A city famous for its sartorial elegance and Bohemian chic, New York is a shopper’s paradise, hawking everything from the very latest designer fashions to flea market bargains in addition to foods and goods from every corner of the globe. Clothing is not taxed in New York and the bargains have got even better of late, as the US recession has led to widespread discounting on everything from electrical goods to designer fashion.

The smartest shops are located on Madison Avenue, where most top designers have
flagship stores. Nearby, Fifth Avenue is a magnet for the label conscious and
well heeled. Standing at one of the most famous corners in Manhattan, Tiffany and Co, 727 Fifth Avenue, is an icon of the American Dream. The seven-level mall at the new Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle houses a variety of upscale shops including Hugo Boss, Armani, Coach, Cole Hahn and Bose. Famous department stores include Saks Fifth Avenue, 611 Fifth Avenue, Macy’s, Herald Square, Bloomingdales, 1000 Third Avenue, at 59th Street, and Barney’s New York, 660 Madison Avenue, at 61st Street, which is the trendiest of this retail crop. Both Macy’s and Bloomingdales now offer free ‘personal shoppers’ on request, to help navigate their huge ranges. The famous Ladies’ Mile, which, a century ago, was the epicenter of uptown fashion, with department stores stretching from 14th Street for a mile along Sixth Avenue, is now a major discount center. However, the spectacular Victorian buildings have been restored and stores such as Bed Bath and Beyond, Old Navy Clothing Co, Barnes and Noble and Filene’s Basement have spearheaded a revival of the historic shopping strip.

SoHo is the most European of New York’s neighborhoods, with high-end clothing outlets and shoe stores, make-up and beauty salons, art galleries and antiques shops, as well as modern furniture showrooms. The East Village and the Lower East Side harbor street fashion and cutting-edge young designers, with vintage shops, music stores intermingling with designer boutiques and eclectic outlets. Discount shops selling authentic American goods, such as Levi’s, are located throughout the city, particularly along Broadway, between Houston Street and 14th Street. (more…)

Sightseeing in New York

Most tourists end up spending the majority of their trip on Manhattan and this is where most of the recognizable attractions are located. The remaining four boroughs are primarily residential (the Bronx to the north, Queens to the east, Brooklyn to the southeast and Staten Island to the southwest) although there is a sprinkling of worthwhile attractions located in them all, which will reward the visitor with time to explore.

Almost completely flat and, for the most part, arranged on an easily navigable grid system, Manhattan itself is very easy to walk around, with the excellent subway system handy for the longer hops between attractions. Avenues run north-south and streets run east-west just with a few neighborhood exceptions. Fifth Avenue is the city center and the starting point and zero for all addresses (i.e. addresses increase the farther they are from Fifth).

The city is packed with things to do and places to see - each street and neighborhood offers its own varied sights and flavors. The top attractions, like the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building, are renowned throughout the world, but there are enough less heralded places to fill weeks of sightseeing.

Manhattan has several distinct areas that are worth wandering around, from the ritzy shopping and residential districts uptown, to the financial district of downtown, taking in the villages in between. SoHo (which got its name because it is south of Houston Street) is famous for its art galleries and shopping opportunities. Greenwich Village traditionally contains a literary and gay community and has the quaint bookstores and cafes to go with it. The young-and-hip East Village retains its edgy atmosphere, which is reflected in its quirky shops, record stores, nightclubs and drinking spots. Historical Lower East Side, once an immigrant neighborhood, is now filled with boutiques and vintage shops, nightclubs and restaurants. Chelsea, with warehouse conversions mingling with more cutting-edge art galleries, is another gay-friendly neighborhood. Away from the city, Long Island and a number of city beaches provide an escape on hot and humid summer days.

Passes

The City Pass offers a combined ticket to selected New York attractions, including the American Museum of Natural History, the Empire State Building Observatory and NY Skyride, Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art (currently honored at MoMA QNS) and Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises. The pass costs US$48 (US$34 for children), is valid for nine days and is available for purchase at any of the attractions or online, at the above address.

Key Attractions:

The Statue of Liberty

The ultimate symbol of the American Dream, Lady Liberty, standing majestically over New York Harbour, is probably the most famous landmark in America. The people of France donated the statue to the United States in 1886, to commemorate the alliance of the two countries during the American Revolution. It was the first sight of the New World to be seen by the 12 million immigrants who passed through Ellis Island, the country’s principal immigration center in the early and mid 20th century. The site has just reopened after an extensive renovation and the crown and torch are no longer accessible to visitors. Instead there are ranger-guided Promenade Tours through the lobby and around the outside and guided Observatory Tours which includes the first tour and a visit to the pedestrian observation platform.

Admission: Free but there are only a limited number of tickets.

Ellis Island Immigration Museum

The relatives of over 40% of families living in the United States of America passed through this historical immigration station, which operated from 1892 to 1954. Now a national monument and museum, the Ellis Island Immigration Museum has over 30 galleries related to the American immigrant experience. Tours educate visitors about how ‘undesirables’ were weeded out and separated from their families in the Registry Room, after month-long ordeals on often over-crowded boats. For a US$5 fee, visitors can search the Ellis Island archives by computer in the popular American Family Immigration Center for information on their ancestors.

World Trade Center - Ground Zero

In early 2003, the city selected Memory Foundations as an architectural design, by Studio Daniel Libeskind, to replace the 110-story towers and surrounding buildings at the site of the former World Trade Center. The new structure will integrate portions of a remaining slurry wall (strong enough to hold back the Hudson River). A slightly recessed public space, known as the bathtub, will provide the setting for a memorial and a museum. North of this area, a 541-meter (1,776ft) spire, the ‘Gardens of the World’, will grace the skyline. Although the complex’s very existence will memorialise the tragedy that occurred here in 2001, each year on 11 September, the sun will shine without a shadow on the Wedge of Light piazza. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation - LMDC can provide more information on the decision and design.

The viewing platforms that once allowed visitors to pay tribute at the former World Trade at Liberty Street, Center site, dubbed Ground Zero, are no longer in place. Right now the fenced viewing area at Liberty Street and Broadway highlights a pictorial history of the site and allows observation during ongoing work.

Brooklyn Bridge

Dubbed the eighth wonder of the world when it was completed after 30-years of construction in 1883, John Augustus Roebling’s design remains a masterful feat of engineering. One of the world’s first steel wire suspension bridges (and at one time one of the world’s longest) links Manhattan to Brooklyn, over the East River. The bridge’s mile-long wooden promenade is open to pedestrians and cyclists and offers stunning views of the city.

Empire State Building

Immortalised by Hollywood cinema (from King Kong and Fay Wray to Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan) this stunning skyscraper is now once again the city’s tallest building. Completed in 1931, the 102-story Empire State Building is a wonderful example of Art Deco period architecture and the observatories on the 86th and 102nd floors offer magical and spectacular views of the city; the 86th floor deck is open air. Each night, the top 31 storys are illuminated with a color that reflects the season or holiday. The New York Skyride, on the second floor, features a video and a motion-simulator ride around and above NYC’s attractions.

Rockefeller Center

Built in 1932-40, the Rockefeller Center is a masterpiece of urban design. The best approach is from the Channel Gardens, opposite Saks on Fifth Avenue (a popular lunchtime haunt flanked with shops and services) to arrive at the focal point of the complex, the sunken plaza, used as an ice-skating rink in winter and an open-air restaurant in summer. Behind this, the sumptuous GE building dominates the scene with its Art Deco ambience both inside and out. The Rockefeller Center is home to NBC, Radio City Music Hall and Christie’s Auction House. NBC tours, lasting one-and-a-half-hour, are available and points of interest include the Today Show studio, the skating rink, the Prometheus and Atlas statues and the Channel Gardens.

Top of the Rock

Originally inspired by the slick designs of the grand ocean liners, the Rockefeller Center’s observation deck, which first opened in 1933, has been newly renovated and reopened following a 20-year closure. The deckchairs upon which New Yorkers once relaxed to escape the bustle below may be long gone, but the exceptional views remain. From the 70th floor, 260m (850ft) above street level, the unobstructed 360-degree vista takes in the best of the city’s landmarks, including the Brooklyn Bridge, the Chrysler Building and Central Park. A must for Art Deco lovers. Hands-on exhibits keep visitors busy on the mezzanine floor.

Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), 11 West 53rd Street, between Fifth Street and Sixth Street, houses the most important modern art collection in the USA, covering a variety of media from the late 19th and 20th centuries, with impressive touring exhibitions. The museum, which has been undergoing a massive regeneration project to add much needed extra exhibition space (now 125,000 sq feet), has just reopened. Some of the most prominent features of architect Taniguchi’s redesign include a lobby that connects 53rd and 54th streets; an atrium that soars 110 feet above street level; and innovative glass curtain walls that provide views of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden and the vibrant midtown surroundings. The new MoMA also features a new gallery devoted to contemporary art and another for new media. Building materials such as glass, granite and aluminum add to the building’s elegance, and natural light plays a greater role than ever before in the visitor’s experience.

Solomon R Guggenheim Museum

The Guggenheim Museum, a seven-story conical building designed by US master architect Frank Lloyd Wright, is worth visiting if only for the building alone. Opened in 1959, its design represented a new way to view art and was a radical departure from other institutions of its kind. Visitors ascend to the top floor via escalator and descend at their own pace on a continuous, circular ramp. The open rotunda makes it possible to see many levels and exhibits simultaneously. The Guggenheim’s acclaimed collection consists of late 19th- and 20th-century art works, many of which came from the private collection of Solomon’s niece, Peggy Guggenheim.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

‘The Met,’ a most cherished New York institution, is home to more than two million works of art. It opened in 1870 with a modest collection of 174 European paintings and has grown to be the largest art museum in the western hemisphere. Now its collected works span 5,000 years of culture and the museum is home to some 2,500 of the finest paintings which include Vermeers, Rembrandts, Impressionists and Post-Impressionists as well as Renaissance, African, Asian, and Islamic art. It is believed that its 36,000 pieces of Egyptian art is the greatest outside of Cairo. It is impossible to see everything in the museum in one visit, and because of its popularity, the Met can get extremely crowded on weekends.
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The selected restaurants have been divided into five categories: Gourmet, Business, Trendy, Budget and Personal Recommendations. The restaurants are listed alphabetically within these different categories, which serve as guidelines rather than absolute definitions of the establishments.

Visitors to New York who wish to dine in that special restaurant should make a reservation well in advance. It is not unreasonable for patrons to call for a table in the trendiest eating places a few months in advance. Sales tax of 8.625% is automatically added to the bill but service charges are only standard for large groups.

The prices quoted below are for an average three-course meal for one person and a bottle of house wine or cheapest equivalent; they include VAT but they do not include tip.

Gourmet

Chanterelle

Not even the respectful din of other guests can distract one from the exquisite meals at what must be the most unfussy of the city’s top French restaurants. Its decor is simple - Austrian shades, crystal chandeliers, fresh flowers and bare walls except for the etchings in the entranceway. It gives diners more of an opportunity to concentrate on the delicacies put before them. Grilled seafood sausage is a perennial favorite on the ever changing menu that often features a lush duck consomme with duck and foie gras dumplings, roast squab with black truffles, crisped sweetbreads. Service is excellent.

Daniel

Named after the renowned chef-owner, Daniel Boloud, this restaurant is consistently ranked as one of the city’s best venues for classical French fare, with a decor that exudes classical opulence yet contemporary flare. Seasonal masterpieces have included Maine sea scallops layered with black truffle in golden puff pastry or morels with duck and foie gras stuffing, each dish accentuating the ingredients to their best. Jacket and tie are required for gentlemen.

Gramercy Tavern

Danny Meyer’s contemporary American restaurant never goes out of fashion. A place New Yorkers take out-of-town guests, the restaurant offers two kinds of dining experiences - the airy first-come-first-serve bar serves delicious but uncomplicated meals, while the formal dining room presents extraordinarily skillful fare, such as duck foie gras and roasted cod. Those on an expense account should go all out on the market (fixed-price) menu and get a little taste of nearly everything. Those who cannot get enough of chef Tom Colicchio’s wares should try his spectacular second restaurant, Craft.

Le Cirque 2000

With tongue firmly set in cheek, designer Adam Tihany transformed the stately Villard House into a circus as imagined by Salvador Dali. The presentation of the food is just as overstated, from the enormous gilt-edged plates for entrees to the Venetian-glass fantasies that hold devilishly delicious desserts. The real reason for one to come here, however, is the food. Diners can taste duck with seared foie gras or veal mignon with potato gnocchi. The restaurant will be relocated to One Beacon Court at the end of 2005. Check website for new address.

Business

‘21′ Club

Cole Porter sang the praises of this place nearly 70 years ago and it is still worthy of song. With a clientele that has included every president since Teddy Roosevelt, this former speakeasy has a history few New York venues can match. Diners enter below a line of lawn jockeys (21 of them, naturally) to reach the string of intimate dining rooms. The ‘21′ burger is the classic choice but chef Erik Blauberg has updated the menu of classic American fare to include dishes such as oven-roasted veal chops and hickory-fired filet mignon.

Gotham Bar and Grill

They work miracles at Gotham Bar and Grill. Tables are as tightly spaced as in any New York restaurant but the various levels and the soaring ceilings hung with lighting fixtures resembling parachutes give the illusion of space. The staff are harried yet always seems to anticipate the diner’s every whim. What is more, Chef Alfred Portale, who pioneered the gravity-defying entrees that everyone now emulates, does American food like nobody else. Dishes include the Maine lobster tails or grilled Atlantic salmon.

Jean George

As they are so often set in basements and backrooms, restaurants in New York rarely get to brag about their view. Jean George lets its location in the Trump Hotel speak for itself. Diners can sit on the terrace facing Central Park or enjoy the same view from the Art-Deco influenced dining room. The decor is subdued, allowing chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s French fare to shine. Few diners will forget dishes like the sliced sea scallops, which sit atop sauteed cauliflower. The wine list is vast and the sommelier is happy to help select a bottle.

The Palm

The original New York City classic looks much like it did in the 20s when cartoonists from the then nearby King Publications plied their craft on the restaurant walls for a meal. The cartooned walls, simple wood setting and tile floors are still a popular venue for large and succulent steaks, giant lobsters (some as big as 1.8 kilograms or 4 pounds), homemade chips, creamed spinach and cheesecake. It is often crowded, but there are two other New York Palm restaurants. Reservations suggested.
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Activities in New York City

From the bright lights of Broadway to the revered stages at the Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, from the high kicks of the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall to the cutting-edge works performed at BAM, New York City continues to be one of the most diverse and heavily textured urban cultural centers in the world. As author Tom Wolfe wrote: ‘Culture just seems to be in the air, like part of the weather.’

The principal entertainment districts are the Theater District in the Broadway/42nd Street/Times Square area and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on the Upper West Side. Most Broadway theaters are located in the blocks just east or west of Broadway, between 41st Street and 53rd Street. Off- and Off-Off-Broadway theaters are sprinkled throughout Manhattan, with a concentration in the East and West Villages, Chelsea and several in the 40s and 50s west of the Broadway theater district. The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, 70 Lincoln Center Plaza, Columbus Avenue at 64th Street , is America’s first and largest performing arts complex, containing many venues. It is also the home of the Metropolitan Opera , the New York City Opera , the New York City Ballet, and the New York Philharmonic, among others.

New York continues to grow and, as well as these established attractions, offers something new each day. Times Square is one of the prominent areas to receive attention. Madame Tussaud’s wax museum, 234 West 42nd Street , which includes a movie complex, the New Amsterdam Theater, 214 West 42nd Street, owned by Disney, as well as a number of similar renovations of historic theaters - such as the New Victory Theater, 209 West 42nd Street and the Academy/Apollo ( - have ensured that New York remains the cultural capital of the USA.

Tickets are available for purchase through Telecharge , which handles Broadway, Off-Broadway and some concerts. Ticketmaster , also offers Broadway and Off-Broadway, as well as tickets to Madison Square Garden and Radio City. Reduced-priced tickets of up to half-price plus a US$3 surcharge for same-day Broadway and Off-Broadway are available for purchase at the TKTS booth, 47th Street and Broadway (open hours: Mon-Sat 1500-2000, also Wed and Sat 1000-1400, Sun 1100-1930) and at the TKTS booth at South Street Seaport , open daily 1500-2000 for evening performances, 1000-1400 for Wednesday and Saturday matinees and 1200-1830 for all Sunday performances. Cash or travelers checks only.

Information on cultural events in the city is available online . Time Out New York also is a good source of information published weekly and sold at newsagents and kiosks for US$2.99.

Music: The Avery Fisher Hall, in the Lincoln Center, 70 Lincoln Center Plaza, Columbus Avenue at 64th Street , is the permanent home of the New York Philharmonic and a temporary one to visiting orchestras and soloists. Tickets for the New York Philharmonic cost approximately US$15-50. The new Time Warner Building is the home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, 33 West 60th Street, 11th Floor . Though its 1,100-seat Fredrick P. Rose Hall, 600-seat performance atrium, and 140 seat jazz cafe has been designed specifically as a jazz venue, it can also accommodate other art forms.

Avery Fisher also hosts the very popular annual Mostly Mozart festival in August. The Alice Tully Hall, also in the Lincoln Center , is a smaller venue for chamber orchestras, string quartets and instrumentalists. The greatest names from all schools of music, from Tchaikovsky and Toscanini to Gershwin and Billie Holiday, have performed at Carnegie Hall, 154 West 57th Street, at Seventh Avenue , which boasts an astonishing and eclectic repertoire at moderate prices. Other leading venues that draw the world’s top performers include Kaufman Concert Hall, 129 East 67th Street , and Lehman Center for the Performing Arts, 250 Bedford Park Boulevard West, Bronx.

Known as the Met, the Metropolitan Opera House, in the Lincoln Center, is New York’s premiere opera venue and home to the Metropolitan Opera (website: www.metopera.org), from September to late April. The New York State Theater, also in Lincoln Center , is where the New York City Opera ( perform. Its wide and adventurous program varies wildly in quality (sometimes startlingly innovative, occasionally mediocre) but seats go for less than half the Met’s prices. Other venues include the Julliard School, 155 West 65th Street, at Broadway , where talented students perform with a famous conductor, usually for low prices.

Theater: Theater venues in the city are referred to as Broadway, Off-Broadway or Off-Off-Broadway - groupings that represent a descending order of ticket price, production polish, elegance and comfort and an ascending order of innovation, experimentation, and theater for the sake of art rather than cash. Off-Broadway is still the place for theater punters to see the works of the world’s most innovative playwrights - social and political drama, satire, ethnic plays and repertory … in short, anything that Broadway would not consider a guaranteed money spinner. Lower operating costs also mean that Off-Broadway often serves as a forum to try out what sometimes ends up as a big Broadway production. Off-Off-Broadway is New York’s fringe. Unlike Off-Broadway, Off-Off doesn’t have to use professional actors and shows range from shoestring productions of the classics to outrageous and experimental performance art.

The National Actors Theater, at Pace University at Spruce Street , presents the classics on Broadway, while Manhattan Theater Club performs at the Biltmore Theater, 261 West 47th Street, and Stages I and II at City Center, 131 West 55th Street , produces some of the finest new plays in American theater. Other theater groups include Walt Disney Theatrical Productions, 1450 Broadway, Suite 300 , which brings the magic of Disney to life on the Broadway stage. For a more ethnic flavor, Harlem’s Apollo Theater, 253 West 125th Street , has celebrated the legacy and culture of African-American music and entertainment since 1934.

Dance: New York has five major ballet companies as well as dozens of contemporary troupes and the official dance season runs from September to January and April to June. Metropolitan Opera House, in the Lincoln Center , is the home of the renowned American Ballet Theater , which performs the classics from early May into July. New York State Theater, also in the Lincoln Center , is home to the revered New York City Ballet , which performs more contemporary ballet for a nine-week season each spring.

Universally known as BAM, Brooklyn Academy of Music, 30 Lafayette Street, between Flatbush Avenue and Fulton Street, Brooklyn , is America’s oldest performing arts academy and one of the busiest and most daring producers in New York. During autumn, BAM’s Next Wave Festival showcases the hottest international attractions in avant-garde dance and music. Winter brings visiting artists, while, each spring, BAM hosts the annual DanceAfrica Festival, America’s largest showcase for African and African-American dance and culture.

The most eminent and celebrated troupes in modern dance perform at City Center, 131 West 55th Street, between Sixth Avenue and Seventh Avenue . Big-name companies include Merce Cunningham Dance Company , Paul Taylor Dance Company (website: www.ptdc.org), Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (website: www.alvinailey.org), Joffrey Ballet and Dance Theater of Harlem . Merce Cunningham Studio, 55 Bethune St at Washington St , the home of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, stages performances by emerging modern choreographers.

Film: A movie center second only to Tinseltown itself, New York has hundreds of modern cinema complexes and arthouse cinemas. Cinemas worth visiting include Loews Lincoln Square, Broadway at 68th Street , which is more a theme park than a multiplex, and The Ziegfeld, 141 West 54th Street, between Sixth Avenue and Seventh Avenue , which often holds glitzy premieres and is the grandest picture palace in town - once home to the Ziegfeld Follies. Arthouse movies are screened at Angelika Film Center, 18 West Houston Street , Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, 1886 Broadway, and Quad Cinema, 34 West Street, between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. General information, show times and advanced tickets are available from Moviefone .

New York has been portrayed through celluloid in a number of ways, ranging from the ridiculous yet enduring images of King Kong, swinging from the Empire State Building, in the 1933 classic starring Fay Wray, to the psychological horrors of Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976). In the latter, Robert De Niro plays the part of a mentally isolated New York cabbie and Vietnam vet, driven to violence by the decadence of the city. It is New York decadence of a slightly different nature that Alan Rudolph explores in Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994), which looks at New York literary life and society during the 1920s. More recently, films shot in NYC have included One Fine Day (1996), The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), Everyone Says I Love You (1996), The Devil’s Advocate (1997), Gangs of New York (2002), Spiderman 1 and 2 (2002 and 2004 respectively) and The Day After Tomorrow (2004).

Cultural Events: New York’s biggest antiques event, Manhattan Antiques and Collectibles Triple Pier Expo, is held at three piers on the Hudson River, in February. The annual harbinger of spring, the New York Flower Show, is held on piers 90 and 93, 51st Street and 12th Avenue, in March. Meanwhile, Art Expo New York, the world’s largest show of popular art, features a wide range of works from paintings and sculpture to posters and decorative arts, at the Javits Convention Center, also in March. Ninth Avenue International Food Festival is a gastronomic feast of a street fair in May, with live bands and hundreds of food stalls selling a wide assortment of ethnic and junk food. Summerstage, a festival of free or low-cost concerts in Central Park, features world music, pop, folk and jazz artists throughout the summer.

Literary Notes: The vibrant city of New York has spawned some of America’s most celebrated writers and provided the backdrop and inspiration for countless best-selling novels and hit movies. Washington Square, at Fifth Avenue and Waverley Place, was home to the 19th-century aristocracy and provided the inspiration for the classic study of the American upper classes, Washington Square (1881), by New Yorker Henry James. Bohemian Greenwich Village has long been the favored haunt of America’s literati. The Chelsea Hotel, on West 23rd Street, is something of a writers’ emporium. Here Arthur Miller penned After the Fall (1964) and William Burroughs worked on Naked Lunch (1959). New Yorker Arthur Miller is celebrated as America’s greatest living playwright, whose numerous works have delighted Broadway and international audiences for decades. His knowledge of the Brooklyn waterfront helped to form his characters in his play A View From the Bridge (1955) and powerful reflections upon his home town are revealed in The Price (1968).

New York’s most famous contemporary novelist is Paul Auster, who won international acclaim for The New York Trilogy (1987), a book comprising three novellas (City of Glass, Ghosts and The Locked Room) all set in New York. Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace’s Gotham (2001) is one of the most illuminating and readable histories of New York. One of the most striking works from the flurry of post-11 September 2001 publications is September 11: A Testimony (2001), assembled by press agency Reuters, with some of the most dramatic World Trade Center photographic images.
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Sports in New York City

Although American football has become the most popular professional sport in most of the USA, in New York City, baseball arguably still stirs the most passion and interest.

New York has a long and distinguished sports history: Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1913 until 1957, was torn down in 1960, and the Polo Grounds in northern Harlem, just across the river from the Bronx’s Yankee Stadium, was the home of the New York Giants of Major League Baseball from 1911 to 1957 (and the first home of the New York Mets) before being demolished in 1964. Also, many outsiders are unaware that the current Madison Square Garden is actually the fourth separate building to use that name; the first two were near Madison Square, hence the name, and the third was at 50th Street and Eighth Avenue.

Immigrants have always influenced sports in New York. Stickball, a street version of baseball, first became popular in the city’s Italian and Irish neighborhoods. The popularity of cricket and soccer are growing with immigration from British Commonwealth countries. The first children’s Junior Cricket League in the United States opened in Brooklyn in 2004, bringing the number of cricket leagues in the city to seven.

New York City was also the host of parts of the 1996 World Cup of Hockey, and the 1998 Goodwill Games. In 2005, it bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics, but lost to London. A bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics appears possible.

Professional sports

The New York metropolitan area is the only one in the United States with more than one team in each fudi the four major sports, with nine such franchises.

Baseball

A “Subway Series” between city teams is a time of great excitement, and any World Series championship by either the New York Yankees or the New York Mets is considered to be worthy of the highest celebration, including a ticker-tape parade for the victorious team. For most American baseball fans, the most intense rivalry is between the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, but in the city the rivalry between the Yankees and the Mets is almost as fierce.srt Outsiders are frequently unaware that few baseball fans in New York are fans of both teams at once.

There have been 14 Subway Series match-ups between the Yankees and their National League rivals; the Mets (once), and with the two teams that departed for California - the New York Giants (7 times) and Brooklyn Dodgers (6 times).

New York City is also home to two minor league baseball teams that play in the short-season Class A New York - Penn League. The Brooklyn Cyclones are a Mets affiliate, and the Staten Island Yankees are affiliated with the Yankees.

Basketball

At Madison Square Garden, ‘the world’s most famous arena,’ New Yorkers can see the New York Knicks play NBA basketball, the New York Liberty play in the WNBA. Continental Airlines Arena in the Meadowlands is home to the New Jersey Nets NBA basketball team, soon to become the Brooklyn Nets.

Football

For football in the New York City Area, is the New York Giants who were the 2005 NFC East Division Champs, and the New York Jets , despite their names they play in the Meadowlands in New Jersey (part of the New York Metropolitan Area) across the Hudson from Manhattan.The Giants used to play in Yankee stadium and the Jets in Shea stadium until the opening of Giant Stadium.

New York’s NFL teams, the New York Giants and New York Jets, play at Giants Stadium in New Jersey’s Meadowlands. Nassau Coliseum is the home of the New York Dragons of the Arena Football League. (more…)

Education in New York City

Education in New York City is provided by a vast number of public and private institutions. The city’s public school system is the largest in the United States, and New York is home to some of the most important libraries, universities, and research centers in the world. The city is particularly known as a global center for research in medicine and the life sciences.

New York has the most post-graduate life sciences degrees awarded annually in the United States, 40,000 licensed physicians, and 127 Nobel laureates with roots in local institutions. The city receives the second-highest amount of annual funding from the National Institutes of Health among all U.S. cities. It also struggles with disparity in its public school system, with some of the best and worst performing public schools in the United States. Under Mayor Michael Bloomberg the city has embarked on a major school reform effort.

Universities

The City University of New York (CUNY), with over 400,000 students the third-largest university system in the United States, was once called “the poor man’s Harvard” because of its low tuition and record of graduating the highest number of Nobel Laureates of any public university in the world. Much of its student body, which represent 145 countries, is comprised of new immigrants to New York City. CUNY has campuses in all of the five buroughs.

Columbia University is an Ivy League university in upper Manhattan. It was established in 1754 as King’s College and is the fifth oldest chartered institution of higher education in the United States. During these early years, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Gouverneur Morris, and Robert Livingston studied at Columbia.

New York University (NYU) is a major research university in lower Manhattan. Founded in 1831 by a group of prominent New Yorkers, NYU has become the largest private, not-for-profit university in the United States with a total enrollment of 39,408. The University comprises 14 schools, colleges, and divisions, which occupy six major centers across Manhattan.

Fordham University, which has campuses in Manhattan and the Bronx, was the first Catholic university in the northeast. It is run by the Jesuits.

Pace University, which has campuses in Manhattan and Westchester County specializes in business and finance courses. With it’s competitive debate, Mock Trail, and Moot Court teams, the school has an intensive law program. The school’s Honor College is 28th in the nation.

Yeshiva University is a competitive Jewish university in Washington Heights with a strong rabbinical school.

The New School, whose graduate faculty was founded by scholars exiled by totalitarian regimes in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s, is known for its progressive intellectual tradition.

Long Island University, in downtown Brooklyn, hosts the Friends World Program, an international studies college with regional centers around the globe founded by Quakers in 1965. The University also issues the prestigious annual Polk Awards in journalism.

In addition to many more universities, New York City is home to several of the nation’s top schools of art and design, including Pratt Institute, the School of Visual Arts, the Fashion Institute of Technology, and Parsons School of Design. Three of the nation’s most prestigious conservatories, The Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Mannes College of Music are located in Manhattan on the Upper West Side.

The city is also the only place that is home to two top-five ranked law schools in the United States. U.S. News and World Report ranks the Columbia Law School and the New York University School of Law as the fourth- and fifth-best, respectively, in the nation.

The New York Academy of Sciences is a society of some 20,000 scientists of all disciplines from 150 countries. It seeks to advance the understanding of science, technology, and medicine, and to stimulate new ways to think about how research is applied in society and the world. It is also active in human rights and seeks to promote the rights of scientists, health professionals, engineers, and educators around the world. Past members include Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, Charles Darwin, John James Audubon, and Albert Einstein. In 2005 its President’s Council included 16 Nobel Prize winners.

Scientific research

New York is a center of scientific research, particularly in medicine and the life sciences. The city has 15 nationally leading academic medical research institutions and medical centers. These include Rockefeller University, Beth Israel Medical Center, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, Weill Cornell Medical College, Mount Sinai Medical Center (where Jonas Salk, developer of the vaccine for polio, was an intern) and Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and the medical schools of New York University.

In the Bronx, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine is a major academic center. Brooklyn also hosts one of the country’s leading urban medical centers, SUNY Downstate Medical Center, an academic medical research institution and the oldest hospital-based medical school in the United States. Professor Raymond Vahan Damadian, a pioneer in magnetic resonance imaging research, was part of the faculty from 1967 to 1977 and built the first MRI machine, the Indomnitable, there. More than 50 bioscience companies and two biotech incubators are located in the city, with as many as 30 companies spun out of local research institutions each year.

Rockefeller University, located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, is a world-renowned center for research and graduate education in the biomedical sciences, chemistry, and physics. Founded by John D. Rockefeller in 1901, the university has been the site of many important scientific breakthroughs. Rockefeller scientists established that DNA is the chemical basis of heredity, discovered blood groups, showed that viruses can cause cancer, founded the modern field of cell biology, worked out the structure of antibodies, developed methadone maintenance for people addicted to heroin, devised the AIDS “cocktail” drug therapy, and identified the weight-regulating hormone leptin. Twenty-three Nobel Prize winners have been associated with the university, an amazing figure considering that Rockefeller University houses a relatively small amount of labs.

The Pfizer Plant Research Laboratory in The Bronx, built with funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, New York State and New York City, and named for its largest private donor, is a major new research institution at the New York Botanical Garden opened in 2006. The laboratory is a pure research institution, with projects more diverse than research in universities and pharmaceutical companies. The laboratory’s research emphasis is on plant genomics, the study of how genes funtion in plant development. One question scientists hope to answer is Darwin’s “abominable mystery”; when, where, and why flowering plants emerged.
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Transportation in New York City

The transportation system of New York City is one of the most complex of any city in the United States. It is a system of superlatives, from the largest subway network in the world by track mileage to the longest suspension bridge in North America, from its iconic yellow cabs to 112,000 daily bicyclists, from the world’s first mechanically ventilated vehicular tunnel to landmark train stations and new multibillion-dollar airport terminals. New York has pioneered transportation like no other city in the United States; it even has an aerial tramway used to whisk commuters from Roosevelt Island into Manhattan in less than five minutes. Along with its size and variety, the city’s transport infrastructure is also beset with ongoing congestion, reliability, and funding challenges.

New York is distinguished from all other American cities by its use of public transportation. While nearly 90% of Americans drive to their jobs, public transit is the overwhelmingly dominant form of travel for New Yorkers. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, New York City is the only locality in the United States where more than half of all households do not own a car (the figure is even higher in Manhattan, over 75%; nationally, the rate is 8%). About one in every three users of mass transit in the United States and two-thirds of the nation’s rail riders live in New York and its suburbs.

New York’s uniquely high rate of public transit use and its pedestrian-friendly character make it one of the most energy-efficient cities in the country. Gas consumption in New York City is at the rate where the national average was in the 1920s. The transit system’s efficiency is such that despite the New York metropolitan area’s ranking as one of the most populous in the world, hours of delay per person caused by traffic congestion is less than in far smaller cities like San Francisco.

This savings translates into reduced fuel costs and consumption as well as reduced costs from wasted labor productivity. Major additions to the city’s transport infrastructure have been stalled since the 1970s, however. Deferred maintanence of existing facilities hurt the reliability of trains and subways. Recently the city has reinvested billions of dollars in its subway system and proposed several multi-billion dollar projects intended to increase capacity.

In 2006, a study of the 50 largest U.S. cities by the environmental organization SustainLane identified New York as the city most able to endure an oil crisis with an extended gasoline price shock in the $3 to $8 dollar per gallon range.

Commuter culture

While car culture dominates in most American cities, mass transit has a defining influence on New York life. City politics, art, music and commerce are all affected. One important outcome, perhaps not obvious at first, is an unusually robust local newspaper industry. The readership of many New York dailies is comprised in large part by transit riders who read during their commutes. Underscoring this relationship were the temporary circulation declines seen during the 2005 New York City transit strike.

With nearly 4.5 million people riding the transit network each weekday, the system is also the city’s mobile public square, a major venue for commerce, entertainment and political activism. Campaigning at subway stations is a signature of New York politics. Where presidential candidates appear at small town diners during campaigns in other parts of the country, in New York candidates meet and greet voters at station entrances and bus stops.

The buskers, troubadours, musicians, jongleurs, entertainers and artists who make their livelihoods in the New York City subway are legendary. They come from Asia, Africa, South America and Europe. African drummers and opera singers, Tai Chi performers and jazz trios, Chinese erhu players and Harlem break dancing troupes; the artists plying their trade in the subways are countless. So plentiful, in fact, that in an effort to bring some order to heavily used stations transit authorities established the Music Under New York program, which sponsors more than 100 musicians and ensembles giving over 150 performances at 25 locations throughout the system each week.

Yet these performances account for a fraction of the acts appearing in the subway. New Yorkers relish the performances of their street musicians; in the momentary pauses between the impatient arrival and departure of subway trains, with the warm sounds of a Cuban guitarist wafting through a station, it is not uncommon to find a polyglot crowd of listeners - secretaries, bus boys, bankers, black, white, brown - united in rapt attention.

Many subway musicians go on to successful careers. The “Cajun cellist” Sean Grissom took his performance from the subways to Carnegie Hall, filling the sold-out house with his fans, and later became an opening act for David Bowie. Folk-rock singer Susan Cagle landed a major recording deal with Columbia Records after being noticed performing in subway stations. She recorded her album live at the Times Square and Grand Central subway stops.

As the subjects of song and venues for beauty pageants and guerrilla theater, the subways themselves are a staple of New York City’s cultural life. The transit system’s annual Miss Subways contest ran from 1941 to 1976 and again in 2004 (under the revised name “Ms Subways”). Past Ms Subways winners were often more unusual than the winners of traditional pageants like Miss America. The Miss Subways of 1960 was Eleanor Nash, an FBI clerk described by her poster that hung in subway cars as “young, beautiful and expert with a rifle.”

The 2004 Ms Subways winner, Caroline Sanchez-Bernat, was an actress who played a role in Sunday Brunch 4. The 35-minute piece of performance art was a full enactment of a Sunday brunch - including crisp white tablecloth, spinach salad appetizer and attentive waiter in black tuxedo - performed aboard a southbound A Train in 2000. With subway riders looking on, the actors chatted amiably about Christmas, exchanged gifts and signed for a package delivered by a UPS man who entered the scene at the West 34th Street stop.

Mass transit

By far the most significant mode of transportation in New York is mass transit. Only 6% of shopping trips by New Yorkers involve the use of a car.[9] The city’s public transportation network is the most extensive and among the oldest in North America. Responsibility for managing the various components of the system falls to several government agencies and private corporations. The largest and most important is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which runs all of New York City’s subways, buses, and commuter rail lines.

Subways

The New York City Subway is the largest subway system in the world when measured by track mileage (656 miles of mainline track), and the fifth largest when measured by annual ridership (1.4 billion passenger trips in 2004).

In 2002, an average of 4.5 million passengers used the subways every weekday. During one day in September 2005, 7.5 million daily riders set a record for ridership. Life in the city is so dependent on the subway that New York City is home to two of only three 24 hour subway systems in the world. The subway system connects all boroughs except Staten Island, which is served by the Staten Island Railway. The New York City Subway is operated by the MTA. New York is also served by the PATH subway system, which connects the borough of Manhattan to New Jersey.

Subway riders pay with a MetroCard, which is also used on buses, PATH trains, and in Fall 2006, Bee-Line buses to and from points in Westchester County. It is a thin, plastic card on which the customer electronically loads fares. In the future all New York-area transit systems will use a new, standardized “contactless” payment system that will use smart cards with computer chips that can be read by turnstiles without requiring passengers to swipe cards.

Buses

In addition to subways, city residents rely on roughly 248 bus lines run by the MTA that serve nearly all areas of the five boroughs. Because of the extensive mass transit system, many New Yorkers do not own a car or even have a driver’s license.

The Port Authority Bus Terminal, near Times Square, is the busiest bus station in the United States and the main gateway for interstate buses into Manhattan. The terminal serves both commuter routes, mainly operated by New Jersey Transit, and national routes operated by companies such as Greyhound and Peter Pan. The terminal, with direct intermodal links to 12 subway lines, is used by 200,000 people on an average weekday. About 7,200 buses arrive and depart the terminal each day. Over 3 billion passengers have used the building since it opened in 1950.
See also: MTA Bus, MTA New York City Transit buses, Long Island Bus, and Bee-Line Bus System

Ferries

The busiest ferry in the United States is the Staten Island Ferry, which annually carries over 19 million passengers on a 5.2 mile (8.4 km) run that takes approximately 25 minutes each way. Service is provided 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Each day approximately five boats transport almost 65,000 passengers during 104 boat trips. Over 33,000 trips are made annually. The fare was eliminated in 1997 and has remained free since then. The charge for vehicles is $3, though vehicles have not been allowed on the Ferry since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Bicycles, however, are allowed on the lower level for free. The ferry ride is a favorite of tourists to New York as it provides excellent views of the Lower Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty.

New York has several privately-run ferry services. Among the major companies are NY Waterway, which provides several lines running from New Jersey across the Hudson River to Manhattan, and New York Water Taxi, which runs lines connecting Brooklyn, Manhattan, and The Bronx. (more…)

Culture of New York City

The people of New York City, New Yorkers, share a unique culture rooted in centuries of immigration and city life. There is considerable diversity in this local culture, varying by ethnic group, social class, and neighborhood.

To some observers, New York, with its large immigrant population, is more a quintessentially cosmopolitan, global city than something specifically “American”, but to others, the city’s very openness to newcomers makes it an archetypal city in a “nation of immigrants”. The city government maintains translators in 180 languages; the term “melting pot” was first coined to describe densely populated immigrant neighborhoods on the Lower East Side.

Everyday life for New Yorkers is often compared to that of urban Western Europeans. The ‘car culture’ that dominates most of the United States is displaced by New York’s overwhelming use of public transit. Many New Yorkers live in compact rental apartments. The city’s food culture, influenced by its immigrants and vast number of dining patrons, is incredibly diverse.

Jewish and Italian immigrants made New York famous for bagels and pizza. Numerous delicatessens serve authentic Eastern European and Jewish cuisine, towering corned beef and pastrami sandwiches being a local favorite. More recent arrivals have made falafels and kebabs standbys of contemporary New York street food.

There are many stereotypes about “The City That Never Sleeps.” The American idiom “in a New York minute” means “immediately.” The “sophisticated New Yorker” often defines American notions of urbanity.

Immigration and ethnicity

To some observers, New York, with its large immigrant population, seems more of an international city than something specifically “American”. But to others, the city’s very openness to newcomers makes it the archetype of a “nation of immigrants”. Among large American cities only Los Angeles receives more immigrants, but immigration to New York is considerably more diverse. It is not without reason that the city government maintains translators in 180 languages.

For illustration, although New York has a larger Jewish population than Jerusalem, still a majority of city residents are non-white. Residents are accustomed to thinking of everyone in the city as a member of a minority in some sense, but they also have a shared identity as New Yorkers. The term “melting pot” derives from the play The Melting Pot, by Israel Zangwill, who adapted Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to a setting in the Lower East Side. The phrase referred to the densely populated neighborhoods of lower Manhattan, where droves of immigrants from diverse European nations in the early 1900s learned to live together in tenements and row houses for the first time.

The cultural diversity of New York can be seen in the range of official city holidays. With the growth of New York’s South Asian community, Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights, was recently added to the calendar.

As in many major cities, immigrants to New York often congregate in ethnic enclaves where they can talk and shop and work with people from their country of origin. This phenomena is more pronounced in New York than in other U.S. cities, and the five boroughs are home to many distinct communities of Irish, Italians, Chinese, Korean, Puerto Ricans, Caribbeans, Hasidic Jews and many others, though there are also more multi-ethnic or cosmopolitan neighborhoods where people of different backgrounds can coexist in ease or in tension.

Many of the largest city-wide annual events are parades celebrating the heritage of New York’s ethnic communities. Attendance at the biggest ones by city and state politicians is politically obligatory. These include the St Patrick’s Day Parade, probably the top Irish heritage parade in the Americas, the Puerto Rican Day Parade, which often draws up to 3 million spectators, the African-American Caribbean Labor Day Parade, among the largest parades in North America, and the Chinese New Year Parade. New Yorkers of all stripes gather together for these spectacles. Other significant parades include the Gay Pride Parade, Greenwich Village Halloween Parade and the Coney Island Mermaid Parade, all icons in the city’s counter-culture pantheon.

New York City has a larger Jewish population than any other city in the world. Approximately one million New Yorkers, or about 13 percent, are Jewish. [1] Percentage-wise, this is second largest percentage in the United States after Miami, Florida. As a result, New York City culture has borrowed certain elements of Jewish culture, such as bagels. New York City is also home to the Jewish Theological Seminary, the world headquarters of Orthodox Judaism, as well as the headquarters of the Anti-Defamation League. Abraham D. Beame was New York City’s first Jewish mayor, and the current mayor, Michael Bloomberg, is also of Jewish descent.

Urban lifestyle

The everyday lifestyle of New Yorkers differs substantially from that of other Americans, and has in some ways been compared to that of urban Western Europeans. Despite the best efforts of Robert Moses, residents are less attuned than other Americans to the ‘car culture’ that dominates most of the country. The well-designed New York City Subway and the threat of congestion keep six in ten residents, including many middle class professionals, out of cars and off of the highways. Even the city’s billionaire mayor is known to take the train to City Hall each morning. This pattern is strongest for Manhattanites, who live in an area with better subway service and worse traffic, but more moderated for residents of the outer boroughs, especially in more peripheral areas, though many here too commute by train to Manhattan. Also in Manhattan, between subway stops and destinations, is built up the “walking city”, a real pedestrian culture unrivaled in the U.S.

Unlike most Americans, although less atypically for city dwellers, the great majority of New Yorkers rent their housing in what is usually seen as a very overpriced and difficult market at all ends. In this crowded city few can afford the closet space they feel they really need, and self-storage is a strong local industry. Again, the pattern is strongest in Manhattan and moderated but still present in the outer boroughs, which do have a number of suburban-style homes. Growing up in an ultra-cosmopolitan city like New York can sometimes foster an impressive cultural awareness.

One outcome of the city’s extensive mass transit use is a robust local newspaper industry. The readership of many New York dailies is comprised in large part by transit riders who read during their commutes. The three-day transit strike in December 2005 briefly depressed circulation figures, underscoring the relationship between the city’s commuting culture and newspaper readership.

With nearly 8 million people riding the transit network each day, the system is also a major venue for commerce, entertainment and political activism. Campaigning at subway stations is a staple of New York elections akin to candidate appearances at small town diners during presidential campaigns in the rest of the country. Each week, more than 100 musicians and ensembles - ranging in genre from classical to Cajun, bluegrass, African, South American and jazz - give over 150 performances sanctioned by New York City Transit at 25 locations throughout the subway system.

The subways of New York have been venues for beauty pageants and guerrilla theater. The MTA’s annual Miss Subways contest ran from 1941 to 1976 and again in 2004 (under the revised name “Ms Subways”). Past Ms Subways winners include Eleanor Nash, an FBI clerk described by her poster that hung in subway cars in 1960 as “young, beautiful and expert with a rifle.” The 2004 Ms Subways winner, Caroline Sanchez-Bernat, was an actress who played a role in Sunday Brunch 4. The 35-minute piece of performance art was a full enactment of a Sunday brunch - including crisp white tablecloth, spinach salad appetizer and attentive waiter in black tuxedo - performed aboard a southbound A Train in 2000. With subway riders looking on, the actors chatted amiably about Christmas, exchanged gifts and signed for a package delivered by a UPS man who entered the scene at the West 34th Street stop.

Hard-boiledness

The common stereotype is of the “hard-boiled New Yorker.” Denizens of the fast-paced big city are seen as self-centered, rude, mercantile, and brusque, with no time to spare for anyone else. These characters will not hold the door for anyone, will not obey the “NO WALK” pedestrian signal, and will scoff the genial tourist who does both of these. They are urban cynics who openly mock and may even deliberately misguide naive tourists unfamiliar with the wiles of city life. And supposedly, New Yorkers are so jaded that things that others would consider drawbacks to life in The City (crime, prostitution, pollution, noise, street harassment, etc.) are instead marks of pride, the very lures that keep them from ever leaving.

Some of this caricature is based on fact, some on misunderstanding, and much on ignorance. A visitor from a small town can have trouble understanding the situation of someone who daily walks through what is an essentially infinite social universe. When New Yorkers encounter so many random people a day, it should not be surprising if they exchange greetings with them less often than in places where strangers can be something of a novelty.

Though crime has declined in recent years, the standard underground defense mechanism remains the “subway stare”, a studiedly unfocused expression designed not to be reacted to. But life in New York, though a bit neurotic, is essentially normal, filled with feeling, caring people whose reality is hardly reflected in old myths about urbanism that go back to stories of Babylon.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the old stereotype, for a time at least, was turned around as Americans felt increased sympathy with New Yorkers. In the city itself, attitudes have also changed in some ways, but stayed the same in others. For example, pride in the city and their way of life have increased for many, though others show signs of paranoia. Cabbies still drive recklessly, though some civilian drivers are more polite than previously.

Arts

New York is an important global hub for music, film, theater, dance and visual art. Important cultural movements have long been part of the city’s history. The Harlem Renaissance established the African-American literary cannon in the United States. The New York School of painters, which developed abstract expressionism in the post-World War II period, became the first truly original school of painting in America. Bob Dylan came to national prominence in the folk music scene of Greenwich Village in the 1960s. The earliest sounds of “punk rock” and “new wave” styles of music were first heard in Lower Manhattan clubs in the 1970s. Hip-hop first emerged in the Bronx in the 1980s.

The city has more than 2,000 arts and cultural non-profits, over 500 art galleries, internationally-acclaimed educational institutions, and premier art museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art.[4] The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a vast assemblage of historic art, while the Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim and Whitney Museum of American Art boast important collections of 20th century art in the United States.

The American Museum of Natural History and its Hayden Planetarium focus on the sciences. There are also many smaller specialty museums, from El Museo del Barrio with a focus on Latin American cultures to the Cooper-Hewitt National Museum of Design to the International Center of Photography and The Museum of Television and Radio. There is even a Museum of the City of New York. A number of the city’s museums are located along the Museum Mile section of Fifth Avenue.

New York is also one of only five cities in the United States with permanent professional resident companies in all of the major performing arts disciplines: the New York City Opera, New York Philharmonic, New York City Ballet, and the Public Theater. The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, actually a complex of buildings housing 12 separate companies, is the largest arts institution in the world. It is also home to the internationally-renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center. Other notable performance halls include Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Literature and visual arts

The city’s vibrant visual art scene gave birth to such giants as Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein, who defined the American pop art movement. Abstract expressionism, which developed in New York in the post-World War II period, became the first truly original school of painting in America. The New York artists who defined this style, including Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, were known as the New York School.

New York has also been the setting for countless works of literature, many of them produced by the city’s famously large population of writers, including Jonathan Franzen, Don DeLillo, Jhumpa Lahiri, Jonathan Safran Foer, Jonathan Lethem, Thomas Pynchon, Susan Sontag, Arthur Miller, and many others. Jewish American literature has also flourished in New York City due to the extremely high concentration of Jews in the area.

Film and theater

New York City boasts a highly active and influential theater district, which is centered around Times Square in Manhattan. It serves both as the center of American theater and is a major attraction for visitors from around the world. The dozens of theaters in this district are responsible for tens of thousands of jobs, and help contribute billions of dollars every year to the city’s economy. Along with those of London’s West End theater district, Broadway theaters are considered to be of the highest quality in the world.

Despite the name, many “Broadway” theaters do not lie on Broadway the street, and the distinction with Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway (which tend more toward experimental theater) is simply a reference to the seating capacity of the theater. (more…)

As of the census of 2004, there are 8,168,338 people (up from 7.3 million in 1990), 3,021,588 households, and 1,852,233 families residing in the city.GR2 This amounts to about 40% of New York State’s population and a similar percentage of the New York City metropolitan population.

Recently, New York City has had large numbers of foreign immigrants arriving, many long-standing residents leaving, an increase in the gap between the rich and the poor, and a rise in the black middle class. In some areas of the city there is rapid growth fueled by immigrants and their children. Some areas are undergoing racial and ethnic transition; others are gentrifying.

The population density was 10,194.2/km² (26,402.9/mi²). There were 3,200,912 housing units at an average density of 4,074.6/km² (10,553.2/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 44.66% White, 26.59% Black or African American, 0.52% Native American, 9.83% Asian, 0.07% Pacific Islander, 13.42% from other races, and 4.92% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 26.98% of the population. 35.9% of the population was born outside the United States of America (18.9% born in Latin America, 8.6% Asia, 7.0% Europe). The ethnic makeup was 11.5% African-American, 9.8% Puerto Rican, 8.7% Italian, 5.3% Irish, 5.1% Dominican, 4.5% Chinese, 3.8% South Asian (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi), 2.0% Arab/Persian, 1.8% Filipino and 1.6% Korean.

The two most notable demographic features of the city are its density and diversity. By American standards, the city has an extremely high population density of 26,402.9/mi², about 10,000 more people per square mile than the next densest city, San Francisco. Manhattan’s population density is 66,940.1/mi². New York is also uniquely diverse. 35.9% of its population is foreign born, the third-largest percentage in the United States, after runner-up Los Angeles and first-place Miami. Whereas in Los Angeles the majority of immigrants are from Mexico, and in Miami, from Latin America (especially Cuba), in New York no single country or region of origin dominates. Only the four largest countries of origin, the Dominican Republic, China, Jamaica, and Russia represent groups larger than five percent.

New York City’s estimated daytime population is the largest in the United States at more than 8.5 million persons. In absolute terms the increase of more than half a million people over the nighttime population is larger than anywhere else. However, as a percentage of the city’s total population, the 7% increase puts New York mid-pack among cities with more than a million residents. This is because a disproportionately high number of people both work and live in the city compared with the national average. (more…)

Economy of New York City

New York City is a major center for international business and commerce and is one of three “command centers” for the global economy (along with Tokyo and London) according to sociologist and economist Saskia Sassen. The financial, insurance, and real estate industries form the basis of the city’s economy. New York is also the most important center for mass media, journalism and publishing in the United States as well as the preeminent arts center in the country. Other important sectors include the city’s television and film industry, second largest in the United States after Hollywood; medical research and technology; non-profit institutions and universities; and fashion.

The city’s stock exchanges are among the most important in the world. The New York Stock Exchange is the largest stock exchange in the world by dollar volume, while the NASDAQ is the world’s largest by number of listings. Many international corporations are headquartered in the city, including more Fortune 500 companies than anywhere else. New York is unique among American cities for its large number of foreign corporations. One out of every ten private sector jobs in the city is with a foreign company. Often this makes the perspective of New York’s business community internationalist and at odds with the federal government’s foreign policy, trade policy, and visa policy.

Specialized manufacturing accounts for a large but declining share of employment. Garments, chemicals, metal products, processed foods, and furniture are some of the principal manufacturers. New York’s fine natural harbor has meant international shipping has always been a major part of the city’s economy, but in recent decades most cargo shipping has moved from the Brooklyn waterfront across the harbor to the Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal in New Jersey. Some cargo shipping remains; Brooklyn still handles the majority of cocoa bean imports to the United States.

History

New York City’s economic growth was made possible by its harbor, widely considered one of the finest natural ports in the world. The value of this port was greatly enhanced in 1819 with the opening of the Erie Canal, which gave New York a decisive advantage over the competing ports of Boston and Philadelphia.

The old port facility was at the South Street Seaport in Manhattan, but today there is still residual activity remaining at Red Hook in Brooklyn, and the Howland Hook Marine Terminal in Staten Island. Red Hook, for instance, handles the majority of the cocoa bean imports to the United States. Since the 1950s, most shipping activity in the area has shifted to Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal in New Jersey. But despite changes in international shipping, trade and the tertiary sector have always remained the real basis of New York’s economy.

Manufacturing first became a major economic base for New York City in the mid-nineteenth century with the advent of industrialization and the railroad. New York was formerly a national center for clothing manufacture, and some continues, sometimes in sweatshops. There are still around 120,000 manufacturing jobs in the city compared to over a million in the middle of the 20th century. Like international shipping, though, manufacturing gradually declined in the late-twentieth century with rising land values. The city was also a first center of the American film industry, along with Chicago, Illinois, until it moved to Hollywood, California, and still has some television and movie production.

Finance and trade

Today , New York City is a major center of finance in the world economy, with Wall Street in Lower Manhattan’s Financial District. Financial markets based in the city include the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, American Stock Exchange, New York Mercantile Exchange, and New York Board of Trade.

This contributes to New York City being a major financial service exporter, both within the United States and globally. Many corporations also have their headquarters in the city, including companies as prominent and diverse as Altria Group, Time Warner, American International Group, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, JetBlue, DC Comics, Estee Lauder, and Sony Music Entertainment, among many others. As the North American terminus of the transatlantic fiber optic trunkline, New York has extremely high internet connectivity and is the leading international internet gateway in the United States with 430 Gbps of international internet capacity terminates. By comparison, the number two U.S. hub, Washington/Baltimore, has 158 Gbps of internet terminates.

Since the founding of the Federal Reserve banking system, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in Manhattan’s Financial District has been where monetary policy in the United States is implemented, although policy is decided in Washington by the Federal Reserve Bank’s Board of Governors. The New York Fed is the largest, in terms of assests, and the most important of the twelve regional banks. It is responsible for the Second District, which covers New York State and the New York City region, as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The New York Fed is responsible for conducting open market operations, the buying and selling of outstanding US Treasury securities. In 2003, Fedwire, the Federal Reserve’s system for transferring balances between it and other banks, transferred $1.8 trillion a day in funds, of which about $1.1 trillion originated in the Second District. It transferred an additional $1.3 trillion a day in securities, of which $1.2 trillion originated in the Second District. The New York Federal Reserve is the only regional bank with a permanent vote on the Federal Open Market Committee and its president is traditionally selected as the Committee’s vice chairman. The bank also has the largest gold repository in the world, larger even than Fort Knox. Its vault is 80 feet (25 m) beneath the street and holds $90 billion worth of gold bullion.

Media and advertising

New York is by far the most important center for American mass media, journalism and publishing. The city is the number-one media market in the United States with 7% of the country’s television-viewing households. Three of the Big Four music recording companies have their headquarters in the city. One-third of all independent films are produced in the Big Apple. More than 200 newspapers and 350 consumer magazines have an office in the city. The book publishing industry alone employs 13,000 people. For these reasons, New York is often called “the media capital of the world.”

Film

New York’s film industry is much smaller than that of Hollywood, but its billions of dollars in revenue makes it an important part of the city’s economy and places it as the second largest center for the film industry in the United States.[4] It is also a growth sector; according to the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting New York City attracted over 250 independent and studio films in 2005, an increase from 202 in 2004 and 180 in 2003.

The Kaufman-Astoria film studio in Queens, built during the silent film era, was used by the Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields. It has also been the set for The Cosby Show and Sesame Street. The recently constructed Steiner Studios is a 15 acre (61,000 m²) modern movie studio complex in a former shipyard where The Producers and The Inside Man, a Spike Lee movie, were filmed.

Silvercup Studios revealed plans in February 2006 for a new $1 billion complex with eight soundstages, production and studio support space, offices for media and entertainment companies, stores, 1,000 apartments in high-rise towers, a catering hall and a cultural institution. The project is invisioned as a “vertical Hollywood” designed by Lord Richard Rogers, the architect of the Pompidou Center in Paris and the Millennium Dome in London. It is to be built at the edge of the East River in Queens and will be the largest production house on the East Coast. Steiner Studios in Brooklyn would still have the largest single soundstage, however. Kaufman Studios plans its own expansion in 2007.

Miramax Films, a Big Ten film studio, is the largest motion picture distribution and production company headquartered in the city. Many smaller independent producers and distributors are also in New York.

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