Difference between revisions of "Manhattan" - New World Encyclopedia

From New World Encyclopedia
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===American Revolution and the early United States===
 
===American Revolution and the early United States===
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Manhattan was at the heart of the [[New York and New Jersey campaign|New York Campaign]], a series of major battles in the early [[American Revolutionary War]]. The [[Continental Army]] was forced to abandon Manhattan after the disastrous [[Battle of Fort Washington]] on November 16, 1776. The city became the British political and military center of operations in North America for the remainder of the war.<ref>[http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/historical_signs/hs_historical_sign.php?id=8258 Fort Washington Park], [[New York City Department of Parks and Recreation]]. Accessed May 18, 2007.</ref> Manhattan was greatly damaged by the [[Great Fire of New York (1776)|Great Fire of New York]] during the [[Great Britain|British]] military rule that followed. British occupation lasted until November 25, 1783, when [[George Washington]] returned to Manhattan, as [[Evacuation Day (New York)|the last British forces left the city]].<ref>[http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_newsroom/daily_plants/daily_plant_main.php?id=19733 "Happy Evacuation Day"], [[New York City Department of Parks and Recreation]], November 23, 2005. Accessed May 18, 2007.</ref>
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Manhattan was at the heart of the New York Campaign, a series of major battles in the early [[American Revolutionary War]]. The Continental Army was forced to abandon Manhattan after the disastrous Battle of Fort Washington on November 16, 1776. The city became the British political and military center of operations in North America for the remainder of the war.<ref>[http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/historical_signs/hs_historical_sign.php?id=8258 Fort Washington Park], [[New York City Department of Parks and Recreation]]. Accessed May 18, 2007.</ref> Manhattan was greatly damaged by the Great Fire of New York during the [[Great Britain|British]] military rule that followed. British occupation lasted until November 25, 1783, when [[George Washington]] returned to Manhattan, as the last British forces left the city.<ref>[http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_newsroom/daily_plants/daily_plant_main.php?id=19733 "Happy Evacuation Day"], [[New York City Department of Parks and Recreation]], November 23, 2005. Accessed May 18, 2007.</ref>
  
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[[Image:Federal Hall - Washington Statue.jpg|thumb|250px|left|[[John Quincy Adams Ward|J.Q.A. Ward]]'s statue of [[George Washington]] in front of [[Federal Hall]], on the site where Washington was inaugurated as the first [[President of the United States|U.S. President]].]]
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[[Image:Federal Hall - Washington Statue.jpg|thumb|250px|left|John Quincy Adams Ward's statue of [[George Washington]] in front of Federal Hall, on the site where Washington was inaugurated as the first [[President of the United States|U.S. President]].]]
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From January 11, 1785 to Autumn 1788, New York City was the fifth of five capitals under the [[Articles of Confederation]], with the [[Continental Congress]] residing at [[New York City Hall]] then at [[Fraunces Tavern]]. New York was the first capital under the newly enacted [[United States Constitution|Constitution of the United States]], from March 4, 1789 to August 12, 1790 at [[Federal Hall]].<ref>[http://www.senate.gov/reference/reference_item/Nine_Capitals_of_the_United_States.htm The Nine Capitals of the United States]. [[United States Senate]] Historical Office. Accessed June 9, 2005. Based on Fortenbaugh, Robert, ''The Nine Capitals of the United States'', York, PA: Maple Press, 1948.</ref>
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From January 11, 1785 to Autumn 1788, New York City was the fifth of five capitals under the Articles of Confederation, with the Continental Congress residing at New York City Hall, then at Fraunces Tavern. New York was the first capital under the newly enacted [[United States Constitution|Constitution of the United States]], from March 4, 1789 to August 12, 1790 at Federal Hall.<ref>[http://www.senate.gov/reference/reference_item/Nine_Capitals_of_the_United_States.htm The Nine Capitals of the United States]. [[United States Senate]] Historical Office. Accessed June 9, 2005. Based on Fortenbaugh, Robert, ''The Nine Capitals of the United States'', York, PA: Maple Press, 1948.</ref>
  
 
===19th century growth===
 
===19th century growth===
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Starting in the 1990s, crime rates dropped drastically and the outflow of population turned around, as the city once again became the destination not only of immigrants from around the world, but of many U.S. citizens seeking to live a cosmopolitan lifestyle that New York City can offer.
 
Starting in the 1990s, crime rates dropped drastically and the outflow of population turned around, as the city once again became the destination not only of immigrants from around the world, but of many U.S. citizens seeking to live a cosmopolitan lifestyle that New York City can offer.
  
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==Geography==
 
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{{seealso|Geography and environment of New York City}}
 
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[[Image:NASA Manhattan.jpg|thumb|250px|[[Central Park]] is visible in the center of this satellite image. Manhattan is bounded by the [[Hudson River]] to the west and [[East River]] to the east.]]
 
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Manhattan Island is bound by the [[Hudson River]] to the west and the [[East River]] to the east. To the north, the [[Harlem River]] divides Manhattan from [[The Bronx]] and the mainland United States. Several small islands are also part of the borough of Manhattan, including [[Randall's Island]], [[Ward's Island]], and [[Roosevelt Island]] in the East River, and [[Governors Island]] and [[Liberty Island]] to the south in [[New York Harbor]].<ref name=Islands>[http://www.law.onecle.com/new-york/new-york-city-administrative-code/ADC02-202_2-202.html New York City Administrative Code Section 2-202 Division into boroughs and boundaries thereof - Division Into Boroughs And Boundaries Thereof.], Lawyer Research Center. Accessed May 16, 2007. "The borough of Manhattan shall consist of the territory known as New York county which shall contain all that part of the city and state, including that portion  of land commonly  known  as Marble Hill and included within the county of New York and borough of Manhattan for all purposes  pursuant to chapter nine hundred thirty-nine of the laws of nineteen hundred eighty-four and further including the islands  called Manhattan Island, Governor's Island, Bedloe's Island, Ellis Island, Franklin D. Roosevelt Island, Randall's Island and Oyster Island..."</ref> Manhattan Island is 22.7&nbsp;square miles (58.8&nbsp;km²) in area, 13.4&nbsp;miles (21.6&nbsp;km) long and 2.3&nbsp;miles (3.7&nbsp;km) wide, at its widest (near [[14th Street (Manhattan)|14th Street]]).<ref name=Stuff>[http://travel.howstuffworks.com/new-york1.htm How New York Works], ''[[How Stuff Works]], accessed April 27, 2007. "The island is 22.7&nbsp;square miles (58.8&nbsp;km²), 13.4&nbsp;miles (21.6&nbsp;kilometers) long and 2.3&nbsp;miles (3.7&nbsp;kilometers) wide (at its widest point)."</ref> New York County as a whole covers a total area of 33.77&nbsp;square miles (87.46&nbsp;km²), of which 22.96&nbsp;square miles (59.47&nbsp;km²) are land and 10.81&nbsp;square miles (28.00&nbsp;km²) are water.<ref name=NYCensusRankings/>
 
  
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One Manhattan neighborhood is actually contiguous with The Bronx. [[Marble Hill, Manhattan|Marble Hill]] at one time was part of Manhattan Island, but the [[Spuyten Duyvil Creek|Harlem River Ship Canal]], dug in 1895 to improve navigation on the Harlem River, separated it from the remainder of Manhattan as an island between the Bronx and the remainder of Manhattan.<ref name="canal">Gray, Christopher. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE2D61F3CF935A35750C0A96E948260 New York Times—Streetscapes: Spuyten Duyvil Swing Bridge; Restoring a Link In the City's Lifeline]. ''[[The New York Times]]'', March 6, 1988. Accessed May 16, 2007.</ref> Before [[World War I]], the section of the original Harlem River channel separating Marble Hill from The Bronx was filled in, and Marble Hill became part of the mainland.<ref name="canal">Jackson, Nancy Beth. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9901E7D61E30F935A15752C0A9659C8B63 " If You're Thinking of Living In/Marble Hill; Tiny Slice of Manhattan on the Mainland"]. ''The New York Times'', January 26, 2003. Accessed May 16, 2007. "The building of the Harlem River Ship Canal turned the hill into an island in 1895, but when Spuyten Duyvel Creek on the west was filled in before World War I, the 51&nbsp;acres became firmly attached to the mainland and the Bronx."</ref>
 
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Marble Hill is one example of how Manhattan's land has been considerably altered by human intervention. The borough has seen substantial [[land reclamation]] along its waterfronts since Dutch colonial times, and much of the natural variation in topography has been evened out.<ref name=Mannahatta/>
 
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Early in the nineteenth century, [[landfill]] was used to expand [[Lower Manhattan]] from the natural Hudson shoreline at Greenwich Street to [[West Side Highway|West Street]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Over and Back: The History of Ferryboats in New York Harbor |author=Cudahy, Brian J. Cudahy |publisher=Fordham University Press |year=1990 |pages=p. 25}}</ref>  When [[Building of the World Trade Center|building]] the [[World Trade Center]], 1.2&nbsp;million [[cubic yard]]s (917,000&nbsp;[[Cubic metre|m³]]) of material was excavated from the site.<ref name="gillespie-p71">{{cite book |author=Gillespie, Angus K. |year=1999 |title=Twin Towers: The Life of New York City's World Trade Center |publisher=[[Rutgers University Press]] |pages=p. 71}}</ref> Rather than dumping the spoil at sea or in landfills, the fill material was used to expand the Manhattan shoreline across West Street, creating [[Battery Park City, Manhattan|Battery Park City]].<ref name="iglauer">{{cite news |title=The Biggest Foundation |author=Iglauer, Edith |date=November 4, 1972 |publisher=[[The New Yorker]]}}</ref> The result was a 700&nbsp;foot (210&nbsp;m) extension into the river, running six blocks or 1,484&nbsp;feet (450&nbsp;m), covering 92&nbsp;acres (37&nbsp;[[hectare|ha]]), providing a 1.2&nbsp;mile (1.9&nbsp;km) riverfront esplanade and over 30&nbsp;acres (12&nbsp;ha) of parks.<ref>[http://www.asla.org/awards/2003/battery_park_city.htm ASLA 2003 The Landmark Award], [[American Society of Landscape Architects]]. Accessed May 17, 2007.</ref>
 
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[[Image:Grid 1811.jpg|thumb|left|250px|A modern redrawing of the 1807 version of the Commissioner's Grid plan for Manhattan, a few years before it was adopted in 1811.]]
 
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Manhattan is loosely divided into [[Lower Manhattan|downtown]], [[Midtown Manhattan|midtown]], and [[Upper Manhattan|uptown]] regions, with [[Fifth Avenue (Manhattan)|Fifth Avenue]] demarcating Manhattan's east and west sides.
 
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Manhattan is connected by a bridge and tunnels to [[New Jersey]] to the west, and to three New York City boroughs—[[the Bronx]] to the northeast and [[Brooklyn]] and [[Queens]] on [[Long Island]] to the east and south. Its only direct connection with the fifth New York City borough is the [[Staten Island Ferry]] across New York Harbor, which is free of charge. The ferry terminal is located at [[Battery Park (New York)|Battery Park]] at its southern tip. It is possible to travel to Staten Island via Brooklyn, using the [[Verrazano-Narrows Bridge]].
 
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The [[Commissioners' Plan of 1811]], called for twelve numbered avenues running north and south roughly parallel to the shore of the [[Hudson River]], each 100&nbsp;feet wide (30&nbsp;m), with [[First Avenue (Manhattan)|First Avenue]] on the east side and [[Twelfth Avenue (Manhattan)|Twelfth Avenue]] in the west. There are several intermittent avenues east of First Avenue, including four additional lettered avenues running from [[Avenue A (Manhattan)|Avenue A]] eastward to [[Avenue D (Manhattan)|Avenue D]] in an area now known as [[Alphabet City, Manhattan|Alphabet City]] in Manhattan's [[East Village, Manhattan|East Village]]. The numbered streets in Manhattan run east-west, and are 60&nbsp;feet wide (18&nbsp;m), with about 200&nbsp;feet (61&nbsp;m) between each pair of streets. With each combined street and block adding up to about 260&nbsp;feet (79&nbsp;m), there are almost exactly 20&nbsp;blocks per mile. Fifteen crosstown streets were designated as 100&nbsp;feet (30&nbsp;m) wide, including [[34th Street (Manhattan)|34th]], [[42nd Street (Manhattan)|42nd]], [[59th Street (Manhattan)|59th]] and [[125th Street (Manhattan)|125th]] Streets, some of the borough's most significant transportation and shopping venues.<ref>[http://www.library.cornell.edu/Reps/DOCS/nyc1811.htm Remarks of the Commissioners for laying out streets and roads in the City of New York, under the Act of April 3, 1807], [[Cornell University]]. Accessed May 2, 2007. "These streets are all sixty feet wide except fifteen, which are one hundred feet wide, viz.: Numbers fourteen, twenty-three, thirty-four, forty-two, fifty-seven, seventy-two, seventy-nine, eighty-six, ninety-six, one hundred and six, one hundred and sixteen, one hundred and twenty-five, one hundred and thirty-five, one hundred and forty-five, and one hundred and fifty-five—the block or space between them being in general about two hundred feet."</ref> [[Broadway (New York City)|Broadway]] is the most notable of many exceptions to the grid, starting at [[Bowling Green (New York City)|Bowling Green]] in [[Lower Manhattan]] and continuing north into the Bronx at Manhattan's northern tip. In much of Midtown Manhattan, Broadway runs at a diagonal to the grid, creating major named intersections at [[Herald Square]] ([[Sixth Avenue (Manhattan)|Sixth Avenue]] and 34th Street), [[Times Square]] ([[Seventh Avenue (Manhattan)|Seventh Avenue]] and 42nd Street) and [[Columbus Circle]] ([[Eighth Avenue (Manhattan)|Eighth Avenue]]/[[Central Park West]] and 59th Street)
 
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A consequence of the strict grid plan of most of Manhattan, and the grid's skew of approximately 28.9&nbsp;degrees, is a phenomenon sometimes referred to as [[Manhattanhenge]] (by analogy with [[Stonehenge]]).<ref name=Manhattanhenge>Silverman, Justin Rocket. "Sunny delight in city sight," ''[[Newsday]]'', May 27, 2006. "'Manhattanhenge' occurs Sunday, a day when a happy coincidence of urban planning and astrophysics results in the setting sun lining up exactly with every east-west street in the borough north of 14th Street. Similar to Stonehenge, which is directly aligned with the summer-solstice sun, "Manhattanhenge" catches the sun descending in perfect alignment between buildings. The local phenomenon occurs twice a year, on May 28 and July 12…</ref> On separate occasions in late May and early July (for 2006 the exact dates are May 28 and July 12), the sunset is aligned with the street grid lines, with the result that the sun is visible at or near the western horizon from street level.<ref>[http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/cityofstars.html Sunset on 34th Street Along the Manhattan Grid], ''[[Natural History (magazine)]]'' Special Feature—City of Stars, accessed September 4, 2006.</ref><ref name=Manhattanhenge/> A similar phenomenon occurs with the sunrise in January and December (January 11 and December 2 in 2006).
 
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The [[Wildlife Conservation Society]], which operates the zoos and aquariums in the city, is currently undertaking The Mannahatta Project, a computer simulation to visually reconstruct the ecology and geography of Manhattan when Henry Hudson first sailed by in 1609, and compare it to what we know of the island today.<ref name=Mannahatta>[http://www.wcs.org/sw-high_tech_tools/landscapeecology/mannahatta The Mannahatta Project], Wildlife Conservation Society, January 1, 2006, accessed September 3, 2006.</ref><ref name=Mannahatta/>
 
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;Adjacent counties
 
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*[[Bergen County, New Jersey]]—west/northwest
 
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*[[Hudson County, New Jersey]]—west/northwest
 
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*[[the Bronx|Bronx County, New York]] (the Bronx)—northeast
 
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*[[Queens|Queens County, New York]] (Queens)—east/southeast
 
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*[[Brooklyn|Kings County, New York]] (Brooklyn)—southeast
 
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*[[Staten Island|Richmond County, New York]] (Staten Island)—southwest
 
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===Neighborhoods===
 
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[[Image:West 4th and West 12th Intersection.JPG|thumb|right|250px|[[Greenwich Village]]]]
 
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[[Image:Upper West Side - Broadway.jpg|thumb|250px|A sidewalk cafe in [[Morningside Heights]], on Broadway Avenue between 112th and 113th streets.]]
 
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{{main|Neighborhoods of New York City|Manhattan neighborhoods}}
 
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Manhattan's many neighborhoods are not named according to any particular convention. Some are geographical (the [[Upper East Side]]), ethnically descriptive ([[Chinatown, Manhattan|Chinatown]]). Others are acronyms, such as [[TriBeCa]] (for "TRIangle BElow CAnal Street") or [[SoHo]] ("SOuth of HOuston"), or the far more recent vintage [[NoLIta, Manhattan|NoLIta]] ("NOrth of Little ITaly") .<ref>Senft, Bret. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CEED71038F935A1575AC0A965958260  " If You're Thinking of Living In/TriBeCa; Families Are the Catalyst for Change"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', September 26, 1993. Accessed April 26, 2007. "Families have overtaken commerce as the catalyst for change in this TRIangle BElow CAnal Street (although the only triangle here is its heart: Hudson Street meeting West Broadway at Chambers Street, with Canal its north side) … Artists began seeking refuge from fashionable SoHo (SOuth of HOuston) as early as the mid-70's."</ref><ref>Cohen, Joyce. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0DEEDD1530F934A25756C0A96E958260 " If You're Thinking of Living In/Nolita; A Slice of Little Italy Moving Upscale"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', May 17, 1998. Accessed  April 26, 2007. "NO ONE is quite certain what to call this part of town. Nolita—north of Little Italy, that is—certainly pinpoints it geographically. The not-quite-acronym was apparently coined several years ago by real-estate brokers seeking to give the area at least a little cachet."</ref> [[Harlem]] is a name from the Dutch colonial era after [[Haarlem]], a city in the Netherlands.<ref>Pitts, David. [http://usinfo.state.gov/scv/Archive/2005/Jun/30-613064.html U.S. Postage Stamp Honors Harlem's Langston Hughes], [[United States Department of State]]. Accessed April 26, 2007. "Harlem, or Nieuw Haarlem, as it was originally named, was established by the Dutch in 1658 after they took control from Native Americans. They named it after Haarlem, a city in the Netherlands."</ref>
 
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Some neighborhoods, such as [[SoHo]] (South of Houston), are commercial in nature and known for upscale shopping. Others, such as the [[Lower East Side, Manhattan|Lower East Side]] and [[East Village, Manhattan|East Village]], have long been associated with the "[[Bohemianism|Bohemian]]" subculture.<ref>Bruni, Frank. [http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F7091EFD34590C748CDDAD0894DF494D81 " The Grounds He Stamped: The New York Of Ginsberg"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', April 7, 1997. Accessed April 30, 2007. "Indeed, for all the worldwide attention that Mr. Ginsberg received, he was always a creature and icon principally of downtown Manhattan, his world view forged in its crucible of political and sexual passions, his eccentricities nurtured by those of its peculiar demimonde, his individual myth entwined with that of the bohemian East Village in which he made his home. ''He embodied the East Village and the Lower East Side,'' Bill Morgan, a friend and Mr. Ginsberg's archivist, said yesterday."</ref> [[Chelsea, Manhattan|Chelsea]] is a neighborhood with a large gay population, and also a center of New York's art industry and nightlife.<ref>Dunlap, David W. [http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=FA091FF8355A0C708DDDA80994DC494D81 " The New Chelsea's Many Faces"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', November 13, 1994. Accessed April 28, 2007. "Gay Chelsea's role has solidified with the arrival of A Different Light bookstore, a cultural cornerstone that had been housed for a decade in an 800-square-foot nook at 548 Hudson Street, near Perry Street. It now takes up more than 5,000 square feet at 151 West 19th Street and its migration seems to embody a northward shift of gay life from Greenwich Village... Because of Chelsea's reputation, Mr. Garmendia said, single women were not likely to move in. But single men did. "The whole neighborhood became gay during the 70's," he said."</ref> [[Washington Heights, Manhattan|Washington Heights]] is a vibrant neighborhood of immigrants from the [[Dominican Republic]]. Manhattan's Chinatown is the largest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere.<ref>Grimes, Christopher. [http://search.ft.com/nonFtArticle?id=030414001065 "WORLD NEWS: New York's Chinatown starts to feel the pinch over 'the bug'"], ''[[Financial Times]]'', April 14, 2003. Accessed May 19, 2007. "New York's Chinatown is the site of the largest concentration of Chinese people in the western hemisphere."</ref><ref>[http://www.nycvisit.com/content/index.cfm?pagePkey=1195 Chinatown: A World of Dining, Shopping, and History], [[NYC & Company]], accessed April 27, 2007. "No visit to New York City is complete without exploring the sights, cuisines, history, and shops of the biggest Chinatown in the United States. The largest concentration of Chinese people—150,000—in the Western Hemisphere are in a two-square-mile area in downtown Manhattan that's loosely bounded by Lafayette, Worth, and Grand streets and East Broadway."</ref> The [[Upper West Side]] is often characterized as more intellectual and creative, in contrast to the old money and conservative values of the [[Upper East Side]], one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the United States.<ref>[http://www.nycvisit.com/content/index.cfm?pagePkey=448 Upper West Side], [[NYC & Company]], accessed May 1, 2007. "This is the traditional stronghold of the city's intellectual, creative, and moneyed community, but the atmosphere is not as upper crust as the Upper East Side."</ref><ref>[http://www.nycvisit.com/content/index.cfm?pagePkey=447 Upper East Side], [[NYC & Company]], accessed May 1, 2007. "The neighborhood air is perfumed with the scent of old money, conservative values, and glamorous sophistication, with Champagne corks popping and high society puttin' on the Ritz."</ref><ref>[http://soc.qc.cuny.edu/Maps/footnote.html Stroll the Upper East Side for Lifestyles of the Elite], ''Footnotes'' of the [[American Sociological Association]], March 1996, accessed April 30, 2007. "Although not everyone who lives in the Upper East Side is wealthy, a great many are. According to 1990 census data, over 53 percent of all households boasts income in excess of $50,000 per year, compared to the city total of 27 percent. Over one-third of those households in New York City, who reported incomes of more than $200,000 in 1990 live in the Upper East Side. The area contains only four percent of all households in New York City."</ref>
 
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In Manhattan, ''uptown'' means north and ''downtown'' means south. Though avenues are often described as running north and south, and are often shown that way on city maps, the avenues more accurately run north-by-northeast.<ref>Petzold, Charles. [http://www.charlespetzold.com/etc/AvenuesOfManhattan/index.html " How Far from True North are the Avenues of Manhattan?"], accessed April 30, 2007. "However, the orientation of the city's avenues was fixed to be parallel with the axis of Manhattan Island and has only a casual relationship to true north and south. Maps that are oriented to true north (like the one at the right) show the island at a significant tilt. In truth, avenues run closer to northeast and southwest than north and south."</ref> This usage differs from that of most American cities, where ''[[downtown]]'' refers to the [[central business district]]. Manhattan has two central business districts, the [[Financial District, Manhattan|Financial District]] at the southern tip of the island, and the business district in [[Midtown Manhattan]]. The term ''uptown'' refers to the northern part of Manhattan (generally speaking, above [[59th Street (Manhattan)|59th Street]]<ref>Jackson, Nancy Beth. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE6DF103EF93AA1575BC0A9629C8B63 "Living On/59th Street; Putting Out the Gold-Plated Welcome Mats"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', August 29, 2004. Accessed April 27, 2007. "Now anchored east and west by glittering towers, destination supermarkets and shops, 59th Street is more than where Midtown meets uptown."</ref>) and ''downtown'' to the southern portion (typically below [[14th Street (Manhattan)|14th Street]]<ref>[http://www.nycvisit.com/content/index.cfm?pagePkey=365 NYC Basics], [[NYC & Company]], accessed April 27, 2007. "Downtown (below 14th Street) contains Greenwich Village, SoHo, TriBeCa, and the Wall Street financial district."</ref>), with ''Midtown'' covering the area in between, though definitions can be rather fluid.
 
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[[Fifth Avenue (Manhattan)|Fifth Avenue]] roughly bisects Manhattan Island and acts as the demarcation line for east/west designations (e.g., East 27th Street, West 42nd Street); street addresses start at Fifth Avenue and increase by about 100 per block heading away from Fifth Avenue.<ref>[http://www.nycvisit.com/content/index.cfm?pagePkey=365 NYC Basics:Orienting Yourself], [[NYC & Company]], accessed May 1, 2007. "Fifth Avenue divides Manhattan into East Side and West Side; street addresses increase with their distance west and east from Fifth Avenue, usually by 100 per block."</ref> South of Waverly Place in Manhattan, Fifth Avenue terminates and Broadway becomes the east/west demarcation line. Though the grid does start with 1st Street, just north of [[Houston Street (Manhattan)|Houston Street]], the grid does not fully take hold until north of [[14th Street (Manhattan)|14th Street]], where nearly all east-west streets use numeric designations, which increase from south to north to 220th Street, the highest numbered street on the island.<ref name=Stuff/>
 
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[[Image:kenncity.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Manhattan Skyline from Brooklyn Promenade]]
 
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===Climate===
 
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Although located at about the same latitude as the much warmer European cities of [[Naples]] and [[Madrid]], Manhattan has a [[humid continental climate]] ([[Köppen classification]] Dfa) resulting from prevailing wind patterns that bring cool air from the interior of the North American continent.<ref name="NYC climate">{{cite web|title=The Climate of New York|publisher=New York State Climate Office|url=http://nysc.eas.cornell.edu/climate_of_ny.html|accessdate=2007-03-27}}</ref> The city's coastal position keeps temperatures relatively warmer than inland regions during winter, helping to moderate the amount of snow which averages 25 to 35&nbsp;inches (63.5 to 88.9&nbsp;cm) each year.<ref name="NYC climate"/>  New York City has a frost-free period lasting an average of 220 days between seasonal freezes.<ref name="NYC climate" />  Spring and Fall in New York City are mild, while summer is very warm and humid, with temperatures of 90°F (32°C) or higher recorded from 18 to 25 days on average during the season.<ref name="NYC climate" /> The city's longterm climate patterns are affected by the [[Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation]], a 70-year-long warming and cooling cycle in the Atlantic that influences the frequency and severity of hurricanes and coastal storms in the region.<ref>{{cite web|author=Riley, Mary Elizabeth|title=Assessing the Impact of Interannual Climate Variability on New York City's Reservoir System|year=2006|publisher=Cornell University Graduate School for Atmospheric Science |url=http://dspace.library.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/2623/1/MER+Thesis-new.pdf|format=PDF|accessdate=2007-03-27}}</ref>
 
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Temperature records have been set as high as 106 °F (41 °C) on July 9, 1936 and as low as -15 °F (-26 °C) on February 9, 1934. These temperatures are not common and have not been matched or surpassed in more than seven decades. Most recently, temperatures have hit 100 degrees as recently as July 2005 and 103 degrees in August 2006, and dropped to just 1 above zero as recently as January 2004. New York can have excessive days of rain or long stretches of dry weather.
 
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Summer evening temperatures are exacerbated by the [[urban heat island]] effect which causes heat absorbed during the day to be radiated back at night, raising temperatures by as much as 7 °F (4 °C) when winds are slow.<ref>[http://www.accessmylibrary.com/premium/0286/0286-12655409.html "Keeping New York City Cool Is The Job Of NASA's Heat Seekers."], ''[[Spacedaily.com]]'', February 9, 2006. Accessed May 16, 2007. "The urban heat island occurrence is particularly pronounced during summer heat waves and at night when wind speeds are low and sea breezes are light. During these times, New York City's air temperatures can rise 7.2 °F higher than in surrounding areas."</ref>
 
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{{New York City weatherbox}}
 
  
 
==Government==
 
==Government==
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Since 1990, crime in Manhattan has plummeted in all categories tracked by the CompStat profile. A borough that saw 503 murders in 1990 has seen a drop of nearly 78% to 111 in 2006. Robbery and burglary are down by more than 80% during the period, and auto theft has been reduced by more than 90%. Overall crime has declined by more than 75% since 1990 in the seven major crime categories tracked by the system, and year-to-date statistics through May 2007 show continuing declines.<ref>[http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/pdf/chfdept/cspbms.pdf Patrol Borough Manhattan South — Report Covering the Week of 04/30/2007 Through 05/06/2007] (PDF), [[New York City Police Department]] [[CompStat]], May 6, 2007. Accessed May 16, 2007.</ref><ref>[http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/pdf/chfdept/cspbms.pdf Patrol Borough Manhattan North — Report Covering the Week of 04/30/2007 Through 05/06/2007] (PDF), [[New York City Police Department]] [[CompStat]], May 6, 2007. Accessed May 16, 2007.</ref>
 
Since 1990, crime in Manhattan has plummeted in all categories tracked by the CompStat profile. A borough that saw 503 murders in 1990 has seen a drop of nearly 78% to 111 in 2006. Robbery and burglary are down by more than 80% during the period, and auto theft has been reduced by more than 90%. Overall crime has declined by more than 75% since 1990 in the seven major crime categories tracked by the system, and year-to-date statistics through May 2007 show continuing declines.<ref>[http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/pdf/chfdept/cspbms.pdf Patrol Borough Manhattan South — Report Covering the Week of 04/30/2007 Through 05/06/2007] (PDF), [[New York City Police Department]] [[CompStat]], May 6, 2007. Accessed May 16, 2007.</ref><ref>[http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/pdf/chfdept/cspbms.pdf Patrol Borough Manhattan North — Report Covering the Week of 04/30/2007 Through 05/06/2007] (PDF), [[New York City Police Department]] [[CompStat]], May 6, 2007. Accessed May 16, 2007.</ref>
  
−
==Demographics==
 
−
{{main|Demographics of Manhattan}}
 
−
{{seealso|Demographics of New York City}}
 
−
{| id="toc" style="float: right; margin-left: 2em; width: 40%; font-size: 90%;" cellspacing="3"
 
−
!colspan="4"|'''Manhattan Compared'''
 
−
|-
 
−
|'''[[United States Census, 2000|2000 Census]]'''||'''Manhattan'''<ref>[http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/SAFFFacts?_event=&geo_id=05000US36061&_geoContext=01000US%7C04000US36%7C05000US36061&_street=&_county=new+york&_cityTown=new+york&_state=04000US36&_zip=&_lang=en&_sse=on&ActiveGeoDiv=geoSelect&_useEV=&pctxt=fph&pgsl=050&_submenuId=factsheet_1&ds_name=ACS_2005_SAFF&_ci_nbr=null&qr_name=null&reg=null%3Anull&_keyword=&_industry=  Census data for New York county as of 2000 Census], [[United States Census Bureau]], accessed May 29, 2007.</ref>||'''NY City'''<ref>[http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/SAFFFacts?_event=Search&geo_id=05000US36061&_geoContext=01000US%7C04000US36%7C05000US36061&_street=&_county=new+york+city&_cityTown=new+york+city&_state=04000US36&_zip=&_lang=en&_sse=on&ActiveGeoDiv=geoSelect&_useEV=&pctxt=fph&pgsl=050&_submenuId=factsheet_1&ds_name=DEC_2000_SAFF&_ci_nbr=null&qr_name=null&reg=null%3Anull&_keyword=&_industry=  Census data for New York city as of 2000 Census], [[United States Census Bureau]], accessed May 29, 2007.</ref>||'''NY State<ref>[http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/SAFFFacts?_event=&geo_id=04000US36&_geoContext=01000US%7C04000US36%7C16000US3651000&_street=&_county=new+york&_cityTown=new+york&_state=04000US36&_zip=&_lang=en&_sse=on&ActiveGeoDiv=geoSelect&_useEV=&pctxt=fph&pgsl=010&_submenuId=factsheet_1&ds_name=DEC_2000_SAFF&_ci_nbr=null&qr_name=null&reg=null%3Anull&_keyword=&_industry=  Census data for New York (state) as of 2000 Census], [[United States Census Bureau]], accessed May 29, 2007.</ref>'''
 
−
|-
 
−
|Total population||1,537,195||8,008,278||18,976,457
 
−
|-
 
−
|Population density||66,940.1/mi²||26,403/mi²||402/mi²
 
−
|-
 
−
|Median household income (1999)||$47,030||$38,293||$43,393
 
−
|-
 
−
|Per capita income||$42,922||$22,402||$23,389
 
−
|-
 
−
|Bachelor's degree or higher||49.4%||27.4%||27.4%
 
−
|-
 
−
|Foreign born||29.4%||35.9%||20.4%
 
−
|-
 
−
|White||54.4%||44.7%||67.9%
 
−
|-
 
−
|Black||17.4%||26.6%||15.9%
 
−
|-
 
−
|Hispanic (any race)||27.2%||27.0%||15.1%
 
−
|-
 
−
|Asian||9.4%||9.8%||5.5%
 
−
|}
 
−
According to 2006 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, there are 1,611,581 people, 738,644 households, and 302,105 families residing in Manhattan.{{GR|2}} As of the 2000 Census, the population density of New York County was 66,940.1/mi² (25,849.9/km²), the highest population density of any county in the United States.<ref>[http://gislounge.com/features/aa041101c.shtml "Population Density"], Geographic Information Systems - GIS of Interest. Accessed May 17, 2007. "What I discovered is that out of the 3140 counties listed in the Census population data only 178 counties were calculated to have a population density over one person per acre. Not surprisingly, New York County (which contains Manhattan) had the highest population density with a calculated 104.218 persons per acre."</ref> In 1910, at the height of European immigration to New York, Manhattan's population density reached a peak of 120,250.299/mi² (46,428.9/km²). There were 798,144 housing units in 2000 at an average density of 34,756.7/mi² (13,421.8/km²).<ref name=NYCensusRankings/> Only 20.3% of Manhattan residents lived in owner-occupied housing, the second-lowest rate of all counties in the nation, behind The Bronx.<ref name=OwnerOccupied>[http://www.census.gov/acs/www/Products/Ranking/2003/R21T050.htm Percent of Occupied Housing Units That are Owner-occupied], [[United States Census Bureau]], accessed April 18, 2007.</ref>
 
−
 
−
The New York City Department of City Planning projects that Manhattan's population will grow by 289,000 people between 2000 and 2030, an increase of 18.8% over the period, second only to Staten Island., while the rest of the city is projected to grow by 12.7% over the same period. The school-age population is expected to grow 4.4% by 2030, in contrast to a small decline in the city as a whole. The elderly population is forecast to grow by 57.9%, with the borough adding 108,000 persons ages 65 and over, compared to 44.2% growth citywide.<ref>[http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/census/projections_report.pdf New York City Population Projections by Age/Sex & Borough 2000–2030], [[New York City]] Department of City Planning, December 2006. Accessed May 18, 2007.</ref>
 
−
 
−
In 2000, 56.4% of people living in Manhattan were [[Race (United States Census)|White]], 27.18% were Hispanic of any race, 17.39% were Black, 14.14% were from other races, 9.40% were Asian, 0.5% were Native American, and 0.07% were Pacific Islander. 4.14% were from two or more races. 24.93% reported speaking [[Spanish language|Spanish]] at home, 4.12% [[Chinese language|Chinese]], and 2.19% [[French language|French]].<ref>[http://www.mla.org/map_data_results&state_id=36&county_id=61&mode=geographic&zip=&place_id=&cty_id=&ll=all&a=&ea=&order=r Languages spoken in New York County], [[Modern Language Association]], accessed April 25, 2007.</ref>
 
−
 
−
{{USCensusPop
 
−
|1790=      33111
 
−
|1800=      60489
 
−
|1810=      96373
 
−
|1820=      123706
 
−
|1830=      202589
 
−
|1840=      312710
 
−
|1850=      515547
 
−
|1860=      813669
 
−
|1870=      942292
 
−
|1880=    1206299
 
−
|1890=    1515301
 
−
|1900=    2050600
 
−
|1910=    2762522
 
−
|1920=    2284103
 
−
|1930=    1867312
 
−
|1940=    1889924
 
−
|1950=    1960101
 
−
|1960=    1698281
 
−
|1970=    1539233
 
−
|1980=    1428285
 
−
|1990=    1487536
 
−
|2000=    1537195
 
−
|estimate= 1611581
 
−
|estyear =2006
 
−
|estref  =<ref name=CensusEst>[http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/SAFFPopulation?_event=ChangeGeoContext&geo_id=05000US36061&_geoContext=01000US%7C04000US34%7C16000US3462430&_street=&_county=new+york&_cityTown=new+york&_state=04000US36&_zip=&_lang=en&_sse=on&ActiveGeoDiv=geoSelect&_useEV=&pctxt=fph&pgsl=010&_submenuId=population_0&ds_name=null&_ci_nbr=null&qr_name=null&reg=null%3Anull&_keyword=&_industry= Census data for New York county], [[United States Census Bureau]], accessed May 29, 2007.</ref>
 
−
| footnote=Population 1790–1990.<ref>[http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:2o8JvQEcl1EJ:www.empire.state.ny.us/nysdc/StateCountyPopests/County%2520PopHistory.xls+1206299+1515301&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a Population of New York State  by County: 1790–1990], [[Empire State Development Corporation]], accessed April 30, 2007.</ref>
 
−
}}
 
−
There were 738,644 households. 25.2% were married couples living together, 12.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 59.1% were non-families. 17.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them. 48% of all households were made up of individuals and 10.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2 and the average family size was 2.99.
 
−
 
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Manhattan's population was spread out with 16.8% under the age of 18, 10.2% from 18 to 24, 38.3% from 25 to 44, 22.6% from 45 to 64, and 12.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 90.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.9 males.
 
−
 
−
Manhattan is one of the [[Highest-income counties in the United States|highest-income places]] in the United States with a population greater than 1 million. Based on [[Internal Revenue Service|IRS]] data for the 2004 tax year, New York County (Manhattan) had the highest average federal income tax liability per return in the country. Average tax liability was $25,875, representing 20.0% of [[Adjusted Gross Income]].<ref>Sahadi, Jeanne. [http://money.aol.com/cnnmoney/tax/canvas3/_a/biggest-income-tax-burdens-top-10-places/20070214111009990001 Biggest Income Tax Burdens: Top 10 Places], [[CNN Money]], accessed April 28, 2007.</ref> As of 2002, Manhattan had the highest per capita income of any county in the country.<ref>Newman, Jeffrey L. [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3SUR/is_6_84/ai_n14892822 "Comprehensive revision of local area personal income: preliminary estimates for 2002 and revised estimates for 1969-2001"], ''Survey of Current Business'', June 2004. Accessed May 29, 2007. "Per capita personal income in New York County (Manhattan), NY, at $84,591, or 274 percent of the national average, was the highest."</ref>
 
−
 
−
The Manhattan ZIP Code 10021, on the [[Upper East Side]], is home to more than 100,000 people and has a per capita income of over $90,000.<ref>[http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/SAFFFacts?_event=Search&geo_id=04000US36&_geoContext=01000US%7C04000US36&_street=&_county=&_cityTown=&_state=&_zip=10021&_lang=en&_sse=on&ActiveGeoDiv=geoSelect&_useEV=&pctxt=fph&pgsl=040&_submenuId=factsheet_1&ds_name=ACS_2005_SAFF&_ci_nbr=null&qr_name=null&reg=null%3Anull&_keyword=&_industry=&show_2003_tab=&redirect=Y Zip Code Tabulation Area 10021], [[United States Census 2000]], accessed April 27, 2007.</ref> It is one of the largest concentrations of extreme wealth in the United States. Most Manhattan neighborhoods are not as wealthy. The median income for a household in the county was $47,030, and the median income for a family was $50,229. Males had a median income of $51,856 versus $45,712 for females. The [[per capita income]] for the county was $42,922. About 17.6% of families and 20% of the population were below the [[poverty line]], including 31.8% of those under age 18 and 18.9% of those age 65 or over.<ref>[http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/SAFFFacts?_event=ChangeGeoContext&geo_id=05000US36061&_geoContext=01000US%7C86000US10021&_street=&_county=new+york&_cityTown=new+york&_state=04000US36&_zip=&_lang=en&_sse=on&ActiveGeoDiv=geoSelect&_useEV=&pctxt=fph&pgsl=010&_submenuId=factsheet_1&ds_name=DEC_2000_SAFF&_ci_nbr=null&qr_name=null&reg=null%3Anull&_keyword=&_industry= New York County, New York], [[United States Census 2000]], accessed April 27, 2007.</ref>
 
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−
Lower Manhattan (Manhattan south of [[Houston Street (Manhattan)|Houston Street]]) has a sharply different population than the rest of the borough. According to the 2000 census, the neighborhood was 41% Asian, 32% non-Hispanic white, 19% Hispanic and 6% black. 43% of residents were immigrants. These figures are affected by the demographic weight of Chinatown, which accounts for 55% of the population of Lower Manhattan. While the [[Financial District, Manhattan|Financial District]] had few non-commercial residents after the 1950s, the area has seen a significant surge in its residential population, with estimates showing over 30,000 residents living in the area as of 2005, a jump from the 15,000 to 20,000 before the [[September 11, 2001 attacks]].<ref>Steinhauer, Jennifer. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E02E4DD113EF936A25757C0A9639C8B63 "Baby Strollers and Supermarkets Push Into the Financial District"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', April 15, 2005. Accessed May 11, 2007.</ref>
 
−
 
−
Manhattan is religiously diverse. The largest religious affiliation is the [[Roman Catholic Church]], whose adherents constitute 564,505 persons (more than 36% of the population) and maintain 110 congregations. [[American Jews|Jews]] comprise the second largest religious group, with 314,500 persons (20.5%) in 102 congregations. The next largest religious groups are [[Protestantism|Protestants]], with 139,732 adherents (9.1%) and [[Muslims]], with 37,078 (2.4%).<ref>[http://www.thearda.com/mapsReports/reports/counties/36061_2000.asp New York County, New York], [[Association of Religion Data Archives]]. Accessed September 10, 2006.</ref>
 
  
−
The borough is also experiencing a baby boom. Since 2000, the number of children under age 5 living in Manhattan grew by more than 32%.<ref>Roberts, Sam. [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/23/nyregion/23kid.html "In Surge in Manhattan Toddlers, Rich White Families Lead Way"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', March 27, 2007. Accessed March 27, 2007.</ref>
 
  
 
==Economy==
 
==Economy==

Revision as of 02:40, 11 September 2007


For other uses, see Manhattan (disambiguation).
Manhattan
Location
File:Manhattan Highlight New York City Map Julius Schorzman.png
The Borough of Manhattan, highlighted in yellow, lies between the East River and the Hudson River.
Government
County: New York
Borough president: Scott Stringer
Demographics
Population: 1,537,195
Population density: 66,940/mi² (25,846/km²)
Geography[1]
Area: 33.77 mi² (87.46 km²)
Land: 22.96 mi² (59.47 km²)
Water: 10.81 mi² (28.00 km²)
Coordinates: 40° 43′ 42″ N, 73° 59′ 39″ W

Manhattan is a borough of New York City, New York, USA, coterminous with New York County. With a United States Census, year 2000, of 1,537,195[1] packed into a land area of 22.96 square miles (59.47  km²), it is the most densely populated county in the United States, with almost 67,000 residents per square mile (almost 26,000/km²).[2] The Island of Manhattan is the largest section of the borough, which also includes several smaller islands and a small section of the mainland adjacent to The Bronx.

A commercial, financial, and cultural center of the city, Manhattan has many famous landmarks, tourist attractions, museums, and universities. It is also home to the headquarters of the United Nations and the seat of city government. Manhattan has the largest central business district in the United States. It is the site of both the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, and is the home to the largest number of corporate headquarters in the nation.

The name Manhattan derives from the word Manna-hata, as written in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, an officer on Henry Hudson's yacht Halve Maen (Half Moon).[3] A 1610 map depicts the name Manahata twice, on both the west and east sides of the Mauritius River (later named the Hudson River). The word "Manhattan" has been translated as "island of many hills" from the Lenape language.[4]

History

Colonial

Lower Manhattan in 1660, when it was part of New Amsterdam. The large structure toward the tip of the island is Fort Amsterdam.

The area that is now Manhattan was long inhabited by the Lenape. In 1524, Lenape in canoes met Giovanni da Verrazzano, the first European explorer to pass New York Harbor, though he did not enter the harbor past the Narrows.[5] It was not until the voyage of Henry Hudson, an Englishman who worked for the Dutch East India Company, that the area was mapped.[6] Hudson discovered Manhattan Island on September 11, 1609, and continued up the river that bears his name, the Hudson River, until he arrived at the site of present day Albany.[7]

A permanent European presence in New Netherland began in 1624 with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island. In 1625, construction was started on a citadel and a fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island later called New Amsterdam (Nieuw Amsterdam).[8][9] Manhattan Island was chosen as the site of Fort Amsterdam, a citadel for the protection of the new arrivals; its 1625 establishment is recognized as the birth date of New York City.[10] In 1626, Peter Minuit acquired Manhattan from native people in exchange for trade goods, often said to be worth $24.[11]

In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed as the last Dutch Director General of the colony.[12] The colony was granted self-government in 1652 and New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on February 2, 1653.[13] In 1664, the British conquered the area and renamed it "New York" after the English Duke of York and Albany.[14] Stuyvesant and his council negotiated 24 articles of provisional transfer with the British which sought to guarantee New Netherlanders liberties, including freedom of religion, under British rule.[15][16]

American Revolution and the early United States

Manhattan was at the heart of the New York Campaign, a series of major battles in the early American Revolutionary War. The Continental Army was forced to abandon Manhattan after the disastrous Battle of Fort Washington on November 16, 1776. The city became the British political and military center of operations in North America for the remainder of the war.[17] Manhattan was greatly damaged by the Great Fire of New York during the British military rule that followed. British occupation lasted until November 25, 1783, when George Washington returned to Manhattan, as the last British forces left the city.[18]

John Quincy Adams Ward's statue of George Washington in front of Federal Hall, on the site where Washington was inaugurated as the first U.S. President.

From January 11, 1785 to Autumn 1788, New York City was the fifth of five capitals under the Articles of Confederation, with the Continental Congress residing at New York City Hall, then at Fraunces Tavern. New York was the first capital under the newly enacted Constitution of the United States, from March 4, 1789 to August 12, 1790 at Federal Hall.[19]

19th century growth

New York grew as an economic center, first as a result of Alexander Hamilton's policies and practices as the first Secretary of the Treasury and, later, with the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, which connected the Atlantic port to the vast agricultural markets of the Mid-western United States and Canada. By 1835, New York City had surpassed Philadelphia as the largest city in the United States.

Tammany Hall began to grow in influence with the support of many of the immigrant Irish, culminating in the election of the first Tammany mayor, Fernando Wood, in 1854. Tammany Hall, a Democratic Party political machine dominated local politics for decades. Central Park, which opened to the public in 1858, became the first landscaped park in an American city and the nation's first public park.[20][21]

During the American Civil War, the city's strong commercial ties to the South, its growing immigrant population, anger about conscription and resentment at those who could afford to pay $300 to avoid service, led to resentment against Lincoln's war policies, culminating in the three-day long New York Draft Riots of July 1863, one of the worst incidents of civil disorder in American history, with an estimated 119 participants and passersby killed.[22]

Thomas Nast denounces Tammany as a ferocious tiger killing democracy; the tiger image caught on.

After the Civil War, the rate of immigration from Europe grew steeply, and New York became the first stop for millions seeking a new and better life in the United States, a role acknowledged by the dedication of the Statue of Liberty on October 28, 1886, a gift from the people of France.[23][24] The new European immigration brought further social upheaval. In a city of tenements packed with poorly paid laborers from dozens of nations, the city was a hotbed of revolution, syndicalism, racketeering, and unionization.

In 1874, the western portion of the present Bronx County was transferred to New York County, and in 1895 the remainder of the present Bronx County was annexed.[25] The City of Greater New York was formed in 1898, with Manhattan and the Bronx, though still one county, established as two separate boroughs. On January 1, 1914, the New York State Legislature created Bronx County, and New York County was reduced to its present boundaries.[26]

The 20th Century

The construction of the New York City Subway, first opened in 1904, helped bind the new city together. Starting in the 1920s, the city saw the influx of African Americans as part of the Great Migration from the American South, and the Harlem Renaissance, part of a larger boom time in the Prohibition era that saw dueling skyscrapers in the skyline. New York City became the most populous city in the world in 1925, overtaking London, which had reigned for a century.[27]

On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in Greenwich Village took the lives of 146 garment workers, which would eventually lead to great improvements in the city's fire department, building codes, and workplace regulations.[28]

Lower Manhattan in 1942
Manhattan skyline with the Twin Towers.

The period between the World Wars saw the election of reformist mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and the fall of Tammany Hall after eighty years of political dominance.[29] As the city's demographics stabilized, labor unionization brought new protections and affluence to the working class, the city's government and infrastructure underwent a dramatic overhaul under LaGuardia. Despite the effects of the Great Depression, the 1930s saw the building of some of the world's tallest skyscrapers, including numerous Art Deco masterpieces that are still part of the city's skyline today.

Returning World War II veterans and immigrants from Europe created a postwar economic boom and led to the development of huge housing developments, targeted at returning veterans, including Peter Cooper Village—Stuyvesant Town which opened in 1947.[30] In 1951, the United Nations relocated from its first headquarters in Queens, to the East Side of Manhattan.[31]

Like many major U.S. cities, New York suffered race riots and population and industrial decline in the 1960s. By the 1970s, the city had gained a reputation as a graffiti-covered, crime-ridden relic of history.[32] In 1975, the city government faced imminent bankruptcy, and its appeals for assistance were initially rejected, summarized by the classic October 30, 1975 New York Daily News headline as "Ford to City: Drop Dead".[33] The fate was avoided through a federal loan and debt restructuring, and the city was forced to accept increased financial scrutiny by New York State.[34]

The 1980s saw a rebirth of Wall Street, and the city reclaimed its role at the center of the world-wide financial industry. The 1980s also saw Manhattan at the heart of the AIDS crisis, with Greenwich Village at its epicenter. Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) and AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) were founded to advocate on behalf of those stricken with the disease.

Starting in the 1990s, crime rates dropped drastically and the outflow of population turned around, as the city once again became the destination not only of immigrants from around the world, but of many U.S. citizens seeking to live a cosmopolitan lifestyle that New York City can offer.


Government

Manhattan Municipal Building

Since New York City's consolidation in 1898, Manhattan has been governed by the New York City Charter, which has provided for a "strong" mayor-council system since its revision in 1989.[35] The centralized New York City government is responsible for public education, correctional institutions, libraries, public safety, recreational facilities, sanitation, water supply, and welfare services in Manhattan.

The office of Borough President was created in the consolidation of 1898 to balance centralization with local authority. Each borough president had a powerful administrative role derived from having a vote on the New York City Board of Estimate, which was responsible for creating and approving the city's budget and proposals for land use. In 1989 the Supreme Court of the United States declared the Board of Estimate unconstitutional on the grounds that Brooklyn, the most populous borough, had no greater effective representation on the Board than Staten Island, the least populous borough, a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause pursuant to the high court's 1964 "one man, one vote" decision.[36]

Since 1990, the largely-powerless Borough President has acted as an advocate for the borough at the mayoral agencies, the City Council, the New York state government, and corporations. Manhattan's Borough President is Scott Stringer, elected as a Democrat in 2005.[37]

Robert M. Morgenthau, a Democrat, has been the District Attorney of New York County since 1974.[38] Manhattan has ten City Council members, the third largest contingent among the five boroughs. It also has 12 administrative districts, each served by a local Community Board. Community Boards are representative bodies that field complaints and serve as advocates for local residents. As the host of the United Nations, the borough is home to the world's largest international consular corps, comprising 105 consulates, consulates general and honorary consulates.[39] It is also the home of New York City Hall, the seat of New York City government housing the Mayor of New York City and the New York City Council. The mayor's staff and thirteen municipal agencies are located in the nearby Manhattan Municipal Building, completed in 1916, one of the largest governmental buildings in the world.[40]

Politics

Presidential elections results[41]
Year Reps Dems
2004 16.7% 107,405 82.1% 526,765
2000 14.2% 79,921 79.8% 449,300
1996 13.8% 67,839 80.0% 394,131
1992 15.9% 84,501 78.2% 416,142
1988 22.9% 115,927 76.1% 385,675
1984 27.4% 144,281 72.1% 379,521
1980 26.2% 115,911 62.4% 275,742
1976 25.5% 117,702 73.2% 337,438
1972 33.4% 178,515 66.2% 354,326
1968 25.6% 135,458 70.0% 370,806
1964 19.2% 120,125 80.5% 503,848
1960 34.2% 217,271 65.3% 414,902

The Democratic Party holds the majority of public offices. Registered voters of the Republican Party are a small minority in the borough, with nearly 85% of those registered in a party registered as Democrats.[42] Republicans constitute more than 20% of the electorate only on the Upper East Side and the Financial District. Local party platforms center on affordable housing, education and economic development. Controversial political issues in Manhattan include development, noise, and the cost of housing.

No Republican has won the presidential election in Manhattan since 1924, when Calvin Coolidge won a plurality of the New York County vote over Democrat John W. Davis, 41.20%–39.55%. Warren G. Harding was the most recent Republican presidential candidate to win a majority of the Manhattan vote, with 59.22% of the 1920 vote.[43] In the 2004 presidential election, Democrat John Kerry received 82.1% of the vote in Manhattan and Republican George W. Bush received 16.7%.[44] The borough is the most important source of funding for presidential campaigns in the United States; in 2004, it was home to six of the top seven zip codes in the nation for political contributions.[45] The top ZIP code, 10021 on the Upper East Side, generated the most money for the United States presidential election for all presidential candidates, including both Kerry and Bush during the 2004 election.[46]

Crime

Policeman leads upper class people through the Five Points in an 1885 sketch

Starting in the mid-19th century, the United States became a magnet for immigrants seeking to escape poverty in their home countries. After arriving in New York, many new arrivals ended up living in squalor in the slums of the Five Points neighborhood, an area between Broadway and the Bowery, northeast of New York City Hall. By the 1820s, the area was home to many gambling dens and "houses of ill repute", and was known as a dangerous place to go to. In 1842, Charles Dickens visited the area and was appalled at the horrendous living conditions he had seen.[47] The area was so notorious at the time that it even caught the attention of Abraham Lincoln, who visited the area before his Cooper Union Address in 1860.[48] The predominantly Irish Five Points Gang was one of the country's first major organized crime entities.

As Italian immigration grew in the early 1900s, many joined the Irish gangs. Al Capone got his start in crime with the Five Points Gang,[49] as did Lucky Luciano.[50] The Mafia (also known as Cosa Nostra) first developed in the mid-19th century in Sicily and spread to the East Coast of the United States during the late 19th century following waves of Sicilian and Southern Italian emigration. Lucky Luciano established La Cosa Nostra in Manhattan, forming alliances with other criminal enterprises, including the Jewish mob, led by Meyer Lansky, the leading Jewish gangster of that period.[51] from 1920–1933, Prohibition helped create a thriving black market in liquor, which the Mafia was quick to capitalize on.[51]

New York City experienced a sharp increase in crime during the 1960s and 1970s, with a near fivefold jump in the violent crime rate, from 21.09 per thousand in 1960 to a peak of 102.66 in 1981. Homicides continued to increase in the city as a whole for another decade, with murders recorded by the NYPD jumping from 390 in 1960, to 1,117 in 1970, 1,812 in 1980 and reaching its peak of 2,262 in 1990. Starting circa 1990, New York City saw record declines in homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, violent crime, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and property crime, a trend that has continued to today.[52]

Based on 2005 data, New York City has the lowest crime rate among the ten largest cities in the United States.[53] The city as a whole ranked fourth nationwide in the 13th annual Morgan Quitno survey of the 32 cities surveyed with a population above 500,000.[54] The New York Police Department, with 36,400 officers, is larger than the next four largest U.S. departments combined. The NYPD's counter-terrorism division, with 1,000 officers assigned, is larger than the FBI's.[53] The NYPD's CompStat system of crime tracking, reporting and monitoring has been credited with a drop in crime in New York City that has far surpassed the drop elsewhere in the United States.[55]

Since 1990, crime in Manhattan has plummeted in all categories tracked by the CompStat profile. A borough that saw 503 murders in 1990 has seen a drop of nearly 78% to 111 in 2006. Robbery and burglary are down by more than 80% during the period, and auto theft has been reduced by more than 90%. Overall crime has declined by more than 75% since 1990 in the seven major crime categories tracked by the system, and year-to-date statistics through May 2007 show continuing declines.[56][57]


Economy

Skyscrapers along Sixth Avenue.

Manhattan is the economic engine of New York City, with its 2.3 million workers drawn from the entire New York metropolitan area accounting for almost ⅔ of all jobs in New York City.[58] Manhattan's daytime population swells to 2.874 million, with commuters adding a net 1.337 million people to the population. This commuter influx of 1.459 million workers coming into Manhattan was the largest of any other county or city in the country, and was more than triple the 481,000 commuters who headed into second-ranked Washington, D.C..[59][60]

Its most important economic sector is the finance industry, whose 280,000 workers earned more than half of all the wages paid in the borough. Wall Street is frequently used to represent the entire financial industry. In 2006, those in the Manhattan financial industry earned an average weekly pay about $8,300 (including bonuses), while the average weekly pay was about $2,500. The health care sector represented 11.3% of the borough's jobs and 4% of total compensation, with workers taking home about $900 per week.[61]

New York City is home to the most corporate headquarters of any city in the nation, the overwhelming majority based in Manhattan.[62] Midtown Manhattan is the largest central business district in the United States.[63] Lower Manhattan is home to both the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, and is the nation's third-largest central business district (after Chicago's Loop).[64]

Seven of the world's top eight global advertising agency networks are headquartered in Manhattan.[65] "Madison Avenue" is often used metonymously to refer to the entire advertising field, after Madison Avenue became identified with the advertising industry after the explosive growth in the area in the 1920s.

2006 statistics showed that the average weekly wages paid to Manhattan workers is $1,453 (excluding bonuses), the highest in the country's 325 largest counties, and the salary growth of 7.8% was the highest among the ten largest counties. Pay in the borough was 85% higher than the $784 pay earned weekly nationwide and nearly double the amount earned by workers in the outer boroughs. Manhattan's workforce is overwhelmingly focused on white collar professions, with manufacturing (39,800 workers) and construction (31,600) accounting for a small fraction of the borough's employment.[58][66]

Historically, this corporate presence has been complemented by many independent retailers, though a recent influx of national chain stores has caused many to lament the creeping homogenization of Manhattan.[67]

Culture

Times Square is the center of the city's theater district.
File:Guggenheim museum exterior.jpg
The exterior of Frank Lloyd Wright's Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Manhattan has been the scene of many important American cultural movements. In 1912, about 20,000 workers, a quarter of them women, marched on Washington Square Park to commemorate the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which killed 146 workers on March 25, 1911. Many of the women wore fitted tucked-front blouses like those manufactured by the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, a clothing style that became the working woman's uniform and a symbol of female independence, reflecting the alliance of labor and suffrage movements.[68] The Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s established the African-American literary canon in the United States. Manhattan's vibrant visual art scene in the 1950s and 1960s was a center of the American pop art movement, which gave birth to such giants as Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein. Perhaps no other artist is as associated with the downtown pop art movement of the late 1970s as Andy Warhol, who socialized at clubs like Serendipity 3 and Studio 54 and was shot in the chest in 1968 by the radical feminist Valerie Solanas, founder of the group "Society for Cutting Up Men" (S.C.U.M.) and author of the SCUM Manifesto.

A popular haven for art, the downtown neighborhood of Chelsea is widely known for its galleries and cultural events, with more than 200 art galleries that are home to modern art from upcoming artists and respected artists as well.[69][70]

Broadway theatre is often considered the highest professional form of theatre in the United States. Plays and musicals are staged in one of the 39 larger professional theatres with at least 500 seats, almost all in and around Times Square.[71] Off-Broadway theatres feature productions in venues with 100-500 seats.[72] A little more than a mile from Times Square is the Lincoln Center, home to one of the world's most prestigious opera houses, that of the Metropolitan Opera.[73]

Manhattan is also home to some of the most extensive art collections, both contemporary and historical, in the world including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Guggenheim Museum.

Manhattan is the borough most closely associated with New York City by non-residents; even some natives of New York City's outer boroughs will describe a trip to Manhattan as "going to the city".[74]

The borough has a place in several American idioms. The phrase "a New York minute" is meant to convey a very short period of time, sometimes in hyperbolic form, as in "perhaps faster than you would believe is possible." It refers to the rapid pace of life in Manhattan.[75] The term "melting pot" was first popularly coined to describe the densely populated immigrant neighborhoods on the Lower East Side in Israel Zangwill's play The Melting Pot, which was an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet set by Zangwill in New York City in 1908.[76] The iconic Flatiron Building is said to have been the source of the phrase "23 skidoo" or scram, from what cops would shout at men who tried to get glimpses of women's dresses being blown up by the winds created by the triangular building.[77] The "Big Apple" dates back to the 1920s, when a reporter heard the term used by New Orleans stablehands to refer to New York City's racetracks and named his racing column "Around The Big Apple." Jazz musicians adopted the term to refer to the city as the world's jazz capital, and a 1970s ad campaign by the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau helped popularize the term.[78]

Sports

Madison Square Garden is home to the Knicks, Rangers and Liberty.
File:Pologrounds5.jpg
The Polo Grounds was home to the baseball Giants, Yankees and Mets, and both the football Giants and Jets.
File:Hilltoppark1903.jpg
Hilltop Park, former home of the New York Yankees

Today, Manhattan is home of the NBA's New York Knicks and NHL's New York Rangers, who play their home games at Madison Square Garden, the only major professional sports arena in the borough. The New York Jets proposed a West Side Stadium for their home field, but the proposal was eventually defeated in June 2005, leaving them at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Today, Manhattan is the only borough in New York City that does not have a pro baseball franchise. The Bronx has the Yankees and Queens has the Mets of the Major League Baseball. The Minor League Baseball Brooklyn Cyclones play in Brooklyn, while the Staten Island Yankees play in Staten Island. Yet three of the four major league teams to play in New York City played in Manhattan. The New York Giants played in the various incarnations of the Polo Grounds at 155th Street and Eighth Avenue from their inception in 1883 — except for 1889, when they split their time between Jersey City and Staten Island, and when they played in Hilltop Park in 1911 — until they headed west with the Brooklyn Dodgers after the 1957 season.[79] The New York Yankees began their franchise as the Hilltoppers, named for Hilltop Park, where they played from their creation in 1903 until 1912. The team moved to the Polo Grounds with the 1913 season, where they were officially christened the New York Yankees, remaining there until they moved across the Harlem River in 1923 to Yankee Stadium.[80] The New York Mets played in the Polo Grounds in 1962 and 1963, their first two seasons, before Shea Stadium was completed in 1964.[81] After the Mets departed, the Polo Grounds was demolished in April 1964, replaced by public housing.[82][83]

The first national college-level basketball championship, the National Invitation Tournament, was held in New York in 1938 and remains in the city.[84] The New York Knicks started play in 1946 as one of the National Basketball Association's original teams, playing their first home games at the 69th Regiment Armory, before making Madison Square Garden their permanent home.[85] The New York Liberty of the WNBA have shared the Garden with the Knicks since their creation in 1997 as one of the league's original eight teams.[86] Rucker Park in Harlem is a playground court, famed for its street ball style of play, where many NBA athletes have played in the summer league.[87]

Though both of New York City's football teams play today across the Hudson River in Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, both teams started out playing in the Polo Grounds. The New York Giants played side-by-side with their baseball namesakes from the time they entered the National Football League in 1925, until crossing over to Yankee Stadium in 1956.[88] The New York Jets, originally known as the Titans, started out in 1960 at the Polo Grounds, staying there for four seasons before joining the Mets in Queens in 1964.[89]

The New York Rangers of the National Hockey League have played in the various locations of Madison Square Garden since their founding in the 1926–1927 season. The Rangers were predated by the New York Americans, who started play in the Garden the previous season, lasting until the team folded after the 1941–1942 NHL season, a season in which it played in the Garden as the Brooklyn Americans.[90]

Media

Manhattan is served by the major New York City dailies, including The New York Times, New York Daily News, and New York Post, which are all headquartered in the borough. The nation's largest financial newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, is also based here. Other daily newspapers include AM New York, The Greenwich Village Gazette and The Villager. The New York Amsterdam News, based in Harlem, is one of the leading African American weekly newspapers in the United States. The Village Voice is a leading alternative weekly based in the borough.[91]

The television industry developed in New York and is a significant employer in the city's economy. The four major American broadcast networks, ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC, are all headquartered in Manhattan, as are many cable channels are based in the city as well, including MTV, Fox News, HBO and Comedy Central. In 1971, WLIB became New York's first black-owned radio station and the crown jewel of Inner City Broadcasting Corporation. A co-founder of Inner City was Percy Sutton, a former Manhattan borough president and long one of the city’s most powerful black leaders.[92] WLIB began broadcasts for the African-American community in 1949 and regularly interviewed civil rights leaders like Malcolm X and aired live broadcasts from conferences of the NAACP. Influential WQHT, also known as Hot 97, claims to be the premier hip-hop station in the United States. WNYC, comprising an AM and FM signal, has the largest public radio audience in the nation and is the most-listened to commercial or non-commercial radio station in Manhattan.[93] WBAI, with news and information programming, is one of the few socialist radio stations operating in the United States.

The oldest public-access television channel in the United States is the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, founded in 1971, offers eclectic local programming that ranges from a jazz hour to discussion of labor issues to foreign language and religious programming.[94] NY1, Time Warner Cable's local news channel, is known for its beat coverage of City Hall and state politics.

Landmarks and architecture

View of Midtown from the Empire State Building.

The skyscraper, which has shaped Manhattan's distinctive skyline, has been closely associated with New York City's identity since the end of the 19th century. From 1890–1973, the world's tallest building was in Manhattan, with nine different buildings holding the title.[95] The New York World Building on Park Row, was the first to take the title, standing 309 feet (91 m) until 1955, when it was demolished to construct a new ramp to the Brooklyn Bridge.[96] The nearby Park Row Building, with its 29 stories standing 391 feet high (119 m) took the title in 1899.[97] The 41-story Singer Building, constructed in 1908 as the headquarters of the eponymous sewing machine manufacturer, stood 612 feet high (187 m) until 1967, when it became the tallest building ever demolished.[98] The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower, standing 700 feet (213 m) at the foot of Madison Avenue, wrested the title in 1909, with a tower reminiscent of St Mark's Campanile in Venice.[99] The Woolworth Building, and its distinctive Gothic architecture, took the title in 1913, topping off at 792 feet (241 m).[100]

The Roaring Twenties saw a race to the sky, with three separate buildings pursuing the world's tallest title in the span of a year. As the stock market soared in the days before the Wall Street Crash of 1929, two developers publicly competed for the crown.[101] At 927 feet (282 m), 40 Wall Street, completed in May 1930 in an astonishing 11 months as the headquarters of the Bank of Manhattan, seemed to have secured the title.[102] At Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street, auto executive Walter Chrysler and his architect William Van Alen developed plans to build the structure's trademark 185 foot-high (56 m) spire in secret, pushing the Chrysler Building to 1,046 feet (319 m) and making it the tallest in the world when it was completed in 1929.[103] Both buildings were soon surpassed, with the May 1931 completion of the 86-story Empire State Building and its Art Deco spire soaring 1,250 feet (381 m) in the air.[104][105]

The former Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, once an iconic symbol of the City, were located in Lower Manhattan. At 1,368 feet (417&m), the 110-story buildings were the world's tallest from 1972, until they were surpassed by the construction of the Sears Tower in 1974.[106] By the end of the 20th century the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were arguably among the world's most famous and recognizable buildings until their destruction in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The Freedom Tower, a replacement for the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, is currently under construction and is slated to be ready for occupancy in 2011.[107]

In 1961, Penn Central unveiled plans to tear down the old Penn Station and replace it with a new Madison Square Garden and office building complex. Organized protests were aimed at preserving the McKim, Mead, and White-designed structure completed in 1910, widely considered a masterpiece of the Beaux-Arts style and one of the architectural jewels of New York City.[108] Despite these efforts, demolition of the structure began in October 1963. The loss of Penn Station—called “an act of irresponsible public vandalism” by historian Lewis Mumford—led directly to the enactment in 1965 of a local law establishing the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, which is responsible to preserve the "city's historic, aesthetic, and cultural heritage".[109] The historic preservation movement triggered by Penn Station's demise has been credited with the retention of some one million structures nationwide, including nearly 1,000 in New York City.[110]

The theatre district around Broadway at Times Square, New York University, Columbia University, Flatiron Building, the Financial District around Wall Street, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Little Italy, Harlem, the American Museum of Natural History, Chinatown, and Central Park are all located on this densely populated island.

The city is a leader in energy-efficient "green" office buildings, such as Hearst Tower and the rebuilt 7 World Trade Center.[111]

Central Park is bordered on the north by West 110th Street, on the west by Eighth Avenue, on the south by West 59th Street, and on the east by Fifth Avenue. Along the park's borders, these streets are usually referred to as Central Park North, Central Park West, and Central Park South, respectively. (Fifth Avenue retains its name along the eastern border.) The park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. The 843 acre (3.4 km²) park offers extensive walking tracks, two ice-skating rinks, a wildlife sanctuary, and grassy areas used for various sporting pursuits, as well as playgrounds for children. The park is a popular oasis for migrating birds, and thus is popular with bird watchers. The 6 mile (10 km) road circling the park is popular with joggers, bicyclists and inline skaters, especially on weekends and in the evenings after 7:00 p.m., when automobile traffic is banned.[112]

While much of the park looks natural, it is almost entirely landscaped and contains several artificial lakes. The construction of Central Park in the 1850s was one of the era's most massive public works projects. Some 20,000 workers crafted the topography to create the English-style pastoral landscape Olmsted and Vaux sought to create. Workers moved nearly 3 million cubic yards of soil and planted more than 270,000 trees and shrubs.[113]

17.8% of the borough, a total of 2,686 acres (10.9 km²), are devoted to parkland. Almost 70% of Manhattan's space devoted to parks is located outside of Central Park, including 204 playgrounds, 251 Greenstreets, 371 basketball courts and many other amenities.[114]

360° Panorama of Manhattan seen from the Empire State Building

360° Panorama of Manhattan seen from the Empire State Building


Housing

In the early days of Manhattan, wood construction and poor access to water supplies left the city vulnerable to fires. In 1776, shortly after the Continental Army evacuated Manhattan and left it to the British, a massive fire broke out destroying one-third of the city and some 500 houses.[115]

The rise of immigration near the turn of the century left major portions of Manhattan, especially the Lower East Side, densely packed with recent arrivals, crammed into unhealthy and unsanitary housing. Tenements were usually five-stories high, constructed on the then-typical 25x100 lots, with "cockroach landlords" exploiting the new immigrants.[116][117] By 1929, stricter fire codes and the increased use of elevators in residential buildings, were the impetus behind a new housing code that effectively ended the tenement as a form of new construction, though many tenement buildings survive today on the East Side of the borough.[117]

Peter Cooper Village—Stuyvesant Town is a sprawling private residential development on the East Side of Manhattan. One of the most successful of postwar private housing communities, Stuyvesant Town was planned in 1943.[118] Its first tenants, two World War II veterans and their families, moved into the first completed building on August 1, 1947.[119] Stuyvesant Town is a collection of red brick apartment buildings with typical housing project-style architecture, stretching from First Avenue to Avenue C, between 14th and 20th Streets. It covers about 80 acres of land. Stuyvesant Town has 8,757 apartments and with its sister development Peter Cooper Village they have a combined 110 buildings, 11,250 apartments, and over 25,000 residents.

Today, Manhattan offers a wide array of public and private housing options. There were 798,144 housing units in Manhattan as of the 2000 Census, at an average density of 34,756.7/mi² (13,421.8/km²).[1] Only 20.3% of Manhattan residents lived in owner-occupied housing, the second-lowest rate of all counties in the nation, behind The Bronx.[120]

Infrastructure

Transportation

File:Grand Central test.jpg
Grand Central Terminal
The New York City Subway is the primary means of travel in Manhattan.


Manhattan is unique in the United States for its intense use of public transportation and lack of private car ownership. While 88% of Americans nationwide drive to their jobs and only 5% use public transportation, mass transit is the dominant form of travel for residents of Manhattan, with 72% of borough resident using public transportation and only 18% driving to work.[121][122] According to the 2000 U.S. Census, more than 75% of Manhattan households do not own a car.[121]

In 2007, Mayor Bloomberg proposed a congestion pricing system that would charge drivers entering Manhattan below 86th Street between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. weekdays a fee of $8 per car or $21 per truck, with lower fees for travel within the pricing zone. The plan would be modeled on a similar system in London, and is intended to improve air quality and traffic flow, with funds raised used for mass transit improvements throughout the city.[123]

The New York City Subway, the largest subway system in the world by track mileage, is the primary means of travel within the city, connecting to every borough except Staten Island. A second subway, the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) system, connects Manhattan to northern New Jersey. Transit passengers tender their fares with pay-per-ride MetroCards, which are valid on all city buses and subways, as well as on PATH trains. A one-way fare on the bus or subway is $2.00,[124] and PATH costs $1.50.[125] There are daily, 7-day, and 30-day MetroCards that allow unlimited trips on all subways (except PATH) and MTA bus routes (except for express buses).[126] The PATH QuickCard is being phased out, and both PATH and the MTA are testing "smart card" payment systems to replace the MetroCard.[127] Commuter rail services operating to and from Manhattan are the Long Island Rail Road (which connects Manhattan and other New York City boroughs to Long Island), the Metro-North Railroad (which connects Manhattan to Westchester County and Southwestern Connecticut) and New Jersey Transit trains to various points in New Jersey.

The MTA New York City Bus offers a wide variety of local buses within Manhattan. An extensive network of express bus routes serves commuters and other travelers heading into Manhattan. The bus system served 740 million riders in 2004, ranking first in the nation, more than double the ridership in second-ranked Los Angeles.[128]

New York's iconic yellow cabs, which number 13,087 city-wide and must have the requisite medallion authorizing the pick up of street hails, are ubiquitous in the borough.[129] Manhattan also sees tens of thousands of bicycle commuters. The Roosevelt Island Tramway, the only commuter cable car in North America, whisks commuters between Roosevelt Island and Manhattan in less than five minutes, and has been servicing the island since 1978.[130] The Staten Island Ferry, which runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, annually carries over 19 million passengers on the 5.2 mile (8.4 km) run between Manhattan and Staten Island. Each weekday five vessels are used to transport almost 65,000 passengers on 110 boat trips.[131][132] The ferry has been fare-free since 1997, when the then-50-cent fare was eliminated.[133]

The metro region's commuter rail lines converge at Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal, on the west and east sides of Midtown Manhattan, respectively. They are the two busiest rail stations in the United States. About one in every three users of mass transit in the country and two-thirds of the nation's rail riders live in New York and its suburbs.[134] Amtrak provides inter-city passenger rail service from Penn Station to Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.; Upstate New York, New England; cross-border service to Toronto and Montreal; and destinations in the South and Midwest.

The Lincoln Tunnel, which carries 120,000 vehicles per day under the Hudson River between New Jersey and Manhattan, is the world's busiest vehicular tunnel.[135] It was built instead of a bridge to allow for unfettered passage of large passenger and cargo ships that sailed through New York Harbor and up the Hudson to Manhattan's piers. The Queens Midtown Tunnel, built to relieve congestion on the bridges connecting Manhattan with Queens and Brooklyn, was the largest non-Federal project of its time when it was completed in 1940.[136] President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first person to drive through it.[137]

The FDR Drive and Harlem River Drive are two limited-access routes that skirt the East Side of Manhattan along the East River, designed by controversial New York master planner Robert Moses.[138]

Manhattan has three public heliports. US Helicopter offers regularly scheduled helicopter service connecting the Downtown Manhattan Heliport with John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey.[139]

New York has the largest clean-air diesel-hybrid and compressed natural gas bus fleet in the country, and some of the first hybrid taxis, most of which operate in Manhattan.[140]

Utilities

Gas and electric service is provided by Consolidated Edison to all of Manhattan. Con Edison's electric business traces its roots back to Thomas Edison's Edison Electric Illuminating Company, the first investor-owned electric utility. The company started service on September 4, 1882, using one generator to provide 110 volts direct current (DC) to 59 customers with 800 light bulbs, in a one-square-mile area of Lower Manhattan from his Pearl Street Station.[141] Con Edison operates the world's largest district steam system, which consists of 105 miles (169 km) of steam pipes, providing steam for heating, hot water, and air conditioning[142] by some 1,800 Manhattan customers.[143]

Manhattan, surrounded by two brackish rivers, had a limited supply of fresh water available on the island, which dwindled as the city grew rapidly after the American Revolutionary War. To supply the needs of the growing population, the city acquired land in Westchester County and constructed the Croton Aqueduct system, which went into service in 1842. The system took water from a dam at the Croton River, and sent it down through the Bronx, over the Harlem River via the High Bridge, to storage reservoirs in Central Park and at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, and through a network of cast iron pipes on to consumer's faucets.[144]

Today, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection provides water to residents fed by a 2,000 square mile (5,180 km²) watershed in the Catskill Mountains. Because the watershed is in one of the largest protected wilderness areas in the United States, the natural water filtration process remains intact. As a result, New York is one of only five major cities in the United States with drinking water pure enough to require only chlorination to ensure its purity at the tap under normal conditions.[145][146] Water comes to Manhattan through New York City Water Tunnel No. 1 and Tunnel No. 2, completed in 1917 and 1936, respectively. Construction started in 1970 continues on New York City Water Tunnel No. 3, which will double the system's exisiting 1.2 billion gallon-a-day capacity while and provide a much-needed backup to the two other tunnels.[147]

The New York City Department of Sanitation is responsible for garbage removal.[148] Trash is disposed at dumps in New Jersey, since the 2001 closure of the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island.[149][114]

Education

New York Public Library, central block, built 1897–1911, Carrère and Hastings, architects (June 2003)

Education in Manhattan is provided by a vast number of public and private institutions. Public schools in the borough are operated by the New York City Department of Education, the largest public school system in the United States,[150] serving 1.1 million students.[151]

Some of the best-known New York City public high schools, such as Stuyvesant High School, Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, High School of Fashion Industries, Murry Bergtraum High School, Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics and Hunter College High School, are located in Manhattan. The city also hosts a new hybrid school, Bard High School Early College, which serves students from around the city.

Manhattan is home to many of the most prestigious private prep schools in the nation, the most well-known are the elite Brearley School, Chapin School, Collegiate School, Dalton School, and Spence School. The borough is also home to two private schools that are known for being the most diverse in the nation, they are Manhattan Country School and United Nations International School.

As of 2003, 52.3% of Manhattan residents over age 25 have a bachelor's degree, the fifth highest of all counties in the country.[152] By 2005, about 60% of residents were college graduates and some 25% had earned advanced degrees, giving Manhattan one of the nation's densest concentrations of highly educated people.[153]

Manhattan has various colleges and universities including Columbia University, New York University (NYU) and Fordham University. Other schools include The Juilliard School, New York Institute of Technology, Pace University, Yeshiva University, Cooper Union, The New School, and the Fashion Institute of Technology, part of the State University of New York.

The City University of New York (CUNY), the municipal college system of New York City, is the largest urban university system in the United States, serving more than 226,000 degree students and a roughly equal number of adult, continuing and professional education students.[154] A third of college graduates in New York City graduate from CUNY, with the institution enrolling about half of all college students in New York City. CUNY senior colleges located in Manhattan include: Baruch College, City College of New York, Hunter College, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and the CUNY Graduate Center (graduate studies and doctoral granting institution). The only CUNY community college located in Manhattan is the Borough of Manhattan Community College.

Manhattan is a world center for training and education in medicine and the life sciences.[155] The city as a whole receives the second-highest amount of annual funding from the National Institutes of Health among all U.S. cities[156], the bulk of which goes to Manhattan's research institutions, including Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Rockefeller University, Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Weill Cornell Medical College.

Manhattan is served by the New York Public Library, which has the largest collection of any public library system in the country.[157] The five units of the Central Library—Mid-Manhattan Library, Donnell Library Center, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library and the Science, Industry and Business Library—are all located in Manhattan.[158] More than 35 other branch libraries are located in the borough.[159]

See also

  • Midtown
  • Lower Manhattan
  • Sawing off of Manhattan Island

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 New York—Place and County Subdivision, United States Census Bureau, accessed May 1, 2007.
  2. ↑ District Profile: New York City, Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Accessed September 4, 2006.
  3. ↑ Full Text of Robert Juet's Journal: From the collections of the New York Historical Society, Second Series, 1841 log book, Newsday. Accessed May 16, 2007.
  4. ↑ Holloway, Marguerite. "URBAN TACTICS; I'll Take Mannahatta", The New York Times, May 16, 2004, accessed April 30, 2007. "He could envision what Henry Hudson saw in 1609 as he sailed along Mannahatta, which in the Lenape dialect most likely meant island of many hills.'
  5. ↑ Sullivan, Dr. James. "The History of New York State: Book I, Chapter III", USGenNet, accessed May 1, 2007. "There is satisfactory evidence that Giovanni da Verrazzano sailed into the outer harbor of New York in 1524.
  6. ↑ Rankin, Rebecca B., Cleveland Rodgers (1948). New York: the World's Capital City, Its Development and Contributions to Progress. Harper. 
  7. ↑ "Henry Hudson and His Exploration" Scientific American, September 25, 1909, accessed May 1, 2007. "This was a vain hope, however, and the conviction must finally have come to the heart of the intrepid adventurer that once again he was foiled in his repeated quest for the northwest passage … On the following day the “Half Moon” let go her anchor inside of Sandy Hook. The week was spent in exploring the bay with a shallop, or small boat, and “they found a good entrance between two headlands” (the Narrows) “and thus entered on the 11th of September into as fine a river as can be found.”"
  8. ↑ Dutch Colonies, National Park Service. Accessed May 19, 2007. "Sponsored by the West India Company, 30 families arrived in North America in 1624, establishing a settlement on present-day Manhattan."
  9. ↑ Tolerance Park Historic New Amsterdam on Governors Island, Tolerance Park. Accessed May 12, 2007. See Legislative Resolutions Senate No. 5476 and Assembly No. 2708.
  10. ↑ City Seal and Flag, New York City, accessed May 13, 2007. "Date: Beneath the horizontal laurel branch the date 1625, being the year of the establishment of New Amsterdam."
  11. ↑ Letter of 1626 stating that Manhattan Island had been purchased for the value of 60 guilders, The College of New Jersey. Accessed April 26, 2007. The 60 guilders have been traditionally converted to about $24. If the money had been invested at anything above a 6.25% return (essentially a bond's current yield), it would be worth over $250 billion today, which exceeds Manhattan's estimated value of $200 billion. Historical Inflation Data (PDF), Oregon State University. It is virtually impossible to make a reasonable comparison of societies, values and price structures dated back to 1626, and 2006. The source warns that data of 1913 and earlier are highly approximative. Besides, the data, which had been tabulated, based on John J. McCusker's article How much is that in real money (Processing American Antiquarian Society 2001 ISBN 1-929545-01-0) started from 1665—40 years after the time, when the trade was settled. However, these numbers give the feeling of the price paid for Manhattan.
  12. ↑ Williams, Jasmin K. "New York - The Empire States", The New York Post, November 22, 2006. Accessed May 19, 2007. "In 1647, Dutch leader Peter Stuyvesant arrived with an iron fist to put an end to the colony's rampant crime and restore order."
  13. ↑ About the Council, New York City Council. Accessed May 18, 2007.
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  22. ↑ Ward, Geoffrey C. "Gangs of New York", a review of Paradise Alley by Kevin Baker, The New York Times, October 6, 2002. Accessed May 29, 2007. "The New York draft riots remain the worst civil disturbance in American history: according to the historian Adrian Cook, 119 people are known to have been killed, mostly rioters or onlookers who got too close when federal troops, brought back from the battlefield to restore order, started shooting."
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  157. ↑ Nation's Largest Libraries. LibrarySpot. Retrieved 2007-06-06.
  158. ↑ The Central Libraries, New York Public Library. Accessed June 6, 2007.
  159. ↑ Manhattan Map, New York Public Library. Accessed June 6, 2006.

External links

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Manhattan local government and services
Maps, streets, and neighborhoods
Historical references


History · Neighborhoods · Architecture · Tourism · Culture · Music · Sports · Media · Economy · Education · Government · Geography · Demographics · Transportation · New York City Lists · New York City Portal · New York State
Neighborhoods in the New York City Borough of Manhattan

Alphabet City · Battery Park City · Bowery · Carnegie Hill · Chelsea · Chinatown · Civic Center · Columbus Circle · Cooperative Village · Diamond District · East Village · Ellis Island · Financial District · Five Points · Flatiron District · Garment District · Governors Island · Gramercy · Gramercy Park · Greenwich Village · Hamilton Heights · Harlem · Hell's Kitchen · Herald Square · Hudson Heights · Hudson Yards · Inwood · Kips Bay · Koreatown · Lenox Hill · Liberty Island · Lincoln Square · Little Germany · Little Italy · Loisaida · Lower East Side · Lower Manhattan · Madison Square · Manhattan Valley · Manhattanville · Marble Hill · Meatpacking District · Midtown · Morningside Heights · Murray Hill · NoHo · NoLIta · Peter Cooper Village · Polo Grounds · Radio Row · Randall's Island · Roosevelt Island · Rose Hill · San Juan Hill · SoHo · South Street Seaport · Spanish Harlem · Stuyvesant Town · Sugar Hill · Sutton Place · Tenderloin · Theatre District · Times Square · TriBeCa · Tudor City · Turtle Bay · Two Bridges · Union Square · Upper East Side · Upper Manhattan · Upper West Side · Ward's Island · Washington Heights · West Village · Yorkville

Islands of New York City

Barren Island · The Blauzes · Broad Channel Island · Chimney Sweeps · City Island · Coney Island · Ellis Island · Governors Island · Hart Island · High Island · Hoffman Island · Hunter Island · Isle of Meadow · Liberty Island · Long Island · Manhattan · Mill Rock · North Brother Island · Prall's Island · Randall's Island · Rat Island · Rikers Island · Roosevelt Island · Shooters Island · South Brother Island · Staten Island · Swinburne Island · Twin Island · U Thant Island · Ward's Island

Coordinates: {{#invoke:Coordinates|coord}}{{#coordinates:40|43|42|N|73|59|39|W|Type:City | |name= }}

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