New York (city)

I

Introduction

New York (city), the largest city in the United States, the home of the United Nations, and the center of global finance, communications, and business. New York City is unusual among cities because of its high residential density, its extraordinarily diverse population, its hundreds of tall office and apartment buildings, its thriving central business district, its extensive public transportation system, and its more than 400 distinct neighborhoods. The city’s concert halls, museums, galleries, and theaters constitute an ensemble of cultural richness rivaled by few cities. In 2000 the population of the city of New York was 8,008,278; the population of the metropolitan region was 21,199,865.

The Dutch founded a settlement on the site of the future city in 1624 and called it Fort Amsterdam and later New Amsterdam. The English captured the settlement in 1664 and renamed it New York, after the Duke of York, who later became James II of England. Located in the southeastern part of New York State just east of northern New Jersey, the city developed at the point where the Hudson and Passaic rivers join the Atlantic Ocean and Long Island Sound. Its harbor is one of the largest and finest in the world and is ice-free in all seasons.

New York is situated at about the same latitude as Naples, Italy, and has a temperate climate with annual precipitation of 1,200 mm (47 in) per year. The temperature ranges between 41°C (106°F) and –24°C (–11°F), but the Atlantic Ocean tends to moderate weather extremes in the city.

II

New York City and Its Metropolitan Area

Unlike most American cities, which make up only a part of a county, New York comprises five separate counties, which are called boroughs. Originally the city included only the borough of Manhattan, located on an island between the Hudson and East rivers. In 1898 a number of surrounding communities were incorporated into the city as the boroughs of Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island. The Bronx is the only borough on the mainland of the United States. Manhattan and Staten Island are surrounded by water, while Queens and Brooklyn are part of Long Island.

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A

Queens

Queens is the largest of the five boroughs. Covering 282.9 sq km (109.2 sq mi) at the western end of Long Island, Queens is separated from Brooklyn by Newtown Creek and from the rest of the city by the East River and Long Island Sound. It stretches to the Atlantic Ocean on the south and borders Nassau County on the east. It is largely residential and is probably one of the most ethnically diverse communities in the world. In 2000 Queens had 2,229,379 residents and was second in population only to Brooklyn among the five boroughs.

The neighborhoods of Queens have a strong sense of individual identity. A few are heavily industrial, such as Long Island City, Maspeth, and College Point; others—like Douglaston, Forest Hill Gardens, and Kew Gardens—are suburban-style enclaves of the well-to-do. Major ethnic concentrations include people of Greek descent in Astoria; of Irish descent in Woodside; of Italian descent in Maspeth and Ridgewood; and of African descent in Hollis, Cambria Heights, St. Albans, and South Jamaica. Forest Hills has a large Jewish population. Large numbers of Chinese and Koreans live in Queens, with particularly heavy concentrations in Flushing, Jackson Heights, Corona, and Elmhurst.

Queens is the home of Shea Stadium, Aqueduct Racetrack, the National Tennis Center, and both LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports. Queens hosted the World’s Fairs of 1939 and 1964. Queens has almost as much parkland as the other four boroughs combined, and its beaches extend for miles along the Atlantic Ocean. Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, adjacent to Kennedy Airport, is an important stopover point for migrating birds.

B

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is the second largest and most populous of the five boroughs. It is located on the southwestern tip of Long Island west of Queens and situated across the Upper Bay and the East River from Manhattan. The borough has a land area of 182.9 sq km (70.6 sq mi). Brooklyn had 2,465,326 residents in 2000, more than any other U.S. city, with the exception of the entire city of New York and the cities of Los Angeles and Chicago. Indeed, as a separate municipality before 1898, it was the third largest city in the United States.

Brooklyn retains a strong separate identity. It has an important central business district and dozens of varied and clearly identifiable neighborhoods, including Bedford-Stuyvesant, the largest black community in the United States, and Williamsburg, Crown Heights, and Borough Park, all of which have large populations of Orthodox Jews.

Brooklyn is the home of such major cultural institutions as the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Coney Island is well known for its beaches and amusement parks. Prospect Park, a landscaped area of broad drives and wooded hills, contains a restored carousel dating from 1912 and the Lefferts Homestead, a Dutch colonial farmhouse dating from 1783.

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