Manhattan is the smallest in
area and most urbanized of the five boroughs of New York City
. Located primarily on Manhattan
Island at the mouth of the Hudson
River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of
New York County, an original county of the state
of New
York
. It consists of Manhattan Island and several small adjacent
islands: Roosevelt
Island
, Randall's
Island
, Ward's
Island
, Governors
Island
, Liberty
Island
, part of Ellis Island
, and U Thant Island
; as well as Marble Hill
, a small section on the mainland adjacent to
the
Bronx
. The original city of New York began at the
southern end of Manhattan, and expanded in 1898 to include
surrounding counties.
The County of New York is the most
densely populated county in the United
States, and one of the most densely populated areas in the world,
with a
2008 population of
1,634,795 living in a land area of 22.96 square miles
(59.47 km²), or 71,201 residents per square mile (27,485/km²).
It is also
one of the
wealthiest counties in the United States, with a 2005
personal income per
capita above $100,000. Manhattan is the third-largest of
New York's five boroughs in population.
Manhattan is a major commercial, financial, and cultural center of
both the United States and the world. Many major radio, television,
and telecommunications companies in the United States are based
here, as well as many news, magazine, book, and other media
publishers. Manhattan has many famous landmarks, tourist
attractions, museums, and universities. It is also home to the
headquarters of the
United Nations.
Manhattan
has the largest central business district in the United States, is
the site of both the New York Stock Exchange
and NASDAQ, and is the home
to the largest number of corporate headquarters in the
country. It is the center of New York City and the New York
metropolitan region, hosting the seat of city government and a
large portion of the area's employment, business, and entertainment
activities.
Etymology
The name
Manhattan derives from the word Manna-hata, as
written in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, an officer on
Henry Hudson's yacht
Halve Maen (Half Moon). A 1610 map depicts
the name Manahata twice, on both the west and east sides of the
Mauritius River (later named the
Hudson
River). The word "Manhattan" has been translated as "island of
many hills" from the
Lenape
language. The Lenape Indians themselves gave a slightly
different, inaccurate account of the name to
Moravian missionary
John Heckewelder. They called it
Manahachtanienk, which in the Delaware language, means "the island
where we all became intoxicated."
History
Colonial
Pierre Minuit
The area that is now Manhattan was long inhabited by the
Lenape.
In 1524, some Lenape in canoes met the
Florentine
Giovanni da
Verrazzano, the first European explorer to pass New York Harbor, although he may not have
entered the harbor past the Narrows
. It was not until the voyage of
Henry Hudson, an Englishman who worked for the
Dutch East India Company,
that the area was mapped.
Hudson came across Manhattan Island and the
native people living there in 1609, and continued up the river that
would later bear his name, the Hudson
River, until he arrived at the site of present day Albany
.
A permanent European presence in
New
Netherland began in 1624 with the founding of a
Dutch fur trading
settlement on Governors Island. In 1625 construction was started on
a citadel and a Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, later called
New Amsterdam (
Nieuw
Amsterdam).
Manhattan Island was chosen as the site of
Fort
Amsterdam
, a citadel
for the protection of the new arrivals; its 1625 establishment is
recognized as the birth date of New York City. According to
the document by Pieter Janszoon Schagen
our people
(
ons Volck) --
Peter Minuit is
not mentioned explicitly there—acquired Manhattan in 1626 from
native people in exchange for trade goods worth sixty
guilders, often mistakenly said to be worth
twenty-four
dollars. It can be converted to
modern currency by comparing bread prices etc. and amounts around
$1000 nowadays (Calculation by the
International
Institute of Social History, Amsterdam). Using this estimate,
one can jokingly state that it was enough money in 1626 to buy
2,400 tankards of beer.
In 1647,
Peter Stuyvesant was
appointed as the last Dutch Director General of the colony. New
Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on February 2, 1653.
In 1664, the British conquered
New
Netherland and renamed it "New York" after the English
Duke of York and Albany, the future King
James II. Stuyvesant and his council negotiated 24 articles of
provisional transfer with the British which sought to guarantee New
Netherlanders liberties, including
freedom of religion, under British
rule.
American Revolution and the early United States
A prelude to organized colonial opposition to British rule, the
Stamp Act Congress of
representatives from across the Thirteen Colonies was held in New
York City in 1765. The Congress resulted in the
Declaration of Rights and
Grievances, the first document by a reprentative body of
multiple colonies to assert the concept popularly known as
"
no taxation without
representation." It was also the first time the colonies
cooperated together for a unified political aim, and laid the
foundation for the
Continental
Congresses that followed years later.
The
Sons of Liberty developed on
Manhattan in the days following the
Stamp
Act protests. The organization participated in a long-term
confrontation with British authorities over
liberty poles that were alternately raised by
the Sons of Liberty and cut down by British authorities. The
skirmishes ended when the revolutionary
New York Provincial Congress
took power in 1775.
Manhattan was at the heart of the
New York Campaign, a series
of major battles in the early
American Revolutionary War.
The
Continental Army was forced to
abandon Manhattan after the disastrous Battle of Fort
Washington
on November 16, 1776. The city became the
British political and military center of operations in North
America for the remainder of the war.
Manhattan was greatly
damaged by the Great Fire
of New York during the British
military
rule that followed. British occupation lasted until November
25, 1783, when
George Washington
returned to Manhattan, as
the
last British forces left the city.
From
January 11, 1785 to Autumn 1788, New York City was the fifth of
five capitals under the Articles of Confederation, with
the Continental Congress
residing at New York
City Hall
then at Fraunces Tavern
. New York was the first capital under the
newly enacted Constitution of
the United States, from March 4, 1789 to August 12, 1790 at
Federal
Hall
. The United States Supreme Court
sat for the first time, the United States Bill of Rights
were drafted and ratified, and the first steps of adding states to
the Union with the passage of the Northwest Ordinance all took place
there.
19th century growth
New York grew as an economic center, first as a result of
Alexander Hamilton's policies and
practices as the first
Secretary of the Treasury and,
later, with the opening of the
Erie Canal
in 1825, which connected the Atlantic port to the vast agricultural
markets of the
Midwestern
United States and Canada.
Tammany Hall, a
Democratic Party political machine, began to grow in
influence with the support of many of the immigrant
Irish, culminating in the election of the first
Tammany mayor,
Fernando Wood, in 1854.
Tammany Hall dominated local politics for decades.
Central Park
, which opened to the public in 1858, became the
first landscaped park in an American city and the nation's first
public park.
During the
American Civil War,
the city's strong commercial ties to the
South, its growing immigrant population
(prior to then largely from Germany and Ireland), anger about
conscription and resentment at those
who could afford to pay $300 to avoid service, led to resentment
against Lincoln's war policies, culminating in the three-day long
New York Draft Riots of July
1863, one of the worst incidents of
civil
disorder in American history, with an estimated 119
participants and passersby massacred.
After the
Civil War, the rate of immigration from Europe grew steeply, and
New York became the first stop for millions seeking a new and
better life in the United States, a role acknowledged by the
dedication of the Statue of Liberty
on October 28, 1886, a gift from the people of
France. The new European immigration brought further social
upheaval. In a city of tenements packed with poorly paid laborers
from dozens of nations, the city was a hotbed of
revolution,
syndicalism,
racketeering, and
unionization.
In 1883,
the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge
established a surface connection across the
East
River
. In 1874, the western portion of the present
Bronx
County was transferred to New York County, and in 1895 the
remainder of the present Bronx County was annexed. The
City of Greater New York
was formed in 1898, when four counties consolidated to form a
single city of five boroughs. Manhattan and the Bronx, though still
one county, were established as two separate
boroughs. On January 1, 1914, the
New York state legislature created Bronx County, and New York
County was reduced to its present boundaries.
The 20th century
The construction of the
New York
City Subway, which opened in
1904, helped
bind the new city together, as did additional bridges to Brooklyn.
In the 1920s, Manhattan experienced an influx of blacks as part of
the
Great
Migration from the
American
South, and the
Harlem
Renaissance, part of a larger boom time in the
Prohibition era that included new skyscrapers
competing for the skyline.
New York City became the most populous city
in the world in 1925, overtaking London
, which had
reigned for a century.
On March
25, 1911, the Triangle
Shirtwaist Factory fire in Greenwich Village
killed 146 garment workers. The disaster
eventually led to overhauls of the city's fire department, building
codes, and workplace regulations.
The period between the World Wars saw the election of reformist
mayor
Fiorello La Guardia and
the fall of
Tammany Hall after 80 years
of political dominance. As the city's demographics stabilized,
labor unionization brought new protections and affluence to the
working class, the city's government and infrastructure underwent a
dramatic overhaul under La Guardia.
Despite the Great Depression, some of the world's
tallest skyscrapers were completed in Manhattan during the 1930s,
including numerous Art Deco masterpieces
that are still part of the city's skyline today, most notably the
Empire State
Building
, the Chrysler Building
, and the GE Building
.
Returning
World War II veterans created a postwar
economic boom, which led to the development of huge housing
developments targeted at returning veterans, including Peter Cooper Village—Stuyvesant
Town
which opened in 1947. In 1951, the United Nations relocated from its first
headquarters in Queens
, to the East
Side of Manhattan.
Like many major U.S. cities, New York suffered race riots and
population and industrial decline in the 1960s. By the 1970s, the
city had gained a reputation as a graffiti-covered, crime-ridden
relic of history. In 1975, the city government faced imminent
bankruptcy, and its appeals for assistance were initially rejected,
summarized by the classic October 30, 1975
New York Daily News headline as
"Ford to City: Drop Dead".
The fate was avoided through a federal loan
and debt restructuring, and the city was forced to accept increased
financial scrutiny by New York State
.
The 1980s
saw a rebirth of Wall
Street
, and the city reclaimed its role at the center of
the worldwide financial industry. The 1980s also saw
Manhattan at the heart of the AIDS crisis, with
Greenwich
Village
at its epicenter. Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) and
AIDS Coalition to
Unleash Power (ACT UP) were founded to advocate on behalf of
those stricken with the disease.
Starting in the 1990s, crime rates dropped drastically, with murder
rates that had reached 2,245 in 1990 plummeting to 537 by 2008, and
the
crack epidemic
and its associated drug-related violence under greater control. The
outflow of population turned around, as the city once again became
the destination of immigrants from around the world, joining with
low interest rates and Wall Street bonuses to fuel the growth of
the real estate market.
Since the early-to-mid 1990s, inflation has driven rent prices much
higher, often causing it to become unaffordable for working and
middle class Americans and immigrants. As the city became much
safer and more desirable, many young U.S. citizens from other
states have moved into a variety of neighborhoods in the borough.
Manhattan has experienced a gradual transformation that now
encompasses population that is now predominantly found to be of
well-educated out-of-state born Americans and foreigners in their
20s and 30s. There is an especially prominent population of youth
aspiring in the arts in various Lower East Side neighborhoods, such
as SoHo, Alphabet City, TriBeCa and Greenwich Village.
Modern New York City is familiar to many people around the globe
thanks to its popularity as a setting for films and television
series. Notable television examples include such award-winning
shows as
Friends,
30 Rock,
CSI:
NY,
Seinfeld,
NYPD Blue,
Law & Order,
Will & Grace,
Spin City,
Gossip
Girl, and
Sex and the
City. Notable film examples include
Miracle on 34th Street,
Ghostbusters,
Eyes Wide Shut,
Home Alone 2: Lost in New
York,
Cloverfield, and
many of
Woody Allen's films, such as
Annie Hall,
Bananas, and
Manhattan.
Geography
Manhattan
is loosely divided into downtown,
midtown, and uptown, with Fifth
Avenue
dividing Manhattan's east and west sides.
Manhattan
Island is bounded by the Hudson River
to the west and the East
River to the east. To the north, the Harlem River
divides Manhattan from The Bronx and the mainland United States. Several small islands
are also part of the borough of Manhattan, including Randall's
Island, Ward's
Island, and Roosevelt Island in the East River, and Governors Island and Liberty Island to the south in New York
Harbor. Manhattan Island is 22.7 square miles
(58.8 km²) in area, 13.4 miles (21.6 km) long and
2.3 miles (3.7 km) wide, at its widest (near
14th Street). New York County as a
whole covers a total area of 33.77 square miles
(87.46 km²), of which 22.96 square miles (59.47 km²)
are land and 10.81 square miles (28.00 km²) are
water.
One Manhattan neighborhood is actually contiguous with The Bronx.
Marble
Hill at one time was part of Manhattan Island, but the
Harlem River
Ship Canal
, dug in 1895 to improve navigation on the Harlem
River, separated it from the remainder of Manhattan as an island
between the Bronx and the remainder of Manhattan. Before
World War I, the section of the original
Harlem River channel separating Marble Hill from The Bronx was
filled in, and Marble Hill became part of the mainland.
Marble Hill is one example of how Manhattan's land has been
considerably altered by human intervention. The borough has seen
substantial
land reclamation along
its waterfronts since Dutch colonial times, and much of the natural
variation in topography has been evened out.
Early in the nineteenth century,
landfill
was used to expand
Lower Manhattan
from the natural Hudson shoreline at Greenwich Street to
West Street.
When building the World Trade
Center
, 1.2 million cubic
yards (917,000 m³) of material
was excavated from the site. Rather than dumping the spoil at sea or
in landfills, the fill material was used to expand the Manhattan
shoreline across West Street, creating Battery Park
City
. The result was a 700-foot (210-m) extension
into the river, running six blocks or 1,484 feet (450 m),
covering , providing a 1.2-mile (1.9-km) riverfront esplanade and
over of parks.
Manhattan
has fixed vehicular connections with New Jersey
to the west via the George
Washington Bridge
, Holland
Tunnel
and Lincoln Tunnel,
and to three of the four other New York City boroughs—the Bronx to the northeast and Brooklyn
and Queens on Long Island
to the east and south. Its only direct
connection with the fifth New York City borough is the
Staten Island Ferry across New York
Harbor, which is free of charge.
The ferry terminal is located adjacent to
Battery
Park
at its southern tip. It is possible to
travel to Staten Island via Brooklyn, using the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge
.
The
Commissioners' Plan of
1811, called for twelve numbered avenues running north and
south roughly parallel to the shore of the
Hudson River, each wide, with
First Avenue on the east side and
Twelfth Avenue in the
west.
There are several intermittent avenues east
of First Avenue, including four additional lettered avenues running
from Avenue A eastward to
Avenue D in an area now known
as Alphabet
City
in Manhattan's East Village
. The numbered streets in Manhattan run
east-west, and are wide, with about 200 feet (61 m)
between each pair of streets. With each combined street and block
adding up to about 260 feet (79 m), there are almost
exactly 20 blocks per mile. The typical block in Manhattan is
250' by 600'.
Fifteen crosstown streets were designated as
100 feet (30 m) wide, including 34th, 42nd
, 57th and
125th Streets, some of the
borough's most significant transportation and shopping venues. Broadway
is the most notable of many exceptions to the
grid, starting at Bowling Green
in Lower Manhattan
and continuing north into the Bronx at Manhattan's northern
tip. In much of Midtown Manhattan, Broadway runs
at a diagonal to the grid, creating major named intersections at
Union
Square
, Herald
Square
(Sixth Avenue
and 34th Street), Times
Square (Seventh
Avenue and 42nd Street), Columbus Circle
(Eighth Avenue
/Central Park
West and 59th Street)
A
consequence of the strict grid plan of most of Manhattan, and the
grid's skew of approximately 28.9 degrees, is a phenomenon
sometimes referred to as Manhattanhenge (by analogy with Stonehenge
). On separate occasions in late May and
early July, the sunset is aligned with the street grid lines, with
the result that the sun is visible at or near the western horizon
from street level. A similar phenomenon occurs with the sunrise in
January and December.
The
Wildlife Conservation
Society, which operates the zoos and aquariums in the city, is
currently undertaking The Mannahattan Project, a computer
simulation to visually reconstruct the ecology and geography of
Manhattan when Henry Hudson first sailed by in 1609, and compare it
to what we know of the island today.
Adjacent counties
The densities of the boroughs are as follows: Manhattan 71,078;
Brooklyn 36,008; the Bronx 33,141; Queens 21,037; Staten Island
8,404 [based on data from chart].
National protected areas
Neighborhoods
Manhattan's many neighborhoods are not named according to any
particular convention.
Some are geographical (the Upper East
Side
), or ethnically descriptive (Chinatown
). Others are acronyms,
such as TriBeCa
(for "TRIangle BElow CAnal Street") or SoHo
("SOuth of
HOuston"), or the far more recent vintage NoLIta
("NOrth of Little ITaly"). Harlem
is a name
from the Dutch colonial era after Haarlem
, a city in the Netherlands. Alphabet
City comprises Avenues A, B, C and D, to which its name
refers.
Some
neighborhoods, such as SoHo, are
commercial in nature and known for upscale shopping.
Others,
such as Greenwich Village, the Lower East Side
, Alphabet City and the East Village, have long been associated with the "Bohemian" subculture. Chelsea
is a neighborhood with a large gay population, and
also recently a center of New York's art industry and
nightlife. Washington Heights
is a vibrant neighborhood of immigrants from the
Dominican
Republic
. Manhattan's Chinatown has a dense
population of people of Chinese descent.
The Upper West
Side
is often characterized as more intellectual and
creative, in contrast to the old money and
conservative values of the Upper East Side, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the United
States.
In Manhattan,
uptown means north (more precisely
north-northeast, which is the direction in which the island and its
street grid system is oriented) and
downtown means south
(south-southwest). This usage differs from that of most American
cities, where
downtown refers to
the
central business
district. Manhattan has two central business districts, the
Financial District at
the southern tip of the island, and
Midtown Manhattan. The term
uptown also refers to the northern part of Manhattan
(generally speaking, above
59th
Street) and
downtown to the southern portion
(typically below
14th
Street), with
Midtown covering the area in between,
though definitions can be rather fluid depending on the
situation.
Fifth
Avenue roughly bisects Manhattan Island and acts as the
demarcation line for east/west designations (e.g., East 27th
Street, West 42nd Street); street addresses start at Fifth Avenue
and increase heading away from Fifth Avenue, at a rate of 100 per
block in most places. South of Waverly Place in Manhattan,
Fifth Avenue terminates and Broadway becomes the east/west
demarcation line. Though the grid does start with 1st Street, just
north of
Houston Street
(pronounced HOW-stin), the grid does not fully take hold until
north of
14th Street, where
nearly all east-west streets are numerically identified, which
increase from south to north to 220th Street, the highest numbered
street on the island.
Climate
Although located at around 41°N, Manhattan has a
humid subtropical climate
(
Köppen classification
Cfa).
Atlantic Multidecadal
Oscillation, a 70-year-long warming and cooling cycle in the
Atlantic that influences the frequency and severity of hurricanes
and coastal storms in the region.
Temperature records have been set as high as 106 °F (41 °C) on July
9, 1936 and as low as -15 °F (-26 °C) on February 9, 1934.
Temperatures have hit 100 degrees as recently as July 2005 and 103
degrees in August 2006, and dropped to just 1 above zero as
recently as January 2004.
Summer evening temperatures are exacerbated by the
urban heat island effect which causes heat
absorbed during the day to be radiated back at night, raising
temperatures by as much as 7 °F (4 °C) when winds are
slow.
Government
Since New York City's consolidation in 1898, Manhattan has been
governed by the New York City Charter, which has provided for a
strong
mayor-council system
since its revision in 1989. The centralized New York City
government is responsible for public education, correctional
institutions, libraries, public safety, recreational facilities,
sanitation, water supply, and welfare services in Manhattan.
The office of
Borough President
was created in the consolidation of 1898 to balance centralization
with local authority. Each borough president had a powerful
administrative role derived from having a vote on the
New York City Board of
Estimate, which was responsible for creating and approving the
city's budget and proposals for land use.
In 1989 the Supreme
Court of the United States
declared the Board of Estimate unconstitutional on
the grounds that Brooklyn, the most populous borough, had no
greater effective representation on the Board than Staten Island,
the least populous borough, a violation of the Fourteenth
Amendment's Equal Protection
Clause pursuant to the high court's 1964 "one man, one vote"
decision.
Since 1990, the largely-powerless Borough President has acted as an
advocate for the borough at the mayoral agencies, the City Council,
the New York state government, and corporations. Manhattan's
Borough President is
Scott Stringer, elected as a
Democrat in 2005.
Robert M. Morgenthau, a Democrat, has been the
District Attorney of New York County since 1974. Manhattan has ten
City Council members, the third largest contingent among the five
boroughs. It also has twelve administrative districts, each served
by a local Community Board. Community Boards are representative
bodies that field complaints and serve as advocates for local
residents.As the host of the
United
Nations, the borough is home to the world's largest
international
consular
corps, comprising 105 consulates, consulates general and
honorary consulates.
It is also the home of New York
City Hall, the seat of New York City government housing the
Mayor of New York City and
the New York City
Council. The mayor's staff and thirteen municipal
agencies are located in the nearby Manhattan
Municipal Building
, completed in 1916, one of the largest governmental
buildings in the world.
Politics
New York County
District Attorney,
Borough
President
Presidential elections results
| Year |
Republicans |
Democrats |
| 2008 |
13.5% 89,906 |
85.7%
572,126 |
| 2004 |
16.7% 107,405 |
82.1%
526,765 |
| 2000 |
14.2% 79,921 |
79.8%
449,300 |
| 1996 |
13.8% 67,839 |
80.0%
394,131 |
| 1992 |
15.9% 84,501 |
78.2%
416,142 |
| 1988 |
22.9% 115,927 |
76.1%
385,675 |
| 1984 |
27.4% 144,281 |
72.1%
379,521 |
| 1980 |
26.2% 115,911 |
62.4%
275,742 |
| 1976 |
25.5% 117,702 |
73.2%
337,438 |
| 1972 |
33.4% 178,515 |
66.2%
354,326 |
| 1968 |
25.6% 135,458 |
70.0%
370,806 |
| 1964 |
19.2% 120,125 |
80.5%
503,848 |
| 1960 |
34.2% 217,271 |
65.3%
414,902 |
The Democratic Party holds the majority of public offices.
Registered
Republicans are a small
minority in the borough, only constituting approximately 12% of the
electorate.
Registered Republicans are more than 20% of
the electorate only in the neighborhoods of Upper East
Side and the Financial District. The
Democrats hold
66.1% of those registered in a party. 21.9% of the voters were
unaffiliated (independents).
Manhattan is divided between four congressional districts, all of
which are represented by Democrats.
- Charles B. Rangel represents the 15th district in
Upper Manhattan, which incorporates
Harlem, Spanish
Harlem
, Washington Heights, Inwood and parts of the Upper West
Side.
- Jerrold Nadler
represents the 8th
district, based on the West Side which covers most of the Upper
West Side, Hell's Kitchen
, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, Chinatown, Tribeca and Battery Park City, as well as some
sections of Southwest Brooklyn.
- Carolyn B. Maloney represents the 14th district, the
so-called "Silk Stocking" district which was the political base for
Teddy Roosevelt and John Lindsay. It covers most of the Upper East Side,
Yorkville
, Gramercy Park, Roosevelt Island and most of the
Lower East
Side
and the East Village,
as well as portions of western Queens.
- Nydia
Velazquez of the Brooklyn-Queens based 12th district,
represents a few heavily Puerto Rican sections of the Lower East
Side, including Avenues C and D of Alphabet
City.
No
Republican has
won the
presidential
election in Manhattan since
1924, when
Calvin Coolidge won a plurality of
the New York County vote over Democrat
John W. Davis,
41.20%–39.55%.
Warren G. Harding was the most recent Republican
presidential candidate to win a majority of the Manhattan vote,
with 59.22% of the 1920 vote. In the 2004 presidential election,
Democrat
John Kerry received 82.1% of the
vote in Manhattan and Republican
George
W. Bush received 16.7%. The
borough is the most important source of funding for presidential
campaigns in the United States; in 2004, it was home to six of the
top seven
zip codes in the nation for
political contributions. The top ZIP code, 10021 on the Upper East
Side, generated the most money for the
United States presidential
election for all presidential candidates, including both Kerry
and Bush during the 2004 election.
Federal representation
The
United States Postal
Service operates post offices in Manhattan.
The James
A.
Farley Post Office in Midtown
Manhattan is New York City's main post office. The post
office stopped 24-hour service beginning on May 9, 2009 due to
decreasing mail traffic.
Crime
Starting in the mid-19th century, the United States became a magnet
for immigrants seeking to escape poverty in their home countries.
After
arriving in New York, many new arrivals ended up living in squalor
in the slums of the Five
Points
neighborhood, an area between Broadway and the Bowery
, northeast of New York City Hall. By the 1820s, the area was home to many
gambling dens and "
houses of ill repute",
and was known as a dangerous place to go. In 1842,
Charles Dickens visited the area and was
appalled at the horrendous living conditions he had seen. The area
was so notorious at the time that it even caught the attention of
Abraham Lincoln, who visited the
area before his
Cooper Union
Address in 1860. The predominantly Irish
Five Points Gang was one of the country's
first major
organized crime
entities.
As Italian immigration grew in the early 1900s many joined ethnic
gangs, including
Al Capone, who got his
start in crime with the
Five Points
Gang. The
Mafia (also known as
Cosa
Nostra) first developed in the mid-19th century in
Sicily and spread to the
East Coast of the United
States during the late 19th century following waves of Sicilian
and Southern Italian
emigration. Lucky
Luciano established La Cosa Nostra in Manhattan, forming alliances
with other criminal enterprises, including the
Jewish mob, led by
Meyer
Lansky, the leading Jewish gangster of that period. from
1920–1933,
Prohibition helped create a
thriving
black market in liquor, which
the Mafia was quick to capitalize on.
New York City experienced a sharp increase in crime during the
1960s and 1970s, with a near fivefold jump in the total number of
police-recorded crimes, from 21.09 per thousand in 1960 to a peak
of 102.66 in 1981. Homicides continued to increase in the city as a
whole for another decade, with murders recorded by the
NYPD jumping from 390 in
1960, to 1,117 in 1970, 1,812 in 1980, and reaching its peak of
2,262 in 1990. Starting circa 1990, New York City saw record
declines in homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, violent
crime, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, and property crime,
a trend that has continued to today.
on 2005 data, New York City has the lowest crime rate among the ten
largest cities in the United States. The city as a whole ranked
fourth nationwide in the 13th annual
Morgan Quitno survey of the 32 cities surveyed
with a population above 500,000. The
New York Police Department, with
36,400 officers, is larger than the next four largest U.S.
departments combined.
The NYPD's counter-terrorism division, with
1,000 officers assigned, is larger than the FBI
's.
The NYPD's
CompStat system of crime
tracking, reporting and monitoring has been credited with a drop in
crime in New York City that has far surpassed the drop elsewhere in
the United States.
Since 1990, crime in Manhattan has plummeted in all categories
tracked by the CompStat profile. A borough that saw 503 murders in
1990 has seen a drop of nearly 88% to 62 in 2008. Robbery and
burglary are down by more than 80% during the period, and auto
theft has been reduced by more than 93%. Overall crime has declined
by more than 75% since 1990 in the seven major crime categories
tracked by the system, and year-to-date statistics through May 2009
show continuing declines.
Demographics
|
|
Manhattan
|
NY City
|
NY State
|
| Total population |
1,537,195 |
8,008,278 |
18,976,457 |
Population density
per square mile |
66,940 |
26,403 |
402 |
| Median household income
(1999) |
$47,030 |
$38,293 |
$43,393 |
| Per capita income |
$42,922 |
$22,402 |
$23,389 |
| Bachelor's degree or higher |
49.4% |
27.4% |
27.4% |
| Foreign-born |
29.4% |
35.9% |
20.4% |
| White |
54.4% |
44.7% |
67.9% |
| Black |
17.4% |
26.6% |
15.9% |
| Asian |
9.4% |
9.8% |
5.5% |
Hispanic
(of any race) |
27.2% |
27.0% |
15.1% |
According to 2008 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, there were
1,634,795 people residing in Manhattan on July 1, 2008. As of the
2000 Census, the population density of New York County was
66,940.1/sq mi (25,849.9/km²), the highest population density
of any county in the United States. If 2008 census estimates are
accurate, then the population density now exceeds 71,201 people per
square mile. In 1910, at the height of European immigration to New
York, Manhattan's population density reached a peak of
101,548/sq mi (39,222.9/km²). There were 798,144 housing units
in 2000 at an average density of 34,756.7/sq mi
(13,421.8/km²). Only 20.3% of Manhattan residents lived in
owner-occupied housing, the second-lowest rate of all counties in
the nation, behind The Bronx.
The
New York
City Department of City Planning projects that Manhattan's
population will grow by 289,000 people between 2000 and 2030, an
increase of 18.8% over the period, second only to Staten Island.,
while the rest of the city is projected to grow by 12.7% over the
same period. The school-age population is expected to grow 4.4% by
2030, in contrast to a small decline in the city as a whole. The
elderly population is forecast to grow by 57.9%, with the borough
adding 108,000 persons ages 65 and over, compared to 44.2% growth
citywide.
According to the 2005–2007 American Community Survey, Manhattan's
population was 56.8% White (48.4% non-Hispanic White alone), 16.7%
Black or African American (13.8% non-Hispanic Black or African
American alone), 0.8% American Indian and Alaska Native, 11.3%
Asian, 0.1% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, 16.9% from
some other race, and 2.4% from two or more races. 25.1% of the
total population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.
56.2% of the population had a Bachelor's degree or higher. 28.4%
were foreign born and another 3.6% were born in Puerto Rico, U.S.
Island areas, or born abroad to American parents. 38.8% spoke a
language other than English at home.
In 2000, 56.4% of people living in Manhattan were
White, 27.18% were
Hispanic of any race, 17.39%
were
Black, 14.14% were
from
other races, 9.40%
were
Asian, 0.5% were
Native American, and
0.07% were
Pacific
Islander. 4.14% were from two or more races. 24.93% reported
speaking Spanish at home, 4.12% Chinese, and 2.19% French.
There were 738,644 households. 25.2% were married couples living
together, 12.6% had a female householder with no husband present,
and 59.1% were non-families. 17.1% had children under the age of 18
living with them. 48% of all households were made up of individuals
and 10.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or
older. The average household size was two and the average family
size was 2.99.
Manhattan's population was spread out with 16.8% under the age of
18, 10.2% from 18 to 24, 38.3% from 25 to 44, 22.6% from 45 to 64,
and 12.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36
years. For every 100 females, there were 90.3 males. For every 100
females age 18 and over, there were 87.9 males.
Manhattan is one of the
highest-income
places in the United States with a population greater than one
million. Based on
IRS data
for the 2004 tax year, New York County (Manhattan) had the highest
average federal income tax liability per return in the country.
Average tax liability was $25,875, representing 20.0% of
Adjusted Gross Income. As of 2002,
Manhattan had the highest per capita income of any county in the
country.
The
Manhattan ZIP Code 10021, on the Upper East Side is home to more than 100,000 people and has a per
capita income of over $90,000. It is one of the largest
concentrations of extreme wealth in the United States. Most
Manhattan neighborhoods are not as wealthy. The median income for a
household in the county was $47,030, and the median income for a
family was $50,229. Males had a median income of $51,856 versus
$45,712 for females. The
per capita
income for the county was $42,922. About 17.6% of families and
20% of the population were below the
poverty line, including 31.8% of those under
age 18 and 18.9% of those age 65 or over.
Lower Manhattan (Manhattan south of
Houston Street) is more
economically diverse. While the
Financial District had few
non-commercial residents after the 1950s, the area has seen a
significant surge in its residential population, with estimates
showing over 30,000 residents living in the area as of 2005, a jump
from the 15,000 to 20,000 before the
September 11, 2001 attacks.
Manhattan is also diverse in religion. The largest religious
affiliation is the
Roman Catholic
Church, whose adherents constitute 564,505 persons (more than
36% of the population) and maintain 110 congregations.
Jews comprise the second largest religious
group, with 314,500 persons (20.5%) in 102 congregations. The next
largest religious groups are
Protestants, with 139,732 adherents (9.1%) and
Muslims, with 37,078 (2.4%).
The borough is also experiencing a baby boom. Since 2000, the
number of children under age 5 living in Manhattan grew by more
than 32%.
Landmarks and architecture
The
skyscraper, which has shaped
Manhattan's distinctive skyline, has been closely associated with
New York City's identity since the end of the 19th century. From
1890–1973, the
world's tallest building was in Manhattan, with nine different
buildings holding the title.
The New
York World Building on Park
Row, was the first to take the title, standing 309 feet
(91 m) until 1955, when it was demolished to construct a new
ramp to the Brooklyn
Bridge. The nearby Park Row Building
, with its 29 stories standing high took the title
in 1899. The 41-story Singer Building
, constructed in 1908 as the headquarters of the
eponymous sewing machine manufacturer, stood high until 1967, when
it became the tallest building ever demolished. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company
Tower
, standing 700 feet (213 m) at the foot of
Madison Avenue, wrested
the title in 1909, with a tower reminiscent of St Mark's
Campanile
in Venice
.
The
Woolworth
Building
, and its distinctive Gothic architecture, took the title in
1913, topping off at 792 feet (241 m).
The
Roaring Twenties saw a race to
the sky, with three separate buildings pursuing the world's tallest
title in the span of a year. As the stock market soared in the days
before the
Wall Street Crash
of 1929, two developers publicly competed for the crown.
At
927 feet (282 m), 40 Wall Street
, completed in May 1930 in an astonishing eleven
months as the headquarters of the Bank
of Manhattan, seemed to have secured the title.
At
Lexington
Avenue
and 42nd Street, auto executive Walter
Chrysler and his architect William
Van Alen developed plans to build the structure's trademark
-high spire in secret, pushing the Chrysler Building to 1,046 feet (319 m) and making it the
tallest in the world when it was completed in 1929.
Both
buildings were soon surpassed, with the May 1931 completion of the
102-story Empire
State Building with its Art Deco tower
soaring 1,250 feet (381 m) to the top of the
building. The high pinnacle was later added bringing the
total height of the building to 1,453 ft (443 m)).
The
former Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, once an iconic symbol of the City, were located in
Lower Manhattan. At 1,368 and
1,362 feet (417m& 415m), the 110-story buildings were the
world's tallest from 1972, until they were surpassed by the
construction of the Willis
Tower
in 1974 (formerly known as the Sears tower
located in Chicago). By the end of the 20th century the Twin
Towers of the World Trade Center were arguably among the world's
most famous and recognizable buildings until their destruction in
the
September 11, 2001 terrorist
attacks. The World Trade Center was the object of admiration
for many including French tightrope walker
Philippe Petit who balanced himself across a
single cable that was suspended between the Twin Towers on August
7, 1974.
One World Trade Center
, a replacement for the Twin Towers of the World
Trade Center, is currently under construction and is slated to be
ready for occupancy in 2014.
In 1961,
Penn Central unveiled
plans to tear down the old Penn
Station
and replace it with a new Madison
Square Garden
and office building
complex. Organized protests were aimed at
preserving the
McKim, Mead, and
White-designed structure completed in 1910, widely considered a
masterpiece of the
Beaux-Arts style and one of the
architectural jewels of New York City. Despite these efforts,
demolition of the structure began in October 1963. The loss of Penn
Station—called "an act of irresponsible public vandalism" by
historian
Lewis Mumford—led directly
to the enactment in 1965 of a local law establishing the
New York City
Landmarks Preservation Commission, which is responsible for
preserving the "city's historic, aesthetic, and cultural heritage".
The
historic preservation
movement triggered by Penn Station's demise has been credited with
the retention of some one million structures nationwide, including
nearly 1,000 in New York City.
The
theatre district around Broadway at Times Square,
New York
University
, Columbia
University, Flatiron Building
, the Financial District around
Wall
Street, Lincoln Center for the Performing
Arts
, Little
Italy, Harlem
, the American Museum of Natural
History
, Chinatown, and Central
Park are all located on this densely populated
island.
The city
is a leader in energy-efficient green office buildings, such as
Hearst
Tower
, owned by Englishman Samuel Fox, and the rebuilt
7 World
Trade Center
.
Central Park is bordered on the north by West 110th Street, on the west by
Eighth
Avenue, on the south by West 59th Street, and on the east by
Fifth
Avenue. Along the park's borders, these streets are
usually referred to as Central Park
North, Central Park West, and
Central
Park South
, respectively. (Fifth Avenue retains its
name along the eastern border.) The park was designed by
Frederick Law Olmsted and
Calvert Vaux. The 843 acre (3.4 km²)
park offers extensive
walking tracks,
two
ice-skating rinks, a wildlife
sanctuary, and grassy areas used for various sporting pursuits, as
well as playgrounds for children. The park is a popular oasis for
migrating birds, and thus is popular with bird watchers. The
6 mile (10 km) road circling the park is popular with
joggers, bicyclists and inline skaters, especially on weekends and
in the evenings after 7:00 p.m., when automobile traffic is
banned.
While much of the park looks natural, it is almost entirely
landscaped and contains several artificial lakes. The construction
of Central Park in the 1850s was one of the era's most massive
public works projects. Some 20,000 workers crafted the topography
to create the English-style pastoral landscape Olmsted and Vaux
sought to create. Workers moved nearly of soil and planted more
than 270,000 trees and shrubs.
17.8% of the borough, a total of 2,686 acres (10.9 km²),
are devoted to parkland. Almost 70% of Manhattan's space devoted to
parks is located outside of Central Park, including 204
playgrounds, 251 Greenstreets, 371 basketball courts and many other
amenities.
The
African Burial Ground National
Monument
at Duane Street preserves a site containing the
remains of over 400 Africans buried during the 17th and 18th
centuries. The remains were found in 1991 during the
construction of the Foley
Square
Federal Office Building.
Cityscape
Economy
Manhattan is home to some of the nation's most valuable real
estate, and has a reputation for being one of the most expensive
areas in the United States.
Manhattan
is the economic engine of New York City, with its 2.3 million
workers drawn from the entire New York metropolitan area
accounting for almost two-thirds of all jobs in New
York City. Manhattan's daytime population swells to 2.874
million, with commuters adding a net 1.337 million people to the
population.
This commuter influx of 1.459 million
workers coming into Manhattan was the largest of any other county
or city in the country, and was more than triple the 481,000
commuters who headed into second-ranked Washington, D.C.
Its most important economic sector is the finance industry, whose
280,000 workers earned more than half of all the wages paid in the
borough.
The securities
industry, best-known by its center in Wall Street, forms the largest segment of the city's financial
sector, accounting for over 50% of the financial services
employment. Before the
financial crisis of
2008, the five largest securities-trading firms in the U.S. had
their headquarters in Manhattan. In 2006, those in the Manhattan
financial industry earned an average weekly pay about $8,300
(including bonuses), while the average weekly pay was about $2,500.
The health care sector represented 11.3% of the borough's jobs and
4% of total compensation, with workers taking home about $900 per
week.
New York City is home to the most corporate headquarters of any
city in the nation, the overwhelming majority based in Manhattan.
Midtown Manhattan is the largest central business district in the
United States.
Lower Manhattan is the nation's
third-largest central business district (after Chicago
's Loop
) and is
home to the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange
(Amex), the New
York Board of Trade, the New York
Mercantile Exchange
(Nymex) and NASDAQ.
Seven of the world's top eight global
advertising agency networks are
headquartered in Manhattan. "Madison Avenue" is often used
metonymously to refer to the entire advertising
field, after
Madison
Avenue became identified with the advertising industry after
the explosive growth in the area in the 1920s.
2006 statistics showed that the average weekly wages paid to
Manhattan workers is $1,453 (excluding bonuses), the highest in the
country's 325 largest counties, and the salary growth of 7.8% was
the highest among the ten largest counties. Pay in the borough was
85% higher than the $784 pay earned weekly nationwide and nearly
double the amount earned by workers in the outer boroughs.
Manhattan's workforce is overwhelmingly focused on white collar
professions, with manufacturing (39,800 workers) and construction
(31,600) accounting for a small fraction of the borough's
employment.
Historically, this corporate presence has been complemented by many
independent retailers, though a recent influx of national chain
stores has caused many to lament the creeping homogenization of
Manhattan.
Culture
Manhattan has been the scene of many important American cultural
movements.
In 1912, about 20,000 workers, a quarter of
them women, marched on Washington Square Park
to commemorate the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
fire, which killed 146 workers on March 25, 1911. Many
of the women wore fitted tucked-front blouses like those
manufactured by the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, a clothing style
that became the working woman's uniform and a symbol of female
independence, reflecting the alliance of labor and suffrage
movements.The
Harlem Renaissance
in the 1920s established the African-American literary canon in the
United States. Manhattan's vibrant visual art scene in the 1950s
and 1960s was a center of the American
pop
art movement, which gave birth to such giants as
Jasper Johns and
Roy Lichtenstein.
Perhaps no other
artist is as associated with the downtown pop art movement of the
late 1970s as Andy Warhol, who
socialized at clubs like Serendipity 3
and Studio
54
.
A
popular haven for art, the downtown neighborhood of Chelsea is widely known for its galleries and cultural
events, with more than 200 art galleries that are home to modern
art from both upcoming and established artists.
Broadway
theatre
is often considered the highest professional form
of theatre in the United States. Plays and
musicals are staged in one of the 39 larger
professional theatres with at least 500 seats, almost all in and
around Times Square.
Off-Broadway
theatres feature productions in venues with 100-500 seats.
A little
more than a mile from Times Square is the Lincoln Center, home to one of the world's most prestigious opera
houses, that of the Metropolitan
Opera.
Manhattan is also home to some of the most
extensive art collections, both contemporary and historical, in the
world including the Metropolitan Museum of Art
, the Museum of Modern Art
(MoMA), the Whitney
Museum of American Art
, and the Frank Lloyd
Wright-designed Guggenheim Museum
.
Manhattan is the borough most closely associated with New York City
by non-residents; even some natives of New York City's outer
boroughs will describe a trip to Manhattan as "going to the
city".
The borough has a place in several American
idioms. The phrase
"a New York minute" is
meant to convey a very short period of time, sometimes in
hyperbolic form, as in "perhaps faster than you would believe is
possible". It refers to the rapid pace of life in Manhattan.
The term
"melting pot" was first popularly coined
to describe the densely populated immigrant neighborhoods on the
Lower East
Side in Israel
Zangwill's play The Melting
Pot, which was an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet set by Zangwill in
New York City in 1908. The iconic Flatiron Building is said to have been the source of the phrase
"23 skidoo" or scram, from what cops would
shout at men who tried to get glimpses of women's dresses being
blown up by the winds created by the triangular building.
The
"Big Apple" dates back to the 1920s, when
a reporter heard the term used by New Orleans
stablehands to refer to New York City's racetracks
and named his racing column "Around The Big Apple." Jazz
musicians adopted the term to refer to the city as the world's jazz
capital, and a 1970s ad campaign by the New York Convention and
Visitors Bureau helped popularize the term.
Sports
Today,
Manhattan is home of the NHL's New York Rangers, WNBA's New York
Liberty, and NBA's New York Knicks, who all play their home
games at Madison Square Garden, the only major professional sports arena in the
borough. The New York
Jets proposed a West Side Stadium
for their home field, but the proposal was
eventually defeated in June 2005, leaving them at Giants
Stadium
in East Rutherford, New Jersey
.
Today, Manhattan is the only borough in New York City that does not
have a
professional baseball
franchise.
The
Bronx has the Yankees and
Queens has the Mets of the
Major League Baseball.
The
Minor League Baseball Brooklyn Cyclones play in Brooklyn, while the Staten
Island Yankees play in Staten Island
. Yet three of the four major league
teams to play in New York City played in Manhattan.
The New York Giants played in the various
incarnations of the Polo
Grounds
at 155th
Street and Eighth Avenue from their inception in 1883—except for 1889,
when they split their time between Jersey
City
and Staten
Island, and when they played in Hilltop Park in
1911—until they headed west with the Brooklyn Dodgers after the 1957
season. The New York Yankees began their franchise
as the Hilltoppers, named for Hilltop Park
, where they played from their creation in 1903
until 1912. The team moved to the Polo Grounds with the
1913 season, where they were officially christened the New York
Yankees, remaining there until they moved across the Harlem River in 1923 to Yankee Stadium
. The New York
Mets played in the Polo Grounds in 1962 and 1963, their first
two seasons, before Shea
Stadium
was completed in 1964. After the Mets
departed, the Polo Grounds was demolished in April 1964, replaced
by public housing.
The first national college-level basketball championship, the
National Invitation
Tournament, was held in New York in 1938 and remains in the
city.
The New York
Knicks started play in 1946 as one of the National Basketball
Association's original teams, playing their first home games at
the 69th
Regiment Armory
, before making Madison Square Garden their
permanent home. The
New York
Liberty of the
WNBA have shared the
Garden with the Knicks since their creation in 1997 as one of the
league's original eight teams.
Rucker Park
in Harlem is a playground court, famed for its
street ball style of play,
where many NBA athletes have played in the summer
league.
Though
both of New York City's football teams play today across the
Hudson River in Giants
Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, both teams started out playing in the Polo
Grounds. The
New York Giants
played side-by-side with their baseball namesakes from the time
they entered the
National
Football League in 1925, until crossing over to Yankee Stadium
in 1956. The
New York Jets, originally
known as the
Titans, started out in 1960 at the Polo
Grounds, staying there for four seasons before joining the Mets in
Queens in 1964.
The
New York Rangers of the
National Hockey League have
played in the various locations of Madison Square Garden since
their founding in the 1926–1927 season. The Rangers were predated
by the
New York Americans, who
started play in the Garden the previous season, lasting until the
team folded after the 1941–1942 NHL season, a season in which it
played in the Garden as the
Brooklyn Americans.
The
New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League
played their home games at Downing Stadium
for two seasons, starting in 1974.
In 1975,
the team signed Pelé, officially recorded
by FIFA
as the
world's greatest soccer player, to a $4.5 million contract, drawing
a capacity crowd of 22,500 to watch him lead the team to a 2-0
victory. The playing pitch and facilities at Downing Stadium
were in dreadful condition though and as the team's popularity grew
they too left for Yankee Stadium, and then Giants Stadium.
The
stadium was demolished in 2002 to make way for the $45 million,
4,754-seat Icahn
Stadium
which includes an Olympic-standard 400-meter
running track and, as part of Pele's and the Cosmos' legacy,
includes a FIFA-approved
floodlit soccer stadium which hosts matches involving some 48 youth
teams who are members of a Manhattan soccer club.
Media
Manhattan is served by the major New York City dailies, including
The New York Times,
New York Daily News,
and
New York Post, which are
all headquartered in the borough. The nation's largest financial
newspaper,
The Wall Street
Journal, is also based there. Other daily newspapers
include
AM New York and
The Villager.
The New York Amsterdam
News, based in Harlem, is one of the leading African
American weekly newspapers in the United States.
The Village Voice is a leading
alternative weekly based in the borough.
The television industry developed in New York and is a significant
employer in the city's economy. The four major American broadcast
networks,
ABC,
CBS,
Fox, and
NBC are
all headquartered in Manhattan, as are many cable channels,
including
MSNBC,
MTV,
Fox News,
HBO and
Comedy Central. In 1971,
WLIB became New York's first black-owned radio station
and the crown jewel of
Inner City Broadcasting
Corporation. A co-founder of Inner City was
Percy Sutton, a former Manhattan borough
president and long one of the city’s most powerful black leaders.
WLIB began broadcasts for the African-American community in 1949
and regularly interviewed civil rights leaders like
Malcolm X and aired live broadcasts from
conferences of the
NAACP.
Influential WQHT
, also
known as Hot 97, claims to be the premier hip-hop station
in the United States. WNYC
,
comprising an AM and FM signal, has the largest public radio
audience in the nation and is the most-listened to commercial or
non-commercial radio station in Manhattan. WBAI, with news and information programming, is one of
the few socialist radio stations operating in the United
States.
The
oldest public-access
television channel in the United States is the Manhattan Neighborhood
Network
, founded in 1971, offers eclectic local
programming that ranges from a jazz hour to discussion of labor
issues to foreign language and religious programming.
NY1,
Time Warner
Cable's local news channel, is known for its beat coverage of
City Hall and state politics.
Housing
In the early days of Manhattan, wood construction and poor access
to water supplies left the city vulnerable to fires. In 1776,
shortly after the
Continental Army
evacuated Manhattan and left it to the British, a massive fire
broke out destroying one-third of the city and some 500
houses.
The rise
of immigration near the turn of the 20th century left major
portions of Manhattan, especially the Lower East Side, densely packed with recent arrivals, crammed
into unhealthy and unsanitary housing. Tenements were usually five-stories high,
constructed on the then-typical 25x100 lots, with "cockroach
landlords" exploiting the new immigrants. By 1929, stricter fire
codes and the increased use of elevators in residential buildings,
were the impetus behind a new housing code that effectively ended
the tenement as a form of new construction, though many tenement
buildings survive today on the East Side of the borough.
Today, Manhattan offers a wide array of public and private housing
options. There were 798,144 housing units in Manhattan as of the
2000 Census, at an average density of 34,756.7/sq mi
(13,421.8/km²).
Only 20.3% of Manhattan residents lived in
owner-occupied housing, the second-lowest rate of all counties in
the nation, behind The
Bronx.
Infrastructure
Transportation
Manhattan is unique in the United States of America for intense use
of
public transportation and
lack of private car ownership. While 88% of Americans nationwide
drive to their jobs and only 5% use public transportation, mass
transit is the dominant form of travel for residents of Manhattan,
with 72% of borough residents using public transportation and only
18% driving to work. According to the United States Census, 2000,
more than 75% of Manhattan households do not own a car.
In 2007, Mayor Bloomberg
proposed a
congestion pricing system. The state
legislature rejected the proposal in June 2008.
The
New York City Subway, the
largest
subway system in the world by
track mileage and the largest by number of stations, is the primary
means of travel within the city, linking every borough except
Staten Island.
A second subway, the Port
Authority Trans-Hudson
(PATH) system, connects Manhattan to northern
New
Jersey. Passengers pay fares with pay-per-ride
MetroCards, which are
valid on all city buses and subways, as well as on PATH trains. A
one-way fare on the bus or subway is $2.25, and PATH costs $1.75.
There are daily, 7-day, 14-day, and 30-day MetroCards that allow
unlimited trips on all subways (except PATH) and MTA bus routes
(except for express buses). The PATH QuickCard is being phased out,
and both PATH and the MTA are testing "smart card" payment systems
to replace the MetroCard.
Commuter rail
services operating to and from Manhattan are the Long Island Rail Road (which connects
Manhattan and other New York
City boroughs to Long Island), the Metro-North
Railroad (which connects Manhattan to Westchester County
and Southwestern Connecticut) and New Jersey Transit trains to various
points in New Jersey.
The
MTA New York City
Bus offers a wide variety of local buses within Manhattan. An
extensive network of express bus routes serves commuters and other
travelers heading into Manhattan.
The bus system served 740 million
passengers in 2004, the highest in the nation, and more than double
the ridership of the second-place Los
Angeles
.
New York's iconic yellow cabs, which number 13,087 city-wide and
must have the requisite medallion authorizing the pick up of street
hails, are ubiquitous in the borough. Manhattan also sees tens of
thousands of
bicycle
commuters.
The Roosevelt Island Tramway
, one of two commuter cable car systems in North
America, whisks commuters between Roosevelt Island and Manhattan in less than five minutes, and has
been servicing the island since 1978. (The other system in
North America is the Portland Aerial Tram
.) The Staten
Island Ferry, which runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year,
annually carries over 19 million passengers on the 5.2 mile
(8.4 km) run between Manhattan and Staten Island. Each
weekday, five vessels transport about 65,000 passengers on 110 boat
trips. The ferry has been fare-free since 1997, when the
then-50-cent fare was eliminated.
The
metro region's commuter rail lines converge at Penn
Station and Grand Central Terminal
, on the west and east sides of Midtown Manhattan,
respectively. They are the two busiest rail stations in the
United States. About one-third of users of mass transit and
two-thirds of railway passengers in the country live in New York
and its suburbs.
Amtrak provides
inter-city passenger rail service from Penn Station to Boston
, Philadelphia
, Baltimore
and Washington, D.C.; Upstate New York,
New
England
; cross-border service to Toronto
and Montreal
; and destinations in the South and
Midwest.
The
Lincoln Tunnel, which carries
120,000 vehicles a day under the Hudson River between New Jersey
and Manhattan, is the busiest vehicular tunnel in the world. The
tunnel was built instead of a bridge to allow for unfettered
passage of large passenger and cargo ships which sailed through
New York Harbor and up the Hudson to
Manhattan's piers.
The Queens Midtown Tunnel
, built to relieve congestion on the bridges
connecting Manhattan with Queens and Brooklyn, was the largest
non-federal project in its time when it was completed in
1940. President
Franklin
D. Roosevelt was the first
person to drive through it.
The
FDR Drive
and
Harlem River Drive are two
routes with limited access that skirt the east side of Manhattan
along the East River, designed by controversial New York master
planner
Robert Moses.
Manhattan has three public heliports.
US Helicopter offers regularly scheduled
helicopter service connecting the Downtown
Manhattan Heliport
with John F.
Kennedy International Airport
in Queens and Newark
Liberty International Airport
in New
Jersey.
New York has the largest clean-air diesel-
hybrid and
compressed natural gas bus fleet in
the country. It also has some of the first hybrid taxis, most of
which operate in Manhattan.
Utilities
Gas and electric service is provided by
Consolidated Edison to all of Manhattan.
Con Edison's electric business traces its roots back to
Thomas Edison's
Edison Electric Illuminating
Company, the first investor-owned electric utility. The company
started service on September 4, 1882, using one generator to
provide 110
volts direct current (DC) to 59 customers with 800
light bulbs, in a one-square-mile area of
Lower Manhattan from his
Pearl Street Station.
Con Edison operates the world's
largest
district steam system,
which consists of 105 miles (169 km) of steam pipes,
providing steam for heating, hot water, and air conditioning by
some 1,800 Manhattan customers. Cable service is provided by
Time Warner Cable and telephone
service is provided by
Verizon
Communications, although
AT&T is
available as well.
Manhattan, surrounded by two
brackish
rivers, had a limited supply of fresh water. The supply dwindled as
the city grew rapidly after the
American Revolutionary War.
To meet
the needs of the growing population, the city acquired land in
Westchester County
and constructed the Croton Aqueduct system, which went into
service in 1842. The system took water from a dam at the
Croton River, and sent it down through
the
Bronx, over the Harlem River via the High Bridge
, to storage reservoirs in Central Park and at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, and through a network of cast iron pipes on to
consumer's faucets.
Today, the
New York
City Department of Environmental Protection provides water to
residents fed by a 2,000 square mile (5,180 km²)
watershed in the
Catskill Mountains. Because the watershed
is in one of the largest protected wilderness areas in the United
States, the natural water filtration process remains intact. As a
result, New York is one of only five major cities in the United
States with drinking water pure enough to require only chlorination
to ensure its purity at the tap under normal conditions. Water
comes to Manhattan through
New York City Water Tunnel
No. 1 and
Tunnel No. 2, completed in 1917 and
1936, respectively. Construction started in 1970 continues on
New York City Water
Tunnel No. 3,
which will double the system's existing
1.2 billion gallon-a-day capacity while providing a
much-needed backup to the two other tunnels.
The
New York City
Department of Sanitation is responsible for garbage removal.
The bulk
of the city's trash ultimately is disposed at mega-dumps in
Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina and Ohio (via transfer
stations in New Jersey, Brooklyn and Queens) since the 2001 closure
of the Fresh
Kills Landfill
on Staten
Island. A small amount of trash processed at
transfer sites in New Jersey is sometimes incinerated at
waste-to-energy facilities. Like New York City, New Jersey and much
of Greater New York relies on exporting its trash to far-flung
places.
Education
Education in Manhattan is provided by a vast number of public and
private institutions. Public schools in the borough are operated by
the
New York City
Department of Education, the largest public school system in
the United States, serving 1.1 million students.
Some of
the best-known New York City public high schools, such as Stuyvesant High School
, Fiorello H.
LaGuardia High School, High
School of Fashion Industries, Murry
Bergtraum High School
, Manhattan Center for Science and
Mathematics
, Hunter College High School
and High
School for Math, Science and Engineering at City College are
located in Manhattan. Bard High School Early
College,a new hybrid school created by upstate Bard
College
, serves students from around the city.
Manhattan is home to many of the most
prestigious private prep schools in the nation including the
Upper East
Side's Brearley School
, Dalton School
, Browning School
, Spence School,
Chapin School, Nightingale-Bamford School, and
Convent of the Sacred Heart
, and the Upper West Side's Collegiate School
and Trinity School
. The borough is also home to two private
schools that are known for being the most diverse in the nation,
Manhattan Country School
and United Nations International
School
. Manhattan is home to the only official
Italian American school in the
U.S., La Scuola d'Italia.
As of 2003, 52.3% of Manhattan residents over age 25 have a
bachelor's degree, the fifth highest of all counties in the
country. By 2005, about 60% of residents were college graduates and
some 25% had earned advanced degrees, giving Manhattan one of the
nation's densest concentrations of highly educated people.
Manhattan has various colleges and
universities including Columbia
University, Cooper
Union
, Fordham University
, The Juilliard School
, Berkeley College,
The New School, New York
University (NYU) and Yeshiva University
. Other schools include Bank
Street College of Education
, Boricua College,
Jewish
Theological Seminary
, Marymount
Manhattan College, Manhattan School of Music
, Metropolitan College of New
York, New York Institute of
Technology
, Pace
University, St. John's University
, School of
Visual Arts, Touro College and
Union Theological Seminary
. Several other private institutions maintain
a Manhattan presence, among them The College of New Rochelle and
Pratt
Institute
.
The
City University of New
York (CUNY), the municipal college system of New York City, is
the largest urban university system in the United States, serving
more than 226,000 degree students and a roughly equal number of
adult, continuing and professional education students. A third of
college graduates in New York City graduate from CUNY, with the
institution enrolling about half of all college students in New
York City.
CUNY senior colleges located in Manhattan
include: Baruch
College
, City College of New York
, Hunter College
, John Jay College of
Criminal Justice, and the CUNY Graduate Center
(graduate studies and doctoral granting
institution). The only CUNY community college located in
Manhattan is the Borough of Manhattan Community
College
.
The
State University of New
York is represented by the Fashion
Institute of Technology
, State
University of New York State College of Optometry and Stony Brook University -
Manhattan.
Manhattan is a world center for training and education in medicine
and the life sciences.
The city as a whole receives the
second-highest amount of annual funding from the National
Institutes of Health
among all U.S. cities, the bulk of which goes
to Manhattan's research institutions, including Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer
Center
, Rockefeller University
, Mount Sinai School of
Medicine
, Columbia
University College of Physicians and Surgeons, Weill Cornell Medical College
and New York
University School of Medicine.
Manhattan is served by the New York
Public Library
, which has the largest collection of any public
library system in the country. The five units of the Central
Library—Mid-Manhattan Library, Donnell Library Center, The New York
Public Library for the Performing Arts, Andrew Heiskell Braille and
Talking Book Library and the Science, Industry and Business
Library—are all located in Manhattan. More than 35 other branch
libraries are located in the borough.
See also
References
External links
Manhattan local government and services
Maps, streets, and neighborhoods
Historical references
Community discussions
—west/northwest
—west/southwest
(part)
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