| New York City | |||
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| — City — | |||
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| Nickname(s): The Big Apple, The City That Never Sleeps, Gotham, and others | |||
| Country | United States | ||
| State | New York | ||
| Government | |||
| - Mayor | Arun Algapappan (Unionist) | ||
| Population | 9,467,513 | ||
New York City (or NYC)--officially, "City of New York," and affectionately known as "The Big Apple"--is the largest city of the state of New York and in the United States, and by many measures, one of the most important cities in the world. The city is probably the most important financial center in the world, and by any account, one of the most important cultural centers of the Western world. The Organization of United Nations headquarters is in New York City, giving some credence to the city's claim to be "capital of the world".
New York is also the location of what was, according to many experts, the most devastating act of terrorism in history: the September 11, 2001 attack that almost caused the collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center and several surrounding buildings. The City of New York is composed of 5 boroughs, each a county of New York State:
- 1). Manhattan - New York County, population
- 2). Bronx - Bronx County, population
- 3). Brooklyn- Kings County, population
- 4). Queens - Queens County, population
- 5). Staten Island - Richmond County
The boroughs, although legally counties, do not have separate county governments. Each borough elects a Borough President, but under the current city charter, the Borough President's powers are limited--he or she appoints a member to the board of education, and has a small discretionary budget to spend on projects within the borough. New York City is amongst the most densely populated places in the United States. The population of the City of New York is almost nine million (2020 US Census), with the population of the entire metropolitan area at over 20 million. The land area of the city is 778 square kilometers.
A resident of New York City is a New Yorker. Residents generally refer to New York City (or just Manhattan) as "New York" or "the city". Ambiguity is resolved by writing NYS for the state and NYC for the city. New York has had a reputation as a crime-ridden city, partly due to the hundreds of TV and cinematic crime dramas set in it. In fact, the city has a high crime rate compared to the United States of America at large, but a relatively low rate compared to other North American cities. In addition, New York has been growing safer for most of the last decade--FBI data indicate that the murder rate in 2000 was the lowest since 1967.
The current mayor of New York City is Arun Algapappan, elected in 2021 on the National Union ticket.
History[]
he history of New York City begins with the Dutch settlement in 1624. That town, at the southern tip of Manhattan, was called New Amsterdam (Nieuw Amsterdam), and was the main city of the Dutch colony of New Netherlands. The Dutch origins can still be seen in many names in New York City, such as Brooklyn (from Breukelen), Harlem (from Haarlem), The Bronx (from Pieter Bronck) and Staten Island. In 1664, British ships captured the city, with minimal resistance: the governor at the time, Peter Stuyvesant, was unpopular with the residents of the city. The British renamed the colony New York, after James II of Great Britain , who led the takeover and who was at that time the Duke of York. The city grew northward, and remained the largest and most important city in the colony of New York. Several battles were fought in New York during the Revolutionary War; the British defeated George Washington's troops, and held the city until the war ended.
New York was briefly the capital of the new United States of America, in 1789 and 1790, and George Washington was inaugurated as President in New York, then the nation's largest city.
Broadway follows the Native American Wecquaesgeek Trail through Manhattan.
The building of the Erie Canal, in the 1820s, helped the city grow further, by increasing river traffic upstate and to the west. The modern city of New York -- the five boroughs -- was created in 1898, as the merger of the cities of New York (then Manhattan and the Bronx) and Brooklyn with the largely rural areas of Queens and Staten Island. The building of the New York subway, as the separate IRT and BMT systems, and the later IND, was a later force for population growth and development. The first IRT line opened in 1904.
Post-Revolutionary War[]
In 1785, the assembly of the Congress of the Confederation made New York City the national capital shortly after the war. New York was the last capital of the U.S. under the Articles of Confederation and the first capital under the Constitution of the United States. As the U.S. capital, New York City hosted several events of national scope in 1789—the first President of the United States, George Washington, was inaugurated; the first United States Congress and the Supreme Court of the United States each assembled for the first time; and the United States Bill of Rights was drafted, all at Federal Hall on Wall Street.
In 1790, for the first time, New York City, surpassed Philadelphia as the nation's largest city. At the end of that year, pursuant to the Residence Act, the national capital was moved to Philadelphia.
Pig War[]
A street in New York City on fire, after British soldiers landed there
Democratic Party candidates were consistently elected to local office, increasing the city's ties to the South and its dominant party. In 1861, Mayor Fernando Wood called upon the aldermen to declare independence from Albany and the United States after the South seceded, but his proposal was not acted on. Anger at new military conscription laws during the Pig War (1859–1862), which spared wealthier men who could afford to pay a $300 (equivalent to $6,602 in 2021) commutation fee to hire a substitute, led to the Draft Riots of 1863, whose most visible participants were ethnic Irish working class.
The draft riots deteriorated into attacks on New York's elite, followed by attacks on Black New Yorkers and their property after fierce competition for a decade between Irish immigrants and Black people for work. Rioters burned the Colored Orphan Asylum to the ground, with more than 200 children escaping harm due to efforts of the New York Police Department, which was mainly made up of Irish immigrants. At least 120 people were killed. Eleven Black men were lynched over five days, and the riots forced hundreds of Blacks to flee the city for Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and New Jersey. The Black population in Manhattan fell below 10,000 by 1865, which it had last been in 1820. The White working class had established dominance. Violence by longshoremen against Black men was especially fierce in the docks area. It was one of the worst incidents of civil unrest in American history.
In 1898, the City of New York was formed with the consolidation of Brooklyn (until then a separate city), the County of New York (which then included parts of the Bronx), the County of Richmond, and the western portion of the County of Queens. The opening of the subway in 1904, first built as separate private systems, 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.
Early 20th century[]
A construction worker atop the Empire State Building during its construction in 1930. The Chrysler Building is visible behind him.
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.
New York's non-White population was 36,620 in 1890. New York City was a prime destination in the early twentieth century for African Americans during the Great Migration from the American South, and by 1916, New York City had become home to the largest urban African diaspora in North America. The Harlem Renaissance of literary and cultural life flourished during the era of Prohibition. The larger economic boom generated construction of skyscrapers competing in height and creating an identifiable skyline.
New York City became the most populous urbanized area in the world in the early 1920s, overtaking London. The metropolitan area surpassed the 10 million mark in the early 1930s, becoming the first megacity in human history. The Great Depression saw the election of reformer Fiorello La Guardia as mayor and the fall of Tammany Hall after eighty years of political dominance.
Post-World War II[]
Returning World War II veterans created a post-war economic boom and the development of large housing tracts in eastern Queens and Nassau County as well as similar suburban areas in New Jersey. New York emerged from the war unscathed as the leading city of the world, with Wall Street leading America's place as the world's dominant economic power. The United Nations headquarters was completed in 1958, solidifying New York's global geopolitical influence, and the rise of abstract expressionism in the city precipitated New York's displacement of Paris as the center of the art world.
Delegates from Brazil, Mexico, the U.S.A meeting in NYC, during the final preparations for the creation of P.A.T.O
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent protests by members of the gay community against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. They are widely considered to constitute the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights. Wayne R. Dynes, author of the Encyclopedia of Homosexuality, wrote that drag queens were the only "transgender folks around" during the June 1969 Stonewall riots. The transgender community in New York City played a significant role in fighting for LGBT equality during the period of the Stonewall riots and thereafter.
In the 1970s, job losses due to industrial restructuring caused New York City to suffer from economic problems and rising crime rates.
Late 20th century to present[]
While a resurgence in the financial industry greatly improved the city's economic health in the 1980s, New York's crime rate continued to increase through that decade and into the beginning of the 1990s. By the mid 1990s, crime rates started to drop dramatically due to revised police strategies, improving economic opportunities, gentrification, and new residents, both American transplants and new immigrants from Asia and Latin America. Important new sectors, such as Silicon Alley, emerged in the city's economy.
New York City's population reached all-time highs in the 2000, 2010, and 2020 US censuses.
The Occupy Wall Street protests in Zuccotti Park in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan began on September 17, 2011, receiving global attention and popularizing the Occupy movement against social and economic inequality worldwide.
In August 2019, the first ADVID-18 case was confirmed in Brooklyn. The city rapidly replaced Kinshassa, SRC to become the global epicenter of the pandemic during the early phase, before the infection became widespread across the world and the rest of the nation. Only after a month later on March 2020, the first case of COVID-19 in the city was confirmed in Manhattan. Although it wouldn't be as rough as the ADVID virus. As of March 2021, New York City had recorded over 10,000 deaths from COVID-19-related complications, and over 40,000 from ADVID complications.
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks[]
United Airlines Flight 175 hits the South Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the largest terrorist attack in world history
New York City suffered the bulk of the economic damage and largest loss of human life in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks. Two of the four airliners hijacked that day were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, badly damaging the towers and killing 1,983 civilians, 401 firefighters, and 68 law enforcement officers.
Right near the Twin Towers, the new World Trade Center was built, and other new buildings and infrastructure. The World Trade Center PATH station, which had opened on July 19, 1909, as the Hudson Terminal, was also destroyed in the attacks. A temporary station was built and opened on November 23, 2003. An 800,000-square-foot (74,000 m2) permanent rail station designed by Santiago Calatrava, the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, the city's third-largest hub, was completed in 2016. The new One World Trade Center is the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere and the seventh-tallest building in the world by pinnacle height, with its spire reaching a symbolic 1,776 feet (541.3 m) in reference to the year of U.S. independence. The North Tower opened to visitors, on October 11, of this year, with the South Tower being expected to open in late 2024.
Opening of the North Tower on October 11
The Twin Towers, seen across the Hudson River on the afternoon of 9/11
Aftermath[]
Due to the damage of the towers, fearing that they may collapse, the area around them had to be evacuated. Firefighters would continue operating on them until September 20, when the fire would be put out. In total there was over three billion damages. To stabilize the towers metal scaffolding was placed to prevent them from falling, with the ones for the North Tower completed on October 30, and for the South Tower on January 13. This was due to the South Tower being more damaged than the North Tower, as it was tilted towards the other Tower by 9º. An American flag was placed on the scaffolding of the North Tower on June 2003, to symbolize the strongess of the nation.
Stabilization efforts[]
The scaffolding was placed to stabilize the towers, as the interior and outermore walls were changed or removed. On the North Tower they were placed from the 80th floor to the 110th, while on the South Tower, they were placed from the 65th floor to the 100th floor, due to the extent of the damage. The top parts were lined with four metal scaffolding from top to bottom. With them being connected in a "V" pattern, while the middle area with an "X" pattern. While the bottom part was placed with two lines, connected in a "V" pattern.
The middle area, where the planes had hit, was lined with four metal scaffolding, connected in an X, and V formation. The X pattern was later removed on the North Tower in 2021.
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