I INTRODUCTION

New York City is the most populous city and a major

port of the United States.

New York City is located in south-eastern New York State,

on the Hudson River and the East River and New York Bay
(an arm of the Atlantic Ocean).

One of the world’s leading commercial, financial, and

cultural centers, New York City is subdivided into five
boroughs that are coextensive with five counties of New
York State. In descending order of area, the boroughs are
Queens (Queens County), Brooklyn (Kings County), Staten
Island (Richmond County), the Bronx (Bronx County), and
Manhattan (New York County). Almost all of the Bronx is
situated on the mainland, but the other boroughs are
situated on, or comprise, islands: Brooklyn and Queens are
located on the western end of Long Island, Staten Island
encompasses an entire island, and Manhattan is primarily
made up of Manhattan Island, but also includes a small
exclave on the Bronx mainland.

The city’s boroughs include several small islands, of which

Roosevelt Island, in the East River, and City Island, in Long
Island Sound, have substantial populations. In all, New York
City comprises some 50 islands. In postal addresses, "New
York, New York" is synonymous with "Manhattan."
 II POPULATION

New York City’s population increased from 7,071,639

in 1980 to 7,322,564 in 1990; it was an estimated
7,333,253 in 1994. New York has the largest urban
population in the United States.

The population of the city remains more racially and

ethnically diverse than many areas of the United States.
According to the 1990 census, whites constitute 52.3
percent of New York’s population; blacks, 28.8 percent;
Asians and Pacific Islanders, 7.0 percent; and Native
Americans, 0.4 percent. Hispanics, who may be of any race,
make up 23.7 percent of the city’s population. The
population of New York’s consolidated metropolitan
statistical area, which includes parts of New York State,
New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, increased from
18,906,000 in 1980 to 19,550,000 in 1990.

III ECONOMY

New York is a financial, commercial, manufacturing, and

tourist center. A national center for road, rail, water, and air
transportation, it also contains the headquarters of many
major corporations.

The financial district of Lower Manhattan, which is

centered on Wall and Broad streets, includes the New York
Stock Exchange and a United States Federal Reserve bank
as well as other prominent banking, brokerage, and
financial institutions.

Much domestic and international trade is conducted in New

York City’s offices, including those in the twin towers of
Lower Manhattan’s World Trade Center, comprising two of
the world’s tallest structures.

Most of New York City’s port and transportation facilities

are part of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
New York has two airports—La Guardia (primarily for
domestic travel) and John F. Kennedy (for both international
and domestic travel), both in Queens. The city is also
served by Newark International Airport, in New Jersey.
Kennedy is a major air-cargo terminal, and large amounts
of freight pass through the city’s port facilities. However,
nearby ports in New Jersey now handle much of the
oceangoing cargo that formerly passed through New York
City. Wholesale and retail trade are important to New
York’s economy. The city is particularly noted for its many
retail outlets, including large department stores and
specialty shops. Fifth and Madison avenues, in Manhattan,
are especially famous for their fine boutiques.

As a manufacturing center, New York is a national leader in

such sectors as printed materials, processed food, jewelry,
and the production of clothing (notably in the Garment
District on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan). Other
principal products include wood, paper, and metal goods;
machinery; chemicals; and textiles. However, in the late
20th century manufacturing decreased in importance to the
New York economy while service activities gained
prominence.

It is an important center of the world financial industry.

Both the advertising and the communications industries
have major concentrations in New York, and in the 1990s
the city was a growing center for the new-media industry,
which includes computer-online services, multi-media
software, and businesses related to the Internet. A section
of Manhattan that is home to many such companies is
called Silicon Alley.

The leading national television and radio networks have

headquarters in the city, as do many prominent book and
magazine publishers. The New York Times is considered
one of the world’s best daily newspapers.

Tourism and conventions also play a significant role in the

economy, and numerous hotels and convention facilities
are located in Manhattan. In the mid-1990s more than 30
million people visited the city each year; nearly one-fifth of
those were from other countries.

IV POINTS OF INTEREST

New York City, and particularly Manhattan, boasts many

distinguished architectural sites. Skyscrapers dominate the
skyline; the Flatiron Building, completed in 1902, was one
of the first in the city. Others include the Chrysler Building,
the Woolworth Building, the Empire State Building, the
group of buildings that constitute Rockefeller Center, and
 the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, which rank
among the world’s tallest buildings. Older structures
include Gracie Mansion , now the mayor’s residence, and
City Hall.

The city has a number of well-known churches including

Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, the Cathedral Church of Saint
John the Divine, St. Bartholomew’s Church, and Trinity
Church.

Other places of interest include the Statue of Liberty on

Liberty Island; Ellis Island, which from 1892 to 1954 served
as the point of entry for immigrants to the United States;
Grand Central Terminal; and the United Nations complex
along the East River in Midtown Manhattan.

Professional baseball teams play at Yankee Stadium in the

Bronx (New York Yankees), and Shea Stadium in Queens
(New York Mets). Other major sports facilities in the city
include Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, home of the
New York Knicks basketball and New York Rangers ice
hockey teams. The New York Islanders ice hockey team
plays in Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in nearby
Uniondale. The New York Giants and New York Jets football
teams play at the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East
Rutherford, New Jersey, also home to the New Jersey Nets
of professional basketball.
 V EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL
INSTITUTIONS

The many fine institutions of higher education

throughout the five boroughs include Columbia University
(1754), Barnard College (1889), New York University
(1831), Pratt Institute (1887), Cooper Union for the
Advancement of Science and Art (1859), City University of
New York (1847), Fordham University (1841), St. John's
University (1870), The Rockefeller University (1901), Union
Theological Seminary in the City of New York (1836),
Fashion Institute of Technology (1944), Juilliard School
(1905), and the Manhattan School of Music (1917).

As the undisputed cultural center of the United States, New

York City has many museums, art galleries, and performing
arts organizations.

Among the leading art museums in Manhattan are the vast

Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Cloisters, a reproduction of
a monastery incorporating medieval architectural elements,
including four French cloisters and a Spanish chapel; the
Museum of Modern Art; the Frick Collection; the Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, designed by American architect
Frank Lloyd Wright; and the Whitney Museum of American
Art. The Brooklyn Museum in Prospect Park, Brooklyn is also
important.

Other historical, cultural, and special interest museums

include the American Museum of Natural History with the
adjacent Hayden Planetarium; the Museum of the City of
New York; the International Center of Photography; the
Cooper-Hewitt Museum; the Jewish Museum; El Museo del
Barrio, devoted to the culture of Puerto Rico and Latin
America; the Studio Museum in Harlem, exhibiting works by
black artists; the National Museum of the American Indian,
founded in 1922 and reorganized 1993 as the George
Gustav Heye Center of the Smithsonian’s National Museum
of the American Indian); and the American Craft Museum—
all in Manhattan—and the Brooklyn Children’s Museum and
the Brooklyn Museum.
The city’s major libraries include the New York Public
Library, with some 10 million volumes, the library of
Columbia University, and the Pierpont Morgan Library,
which has rare books and manuscripts. The Schomburg
Center for Research in Black Culture, a branch of the New
York Public Library, houses the world’s largest collection of
documents about the literature and history of black people.

New York City is the most important center for theatre

production in the United States. To the south of Central
Park in Midtown Manhattan lies Times Square, the hub of
the city’s theater district. The more than 30 legitimate
theatres here form the heartland of the American stage
known as Broadway, presenting dramas, comedies, and
musicals. The Times Square-42nd Street area was
undergoing redevelopment in the 1990s after a period of
disrepair. New retail outlets and renovations to historic
theatres contributed to the revival of the area as a tourist
destination.
 Near the south-western corner of Central Park is Lincoln
Center for the Performing Arts, a large cluster of buildings
that includes the Metropolitan Opera House; Avery Fisher
Hall, home of the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New
York, commonly known as the New York Philharmonic; the
New York State Theatre, where the New York City Ballet
and New York City Opera perform; the Juilliard School, a
training center for the performing arts, and Alice Tully Hall,
site of the annual New York Film Festival.

BIBLIOGRAFIE:

MICROSOFT ENCARTA
ENCYCLOPEDIA DELUXE 1999