New York

New York is the largest city in the USA. It lies on the east coast at the mouth of the Hudson and East Rivers, partly on several islands (Manhattan, Long Island, Staten Island...). It is one of the most important financial, industrial, commercial and cultural centres in the world. Its harbour is the second busiest in the world (after Rotterdam). The central area has about 7,5 million inhabitants, the whole metropolitan area (CMSA) about 18 million. 43 % of the inhabitants are white, 25% black and 24% Hispanic.
New York has five boroughs: Manhattan (Harlem is its northern part), Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island (Richmond). The history of New York started in the 17th century, when Dutch settlers bought the island of Manhattan for goods worth 24 dollars (1626). Thez named their settlement in the southernmost tip of the island New Amsterdam, and built a wall along its northern boundary to protect themselves from the Indians. In 1664 New Amsterdam was captured by the British and was re-named New York. In the following centuries New York was growing steadily. Many of the immigrants who entered the USA via its harbour stayed in the city which offered relatively good job opportunities in industry and commerce.
To regulate the city´s growth, a rectangular system of avenues (12, running north to south) and streets (today over 200, running east to west) was laid out. The avenues and streets do not have names, as in most towns. They are numbered, which makes it easy to find one´s way around. Only a couple of streets have their old traditional names: e.g.Wall Street (named after the wooden wall which used to stand there) and Brodway, which follows the course of an old Indian path diagonally across avenues and streets.
5th Avenue, which New York´s busiest shopping street, divides Manhattan into West Side and East Side.
Originally, the town planners did not suggest any open spaces, which was criticized by the inhabitants. That´s why the large Central Park was created in 1857-1873 in the place of a once rocky and swampy no-man´s-land.
North of Central Park lies Harlem with African Amarican population (for a white person it is very risky to go to some parts of Harlem alone, especially in the evening. They say that going beyond 125th street almost equals a suicide.)
So far we have been speaking about Manhattan, as it is the centre of New York. There we can find the most skyscrapers which are so typical of big US cities.

The first of them were built at the turn of the 20th century because of the lack of space. A skyscraper is a small city in itself. It offers residential quarters, office spaces, parking lots, restaurants, shopping, cultural and sports facilities. Each of the skyscrapers houses tens and even hundreds of companies. The two best known skyscrapers are the Empire State Building (102 storeys, 381 metres, for a long time the highest building in the world) and the World Trade Center (twin towers, 110 storeys, 417 metres). Q33NY
Everyday, hundreds of thousands of employees come to work in Manhattan, who commute from all parts of the city as well as from outside. In the 19th century the only way to get to the island was by ferry, but today there are several magnificent suspension bridges (the Brooklyn Bridge, the George Washington Bridge, the Verazzano Bridge...), as well as four underwater tunnels. The usual means of transport (apart from private cars) are the subway, buses and the typical yellow taxicabs. New York has three airports: John F. Kennedy International Airport, Newark International Airport and La Guardia Airport.
New York´s importance is primarily as a bussines centre. Especially the Wall Street area is the home of numerous banks and of the New York Stock Exchange.
Broadway, especially the area around Times Square, is well know as the home of a number of theatres, first-night cinemas and concert halls.To act on Broadway always was the dream of all American actors. As the lyrics of the song „New York, New York“ put it: „...who can make it there, can make it anywhere...“
In New York there are also several universities, the oldest of them is Columbia University founded in 1754.
Some other places of general interest in New York: The Statue of Liberty, a present by the people of France, erected in 1886 on Liberty Island in front of New York harbour. The statue itself is 45.3 m hight.The United Nations Headquarters are located along the bank of the East River.The Madison Square Garden Center is a complex of buildings for cultural and sporting events.Rockefeller Center is a beautifully designed complex of buildings which houses a number of diverse companies, luxury stores, cultural facilities, consulates, restaurants and theatres. It includes also the Radio City Music Hall, where the greatest pop stars get their Grammy Awards.

Lincoln Center houses among other cultural facilities also the Metropolitan Opera, one of the leading opera houses in the world.
The best known New York museums are: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Modern Art and The American Museum of Natural History.