New York City

The **City of New York**, usually called either **New York City** (**NYC**) or simply **New York** (**NY**), is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2018 population of 8,398,748 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles (784 km2), New York is also the most densely populated major city in the United States.[10] Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass[11] and one of the world's most populous megacities,[12][13] with an estimated 19,979,477 people in its 2018 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 22,679,948 residents in its Combined Statistical Area.[3][4] A global power city,[14] New York City has been described as the cultural,[15][16][17][18][19] financial,[20][21] and media capital of the world,[22][23] and exerts a significant impact upon commerce,[21]entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports. The city's fast pace[24][25][26] has inspired the term *New York minute*.[27] Home to the headquarters of the United Nations,[28] New York is an important center for international diplomacy.[29][30]

Situated on one of the world's largest natural harbors,[31][32] New York City consists of five boroughs, each of which is a separate county of the State of New York.[33] The five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898.[34] The city and its metropolitan area constitute the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States.[35] As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York,[36][37][38] making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world.[37][39][40] New York City is home to more than 3.2 million residents born outside the United States,[41] the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world.[42] As of 2019, the New York metropolitan area is estimated to produce a gross metropolitan product (GMP) of US$1.9 trillion.[8] If greater New York City were a sovereign state, it would have the 12th highest GDP in the world.[43] New York is home to the highest number of billionaires of any city in the world.[44]

New York City traces its origins to a trading post founded by colonists from the Dutch Republic in 1624 on Lower Manhattan; the post was named New Amsterdam in 1626.[45] The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664[45] and were renamed *New York* after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York.[46] New York was the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790,[47] and has been the largest US city since 1790.[48] The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the U.S. by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries[49] and is an international symbol of the U.S. and its ideals of liberty and peace.[50] In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a global node of creativity and entrepreneurship,[51]social tolerance,[52] and environmental sustainability,[53][54] and as a symbol of freedom and cultural diversity.[55] In 2019, New York was voted the greatest city in the world per a survey of over 30,000 people from 48 cities worldwide, citing its cultural diversity.[15]

Many districts and landmarks in New York City are well known, including three of the world's ten most visited tourist attractions in 2013;[56] a record 62.8 million tourists visited in 2017.[57] Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world.[58][59] Times Square, iconic as the world's "heart"[60] and "crossroads",[61] is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway Theater District,[62] one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections,[63][64] and a major center of the world's entertainment industry.[65] The names of many of the city's landmarks, skyscrapers,[66] and parks are known internationally. Manhattan's real estate market is among the most expensive in the world.[67][68]New York is home to the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia,[69][70] with multiple signature Chinatowns across the city.[71][72][73] Providing continuous 24/7 service,[74] the New York City Subway is the largest single-operator rapid transit system worldwide, with 472 rail stations.[75][76][77] The city has over 120 colleges and universities, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, ranked among the top universities in the world.[78][79] Anchored by Wall Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York has been called both the most economically powerful city and world's leading financial center,[21][80][81][82] and is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ.[83][84]

## History

Main articles: History of New York City and Timeline of New York City

### Etymology

In 1664, the city was named in honor of the Duke of York, who would become King James II of England. James's older brother, King Charles II, had appointed the Duke proprietor of the former territory of New Netherland, including the city of New Amsterdam, which England had recently seized from the Dutch.[85]

### Early history

During the Wisconsin glaciation, 75,000 to 11,000 years ago, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 2,000 feet (610 m) in depth.[86] 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.[87]

In the precolonial era, the area of present-day New York City was inhabited by Algonquian Native Americans, including the Lenape, whose homeland, known as Lenapehoking, included Staten Island; the western portion of Long Island, including the area that would become Brooklyn and Queens; Manhattan; the Bronx; and the Lower Hudson Valley.[88]

The first documented visit into New York Harbor by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentineexplorer in the service of the French crown.[89] He claimed the area for France and named it *Nouvelle Angoulême* (New Angoulême).[90] A Spanish expedition led by captain Estêvão Gomes, a Portuguese 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.[91]

Peter Minuit is credited with the purchase of the island of Manhattan in 1626.

In 1609, the English explorer Henry Hudson rediscovered the New York Harbor while searching for the Northwest Passage to the Orient for the Dutch East India Company.[92] 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."[93] Hudson sailed roughly 150 miles (240 km) north,[94] past the site of the present-day New York State capital city of Albany, in the belief that it might be an oceanic tributarybefore the river became too shallow to continue.[93] 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 Dutch 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.[95][96]

### Dutch rule

New Amsterdam, centered in the eventual Lower Manhattan, in 1664, the year England took control and renamed it "New York".

A permanent European presence in New Netherland began in 1624 – making New York the 12th oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement in the continental United States[97] – 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.[98][99] The colony of New Amsterdam was centered at the site which would eventually become Lower Manhattan. It extended from the lower 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.[100] 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,[101] for "the value of 60 guilders"[102] (about $900 in 2018).[103] A disproved legend claims that Manhattan was purchased for $24 worth of glass beads.[104][105]

Following the purchase, New Amsterdam grew slowly.[106] 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 swathes of land, along with local political autonomy and rights to participate in the lucrative fur trade. This program had little success.[107]

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).[106][108]

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.[109][110] 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.[111] The Dutch West India Company would eventually attempt to ease tensions between Stuyvesant and residents of New Amsterdam.[112]

### English rule

Fort George and the city of New York c. 1731

In 1664, unable to summon any significant resistance, Stuyvesant surrendered New Amsterdam to English troops, led by Colonel Richard Nicolls, without bloodshed.[111][112] The terms of the surrender permitted Dutch residents to remain in the colony and allowed for religious freedom.[113] The English promptly renamed the fledgling city "New York" after the Duke of York (the future King James II of England).[114] The transfer was confirmed in 1667 by the Treaty of Breda, which concluded the Second Anglo-Dutch War.[115]

On August 24, 1673, during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, Dutch captain Anthony Colve seized the colony of New York from England at the behest of Cornelis Evertsen the Youngest and rechristened it "New Orange" after William III, the Prince of Orange.[116] The Dutch would soon return the island to England under the Treaty of Westminster of November 1674.[117][118]

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.[119] By 1700, the Lenape population had diminished to 200.[120] New York experienced several yellow fever epidemics in the 18th century, losing ten percent of its population to the disease in 1702 alone.[121][122]

New York grew in importance as a trading port while under British rule in the early 1700s.[123] It also became a center of slavery, with 42% of households holding slaves by 1730, the highest percentage outside Charleston, South Carolina.[124]Most slaveholders held a few or several domestic slaves, but others hired them out to work at labor. Slavery became integrally tied to New York's economy through the labor of slaves throughout the port, and the banks and shipping tied to the American South. Discovery of the African Burying Ground in the 1990s, during construction of a new federal courthousenear Foley Square, revealed that tens of thousands of Africans had been buried in the area in the colonial years.[125]

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.[126] In 1754, Columbia University was founded under charter by King George II as King's College in Lower Manhattan.[127]

### American Revolution

The Battle of Long Island, the largest battle of the American Revolution, took place in Brooklyn in 1776.

The Stamp Act Congress met in New York in October 1765, as the Sons of Liberty, organized in the city, skirmished over the next ten years with British troops stationed there.[128] 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.[129] 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.[130] 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.[131]

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. 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.[132] By 1790, New York had surpassed Philadelphia to become the largest city in the United States, but by the end of that year, pursuant to the Residence Act, the national capital was moved to Philadelphia.[133][134]

### Nineteenth century

Broadway follows the Native American Wickquasgeck Trail through Manhattan.[135]

Under New York State's gradual 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.[136][137] 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 foundersas Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, the New York Manumission Society worked for abolition and established the African Free School to educate black children.[138]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. The city's black population reached more than 16,000 in 1840.[139]

In the 19th century, the city was transformed by development relating to its status as a national and international trading center, as well as by European immigration.[140] 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 Yorkconnected the Atlantic port to the agricultural markets and commodities of the North American interior via the Hudson Riverand the Great Lakes.[141] Local politics became dominated by Tammany Hall, a political machine supported by Irish and German immigrants.[142]

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.

Manhattan's Little Italy, Lower East Side, circa 1900.

The Great Irish Famine brought a large influx of Irish immigrants, of whom over 200,000 were living in New York by 1860, upwards of a quarter of the city's population.[143] 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.[144]

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 Woodcalled upon the aldermen to declare independence from Albany and the United States after the South seceded, but his proposal was not acted on.[138] 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 $6,105 in 2018) commutation fee to hire a substitute,[145] led to the Draft Riots of 1863, whose most visible participants were ethnic Irish working class.[138]

The situation 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.[144] At least 120 people were killed.[146] 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.[144][146] Violence by longshoremen against Black men was especially fierce in the docks area.[144] It was one of the worst incidents of civil unrest in American history.[147]

### Modern history

A construction worker atop the Empire State Building as it was being built in 1930. The Chrysler Building is behind him.

In 1898, the modern City of New York was formed with the consolidation of Brooklyn (until then a separate city), the County of New York (which then included parts of the Bronx), the County of Richmond, and the western portion of the County of Queens.[148] The opening of the subway in 1904, first built as separate private systems, helped bind the new city together.[149] Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the city became a world center for industry, commerce, and communication.[150]

In 1904, the steamship *General Slocum* caught fire in the East River, killing 1,021 people on board.[151] 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.[152]

UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld in front of the United Nations Headquartersbuilding, completed in 1952

New York's non-white population was 36,620 in 1890.[153] New York City was a prime destination in the early twentieth century for African Americans during the Great Migrationfrom the American South, and by 1916, New York City had become home to the largest urban African diaspora in North America.[154] The Harlem Renaissance of literary and cultural life flourished during the era of Prohibition.[155] 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.[156] The difficult years of 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.[157]

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.[158]

The Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, 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 rightsmovement.[159][160][161]

The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations 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 Villageneighborhood of Lower Manhattan.[162] They are widely considered to constitute the single most important event leading to the gay liberationmovement[159][163][164][165] and the modern fight for LGBT rights.[166][167] 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. "None of them in fact made a major contribution to the movement."[168] Others say 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.[168]

In the 1970s, job losses due to industrial restructuring caused New York City to suffer from economic problems and rising crime rates.[169] 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.[170] 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.[171] New York's population reached all-time highs in the 2000 Census and then again in the 2010 Census.

United Airlines Flight 175 hits the South Tower of the original World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

New York suffered the bulk of the economic damage and largest loss of human life in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks.[172] Two of the four airliners highjacked that day were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, destroying them 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.[173]

The rebuilding of the area has created a new One World Trade Center, and a 9/11 memorial and museum along with other new buildings and infrastructure.[174] The World Trade Center PATH station, which had opened on July 19, 1909 as the Hudson Terminal, was also destroyed in the attack. 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.[175] The new One World Trade Center is the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere[176] and the sixth-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.[177][178][179][180]

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 inequalityworldwide.[181]

## Geography

Main articles: Geography of New York City and Geography of New York Harbor

The core of the New York City Metropolitan Area, with Manhattan Island at its center

New York City is situated in the Northeastern United States, in southeastern New York State, approximately halfway between Washington, D.C. and Boston.[182] 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.[183] 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 fresh water river in the city.[184]

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.[185] Some of the natural relief in topography has been evened out, especially in Manhattan.[186]

The city's total area is 468.484 square miles (1,213.37 km2), including 302.643 sq mi (783.84 km2) of land and 165.841 sq mi (429.53 km2) of this is water.[187][188] 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.[189] The summit of the ridge is mostly covered in woodlands as part of the Staten Island Greenbelt.[190]

### Boroughs

Main articles: Boroughs of New York City and Neighborhoods in New York City

The five boroughs of New York City:

1. Manhattan

2. Brooklyn

3. Queens

4. The Bronx

5. Staten Island

New York City is often referred to collectively as ***the five boroughs***, and in turn, there are hundreds of distinct neighborhoods throughout the boroughs, many with a definable history and character to call their own. If the boroughs were each independent cities, four of the boroughs (Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx) would be among the ten most populous cities in the United States (Staten Island would be ranked 37th) ; 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 (New York County) is the geographically smallest and most densely populated borough, is home to Central Park and most of the city's skyscrapers, and may be locally known simply as *The City*.[194] Manhattan's (New York County'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.[195] 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. Manhattan is often described as the financial and cultural center of the world.[196][197]Most of the borough is situated on Manhattan Island, at the mouth of the Hudson River. Several small islands also compose part of the borough of Manhattan, including Randall's Island, Wards Island, 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 Lower, Midtown, and Uptown regions. Uptown Manhattan is divided by Central Park into the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side, and above the park is Harlem. The borough also includes a small neighborhood on the United States 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*.

Also, the twins lived there.