The City of New York, most often called New York City, is the most populous city in the United States, in a metropolitan area that ranks among the world's most populous urban areas. It is a leading global city, exerting a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, and entertainment. The city is also an important center for international affairs, hosting the United Nations headquarters.
Located on the Atlantic coast of the Northeastern United States, the city consists of five distinct boroughs: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. It is the most densely populated major city in the United States, with an estimated 8,274,527 people occupying just under 305 square miles (790 km2). The New York metropolitan area's population is also the nation's highest, estimated at 19,750,000 people over 6,720 square miles (17,400 km2) in three states.
New York is largely unique among American cities for its high use of mass transit, and the overall density and diversity of its population. In 2005, nearly 170 languages were spoken in the city and 36% of its population was born outside the United States. The city is sometimes referred to as "The City That Never Sleeps," due to its extensive 24-hour subway system and constant bustling of traffic and people, while other nicknames include Gotham and the Big Apple.
Founded as a commercial trading post by the Dutch in 1624, it served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790, and has been the nation's largest city since 1790. The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Wall Street, in Lower Manhattan, has been a dominant global financial center since World War II and is home to the New York Stock Exchange. Today, the city has many renowned landmarks and neighborhoods that are world famous. The city has been home to several of the tallest buildings in the world, including the Empire State Building and the twin towers of the former World Trade Center.
New York is the birthplace of many cultural movements, including the Harlem
Renaissance in literature and visual art, abstract expressionism (also known as
the New York School) in painting, and hip hop, punk, salsa, disco and Tin Pan
Alley in music. It is also the home of Broadway theater.
History
The region was inhabited by about 5,000 Lenape Native Americans at the time of
its European discovery in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Italian explorer in
the service of the French crown, who called it "Nouvelle Angouleme" (New
Angouleme). European settlement began with the founding of a Dutch fur trading
settlement, later called "Nieuw Amsterdam" (New Amsterdam), on the southern tip
of Manhattan in 1614. Dutch colonial Director, General Peter Minuit purchased
the island of Manhattan from the Lenape in 1626 for a value of 60 guilders
(about $1000 in 2006). A legend, now disproved, says that Manhattan was
purchased for $24 worth of glass beads. In 1664, the English conquered the city
and renamed it "New York" after the English Duke of York and Albany. At the end
of the Second Anglo-Dutch War the Dutch gained control of Run Island (a much
more valuable asset at the time) in exchange for the English controlling New
Amsterdam (New York) in North America. By 1700, the Lenape population was
diminished to 200.
New York City grew in importance as a trading port while under British rule. The
city hosted the seminal John Peter Zenger trial in 1735, helping to establish
the freedom of the press in North America. In 1754, Columbia University was
founded under charter by George II of Great Britain as King's College in Lower
Manhattan. The Stamp Act Congress met in New York in October of 1765.
The city emerged as the theater for a series of major battles known as the New
York Campaign during the American Revolutionary War. After the Battle of Fort
Washington in upper Manhattan in 1776 the city became the British military and
political base of operations in North America until military occupation ended in
1783. The assembly of the Congress of the Confederation made New York City the
national capital shortly thereafter; the Constitution of the United States was
ratified and in 1789 the first President of the United States, George
Washington, was inaugurated; the first United States Congress assembled for the
first time in 1789, and the United States Bill of Rights drafted -- all at
Federal Hall on Wall Street. By 1790, New York City had surpassed Philadelphia
as the largest city in the United States.
In the 19th century, the city was transformed by immigration and development. A
visionary development proposal, the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, expanded the
city street grid to encompass all of Manhattan, and the 1819 opening of the Erie
Canal connected the Atlantic port to the vast agricultural markets of the North
American interior. Local politics fell under the domination of Tammany Hall, a
political machine supported by Irish immigrants. Public-minded members of the
old merchant aristocracy lobbied for the establishment of Central Park, which
became the first landscaped park in an American city in 1857. A significant
free-black population also existed in Manhattan, as well as in Brooklyn. Slaves
had been held in New York through 1827, but during the 1830s New York became a
center of interracial abolitionist activism in the North.
Anger at military conscription during the American Civil War (1861-1865) led to
the Draft Riots of 1863, one of the worst incidents of civil unrest in American
history. In 1898, the modern City of New York was formed with the consolidation
of Brooklyn (until then an independent city), the County of New York (which then
included parts of the Bronx), the County of Richmond, and the western portion of
the County of Queens. The opening of the New York City Subway in 1904 helped
bind the new city together. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the
city became a world center for industry, commerce, and communication. However,
this development did not come without a price. In 1904, the steamship General
Slocum caught fire in the East River, killing 1,021 people on board. In 1911,
the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the city's worst industrial disaster, took
the lives of 146 garment workers and spurred the growth of the International
Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and major improvements in factory safety
standards.
In the 1920s, New York City was a major destination for African Americans during
the Great Migration from the American South. By 1916, New York City was home to
the largest urban African diaspora in North America. The Harlem Renaissance
flourished during the era of Prohibition, coincident with a larger economic boom
that saw the skyline develop with the construction of competing skyscrapers. New
York City became the most populous urbanized area in the world in the early
1920s, overtaking London, and surpassed the 10 million mark in the early 1930s
becoming the first megacity in human history. The difficult years of the Great
Depression saw the election of reformer Fiorello LaGuardia as mayor and the fall
of Tammany Hall after eighty years of political dominance.
Returning World War II veterans and immigrants from Europe created a postwar
economic boom and the development of huge housing tracts in eastern Queens. New
York emerged from the war unscathed and the leading city of the world, with Wall
Street leading America's ascendance as the world's dominant economic power, the
United Nations headquarters (completed in 1950) emphasizing New York's political
influence, and the rise of abstract expressionism in the city precipitating New
York's displacement of Paris as the center of the art world. In the 1960s, New
York suffered from economic problems, rising crime rates and racial tension,
which reached a peak in the 1970s.
In the 1980s, resurgence in the financial industry improved the city's fiscal
health. By the 1990s, racial tensions had calmed, crime rates dropped
dramatically, and waves of new immigrants arrived from Asia and Latin America.
Important new sectors, such as Silicon Alley, emerged in the city's economy and
New York's population reached an all-time high in the 2000 census.
The city was one of the sites of the September 11, 2001 attacks, when nearly
3,000 people died in the destruction of the World Trade Center. The Freedom
Tower, along with a memorial and three other office towers, will be built on the
site and is scheduled for completion in 2013.
Source: Wikipedia