New York

State

NewYork

Country

United States

Continent

North America

Size

1,213 KM²

Population

8,336,817

Spending Budget

$150,000,000 - $1,770,000,000

Famous For

Lower Manhattan
Central Park
The Unisphere
The Brooklyn Bridge
Times Square
The Statue of Liberty
The United Nations headquarters
The Boardwalk

Best Time to Visit

January
April
May
June
September
October

History

In the precolonial era, present-day New York City was inhabited by Algonquian Native Americans, including the Lenape. Their homeland, known as Lenapehoking, included Staten Island, Manhattan, the Bronx, the western portion of Long Island (including the areas that would later become the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens), and the Lower Hudson Valley. A permanent European presence near New York Harbor began in 1624, making New York the 12th oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement in the continental United States with a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island. In 1625, construction was started on a citadel and Fort Amsterdam, later called Nieuw Amsterdam (New Amsterdam), on present-day Manhattan Island. In 1626, the Dutch colonial Director-General Peter Minuit, acting as charged by the Dutch West India Company, purchased the island of Manhattan from the Canarsie, a small Lenape band, for "the value of 60 guilders" (about $900 in 2018. In 1664, unable to summon any significant resistance, Stuyvesant surrendered New Amsterdam to English troops, led by Colonel Richard Nicolls, without bloodshed. The terms of the surrender allowed Dutch residents to remain in the colony and allowed for religious freedom. In 1667, during negotiations leading to the Treaty of Breda after the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch decided to keep the nascent plantation colony of Suriname (on the northern South America coast) they had gained from the English. In return, the English kept New Amsterdam. The fledgling settlement was promptly renamed "New York" after the Duke of York (the future King James II and VII), who would eventually be deposed in the Glorious Revolution. After the founding, the duke gave part of the colony to proprietors George Carteret and John Berkeley. Fort Orange, 150 miles (240 km) north on the Hudson River, was renamed Albany after James's Scottish title. The transfer was confirmed in 1667 by the Treaty of Breda, which concluded the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

Present Day

New York City (NYC), often called New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2019 population of 8,336,817 distributed over about 302.6 square miles (784 km2), New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the State of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass. With almost 20 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and approximately 23 million in its combined statistical area, it is one of the world's most populous megacities. New York City has been described as the world's cultural, financial, and media capital, significantly influencing commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports, and is the most photographed city in the world. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has sometimes been called the world's capital. Situated on one of the world's largest natural harbors, New York City is composed of five boroughs, each of which is a county of the State of New York. The five boroughs—Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island—were created when local governments were consolidated into a single city in 1898. The city and its metropolitan area constitute the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. New York is home to more than 3.2 million residents born outside the United States, the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world as of 2016. As of 2019, the New York metropolitan area is estimated to produce a gross metropolitan product (GMP) of $2.0 trillion. If the New York metropolitan area were a sovereign state, it would have the eighth-largest economy in the world. New York is home to the highest number of billionaires of any city in the world.

Future

Here’s a wild scenario for post-pandemic New York: Maybe it is pretty much the same. The pandemic is far from over, but residential real estate is starting to bounce back. Like Fordham Road in the Bronx and Main Street in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens, business districts outside Manhattan are stirring to life, even as Midtown remains quiet. The city’s bars, restaurants, and sports stadiums are already filling, even months before Mayor de Blasio’s July 1 target date for a full reopening of the city. As for that mass exodus out of the city? Maybe it was overblown. According to Unacast, a research firm that analyzes cellphone data, some 3.57 million people moved, for at least eight weeks, around or out of New York City from Jan. 1, 2020, to Dec. 7, 2020. But only about 70,000 have remained out of the city. This is hardly the first time that crisis led to overheated predictions. Remember how New Yorkers declared an “end of irony” after the Sept. 11 attacks? And whoever takes over Gracie Mansion in November will have to make sure the Wi-Fi is working. While Andrew Yang, a dot-com-era tech entrepreneur, is often viewed as the tech candidate, with plans to provide Wi-Fi in public housing and homeless shelters and convert brownfields to solar farms, rival candidates have visions of a wired, green city, too. Eric Adams wants to lure start-ups and incubator investment with tax breaks and cheap space. Scott Stringer has visions of Rikers Island as a green energy hub. And as New Yorkers return to their former stamping grounds, they will be greeted by a gleaming, 21st-century metropolis; thanks to infrastructure upgrades, the pandemic did little to slow. Last summer, the airy Terminal B opened at La Guardia Airport, filled with art, indoor parks, and shiny new gates. Glassy new terminals are planned for John F. Kennedy Airport. And the light-filled Moynihan Train Hall opened in January across the street from the dingy Penn Station, a modern new front door for the city. Even the gritty Port Authority Bus Terminal may see a dramatic makeover. Along the Hudson River, a fresh crop of supertall glass spires have sprouted at Hudson Yards; the futuristic Little Island designed by Heatherwick Studio is nearing completion in the meatpacking district; a former bus parking lot at Pier 57 is being converted into a mixed-use campus with shops, performance spaces, and Google offices; and the Javits Center is expanding by more than one million square feet.

Must Visit Places ------------

Lower Manhattan

Lower Manhattan, also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York, is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in New York City. Lower Manhattan is defined most commonly as the area delineated on the north by 14th Street, on the west by the Hudson River, on the east by the East River, and on the south by New York Harbor (also known as Upper New York Bay). The Lower Manhattan business district, known as the Financial District, forms the core of the area below Chambers Street. The city had itself originated at the southern tip of Manhattan Island in 1624, at a point that now constitutes the present-day Financial District. The population of the Financial District alone has grown to an estimated 61,000 residents as of 2018, up from 43,000 as of 2014, which in turn was nearly double the 23,000 recorded at the 2000 Census.

Central Park

Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city by area, covering 843 acres (341 ha). It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated 42 million visitors annually as of 2016, and is the most filmed location in the world. Following proposals for a large park in Manhattan during the 1840s, it was approved in 1853 to cover 778 acres (315 ha). In 1857, landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition for the park with their "Greensward Plan". Construction began the same year; existing structures, including a majority-Black settlement named Seneca Village, were seized through eminent domain and razed. The park's first areas were opened to the public in late 1858. Additional land at the northern end of Central Park was purchased in 1859, and the park was completed in 1876. After a period of decline in the early 20th century, New York City parks commissioner Robert Moses started a program to clean up Central Park in the 1930s. The Central Park Conservancy, created in 1980 to combat further deterioration in the late 20th century, refurbished many parts of the park starting in the 1980s.

The Unisphere

The Unisphere is a spherical stainless steel representation of the Earth in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, in the New York City borough of Queens. The sphere, which measures 140 feet (43 m) high and 120 feet (37 m) in diameter, was designed by Gilmore D. Clarke as part of his plan for the 1964 New York World's Fair. The Unisphere sits atop a 20-foot-tall (6.1 m) base with over 500 steel pieces representing the continents, as well as three steel rings representing the first artificial satellites orbiting Earth. Around the Unisphere is a reflecting pool measuring 310 feet (94 m) in diameter and surrounded by 48 pairs of fountainheads. Commissioned to celebrate the beginning of the space age, the Unisphere was conceived and constructed as the theme symbol of the 1964–1965 New York World's Fair. The theme of the World's Fair was "Peace Through Understanding" and the Unisphere represented the theme of global interdependence, being dedicated to "Man's Achievements on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe". The Unisphere was restored after the conclusion of the World's Fair, but fell into disrepair in the 1970s, and was restored in the early 1990s. The Unisphere was made a New York City designated landmark in 1995.

The Brooklyn Bridge

The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/suspension bridge in New York City, spanning the East River between Manhattan Island and Brooklyn on Long Island. Opened on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing of the East River. It was also the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time of its opening, with a main span of 1,595.5 feet (486.3 m) and a deck 127 ft (38.7 m) above mean high water. The span was originally called the New York and Brooklyn Bridge or the East River Bridge but was officially renamed the Brooklyn Bridge in 1915. Proposals for a bridge connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn were first made in the early 19th century, which eventually led to the construction of the current span, designed by John A. Roebling. The project's chief engineer, his son Washington Roebling, contributed further design work, assisted by the latter's wife, Emily Warren Roebling. Construction started in 1870, with the Tammany Hall-controlled New York Bridge Company overseeing construction, although numerous controversies and the novelty of the design prolonged the project over thirteen years. Since opening, the Brooklyn Bridge has undergone several reconfigurations, having carried horse-drawn vehicles and elevated railway lines until 1950. To alleviate increasing traffic flows, additional bridges and tunnels were built across the East River. Following gradual deterioration, the Brooklyn Bridge has been renovated several times, including in the 1950s, 1980s, and 2010s.

Times Square

Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment center, and neighborhood in the Midtown Manhattan section of New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue. Brightly lit by numerous billboards and advertisements, it stretches from West 42nd to West 47th Streets, and is sometimes referred to as "the Crossroads of the World", "the Center of the Universe", "the heart of the Great White Way", and "the heart of the world". One of the world's busiest pedestrian areas, it is also the hub of the Broadway Theater District and a major center of the world's entertainment industry. Times Square is one of the world's most visited tourist attractions, drawing an estimated 50 million visitors annually. Approximately 330,000 people pass through Times Square daily, many of them tourists, while over 460,000 pedestrians walk through Times Square on its busiest days.

The Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World; French: La Liberté éclairant le monde) is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor within New York City, in the United States. The copper statue, a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States, was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and Gustave Eiffel built its metal framework. The statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886. The statue is a figure of Libertas, a robed Roman liberty goddess. She holds a torch above her head with her right hand, and in her left hand carries, a tabula ansata inscribed JULY IV MDCCLXXVI (July 4, 1776 in Roman numerals), the date of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. A broken shackle and chain lie at her feet as she walks forward, commemorating the recent national abolition of slavery.

The United Nations headquarters

The United Nations is headquartered in New York City in a complex designed by a board of architects led by Wallace Harrison and built by the architectural firm Harrison

The Boardwalk

A boardwalk (alternatively board walk, boarded path, or promenade) is an elevated footpath, walkway, or causeway built with wooden planks that enables pedestrians to cross wet, fragile, or marshy land. They are also in effect a low type of bridge. Such timber trackways have existed since at least Neolithic times. Some wood boardwalks have had sections replaced by concrete and even "a type of recycled plastic that looks like wood.