply "New York", "NY", or "NYC", New York City is also known as "The City" in some parts of the Eastern United States, in particular, New York State and surrounding U.S. states. New Yorkers also use "The City" to refer specifically to the borough of Manhattan.

Duke of York

Duke of York

Duke of York is a title of nobility in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. Since the 15th century, it has, when granted, usually been given to the second son of English monarchs. The equivalent title in the Scottish peerage was Duke of Albany. However, King George II and King George III granted the titles Duke of York and Albany.

James II of England

James II of England

James II was King of England and King of Ireland, and King of Scotland as James VII from the death of his elder brother, Charles II, on 6 February 1685. He was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He was the last Catholic monarch of England, Scotland, and Ireland. His reign is now remembered primarily for conflicts over religious tolerance, but it also involved struggles over the principles of absolutism and the divine right of kings. His deposition ended a century of political and civil strife in England by confirming the primacy of the English Parliament over the Crown.

Charles II of England

Charles II of England

Charles II was King of Scotland from 1649 until 1651, and King of England, Scotland and Ireland from the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy until his death in 1685.

Proprietary colony

Proprietary colony

A proprietary colony was a type of English colony mostly in North America and in the Caribbean in the 17th century. In the British Empire, all land belonged to the monarch, and it was his/her prerogative to divide. Therefore, all colonial properties were partitioned by royal charter into one of four types: proprietary, royal, joint stock, or covenant. Under the proprietary system, individuals or companies were granted commercial charters by the monarchs of the Kingdom of England to establish colonies. These proprietors then selected the governors and other officials in the colony.

New Netherland

New Netherland

New Netherland was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic located on the east coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva Peninsula to southwestern Cape Cod, while limited settlements were in parts of the U.S. states of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Massachusetts and Connecticut, with small outposts in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.

New Amsterdam

New Amsterdam

New Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch settlement established at the southern tip of Manhattan Island that served as the seat of the colonial government in New Netherland. The initial trading factory gave rise to the settlement around Fort Amsterdam. The fort was situated on the strategic southern tip of the island of Manhattan and was meant to defend the fur trade operations of the Dutch West India Company in the North River. In 1624, it became a provincial extension of the Dutch Republic and was designated as the capital of the province in 1625.

Early history

In the pre-Columbian era, the area of present-day New York City was inhabited by Algonquian Native Americans, including the Lenape. Their homeland, known as Lenapehoking, included the present-day areas of Staten Island, Manhattan, the Bronx, the western portion of Long Island (including the areas that would later become the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens), and the Lower Hudson Valley.^[51]

The first documented visit into New York Harbor by a European was in 1524 by Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano, an explorer from Florence in the service of the French crown.^[52] He claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême (New Angoulême).^[53] A Spanish expedition, led by the Portuguese captain Estêvão Gomes sailing for Emperor Charles V, arrived in New York Harbor in January 1525 and charted the mouth of the Hudson River, which he named Río de San Antonio ('Saint Anthony's River'). The Padrón Real of 1527, the first scientific map to show the East Coast of North America continuously, was informed by Gomes' expedition and labeled the northeastern United States as Tierra de Esteban Gómez in his honor.^[54]

In 1609, the English explorer Henry Hudson rediscovered New York Harbor while searching for the Northwest Passage to the Orient for the Dutch East India Company.^[55] He proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River (now the Hudson River), named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange. Hudson's first mate described the harbor as "a very good Harbour for all windes" and the river as "a mile broad" and "full of fish".^[56] Hudson sailed roughly 150 miles (240 km) north,^[57] past the site of the present-day New York State capital city of Albany, in the belief that it might be an oceanic tributary before the river became too shallow to continue.^[56] He made a ten-day exploration of the area and claimed the region for the Dutch East India Company. In 1614, the area between Cape Cod and Delaware Bay was claimed by the Netherlands and called Nieuw-Nederland ('New Netherland').

The first non–Native American inhabitant of what would eventually become New York City was Juan Rodriguez (transliterated to the Dutch language as Jan Rodrigues), a merchant from Santo Domingo. Born in Santo Domingo of Portuguese and African descent, he arrived in Manhattan during the winter of 1613–14, trapping for pelts and trading with the local population as a representative of the Dutch. Broadway, from 159th Street to 218th Street in Upper Manhattan, is named Juan Rodriguez Way in his honor.^[58][59]

Dutch rule

An illustration of New Amsterdam located in present-day Lower Manhattan in 1664, the year England took control and renamed it New York

A permanent European presence near New York Harbor was established in 1624, making New York the 12th-oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement in the continental United States^[60]—with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island. In 1625, construction was started on a citadel and Fort Amsterdam, later called Nieuw Amsterdam (New Amsterdam), on present-day Manhattan Island.^[61][62] The colony of New Amsterdam was centered on what would ultimately be known as Lower Manhattan. Its area extended from the southern tip of Manhattan to modern day Wall Street, where a 12-foot wooden stockade was built in 1653 to protect against Native American and British raids.^[63] In 1626, the Dutch colonial Director-General Peter Minuit, acting as charged by the Dutch West India Company, purchased the island of Manhattan from the Canarsie, a small Lenape band,^[64] for "the value of 60 guilders"^[65] (about $900 in 2018).^[66] A disproved legend claims that Manhattan was purchased for $24 worth of glass beads.^[67][68]

Following the purchase, New Amsterdam grew slowly.^[25] To attract settlers, the Dutch instituted the patroon system in 1628, whereby wealthy Dutchmen (patroons, or patrons) who brought 50 colonists to New Netherland would be awarded swaths of land, along with local political autonomy and rights to participate in the lucrative fur trade. This program had little success.^[69]

Since 1621, the Dutch West India Company had operated as a monopoly in New Netherland, on authority granted by the Dutch States General. In 1639–1640, in an effort to bolster economic growth, the Dutch West India Company relinquished its monopoly over the fur trade, leading to growth in the production and trade of food, timber, tobacco, and slaves (particularly with the Dutch West Indies).^[25][70]

In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant began his tenure as the last Director-General of New Netherland. During his tenure, the population of New Netherland grew from 2,000 to 8,000.^[71][72] Stuyvesant has been credited with improving law and order in the colony; however, he also earned a reputation as a despotic leader. He instituted regulations on liquor sales, attempted to assert control over the Dutch Reformed Church, and blocked other religious groups (including Quakers, Jews, and Lutherans) from establishing houses of worship.^[73] The Dutch West India Company would eventually attempt to ease tensions between Stuyvesant and residents of New Amsterdam.^[74]

English rule

An illustration of Fort George and the City of New York c. 1731. Royal Navy ships of the line are seen guarding what would become New York Harbor.

In 1664, unable to summon any significant resistance, Stuyvesant surrendered New Amsterdam to English troops, led by Colonel Richard Nicolls, without bloodshed.^[73][74] The terms of the surrender permitted Dutch residents to remain in the colony and allowed for religious freedom.^[75] In 1667, during negotiations leading to the Treaty of Breda after the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch decided to keep the nascent plantation colony of what is now Suriname (on the northern South American coast) they had gained from the English; and in return, the English kept New Amsterdam. The fledgling settlement was promptly renamed "New York" after the Duke of York (the future King James II and VII), who would eventually be deposed in the Glorious Revolution.^[76] After the founding, the duke gave part of the colony to proprietors George Carteret and John Berkeley. Fort Orange, 150 miles (240 km) north on the Hudson River, was renamed Albany after James's Scottish title.^[77] The transfer was confirmed in 1667 by the Treaty of Breda, which concluded the Second Anglo-Dutch War.^[78]

On August 24, 1673, during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, Dutch captain Anthony Colve seized the colony of New York from the English at the behest of Cornelis Evertsen the Youngest and rechristened it "New Orange" after William III, the Prince of Orange.^[79] The Dutch would soon return the island to England under the Treaty of Westminster of November 1674.^[80][81]

Several intertribal wars among the Native Americans and some epidemics brought on by contact with the Europeans caused sizeable population losses for the Lenape between the years 1660 and 1670.^[82] By 1700, the Lenape population had diminished to 200.^[83] New York experienced several yellow fever epidemics in the 18th century, losing ten percent of its population to the disease in 1702 alone.^[84][85]

Province of New York and slavery

An illustration of Columbia University, an Ivy League university today considered one of the world's top academic institutions, was founded by royal charter in 1754 under the name King's College.

In the early 18th century, New York grew in importance as a trading port while as a part of the colony of New York.^[86] It also became a center of slavery, with 42% of households enslaving Africans by 1730, the highest percentage outside Charleston, South Carolina.^[87] Most cases were that of domestic slavery, as a New York household then commonly enslaved few or several people. Others were hired out to work at labor. Slavery became integrally tied to New York's economy through the labor of slaves throughout the port, and the banking and shipping industries trading with the American South. During construction in Foley Square in the 1990s, the African Burying Ground was discovered; the cemetery included 10,000 to 20,000 of graves of colonial-era Africans, some enslaved and some free.^[88]

The 1735 trial and acquittal in Manhattan of John Peter Zenger, who had been accused of seditious libel after criticizing colonial governor William Cosby, helped to establish the freedom of the press in North America.^[89] In 1754, Columbia University was founded under charter by King George II as King's College in Lower Manhattan.^[90]

American Revolution

An illustration of the Battle of Long Island, one of the largest battles of the American Revolutionary War, which took place in Brooklyn on August 27, 1776.

The Stamp Act Congress met in New York in October 1765, as the Sons of Liberty organization emerged in the city and skirmished over the next ten years with British troops stationed there.^[91] The Battle of Long Island, the largest battle of the American Revolutionary War, was fought in August 1776 within the modern-day borough of Brooklyn.^[92] After the battle, in which the Americans were defeated, the British made the city their military and political base of operations in North America. The city was a haven for Loyalist refugees and escaped slaves who joined the British lines for freedom newly promised by the Crown for all fighters. As many as 10,000 escaped slaves crowded into the city during the British occupation. When the British forces evacuated at the close of the war in 1783, they transported 3,000 freedmen for resettlement in Nova Scotia.^[93] They resettled other freedmen in England and the Caribbean.

The only attempt at a peaceful solution to the war took place at the Conference House on Staten Island between American delegates, including Benjamin Franklin, and British general Lord Howe on September 11, 1776. Shortly after the British occupation began, the Great Fire of New York occurred, a large conflagration on the West Side of Lower Manhattan, which destroyed about a quarter of the buildings in the city, including Trinity Church.^[94]

In 1785, the assembly of the Congress of the Confederation made New York City the national capital shortly after the war. New York was the last capital of the U.S. under the Articles of Confederation and the first capital under the Constitution of the United States. New York City as the U.S. capital hosted several events of national scope in 1789—the first President of the United States, George Washington, was inaugurated; the first United States Congress and the Supreme Court of the United States each assembled for the first time; and the United States Bill of Rights was drafted, all at Federal Hall on Wall Street.^[95] In 1790, New York surpassed Philadelphia as the nation's largest city. At the end of that year, pursuant to the Residence Act, the national capital was moved to Philadelphia.^[96][97]

19th century

Broadway follows the Native American Wecquaesgeek Trail through Manhattan.^[98]

The five boroughs of New York City as they appeared in 1814: The Bronx was in Westchester County; Queens County included modern Nassau County; Kings County included six towns, one of which was Brooklyn; New York City is shown in southern New York County on Manhattan; and Richmond County is on Staten Island.

Over the course of the nineteenth century, New York City's population grew from 60,000 to 3.43 million.^[99] Under New York State's abolition act of 1799, children of slave mothers were to be eventually liberated but to be held in indentured servitude until their mid-to-late twenties.^[100][101] Together with slaves freed by their masters after the Revolutionary War and escaped slaves, a significant free-Black population gradually developed in Manhattan. Under such influential United States founders as Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, the New York Manumission Society worked for abolition and established the African Free School to educate Black children.^[102] It was not until 1827 that slavery was completely abolished in the state, and free Blacks struggled afterward with discrimination. New York interracial abolitionist activism continued; among its leaders were graduates of the African Free School. New York city's population jumped from 123,706 in 1820 to 312,710 by 1840, 16,000 of whom were Black.^[103][104]

In the 19th century, the city was transformed by both commercial and residential development relating to its status as a national and international trading center, as well as by European immigration, respectively.^[105] The city adopted the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which expanded the city street grid to encompass almost all of Manhattan. The 1825 completion of the Erie Canal through central New York connected the Atlantic port to the agricultural markets and commodities of the North American interior via the Hudson River and the Great Lakes.^[106] Local politics became dominated by Tammany Hall, a political machine supported by Irish and German immigrants.^[107]

Several prominent American literary figures lived in New York during the 1830s and 1840s, including William Cullen Bryant, Washington Irving, Herman Melville, Rufus Wilmot Griswold, John Keese, Nathaniel Parker Willis, and Edgar Allan Poe. Public-minded members of the contemporaneous business elite lobbied for the establishment of Central Park, which in 1857 became the first landscaped park in an American city.

The Great Irish Famine brought a large influx of Irish immigrants; more than 200,000 were living in New York by 1860, upwards of a quarter of the city's population.^[108] There was also extensive immigration from the German provinces, where revolutions had disrupted societies, and Germans comprised another 25% of New York's population by 1860.^[109]

Democratic Party candidates were consistently elected to local office, increasing the city's ties to the South and its dominant party. In 1861, Mayor Fernando Wood called upon the aldermen to declare independence from Albany and the United States after the South seceded, but his proposal was not acted on.^[102] Anger at new military conscription laws during the American Civil War (1861–1865), which spared wealthier men who could afford to pay a $300 (equivalent to $6,602 in 2021) commutation fee to hire a substitute,^[110] led to the Draft Riots of 1863, whose most visible participants were ethnic Irish working class.^[102]

The draft riots deteriorated into attacks on New York's elite, followed by attacks on Black New Yorkers and their property after fierce competition for a decade between Irish immigrants and Black people for work. Rioters burned the Colored Orphan Asylum to the ground, with more than 200 children escaping harm due to efforts of the New York Police Department, which was mainly made up of Irish immigrants.^[109] At least 120 people were killed.^[111] Eleven Black men were lynched over five days, and the riots forced hundreds of Blacks to flee the city for Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and New Jersey. The Black population in Manhattan fell below 10,000 by 1865, which it had last been in 1820. The White working class had established dominance.^[109][111] Violence by longshoremen against Black men was especially fierce in the docks area.^[109] It was one of the worst incidents of civil unrest in American history.^[112]

In 1898, the 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.^[113] The opening of the subway in 1904, first built as separate private systems, helped bind the new city together.^[114] Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the city became a world center for industry, commerce, and communication.^[115]

20th century

A construction worker atop the Empire State Building during its construction in 1930. The Chrysler Building is visible behind him.

Manhattan's Little Italy in the Lower East Side, c. 1900

The Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, a designated U.S. National Historic Landmark and National Monument, was the site of the June 1969 Stonewall riots and the cradle of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.^{[116][117][118]}

In 1904, the steamship General Slocum caught fire in the East River, killing 1,021 people on board.^[119] 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.^[120]

New York's non-White population was 36,620 in 1890.^[121] New York City was a prime destination in the early twentieth century for African Americans during the Great Migration from the American South, and by 1916, New York City had become home to the largest urban African diaspora in North America.^[122] The Harlem Renaissance of literary and cultural life flourished during the era of Prohibition.^[123] The larger economic boom generated construction of skyscrapers competing in height and creating an identifiable skyline.

New York became the most populous urbanized area in the world in the early 1920s, overtaking London. The metropolitan area surpassed the 10 million mark in the early 1930s, becoming the first megacity in human history.^[124] The Great Depression saw the election of reformer Fiorello La Guardia as mayor and the fall of Tammany Hall after eighty years of political dominance.^[125]

Returning World War II veterans created a post-war economic boom and the development of large housing tracts in eastern Queens and Nassau County as well as similar suburban areas in New Jersey. New York emerged from the war unscathed as the leading city of the world, with Wall Street leading America's place as the world's dominant economic power. The United Nations headquarters was completed in 1952, solidifying New York's global geopolitical influence, and the rise of abstract expressionism in the city precipitated New York's displacement of Paris as the center of the art world.^[126]

The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent protests by members of the gay community against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan.^[127] They are widely considered to constitute the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement^{[116][128][129][130]} and the modern fight for LGBT rights.^[131][132] Wayne R. Dynes, author of the Encyclopedia of Homosexuality, wrote that drag queens were the only "transgender folks around" during the June 1969 Stonewall riots. The transgender community in New York City played a significant role in fighting for LGBT equality during the period of the Stonewall riots and thereafter.^[133]

In the 1970s, job losses due to industrial restructuring caused New York City to suffer from economic problems and rising crime rates.^[134] While a resurgence in the financial industry greatly improved the city's economic health in the 1980s, New York's crime rate continued to increase through that decade and into the beginning of the 1990s.^[135] By the mid 1990s, crime rates started to drop dramatically due to revised police strategies, improving economic opportunities, gentrification, and new residents, both American transplants and new immigrants from Asia and Latin America. Important new sectors, such as Silicon Alley, emerged in the city's economy.^[136]

21st century

United Airlines Flight 175 hits the South Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the largest terrorist attack in world history

New York's population reached all-time highs in the 2000 census and then again in the 2010 census.

New York City suffered the bulk of the economic damage and largest loss of human life in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks.^[137] Two of the four airliners hijacked that day were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, destroying the towers and killing 2,192 civilians, 343 firefighters, and 71 law enforcement officers. The North Tower became the tallest building ever to be destroyed anywhere then or subsequently.^[138]

The area was rebuilt with a new One World Trade Center, a 9/11 memorial and museum, and other new buildings and infrastructure.^[139] The World Trade Center PATH station, which had opened on July 19, 1909, as the Hudson Terminal, was also destroyed in the attacks. A temporary station was built and opened on November 23, 2003. An 800,000-square-foot (74,000 m²) permanent rail station designed by Santiago Calatrava, the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, the city's third-largest hub, was completed in 2016.^[140] The new One World Trade Center is the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere^[141] and the seventh-tallest building in the world by pinnacle height, with its spire reaching a symbolic 1,776 feet (541.3 m) in reference to the year of U.S. independence.^{[142][143][144][145]}

The Occupy Wall Street protests in Zuccotti Park in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan began on September 17, 2011, receiving global attention and popularizing the Occupy movement against social and economic inequality worldwide.^[146]

New York City was heavily affected by Hurricane Sandy in late October 2012. Sandy's impacts included the flooding of the New York City Subway system, of many suburban communities, and of all road tunnels entering Manhattan except the Lincoln Tunnel. The New York Stock Exchange closed for two consecutive days. Numerous homes and businesses were destroyed by fire, including over 100 homes in Breezy Point, Queens. Large parts of the city and surrounding areas lost electricity for several days. Several thousand people in Midtown Manhattan were evacuated for six days due to a crane collapse at Extell's One57. Bellevue Hospital Center and a few other large hospitals were closed and evacuated. Flooding at 140 West Street and another exchange disrupted voice and data communication in Lower Manhattan. At least 43 people lost their lives in New York City as a result of Sandy, and the economic losses in New York City were estimated to be roughly $19 billion. The disaster spawned long-term efforts towards infrastructural projects to counter climate change and rising seas.^[147][148]

In March 2020, the first case of COVID-19 in the city was confirmed in Manhattan.^[149] The city rapidly replaced Wuhan, China to become the global epicenter of the pandemic during the early phase, before the infection became widespread across the world and the rest of the nation. As of March 2021, New York City had recorded over 30,000 deaths from COVID-19-related complications. In 2022, the LGBT community in New York City became the epicenter of the monkeypox outbreak in the Western Hemisphere, prompting New York Governor Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared corresponding public health emergencies in the state and city, respectively, in July 2022.^[150]

Discover more about History related topics

History of New York City

History of New York City

The written history of New York City began with the first European explorer, the Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524. European settlement began with the Dutch in 1608.

Algonquian peoples

Algonquian peoples

The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups. Historically, the peoples were prominent along the Atlantic Coast and into the interior along the Saint Lawrence River and around the Great Lakes. This grouping consists of the peoples who speak Algonquian languages.

Lenape

Lenape

The Lenape also called the Lenni Lenape, and Delaware people, are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada.

Lenapehoking

Lenapehoking

Lenapehoking is widely translated as 'homelands of the Lenape', which in the 16th and 17th centuries, ranged along the Eastern seaboard from western Connecticut to Delaware, and encompassed the territory adjacent to the Delaware and lower Hudson river valleys, and the territory between them.

Long Island

Long Island

Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18th-most populous in the world. The island begins at New York Harbor approximately 0.35 miles (0.56 km) east of Manhattan Island and extends eastward about 118 miles (190 km) into the Atlantic Ocean, with a maximum north-to-south width of 23 miles (37 km) between Long Island Sound and the Atlantic coast. With a land area of 1,401 square miles (3,630 km2), Long Island is the 11th-largest island in the United States, the largest island in the contiguous United States, and the 149th-largest island in the world.

Boroughs of New York City

Boroughs of New York City

New York City, the most populous city in the United States, is composed of five boroughs: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. Each borough is coextensive with a respective county of New York State. The boroughs of Queens and the Bronx are also Queens County and Bronx County. The other three counties are named differently from their boroughs: Manhattan is New York County, Brooklyn is Kings County, and Staten Island is Richmond County.

Brooklyn

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, behind New York County (Manhattan). Brooklyn is also New York City's most populous borough, with 2,736,074 residents in 2020.

Giovanni da Verrazzano

Giovanni da Verrazzano

Giovanni da Verrazzano was an Italian (Florentine) explorer of North America, in the service of King Francis I of France.

Florence

Florence

Florence is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.

Kingdom of France

Kingdom of France

The Kingdom of France is the historiographical name or umbrella term given to various political entities of France in the medieval and early modern period. It was one of the most powerful states in Europe since the High Middle Ages. It was also an early colonial power, with possessions around the world.

Estêvão Gomes

Estêvão Gomes

Estêvão Gomes, also known by the Spanish version of his name, Esteban Gómez, was a Portuguese cartographer and explorer. He sailed at the service of Castile (Spain) in the fleet of Ferdinand Magellan, but deserted the expedition when they had reached the Strait of Magellan, and returned to Spain in May 1521. In 1524 he explored present-day Nova Scotia. While historical accounts vary, Gomes may have entered New York Harbor and seen the Hudson River. Because of his expedition, the 1529 Diogo Ribeiro world map outlines the East coast of North America almost perfectly.

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

Charles V was Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria from 1519 to 1556, King of Spain from 1516 to 1556, and Lord of the Netherlands as titular Duke of Burgundy from 1506 to 1555. He was heir to and then head of the rising House of Habsburg during the first half of the 16th century. His dominions in Europe included the Holy Roman Empire, extending from Germany to northern Italy with direct rule over the Austrian hereditary lands and the Burgundian Low Countries, and Spain with its possessions of the southern Italian kingdoms of Naples and Sicily and Sardinia. In the Americas, he oversaw both the continuation of the long-lasting Spanish colonization as well as a short-lived German colonization. The personal union of the European and American territories of Charles V was the first collection of realms labelled "the empire on which the sun never sets".

Aerial view of the New York City metropolitan area with Manhattan at its center

During the Wisconsin glaciation, 75,000 to 11,000 years ago, the New York City area was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 2,000 feet (610 m) in depth.^[151] The erosive forward movement of the ice (and its subsequent retreat) contributed to the separation of what is now Long Island and Staten Island. That action also left bedrock at a relatively shallow depth, providing a solid foundation for most of Manhattan's skyscrapers.^[152]

New York City is situated in the northeastern United States, in southeastern New York State, approximately halfway between Washington, D.C. and Boston. 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 port. Most of New York City is built on the three islands of Long Island, Manhattan, and Staten Island.

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.^[153] The Hudson River separates the city from the U.S. state of 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 most of Manhattan from the Bronx. The Bronx River, which flows through the Bronx and Westchester County, is the only entirely freshwater river in the city.^[154]

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.^[155] Some of the natural relief in topography has been evened out, especially in Manhattan.^[156]

The city's total area is 468.484 square miles (1,213.37 km²); 302.643 sq mi (783.84 km²) of the city is land and 165.841 sq mi (429.53 km²) of this is water.^[157][158] 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.^[159] The summit of the ridge is mostly covered in woodlands as part of the Staten Island Greenbelt.^[160]

Boroughs

  1. Manhattan

  2. Brooklyn

  3. Queens

  4. The Bronx

  5. Staten Island

New York City is sometimes referred to collectively as the Five Boroughs.^[165] Each borough is coextensive with a respective county of New York State, making New York City one of the U.S. municipalities in multiple counties. There are hundreds of distinct neighborhoods throughout the boroughs, many with a definable history and character.

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 (Staten Island would be ranked 37th as of 2020); these same boroughs are coterminous with the four most densely populated counties in the United States: New York (Manhattan), Kings (Brooklyn), Bronx, and Queens.

Manhattan

Lower and Midtown Manhattan photographed by a SkySat satellite in 2017

Manhattan (New York County) is the geographically smallest and most densely populated borough. It is home to Central Park and most of the city's skyscrapers, and is sometimes locally known as The City.^[166] Manhattan's population density of 72,033 people per square mile (27,812/km²) in 2015 makes it the highest of any county in the United States and higher than the density of any individual American city.^[167]

Manhattan is the cultural, administrative, and financial center of New York City and contains the headquarters of many major multinational corporations, the United Nations headquarters, Wall Street, and a number of important universities. The borough of Manhattan is often described as the financial and cultural center of the world.^[168][169]

Most of the borough is situated on Manhattan Island, at the mouth of the Hudson River and the East River, and its southern tip, at the confluence of the two rivers, represents the birthplace of New York City itself. Several small islands also compose part of the borough of Manhattan, including Randalls and Wards Islands, and Roosevelt Island in the East River, and Governors Island and Liberty Island to the south in New York Harbor.

Manhattan Island is loosely divided into the 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, bordering the Bronx (Bronx County).

Harlem was predominantly occupied by Jewish and Italian Americans in the 19th century until the Great Migration. It was the center of the Harlem Renaissance.

The borough of Manhattan also includes a small neighborhood on the mainland, called Marble Hill, which is contiguous with the Bronx. New York City's remaining four boroughs are collectively referred to as the Outer Boroughs.

Ten mile (16km) Manhattan skyline panorama from 120th Street to the Battery, taken in February 2018 from across the Hudson River in Weehawken, New Jersey

1. Riverside Church
2. Deutsche Bank Center
3. 220 Central Park South
4. Central Park Tower
5. One57
6. 432 Park Avenue
7. 53W53
8. Chrysler Building
9. Bank of America Tower
10. 4 Times Square
11. The New York Times Building
12. Empire State Building
13. Manhattan West
14. a: 55 Hudson Yards, 14b: 35 Hudson Yards, 14c: 10 Hudson Yards, 14d: 15 Hudson Yards
15. 56 Leonard Street
16. 8 Spruce Street
17. Woolworth Building
18. 70 Pine Street
19. Four Seasons Downtown
20. 40 Wall Street
21. 3 World Trade Center
22. 4 World Trade Center
23. One World Trade Center

View of Midtown Manhattan from New Jersey, taken in September 2021

Brooklyn

Brooklyn (Kings County), on the western tip of Long Island, is the city's most populous borough. Brooklyn is known for its cultural, social, and ethnic diversity, an independent art scene, distinct neighborhoods, and a distinctive architectural heritage. Downtown Brooklyn is the largest central core neighborhood in the Outer Boroughs. The borough has a long beachfront shoreline including Coney Island, established in the 1870s as one of the earliest amusement grounds in the U.S.^[170] Marine Park and Prospect Park are the two largest parks in Brooklyn.^[171] Since 2010, Brooklyn has evolved into a thriving hub of entrepreneurship and high technology startup firms,^[172][173] and of postmodern art and design.^[173][174]

Downtown Brooklyn skyline from Governors Island in September 2016

Queens

Queens (Queens County), on Long Island north and east of Brooklyn, is geographically the largest borough, the most ethnically diverse county in the United States,^[175] and the most ethnically diverse urban area in the world.^[176][177] Historically a collection of small towns and villages founded by the Dutch, the borough has since developed both commercial and residential prominence. Downtown Flushing has become one of the busiest central core neighborhoods in the outer boroughs. Queens is the site of the Citi Field baseball stadium, home of the New York Mets, and hosts the annual U.S. Open tennis tournament at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park. Additionally, two of the three busiest airports serving the New York metropolitan area, John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport, are in Queens. The third is Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey.

The Bronx

The Bronx (Bronx County) is both New York City's northernmost borough, and the only one that is mostly on the mainland. It is the location of Yankee Stadium, the baseball park of the New York Yankees, and home to the largest cooperatively-owned housing complex in the United States, Co-op City.^[178] It is also home to the Bronx Zoo, the world's largest metropolitan zoo,^[179] which spans 265 acres (1.07 km²) and houses more than 6,000 animals.^[180] The Bronx is also the birthplace of hip hop music and its associated culture.^[181] Pelham Bay Park is the largest park in New York City, at 2,772 acres (1,122 ha).^[182]

Staten Island

Staten Island (Richmond County) is the most suburban in character of the five boroughs. Staten Island is connected to Brooklyn by the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, and to Manhattan by way of the free Staten Island Ferry, a daily commuter ferry that provides unobstructed views of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and Lower Manhattan. In central Staten Island, the Staten Island Greenbelt spans approximately 2,500 acres (10 km²), including 28 miles (45 km) of walking trails and one of the last undisturbed forests in the city.^[183] Designated in 1984 to protect the island's natural lands, the Greenbelt comprises seven city parks.

• 

  The growing skyline of Long Island City in Queens,^[184] facing the East River and Manhattan in May 2017

• 

  The Grand Concourse in The Bronx with Manhattan in the background in February 2018

• 

  St. George as seen from the Staten Island Ferry, the world's busiest passenger-only ferry system, shuttling passengers between Manhattan and Staten Island

Architecture

The Empire State Building is a solitary icon of New York, defined by its setbacks, Art Deco details, and spire as the world's tallest building from 1931 to 1970.

The Chrysler Building, built in 1930, is also a Manhattan icon in the Art Deco style, with ornamental hubcaps and its spire.

Landmark 19th-century rowhouses, including brownstones, on tree-lined Kent Street in the Greenpoint Historic District, Brooklyn.

Modernist architecture juxtaposed with Gothic Revival architecture in Midtown Manhattan

New York has architecturally noteworthy buildings in a wide range of styles and from distinct time periods, from the Dutch Colonial Pieter Claesen Wyckoff House in Brooklyn, the oldest section of which dates to 1656, to the modern One World Trade Center, the skyscraper at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan and the most expensive office tower in the world by construction cost.^[185]

Manhattan's skyline, with its many skyscrapers, is universally recognized, and the city has been home to several of the tallest buildings in the world. As of 2019^[update], New York City had 6,455 high-rise buildings, the third most in the world after Hong Kong and Seoul.^[186] Of these, as of 2011^[update], 550 completed structures were at least 330 feet (100 m) high, with more than fifty completed skyscrapers taller than 656 feet (200 m). These include the Woolworth Building, an early example of Gothic Revival architecture in skyscraper design, built with massively scaled Gothic detailing; completed in 1913, for 17 years it was the world's tallest building.^[187]

The 1916 Zoning Resolution required setbacks in new buildings and restricted towers to a percentage of the lot size, to allow sunlight to reach the streets below.^[188] The Art Deco style of the Chrysler Building (1930) and Empire State Building (1931), with their tapered tops and steel spires, reflected the zoning requirements. The buildings have distinctive ornamentation, such as the eagles at the corners of the 61st floor on the Chrysler Building, and are considered some of the finest examples of the Art Deco style.^[189] A highly influential example of the International Style in the United States is the Seagram Building (1957), distinctive for its façade using visible bronze-toned I-beams to evoke the building's structure. The Condé Nast Building (2000) is a prominent example of green design in American skyscrapers^[190] and has received an award from the American Institute of Architects and AIA New York State for its design.

The character of New York's large residential districts is often defined by the elegant brownstone rowhouses and townhouses and shabby tenements that were built during a period of rapid expansion from 1870 to 1930.^[191] In contrast, New York City also has neighborhoods that are less densely populated and feature free-standing dwellings. In neighborhoods such as Riverdale (in the Bronx), Ditmas Park (in Brooklyn), and Douglaston (in Queens), large single-family homes are common in various architectural styles such as Tudor Revival and Victorian.^{[192][193][194]}

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.^[195] A distinctive feature of many of the city's buildings is the roof-mounted wooden water tower. 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.^[196] Garden apartments became popular during the 1920s in outlying areas, such as Jackson Heights.^[197]

According to the United States Geological Survey, an updated analysis of seismic hazard in July 2014 revealed a "slightly lower hazard for tall buildings" in New York City than previously assessed. Scientists estimated this lessened risk based upon a lower likelihood than previously thought of slow shaking near the city, which would be more likely to cause damage to taller structures from an earthquake in the vicinity of the city.^[198] Manhattan contained over 500 million square feet of office space as of 2022; the COVID-19 pandemic and hybrid work model have prompted consideration of commercial-to-residential conversion within Midtown Manhattan.^[199]

Climate

Central Park in Winter, an illustration in Munsey's Magazine, February 1900

Under the Köppen climate classification, using the 0 °C (32 °F) isotherm, New York City features a humid subtropical climate (Cfa), and is thus the northernmost major city on the North American continent with this categorization. The suburbs to the immediate north and west lie in the transitional zone between humid subtropical and humid continental climates (Dfa).^[200][201] By the Trewartha classification, the city is defined as having an oceanic climate (Do).^[202][203] Annually, the city averages 234 days with at least some sunshine.^[204] The city lies in the USDA 7b plant hardiness zone.^[205]

Winters are chilly and damp, and prevailing wind patterns that blow sea breezes offshore temper the moderating effects of the Atlantic Ocean; yet the Atlantic and the partial shielding from colder air by the Appalachian Mountains keep the city warmer in the winter than inland North American cities at similar or lesser latitudes such as Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis. The daily mean temperature in January, the area's coldest month, is 33.3 °F (0.7 °C).^[206] Temperatures usually drop to 10 °F (−12 °C) several times per winter,^[207] yet can also reach 60 °F (16 °C) for several days even in the coldest winter month. Spring and autumn are unpredictable and can range from cool to warm, although they are usually mild with low humidity. Summers are typically hot and humid, with a daily mean temperature of 77.5 °F (25.3 °C) in July.^[206]

Nighttime temperatures are often enhanced due to the urban heat island effect. Daytime temperatures exceed 90 °F (32 °C) on average of 17 days each summer and in some years exceed 100 °F (38 °C), although this is a rare achievement, last occurring on July 18, 2012.^[208] Similarly, readings of 0 °F (−18 °C) are also extremely rare, last occurring on February 14, 2016.^[209] Extreme temperatures have ranged from −15 °F (−26 °C), recorded on February 9, 1934, up to 106 °F (41 °C) on July 9, 1936;^[206] the coldest recorded wind chill was −37 °F (−38 °C) on the same day as the all-time record low.^[210] The record cold daily maximum was 2 °F (−17 °C) on December 30, 1917, while, conversely, the record warm daily minimum was 87 °F (31 °C), on July 2, 1903.^[208] The average water temperature of the nearby Atlantic Ocean ranges from 39.7 °F (4.3 °C) in February to 74.1 °F (23.4 °C) in August.^[211]

The city receives 49.5 inches (1,260 mm) of precipitation annually, which is relatively evenly spread throughout the year. Average winter snowfall between 1991 and 2020 has been 29.8 inches (76 cm); this varies considerably between years. Hurricanes and tropical storms are rare in the New York area.^[212] Hurricane Sandy brought a destructive storm surge to New York City on the evening of October 29, 2012, flooding numerous streets, tunnels, and subway lines in Lower Manhattan and other areas of the city and cutting off electricity in many parts of the city and its suburbs.^[213] The storm and its profound impacts have prompted the discussion of constructing seawalls and other coastal barriers around the shorelines of the city and the metropolitan area to minimize the risk of destructive consequences from another such event in the future.^[147][148]

The coldest month on record is January 1857, with a mean temperature of 19.6 °F (−6.9 °C) whereas the warmest months on record are July 1825 and July 1999, both with a mean temperature of 81.4 °F (27.4 °C).^[214] The warmest years on record are 2012 and 2020, both with mean temperatures of 57.1 °F (13.9 °C). The coldest year is 1836, with a mean temperature of 47.3 °F (8.5 °C).^[214][215] The driest month on record is June 1949, with 0.02 inches (0.51 mm) of rainfall. The wettest month was August 2011, with 18.95 inches (481 mm) of rainfall. The driest year on record is 1965, with 26.09 inches (663 mm) of rainfall. The wettest year was 1983, with 80.56 inches (2,046 mm) of rainfall.^[216] The snowiest month on record is February 2010, with 36.9 inches (94 cm) of snowfall. The snowiest season (Jul–Jun) on record is 1995–1996, with 75.6 inches (192 cm) of snowfall. The least snowy season was 1972–1973, with 2.3 inches (5.8 cm) of snowfall.^[217] The earliest seasonal trace of snowfall occurred on October 10, in both 1979 and 1925. The latest seasonal trace of snowfall occurred on May 9, in both 2020 and 1977.^[218]

See or edit raw graph data.

Parks

Flushing Meadows–Corona Park was used in both the 1939 and 1964 New York World's Fair

The city of New York has a complex park system, with various lands operated by the National Park Service, the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. In its 2018 ParkScore ranking, the Trust for Public Land reported that the park system in New York City was the ninth-best park system among the fifty most populous U.S. cities.^[223] ParkScore ranks urban park systems by a formula that analyzes median park size, park acres as percent of city area, the percent of city residents within a half-mile of a park, spending of park services per resident, and the number of playgrounds per 10,000 residents. In 2021, the New York City Council banned the use of synthetic pesticides by city agencies and instead required organic lawn management. The effort was started by teacher Paula Rogovin's kindergarten class at P.S. 290.^[224]

National parks

The Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island in New York Harbor is a global symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity.^[27]

Gateway National Recreation Area contains over 26,000 acres (110 km²), most of it in New York City.^[225] In Brooklyn and Queens, the park contains over 9,000 acres (36 km²) of salt marsh, wetlands, islands, and water, including most of Jamaica Bay and the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. Also in Queens, the park includes a significant portion of the western Rockaway Peninsula, most notably Jacob Riis Park and Fort Tilden. In Staten Island, it includes Fort Wadsworth, with historic pre-Civil War era Battery Weed and Fort Tompkins, and Great Kills Park, with beaches, trails, and a marina.

The Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island Immigration Museum are managed by the National Park Service and are in both New York and New Jersey. They are joined in the harbor by Governors Island National Monument. Historic sites under federal management on Manhattan Island include Stonewall National Monument; Castle Clinton National Monument; Federal Hall National Memorial; Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site; General Grant National Memorial (Grant's Tomb); African Burial Ground National Monument; and Hamilton Grange National Memorial. Hundreds of properties are listed on the National Register of Historic Places or as a National Historic Landmark.

State parks

There are seven state parks within the confines of New York City. Some of them include:

• The Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserve is a natural area that includes extensive riding trails.
• Riverbank State Park is a 28-acre (11 ha) facility that rises 69 feet (21 m) over the Hudson River.^[226]
• Marsha P. Johnson State Park is a state park in Brooklyn and Manhattan that borders the East River that was renamed in honor of Marsha P. Johnson.^[227]

City parks

The Pond and Midtown Manhattan as seen from Gapstow Bridge in Central Park, one of the world's most visited tourist attractions, in July 2019

New York City has over 28,000 acres (110 km²) of municipal parkland and 14 miles (23 km) of public beaches.^[228] The largest municipal park in the city is Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, with 2,772 acres (1,122 ha).^[182][229]

• Central Park, an 843-acre (3.41 km²)^[182] park in middle-upper Manhattan, is the most visited urban park in the United States and one of the most filmed locations in the world, with 40 million visitors in 2013.^[230] The park has a wide range of attractions; there are several lakes and ponds, two ice-skating rinks, the Central Park Zoo, the Central Park Conservatory Garden, and the 106-acre (0.43 km²) Jackie Onassis Reservoir.^[231] Indoor attractions include Belvedere Castle with its nature center, the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theater, and the historic Carousel. On October 23, 2012, hedge fund manager John A. Paulson announced a $100 million gift to the Central Park Conservancy, the largest ever monetary donation to New York City's park system.^[232]
• Washington Square Park is a prominent landmark in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. The Washington Square Arch at the northern gateway to the park is an iconic symbol of both New York University and Greenwich Village.
• Prospect Park in Brooklyn has a 90-acre (36 ha) meadow, a lake, and extensive woodlands. Within the park is the historic Battle Pass, prominent in the Battle of Long Island.^[233]
• Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, with its 897 acres (363 ha) making it the city's fourth largest park,^[234] was the setting for the 1939 World's Fair and the 1964 World's Fair^[235] and is host to the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center and the annual U.S. Open Tennis Championships tournament.^[236]
• Over a fifth of the Bronx's area, 7,000 acres (28 km²), is dedicated to open space and parks, including Pelham Bay Park, Van Cortlandt Park, the Bronx Zoo, and the New York Botanical Gardens.^[237]
• In Staten Island, the Conference House Park contains the historic Conference House, site of the only attempt of a peaceful resolution to the American Revolution which was conducted in September 1775, attended by Benjamin Franklin representing the Americans and Lord Howe representing the British Crown.^[238] The historic Burial Ridge, the largest Native American burial ground within New York City, is within the park.^[239]

Military installations

Brooklyn is home to Fort Hamilton, the U.S. military's only active duty installation within New York City,^[240] aside from Coast Guard operations. The facility was established in 1825 on the site of a small battery used during the American Revolution, and it is one of America's longest serving military forts.^[241] Today, Fort Hamilton serves as the headquarters of the North Atlantic Division of the United States Army Corps of Engineers and for the New York City Recruiting Battalion. It also houses the 1179th Transportation Brigade, the 722nd Aeromedical Staging Squadron, and a military entrance processing station. Other formerly active military reservations still used for National Guard and military training or reserve operations in the city include Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island and Fort Totten in Queens.

Discover more about Geography related topics

Geography of New York City

Geography of New York City

The geography of New York City is characterized by its coastal position at the meeting of the Hudson River and the Atlantic Ocean in a naturally sheltered harbor. The city's geography, with its scarce availability of land, is a contributing factor in making New York the most densely populated major city in the United States. Environmental issues are chiefly concerned with managing this density, which also explains why New York is among the most energy-efficient and least automobile-dependent cities in the United States. The city's climate is temperate.

Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state of New York. Located near the southern tip of New York State, Manhattan is based in the Eastern Time Zone and constitutes both the geographical and demographic center of the Northeast megalopolis and the urban core of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass. Over 58 million people live within 250 miles of Manhattan, which serves as New York City’s economic and administrative center, cultural identifier, and the city’s historical birthplace. Residents of the outer boroughs of New York City often refer to Manhattan as "the city". Manhattan has been described as the cultural, financial, media, and entertainment capital of the world, and hosts the United Nations headquarters. Manhattan also serves as the headquarters of the global art market, with numerous art galleries and auction houses collectively hosting half of the world’s art auctions.

Ice sheet

Ice sheet

In glaciology, an ice sheet, also known as a continental glacier, is a mass of glacial ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than 50,000 km2 (19,000 sq mi). The only current ice sheets are in Antarctica and Greenland; during the Last Glacial Period at Last Glacial Maximum, the Laurentide Ice Sheet covered much of North America, the Weichselian ice sheet covered Northern Europe and the Patagonian Ice Sheet covered southern South America.

Long Island

Long Island

Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18th-most populous in the world. The island begins at New York Harbor approximately 0.35 miles (0.56 km) east of Manhattan Island and extends eastward about 118 miles (190 km) into the Atlantic Ocean, with a maximum north-to-south width of 23 miles (37 km) between Long Island Sound and the Atlantic coast. With a land area of 1,401 square miles (3,630 km2), Long Island is the 11th-largest island in the United States, the largest island in the contiguous United States, and the 149th-largest island in the world.

Bedrock

Bedrock

In geology, bedrock is solid rock that lies under loose material (regolith) within the crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet.

Foundation (engineering)

Foundation (engineering)

In engineering, a foundation is the element of a structure which connects it to the ground, transferring loads from the structure to the ground. Foundations are generally considered either shallow or deep. Foundation engineering is the application of soil mechanics and rock mechanics in the design of foundation elements of structures.

Boston

Boston

Boston, officially the City of Boston, is the capital and largest city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the Northeastern United States. The city boundaries encompass an area of about 48.4 sq mi (125 km2) and a population of 675,647 as of 2020. The city is the economic and cultural anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area known as Greater Boston, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) home to a census-estimated 4.8 million people in 2016 and ranking as the tenth-largest MSA in the country. A broader combined statistical area (CSA), generally corresponding to the commuting area and including Worcester, Massachusetts and Providence, Rhode Island, is home to approximately 8.2 million people, making it the sixth most populous in the United States.

Hudson River

Hudson River

The Hudson River is a 315-mile (507 km) river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between New York City and Jersey City, eventually draining into the Atlantic Ocean at Lower New York Bay. The river serves as a physical boundary between the states of New Jersey and New York at its southern end. Farther north, it marks local boundaries between several New York counties. The lower half of the river is a tidal estuary, deeper than the body of water into which it flows, occupying the Hudson Fjord, an inlet which formed during the most recent period of North American glaciation, estimated at 26,000 to 13,300 years ago. Even as far north as the city of Troy, the flow of the river changes direction with the tides.

Hudson Valley

Hudson Valley

The Hudson Valley comprises the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in the U.S. state of New York. The region stretches from the Capital District including Albany and Troy south to Yonkers in Westchester County, bordering New York City.

New York Bay

New York Bay

New York Bay is the large tidal body of water in the New York–New Jersey Harbor Estuary where the Hudson River, Raritan River, and Arthur Kill empty into the Atlantic Ocean between Sandy Hook and Rockaway Point.

Estuary

Estuary

An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environments and are an example of an ecotone. Estuaries are subject both to marine influences such as tides, waves, and the influx of saline water, and to fluvial influences such as flows of freshwater and sediment. The mixing of seawater and freshwater provides high levels of nutrients both in the water column and in sediment, making estuaries among the most productive natural habitats in the world.

New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state situated within both the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is the most densely populated U.S. state, and is situated at the center of the Northeast megalopolis, the most populous American urban agglomeration. New Jersey is bordered on its north and east by the state of New York; on its east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on its west by the Delaware River and Pennsylvania; and on its southwest by Delaware Bay and the state of Delaware. At 7,354 square miles (19,050 km2), New Jersey is the fifth-smallest state in land area, but with close to 9.3 million residents as of the 2020 United States census, its highest decennial count ever, ranks 11th in population. The state capital is Trenton, and the most populous city is Newark. New Jersey is the only U.S. state in which every county is deemed urban by the U.S. Census Bureau, with 13 counties included in the New York metropolitan area, seven counties in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, and with Warren County constituting part of the rapidly industrializing Lehigh Valley metropolitan area.

New York City is the most populous city in the United States,^[254] with 8,804,190 residents^[250] incorporating more immigration into the city than outmigration since the 2010 United States census.^[255][256] More than twice as many people live in New York City as compared to Los Angeles, the second-most populous U.S. city;^[254] and New York has more than three times the population of Chicago, the third-most populous U.S. city. New York City gained more residents between 2010 and 2020 (629,000) than any other U.S. city, and a greater amount than the total sum of the gains over the same decade of the next four largest U.S. cities, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Phoenix, Arizona combined.^[257][258] New York City's population is about 44% of New York State's population,^[259] and about 39% of the population of the New York metropolitan area.^[260] The majority of New York City residents in 2020 (5,141,538, or 58.4%) were living on Long Island, in Brooklyn, or in Queens.^[261] The New York City metropolitan statistical area, has the largest foreign-born population of any metropolitan region in the world. The New York region continues to be by far the leading metropolitan gateway for legal immigrants admitted into the United States, substantially exceeding the combined totals of Los Angeles and Miami.^[262]

Population density

Broadway in Midtown Manhattan

In 2020, the city had an estimated population density of 29,302.37 inhabitants per square mile (11,313.71/km²), rendering it the nation's most densely populated of all larger municipalities (those with more than 100,000 residents), with several small cities (of fewer than 100,000) in adjacent Hudson County, New Jersey having greater density, as per the 2010 census.^[263] Geographically co-extensive with New York County, the borough of Manhattan's 2017 population density of 72,918 inhabitants per square mile (28,154/km²) makes it the highest of any county in the United States and higher than the density of any individual American city.^{[264][265][266]} The next three densest counties in the United States, placing second through fourth, are also New York boroughs: Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens respectively.^[267]

Race and ethnicity

The Spanish Harlem Orchestra. New York City is home to nearly three million Latino Americans, the largest Hispanic population of any city outside Latin America and Spain.

Uzbekistan's president Shavkat Mirziyoyev with members of the Uzbek diaspora in New York City, home to more than half of all Uzbek Americans, most of whom have settled in Queens and Brooklyn

Band rehearsal on 125th Street in Harlem, the historic epicenter of African American culture. New York City is home by a significant margin to the world's largest Black population of any city outside Africa, at over 2.2 million. African immigration to New York City is now driving the growth of the city's Black population.^[268]

The city's population in 2020 was 30.9% White (non-Hispanic), 28.7% Hispanic or Latino, 20.2% Black or African American (non-Hispanic), 15.6% Asian, and 0.2% Native American (non-Hispanic).^[269] A total of 3.4% of the non-Hispanic population identified with more than one race. Throughout its history, New York has been a major port of entry for immigrants into the United States. More than 12 million European immigrants were received at Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924.^[270] The term "melting pot" was first coined to describe densely populated immigrant neighborhoods on the Lower East Side. By 1900, Germans constituted the largest immigrant group, followed by the Irish, Jews, and Italians.^[271] In 1940, Whites represented 92% of the city's population.^[253]

Approximately 37% of the city's population is foreign born, and more than half of all children are born to mothers who are immigrants as of 2013.^[272][273] In New York, no single country or region of origin dominates.^[272] The ten largest sources of foreign-born individuals in the city as of 2011^[update] were the Dominican Republic, China, Mexico, Guyana, Jamaica, Ecuador, Haiti, India, Russia, and Trinidad and Tobago,^[274] while the Bangladeshi-born immigrant population has become one of the fastest growing in the city, counting over 74,000 by 2011.^[23][275]

Asian Americans in New York City, according to the 2010 census, number more than one million, greater than the combined totals of San Francisco and Los Angeles.^[276] New York contains the highest total Asian population of any U.S. city proper.^[277] The New York City borough of Queens is home to the state's largest Asian American population and the largest Andean (Colombian, Ecuadorian, Peruvian, and Bolivian) populations in the United States, and is also the most ethnically and linguistically diverse urban area in the world.^[278][177]

Chinatown, Manhattan

Lower Manhattan's Little Italy

Koreatown, Midtown Manhattan

Upper Manhattan's Spanish Harlem

Little Russia, Brooklyn

Little India, Queens

The Chinese population constitutes the fastest-growing nationality in New York State. Multiple satellites of the original Manhattan's Chinatown—home to the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere,^[279] as well as in Brooklyn, and around Flushing, Queens, are thriving as traditionally urban enclaves—while also expanding rapidly eastward into suburban Nassau County^[280] on Long Island,^[281] as the New York metropolitan region and New York State have become the top destinations for new Chinese immigrants, respectively, and large-scale Chinese immigration continues into New York City and surrounding areas,^{[262][282][283][284][285][286]} with the largest metropolitan Chinese diaspora outside Asia,^[23][287] including an estimated 812,410 individuals in 2015.^[288]

In 2012, 6.3% of New York City was of Chinese ethnicity, with nearly three-fourths living in either Queens or Brooklyn, geographically on Long Island.^[289] A community numbering 20,000 Korean-Chinese (Chaoxianzu or Joseonjok) is centered in Flushing, Queens, while New York City is also home to the largest Tibetan population outside China, India, and Nepal, also centered in Queens.^[290] Koreans made up 1.2% of the city's population, and Japanese 0.3%. Filipinos were the largest Southeast Asian ethnic group at 0.8%, followed by Vietnamese, who made up 0.2% of New York City's population in 2010. Indians are the largest South Asian group, comprising 2.4% of the city's population, with Bangladeshis and Pakistanis at 0.7% and 0.5%, respectively.^[291] Queens is the preferred borough of settlement for Asian Indians, Koreans, Filipinos and Malaysians,^[292][262] and other Southeast Asians;^[293] while Brooklyn is receiving large numbers of both West Indian and Asian Indian immigrants.

New York City has the largest European and non-Hispanic white population of any American city. At 2.7 million in 2012, New York's non-Hispanic White population is larger than the non-Hispanic White populations of Los Angeles (1.1 million), Chicago (865,000), and Houston (550,000) combined.^[294] The non-Hispanic White population was 6.6 million in 1940.^[295] The non-Hispanic White population has begun to increase since 2010.^[296]

The European diaspora residing in the city is very diverse. According to 2012 census estimates, there were roughly 560,000 Italian Americans, 385,000 Irish Americans, 253,000 German Americans, 223,000 Russian Americans, 201,000 Polish Americans, and 137,000 English Americans. Additionally, Greek and French Americans numbered 65,000 each, with those of Hungarian descent estimated at 60,000 people. Ukrainian and Scottish Americans numbered 55,000 and 35,000, respectively. People identifying ancestry from Spain numbered 30,838 total in 2010.^[297]

People of Norwegian and Swedish descent both stood at about 20,000 each, while people of Czech, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Scotch-Irish, and Welsh descent all numbered between 12,000 and 14,000.^[298] Arab Americans number over 160,000 in New York City,^[299] with the highest concentration in Brooklyn. Central Asians, primarily Uzbek Americans, are a rapidly growing segment of the city's non-Hispanic White population, enumerating over 30,000, and including more than half of all Central Asian immigrants to the United States,^[300] most settling in Queens or Brooklyn. Albanian Americans are most highly concentrated in the Bronx,^[301] while Astoria, Queens is the epicenter of American Greek culture as well as the Cypriot community.

New York is also home to the highest Jewish population of any city in the world, numbering 1.6 million in 2022, more than Tel Aviv and Jerusalem combined.^[302] In the borough of Brooklyn, an estimated 1 in 4 residents is Jewish.^[303] The city's Jewish communities are derived from many diverse sects, predominantly from around the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and including a rapidly growing Orthodox Jewish population, also the largest outside Israel.^[290]

The metropolitan area is also home to 20% of the nation's Indian Americans and at least 20 Little India enclaves, and 15% of all Korean Americans and four Koreatowns;^[248] the largest Asian Indian population in the Western Hemisphere; the largest Russian American,^[282] Italian American, and African American populations; the largest Dominican American, Puerto Rican American, and South American^[282] and second-largest overall Hispanic population in the United States, numbering 4.8 million;^[297] and includes multiple established Chinatowns within New York City alone.^[304]

Ecuador, Colombia, Guyana, Peru, Brazil, and Venezuela are the top source countries from South America for immigrants to the New York City region; the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Haiti, and Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean; Nigeria, Egypt, Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, and South Africa from Africa; and El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala in Central America.^[305] Amidst a resurgence of Puerto Rican migration to New York City, this population had increased to approximately 1.3 million in the metropolitan area as of 2013^[update]. In 2022, New York City began receiving thousands of Latino immigrants bused from the state of Texas, mostly originating from Venezuela, Ecuador, Columbia, and Honduras.^[306]

Since 2010, Little Australia has emerged and is growing rapidly, representing the Australasian presence in Nolita, Manhattan.^{[307][308][309][310]} In 2011, there were an estimated 20,000 Australian residents of New York City, nearly quadruple the 5,537 in 2005.^[311][312] Qantas Airways of Australia and Air New Zealand have been planning for long-haul flights from New York to Sydney and Auckland, which would both rank among the longest non-stop flights in the world.^[313] A Little Sri Lanka has developed in the Tompkinsville neighborhood of Staten Island.^[314] Le Petit Sénégal, or Little Senegal, is based in Harlem. Richmond Hill, Queens is often thought of as "Little Guyana" for its large Guyanese community,^[315] as well as Punjab Avenue (ਪੰਜਾਬ ਐਵੇਨਿਊ), or Little Punjab, for its high concentration of Punjabi people. Little Poland is expanding rapidly in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Sexual orientation and gender identity

Philippine-born Geena Rocero introducing International Transgender Day of Visibility

Caribbean NYC-LGBTQ Equality Project

The NYC Dyke March, the world’s largest celebration of lesbian pride and culture^[316]

Spectators at a BDSM street fair in Lower Manhattan

NYC Pride March in Manhattan, the world's largest^[31][317]

The Multicultural Festival at the 2018 Queens Pride Parade

New York City has been described as the gay capital of the world, and is home to one of the world’s largest LGBTQ populations and the most prominent.^[44] The New York metropolitan area is home to about 570,000 self-identifying gay and bisexual people, the largest in the United States.^[318][319] Same-sex sexual activity between consenting adults has been legal in New York since the New York v. Onofre case in 1980 which invalidated the state's sodomy law.^[320] Same-sex marriages in New York were legalized on June 24, 2011, and were authorized to take place on July 23, 2011.^[321] Brian Silverman, the author of Frommer's New York City from $90 a Day, wrote the city has "one of the world's largest, loudest, and most powerful LGBT communities", and "Gay and lesbian culture is as much a part of New York's basic identity as yellow cabs, high-rise buildings, and Broadway theatre".^[322] LGBT travel guide Queer in the World states, "The fabulosity of Gay New York is unrivaled on Earth, and queer culture seeps into every corner of its five boroughs".^[323] LGBT advocate and entertainer Madonna stated metaphorically, "Anyways, not only is New York City the best place in the world because of the queer people here. Let me tell you something, if you can make it here, then you must be queer."^[324]

The annual New York City Pride March (or gay pride parade) proceeds southward down Fifth Avenue and ends at Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan; the parade is the largest pride parade in the world, attracting tens of thousands of participants and millions of sidewalk spectators each June.^[325][31] The annual Queens Pride Parade is held in Jackson Heights and is accompanied by the ensuing Multicultural Parade.^[326]

Stonewall 50 – WorldPride NYC 2019 was the largest international Pride celebration in history, produced by Heritage of Pride and enhanced through a partnership with the I ❤ NY program's LGBT division, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, with 150,000 participants and five million spectators attending in Manhattan alone.^[327] New York City is also home to the largest transgender population in the world, estimated at more than 50,000 in 2018, concentrated in Manhattan and Queens; however, until the June 1969 Stonewall riots, this community had felt marginalized and neglected by the gay community.^[326][133] Brooklyn Liberation March, the largest transgender-rights demonstration in LGBTQ history, took place on June 14, 2020, stretching from Grand Army Plaza to Fort Greene, Brooklyn, focused on supporting Black transgender lives, drawing an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 participants.^[328][329]

Religion

Christianity

The landmark Neo-Gothic Roman Catholic St. Patrick's Cathedral in Midtown Manhattan

Largely as a result of Western European missionary work and colonialism, Christianity is the largest religion (59% adherent) in New York City,^[330] which is home to the highest number of churches of any city in the world.^[14] Roman Catholicism is the largest Christian denomination (33%), followed by Protestantism (23%), and other Christian denominations (3%). The Roman Catholic population are primarily served by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and Diocese of Brooklyn. Eastern Catholics are divided into numerous jurisdictions throughout the city. Evangelical Protestantism is the largest branch of Protestantism in the city (9%), followed by Mainline Protestantism (8%), while the converse is usually true for other cities and metropolitan areas.^[331] In Evangelicalism, Baptists are the largest group; in Mainline Protestantism, Reformed Protestants compose the largest subset. The majority of historically African American churches are affiliated with the National Baptist Convention (USA) and Progressive National Baptist Convention. The Church of God in Christ is one of the largest predominantly Black Pentecostal denominations in the area. Approximately 1% of the population is Mormon. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and other Orthodox Christians (mainstream and independent) were the largest Eastern Christian groups. The American Orthodox Catholic Church (initially led by Aftimios Ofiesh) was founded in New York City in 1927.

Judaism

Haredi Jewish residents in Brooklyn, nicknamed "the most Jewish spot on Earth",^[332] and home to the world’s largest Jewish community, which with over 600,000 adherents living in the borough, greater than both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem^[333]

Judaism, the second-largest religion practiced in New York City, with approximately 1.6 million adherents as of 2022, represents the largest Jewish community of any city in the world, greater than the combined totals of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.^[334][335] Nearly half of the city’s Jews live in Brooklyn, which is one-quarter Jewish.^[333][332] The ethno-religious population makes up 18.4% of the city and its religious demographic makes up 8%.^[336] The first recorded Jewish settler was Jacob Barsimson, who arrived in August 1654 on a passport from the Dutch West India Company.^[337] Following the assassination of Alexander II of Russia, for which many blamed "the Jews", the 36 years beginning in 1881 experienced the largest wave of Jewish immigration to the United States.^[338] In 2012, the largest Jewish denominations were Orthodox, Haredi, and Conservative Judaism.^[339] Reform Jewish communities are prevalent through the area. 770 Eastern Parkway is the headquarters of the international Chabad Lubavitch movement, and is considered an icon, while Congregation Emanu-El of New York in Manhattan is the largest Reform synagogue in the world.

Islam

The Islamic Cultural Center of New York in Upper Manhattan was the first mosque built in New York City.

Islam ranks as the third largest religion in New York City, following Christianity and Judaism, with estimates ranging between 600,000 and 1,000,000 observers of Islam, including 10% of the city's public school children.^[340] Given both the size and scale of the city, as well as its relative proxinity and accessibility by air transportation to the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and South Asia, 22.3% of American Muslims live in New York City, with 1.5 million Muslims in the greater New York metropolitan area, representing the largest metropolitan Muslim population in the Western Hemisphere^[341]—and the most ethnically diverse Muslim population of any city in the world.^[342] Powers Street Mosque in Brooklyn is one of the oldest continuously operating mosques in the U.S., and represents the first Islamic organization in both the city and the state of New York.^[343][344]

Hinduism and other religious affiliations

Ganesha Temple in Flushing, Queens is the oldest Hindu temple in the Western Hemisphere.

Following these three largest religious groups in New York City are Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, and a variety of other religions. As of 2023, 24% of Greater New Yorkers identified with no organized religious affiliation, including 4% Atheist.^[345]

Wealth and income disparity

New York City, like other large cities, has a high degree of income disparity, as indicated by its Gini coefficient of 0.55 as of 2017.^[346] In the first quarter of 2014, the average weekly wage in New York County (Manhattan) was $2,749, representing the highest total among large counties in the United States.^[347] In 2022, New York City was home to the highest number of billionaires of any city in the world, including former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, with a total of 107.^[18] New York also had the highest density of millionaires per capita among major U.S. cities in 2014, at 4.6% of residents.^[348] New York City is one of the relatively few American cities levying an income tax (about 3%) on its residents.^{[349][350][351]} As of 2018, there were 78,676 homeless people in New York City.^[352]

Discover more about Demographics related topics

Demographics of New York City

Demographics of New York City

New York City is a large and ethnically diverse metropolis. It is the largest city in the United States with a long history of international immigration. New York City was home to over 8.3 million people in 2019, accounting for over 40% of the population of New York State and a slightly lower percentage of the New York metropolitan area, home to approximately 23.6 million people across parts of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Over the last decade the city has been growing faster than the region. The New York region continues to be by far the leading metropolitan gateway for legal immigrants admitted into the United States.

New York City ethnic enclaves

New York City ethnic enclaves

Since its founding in 1625 by Dutch traders as New Amsterdam, New York City has been a major destination for immigrants of many nationalities who have formed ethnic enclaves, neighborhoods dominated by one ethnicity. Freed African American slaves also moved to New York City in the Great Migration and the later Second Great Migration and formed ethnic enclaves. These neighborhoods are set apart from the main city by differences such as food, goods for sale, or even language. Ethnic enclaves provide inhabitants security in work and social opportunities, but limit economic opportunities, do not encourage the development of English speaking, and keep immigrants in their own culture.

Demographic history of New York City

Demographic history of New York City

The racial and ethnic history of New York City has varied widely; from its sale to the Dutch by Native American residents, to the modern multi-cultural period.

Hispanic and Latino Americans

Hispanic and Latino Americans

Hispanic and Latino Americans are Americans of Spanish and/or Latin American ancestry. More broadly, these demographics include all Americans who identify as Hispanic or Latino regardless of ancestry. As of 2020, the Census Bureau estimated that there were almost 65.3 million Hispanics and Latinos living in the United States and its territories.

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans, also known as American Indians, First Americans, Indigenous Americans, and other terms, are the Indigenous peoples of the mainland United States. There are 574 federally recognized tribes living within the U.S., about half of which are associated with Indian reservations. As defined by the United States Census, "Native Americans" are Indigenous tribes that are originally from the contiguous United States, along with Alaska Natives. Indigenous peoples of the United States who are not listed as American Indian or Alaska Native include Native Hawaiians, Samoan Americans, and Chamorros. The US Census groups these peoples as "Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders".

Multiracial Americans

Multiracial Americans

Multiracial Americans are Americans who have mixed ancestry of two or more races. The term may also include Americans of mixed race ancestry who self-identify with just one group culturally and socially. In the 2010 United States census, approximately 9 million individuals or 3.2% of the population, self-identified as multiracial. There is evidence that an accounting by genetic ancestry would produce a higher number. Historical reasons are said to have created a racial caste such as the European-American suppression of Native Americans, often led people to identify or be classified by only one ethnicity, generally that of the culture in which they were raised. Prior to the mid-20th century, many people hid their multiracial heritage because of racial discrimination against minorities. While many Americans may be considered multiracial, they often do not know it or do not identify so culturally, any more than they maintain all the differing traditions of a variety of national ancestries.

2010 United States census

2010 United States census

The United States census of 2010 was the twenty-third United States national census. National Census Day, the reference day used for the census, was April 1, 2010. The census was taken via mail-in citizen self-reporting, with enumerators serving to spot-check randomly selected neighborhoods and communities. As part of a drive to increase the count's accuracy, 635,000 temporary enumerators were hired. The population of the United States was counted as 308,745,538, a 9.7% increase from the 2000 census. This was the first census in which all states recorded a population of over half a million people as well as the first in which all 100 largest cities recorded populations of over 200,000.

Los Angeles

Los Angeles

Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. Los Angeles is the largest city in the state of California, the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, and one of the world's most populous megacities. With a population of roughly 3.9 million residents within the city limits as of 2020, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic and cultural diversity, being the home of the Hollywood film industry, and its sprawling metropolitan area. The majority of the city proper lies in a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending partly through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into the San Fernando Valley, with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to its east. It covers about 469 square miles (1,210 km2), and is the county seat of Los Angeles County, which is the most populous county in the United States with an estimated 9.86 million residents as of 2022.

Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and the third most populous in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles. With a population of 2,746,388 in the 2020 census, it is also the most populous city in the Midwest. As the seat of Cook County, the city is the center of the Chicago metropolitan area, one of the largest in the world.

Houston

Houston

Houston is the most populous city in Texas and in the Southern United States. It is the fourth most populous city in the United States after New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago, and the sixth most populous city in North America. With a population of 2,304,580 in 2020, Houston is located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the seat and largest city of Harris County and the principal city of the Greater Houston metropolitan area, which is the fifth-most populous metropolitan statistical area in the United States and the second-most populous in Texas after Dallas–Fort Worth. Houston is the southeast anchor of the greater megaregion known as the Texas Triangle.

Long Island

Long Island

Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18th-most populous in the world. The island begins at New York Harbor approximately 0.35 miles (0.56 km) east of Manhattan Island and extends eastward about 118 miles (190 km) into the Atlantic Ocean, with a maximum north-to-south width of 23 miles (37 km) between Long Island Sound and the Atlantic coast. With a land area of 1,401 square miles (3,630 km2), Long Island is the 11th-largest island in the United States, the largest island in the contiguous United States, and the 149th-largest island in the world.

Miami metropolitan area

Miami metropolitan area

The Miami metropolitan area is the ninth-largest metropolitan statistical area in the United States and the 61st-largest metropolitan area in the world with a 2020 population of 6.138 million people.

New York City is a global hub of business and commerce and an established safe haven for global investors, and is sometimes described as the capital of the world.^[353] The term global city was popularized by sociologist Saskia Sassen in her 1991 work, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo.^[354] New York is a center for worldwide banking and finance, health care and life sciences,^[11] medical technology and research, retailing, world trade, transportation, tourism, real estate, new media, traditional media, advertising, legal services, accountancy, insurance, both musical and prose theater, fashion, and the arts in the United States; while Silicon Alley, metonymous for New York's broad-spectrum high technology sphere, continues to expand. The Port of New York and New Jersey is a major economic engine, handling a maritime cargo volume in the ten months through October 2022 of over 8.2 million TEUs, benefitting post-Panamax from the expansion of the Panama Canal, and accelerating ahead of California seaports in monthly cargo volumes.^[355][356]

Many Fortune 500 corporations are headquartered in New York City,^[357] as are a large number of multinational corporations. New York City has been ranked first among cities across the globe in attracting capital, business, and tourists.^[358][359] New York City's role as the top global center for the advertising industry is metonymously reflected as Madison Avenue.^[360] The city's fashion industry provides approximately 180,000 employees with $11 billion in annual wages.^[361] The non-profit Partnership for New York City, currently headed by Kathryn Wylde, is the city's pre-eminent private business association, comprising approximately 330 corporate leaders in membership. The fashion industry is based in Midtown Manhattan and is represented by the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CDFA), headquartered in Lower Manhattan.

Significant economic sectors also include non-profit institutions, and universities. Manufacturing declined over the 20th century but still accounts for significant employment. particularly in smaller operations. The city's apparel and garment industry, historically centered on the Garment District in Manhattan, peaked in 1950, when more than 323,000 workers were employed in the industry in New York. In 2015, fewer than 23,000 New York City residents were employed in the manufacture of garments, accessories, and finished textiles, although efforts to revive the industry were underway,^[362] and the American fashion industry continues to be metonymized as Seventh Avenue.^[363]

Chocolate is New York City's leading specialty-food export, with up to $234 million worth of exports each year.^[364] Godiva, one of the world's largest chocolatiers, is headquartered in Manhattan,^[365] and an unofficial chocolate district in Brooklyn is home to several chocolate makers and retailers.^[366] Food processing is a $5 billion industry that employs more than 19,000 residents.

Wall Street

The Financial District of Lower Manhattan including Wall Street, the world's principal financial center^[40][367]

New York City's most important economic sector lies in its role as the headquarters for the U.S. financial industry, metonymously known as Wall Street. The city's securities industry continues to form the largest segment of the city's financial sector and is an important economic engine. Many large financial companies are headquartered in New York City, and the city is also home to a burgeoning number of financial startup companies.

Lower Manhattan is home to the New York Stock Exchange, at 11 Wall Street, and the Nasdaq, at 165 Broadway, representing the world's largest and second largest stock exchanges, respectively, when measured both by overall average daily trading volume and by total market capitalization of their listed companies in 2013.^[368][369] Investment banking fees on Wall Street totaled approximately $40 billion in 2012,^[370] while in 2013, senior New York City bank officers who manage risk and compliance functions earned as much as $324,000 annually.^[371] In fiscal year 2013–14, Wall Street's securities industry generated 19% of New York State's tax revenue.^[372]

New York City remains the largest global center for trading in public equity and debt capital markets, driven in part by the size and financial development of the U.S. economy.^{[373]: 31–32 [374]} New York also leads in hedge fund management; private equity; and the monetary volume of mergers and acquisitions. Several investment banks and investment managers headquartered in Manhattan are important participants in other global financial centers.^{[373]: 34–35} New York is also the principal commercial banking center of the United States.^[375]

Many of the world's largest media conglomerates are also based in the city. Manhattan contained over 500 million square feet (46.5 million m²) of office space in 2018,^[376] making it the largest office market in the United States,^[377] while Midtown Manhattan, with 400 million square feet (37.2 million m²) in 2018,^[376] is the largest central business district in the world.^[378]

Tech and biotech

Silicon Alley, centered in New York, has evolved into a metonym for the sphere encompassing the metropolitan region's high technology industries^[379] involving the internet, new media, financial technology (fintech) and cryptocurrency, telecommunications, digital media, software development, biotechnology, game design, and other fields within information technology that are supported by its entrepreneurship ecosystem and venture capital investments.

Technology-driven startup companies and entrepreneurial employment are growing in New York City and the region. The technology sector has been claiming a greater share of New York City's economy since 2010.^[380] Tech:NYC, founded in 2016, is a non-profit organization which represents New York City's technology industry with government, civic institutions, in business, and in the media, and whose primary goals are to further augment New York's substantial tech talent base and to advocate for policies that will nurture tech companies to grow in the city.^[381]

The biotechnology sector is also growing in New York City, based upon the city's strength in academic scientific research and public and commercial financial support. On December 19, 2011, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced his choice of Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to build a $2 billion graduate school of applied sciences called Cornell Tech on Roosevelt Island with the goal of transforming New York City into the world's premier technology capital.^[382][383] By mid-2014, Accelerator, a biotech investment firm, had raised more than $30 million from investors, including Eli Lilly and Company, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson, for initial funding to create biotechnology startups at the Alexandria Center for Life Science, which encompasses more than 700,000 square feet (65,000 m²) on East 29th Street and promotes collaboration among scientists and entrepreneurs at the center and with nearby academic, medical, and research institutions. The New York City Economic Development Corporation's Early Stage Life Sciences Funding Initiative and venture capital partners, including Celgene, General Electric Ventures, and Eli Lilly, committed a minimum of $100 million to help launch 15 to 20 ventures in life sciences and biotechnology.^[384]

Real estate

The Deutsche Bank Center as seen from Central Park West

Real estate is a major force in the city's economy, as the total value of all New York City property was assessed at US$1.072 trillion for the 2017 fiscal year, an increase of 10.6% from the previous year, with 89% of the increase coming from market effects.^[385]

In 2014, Manhattan was home to six of the top ten ZIP codes in the United States by median housing price.^[386] Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan commands the highest retail rents in the world, at $3,000 per square foot ($32,000/m²) in 2017.^[387] In 2019, the most expensive home sale ever in the United States achieved completion in Manhattan, at a selling price of $238 million, for a 24,000 square feet (2,200 m²) penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park.^[388] In 2022, one-bedroom apartments in Manhattan rented at a median monthly price of US$3,600.00, one of the world's highest. New York City real estate is a safe haven for global investors.^[17]

Tourism

Times Square is the hub of the Broadway theater district and a media center. It has one of the highest annual attendance rates of any tourist attraction in the world, estimated at 50 million.^[32]

The I Love New York logo designed by Milton Glaser in 1977

Tourism is a vital industry for New York City, and NYC & Company represents the city's official bureau of tourism. New York has witnessed a growing combined volume of international and domestic tourists, reflecting over 60 million visitors to the city per year, the world's busiest tourist destination.^[14] Approximately 12 million visitors to New York City have been from outside the United States, with the highest numbers from the United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil, and China. Multiple sources have called New York the most photographed city in the world.^{[389][390][391]}

I Love New York (stylized I ❤ NY) is both a logo and a song that are the basis of an advertising campaign and have been used since 1977 to promote tourism in New York City,^[392] and later to promote New York State as well. The trademarked logo, owned by New York State Empire State Development,^[393] appears in souvenir shops and brochures throughout the city and state, some licensed, many not. The song is the state song of New York.

The majority of the most high-profile tourist destinations to the city are situated in Manhattan. These include Times Square; Broadway theater productions; the Empire State Building; the Statue of Liberty; Ellis Island; the United Nations headquarters; the World Trade Center (including the National September 11 Memorial & Museum and One World Trade Center); the art museums along Museum Mile; green spaces such as Central Park, Washington Square Park, the High Line, and the medieval gardens of The Cloisters; the Stonewall Inn; Rockefeller Center; ethnic enclaves including the Manhattan Chinatown, Koreatown, Curry Hill, Harlem, Spanish Harlem, Little Italy, and Little Australia; luxury shopping along Fifth and Madison Avenues; and events such as the Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village; the Brooklyn Bridge (shared with Brooklyn); the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade; the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree; the St. Patrick's Day Parade; seasonal activities such as ice skating in Central Park in the wintertime; the Tribeca Film Festival; and free performances in Central Park at SummerStage.^[394]

Points of interest have also developed in the city outside Manhattan and have made the outer boroughs tourist destinations in their own right. These include numerous ethnic enclaves; the Unisphere, Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, and Downtown Flushing in Queens; Downtown Brooklyn, Coney Island, Williamsburg, Park Slope, and Prospect Park in Brooklyn; the Bronx Zoo, the New York Botanical Garden, and the Grand Concourse in the Bronx; and the Staten Island Ferry shuttling passengers between Staten Island and the South Ferry Terminal bordering Battery Park in Lower Manhattan, at the historical birthplace of New York City.

Media and entertainment

Rockefeller Center is one of Manhattan's media and entertainment hubs.

Times Square Studios on Times Square is sometimes called the "Crossroads of the World".

New York City has been described as the entertainment^{[14][395][396]} and digital media capital of the world.^[397][398] The city is a prominent location for the American entertainment industry, with many films, television series, books, and other media being set there.^[399] As of 2019^[update], New York City was the second-largest center for filmmaking and television production in the United States, producing about 200 feature films annually, employing 130,000 individuals. The filmed entertainment industry has been growing in New York, contributing nearly $9 billion to the New York City economy alone as of 2015.^[400] By volume, New York is the world leader in independent film production—one-third of all American independent films are produced there.^[401][402] The Association of Independent Commercial Producers is also based in New York.^[403] In the first five months of 2014 alone, location filming for television pilots in New York City exceeded the record production levels for all of 2013,^[404] with New York surpassing Los Angeles as the top North American city for the same distinction during the 2013–2014 cycle.^[405]

New York City is the center for the advertising, music, newspaper, digital media, and publishing industries and is also the largest media market in North America.^[406] Some of the city's media conglomerates and institutions include Warner Bros. Discovery, the Thomson Reuters Corporation, the Associated Press, Bloomberg L.P., the News Corp, The New York Times Company, NBCUniversal, the Hearst Corporation, AOL, Fox Corporation, and Paramount Global. Seven of the world's top eight global advertising agency networks have their headquarters in New York.^[407] Two of the top three record labels' headquarters are in New York: Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group. Universal Music Group also has offices in New York. New media enterprises are contributing an increasingly important component to the city's central role in the media sphere.

More than 200 newspapers and 350 consumer magazines have an office in the city,^[402] and the publishing industry employs about 25,000 people.^[408] Two of the three national daily newspapers with the largest circulations in the United States are published in New York: The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times (NYT). Nicknamed "the Grey Lady", the NYT has won the most Pulitzer Prizes for journalism and is considered the U.S. media's newspaper of record.^[30] Tabloid newspapers in the city include the New York Daily News, which was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson,^[409] and The New York Post, founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton.^[410] At the local news end of the media spectrum, Patch Media is also headquartered in Manhattan.

New York City also has a comprehensive ethnic press, with 270 newspapers and magazines published in more than 40 languages.^[411] El Diario La Prensa is New York's largest Spanish-language daily and the oldest in the nation.^[412] The New York Amsterdam News, published in Harlem, is a prominent African American newspaper. The Village Voice, historically the largest alternative newspaper in the United States, announced in 2017 that it would cease publication of its print edition and convert to a fully digital venture.^[413] The television and radio industry developed in New York and is a significant employer in the city's economy. The three major American broadcast networks are all headquartered in New York: ABC, CBS, and NBC. Many cable networks are based in the city as well, including CNN, MSNBC, MTV, Fox News, HBO, Showtime, Bravo, Food Network, AMC, and Comedy Central. News 12 Networks operated News 12 The Bronx and News 12 Brooklyn. WBAI, with news and information programming, is one of the few socialist radio stations operating in the United States.

New York is also a major center for non-commercial educational media. NYC Media is the official public radio, television, and online media network and broadcasting service of New York City,^[414] and this network has produced several original Emmy Award-winning shows covering music and culture in city neighborhoods and city government. The oldest public-access television channel in the United States is the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, founded in 1971.^[415] WNET is the city's major public television station and a primary source of national Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) television programming. WNYC, a public radio station owned by the city until 1997, has the largest public radio audience in the United States.^[416]

Climate resiliency

As an oceanic port city, New York City is vulnerable to the long-term manifestations of global warming and rising seas. Climate change has spawned the development of a significant climate resiliency and environmental sustainability economy in the city. Governors Island is slated to host a US$1 billion research and education center intended to establish New York’s role as the global leader in addressing the climate crisis.^[417]

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Economy of New York City

Economy of New York City

The economy of New York City encompasses the largest municipal and regional economy in the United States. In 2022, the New York metropolitan area generated a gross metropolitan product (GMP) of US$2.1 trillion, with a population of 23.6 million people. Anchored by Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City has been characterized as the world's premier financial center. The city is home to the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Nasdaq, the world's two largest stock exchanges by both market capitalization and trading activity.

Economy of Long Island

Economy of Long Island

Long Island is one of the world’s most urbanized and highly developed islands. As of 2021, Long Island had a population of 8.1 million people and a gross domestic product of $361 billion. Between 2014 and 2019, Long Island experienced a 4.3% growth in jobs. Median income on the island is $112,000 and the median home price is $450,000. Among those over the age of 25, 42.6% hold a college degree or higher educationally.

Global city

Global city

A global city is a city that serves as a primary node in the global economic network. The concept originates from geography and urban studies, based on the thesis that globalization has created a hierarchy of strategic geographic locations with varying degrees of influence over finance, trade, and culture worldwide. The global city represents the most complex and significant hub within the international system, characterized by links binding it to other cities that have direct, tangible effects on global socioeconomic affairs.

Saskia Sassen

Saskia Sassen

Saskia Sassen is a Dutch-American sociologist noted for her analyses of globalization and international human migration. She is Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University in New York City, and Centennial visiting Professor at the London School of Economics. The term global city was coined and popularized by Sassen in her 1991 work, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo.

Health care

Health care

Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health professionals and allied health fields. Medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, midwifery, nursing, optometry, audiology, psychology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, athletic training, and other health professions all constitute health care. It includes work done in providing primary care, secondary care, and tertiary care, as well as in public health.

Research

Research

Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to controlling sources of bias and error. These activities are characterized by accounting and controlling for biases. A research project may be an expansion on past work in the field. To test the validity of instruments, procedures, or experiments, research may replicate elements of prior projects or the project as a whole.

New media

New media

New media is described as communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content. In the middle of the 1990s, the phrase "new media" became widely used as part of a sales pitch for the influx of interactive CD-ROMs for entertainment and education. The new media technologies, sometimes known as Web 2.0, include a wide range of web-related communication tools such as blogs, wikis, online social networking, virtual worlds, and other social media platforms.

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, or Broadway, are the theatrical performances presented in the 41 professional theatres, each with 500 or more seats, located in the Theater District and the Lincoln Center along Broadway, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Broadway and London's West End together represent the highest commercial level of live theater in the English-speaking world.

Fashion

Fashion

Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion industry as that which is trending. Everything that is considered fashion is available and popularized by the fashion system.

Butler Library at Columbia University, described as one of the most beautiful college libraries in the United States^[418]

The Washington Square Arch, an unofficial icon of both New York University and its Greenwich Village neighborhood

New York City has the largest educational system of any city in the world.^[14] The city’s educational infrastructure spans primary education, secondary education, higher education, and research.

Primary and secondary education

The New York City Public Schools system, managed by the New York City Department of Education, is the largest public school system in the United States, serving about 1.1 million students in more than 1,700 separate primary and secondary schools.^[419] The city's public school system includes nine specialized high schools to serve academically and artistically gifted students. The city government pays the Pelham Public Schools to educate a very small, detached section of the Bronx.^[420]

The New York City Charter School Center assists the setup of new charter schools.^[421] There are approximately 900 additional privately run secular and religious schools in the city.^[422]

Higher education and research

More than a million students, the highest number of any city in the United States,^[423] are enrolled in New York City's more than 120 higher education institutions, with more than half a million in the City University of New York (CUNY) system alone as of 2020^[update], including both degree and professional programs.^[424] According to Academic Ranking of World Universities, New York City has, on average, the best higher education institutions of any global city.^[425]

The public CUNY system is one of the largest universities in the nation, comprising 25 institutions across all five boroughs: senior colleges, community colleges, and other graduate/professional schools. The public State University of New York (SUNY) system includes campuses in New York City, including SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY Maritime College, and SUNY College of Optometry.

New York City is home to such notable private universities as Barnard College, Columbia University, Cooper Union, Fordham University, New York University, New York Institute of Technology, Rockefeller University, and Yeshiva University; several of these universities are ranked among the top universities in the world,^[426][427] while some of the world's most prestigious institutions like Princeton University and Yale University remain in the New York metropolitan area.

The city also hosts other smaller private colleges and universities, including many religious and special-purpose institutions, such as Pace University, St. John's University, The Juilliard School, Manhattan College, Adelphi University - Manhattan, Mercy College (New York), The College of Mount Saint Vincent, Parsons School of Design, The New School, Pratt Institute, New York Film Academy, The School of Visual Arts, The King's College, Marymount Manhattan College, and Wagner College.

Much of the scientific research in the city is done in medicine and the life sciences. In 2019, the New York metropolitan area ranked first on the list of cities and metropolitan areas by share of published articles in life sciences.^[428] New York City has the most postgraduate life sciences degrees awarded annually in the United States, and in 2012, 43,523 licensed physicians were practicing in New York City.^[429] There are 127 Nobel laureates with roots in local institutions as of 2004^[update].^[430]

Major biomedical research institutions include Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Rockefeller University, SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and Weill Cornell Medical College, being joined by the Cornell University/Technion-Israel Institute of Technology venture on Roosevelt Island. The graduates of SUNY Maritime College in the Bronx earned the highest average annual salary of any university graduates in the United States, $144,000 as of 2017.^[431]

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Education in New York City

Education in New York City

Education in New York City is provided by a vast number of public and private institutions. New York City has the largest educational system of any city in the world. The city’s educational infrastructure spans primary education, secondary education, higher education, and research. New York City is home to some of the most important libraries, universities, and research centers in the world. In 2006, New York had the most post-graduate life sciences degrees awarded annually in the United States, 40,000 licensed physicians, and 127 Nobel laureates with roots in local institutions. The city receives the second-highest amount of annual funding from the National Institutes of Health among all U.S. cities. It also struggles with disparity in its public school system, with some of the best-performing public schools in the United States as well as some of the worst-performing. Under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the city embarked on a major school reform effort.

Butler Library

Butler Library

Butler Library is located on the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University at 535 West 114th Street, in Manhattan, New York City. It is the university's largest single library with over 2 million volumes, as well as one of the largest buildings on the campus. It houses the Columbia University Libraries collections in the humanities, history, social sciences, literature, philosophy, and religion, and the Columbia Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University is a private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhattan, it is the oldest institution of higher education in New York, the fifth-oldest in the United States, and one of nine colonial colleges founded prior to the Declaration of Independence.

New York University

New York University

New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.

Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village, or simply The Village, is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village also contains several subsections, including the West Village west of Seventh Avenue and the Meatpacking District in the northwest corner of Greenwich Village.

Higher education

Higher education

Higher education is tertiary education leading to the award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after completion of secondary education. It represents levels 5, 6, 7, and 8 of the 2011 version of the International Standard Classification of Education structure. Tertiary education at a nondegree level is sometimes referred to as further education or continuing education as distinct from higher education.

New York City Department of Education

New York City Department of Education

The New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) is the department of the government of New York City that manages the city's public school system. The City School District of the City of New York is the largest school system in the United States, with over 1.1 million students taught in more than 1,800 separate schools. The department covers all five boroughs of New York City, and has an annual budget of $38 billion. The department is run by the Panel for Educational Policy and New York City Schools Chancellor. The current chancellor is David C. Banks.

Charter school

Charter school

A charter school is a school that receives government funding but operates independently of the established state school system in which it is located. It is independent in the sense that it operates according to the basic principle of autonomy for accountability, that it is freed from the rules but accountable for results.

City University of New York

City University of New York

The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven senior colleges, seven community colleges, and seven professional institutions. While its constituent colleges date back as far as 1847, CUNY was established in 1961. The university enrolls more than 275,000 students and counts thirteen Nobel Prize winners and twenty-four MacArthur Fellows among its alumni.

Academic Ranking of World Universities

Academic Ranking of World Universities

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), also known as the Shanghai Ranking, is one of the annual publications of world university rankings. The league table was originally compiled and issued by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2003, making it the first global university ranking with multifarious indicators.

Global city

Global city

A global city is a city that serves as a primary node in the global economic network. The concept originates from geography and urban studies, based on the thesis that globalization has created a hierarchy of strategic geographic locations with varying degrees of influence over finance, trade, and culture worldwide. The global city represents the most complex and significant hub within the international system, characterized by links binding it to other cities that have direct, tangible effects on global socioeconomic affairs.

Community college

Community college

A community college is a type of educational institution. The term can have different meanings in different countries: many community colleges have an "open enrollment" for students who have graduated from high school. The term usually refers to a higher educational institution that provides workforce education and college transfer academic programs. Some institutions maintain athletic teams and dormitories similar to their university counterparts.

Public health

New York-Presbyterian Hospital, affiliated with Columbia University and Cornell University, is the largest hospital and largest private employer in New York City and one of the world's busiest.^[432]

The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) operates the public hospitals and outpatient clinics in New York City. A public benefit corporation with As of 2021^[update], HHC is the largest municipal healthcare system in the United States with $10.9 billion in annual revenues,^[433] HHC is the largest municipal healthcare system in the United States serving 1.4 million patients, including more than 475,000 uninsured city residents.^[434] HHC was created in 1969 by the New York State Legislature as a public benefit corporation (Chapter 1016 of the Laws 1969).^[435] HHC operates 11 acute care hospitals, five nursing homes, six diagnostic and treatment centers, and more than 70 community-based primary care sites, serving primarily the poor and working class. HHC's MetroPlus Health Plan is one of the New York area's largest providers of government-sponsored health insurance and is the plan of choice for nearly half a million New Yorkers.^[436]

HHC's facilities annually provide millions of New Yorkers services interpreted in more than 190 languages.^[437] The most well-known hospital in the HHC system is Bellevue Hospital, the oldest public hospital in the United States. Bellevue is the designated hospital for treatment of the President of the United States and other world leaders if they become sick or injured while in New York City.^[438] The president of HHC is Ramanathan Raju, MD, a surgeon and former CEO of the Cook County health system in Illinois.^[439] In August 2017, Mayor Bill de Blasio signed legislation outlawing pharmacies from selling cigarettes once their existing licenses to do so expired, beginning in 2018.^[440]

Public safety

Police and law enforcement

The New York Police Department (NYPD) is the largest police force in the United States.

NYPD police officers in Brooklyn

The New York Police Department (NYPD) has been the largest police force in the United States by a significant margin, with more than 35,000 sworn officers.^[441] Members of the NYPD are frequently referred to by politicians, the media, and their own police cars by the nickname, New York's Finest.

Crime overall has trended downward in New York City since the 1990s.^[442] In 2012, the NYPD came under scrutiny for its use of a stop-and-frisk program,^{[443][444][445]} which has undergone several policy revisions since then. In 2014, New York City had the third-lowest murder rate among the largest U.S. cities,^[446] having become significantly safer after a spike in crime in the 1970s through 1990s.^[447] Violent crime in New York City decreased more than 75% from 1993 to 2005, and continued decreasing during periods when the nation as a whole saw increases.^[448] By 2002, New York City was ranked 197th in crime among the 216 U.S. cities with populations greater than 100,000.^[448] In 1992, the city recorded 2,245 murders.^[449] In 2005, the homicide rate was at its lowest level since 1966,^[450] and in 2009, the city recorded fewer than 461 homicides for the first time ever since crime statistics were first published in 1963.^[449] In 2017, 60.1% of violent crime suspects were Black, 29.6% Hispanic, 6.5% White, 3.6% Asian and 0.2% American Indian.^[451] New York City experienced 292 homicides in 2017.^[452]

Sociologists and criminologists have not reached consensus on the explanation for the dramatic long-term decrease in the city's crime rate. Some attribute the phenomenon to new tactics used by the NYPD,^[453] including its use of CompStat and the broken windows theory.^[454] Others cite the end of the crack epidemic and demographic changes,^[455] including from immigration.^[456] Another theory is that widespread exposure to lead pollution from automobile exhaust, which can lower intelligence and increase aggression levels, incited the initial crime wave in the mid-20th century, most acutely affecting heavily trafficked cities like New York. A strong correlation was found demonstrating that violent crime rates in New York and other big cities began to fall after lead was removed from American gasoline in the 1970s.^[457] Another theory cited to explain New York City's falling homicide rate is the inverse correlation between the number of murders and the increasingly wet climate in the city.^[458]

Organized crime has long been associated with New York City, beginning with the Forty Thieves and the Roach Guards in the Five Points neighborhood in the 1820s, followed by the Tongs in the same neighborhood, which ultimately evolved into Chinatown, Manhattan. The 20th century saw a rise in the Mafia, dominated by the Five Families, as well as in gangs, including the Black Spades.^[459] The Mafia and gang presence has declined in the city in the 21st century.^[460][461]

Firefighting

The Fire Department of New York (FDNY) is the largest municipal fire department in the United States.

The Fire Department of New York (FDNY) provides fire protection, technical rescue, primary response to biological, chemical, and radioactive hazards, and emergency medical services for the five boroughs of New York City. The FDNY is the largest municipal fire department in the United States and the second largest in the world after the Tokyo Fire Department. The FDNY employs approximately 11,080 uniformed firefighters and more than 3,300 uniformed EMTs and paramedics. The FDNY's motto is New York's Bravest.

The fire department faces multifaceted firefighting challenges in many ways unique to New York. In addition to responding to building types that range from wood-frame single family homes to high-rise structures, the FDNY also responds to fires that occur in the New York City Subway.^[462] Secluded bridges and tunnels, as well as large parks and wooded areas that can give rise to brush fires, also present challenges.

The FDNY is headquartered at 9 MetroTech Center in Downtown Brooklyn,^[463] and the FDNY Fire Academy is on the Randalls Island.^[464] There are three Bureau of Fire Communications alarm offices which receive and dispatch alarms to appropriate units. One office, at 11 Metrotech Center in Brooklyn, houses Manhattan/Citywide, Brooklyn, and Staten Island Fire Communications; the Bronx and Queens offices are in separate buildings.

Public library system

The Stephen A. Schwarzman Headquarters Building of the New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street

The New York Public Library (NYPL), which has the largest collection of any public library system in the United States.^[465] Queens is served by the Queens Borough Public Library (QPL), the nation's second-largest public library system, while the Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) serves Brooklyn.^[465]

In 2013, the New York Public Library and the Brooklyn Public Library announced that they would merge their technical services departments into a new department called BookOps. This proposed merger anticipated a savings of $2 million for the Brooklyn Public Library and $1.5 million for the New York Public Library. Although not currently part of the merger, it is expected that the Queens Public Library will eventually share some resources with the other city libraries.^[466][467]

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New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is the department of the government of New York City responsible for public health along with issuing birth certificates, dog licenses, and conducting restaurant inspection and enforcement. The New York City Board of Health is part of the department. Its regulations are compiled in title 24 of the New York City Rules. Since March 2022, the commissioner has been Ashwin Vasan.

Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University is a private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhattan, it is the oldest institution of higher education in New York, the fifth-oldest in the United States, and one of nine colonial colleges founded prior to the Declaration of Independence.

Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is a private Ivy League statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. The university was founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White with the intention of teaching and making contributions in all fields of knowledge from the classics to the sciences and from the theoretical to the applied.

New York state public-benefit corporations

New York state public-benefit corporations

New York state public-benefit corporations and authorities operate like quasi-private corporations, with boards of directors appointed by elected officials, overseeing both publicly operated and privately operated systems. Public-benefit nonprofit corporations share characteristics with government agencies, but they are exempt from many state and local regulations. Of particular importance, they can issue their own debt, allowing them to bypass limits on state debt contained in the New York State Constitution. This allows public authorities to make potentially risky capital and infrastructure investments without directly putting the credit of New York State or its municipalities on the line. As a result, public authorities have become widely used for financing public works, and they are now responsible for more than 90% of the state's debt.

New York State Legislature

New York State Legislature

The New York State Legislature consists of the two houses that act as the state legislature of the U.S. state of New York: The New York State Senate and the New York State Assembly. The Constitution of New York does not designate an official term for the two houses together; it says only that the state's legislative power "shall be vested in the senate and assembly". Session laws passed by the Legislature are published in the official Laws of New York. Permanent New York laws of a general nature are codified in the Consolidated Laws of New York. As of January 2021, the Democratic Party holds supermajorities in both houses of the New York State Legislature, which is the highest paid state legislature in the country.

Acute care

Acute care

Acute care is a branch of secondary health care where a patient receives active but short-term treatment for a severe injury or episode of illness, an urgent medical condition, or during recovery from surgery. In medical terms, care for acute health conditions is the opposite from chronic care, or longer-term care.

Bellevue Hospital

Bellevue Hospital

Bellevue Hospital is a hospital in New York City and the oldest public hospital in the United States. One of the largest hospitals in the United States by number of beds, it is located at 462 First Avenue in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Bellevue is also home to FDNY EMS Station 08, formerly NYC EMS Station 13.

List of current heads of state and government

List of current heads of state and government

This is a list of current heads of state and heads of government. In some cases, mainly in presidential systems, there is only one leader being both head of state and head of government. In other cases, mainly in semi-presidential and parliamentary systems, the head of state and the head of government are different people. In semi-presidential and parliamentary systems, the head of government role is fulfilled by both the listed head of government and the head of state. In single-party systems, ruling party's leader is usually the de facto top leader of the state, though sometimes this leader also holds the presidency or premiership.

Bill de Blasio

Bill de Blasio

Bill de Blasio is an American politician who served as the 109th mayor of New York City from 2014 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he held the office of New York City Public Advocate from 2010 to 2013.

New York City Police Department

New York City Police Department

The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York. Established on May 23, 1845, the NYPD is the largest, and one of the oldest, municipal police departments in the United States.

Law enforcement in New York City

Law enforcement in New York City

Law enforcement in New York City is carried out by numerous Federal, State, City and Private agencies. New York City has the highest concentration of Law Enforcement in the United States.

Crime in New York City

Crime in New York City

Crime rates in New York City have been recorded since at least the 1800s. They have spiked ever since the post-war period. The highest crime totals were recorded in the late 1980s and early 1990s as the crack epidemic surged, and then declined continuously through the 2000s.

New York City has been described as the cultural capital of the world by Manhattan's Baruch College.^[468] A book containing a series of essays titled New York, Culture Capital of the World, 1940–1965 has also been published as showcased by the National Library of Australia.^[469] In describing New York, author Tom Wolfe said, "Culture just seems to be in the air, like part of the weather."^[470]

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.^[471][472] The city became the center of stand-up comedy in the early 20th century, jazz^[473] in the 1940s, abstract expressionism in the 1950s, and the birthplace of hip-hop in the 1970s.^[474] The city's punk^[475] and hardcore^[476] scenes were influential in the 1970s and 1980s. New York has long had a flourishing scene for Jewish American 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,^[181] punk, salsa, freestyle, Tin Pan Alley, certain forms of jazz, and (along with Philadelphia) disco in music. New York City has been considered the dance capital of the world.^[477][478] The city is also frequently the setting for novels, movies (see List of films set in New York City), and television programs. New York Fashion Week is one of the world's preeminent fashion events and is afforded extensive coverage by the media.^[479][480] New York has also frequently been ranked the top fashion capital of the world on the annual list compiled by the Global Language Monitor.^[481]

Pace

The fast-paced streets of New York City in January 2020

One of the most common traits attributed to New York City is its fast pace,^{[482][483][484]} which spawned the term New York minute.^[485] Journalist Walt Whitman characterized New York's streets as being traversed by "hurrying, feverish, electric crowds".^[484]

Arts

New York City has more than 2,000 arts and cultural organizations and more than 500 art galleries.^[486] The city government funds the arts with a larger annual budget than the National Endowment for the Arts.^[486] Wealthy business magnates in the 19th century built a network of major cultural institutions, such as Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which have become internationally renowned. 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. New York City itself is the subject or background of many plays and musicals.

Performing arts

Lincoln Center in Manhattan

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, part of Museum Mile, is one of the largest museums in the world.^[487]

Broadway theatre is one of the premier forms of English-language theatre in the world, named after Broadway, the major thoroughfare that crosses Times Square,^[488] also sometimes referred to as "The Great White Way".^{[489][490][491]} Forty-one venues in Midtown Manhattan's Theatre District, each with at least 500 seats, are classified as Broadway theatres. According to The Broadway League, Broadway shows sold approximately $1.27 billion worth of tickets in the 2013–2014 season, an 11.4% increase from $1.139 billion in the 2012–2013 season. Attendance in 2013–2014 stood at 12.21 million, representing a 5.5% increase from the 2012–2013 season's 11.57 million.^[492] Performance artists displaying diverse skills are ubiquitous on the streets of Manhattan.

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, anchoring Lincoln Square on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is home to numerous influential arts organizations, including the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, New York Philharmonic, and New York City Ballet, as well as the Vivian Beaumont Theater, the Juilliard School, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Alice Tully Hall. The Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute is in Union Square, and Tisch School of the Arts is based at New York University, while Central Park SummerStage presents free music concerts in Central Park.^[493]

Visual arts

New York City is home to hundreds of cultural institutions and historic sites. Museum Mile is the name for a section of Fifth Avenue running from 82nd to 105th streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan,^[494] in an area sometimes called Upper Carnegie Hill.^[495] Nine museums occupy the length of this section of Fifth Avenue, making it one of the densest displays of culture in the world.^[496] Its art museums include the Guggenheim, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Neue Galerie New York, and The Africa Center, which opened in late 2012. In addition to other programming, the museums collaborate for the annual Museum Mile Festival, held each year in June, to promote the museums and increase visitation.^[497] Many of the world's most lucrative art auctions are held in New York City.^[498][499]

Cuisine

Smorgasburg opened in 2011 as an open-air food market and is part of the Brooklyn Flea.^[500]

New York City's food culture includes an array of international cuisines influenced by the city's immigrant history. Central and Eastern European immigrants, especially Jewish immigrants from those regions, brought bagels, cheesecake, hot dogs, knishes, and delicatessens (delis) to the city. Italian immigrants brought New York-style pizza and Italian cuisine into the city, while Jewish immigrants and Irish immigrants brought pastrami^[501] and corned beef,^[502] respectively. Chinese and other Asian restaurants, sandwich joints, trattorias, diners, and coffeehouses are ubiquitous throughout the city. Some 4,000 mobile food vendors licensed by the city, many immigrant-owned, have made Middle Eastern foods such as falafel and kebabs^[503] examples of modern New York street food. The city is home to "nearly one thousand of the finest and most diverse haute cuisine restaurants in the world", according to Michelin.^[504] The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene assigns letter grades to the city's restaurants based upon their inspection results.^[505] As of 2019, there were 27,043 restaurants in the city, up from 24,865 in 2017.^[506] The Queens Night Market in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park attracts more than ten thousand people nightly to sample food from more than 85 countries.^[507]

Parades

The annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the world's largest parade^[508]

The annual Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village, the world's largest Halloween parade^[509]

The ticker-tape parade for the Apollo 11 astronauts on August 13, 1969

The annual Philippine Independence Day Parade, the largest outside the Philippines

New York City is well known for its street parades, which celebrate a broad array of themes, including holidays, nationalities, human rights, and major league sports team championship victories. The majority of parades are held in Manhattan. The primary orientation of the annual street parades is typically from north to south, marching along major avenues. The annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is the world's largest parade,^[508] beginning alongside Central Park and processing southward to the flagship Macy's Herald Square store;^[510] the parade is viewed on telecasts worldwide and draws millions of spectators in person.^[508] Other notable parades including the annual New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade in March, the LGBT Pride March in June, the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade in October, and numerous parades commemorating the independence days of many nations. Ticker-tape parades celebrating championships won by sports teams as well as other heroic accomplishments march northward along the Canyon of Heroes on Broadway from Bowling Green to City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan.

Accent and dialect

The New York area is home to a distinctive regional accent and speech pattern called the New York dialect, alternatively known as Brooklynese or New Yorkese. It has generally been considered one of the most recognizable accents within American English.^[511]

The traditional New York area speech pattern is known for its rapid delivery, and its accent is characterized as non-rhotic so that the sound [ɹ] does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant; therefore the pronunciation of the city name as "New Yawk."^[512] There is no [ɹ] in words like park [pɑək] or [pɒək] (with vowel backed and diphthongized 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, chocolate, and coffee and the often homophonous [ɔr] in core and more are tensed and usually raised more than in General American English. 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" became 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).^[512] The character Archie Bunker from the 1970s television sitcom All in the Family was an example of this pattern of speech.

The classic version of the New York City dialect is generally centered on middle and working-class New Yorkers. The influx of non-European immigrants in recent decades has led to changes in this distinctive dialect,^[512] and the traditional form of this speech pattern is no longer as prevalent among general New Yorkers as it has been in the past.^[512]

Sports

The New York Marathon, held annually in November, is the largest marathon in the world.^[513]

The U.S. Open Tennis Championships are held every August and September in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens.

Citi Field, also in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, has been home to the New York Mets since 2009.

Madison Square Garden in Midtown Manhattan is home to the New York Knicks, New York Rangers, and St. John's Red Storm.

New York City is home to the headquarters of the National Football League,^[514] Major League Baseball,^[515] the National Basketball Association,^[516] the National Hockey League,^[517] and Major League Soccer.^[518] The New York metropolitan area hosts the most sports teams in the first four major North American professional sports leagues with nine, one more than Los Angeles, and has 11 top-level professional sports teams if Major League Soccer is included, also one more than Los Angeles. Participation in professional sports in the city predates all professional leagues.

The city has played host to more than 40 major professional teams in the five sports and their respective competing leagues. Four of the ten most expensive stadiums ever built worldwide (MetLife Stadium, the new Yankee Stadium, Madison Square Garden, and Citi Field) are in the New York metropolitan area.^[519] Madison Square Garden, its predecessor, the original Yankee Stadium and Ebbets Field, are sporting venues in New York City, the latter two having been commemorated on U.S. postage stamps. New York was the first of eight American cities to have won titles in all four major leagues (MLB, NHL, NFL and NBA), having done so following the Knicks' 1970 title. In 1972, it became the first city to win titles in five sports when the Cosmos won the NASL final.

Baseball

New York has been described as the "Capital of Baseball".^[520] There have been 35 Major League Baseball World Series and 73 pennants won by New York teams. It is one of only five metro areas (Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore–Washington, and the San Francisco Bay Area being the others) to have two baseball teams. Additionally, there have been 14 World Series in which two New York City teams played each other, known as a Subway Series and occurring most recently in 2000. No other metropolitan area has had this happen more than once (Chicago in 1906, St. Louis in 1944, and the San Francisco Bay Area in 1989).

The city's two Major League Baseball teams are the New York Mets, who play at Citi Field in Queens,^[521] and the New York Yankees, who play at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. These teams compete in six games of interleague play every regular season that has also come to be called the Subway Series. The Yankees have won a record 27 championships,^[522] while the Mets have won the World Series twice.^[523] The city also was once home to the Brooklyn Dodgers (now the Los Angeles Dodgers), who won the World Series once,^[524] and the New York Giants (now the San Francisco Giants), who won the World Series five times. Both teams moved to California in 1958.^[525] There is also one Minor League Baseball team in the city, the Mets-affiliated Brooklyn Cyclones,^[526] and the city gained a club in the independent Atlantic League when the Staten Island FerryHawks began play in 2022.^[527]

American Football

The city is represented in the National Football League by the New York Giants and the New York Jets, although both teams play their home games at MetLife Stadium in nearby East Rutherford, New Jersey,^[528] which hosted Super Bowl XLVIII in 2014.^[529]

Hockey

The metropolitan area is home to three National Hockey League teams. The New York Rangers, the traditional representative of the city itself and one of the league's Original Six, play at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. The New York Islanders, traditionally representing Nassau and Suffolk Counties of Long Island, play in UBS Arena in Elmont, New York, and played in Brooklyn's Barclays Center from 2015 to 2020. The New Jersey Devils play at Prudential Center in nearby Newark, New Jersey and traditionally represent the counties of neighboring New Jersey which are coextensive with the boundaries of the New York metropolitan area and media market.

Basketball

The city's National Basketball Association teams are the Brooklyn Nets (previously known as the New York Nets and New Jersey Nets as they moved around the metropolitan area) and the New York Knicks, while the New York Liberty is the city's Women's National Basketball Association team. The first national college-level basketball championship, the National Invitation Tournament, was held in New York in 1938 and remains in the city.^[530] The city is well known for its links to basketball, which is played in nearly every park in the city by local youth, many of whom have gone on to play for major college programs and in the NBA.

Soccer

In soccer, New York City is represented by New York City FC of Major League Soccer, who play their home games at Yankee Stadium^[531] and the New York Red Bulls, who play their home games at Red Bull Arena in nearby Harrison, New Jersey.^[532] NJ/NY Gotham FC also plays their home games in Red Bull Arena, representing the metropolitan area in the National Women's Soccer League. Historically, the city is known for the New York Cosmos, the highly successful former professional soccer team which was the American home of Pelé. A new version of the New York Cosmos was formed in 2010, and most recently played in the third-division National Independent Soccer Association before going on hiatus in January 2021. New York was a host city for the 1994 FIFA World Cup^[533] and will be one of eleven US host cities for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.^[534]

Tennis

The annual United States Open Tennis Championships is one of the world's four Grand Slam tennis tournaments and is held at the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, Queens.^[535] The New York City Marathon, which courses through all five boroughs, is the world's largest running marathon,^[513] with 51,394 finishers in 2016^[536] and 98,247 applicants for the 2017 race.^[513] 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.^[537] The city is also considered the host of the Belmont Stakes, the last, longest and oldest of horse racing's Triple Crown races, held just over the city's border at Belmont Park on the first or second Sunday of June. The city also hosted the 1932 U.S. Open golf tournament and the 1930 and 1939 PGA Championships, and has been host city for both events several times, most notably for nearby Winged Foot Golf Club. The Gaelic games are played in Riverdale, Bronx at Gaelic Park, home to the New York GAA, the only North American team to compete at the senior inter-county level.

International events

In terms of hosting multi-sport events, New York City hosted the 1984 Summer Paralympics and the 1998 Goodwill Games. New York City's bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics was one of five finalists, but lost out to London.^[538]

Discover more about Culture and contemporary life related topics

Culture of New York City

Culture of New York City

New York City has, alongside London, been described as the cultural capital of the world. The culture of New York is reflected in its size and ethnic diversity. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. Many American cultural movements first emerged in the city. Large numbers of Irish, Italian, Jewish, and ultimately Asian, African, and Hispanic Americans also migrated to New York throughout the 20th century and continuing into the 21st century, significantly influencing the culture and image of New York. The city became the center of modern dance and stand-up comedy in the early 20th century. The city was the top venue for jazz in the 1940s, expressionism in the 1950s and home to hip hop, punk rock, and the Beat Generation. The Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, Lower Manhattan, is a designated U.S. National Historic Landmark and National Monument, as the site of the June 1969 Stonewall riots and the cradle of the modern gay rights movement.

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, or Broadway, are the theatrical performances presented in the 41 professional theatres, each with 500 or more seats, located in the Theater District and the Lincoln Center along Broadway, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Broadway and London's West End together represent the highest commercial level of live theater in the English-speaking world.

LGBT culture in New York City

LGBT culture in New York City

New York City has been described as the gay capital of the world, and is home to one of the world’s largest LGBTQ populations and the most prominent. Brian Silverman, the author of Frommer's New York City from $90 a Day, wrote the city has "one of the world's largest, loudest, and most powerful LGBT communities", and "Gay and lesbian culture is as much a part of New York's basic identity as yellow cabs, high-rise buildings, and Broadway theatre". LGBT travel guide Queer in the World states, "The fabulosity of Gay New York is unrivaled on Earth, and queer culture seeps into every corner of its five boroughs". LGBT advocate and entertainer Madonna stated metaphorically, "Anyways, not only is New York City the best place in the world because of the queer people here. Let me tell you something, if you can make it here, then you must be queer."

List of museums and cultural institutions in New York City

List of museums and cultural institutions in New York City

New York City is home to hundreds of cultural institutions and historic sites, many of which are internationally known. This list contains the most famous or well-regarded organizations, based on their mission.

List of nightclubs in New York City

List of nightclubs in New York City

This is a list of notable current and former nightclubs in New York City.

List of LGBT people from New York City

List of LGBT people from New York City

New York City has been described as the gay capital of the world, and is home to one of the world’s largest LGBTQ populations and the most prominent. Brian Silverman, the author of Frommer's New York City from $90 a Day, writes that the city has "one of the world's largest, loudest, and most powerful LGBT communities", and "Gay and lesbian culture is as much a part of New York's basic identity as yellow cabs, high-rises, and Broadway theatre". LGBT travel guide Queer in the World states, "The fabulosity of Gay New York is unrivaled on Earth, and queer culture seeps into every corner of its five boroughs".

List of people from New York City

List of people from New York City

Many notable people were either born in New York City or adopted it as their home.

Baruch College

Baruch College

Baruch College is a public college in New York City. It is a constituent college of the City University of New York system. Named for financier and statesman Bernard M. Baruch, the college operates undergraduate and postgraduate programs through the Zicklin School of Business, the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences, and the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs.

Harlem Renaissance

Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African-American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after The New Negro, a 1925 anthology edited by Alain Locke. The movement also included the new African-American cultural expressions across the urban areas in the Northeast and Midwest United States affected by a renewed militancy in the general struggle for civil rights, combined with the Great Migration of African-American workers fleeing the racist conditions of the Jim Crow Deep South, as Harlem was the final destination of the largest number of those who migrated north.

Jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. Jazz has roots in European harmony and African rhythmic rituals.

Abstract expressionism

Abstract expressionism

Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the Western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris.

Hardcore punk

Hardcore punk

Hardcore punk is a punk rock music genre and subculture that originated in the late 1970s. It is generally faster, harder, and more aggressive than other forms of punk rock. Its roots can be traced to earlier punk scenes in San Francisco and Southern California which arose as a reaction against the still predominant hippie cultural climate of the time. It was also inspired by Washington D.C. and New York punk rock and early proto-punk. Hardcore punk generally disavows commercialism, the established music industry and "anything similar to the characteristics of mainstream rock" and often addresses social and political topics with "confrontational, politically-charged lyrics."

As of 2012^[update], New York City had about 6,000 hybrid taxis in service, the largest number of any city in North America.^[539]

Environmental issues in New York City are affected by the city's size, density, abundant public transportation infrastructure, and its location at the mouth of the Hudson River. For example, it is one of the country's biggest sources of pollution and has the lowest per-capita greenhouse gas emissions rate and electricity usage. Governors Island is planned to host a US$1 billion research and education center to make New York City the global leader in addressing the climate crisis.^[540]

Environmental impact reduction

New York City has focused on reducing its environmental impact and carbon footprint.^[541] Mass transit use in New York City is the highest in the United States. Also, by 2010, the city had 3,715 hybrid taxis and other clean diesel vehicles, representing around 28% of New York's taxi fleet in service, the most of any city in North America.^[542] New York City is the host of Climate Week NYC, the largest Climate Week to take place globally and regarded as major annual climate summit.

New York's high rate of public transit use, more than 200,000 daily cyclists as of 2014^[update],^[543] and many pedestrian commuters make it the most energy-efficient major city in the United States.^[544] Walk and bicycle modes of travel account for 21% of all modes for trips in the city; nationally the rate for metro regions is about 8%.^[545] In both its 2011 and 2015 rankings, Walk Score named New York City the most walkable large city in the United States,^{[546][547][548]} and in 2018, Stacker ranked New York the most walkable U.S. city.^[549] Citibank sponsored the introduction of 10,000 public bicycles for the city's bike-share project in the summer of 2013.^[550] New York City's numerical "in-season cycling indicator" of bicycling in the city had hit an all-time high of 437 when measured in 2014.^[551]

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 a leader in the construction of energy-efficient green office buildings, including the Hearst Tower among others.^[190] Mayor Bill de Blasio has committed to an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions between 2014 and 2050 to reduce the city's contributions to climate change, beginning with a comprehensive "Green Buildings" plan.^[541]

Water purity and availability

The New York City drinking water supply is extracted from the protected Catskill Mountains watershed.^[552] 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 the majority of whose drinking water is pure enough not to require purification through water treatment plants.^[553] The city's municipal water system is the largest in the United States, moving over one billion gallons of water per day;^[554] a leak in the Delaware aqueduct results in some 20 million gallons a day being lost under the Hudson River.^[555] The Croton Watershed north of the city is undergoing construction of a $3.2 billion water purification plant to augment New York City's water supply by an estimated 290 million gallons daily, representing a greater than 20% addition to the city's current availability of water.^[556] The ongoing expansion of New York City Water Tunnel No. 3, an integral part of the New York City water supply system, is the largest capital construction project in the city's history,^[557] with segments serving Manhattan and the Bronx completed, and with segments serving Brooklyn and Queens planned for construction in 2020.^[558] In 2018, New York City announced a $1 billion investment to protect the integrity of its water system and to maintain the purity of its unfiltered water supply.^[554]

Air quality

According to the 2016 World Health Organization Global Urban Ambient Air Pollution Database,^[559] the annual average concentration in New York City's air of particulate matter measuring 2.5 micrometers or less (PM_2.5) was 7.0 micrograms per cubic meter, or 3.0 micrograms within the recommended limit of the WHO Air Quality Guidelines for the annual mean PM_2.5.^[560] The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, in partnership with Queens College, conducts the New York Community Air Survey to measure pollutants at about 150 locations.^[561]

Environmental revitalization

Newtown Creek, a 3.5-mile (6-kilometer) a long estuary that forms part of the border between the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, has been designated a Superfund site for environmental clean-up and remediation of the waterway's recreational and economic resources for many communities.^[562] One of the most heavily used bodies of water in the Port of New York and New Jersey, it had been one of the most contaminated industrial sites in the country,^[563] containing years of discarded toxins, an estimated 30 million US gallons (110,000 m³) of spilled oil, including the Greenpoint oil spill, raw sewage from New York City's sewer system,^[563] and other accumulation.

Discover more about Environment related topics

Environmental issues in New York City

Environmental issues in New York City

Environmental issues in New York City are affected by the city's size, density, abundant public transportation infrastructure, and location at the mouth of the Hudson River.

Hybrid taxi

Hybrid taxi

Hybrid taxi or hybrid electric taxi is a taxicab service provided with a hybrid electric car (HEV), which combines a conventional internal combustion engine propulsion system with an electric propulsion system.

Hudson River

Hudson River

The Hudson River is a 315-mile (507 km) river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between New York City and Jersey City, eventually draining into the Atlantic Ocean at Lower New York Bay. The river serves as a physical boundary between the states of New Jersey and New York at its southern end. Farther north, it marks local boundaries between several New York counties. The lower half of the river is a tidal estuary, deeper than the body of water into which it flows, occupying the Hudson Fjord, an inlet which formed during the most recent period of North American glaciation, estimated at 26,000 to 13,300 years ago. Even as far north as the city of Troy, the flow of the river changes direction with the tides.

Greenhouse gas emissions

Greenhouse gas emissions

Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities strengthen the greenhouse effect, contributing to climate change. Most is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The largest emitters include coal in China and large oil and gas companies. Human-caused emissions have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide by about 50% over pre-industrial levels. The growing levels of emissions have varied, but have been consistent among all greenhouse gases (GHGs). Emissions in the 2010s averaged 56 billion tons a year, higher than any decade before.

Governors Island

Governors Island

Governors Island is a 172-acre (70 ha) island in New York Harbor, within the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is located approximately 800 yards (732 m) south of Manhattan Island, and is separated from Brooklyn to the east by the 400-yard-wide (370 m) Buttermilk Channel. The National Park Service administers a small portion of the north end of the island as the Governors Island National Monument, including two former military fortifications named Fort Jay and Castle Williams. The Trust for Governors Island operates the remaining 150 acres (61 ha), including 52 historic buildings, as a public park. About 103 acres (42 ha) of the land area is fill, added in the early 1900s to the south of the original island.

Climate change

Climate change

In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to Earth's climate. The current rise in global average temperature is more rapid than previous changes, and is primarily caused by humans burning fossil fuels. Fossil fuel use, deforestation, and some agricultural and industrial practices increase greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide and methane. Greenhouse gases absorb some of the heat that the Earth radiates after it warms from sunlight. Larger amounts of these gases trap more heat in Earth's lower atmosphere, causing global warming.

Human impact on the environment

Human impact on the environment

Human impact on the environment refers to changes to biophysical environments and to ecosystems, biodiversity, and natural resources caused directly or indirectly by humans. Modifying the environment to fit the needs of society is causing severe effects including global warming, environmental degradation, mass extinction and biodiversity loss, ecological crisis, and ecological collapse. Some human activities that cause damage to the environment on a global scale include population growth, overconsumption, overexploitation, pollution, and deforestation. Some of the problems, including global warming and biodiversity loss, have been proposed as representing catastrophic risks to the survival of the human species.

Carbon footprint

Carbon footprint

A carbon footprint (or greenhouse gas footprint) is a "certain amount of gaseous emissions that are relevant to climate change and associated with human production or consumption activities". In some cases, the carbon footprint is expressed as the carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) which is meant to sum up the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by an individual, event, organization, service, place or product. In other cases, only the carbon dioxide emissions are taken into account but not those of other greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases, including the carbon-containing gases carbon dioxide and methane, can be emitted through the burning of fossil fuels, land clearance, and the production and consumption of food, manufactured goods, materials, wood, roads, buildings, transportation and other services. As well as calculating carbon footprints for whole countries, it is also possible to calculate the footprint of regions, cities, and neighbourhoods.

Hybrid electric vehicle

Hybrid electric vehicle

A hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is a type of hybrid vehicle that combines a conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) system with an electric propulsion system. The presence of the electric powertrain is intended to achieve either better fuel economy than a conventional vehicle or better performance. There is a variety of HEV types and the degree to which each function as an electric vehicle (EV) also varies. The most common form of HEV is the hybrid electric car, although hybrid electric trucks, buses, boats and aircraft also exist.

Climate Week NYC

Climate Week NYC

Climate Week NYC is an event that has taken place every year in New York City since 2009. The summit takes place alongside the UN General Assembly and brings together international leaders from business, government and civil society to showcase global climate action. Climate Week NYC is run by The Climate Group. Climate Week NYC is the largest of a number of Climate Week events that take place around the world throughout the year including Africa, Latin America & Caribbean, Asia Pacific and Middle East Climate Week Events.

List of U.S. cities with high transit ridership

List of U.S. cities with high transit ridership

The following is a list of United States cities of 100,000+ inhabitants with the 50 highest rates of public transit commuting to work, according to data from the 2015 American Community Survey. The survey measured the percentage of commuters who take public transit, as opposed to walking, driving or riding in an automobile, bicycle, boat, or some other means.

Citibank

Citibank

Citibank, N. A. is the primary U.S. banking subsidiary of financial services multinational Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, and later became First National City Bank of New York. The bank has 2,649 branches in 19 countries, including 723 branches in the United States and 1,494 branches in Mexico operated by its subsidiary Banamex. The U.S. branches are concentrated in six metropolitan areas: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Miami.

Government

New York City Hall is the oldest City Hall in the United States that still houses its original governmental functions.

New York County Courthouse houses the New York Supreme Court and other governmental offices.

Eric Adams, the current and 110th Mayor of New York City

New York City has been a metropolitan municipality with a Strong mayor–council form of government^[564] since its consolidation in 1898. In New York City, the city government is responsible for public education, correctional institutions, public safety, recreational facilities, sanitation, water supply, and welfare services.

The mayor and council members are elected to four-year terms. The City Council is a unicameral body consisting of 51 council members whose districts are defined by geographic population boundaries.^[565] Each term for the mayor and council members lasts four years and has a two consecutive-term limit,^[566] which is reset after a four-year break. The New York City Administrative Code, the New York City Rules, and the City Record are the code of local laws, compilation of regulations, and official journal, respectively.^[567][568]

Each borough is coextensive with a judicial district of the state Unified Court System, of which the Criminal Court and the Civil Court are the local courts, while the New York Supreme Court conducts major trials and appeals. Manhattan hosts the First Department of the Supreme Court, Appellate Division while Brooklyn hosts the Second Department. There are also several extrajudicial administrative courts, which are executive agencies and not part of the state Unified Court System.

Uniquely among major American cities, New York is divided between, and is host to the main branches of, two different U.S. district courts: the District Court for the Southern District of New York, whose main courthouse is on Foley Square near City Hall in Manhattan and whose jurisdiction includes Manhattan and the Bronx; and the District Court for the Eastern District of New York, whose main courthouse is in Brooklyn and whose jurisdiction includes Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and U.S. Court of International Trade are also based in New York, also on Foley Square in Manhattan.

Politics

The present mayor is Eric Adams. He was elected in 2021 with 67% of the vote, and assumed office on January 1, 2022.

The Democratic Party holds the majority of public offices. As of April 2016, 69% of registered voters in the city are Democrats and 10% are Republicans.^[569] New York City has not been carried by a Republican presidential election since President Calvin Coolidge won the five boroughs in 1924. A Republican candidate for statewide office has not won all five boroughs of the city since it was incorporated in 1898. In 2012, Democrat Barack Obama became the first presidential candidate of any party to receive more than 80% of the overall vote in New York City, sweeping all five boroughs. Party platforms center on affordable housing, education, and economic development, and labor politics are of importance in the city. Thirteen out of 27 U.S. congressional districts in the state of New York include portions of New York City.^[570]

New York is one of the most important sources of political fundraising in the United States. At least four of the top five ZIP Codes in the nation for political contributions were in Manhattan for the 2004, 2006, and 2008 elections. The top ZIP Code, 10021 on the Upper East Side, generated the most money for the 2004 presidential campaigns of George W. Bush and John Kerry.^[571] The city has a strong imbalance of payments with the national and state governments. It receives 83 cents in services for every $1 it sends to the federal government in taxes (or annually sends $11.4 billion more than it receives back). City residents and businesses also sent an additional $4.1 billion in the 2009–2010 fiscal year to the state of New York than the city received in return.^[572]

Discover more about Government and politics related topics

Government of New York City

Government of New York City

The government of New York City, headquartered at New York City Hall in Lower Manhattan, is organized under the New York City Charter and provides for a mayor-council system. The mayor is elected to a four-year term and is responsible for the administration of city government. The New York City Council is a unicameral body consisting of 51 members, each elected from a geographic district, normally for four-year terms. All elected officials—other than those elected before 2010, who are limited to three consecutive terms—are subject to a two consecutive-term limit. The court system consists of two citywide courts and three statewide courts.

New York City Hall

New York City Hall

New York City Hall is the seat of New York City government, located at the center of City Hall Park in the Civic Center area of Lower Manhattan, between Broadway, Park Row, and Chambers Street. Constructed from 1803 to 1812, the building is the oldest city hall in the United States that still houses its original governmental functions, such as the office of the Mayor of New York City and the chambers of the New York City Council. While the Mayor's Office is in the building, the staff of thirteen municipal agencies under mayoral control are located in the nearby Manhattan Municipal Building, one of the largest government buildings in the world, with many others housed in various buildings in the immediate vicinity.

New York County Courthouse

New York County Courthouse

The New York State Supreme Court Building, originally known as the New York County Courthouse, at 60 Centre Street on Foley Square in the Civic Center neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, houses the Civil and Appellate Terms of the New York State Supreme Court for the state's First Judicial District, which is coextensive with Manhattan, as well as the offices of the New York County Clerk.

Eric Adams

Eric Adams

Eric Leroy Adams is an American politician and former police officer, serving as the 110th mayor of New York City since January 1, 2022. Adams was an officer in the New York City Transit Police and then the New York City Police Department for more than 20 years, retiring at the rank of captain. He served in the New York State Senate from 2006 to 2013, representing the 20th Senate district in Brooklyn. In November 2013, Adams was elected Brooklyn Borough President, the first African-American to hold the position, and reelected in November 2017.

List of mayors of New York City

List of mayors of New York City

The mayor of New York City is the chief executive of the Government of New York City, as stipulated by New York City's charter. The current officeholder, the 110th in the sequence of regular mayors, is Eric Adams, a member of the Democratic Party.

Mayor of New York City

Mayor of New York City

The mayor of New York City, officially Mayor of the City of New York, is head of the executive branch of the government of New York City and the chief executive of New York City. The mayor's office administers all city services, public property, police and fire protection, most public agencies, and enforces all city and state laws within New York City.

Metropolitan municipality

Metropolitan municipality

A metropolitan municipality is a municipality established in some areas of the world to serve a metropolitan area.

New York City Council

New York City Council

The New York City Council is the lawmaking body of New York City. It has 51 members from 51 council districts throughout the five boroughs.

New York City Administrative Code

New York City Administrative Code

The Administrative Code of the City of New York contains the codified local laws of New York City as enacted by the New York City Council and Mayor. As of February 2023, it contains 37 titles, numbered 1 through 16, 16-A, 16-B, 17 through 20, 20-A, 21, 21-A, and 22 through 33.

New York City Rules

New York City Rules

The Rules of the City of New York (RCNY) contains the compiled rules and regulations of New York City government agencies. It contains approximately 6,000 rules and regulations in 71 titles, each covering a different city agency. The City Record is the official journal of New York City. The rules can also be viewed and the public can comment on the city's rules website - NYC Rules.

Judicial district

Judicial district

A judicial district or legal district denotes the territorial area for which a legal court has jurisdiction.

New York City Criminal Court

New York City Criminal Court

The Criminal Court of the City of New York is a court of the State Unified Court System in New York City that handles misdemeanors and lesser offenses, and also conducts arraignments and preliminary hearings in felony cases.

New York City is home to the two busiest train stations in the U.S., Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station

New York City's comprehensive transportation system is both complex and extensive.

The New York City Subway is the world's largest rapid transit system by number of stations.

Rapid transit

Mass transit in New York City, most of which runs 24 hours a day, accounts for one in every three users of mass transit in the United States, and two-thirds of the nation's rail riders live in the New York City metropolitan area.^[573][574]

Rail

The New York City Subway system is the largest rapid transit system in the world when measured by stations in operation, with 472, and by length of routes. Nearly all of New York's subway system is open 24 hours a day, in contrast to the overnight shutdown common to systems in most cities, including Hong Kong,^[575][576] London, Paris, Seoul,^[577][578] and Tokyo. The New York City Subway is also the busiest metropolitan rail transit system in the Western Hemisphere, with 1.76 billion passenger rides in 2015,^[579] while Grand Central Terminal, also referred to as "Grand Central Station", is the world's largest railway station by number of train platforms.

Public transport is widely used in New York City. 54.6% of New Yorkers commuted to work in 2005 using mass transit.^[580] This is in contrast to the rest of the United States, where 91% of commuters travel in automobiles to their workplace.^[581] According to the New York City Comptroller, workers in the New York City area spend an average of 6 hours and 18 minutes getting to work each week, the longest commute time in the nation among large cities.^[582] New York is the only U.S. city in which a majority (52%) of households do not have a car; only 22% of Manhattanites own a car.^[583] Due to their high usage of mass transit, New Yorkers spend less of their household income on transportation than the national average, saving $19 billion annually on transportation compared to other urban Americans.^[584]

New York City's commuter rail network is the largest in North America.^[573] The rail network, connecting New York City to its suburbs, consists of the Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Railroad, and New Jersey Transit. The combined systems converge at Grand Central Terminal and Pennsylvania Station and contain more than 250 stations and 20 rail lines.^[573] In Queens, the elevated AirTrain people mover system connects 24 hours a day JFK International Airport to the New York City Subway and the Long Island Rail Road; a separate AirTrain system is planned alongside the Grand Central Parkway to connect LaGuardia Airport to these transit systems.^[585][586] For inter-city rail, New York City is served by Amtrak, whose busiest station by a significant margin is Pennsylvania Station on the West Side of Manhattan, from which Amtrak provides connections to Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. along the Northeast Corridor, and long-distance train service to other North American cities.^[587]

The Staten Island Railway rapid transit system solely serves Staten Island, operating 24 hours a day. The Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH train) links Midtown and Lower Manhattan to northeastern New Jersey, primarily Hoboken, Jersey City, and Newark. Like the New York City Subway, the PATH operates 24 hours a day; meaning three of the six rapid transit systems in the world which operate on 24-hour schedules are wholly or partly in New York (the others are a portion of the Chicago "L", the PATCO Speedline serving Philadelphia, and the Copenhagen Metro).

Multibillion-dollar heavy rail transit projects under construction in New York City include the Second Avenue Subway, and the East Side Access project.^[588]

Buses

Port Authority Bus Terminal, the world's busiest bus station, at Eighth Avenue and 42nd Street^[589]

New York City's public bus fleet runs 24/7 and is the largest in North America.^[590] The Port Authority Bus Terminal, the main intercity bus terminal of the city, serves 7,000 buses and 200,000 commuters daily, making it the busiest bus station in the world.^[589]

Air

John F. Kennedy Airport in Queens, the busiest international air passenger gateway to the United States with over 12 million inbound and outbound flights in 2021

New York's airspace is the busiest in the United States and one of the world's busiest air transportation corridors. The three busiest airports in the New York metropolitan area include John F. Kennedy International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport, and LaGuardia Airport; 130.5 million travelers used these three airports in 2016.^[591] JFK and Newark Liberty were the busiest and fourth busiest U.S. gateways for international air passengers, respectively, in 2012; as of 2011^[update], JFK was the busiest airport for international passengers in North America.^[592]

Plans have advanced to expand passenger volume at a fourth airport, Stewart International Airport near Newburgh, New York, by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.^[593] Plans were announced in July 2015 to entirely rebuild LaGuardia Airport in a multibillion-dollar project to replace its aging facilities.^[594] Other commercial airports in or serving the New York metropolitan area include Long Island MacArthur Airport, Trenton–Mercer Airport and Westchester County Airport. The primary general aviation airport serving the area is Teterboro Airport.

Ferries

The Staten Island Ferry shuttles commuters between Manhattan and Staten Island.

The Staten Island Ferry is the world's busiest ferry route, carrying more than 23 million passengers from July 2015 through June 2016 on the 5.2-mile (8.4 km) route between Staten Island and Lower Manhattan and running 24 hours a day.^[595] Other ferry systems shuttle commuters between Manhattan and other locales within the city and the metropolitan area.

NYC Ferry, a NYCEDC initiative with routes planned to travel to all five boroughs, was launched in 2017, with second graders choosing the names of the ferries.^[596] Meanwhile, Seastreak ferry announced construction of a 600-passenger high-speed luxury ferry in September 2016, to shuttle riders between the Jersey Shore and Manhattan, anticipated to start service in 2017; this would be the largest vessel in its class.^[597]

Taxis, vehicles for hire, and trams

Yellow medallion taxicabs are a widely recognized icon of New York City.

Other features of the city's transportation infrastructure encompass 13,587 yellow taxicabs;^[598] other vehicle for hire companies;^[599][600] and the Roosevelt Island Tramway, an aerial tramway that transports commuters between Roosevelt Island and Manhattan Island.

Streets and highways

8th Avenue looking north (uptown). Most New York City streets and avenues in Manhattan's grid plan incorporate a one-way traffic configuration.

Despite New York's heavy reliance on its vast public transit system, streets are a defining feature of the city. The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 greatly influenced the city's physical development. Several of the city's streets and avenues, including Broadway,^[601] Wall Street,^[602] Madison Avenue,^[360] and Seventh Avenue are also used as metonyms for national industries there: the theater, finance, advertising, and fashion organizations, respectively.

New York City also has an extensive web of freeways and parkways, which link the city's boroughs to each other and to North Jersey, Westchester County, Long Island, and southwestern Connecticut through various bridges and tunnels. Because these highways serve millions of outer borough and suburban residents who commute into Manhattan, it is quite common for motorists to be stranded for hours in traffic congestion that are a daily occurrence, particularly during rush hour.^[603][604] Congestion pricing in New York City will go into effect in 2022 at the earliest.^{[605][606][607]}

New York City is also known for its rules regarding turning at red lights. Unlike the rest of the United States, New York State prohibits right or left turns on red in cities with a population greater than one million, to reduce traffic collisions and increase pedestrian safety. In New York City, therefore, all turns at red lights are illegal unless a sign permitting such maneuvers is present.^[608]

River crossings

The George Washington Bridge, connecting Upper Manhattan (background) from Fort Lee, New Jersey across the Hudson River, is the world's busiest motor vehicle bridge.^[609][610]

New York City is located on one of the world's largest natural harbors,^[611] and the boroughs of Manhattan and Staten Island are primarily coterminous with islands of the same names, while Queens and Brooklyn are at the west end of the larger Long Island, and the Bronx is on New York State's mainland. This situation of boroughs separated by water led to the development of an extensive infrastructure of bridges and tunnels.

The George Washington Bridge is the world's busiest motor vehicle bridge,^[609][610] connecting Manhattan to Bergen County, New Jersey. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge is the longest suspension bridge in the Americas and one of the world's longest.^[612][613] The Brooklyn Bridge is an icon of the city itself. The towers of the Brooklyn Bridge are built of limestone, granite, and Rosendale cement, and their architectural style is neo-Gothic, with characteristic pointed arches above the passageways through the stone towers. This bridge was also the longest suspension bridge in the world from its opening until 1903, and is the first steel-wire suspension bridge. The Queensboro Bridge is an important piece of cantilever architecture. The Manhattan Bridge, opened in 1909, is considered to be the forerunner of modern suspension bridges, and its design served as the model for many of the long-span suspension bridges around the world; the Manhattan Bridge, Throgs Neck Bridge, Triborough Bridge, and Verrazano-Narrows Bridge are all examples of structural expressionism.^[614][615]

Manhattan Island is linked to New York City's outer boroughs and to New Jersey. The Lincoln Tunnel, which carries 120,000 vehicles a day under the Hudson River between New Jersey and Midtown Manhattan, is the busiest vehicular tunnel in the world.^[616] The tunnel was built instead of a bridge to allow unfettered passage of large passenger and cargo ships that sailed through New York Harbor and up the Hudson River to Manhattan's piers. The Holland Tunnel, connecting Lower Manhattan to Jersey City, New Jersey, was the world's first mechanically ventilated vehicular tunnel when it opened in 1927.^[617][618] The Queens–Midtown Tunnel, built to relieve congestion on the bridges connecting Manhattan with Queens and Brooklyn, was the largest non-federal project in its time when it was completed in 1940.^[619] President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first person to drive through it.^[620] The Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel (officially known as the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel) runs underneath Battery Park and connects the Financial District at the southern tip of Manhattan to Red Hook in Brooklyn.

Cycling network

Cycling in New York City is associated with mixed cycling conditions that include urban density, relatively flat terrain, congested roadways with stop-and-go traffic, and many pedestrians. The city's large cycling population includes utility cyclists, such as delivery and messenger services; cycling clubs for recreational cyclists; and an increasing number of commuters.^[621] Cycling is increasingly popular in New York City; in 2017 there were approximately 450,000 daily bike trips, compared with 170,000 daily bike trips in 2005.^[622] As of 2017^[update], New York City had 1,333 miles (2,145 km) of bike lanes, compared to 513 miles (826 km) of bike lanes in 2006.^[622] As of 2019, there are 126 miles (203 km) of segregated or "protected" bike lanes citywide.^[623]

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Transportation in New York City

Transportation in New York City

The transportation system of New York City is a network of complex infrastructural systems. New York City, being the most populous city in the United States, has a transportation system which includes one of the largest subway systems in the world; the world's first mechanically ventilated vehicular tunnel; and an aerial tramway. New York City is home to an extensive bus system in each of the five boroughs; citywide and Staten Island ferry systems; and numerous yellow taxis and boro taxis throughout the city. Private cars are less used compared to other cities in the rest of the United States.

Train station

Train station

A train station, railway station, railroad station, or railway depot is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight, or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track, and a station building providing such ancillary services as ticket sales, waiting rooms, and baggage/freight service. If a station is on a single-track line, it often has a passing loop to facilitate traffic movements.

Grand Central Terminal

Grand Central Terminal

Grand Central Terminal is a commuter rail terminal located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Grand Central is the southern terminus of the Metro-North Railroad's Harlem, Hudson and New Haven Lines, serving the northern parts of the New York metropolitan area. It also contains a connection to the Long Island Rail Road through the Grand Central Madison station, a 16-acre (65,000 m2) rail terminal underneath the Metro-North station, built from 2007 to 2023. The terminal also connects to the New York City Subway at Grand Central–42nd Street station. The terminal is the third-busiest train station in North America, after New York Penn Station and Toronto Union Station.

Pennsylvania Station

Pennsylvania Station

Pennsylvania Station is a name applied by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) to several of its grand passenger terminals. Several are still in active use by Amtrak and other transportation services; others have been demolished.

New York City Subway

New York City Subway

The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system in the New York City boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. It is owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October 27, 1904, the New York City Subway is one of the world's oldest public transit systems, one of the most-used, and the one with the most stations, with 472 stations in operation.

Rapid transit

Rapid transit

Rapid transit or mass rapid transit (MRT), also known as heavy rail or metro, is a type of high-capacity public transport generally found in urban areas. A rapid transit system that primarily or traditionally runs below the surface may be called a subway, tube, or underground. Unlike buses or trams, rapid transit systems are railways, usually electric, that operate on an exclusive right-of-way, which cannot be accessed by pedestrians or other vehicles. They are often grade-separated in tunnels or on elevated railways.

MTR

MTR

The Mass Transit Railway (MTR) is a major public transport network serving Hong Kong. Operated by the MTR Corporation Limited (MTRCL), it consists of heavy rail, light rail, and feeder bus service centred on a 10-line rapid transit network serving the urbanised areas of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories. The system included 240.6 km (149.5 mi) of rail as of 2022 with 167 stations, including 99 heavy rail stations, 68 light rail stops and one high-speed rail terminus.

London Underground

London Underground

The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent home counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England.

Paris Métro

Paris Métro

The Paris Métro is a rapid transit system in the Paris metropolitan area, France. A symbol of the city, it is known for its density within the capital's territorial limits, uniform architecture and unique entrances influenced by Art Nouveau. It is mostly underground and 226.9 kilometres (141.0 mi) long. It has 308 stations, of which 64 have transfers between lines. There are 16 lines, numbered 1 to 14, with two lines, 3bis and 7bis, named because they started out as branches of Line 3 and Line 7 respectively. Line 1, Line 4, and Line 14 are automated. Lines are identified on maps by number and colour, with the direction of travel indicated by the terminus.

Seoul Metropolitan Subway

Seoul Metropolitan Subway

The Seoul Metropolitan Subway is a metropolitan railway system consisting of 23 rapid transit, light metro, commuter rail and people mover lines located in northwest South Korea. The system serves most of the Seoul Metropolitan Area including the Incheon metropolis and satellite cities in Gyeonggi province. Some regional lines in the network stretch out beyond the Seoul Metropolitan Area to rural areas in northern Chungnam province and western Gangwon province, that lie over 100 km (62 mi) away from the capital.

New York City Comptroller

New York City Comptroller

The Office of Comptroller of New York City, a position established in 1801, is the chief financial officer and chief auditor of the city agencies and their performance and spending. The comptroller also reviews all city contracts, handles the settlement of litigation claims, issues municipal bonds, and manages the city's very large pension funds.

List of U.S. cities with high transit ridership

List of U.S. cities with high transit ridership

The following is a list of United States cities of 100,000+ inhabitants with the 50 highest rates of public transit commuting to work, according to data from the 2015 American Community Survey. The survey measured the percentage of commuters who take public transit, as opposed to walking, driving or riding in an automobile, bicycle, boat, or some other means.