New York City

11/15/2019 New York City -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia
New York City

New York City, of cially the City of New York,
historically New Amsterdam, the Mayor, Alderman, TABLE OF CONTENTS
and Commonality of the City of New York, and
Introduction
New Orange, byname the Big Apple, city and port
located at the mouth of the Hudson River, Character of the city
southeastern New York state, northeastern U.S. It is The landscape
the largest and most in uential American The people
metropolis, encompassing Manhattan and Staten
The economy
islands, the western sections of Long Island, and a
Administration and social conditions
small portion of the New York state mainland to the
north of Manhattan. New York City is in reality a Cultural life
collection of many neighbourhoods scattered The arts

among the city’s ve boroughs—Manhattan, Recreation
Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island—
History
each exhibiting its own lifestyle. Moving from one
city neighbourhood to the next may be like passing
from one country to another. New York is the most populous and the most international
city in the country. Its urban area extends into adjoining parts of New York, New Jersey,
and Connecticut. Located where the Hudson and East rivers empty into one of the world’s
premier harbours, New York is both the gateway to the North American continent and its
preferred exit to the oceans of the globe. Area 305 square miles (790 square km). Pop.
(2000) 8,008,278; New York–White Plains–Wayne Metro Division, 11,296,377; New York–
Northern New Jersey–Long Island Metro Area, 18,323,002; (2010) 8,175,133; New York–White
Plains–Wayne Metro Division, 11,576,251; New York–Northern New Jersey–Long Island
Metro Area, 18,897,109.
Character of the city

New York is the most ethnically diverse, religiously
varied, commercially driven, famously congested, and,
in the eyes of many, the most attractive urban centre
in the country. No other city has contributed more
images to the collective consciousness of Americans:
Central Park, Manhattan, New York City, Wall Street means nance, Broadway is synonymous
flanked by the apartment buildings of the with theatre, Fifth Avenue is automatically paired with
Upper East Side.
shopping, Madison Avenue means the advertising
© Bruce Stoddard—FPG International
industry, Greenwich Village connotes bohemian
lifestyles, Seventh Avenue signi es fashion, Tammany
Hall de nes machine politics, and Harlem evokes images of the Jazz Age, African
https://www.britannica.com/print/article/412352 1/33
American aspirations, and slums. The word tenement brings to mind both the miseries of
urban life and the upward mobility of striving immigrant masses. New York has more
Jews than Tel Aviv, more Irish than Dublin, more Italians than Naples, and more Puerto
Ricans than San Juan. Its symbol is the Statue of Liberty, but the metropolis is itself an
icon, the arena in which Emma Lazarus’s “tempest-tost” people of every nation are
transformed into Americans—and if they remain in the city, they become New Yorkers.
For the past two centuries, New York has been the
largest and wealthiest American city. More than half
the people and goods that ever entered the United
States came through its port, and that stream of
commerce has made change a constant presence in
city life. New York always meant possibility, for it was
an urban centre on its way to something better, a
metropolis too busy to be solicitous of those who
stood in the way of progress. New York—while the
most American of all the country’s cities—thus also
achieved a reputation as both foreign and fearsome, a
place where turmoil, arrogance, incivility, and cruelty
tested the stamina of everyone who entered it. The
Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island in
Upper New York Bay. city was inhabited by strangers, but they were, as
Tom Sobolik/Black Star James Fenimore Cooper explained, “essentially
national in interest, position, pursuits. No one thinks
of the place as belonging to a particular state but to the United States.” Once the capital
of both its state and the country, New York surpassed such status to become a world city
in both commerce and outlook, with the most famous skyline on earth. It also became a
target for international terrorism—most notably the destruction in 2001 of the World
Trade Center, which for three decades had been the most prominent symbol of the city’s
global prowess. However, New York remains for its residents a conglomeration of local
neighbourhoods that provide them with familiar cuisines, languages, and experiences. A
city of stark contrasts and deep contradictions, New York is perhaps the most tting
representative of a diverse and powerful nation.
The landscape
The city site
Sections of the granite bedrock of New York date to about 100 million years ago, but the
topography of the present city is largely the product of the glacial recession that marked
the end of the Wisconsin Glacial Stage about 10,000 years ago. Great erratic boulders in
Manhattan’s Central Park, deep kettle depressions in Brooklyn and Queens, and the
glacial moraine that remains in parts of the metropolitan area provide silent testimony to
the enormous power of the ice. Glacial retreat also

carved out the waterways around the city. The
Hudson and East rivers, Spuyten Duyvil Creek, and
Arthur Kill are, in reality, estuaries of the Atlantic
Ocean, and the Hudson is tidal as far north as Troy.
The approximately 600 miles (1,000 km) of New York
shoreline are locked in constant combat with the
ocean, as it erodes the land and adds new sediments
elsewhere. Although the harbour is constantly
dredged, ship channels are continually lled with river
New York City: Metropolitan area silt and are too shallow for more modern deep-sea
vessels.
New York City metropolitan area.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
South of the rockbound terrain of Manhattan
stretches a sheltered, deepwater anchorage offering
easy access to the Atlantic Ocean. In 1524 the Italian
navigator Giovanni da Verrazzano was the rst
European to enter the harbour, which he named
Santa Margarita, and he reported that the hills
surrounding the vast expanse of New York Bay
appeared to be rich in minerals; more than 90 species
of precious stone and 170 of the world’s minerals have
actually been found in New York. Verrazzano’s daring
expedition was commemorated in 1964, when what
was then the world’s longest suspension bridge was
dedicated to span the Narrows at the entrance to
Upper New York Bay.
Only the third largest American port at the time of

New York City: Central area the American Revolution, New York gradually
Central New York City, depicting the achieved trade domination and by the mid-1800s
borough of Manhattan southward from
handled more than half of the country’s oceangoing
Central Park.
travelers and commercial trade. After 1900 New York
was the world’s busiest port, a distinction it held until
the 1950s. Cargo containerization, the obsolescence of
its waterfront piers, and soaring labour costs shifted business to the New Jersey side of
the river after the 1960s, but at the beginning of the 21st century the Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey still dominated the water trade of the northeastern United States.
Climate and plant and animal life
The average temperature in January is about 31 °F (0 °C) and in June about 72 °F (22 °C),
but recorded temperature extremes range from −15 to 106 °F (−26 to 41°C). Because of
New York’s moderate climate, the harbour rarely freezes. The annual precipitation is 44
inches (1,120 mm).
The city’s ora and fauna are testimony to the rapid changes in the ecosystem imposed by
urban settlement. In areas that once were hunting and shing paradises for several bands
of Native Americans, the most prevalent animals today are the cockroach and the Norway
rat, both introduced to the city via trade with Europe. A wide variety of animal species are
still found within the city, including 80 species of sh, scores of birds from the peregrine
falcon to the pigeon, and such mammals as the raccoon and the occasional urban coyote.
Wildlife refuges at Jamaica Bay and in Clove Lakes (Staten Island) and Alley Pond
(Queens) parks provide sanctuaries for many species, allowing them to survive even
within an unfavourable city environment. Vegetation has suf cient precipitation but has
been reduced and destroyed with the advance of urban sprawl. The dominant
characteristics of contemporary city plants are their ability to thrive despite acid rain and
air that contains large components of ozone, vehicle emissions, and industrial by-
products. However, the city’s two botanical gardens, one in the Bronx and the other in
Brooklyn, are highly regarded throughout the country, and zoos in every borough enchant
visitors of all ages.
The city layout
The city’s ancient bedrock provides the immovable

foundation for hundreds of modern skyscrapers. New
York has more of these awesome structures than any
other world city. Architects may argue about the
origin of the modern skyscraper, but most agree that
Waterfowl on Jamaica Bay, Gateway Manhattan was where structures with steel skeletons
National Wildlife Refuge, New York City. were combined with the elevator to create a genre of
In the left background are the twin towers
of the World Trade Center prior to their
buildings where great height could be reached
destruction in 2001. practicably; the very word was coined in the 1880s to
© Larsek/Shutterstock.com describe this New York phenomenon.
The earliest pathways for moving around Manhattan Island followed animal and Native
American trails across dif cult terrain; Broadway still follows one of these routes, which
extended northward through the island. City planning was foreign to burghers in the 17th
century, and roads were haphazardly authorized; only a few important ones to outlying
agricultural communities were maintained, and it was not until 1798 that the city
appointed a commissioner of streets. Colonial nonchalance is still visible in the
meandering streets of Lower Manhattan. The optimistic spirit of the town is apparent in
the street plan adopted in 1811, a grid of blocks, avenues, streets, and lots extending to the
northern reaches of the island. City Hall, located now as then in Manhattan, was at that
time so far removed from the centre of activity that its northern facade was left
un nished, since few could imagine it would ever be seen. Although often modi ed in
speci c cases, the rectilinear patterns imposed upon Manhattan in its infancy have
determined its developmental patterns, and other boroughs adopted the system after the
creation of Greater New York in 1898. The building of Central Park interrupted the grid,
and road construction there pioneered concepts of limited-access and transverse-running
roadways. In the 20th century, parkways were incorporated into the traf c patterns of all
boroughs, as Eastern and Ocean parkways in Brooklyn, Riverside Drive (Manhattan), the
Grand Concourse (the Bronx), and Queens Boulevard attest. Regardless of all its efforts,
the modern city is infamous for the volume of traf c that clogs its well-laid-out street
system.
The boroughs
The administrative structure of New York was shaped by the consolidation of the greater
city in January 1898. Following the 19th-century pattern of urban imperialism, and in large
part spurred by the challenge that Chicago posed to its primacy, modern New York was
formed when the independent city of Brooklyn, the portion of Westchester county called
the Bronx, Staten Island, and large parts of Queens county were added to Manhattan
following a referendum. Although the population of the city expanded from about 2
million to 3.4 million, much of the new territory was still rural, and only two- fths of all
roads in the expanded city were paved. The ve boroughs, which were all soon designated
counties of New York state, became the basic municipal administrative units. The of ce of
borough president was created to preserve “local pride and affection,” and its duties from
1901 to 1990 included service on the Board of Estimate, a central nancial agency.
Borough presidents now also serve as conduits of neighbourhood concern to the mayor,
the city’s chief administrator, and are responsible for appointing members of community
boards, the City Planning Commission, and the Board of Education. These of cials carry
much of the burden in the continuous New York battle between strong mayors seeking
central authority and local leaders aspiring to independent action.
In the early 20th century, when the population of Greater New York more than doubled, a
major concern of city administrators was interlacing communication and transportation
systems to create coherence within the metropolitan area. The rst segment of the
subway system opened in 1904, and soon all the boroughs were linked except Staten
Island. In the 1930s and ’40s the system often handled more than two billion passengers
per year; the world’s most extensive subway system soon became the best way to move
about the metropolis. An ever-growing number of bridges, tunnels, and highways,
designed to facilitate commerce, now take, along with the subways, hordes of commuters
into Manhattan in the morning and return them home at night. Hundreds of thousands
of “outer borough” residents and suburbanites work in and travel to Manhattan every day,
in one of the great marvels of urban planning. Except for Staten Island, each of the
boroughs considered independently would rank among the largest cities in the United
States. Borough legislators constantly complain that their concerns are ignored, and
many believe that local interests are usually sacri ced for the welfare of New York county
(Manhattan). This perception led Staten Island to contemplate seceding from New York
City and becoming an independent city in the 1990s, although ultimately nothing came of
the movement.
Manhattan
More than 30 million tourists visit New York annually, but most of these rarely see much
beyond the 22.6 square miles (58.5 square km) of Manhattan island, the smallest city
borough. Divided by 12 north-south avenues and crossed by 220 east-west streets,
Manhattan is easily understood and in nitely alluring. It is the original New York, boasts
the world’s largest collection of skyscrapers, and is overloaded with cultural institutions
and places of enduring interest. Even to residents of the other boroughs, Manhattan is
“the city,” the administrative, business, and nancial centre of the metropolis and the
basis of their renown. In no other part of New York are there such stark contrasts between
rich and poor. The high-rise elegance of Park Avenue and the Upper East Side rapidly
gives way to the teeming streets of Harlem to the north and to the crowded bohemian
existence of the Lower East Side and Greenwich Village to the south. This cruel modern
dichotomy echoes the 19th-century city, where industrial millionaires lived in luxury in
Fifth Avenue mansions (now largely converted into cultural centres) far from the
immigrant masses on the Lower East Side (whose sufferings the Tenement Museum now
honours).
Within this formidable historical imbalance,

Manhattan is really composed of neighbourhoods
that offer peaceful havens to contented residents.
Many areas of the island are world famous, among
them such ethnic enclaves as Chinatown, Yorkville,
Little Italy, and Spanish and Black Harlem. In the
streets snaking north from the ancient Dutch Battery,
twisting lanes remind walkers that Manhattan was a
trade centre before Boston, Philadelphia, or
Williamsburg existed. Wall Street, the nancial centre
of the globe, was originally a Dutch forti cation (1653)
New York City: Manhattan, c. 1900 against feared British or Native American attacks that
Manhattan (c. 1900), detail of a map of never came. The jumble of pre-Revolutionary streets
New York City from the 10th edition of
continues up to Houston Street, where the grid
Encyclopædia Britannica.
pattern becomes dominant and continues up the
island. Soho (short for “south of Houston”) covers
much of the old immigrant East Side and now has been matched by a Noho
neighbourhood. To the west is Henry James’s Washington Square and beyond that
Greenwich Village, formerly a haven for artists but today home to the af uent and
professional classes. In 2003 the rst section of Hudson River Park opened. Scheduled to
extend from Battery Park to 59th Street, the park will cover some 550 acres (223 hectares)
of renovated piers and waterfront land when it is completed. Chelsea and Gramercy Park
offer diverse attractions before one reaches Times Square, the “Crossroads of the World,”
recently transformed from a sleazy strip to a centre of tourism. At Columbus Circle visitors
may enter Central Park, some 840 acres (340 hectares) of greenery created by Frederick
Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in the mid-19th century to serve as the “lungs” of the city
and defended with vigour against all commercial encroachment. The Upper West Side is
lled with brownstone blocks and high-rise apartments and is home ground to the liberal,
Democratic Party politics long identi ed with the modern city. East Harlem is Hispanic, as
is Washington Heights, but the two are separated by Black Harlem and the academic
bastion of Columbia University on Morningside Heights. At the far north of the island—
where Manhattan actually spills into the Bronx—Irish in uence predominates. Only in the
few blocks of Marble Hill is Manhattan part of the mainland United States.
No area of New York demonstrates change and dynamism as fully as Manhattan. Millions
enter it daily to seek their fortunes, and additional millions come to marvel at their efforts.
It is Manhattan that they label a “great place, but I wouldn’t want to live there.” More than
half of the buildings in the world with 50 or more oors are located there, but its storied
past can be partly recaptured by visiting South Street Seaport, riding the Staten Island
Ferry, or walking through its distinctive neighbourhoods. Manhattan means Tammany
Hall, the archetype of the political machine, as well as the reformers that overthrew the
“Tiger.” It is supremely cosmopolitan, boasting the world’s best restaurants and a myriad
of cultural institutions, yet folksy enough to have block parties. Manhattan’s variety and
pace make New York the number one tourist city in America.
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost borough and (except for a tiny sliver of Manhattan) the
only part of New York on the mainland. It was rst settled by farmers and for centuries
remained rural. Originally tied to Manhattan only by the King’s Bridge across the Spuyten
Duyvil Creek, it was the scene of much con ict during the American Revolution, but
afterward it became the area where wealthy politicians and merchants established
summer homes. In the late 19th century it was home to a racetrack where the Belmont
Stakes were run until 1889. Railroads, additional bridges, and commerce gradually bound
the Bronx to the lower city, and in 1874 the towns of Morrisania, West Farms, and
Kingsbridge were annexed by Manhattan. Elevated rail lines soon entered two new wards
of the city, and vast parks were authorized; the modern borough, 42 square miles (109
square km) in area, is still one-fourth parkland. When additional land from the Bronx was
added to New York in the consolidation of 1898, the modern borough was created. Prior to
1910 subway lines snaked their way north to facilitate population growth in the former
farmland. By the time Bronx county was established in 1914, it had large groups of Italians,
Jews, Irish, and Armenians. Many found work on public works projects, such as those that
built parks, the Bronx Zoo, the New York Botanical Garden, or the Jerome Park Reservoir.
Others laboured on the uptown campus of New York University, which is home to the
country’s rst Hall of Fame (for Great Americans), expanded the subway system, or
constructed Yankee Stadium (1923), the house that baseball legend Babe Ruth reputedly
built. Fordham Road became a major shopping street, and the Grand Concourse won
favour as one of the most prestigious addresses in the city. The borough still has the
greatest number of Art Deco buildings in the world.
An old Broadway song informed Americans that “the

New York City: The Bronx, c. 1900
Bronx is up,” but few areas of the country experienced
The Bronx (c. 1900), detail of a map of
New York City from the 10th edition of such a precipitous drop from prosperity. For a decade
Encyclopædia Britannica. after the mid-1960s, the Bronx became the scene of
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. classic urban decay caused by crime, drug dealers,
renegade landlords, and the strain of accepting wave
after wave of immigrants. Puerto Ricans won political power when they elected Herman
Badillo as borough president; they later sent him to the U.S. Congress. However, the
reputation of the borough came not from enlightened ethnic advance but from the res
that consumed its buildings and the drug and gang wars that destroyed its young people.
Although fully linked to the metropolis by railroads and such bridges as the Robert F.
Kennedy (1936; formerly called Triborough), Whitestone (1939), and Throgs Neck (1961), the
South Bronx became a place to leave as quickly as possible. Internally, Jewish residents
ed the Grand Concourse to live in Co-op City, a housing complex near Eastchester Bay
whose more than 15,000 apartments made it the largest such development in the
country. The spread of slum conditions northward from Mott Haven, Hunt’s Point, and
Morrisania threatened to turn the entire borough into a blighted area.
During the last quarter of the 20th century, the tide of decay reversed, and the Bronx
rebounded in remarkable fashion. Laws that limited insurance payouts sharply reduced
acts of landlord arson, and vacant lands were lled with single-family and row housing.
Thousands of apartments were rehabilitated or restored with city funds, and hundreds
more were saved by individuals who refused to give in to lawlessness. Tensions between
competing populations—the borough is one-third African American, one-third Hispanic,
and one-third Asian and white—have eased, and attendance at the universities in the
borough has increased. The population was rising by the mid-1990s, and the upper-class
enclaves of Riverdale and City Island once again ranked as sought-after housing areas for
the city elite. Political power has remained in the hands of Hispanic voters, but the entire
borough has bene ted from a historic recovery.
Brooklyn
The most populous borough of New York, Brooklyn occupies 81 square miles (210 square
km) to the east of Manhattan on the western fringe of Long Island. Sections of the area
were rst settled by the Dutch in the 1630s, and six largely agricultural towns—Brooklyn,
Flatlands, Flatbush, New Utrecht, Bushwick, and Gravesend—soon thrived. Consolidated
as Kings county in 1683, the region grew modestly as an appendage of Manhattan. During
the American Revolution, Brooklyn was the scene of the Battle of Long Island (August 27,
1776). After the British occupied New York, their notorious prison ships were anchored in
Wallabout Bay; a memorial to the thousands who died stands in Fort Greene Park. Early in
the 19th century, Brooklyn became the world’s rst modern commuter suburb, and
Brooklyn Heights was transformed into a wealthy residential community. Modern-day
entrepreneurs have restored ferry service across the East River, and the esplanade along
the heights rewards visitors with an unrivaled view of Manhattan’s shore and skyline.
To the chagrin of New York, Brooklyn became an

New York City: Brooklyn, c. 1900
independent city in 1834 and soon adopted the grid
Brooklyn (c. 1900), detail of a map of
New York City from the 10th edition of form of street layout. By the 1880s it had about 20,000
Encyclopædia Britannica. industrial jobs and handled more waterborne
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. tonnage than its rival; during the American Civil War
the Monitor had been constructed at the Continental
Iron Works in Greenpoint. Brooklyn had its own Academy of Music (1859) and Historical
Society (1863) and, in Prospect Park (1870s), an urban green space that represented a
more mature version of Olmsted’s vision across the river; it ranked among the largest
cities in the country in the last four decades of the 19th century. However, the
construction of John Roebling and Washington Roebling’s Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan
(completed 1883) doomed its independent existence, as business interests craved closer
ties to the metropolis. Overcoming the opposition of the local Democratic machine,
Brooklyn accepted consolidation by a margin of only 277 votes and became a part of
Greater New York in 1898.
Contemporary Brooklyn retains much of the

New York City: Brooklyn Bridge
independent character it displayed as an industrial
Brooklyn Bridge at night, spanning the
East River and connecting Brooklyn to city. It has its own shopping mecca (around Flatbush
Manhattan Island in New York City. Avenue), a Civic Center, and even a Chinatown in
Geoff Tompkinson/GTImage.com (A Britannica Sunset Park. Additional access to Manhattan came
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with the construction of the Williamsburg (1903) and
Manhattan (1909) bridges and later through Battery
Tunnel (1950). In the 1920s full subway service was extended as far as Coney Island, and in
1931 the borough became home to New York’s rst airport, Floyd Bennett Field (now part
of Gateway National Recreation Area). Brooklyn had something that Manhattan could
never match, a beloved baseball team, the Dodgers, playing in a wonderfully intimate ball
park, Ebbets Field; many hearts were broken when the team decamped to California in
1957, and the eld was subsequently demolished. Brooklyn remains famous for its
multiplicity of houses of worship serving neighbourhoods as varied as Brighton Beach
and Bensonhurst, Bay Ridge and Ridgewood, and Canarsie and Cobble Hill. Although the
borough has many private homes, the majority of its people live in apartments,
mammoth housing projects, or upgraded row housing. Bedford-Stuyvesant and
Brownsville have some of the worst slums in New York, with blocks of burned-out and
abandoned buildings. Tensions between African Americans and Hasidic Jews in the
biracial area of Crown Heights led to a prolonged con ict in the 1990s, and their
relationship has remained strained. On the other hand, careful use of landmark protection
legislation has enabled several historic neighbourhoods to restore their viability. The
originality of the borough is visible in the creation of new areas such as DUMBO (Down
Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) and the revitalization of underused piers for
shipping.
Queens
Queens county would constitute a major American city were it not a part of New York. Its
120 square miles (311 square km), more than one-third of the city, feature a primarily
middle-class population owning private homes, although in such areas as Forest Hills
apartments predominate. During colonial times a signi cant battle for religious freedom,
the Flushing Remonstrance (1657), was fought in Queens; it was a rst victory for the
tolerance necessary in an urban centre. In the 19th century Queens had several racetracks
and two shorelines that attracted the wealthy, and it served as the nal resting place for
deceased New Yorkers. Its Calvary Cemetery is still the largest in the nation, while 7,000
veterans of the American Civil War are buried in Cypress Hills on its border with Brooklyn.
The Long Island Rail Road (1836), originally intended to shorten the trip from New York to
the Boston ferry, traversed land that was largely agricultural. That situation changed after
1870 when what essentially were company towns were established by William Englehardt
Steinway (pianos) and Conrad Poppenhusen (rubber); the later development of the
Newtown Creek area brought heavy industry and drew many immigrant workers into the
county.
In 1894 the communities of western Queens endorsed

New York City: Queens, c. 1900
the creation of Greater New York, but parts of its
Queens (c. 1900), detail of a map of New
York City from the 10th edition of eastern territory ultimately became Nassau county.
Encyclopædia Britannica. The borough grew rapidly once the Queensboro
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Bridge opened (1909) and the Long Island Rail Road
was connected to Manhattan’s Pennsylvania Station
(1910), and subway service was established soon thereafter. A pleasing mix of the urban
and the rural, Queens was the centre of the silent- lm industry until displaced by
Hollywood in the late 1920s. The growing borough had more than a million people even
before it was lashed to the Bronx by three bridges and to Manhattan by the Midtown
Tunnel (1940). Pioneer aviator Glenn Curtiss ew from Albany to New York City in a little
less than three hours in 1910, thus issuing in the age of domestic aviation, and the at,
open spaces of Queens became popular for air elds. It became an international arrival
centre when La Guardia Airport opened in 1939 and Idlewild International Airport in 1948,
the latter subsequently renamed to honour President John F. Kennedy in 1963. Access to
transportation and a lower-density population made Flushing Meadows in Queens a
natural site for the two world’s fairs held in New York City in 1939–40 and 1964–65. The
borough also annually hosts the United States Open Tennis Championships.
In a diverse and cosmopolitan city, Queens ranks as the most ethnically varied of all the
boroughs. It is perhaps too simple to refer to Irish Woodside, Greek Astoria, Polish-
Lithuanian Maspeth, or Italian Corona, but those groups do predominate. Vast numbers of
Chinese, Koreans, and East Indians have transformed Flushing into the largest of New
York’s three Asian centres and revived a once anemic local economy in the bargain. More
than half of the city’s Latin Americans, from more than a dozen nations, live in Queens,
and their restaurants and travel agencies dominate entire neighbourhoods. African
Americans are more fully integrated in Queens than elsewhere in the metropolis, residing
primarily in areas such as Hollis, Cambria Heights, St. Alban’s, and Spring eld Gardens.
The borough has no visible slum area, and its residents are united in rejecting low-income
housing and high-rise apartments.
Staten Island
Geographically isolated at the juncture of Upper and Lower New York Bays, Staten Island
is 5 miles (8 km) removed from Manhattan by ferry and a mile from Brooklyn across the
Narrows. Its 60 square miles (155 square km) are still the least densely populated, most
rural part of the city, even though it ranks as the fastest-growing county in the state.
When the English conquered New York in 1664, they decided that Staten Island would
remain part of that province despite its proximity to New Jersey. A century later, in 1776,
British troops launched their conquest of the city from the island. After independence,
Richmond borough (later Staten Island) held forts to protect access to New York,
quarantine stations for sick immigrants, homes for aged seamen and orphans, and
railroad terminals for Manhattan’s freight. When its voters chose to become part of the
greater city, its population was slightly more than 65,000.
After 1900 a civic centre and borough hall were

New York City: Staten Island, c. 1900
constructed in St. George near the ferry ramps. Water-
Staten Island (c. 1900), detail of a map of
New York City from the 10th edition of system real estate speculators attempted to start a
Encyclopædia Britannica. boom when Richmond was connected to the city, but
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. the prospect faded away once direct subway access
failed to materialize. Until the 1930s the borough
experienced slow industrial and population growth, and only after the Goethals (1928),
Outerbridge Crossing (1928), and Bayonne (1931) bridges were built did stagnation cease.
Construction of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (1964) nally opened the borough to rapid
development and made it a functional part of city life. Truck farming has ended and
factories have closed on the island, but borough residents have managed to retain the
integrity of their nearly 3,000-acre (1,200-hectare) park, the Greenbelt, the largest such
amenity in the metropolis.
Staten Island is the most homogeneous borough in New York; it has the lowest proportion
of ethnic minorities and is the youngest and most politically conservative. Its politicians
call the borough underserviced, its residents feel under attack by environmental
pollutants from New Jersey, and everyone resents being home to New York’s largest
garbage disposal site. A dumping area since 1948, the Fresh Kills site will ultimately reach
an elevation of 500 feet (150 metres), the highest point on the East Coast. In 1990, when
the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a reduction in borough power, Staten Islanders endorsed
a move to study secession from New York to become an independent city.
Planning the modern metropolis
Before the creation of Greater New York, city leaders

The Flatiron Building (1902), New York,
N.Y., in a 1903 photograph. dealt with the needs of citizens less than
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. systematically. Administrations in the 19th century
created the street grid, regulated the port and
The Chrysler Building in midtown immigration, provided water and sewers, authorized
Manhattan, with the East River and transportation lines, and built parks. No one
borough of Queens in the background,
pretended that Manhattan offered a picture of
New York City.
© Vladimir Pcholkin—FPG International
rational planning, but with a consolidated population
of more than three million, a more orderly approach
was necessary. Uncontrolled building and atrocious
Midtown Manhattan with the Empire
State Building (centre), in New York City. housing conditions were among the primary
© Donald R. Swartz/Shutterstock.com concerns of progressive thinkers, and their rst
achievement was a Tenement House Law (1901) that
required the installation of re escapes and toilets in existing “old law” structures. City
of cials became the overseers of “new law” construction—six-story buildings with
dumbwaiters, cooking facilities, hot water, and no inside rooms without windows—and
within 15 years an additional 200,000 apartments were built. Progressivism’s greatest
accomplishment was the city zoning ordinance of 1916, the rst attempt by any city to
control density, regulate land use, and guarantee light and air to the streets by reshaping
structures. By that time, Manhattan was already famed for its skyscrapers, and their
height had escalated from the “idiotic” 11 oors of the Tower Building (1889) to the 20 of
the Flatiron (1902) and nally to the unprecedented 792-foot (241-metre) Woolworth
Building, the “cathedral of commerce” (1913). The new zoning code mandated building
setbacks to permit daylight to reach the streets and altered the shape of future
construction, and under its restrictions the Chrysler (1930) and Empire State (1931)
buildings were completed. Those structures still have two of the most famous silhouettes
on earth. After World War II, a “crystal corridor” of buildings was constructed along Park
Avenue that has been called the architectural heart of the 20th century. In 1961 the zoning
code was altered to encourage developers to add public amenities to their building plans
in return for variances. The revision proved less than successful, and in 1990 the City
Planning Commission established new building districts in an attempt to decrease the
ood of new building in Manhattan.
In 1921 the Port of New York Authority (PA) was

The Empire State Building in the 1930s,
New York City. formed to deal with regional transportation issues,
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC- and it quickly initiated a series of massive
USZ62-100411)
construction projects that still serve the city. Widely
accused of favouring the automobile over mass
The George Washington Bridge, seen transit, the PA added the George Washington Bridge
from New Jersey, looking toward
(1931), Lincoln Tunnel (1937), bus and Port Authority
Manhattan, New York City.
© Jeffrey Sylvester/FPG
Trans-Hudson terminals, satellite communication
centres, and the World Trade Center (1970–72;
destroyed 2001) to the urban mix. Of cials from the
PA deferred to the judgments of Robert Moses, the dominant city planner from 1934 until
the 1960s, who provided the city with 13 major bridges, more than 400 miles (650 km) of
high-speed highways, and hundreds of parks and playgrounds. He also led New York’s
efforts at slum clearance, urban renewal, and public housing. More than any other single
individual, Moses shaped the contemporary city.
But not even Moses could totally control the chaos of development characteristic of New
York. His career perfectly illustrates the adage, “New York will be a great town if they ever
nish it.” In truth, aside from a few farmhouses, little remains from the colonial era, and
the construction boom after 1945 consumed 19th-century structures at a rapid pace. As
Walt Whitman described it, the city had the “pull down and build over again spirit,” which
became a New York tradition. However, in 1963, when Pennsylvania Station went under
the wrecking ball, outrage led to the creation of the Landmarks Preservation Commission
(1965), whose purview was soon extended to interiors and to scenic landmarks. The
commission has established historic districts, designated more than 1,000 individual
landmarks, and preserved a past that has become increasingly important to New Yorkers.
Restoration, preservation, and walking tours have become growth industries within the
metropolis.
In 1969 city planners offered a massive regional plan for development, but it failed to win
approval. Instead, successive amendments of the city charter in 1975 and 1989 have been
used to broaden popular input into city projects. Borough presidents (whose planning
responsibilities formerly were largely ignored) and local community boards have now
become involved in the preparation of new initiatives. In a city as complex as New York,
architectural change is constant, and the total transformation of the Times Square district
illuminates the power of design to alter the city. In the 1990s it went from being the
national symbol of urban decadence and seediness to a centre of corporate consumerism
that now draws families of tourists to its attractions. Elsewhere in the city, such prominent
real estate developers as Donald Trump have often won approval for vast projects, but
planning of cials and local communities have often blocked what they saw as unsuitable
land use.
The people
Ethnic and religious diversity
In a city that embraces change as its primary tradition, the shifting population base of
New York remains its most dramatic story. At the end of the 20th century, representatives
of some 200 national groups were counted among its people. While people of European
ancestry still make up one-third of the population, Hispanics account for nearly one-third,
and African Americans about one-fourth. The fastest-growing component of the
population is Asian, soaring from a tiny proportion in 1970 to more than one-tenth in the
late 1990s. Dominicans were the most numerous immigrants during the last decade of
the 20th century, but they were closely followed by Russians and Chinese, people
yearning to “make it.” The Statue of Liberty, more than a century after its dedication in the
harbour (1886), continues to be the most powerful symbol of New York, as it welcomes
newcomers into the city’s “golden door.”
People from each ethnic group have climbed the

Statue of Liberty
ladder of acculturation, achieved their goals to a
Statue of Liberty, Upper New York Bay,
U.S. greater or lesser extent, and then, in turn, found fault
© GCShutter/iStock.com with the masses that followed them to the promised
city. As early as 1643, Father (later Saint) Isaac Jogues
catalogued 18 languages that were being used on the streets of New Amsterdam, and
that cosmopolitan atmosphere was retained when Dutch control ended and Britain
assumed power. Jews, Roman Catholics, and numerous ethnic groups lived in Manhattan
before the end of the 17th century, but political control remained in the hands of the
established merchant elite. When the American Revolution began, more prominent
Dutch families—the Van Cortlandts, De Peysters, and Schuylers—supported the cause
than did their English counterparts. One unanticipated result of the ghting was that
many slaves, perhaps one- fth of the city population in 1776, won freedom. One of the
rst “history” books of New York was a satiric look at the merchant elite and the city’s
Dutch past written in 1809 by Diedrich Knickerbocker (Washington Irving). Spoken Dutch
was heard on city streets until the late 19th century, when such families as the Roosevelts
and the Vanderbilts were important members of Manhattan’s elite.
The dedication of the rst St. Patrick’s Cathedral between Mott and Mulberry streets in
1815 signaled the rising prominence of the Irish. By 1844, 15 parishes served more than
80,000 Irish Roman Catholics, and it was clear even before the Great Famine immigration
of 1845–49 that New York was becoming predominantly Irish. More than 24,000 Germans
also lived in Manhattan, a number that vastly increased following the failed revolutions of
the 1840s. Irish workers had to contend with signs warning “No Irish need apply,” and their
poor circumstances soon created one of New York’s most notorious slums, the Five Points
District. Germans, who were largely Protestant or Jewish, were more middle-class and
perhaps had a slightly easier acclimation; they created the Kleindeutschland (“Little
Germany”) neighbourhood east of the Bowery. So great was the pressure of immigration
that Castle Garden, near the Battery, was converted into a reception centre, a role it
ful lled from 1855 to 1890. By the time of the American Civil War, Irish, Germans, and
several other ethnic groups made the city’s population more than half foreign-born.
The arrival of “new” immigrants from eastern and

Castle Garden
southern Europe after 1880 again changed
Castle Garden, oil on canvas by an
unknown artist, c. 1850; in the New-York Manhattan. The Irish and Germans, who by then held
Historical Society. a vast proportion of political and economic power,
Photograph by _cck_. New-York Historical deeply resented the Italians, Greeks, Russians,
Society, gift of Lucius Wilmerding, 1936.464
Hungarians, and Poles crowding into their city. Ellis
Island, a new immigrant reception station, was built
in 1892 to deal with the unprecedented numbers of newcomers, and by 1900 the Lower
East Side recorded one of the greatest population densities in world history. Ellis Island
processed about 12,000 people per day, and in 1907 some 1.2 million entered the United
States through the port. The austere New York Times wrote that “cleanliness is an
unknown quality to these people. They cannot be lifted to a higher plane because they do
not want to be.” Tuberculosis became the “Jewish” disease, and New York’s police
commissioner played the demagogue in 1909 when he asserted that half of all city crime
was committed by Russian Jews. Nevertheless, Jews were to transform labour and
education in the city, while Italians would become the largest ethnic group. Yet so varied
was the city that every large group remained only a minority, and toleration of “the other”
became a New York virtue.
Ellis Island: Registry Room

Internal migration
Immigrants in the Registry Room at Ellis An often ignored force of change in New York is the
Island, Upper New York Bay, c. 1902–13.
constant internal migration it attracts. Over the years
Photographs of Ellis Island, 1902-1913, The
New York Public Library a large proportion of America’s brightest and most
ambitious and driven individuals have been drawn to
Manhattan. New York displaced Boston as the national cultural centre as early as the mid-
19th century, as its newspapers, magazines, and artistic freedom lured the different-
minded. By 1900 both Mark Twain and William Dean Howells had found it necessary to
live in New York, and Greenwich Village emerged as a haven for nonconformity before
World War I. Modern sculpture, Beat poetry, and Abstract Expressionism are only three of
the 20th-century artistic movements that trace their origins to the Village scene.
After 1900 the largest group of internal refugees were African Americans eeing the
restrictions of life in the rural South. New York was one of their preferred destinations, and
the growth of Harlem as the “black metropolis” was the unintended result. In the rst
decade of the 20th century, the Afro-American Realty Company began to rent homes to
African Americans in what was then a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood, and the
churches they attended downtown soon relocated to the north. Growing ethnic and
economic hostility led to a white exodus, although East Harlem did remain largely Italian,
and by 1930 more than 200,000 African Americans lived in Harlem. Their artistic talents
led to the Harlem Renaissance, and their musicians were leaders of the Jazz Age, but the
reality remained that the Harlem they dominated was becoming the largest slum in the
city. The Great Depression destroyed economic opportunity; high rents forced the
subdivision of apartments; and the well-known pathologies of tenement life devastated a
poor community. Harlem endured a long decline from which it did not emerge until the
1990s.
White ethnics found no dif culty in deciding that African Americans were ignorant, lazy,
and prone to engage in criminal activities. As the rst large group entitled to the social
reforms of the New Deal era, African Americans were accused of being parasitic users of
the welfare system. Similar accusations were later directed at Puerto Ricans, long a
presence in the city but whose numbers soared after World War II. However, within a
generation, the in ux of Dominicans, Cubans, Colombians, and most recently Mexicans
altered the fabric of New York in an unexpected manner. In the 1990s the Hispanic
population of the city grew by about 400,000, and bilingualism became a reality. Some 2.2
million New Yorkers of Hispanic origin now constitute the largest single group in the city,
and it is estimated that one- fth of the city speaks only Spanish at home. Relations
between African Americans and Hispanics have deteriorated, as one wave of early
immigrants tends to disdain those who come later.
The economy
Early industries
The seal of the city of New York, adopted in 1686, includes the beaver and the our barrel,
images that document the rst major phase of Manhattan’s economic history. New
Amsterdam was important to the Dutch because it offered access to the immensely
valuable fur trade of a continent. One of the richest men in 19th-century New York was
John Jacob Astor, whose fortune was based on fur before he became a real estate
speculator. After the British conquest in 1664, the city won a monopoly to grind and pack
grain and sent its our to all world markets. Merchant incomes soared as commerce, both
legitimate and via smuggling, became the lifeblood of New York. Any threat to city
prosperity was harshly dealt with, and William Kidd’s turn from privateering to piracy led
him to the gallows (in London) in 1701.
Shipping and transportation
The shipping enterprise has always characterized New York. Its Dutch-English merchant
class dominated the colonial assembly and after 1756 controlled the annual salary grant
awarded to the royal governor. A group of 20 merchants organized the country’s rst
chamber of commerce (1768) at a time when small manufacturing establishments—cloth,
timber processing, ropes, and sails—were becoming more common. Rapidly overcoming
years of British occupation during the American Revolution, the city lled Caribbean,
European, and coastal ports with its vessels within a decade of independence. New
Yorkers were the ones who sent the Empress of China on its historic rst voyage to East
Asia in 1784, and Manhattan was the national leader in both exports and imports by the
late 1790s. When inventor Robert Fulton’s steamboat, the Clermont, made its rst trip to
Albany in 32 hours in 1807, it revolutionized transportation. New York launched the rst
scheduled shipping to Europe, and its thriving boatyards constructed every type of vessel
from harbour lighters to inland steamers to transatlantic passenger ships. Walt Whitman
was enthralled by the “tall masts” that turned South Street into a forest. The yacht
America (1851), rst winner of the race henceforth called America’s Cup, was built there as
were many of the fabled clipper ships, the fastest sailing vessels in history. From 1830 until
the 1950s New York ranked as the busiest port in the world.
Banking and nance
Commercial banking began in Manhattan in 1784 when the Bank of New York opened for
business. It was soon joined by a branch of the First Bank of the United States (1792) and
the Manhattan Company (1799), ancestor of what is now The Chase Manhattan
Corporation. The origins of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) can be traced to the
Buttonwood Agreement of 1792, although the Exchange Board itself was not organized
until 1817. After the Erie Canal opened in 1825, banking services became even more
centred in the city, and when its merchants entered the cotton trade the commerce of
the entire nation owed into the port. Several nancial panics in the 19th century could
not prevent the city from dominating the national money markets. Investors and banks
from the metropolis provided much of the capital that nanced the industrialization of
the United States. So great was the in uence of New York that the country’s largest rms
found it expedient to locate their headquarters there even though—as with Carnegie
Steel, American Tobacco, and Standard Oil—the focus of their manufacturing was
elsewhere.
The development of industry and trade
Shipping and nance secured New York’s international standing, but manufacturing
provided jobs for its teeming population. A multitude of small businesses were centred in
Manhattan by the 1850s, and the clothing, furniture, pianos, cigars, and dozens of other
products they created boosted city exports. By mid-century New York was the printing
centre of the United States with more than 1,000 establishments; in the period 1865–85
the number of magazines published in the city quintupled to 3,300. The in ux of skilled
Jewish immigrants transformed an already dominant clothing industry into a gargantuan
one, employing nearly half of all city workers by 1910. Thus, the interaction of capital, cheap
labour, access to raw materials, entrepreneurial initiative, and transportation facilities
made New York the ideal place of business. It quickly developed advertising, insurance,
and legal services to deal with the needs of its burgeoning manufacturing sector.
The centre of business

By the beginning of the 20th century, New York was the headquarters for more than two-
thirds of the top 100 American corporations, and its 25,000 factories manufactured several
hundred different industrial products. It led the nation in total factory workers, number of
factories, capital valuation, and product value. New York held its leadership position for
another three generations and provided nearly one million industrial jobs into the 1950s.
In 1960–75 the city lost more than 600,000 of these jobs, as its old economy collapsed and
an information age took shape. Banking and nancial services became the new engine of
development—abetted by the traditional print and advertising sectors of the economy—
while white-collar workers with computer skills replaced most of the blue-collar labourers
of the past. Although much has been made of the move of clothing production out of
New York, it remains the city’s leading industry, and sweatshop conditions reminiscent of
the early 1900s still exist in small factories in the Bronx and Queens. Despite all of these
changes, the metropolitan area is home to more than one- fth of the Fortune 500
companies.
The 1970s represented a low point for New York; its national reputation collapsed as the
government experienced virtual bankruptcy. High rents, congestion, arson, and crime led
to an exodus by businesses and the middle class even after the city began the rebuilding
process. Industrial parks, where businesses were given cheaper rents, better utilities, and
safety, were authorized in response to the crisis, and major tax incentives were granted to
those corporations that remained in the city. The NYSE even threatened to leave, but in
the late 1990s it agreed to remain in Manhattan and to construct a new facility. The port,
where facilities were outmoded and corruption endemic, began to convert its docks for
containerized shipping, to dredge deeper channels, and to plan a direct rail connection
between Manhattan and Brooklyn. Old piers were dismantled or converted to other uses,
such as amusement centres.
By constantly enhancing its key economic advantages, New York has remained
prosperous even as it underwent change, its strength lying in its diversity. The port, which
lost some percentage of its shipping to other cities (notably New Orleans, Louisiana;
Baltimore, Maryland; and Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada), is still the busiest port on the East
Coast and generates billions of dollars of revenue, creates thousands of jobs, and is the
focus of major plans for renewal and renovation. Manufacturing positions have declined,
but smaller specialty producers of neckties, purses, and leather goods have joined the
ready-made-clothing industry to maintain New York’s dominance. A major portion of the
country’s software and computer-related industry has located itself in New York and built
an urban “Silicon Alley” to mirror California’s Silicon Valley. The city’s continuing nancial
supremacy was apparent in the 1990s, a decade in which the Dow Jones average
quadrupled, and pro ts for the members of the NYSE soared. New York marketed its
monetary expertise to the globe; its banks dealt with the Latin American debt crisis of the
1980s as well as the Asian nancial meltdown of the late 1990s, and in the process the city
became the “economic capital of the world.” The vast numbers of bars, restaurants, hotels,
health clubs, and theatres across New York are necessary to care for and feed the millions
of visitors who come to the city annually.
Administration and social conditions

Government
New York City is administered by a mayor who chooses department heads and criminal-
court justices and prepares the annual budget. Mayors hold considerable power but are
constantly involved in legislative battles with the 51 members of the City Council. Both
mayor and council members serve a maximum of three four-year terms. In general,
beginning with Fiorello La Guardia in the 1930s, the mayors usually have led their own
parties and have been stronger than other party leaders.
Two themes are constant in the administrative history of New York: tension between the
city leadership and the superior authority of the state in the struggle for home rule, and
the municipality’s desire to contain the decentralizing tendencies caused by its
component elements. In the Dutch colonial period, the director general of New
Netherland was a city resident who ruled both province and burgh, but after 1664
England’s provincial governor named a mayor. In the 1680s Governor Thomas Dongan
granted New York its rst municipal charter and permitted the election of aldermen, but
he retained the right to appoint the mayor, recorder, clerk, and sheriff. Effective control
remained in the hands of the governors until it was wrested away by the city aristocracy
after 1740. Despite divided authority the city grew rapidly, and by the 1730s it possessed
two newspapers, an almshouse, a night watch, and a network of volunteer remen.
During the time of the American Revolution, New York suffered from a long British
occupation and two res that destroyed one-third of its buildings. Federalist Mayor James
Duane, whose own home had been burned to the ground, supervised rebuilding efforts in
the 1780s, and his successor Richard Varick completed the reconstruction of city and
government. Their efforts, abetted by those of DeWitt Clinton after 1803, established the
foundations for New York’s national dominance. After 1800 New York was the nation’s
largest city, a commercial dynamo that worked ef ciently even as the city became a great
melting pot of different peoples. Yet New Yorkers still lacked the right to elect their own
mayor; only in 1834 did Jacksonian Cornelius Lawrence initiate democratic control, which
subsequently has been characteristic of the metropolis. One area in which voters of all
classes agreed was the need to improve city services, and in April 1835 they approved the
creation of a new water supply. New York’s Croton Aqueduct opened in 1842, inaugurating
a century of city efforts to tap regional water resources and provide citizens with some of
the nation’s best-quality drinking water; this better water was also vital in ending the
epidemics that periodically struck the city. Manhattan’s desire for home rule was often at
odds with the plans of upstate legislators, and in 1857 Albany authorized the Metropolitan
Police District to cover four urban counties. Involvement by the state created two
competing police forces, and their subsequent battles were ended only by the
intervention of the state militia. Not until 1870—after massive bribery by “Boss” William
Magear Tweed—was local police power restored. Tweed’s charter increased the authority
of the of ce of mayor in governance matters and, after the “Tweed ring” was overthrown
in 1871, a reform charter added power to the of ce of comptroller. The Board of Estimate
and City Council also were established to direct city development.
New York in the 19th century, while primarily under the control of the Tammany Hall
political machine, constructed Manhattan’s basic water, sewer, re, police, transportation,
and park facilities. There was, naturally, some corruption and a great deal of what insiders
like George Washington Plunkitt called “honest graft,” but the experience gained in
building Manhattan permitted the greater city to construct an infrastructure capable of
serving a far denser population. In 1899 social reformer Jacob Riis described a metropolis
“barely yet out of its knickerbockers” yet poised for greatness; Riis believed its enduring
challenge would be to care for the poor. Novelist Theodore Dreiser agreed, for in New York
the strong “are so very strong, and the weak so very, very, weak—and so very, very, many.”
The wealth generated by economic success in New York was never totally subservient to
the demands of the af uent.
Compassion is hardly part of the city’s cold image, but caring for its less fortunate citizens
has been a major theme of its modern history. In this most capitalist of all American cities,
a strong element of socialist ideology fostered the creation of the nation’s largest
municipal hospital and university systems, vast areas of public housing, and generous
welfare bene ts for the poor. City programs exist in uneasy proximity to a remarkable
collection of the world’s best private hospitals, some of its most expensive apartments,
and dozens of private universities. Social initiatives rst attempted in New York became
precursors of New Deal programs in the 1930s, while the city’s American Labor and Liberal
parties constantly advanced an agenda of public responsibility. Although the Democratic
Party organization served many constituencies, it held political power because it never
forgot the poorest citizens, who also voted. The enormous wealth of the city funded a
wide range of altruistic programs without major dif culty until the 1960s, when welfare
rolls exceeded one million people and crime rates soared. The vast decline in
manufacturing and the taxes it provided also undermined the city economy, and New
York suddenly became a metropolis out of control. Mayor John Lindsay never mastered
the crisis; he attempted to create “superagencies” to deal with human resources, the
environment, health, housing, and parks even as the borough presidents and community
groups demanded greater local control. Lindsay’s long feud with the state government
eventually led to loss of central control over the school system in 1969. By 1975 the city
nearly fell into bankruptcy, its nances were administered from Albany, and its social
compact appeared on the verge of anarchy.
In the last decades of the 20th century, New York’s rebirth was spectacular. Mayor Edward
I. Koch restored scal security to the city, and his administration began the slow task of
restoring lost con dence. Koch’s trademark question, “How’m I doing?” became
identi ed with city revival; as the national economy rebounded so, too, did New York.
Commercial construction boomed, and multibillion-dollar refurbishing programs of
subsidized housing and transportation systems were instigated. Not even the great stock
disaster of October 19, 1987—when the Dow Jones average dropped by more than one-
fth—halted the turnabout. The 1990s were a decade of unprecedented wealth
accumulation in the country’s richest city, but poverty and homelessness endured as
societal realities.
In 1989 the U.S. Supreme Court declared that New York’s government system, which gave
equal representation to populous Brooklyn and underdeveloped Staten Island, violated
the “one man, one vote” mandate of the Constitution. The Board of Estimate was to be
abolished, and a November referendum decided that the City Council would be expanded
to 51 members in order to enhance the power of minorities. Council authority over the
budget, land use, zoning, and franchises was increased, and a new planning commission
was established. The renovated council remained under Democratic control but now had
the potential to oppose mayoral initiatives; when voters elected Republican Rudolph
Giuliani as mayor in 1993, the urban political scene became confrontational. Battles over
educational leadership, city planning, and spending projections marked Giuliani’s
administration, even as it successfully reduced city crime in all categories and pruned
welfare rolls. By the late 1990s the city’s murder rate had fallen to the lowest level in 35
years. Aggressively preventive tactics pioneered in New York substantially reduced the
national crime rate, while “quality of life” policing made citizens feel safe on the streets.
Acting in concert with national welfare reform, Giuliani’s administration established the
country’s largest workfare program while slashing welfare rolls by more than 400,000. In
2001, near the end of his administration, Giuliani reversed the earlier perception that he
had turned his back on the city’s tradition of compassion by leading the vast rescue and
recovery effort at the site of the World Trade Center disaster.
Education
Primary and secondary systems
Ever since the rst school opened in New Amsterdam in the 1630s, New York has sought
ne schools, but until after the American Revolution education was largely handled by
tutors. Public funds for education became available after 1795, and in Manhattan a Free
School Society was formed to disperse the state money. The growing numbers of New
York Roman Catholics were distressed by what they interpreted to be Protestant
indoctrination within the school system. In the 1840s Archbishop John Hughes was
instrumental in establishing a Catholic parochial school system, which has continued to
offer an alternative to public education. Neither system ever achieved universal
attendance during the 19th century, however, for not until 1874 was a compulsory
attendance law for the primary grades enacted; new immigration subsequently
overloaded all city schools. After consolidation, Greater New York launched a massive
public building program to provide schools where a half-million eligible students could be
educated each year. Secondary education was not even offered to its children until the
late 19th century, but by 1920 massive construction made primary education, along with
both ordinary and specialized high schools, available for everyone. Several New York high
schools—Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech, and Performing Arts—have retained
national reputations for excellence, and the school system has also provided evening
classes in adult education and practical skills for the city’s large immigrant population.
In the late 1990s New York administered the nation’s largest public school system; more
than one million students attend in excess of a thousand public schools. Unionization of
city teachers began in 1916; the American Federation of Teachers is now the bargaining
agent for the present-day staff. In the last decades of the 20th century, education became
a sphere of unending controversy. The postwar white exodus to suburbia drained
students from public schools and transformed them into minority-dominated institutions
most of whose instructors were white and Jewish. During the 1960s a series of strikes and
ugly racial confrontations caused disorder in the city, and in 1969 the state legislature
divided the city into 32 districts. Henceforth primary education was to be controlled by
elected governing boards so that educational goals could be established by local
communities. Each board would select its superintendent, but resources would still be
allocated by a chancellor of the entire school system, who was named by a mayor-
dominated Board of Education.
The unwieldy system worked only sporadically, and by the 1990s its failures were apparent.
In some districts, allies of the teachers’ union dominated elections that were largely
ignored by voters. In others, coalitions of minority residents installed poor administrators
who made the schools vehicles for patronage and corruption. Wage levels declined
relative to those of suburban systems, racial segregation in schools caused by housing
patterns and economic strati cation increased, and many tenured teachers were accused
of ignoring the special needs of minority students. Dropouts increased, performance
levels fell precipitously, and violence in schools appeared endemic. Colleges and
businesses alike complained bitterly that schools turn out “functional illiterates.” In the
last two decades of the 20th century, the system was led by a dozen chancellors, and the
mayor’s role in their selection became as highly politicized as district appointment of
school principals. In 1996 the state legislature once again intervened, ending local
authority to name principals and attempting to remove party and ethnic politics from the
system. In 1999 principals agreed to surrender their tenure rights in return for larger wage
increases. The long decline of a once-praised system has bene ted parochial and private
schools in New York, although the cost of a nonpublic education has escalated
considerably.
Higher education
The metropolitan area has more than 80 colleges, including such nationally famed
institutions as Columbia (1754), New York (1831), Fordham (1841), and Rockefeller (1901)
universities and Cooper Union (1859). Its vast municipal system, the City University of New
York (CUNY), has more than 20 units and traces its origin to City College (1847). However,
the introduction of open admissions in the 1970s brought the ills of the high schools into
the college system. CUNY’s strong academic tradition soon mutated into what became
derisively known as “Remediation U,” and from the late 1990s university trustees were
engaged in an effort to strengthen the baccalaureate. Even the most selective colleges
found it necessary to enhance basic student skills. Despite these dif culties, New York
remains one of the nation’s premier university towns and, from Ivy League to community
college, its streets pulsate with student life.
Cultural life
As real as the bedrock beneath Manhattan is the cultural attraction generated by New
York. For more than a century, talented but unrecognized artists as well as ambitious
wanna-bes from every part of the globe and nation have gravitated to a city they feel is
their spiritual home. A steady stream of the cultural elite ows toward the metropolis and
creates an electric atmosphere. In virtually every artistic eld—theatre, music, dance,
painting, literature, fashion, lm, print, and sports—the city is the “place to go” to see if you
can “make it.” No environment offers a harsher test of one’s abilities. Literary gures as
diverse as Washington Irving, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, O. Henry, the members of
the Algonquin Round Table, Rex Stout, and Ed McBain (Evan Hunter) have all attempted
to explain the allure and the dangers of the city; all succeeded and failed, to some degree.
In the 19th century Manhattan was home to the Hudson River school of artists, and the
Tenth Street Studio in Greenwich Village and its surrounding area shaped the national
imagination. Willa Cather, who grew up in Nebraska, came to write of the West on Bank
Street in the Village, while Jackson Pollock came from the West to create Abstract
Expressionism and help change the direction of modern art. But perhaps the greatest
proof of New York’s dynamic appeal are the millions of annual visitors who come to
experience its vibes, variety, and vitality. Whether artist, visitor, or resident, all seem united
in the belief that New York is, as writer Joan Didion described it, “an in nitely romantic
nation, the mysterious mixture of all love, money and power, the shining and perishable
dream.”
Undoubtedly culture is big business in New York, and no city in the country has more
institutions and people dedicated to serving its demands. The Metropolitan Museum of
Art (1870) is probably the best known and most visited of the city museums, but the
metropolis has scores of concert halls, schools of art, music and acting, restaurants, and
galleries, as well as agents, promoters, and hucksters of every type. It is the city of
promoter P.T. Barnum, philanthropist James (“Diamond Jim”) Brady, and nancier
Malcolm Forbes. It can ful ll every desire, from photography to pornography to publicity.
The Cloisters (1938), part of the Metropolitan Museum, specializes in medieval art, while
the avant-garde sensibility is catered to at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA; 1929) and
at the Whitney (1930) and Guggenheim (1939) museums. Natural sciences and the shape
of the skies can be studied at the American Museum of Natural History (1869), while those
who seek the best pre-Columbian or Egyptian art should journey to the Brooklyn
Museum of Art (1823). Those interested in Native Americans, the tenement house, dolls, or
African art will nd institutions speci c to their needs. Great stone lions, dubbed
“Patience” and “Fortitude” by Mayor La Guardia, guard the New York Public Library (1895),
whose mammoth holdings include the Schomburg Center (African American history) and
are exceeded in the nation only by the Library of Congress. Researchers are also drawn to
the Morgan Library (notably for medieval and Renaissance Europe) and Ellis Island
(immigration). Whether the crowds who come to New York expect Fun City, the Big
Apple, or Gotham, the city can ful ll every expectation of an admiring public.
Fuentiduena Chapel at The Cloisters, a The arts

branch of the Metropolitan Museum of
Art in northern Manhattan, New York Ever since the 1890s Broadway has reigned as the
City.
“Great White Way,” the major theatrical centre of the
© Sean Pavone—Moment/Getty Images
country. New York produces, casts, and consumes the
legitimate plays and musical extravaganzas that Americans desire as well as thousands of
other shows that only true supporters come to see. Theatre is New York’s “fabulous
invalid,” periodically near death and at other times revived, and Variety (1905) is the news
magazine that informs the world of its health. The city’s Off Broadway and Off-Off
Broadway venues are where experimental theatre apprentices playwrights, actors,
dancers, and directors. In the last decades of the 20th century, major new stages in Times
Square, skyscrapers, and a suddenly chic 42nd Street drew new audiences, and the
increased price of tickets showed wider interest. For bargain seekers, Manhattan also
offers free Shakespeare in Central Park, while cut-rate tickets to current productions are
always available. In every borough local groups offer more performances than anyone can
attend.
Completed in the 1960s, the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is a mecca for the arts
patron. It is home to the Metropolitan Opera Association; the New York Philharmonic
performs in Avery Fisher Hall; and the New York State Theater offers a variety of
attractions, including the New York City Ballet, which has the highest reputation of any
troupe in the country. The nest concerts in a very musical city are heard in Carnegie Hall
(1891); the two million dollars donated by Andrew Carnegie for its construction have
perhaps given more pleasure per dollar than any other philanthropic endowment. Town
Hall in Manhattan and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the latter the oldest performing
arts centre in the nation, offer viable alternatives. Performance art is always available,
varies from extortionately expensive to amateur free events, and is enjoyed by the
complete range of audiences.
No city is as recognizable to other Americans as is New York; its glittering nightlife and its
gritty neighbourhoods are equally part of the national consciousness. Film directors love
to use the city as their set, and city administrations have increasingly encouraged the
practice. Until World War I, Queens was the centre of the early lm industry, and
afterward New York remained vital to documentary and independent lm production.
Astoria regained its position as a studio centre in the 1980s. It is also tting that the city
that transmitted the rst television signals became the setting for many of the most
successful shows. From The Goldbergs to I Love Lucy to All in the Family to Seinfeld, New
York City became part of the American cultural experience. The Museum of Television and
Radio (1975) allows anyone to recapture famous episodes from this somewhat
ctionalized yet also very real New York.
Recreation
New York never ignores the needs of its ordinary people. Since the colonial period,
parades and festivals have been part of city life and the Halloween and Thanksgiving Day
parades of modern times illustrate the strength of the tradition; in the 19th century
parades also provided occasions for Roman Catholic and Protestant Irish to battle in the
streets. Yiddish theatre was born on the Lower East Side, while vaudeville and burlesque
were invented to draw audiences to more earthy delights. After 1898 the greater city
understood that it had obligations to create green space beyond the expanses of Central
and Prospect parks, so gardens, along with zoos in every borough, were provided for
residents. New York has hundreds of parks, but its myriad of other entertainment
possibilities include a miniature reproduction of the metropolis constructed in the
Queens Museum, a restored Staten Island village at Richmondtown, or the jewel-like
Orchard Beach in the Bronx; the New York Botanical Garden in Bronx Park is one of the
country’s leading centres of botanical research. No other public beach is as famous as
Coney Island, and thousands of bathers often crowd there close to the sea; its Cyclone
Roller Coaster became a national landmark in 1988. Almost as many nd the same
experience available at Rockaway Beach in Queens. Amusement parks at both sites
provide thrills for generations of New Yorkers.
Many professional as well as recreational sports are

Horse-drawn carriage in Central Park,
New York City. popular in the metropolis, but probably no sport is as
K. Gunnar/Bruce Coleman Inc. closely identi ed with New York as baseball. In 1903 a
professional baseball club, the Highlanders, moved
from Baltimore to New York and was renamed the Yankees in 1913. The team has since
played in every borough except Staten Island, won more than two dozen world
championships, and become history’s most dominant sports franchise. Manhattan also
loved its Giants baseball team, before the club’s departure for San Francisco in 1957;
Brooklyn lived for “next year” with the Dodgers; and Queens (since 1962) has been home
to the New York Mets. New York teams have won professional championships in football,
basketball, hockey, and association football (soccer) as well. Madison Square Garden, now
in its fourth incarnation, has been the site of many championship boxing matches,
innumerable other sporting matches, musical events, and political conventions and may
well be the most storied indoor arena in American history. Whether in watching sports,
picnicking in the parks, visiting museums, attending the theatre, capitalizing on the city’s
rich array of eateries (from ethnic delis and sidewalk carts to ve-star restaurants), or
simply watching its street life, the quality of cultural activities available in New York is
unsurpassed.
Madison Square Garden, New York City. History

© Peter Aaron/Esto
The colonial city
As every schoolchild knows, Europe’s desire to open trade with the East inspired the
explorations that discovered the New World. Giovanni da Verrazzano (1524) and Henry
Hudson (1609) were part of that long effort, and they were among the rst Europeans to
visit and gaze at the vast expanse of New York harbour. The primary result of Hudson’s
voyage, and his report of a protected anchorage near good farmland, was the Dutch West
India Company’s decision to place a trading post on the southern shore of Manna-hata
Island; by 1626 a settlement called New Amsterdam was established. It was not the rst
Dutch settlement in North America, but the advantages of its location made it immensely
valuable. In May 1626 Peter Minuit arrived with orders to secure title to the land. He quickly
negotiated the real estate deal of the millennium, purchasing the area from a band of
Native Americans who probably did not own it for trade goods worth the equivalent of 60
guilders (converted to the legendary $24). Minuit and his successor governors knew that
expanding Dutch access to furs and trade were their primary tasks, and commerce fueled
city development. In 1638 a new governor reported that one-fourth of all buildings were
“grog shops” devoted to sailor demands. Despite revelries and intermittent clashes with
local Native American tribes, the settlement gradually moved northward, laid out farms,
and expanded trade with New England and the world.
The most famous governor of the Dutch period was Peter Stuyvesant, director general of
New Netherland in 1647–64. Stuyvesant’s military background enabled him to spruce up
the disorderly town, and he soon granted it recognition as an independent city (1653). The
religious orthodoxy he attempted to impose on his already multicultural domain,
however, soon led him to clash with the Quaker population of Flushing (1657). Ultimately,
Stuyvesant was ordered by his superiors to “shut his eyes” to dissenters so long as they did
not disrupt society or trade. The governor found such of cial blindness dif cult, and his
imperious nature continued to alienate town burghers. When a British eet sent by
James, duke of York (the future James II), appeared off Gravesend in August 1664,
Stuyvesant discovered that no one would ght for his colony. “Old Peg Leg” was forced to
surrender on September 8 without even ring a shot. Interestingly, he chose to take an
oath of allegiance to the English crown and lived out his life in the city. Despite a brief
Dutch reoccupation in 1673–74, the destiny of the colony (which had been renamed in
honour of James) had shifted to London. Within the conquered city, resident Dutch and
incoming English merchants got along quite well, and representatives of both groups
constituted a city elite into the 19th century.
A series of English governors ruled New York and

Engraved map of New Netherland that
appeared in the second edition of hoped that its commerce would make them rich.
Adriaen van der Donck's Beschryvinge New York held the our-bolting monopoly for the area
van Nieuw-Nederlant (“Description of
New Netherland”); it was intended to
(1680), it was declared the sole port of entry for the
promote immigration to the colonies. colony, and its active community of merchants
The Newberry Library, Gift of Rudy L. Ruggles, carried on a world trade. Thomas Dongan, a Roman
1985 (A Britannica Publishing Partner )
Catholic governor, granted a royal charter of
incorporation to the city in 1686 and furthered
religious toleration and representative government within the colony. Following the
Glorious Revolution in England (1688–89), the brief tenure of Jacob Leisler marked a
period of intolerance new to the city and left a heritage of class factionalism that endured
for several decades after his execution for treason in 1691. By 1700 the city had nearly 5,000
residents and was connected to the mainland for the rst time by the construction of the
Kings Bridge to the Bronx.
Tensions between merchant aristocrats, who sought to avoid imperial trade regulations,
and venal governors, who were willing to turn a blind eye if they were suitably rewarded,
were abundant. Class and ethnic con ict was present, and in 1712 and 1741 public fear of
African Americans led to repression and numerous executions. Indicative of a growing
spirit of independence was the libel case of John Peter Zenger, a journalist whose weekly
journal criticized the political machinations and cupidity of Governor William Cosby. In
1735 a jury of his peers found Zenger not guilty, determining that he had published the
truth. The decision was a signal victory for freedom of the press and demonstrated
growing civic disobedience within New York during pre-Revolutionary decades. By 1756
assembly leaders humbled royal governors by forcing them to accept annual salary
appropriations. The city hosted the Stamp Act Congress (1765), and the Sons of Liberty
used violence to prevent the use of excise-tax stamps. New York’s merchant community
led the nonimportation program that forced repeal of the measure in 1766, even as the
assembly refused to deliver food and cider to British soldiers quartered in the city. Clashes
between the Sons of Liberty and soldiers were unending, and the rst “battle” of the
American Revolution was fought on Golden Hill (south of present City Hall) in January
1770. New York’s “tea party” took place in April 1774, months after Boston’s famous
depredations, but it was held in daylight and without any disguises. New York issued the
proclamation calling for a Continental Congress, and its citizens forced the resident royal
governor to take refuge on a ship in the harbour long before independence was declared.
Almost one-third of all the battles in the Revolution occurred in New York state, but the
city’s role was less than heroic. George Washington recognized the “in nite importance”
of strategic New York, but in battles between August and October 1776 he was unable to
defend the city. For seven years the city was occupied, during which its population
declined and two res destroyed many of its structures. Washington eventually returned
to New York after the British evacuation in 1783. Quickly rebuilt, the city served both as
state capital (until 1797) and as capital of the Confederation (1785–90); it hosted the
inauguration of Washington as president, in April 1789. As the rst capital of the United
States, New York entertained the rst meeting of Congress and the rst sessions of the
Supreme Court. When the capital was moved to Philadelphia for political reasons, Abigail
Adams left the city in despair, for her new home would “not be Broadway.”
Growth of the metropolis
Despite the loss of the national government, New York’s population skyrocketed in 1781–
1800, and it became America’s largest city. Once again trade grew rapidly, and not even
the War of 1812 hindered development; an auction system for surplus British merchandise
dumped in New York solidi ed the city’s economic position after 1816. Even before the
opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, New York enjoyed commercial primacy, but, as trade
from the interior of the continent owed onto its piers, the city also attained legal,
insurance, and manufacturing primacy. Steamships, cheap transportation by rail and
canal, abundant labour, and professional expertise made New York increasingly
dominant. By the mid-1800s it handled more goods and people than all the other
American ports combined. So secure was its position that in 1861 Mayor Fernando Wood
suggested it become a “free city” rather than ght against the South. New York instead
provided more soldiers to the Union than any other city and survived the turbulent,
violent Draft Riot of 1863. Despite the nancial panics between 1837 and 1893, the city
remained an economic juggernaut, and by 1900 it was the busiest port and one of the
wealthiest cities in the world.
Prosperity in Manhattan was not shared by everyone. Two centuries of domination by the
merchant elite ended in the city as the Democratic Party gradually assumed control of
political power. Tammany Hall, a fraternal organization that formed in 1789, had been
transformed into a party vehicle by Aaron Burr before the early 19th century; the group
supported such popular reforms as universal male suffrage, the end of imprisonment for
indebtedness, and lien laws. Most important, Tammany opposed the anti-Catholic
attitudes of the elite and ministered to the needs of impoverished immigrants entering
the city. By the 1850s it was able to count on their votes, and the resulting power base
lasted for more than a century.
During the American Civil War, the city was shaken by its worst riots. For four days in July
1863 many thousands of rioters, mostly impoverished Irish immigrants who were
infuriated by the new draft law that permitted a draftee to buy his way out of service,
swept the city, looting, burning, and killing. African Americans were hanged from the
streetlights and trees. Warships trained guns on the city, as rioters clashed repeatedly
with the police, national guardsmen, and the army. At least 2,000 people were killed and
thousands more wounded, and all business halted in the face of the armed con ict.
After the war there was a steady clamour in the city for a merger with Brooklyn, Queens,
the Bronx, and Staten Island. The strongest resistance came from Brooklyn, a city in its
own right; with good reason it feared that the enormous corruption so evident in
Tammany Hall under the rst recognized political “boss,” William Magear Tweed—who
never rose higher in the city hierarchy than supervisor but who controlled mayors,
governors, and legislatures—and later Richard Croker, would be extended to Brooklyn
through any consolidation. “Tweed ring” corruption siphoned tens, perhaps hundreds, of
millions of dollars into private hands until, in 1871, a coalition of reformers overthrew the
boss. Tweed’s successor as county leader, John Kelly, was a more astute politician, who
transformed the undisciplined hordes of Tammany into an army. Regimentation down to
the block level replaced greed as a ruling party principle, although the organization
always remained a source of food, legal help, and jobs for its faithful supporters. So long as
corruption was held in check, the Tammany Tiger could happily chant, “To hell with
reform.”
Greater New York
The Democratic machine reigned, its excesses became apparent, reformers arose and
were temporarily triumphant, and then voters restored a chastened Tammany to power. A
generation after Tweed fell, the Croker regime was successfully challenged by reformers
who elected Mayor William Strong. Once consolidation won voter support, the addition of
nearly 1.5 million people to the city and the opportunity to expand Tammany’s patronage
base lured Croker back to Manhattan. After January 1, 1898, the machine ruled Greater
New York, its power constantly enhanced by new waves of arriving immigrants. As always,
the machine added to urban infrastructure: the subways with their xed ve-cent fare,
new bridges, and an expanded park system brought the boroughs together and added to
its authority. The booming garment industry, ceaseless construction, and extensive
manufacturing provided jobs for the strong, while an excellent educational system trained
millions for the white-collar and civil-service jobs that would become increasingly
preponderant after the mid-20th century. In the “good years” before World War I and in
the “Roaring Twenties” that followed the war, Tammany, under the leadership of Charles
Murphy, generally held sway.
In the mid-1920s and early 1930s a series of municipal

New York City, c. 1900
scandals, which led to another wave of reform, were
Map of New York City (c. 1900), from the
10th edition of Encyclopædia Britannica. perhaps the result of Mayor James Walker. A playboy
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. addicted to the wonders of city nightlife, Walker left
the mechanics of governing to Tammany. Despite the
ravages of the Great Depression and the hardships of World War II, Fiorello La Guardia’s
administration represented a high point in the city’s history. Enormous amounts of New
Deal funding enabled the city to complete vast construction and other projects; the
Tammany Tiger was caged, the government was centralized and modernized, and the
subway system was completed and uni ed. La Guardia dominated the news, cracked
down on crime, and even read comic strips to children during a newspaper strike. Only
when he chose to retire did Tammany regain control.
Postwar New York experienced an era in which alarming structural problems in urban
society became ever more apparent. New York port lost its dominance, manufacturing
began its long decline, massive city debt made it increasingly dif cult to fund expensive
services, and levels of municipal bureaucracy proliferated. In the 1950s Robert Wagner
initiated major housing programs and granted collective bargaining rights to city unions
but was often accused of ignoring long-term problems. Ultimately, he found it expedient
to publicly break with a Tammany Hall that had twice gotten him elected. Wagner
destroyed the power of the machine and its last boss, Carmine De Sapio. He was able to
install his own Manhattan county leader and undermine Tammany’s in uence in the
outer boroughs, but he did little to deal with the looming problems. Wagner prepared the
electorate for another reform administration, as Republican-Liberal candidate John
Lindsay unexpectedly won election in 1965.
During Lindsay’s two terms, New York’s downward spiral accelerated as he attempted to
impose administrative order. A massive transit strike coincided with his inauguration and
was settled only with the rst of several very generous union contracts. Lindsay’s attempt
to further undermine the power of the machine by merging departments and creating
“superagencies” only added new levels of bureaucratic structure. His efforts to
decentralize the school system and broaden minority participation in government led to
greater ethnic animosity. Above all, he failed to gain control of a soaring municipal
budget, even though he increased taxes. Denied renomination in 1969 by outraged
Republicans, Lindsay won reelection as a Liberal-Independent candidate, because the old
Democratic machine had been gutted. His subsequent feud with a Republican governor
led him to become a Democrat, but he had become a leader without followers. During his
last years in of ce, the metropolis continued to deteriorate nancially.
The election of Abraham Beame in 1973 was the last gasp of old-style politics in New York.
Beame was a product of the organization, and as the rst Jewish mayor he represented
the ethnic succession to power that Irish and Italians had previously achieved. Conditions
had changed, and Beame’s term was dominated by scal disaster. In every way but
formally the city went bankrupt, and in 1975 budgetary control was assumed by state
agencies. The federal Securities and Exchange Commission later condemned Beame’s
scal policies. Much of the country, always suspicious of New York’s foreignness and
arrogance, cheered as the Big Apple was shown to be full of worms. Many believed it
would be years before it could recover from the debacle.
In the late 1970s Edward Koch restored scal health to the city in a single term. By working
closely with state of cials, rigorously controlling expenditures, and instituting a modern
accounting system, Koch once again marketed city notes. His extraordinary feat won him
nomination by both major parties in 1981, a unique accomplishment but also clear proof
that politics in the metropolis had changed. Democratic nominations were soon
negotiated by ve relatively equal borough organizations that had to be media-friendly.
The Republicans were so powerless that they amassed fewer votes than the Liberal Party
in the election of 1985. Koch was outspoken, intolerant of opposition, frequently
capricious, and prone to see himself as above politics. Fittingly, his third term became a
public relations nightmare when some of his important appointees and elected
Democrats were involved in municipal scandals. His attempt to become the rst four-
term mayor ended when he lost the Democratic primary to David Dinkins, the borough
president of Manhattan. Some saw Dinkins, an African American, as ful lling the theme of
ethnic succession, but he proved to be a poor administrator and was so dependent on
African American votes that he alienated other parts of the coalition that elected him.
Both ethnic tensions and crime statistics increased during his term, and he became the
rst black mayor of a major U.S. city to be denied reelection.
Race and competence, not party af liation, were the major factors that led to the election
of Republican Rudolph Giuliani in 1993. A successful career prosecutor, he pledged to
reduce taxes, improve or privatize city services, and regain control of the streets from
criminals. His great successes in reducing crime won him national fame. Giuliani nurtured
his reputation as an angry man indifferent to criticism. Although New York reduced its
welfare caseload and instituted a vast workfare alternative, the mayor was unable to
eliminate other parts of the social “safety net.” Courts consistently limited his initiatives in
cases involving free speech, land use, and the rights of the homeless, and many observers
held him responsible for instances in which the city’s police department reportedly used
excessive force in its war on crime. His elections could perhaps best be interpreted not as
Republican triumphs but as mandates for a stern teacher empowered to deal with a
disorderly classroom.
In the 1990s New York experienced sustained growth in both population and nancial
stability. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants were added to its population, while a
sustained boom on Wall Street invigorated the economy of every borough. In addition,
major renovations of its infrastructure were completed, such as the restoration of Grand
Central Station.
George Lankevich
Because of its prominence and its central role in world commerce, however, the city also
remained vulnerable to acts of terrorism, most notably two attacks on the World Trade
Center complex. In 1993 a bomb planted in one of the complex’s twin towers killed several
people and injured some 1,000. A far more devastating attack—the deadliest terrorist act
in American history—occurred on September 11, 2001, when hijackers intentionally ew
two airliners into the towers, destroying them and adjacent buildings and killing some
3,000 people.
Once the immediate shock of the disaster had worn

Smoke and flames erupting from the twin
towers of New York City's World Trade off, New Yorkers did what they always do: picked
Center after the terrorist attacks on themselves up and got back to work. The massive pile
September 11, 2001; both towers
subsequently collapsed.
of debris from the towers was painstakingly cleared,
Chao Soi Cheong/AP and visiting the site (which came to be known as
“Ground Zero”) to observe the work there became a
pilgrimage destination for countless out-of-towners and New Yorkers alike. After a lengthy
process, plans were announced for a new World Trade Center complex at the location that
was to include several new skyscrapers centred on a 104-story tower called One World
Trade Center. Construction on the building began in 2006. The gaping crater left by the
destroyed twin towers was developed into a memorial to the disaster and was opened to
the public on September 12, 2011.
Thus, New York’s importance did not wane and, if anything, increased in the early 21st
century. The host city of the United Nations, it continued to be the country’s most
international metropolis and one of the world’s foremost tourist destinations. Building
construction continued into the new century. In addition to the work in the World Trade
Center area, several new large skyscrapers were erected in midtown Manhattan, notably
the 55-story Bank of America Tower (completed 2009) and the New York Times Building
(2007). New York’s nancial sector boomed at the outset of the 21st century, until the
recession in the last years of the decade brought down several prominent banks and
trading institutions and shook the foundations of Wall Street.
In September 2011, inspired by the mass demonstrations of the Arab Spring earlier that
year, a disparate group of protesters calling themselves Occupy Wall Street took up
residence in Zuccotti Park (which they renamed “Liberty Square”) in the nancial district.
They sought to call attention to what they saw as a variety of injustices, including their
belief that major corporations—particularly banks and other nancial institutions—
needed to be held more accountable for risky practices. The protests, which sparked a
nationwide movement, continued for months.
New York’s economy was recovering slowly when another major disaster struck the city,
this time a natural one. On the night of October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy slammed
directly into the Greater New York region, with high winds and an unprecedentedly high
storm surge that inundated low-lying areas, ooded subway and road tunnels in and
around Lower Manhattan, precipitated widespread power outages and property damage,
and sparked a massive re in Queens that burned down more than 100 houses. Several
dozen people were killed citywide, notably on Staten Island, which was particularly hard
hit by the storm.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
CITATION INFORMATION
ARTICLE TITLE: New York City
WEBSITE NAME: Encyclopaedia Britannica
PUBLISHER: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
DATE PUBLISHED: 06 November 2019
URL: https://www.britannica.com/place/New-York-City
ACCESS DATE: November 14, 2019

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collection of many neighbourhoods scattered The arts

Character of the city

the enormous power of the ice. Glacial retreat also

Only the third largest American port at the time of

Climate and plant and animal life

The city layout

The city’s ancient bedrock provides the immovable

Within this formidable historical imbalance,

An old Broadway song informed Americans that “the

To the chagrin of New York, Brooklyn became an

Contemporary Brooklyn retains much of the

In 1894 the communities of western Queens endorsed

After 1900 a civic centre and borough hall were

Planning the modern metropolis

Before the creation of Greater New York, city leaders

In 1921 the Port of New York Authority (PA) was

People from each ethnic group have climbed the

The arrival of “new” immigrants from eastern and

Ellis Island: Registry Room

Shipping and transportation

Banking and nance

The development of industry and trade

The centre of business

Administration and social conditions

Primary and secondary systems

Fuentiduena Chapel at The Cloisters, a The arts

Many professional as well as recreational sports are

Madison Square Garden, New York City. History

A series of English governors ruled New York and

Growth of the metropolis

Greater New York

In the mid-1920s and early 1930s a series of municipal

Once the immediate shock of the disaster had worn

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

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