New York ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the
United
States
and is the nation's third most
populous. The state is bordered by New Jersey
and Pennsylvania
to the south, and Connecticut
, Massachusetts
and Vermont
to the
east. The state has a maritime border with Rhode Island
east of Long Island
, as well as an international border
with the Canadian
provinces of
Ontario
to the west,
and Quebec
to the
north. New York is often referred to as New
York State to distinguish it from New York City
.
New York
City, which is geographically the largest city in the state and
most populous in the United States, is known for its history as a
gateway for
immigration
to the
United States and its status as a financial, cultural,
transportation, and manufacturing center. According to the
U.S. Department of Commerce, it is also a destination of choice for
many foreign visitors.
Both state and city were named for the 17th
century Duke of York, James Stuart,
future James II and VII of
England
and Scotland
.
New York was inhabited by the
Algonquin,
Iroquois, and
Lenape
Native
American groups at the time
Dutch
and
French nationals moved into the
region in the early 17th century.
First claimed by Henry Hudson in 1609, the region came to have
Dutch forts at Fort Orange
, near the site of the present-day capital of Albany
in 1614, and
was colonized by the Dutch in 1624 at both Albany and Manhattan
; it later fell to British
annexation in 1664.
The borders of the British colony, the
Province of New York, were roughly
similar to those of the present-day state. About one third of all
of the battles of the
Revolutionary War took place in
New York. New York became an independent state on July 9, 1776 and
enacted its
constitution in 1777. The state
ratified the
United States
Constitution on July 26, 1788 to become the 11th state.
Geography
New York covers and ranks as the 27th largest state by size.
The
Great Appalachian Valley
dominates eastern New York, while Lake Champlain
is the chief northern feature of the valley, which
also includes the Hudson River flowing
southward to the Atlantic
Ocean
. The rugged
Adirondack Mountains, with vast tracts
of wilderness, lie west of the valley. Most of the southern part of
the state is on the
Allegheny
Plateau, which rises from the southeast to the
Catskill Mountains. The western section
of the state is drained by the
Allegheny
River and rivers of the
Susquehanna and
Delaware systems. The Delaware River Basin
Compact, signed in 1961 by New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Delaware, and the federal government, regulates the utilization of
water of the Delaware system.
The highest elevation in New York is Mount Marcy
in the Adirondacks.
New
York's borders touch (clockwise from the west) two Great Lakes
(Erie
and Ontario
, which are connected by the Niagara River
); the provinces of Ontario and Quebec in Canada;
Lake
Champlain; three
New
England
states (Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut); the Atlantic Ocean, and two Mid-Atlantic States, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In addition, Rhode Island shares a water border with New York.
Contrasting with New York City's urban atmosphere, the vast majority of the state
is dominated by farms, forests, rivers, mountains, and
lakes. New York's
Adirondack
Park is the largest state park in the United States. It is
larger than the Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Glacier and
Olympic National Parks combined. New York established the first
state park in the United States at Niagara Falls in 1885.
Niagara Falls
, on the Niagara River as it flows from Lake Erie to
Lake Ontario, is a popular attraction. The Hudson River begins with Lake Tear of
the Clouds
and flows south through the eastern part of the
state without draining Lakes George
or Champlain. Lake George empties at its north end into
Lake Champlain, whose northern end extends into Canada, where it
drains into the Richelieu and then
the St.
Lawrence
Rivers. Four of New York City's five boroughs are on the three islands at the
mouth of the Hudson River: Manhattan Island
, Staten Island
, and Brooklyn
and Queens
on Long
Island
.
Upstate and
downstate are often used
informally to distinguish New York City or its greater metropolitan
area from the rest of New York state. The placement of a boundary
between the two is a matter of great contention. Unofficial and
loosely defined regions of Upstate New York include the
Southern Tier, which often includes the
counties along the border with Pennsylvania. and the
North Country, which can mean
anything from the strip along the Canadian border to everything
north of the Mohawk River.
Climate
In general, New York has a
humid continental climate, though
under the
Köppen
climate classification, New York City has a
humid subtropical climate. Weather
in New York is heavily influenced by two continental air masses: a
warm, humid one from the southwest and a cold, dry one from the
northwest.
The winters are long and cold in the Plateau Divisions of the
state. In the majority of winter seasons, a temperature of or lower
can be expected in the northern highlands (Northern Plateau) and or
colder in the southwestern and east-central highlands (Southern
Plateau).
The summer climate is cool in the Adirondacks, Catskills and higher
elevations of the Southern Plateau. The New York City area and
lower portions of the
Hudson Valley
have rather warm summers by comparison, with some periods of high,
uncomfortable humidity. The remainder of New York State enjoys
pleasantly warm summers, marred by only occasional, brief intervals
of sultry conditions. Summer daytime temperatures usually range
from the upper 70s to mid 80s °F (25 to 30 °C), over much of the
state.
New York ranks 46th among the 50 states in the amount of
greenhouse gases generated per person. This
efficiency is primarily due to the state's higher rate of
mass transit use.
State parks
New York has many state parks and two major forest preserves.
Adirondack Park, roughly the size of the
state of Vermont and the
largest state park in the United States, was established in 1892
and given state constitutional protection in 1894. The
thinking that led to the creation of the Park first appeared in
George Perkins Marsh's
Man and Nature, published in
1864. Marsh argued that deforestation could lead to
desertification; referring to the clearing of once-lush lands
surrounding the Mediterranean, he asserted "the operation of causes
set in action by man has brought the face of the earth to a
desolation almost as complete as that of the moon."
The
Catskill Park was protected in
legislation passed in 1885, which declared that its land was to be
conserved and never put up for sale or lease. Consisting of of
land, the park is a habitat for bobcats, minks and fishers. There
are some 400 black bears living in the region. The state operates
numerous campgrounds and there are over of multi-use trails in the
Park.
The
Montauk
Point State Park
boasts the famous Montauk Lighthouse
, commissioned by President George Washington, which is a major
tourist attraction and is located
in the township of East Hampton
, Suffolk County
. Hither Hills
park offers camping and is a popular destination
with surfcasting sport fishermen.
History
17th century
During the 17th century, Dutch
trading
posts established for the trade of pelts from the
Lenape,
Iroquois and other
indigenous peoples expanded into
the colony of
New Netherlands.
The first
of these trading posts were Fort
Nassau (1614, near present-day Albany); Fort
Orange (1624, on the Hudson
River just south of the current city of Albany and created to
replace Fort Nassau), developing into
settlement Beverwijck (1647), and into
what became Albany; Fort Amsterdam
(1625, to develop into the town New Amsterdam which is present-day New York City); and Esopus, (1653, now Kingston
). The success of the patroonship of Rensselaerswyck
(1630), which surrounded Albany and lasted until
the mid 19th century, was also a key factor in the early success of
the colony.
American Revolution
The British captured the colony during the
Second Anglo-Dutch War and governed
it as the
Province of New York.
Agitation for independence, during the 1770s, brought the
American Revolution.
New York endorsed the
Declaration of
Independence on July 9, 1776.
The New York state constitution was
framed by a convention
which assembled at White Plains, New York
on July 10, 1776, and after repeated adjournments
and changes of location, terminated its labors at Kingston,
New York on Sunday evening, April 20, 1777, when the
new constitution
drafted by John Jay was adopted with but
one dissenting vote. It was not submitted to the people for
ratification. On July 30, 1777,
George Clinton was
inaugurated as the first
Governor
of New York at Kingston.
The
Capture of
Fort Ticonderoga
provided the cannon and
gunpowder
necessary to force a British withdrawal from the Siege of Boston
in 1775.
The first major battle of the
American Revolutionary War after
independence was declared – and the largest battle of the entire
war – was fought in New York at the
Battle of Long Island (a.k.a
Battle of Brooklyn) in 1776). British victory made New
York City their military and political base of operations in North
America for the duration of the conflict, and consequently the
center of attention for General
George
Washington's
intelligence
network.
The first of two major British armies were
captured by the Continental Army at
the Battle of
Saratoga
in 1777, influencing France to ally with the
revolutionaries.
The notorious British
prison ships of
Wallabout Bay saw more American
combatants
die of intentional
neglect than were killed in combat in every battle of the war,
combined. Four of the
Iroquois nations
fought on the side of the British; only the Onondagas were allies
of the colonists. Many Iroquois were defeated in the
Sullivan Expedition of 1779. As Loyalist
allies of the losing British, the Iroquois were pushed to Canada
after the war. In the treaty settlement, the British ceded most
Indian lands to the new United States. Because New York made treaty
with the Iroquois without getting Congressional approval, some of
the land purchases are the subject of modern-day claims by the
individual tribes. More than 5 million acres of former Iroquois
territory was put up for sale in the years after the Revolutionary
War, leading to rapid development in upstate New York. As per the
Treaty of Paris, the last
vestige of British authority in the former
Thirteen Colonies – their troops in New
York City – departed in 1783, which was long afterwards celebrated
as
Evacuation Day.
New York state was one of the original
thirteen colonies that became the United States.
It was the 11th state to ratify the
United States Constitution, on
July 26, 1788.
19th century
Transportation in western New York was difficult before canals were
built in the early part of the nineteenth century. The
Hudson and
Mohawk
Rivers could be navigated only as far as Central New York.
While the
St. Lawrence
River could be navigated to Lake Ontario, the way westward to the other Great Lakes
was blocked by Niagara Falls, and so the only route to western New York was over
land.
Governor
DeWitt Clinton strongly advocated
building a canal to connect the Hudson River with Lake Erie, and thus all the Great Lakes. Work commenced in 1817, and the
Erie Canal was finished in 1825. It was
considered an engineering marvel. Packet boats traveled up and down
the canal with sightseers and visitors on board. The canal opened
up vast areas of New York to commerce and settlement.
It enabled Great
Lakes port cities such as Buffalo
and Rochester
to grow and prosper. It also connected the
burgeoning agricultural production of the Midwest and shipping on
the Great Lakes, with the port of New York City. Improving
transportation, it enabled additional population migration to
territories west of New York.
Ellis Island
Ellis
Island was the main facility for immigrants, entering the United States in the late 19th Century to the mid 20th
Century. The facility operated from January 1, 1892, until
November 12, 1954.
It is owned by the Federal government and is
now part of the Statue of Liberty National
Monument
, under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service.
It is
situated in New York Harbor, between
two states and cities, Jersey City
, New
Jersey and New York
City, New York.
More than
12 million immigrants passed through Ellis Island, between 1892 and 1954. After 1924, when the
National Origins Act was
passed, the only immigrants to pass through there were displaced
persons or war refugees. Today, over 100 million Americans can
trace their ancestry to the immigrants, who first arrived in
America through the island, before dispersing to points all over
the country. Ellis Island was the subject of a border dispute
between New York State and New Jersey.
Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty was a gift from France to the United States
to mark the Centennial of the American Declaration of Independence.
The idea of giving a colossal representation of republican virtues
to a "sister" republic, across the sea, served as a focus for the
republican cause against other politicians. The Statue of Liberty
was dedicated in New York Harbor on October 28, 1886.
Liberty
Island
closed on September 11, 2001; the island
reopened in December, the monument reopened on August 3, 2004, but
the statue remained closed until the summer of 2009. The
National Park Service claims that the statue is not shut because of
a terrorist threat, but principally because of a long list of fire
regulation contraventions, including inadequate evacuation
procedures. The museum and ten-story pedestal are open for
visitors, but are only accessible if visitors have a "Monument
Access Pass", which is a reservation that visitors must make in
advance of their visit and pick up before boarding the ferry. There
are a maximum of 3000 passes available each day, with a total of
15,000 visitors to the island daily. The interior of the statue
remains closed, although a glass ceiling in the pedestal allows for
views of
Gustave Eiffel's iron
framework of Lady Liberty.
Demographics
Population
New York population density map
As of 2006, New York was the third largest state in population
after California and Texas, with an estimated population of
19,490,297 as of July 1, 2008. This represents an increase of
513,481, or 2.7%, since the last census in 2000. It includes a
natural increase since the last census of 803,680 people (that is
2,072,765 births minus 1,269,085 deaths) and a decrease due to net
migration of 698,895 people out of the state.
Immigration from outside
the United States resulted in a net increase of 876,969 people, and
migration within the country produced a net loss of 1,575,864
people.
In spite of the open land in the state, New York's population is
very urban, with 92% of residents living in an urban area.
New York is a slow growing state with a large rate of domestic
migration to other states. In 2000 and 2005, more people moved from
New York to Florida than from any one state to another. However,
New York state is one of the leading destinations for international
immigration and thus has the second largest immigrant population in
the country (after California) at 4.2 million as of 2008. Although
Upstate New York receives
considerable immigration, most of the state's immigrants settle in
and around New York City, due to its more vibrant economy and
cosmopolitan culture.
The
center of population of New
York is located in Orange County
, in the town of Deerpark. New York City and its
eight suburban counties (excluding those in New Jersey,
Connecticut, and Pennsylvania) have a combined population of
13,209,006 people, or 68.42% of the state's population.
Racial and ancestral makeup
New York population ethnicity
map
The major
ancestry groups in New York state are African American (15.8%), Italian
(14.4%), Irish (12.9%), and German (11.1%). According to a 2004
estimate, 20.4% of the population is foreign-born.
New York is home to the
largest
African American population and the
second largest
Asian American population in the United States. In addition it
is home to the largest
Puerto
Rican,
Dominican and
Jamaican American populations in the
United States.
The New York City neighborhood of Harlem
has
historically been a major cultural capital for African-Americans of
sub-Saharan descent, and Bedford Stuyvesant
is the largest such population in the United
States.
Queens, also in New
York City, is home to the state's largest Asian-American population, and is also the
most diverse county in the United States. The second
concentration of Asian-Americans is in Manhattan's Chinatown.
In the 2000 Census,
Italian
Americans made up the largest ancestral group in Staten Island
and Long Island, followed by
Irish
Americans. Albany and southeast-central New York also have
populations with many of Irish-American and Italian-American
descent. In Buffalo and western New York,
German Americans are the largest group; in
the northern tip of the state,
French
Canadians are. New York State has a higher number of Italian
Americans than any other U.S. state.
6.5% of New York's population were under 5 years of age, 24.7%
under 18, and 12.9% were 65 or older. Females made up 51.8% of the
population.
According to the
2000 U.S. Census, 13.61% of the population aged 5 and
over speak
Spanish at home, while
2.04% speak
Chinese (including
Cantonese and
Mandarin), 1.65%
Italian, and 1.23%
Russian.
Religion
Catholics
comprise more than 40% of the population in New York.
Protestants are 30% of the
population,
Jews 8.4%,
Muslims 3.5%,
Buddhists 1%,
and 13% claim no religious affiliation. The largest Protestant
denominations are the
United
Methodist Church with 403,362; the
American Baptist Churches USA
with 203,297; and the
Episcopal Church with
201,797 adherents.
Cities and towns
- For lists of cities, towns, and counties in New York, see
List of cities in New
York, List of towns in New
York, List of villages
in New York, List of
counties in New York, List of
census-designated places in New York and Administrative divisions of
New York.
The
largest city in the state and the most populous city in the United
States is New York
City, which comprises five counties, the Bronx, New York
(Manhattan), Queens, Kings (Brooklyn), and Richmond (Staten
Island). New York City is home to more than two-fifths of
the state's population.
The ten largest cities are:
- New York City (8,274,527)
- Buffalo (279,745)
- Rochester (211,091)
- Yonkers
(196,425)
- Syracuse
(141,683)
- Albany (93,523)
- New Rochelle
(72,967)
- Mount Vernon
(67,924)
- Schenectady
(61,280)
- Utica
(59,336)
The location of these cities within the state stays remarkably true
to the major transportation and
trade
routes in the early nineteenth century, primarily the
Erie Canal and railroads paralleling it. Today,
Interstate 90 acts as a
modern counterpart to commercial water routes.
Grouped by
metropolitan
statistical area, the twelve largest population centers in the
state are:
- New York City
(18,815,988 in NY/NJ/PA, 12,381,586
in NY)
- Buffalo-Niagara
Falls (1,128,183)
- Rochester (1,030,495)
- Albany and the Capital
District
(853,358)
- Poughkeepsie and the
Hudson Valley (669,915)
- Syracuse (645,293)
- Utica-Rome (294,862)
- Binghamton (246,426)
- Kingston
(181,860)
- Glens Falls (128,886)
- Ithaca
(101,055)
- Elmira
(88,015)
The
smallest city is Sherrill, New York
, located just west of the Town of Vernon in Oneida
County
. Albany is the state capital, and the Town of
Hempstead
is the civil township with the largest
population. If it were a city, it would be the second
largest in the state with over 700,000 residents.
The
southern tip of New York State—New York City,
its suburbs including Long
Island, the southern portion of the Hudson Valley, and
most of northern New
Jersey—can be considered to form the central core of the
Northeast megalopolis", a
super-city stretching from the northern suburbs of Boston
south to the Virginia
suburbs of Washington D.C.
.
Economy
New York's gross state product in 2007 was $1.1 trillion, ranking
third in size behind the larger states of California and Texas.
If New
York were an independent nation, it would rank as the 16th largest
economy in the world behind Turkey
.
Its 2007
per
capita personal income was $46,364, placing it sixth in the
nation behind Maryland, and eighth in the world behind Ireland
. New York's
agricultural outputs are
dairy products,
cattle and other
livestock,
vegetables,
nursery stock, and
apples. Its industrial outputs are printing and
publishing, scientific instruments,
electric equipment,
machinery,
chemical products, and
tourism.
A recent review by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found
13 states, including several of the nation's largest, face budget
shortfalls for FY2009. New York faces a
deficit that could be as large as $4.3
billion.
New York exports a wide variety of goods such as foodstuffs,
commodities, minerals, computers and electronics, cut diamonds, and
automobile parts. In 2007, the state exported a total of $71.1
billion worth of goods, with the five largest foreign export
markets being Canada ($15 billion), United Kingdom ($6 billion),
Switzerland ($5.9 billion), Israel ($4.9 billion), and Hong Kong
($3.4 billion). New York's largest imports are oil, gold, aluminum,
natural gas, electricity, rough diamonds, and lumber.
Canada is a very important economic partner for the state. 21% of
the state's total worldwide exports went to Canada in 2007. Tourism
from the north is also a large part of the economy. Canadians spent
US$487 million in 2004 while visiting the state.
New York
City is the leading center of banking,
finance and communication in the United States and is the
location of the New York Stock Exchange
, the largest stock exchange in the world by
dollar volume. Many of the world's largest corporations are
based in the city.
The state also has a large manufacturing sector that includes
printing and the production of garments, furs, railroad equipment
and bus line vehicles. Many of these industries are concentrated in
upstate regions.
Albany and the Hudson Valley are major
centers of nanotechnology and microchip manufacturing, while the
Rochester
area is important in photographic equipment and
imaging.
New York is a major agricultural producer, ranking among the top
five states for agricultural products such as dairy, apples,
cherries,
cabbage, potatoes, onions,
maple syrup and many others. The state
is the largest producer of cabbage in the U.S. The state has about
a quarter of its land in farms and produced US$3.4 billion in
agricultural products in 2001. The south shore of Lake Ontario
provides the right mix of
soils and
microclimate for many apple, cherry,
plum,
pear and
peach orchards. Apples are also
grown in the Hudson Valley and near Lake Champlain.
New York is the nation's third-largest grape-producing state,
behind California, and second-largest wine producer by volume.
The south
shore of Lake Erie and the southern Finger Lakes
hillsides have many vineyards. In addition, the
North Fork of
Long
Island developed vineyards, production and visitors'
facilities in the last three decades of the 20th century. In
2004, New York's wine and grape industry brought US$6 billion into
the state economy.
The state has of vineyards, 212 wineries, and produced 200 million
bottles of wine in 2004. A moderately sized saltwater commercial
fishery is located along the Atlantic side of Long Island. The
principal catches by value are clams, lobsters, squid, and
flounder. These areas of the economy have been increasing as
environmental protection has led to an increase in ocean
wildlife.
Transportation
New York has one of the most extensive and one of the oldest
transportation infrastructures in the country. Engineering
difficulties because of the terrain of the state and the unique
issues of the city brought on by urban crowding have had to be
overcome since the state was young. Population expansion of the
state generally followed the path of the early waterways, first the
Hudson River and then the
Erie Canal. Today, railroad lines and the
New York State Thruway follow
the same general route.
The New York State Department of
Transportation
is often criticized for how they maintain the roads
of the state in certain areas and for the fact that the tolls
collected along the roadway have long passed their original
purpose. Until 2006, tolls were collected on the
Thruway within The City
of Buffalo. They were dropped late in 2006 during the
campaign for Governor (both candidates called for their
removal).
In
addition to New York City's famous mass transit subway, four suburban
commuter railroad systems enter and leave the city: the Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Railroad, Port
Authority Trans-Hudson
, and five of New Jersey Transit's rail
lines. Many other cities have urban and regional public
transportation. In Buffalo, the
Niagara Frontier
Transportation Authority runs the
Buffalo Metro Rail light-rail system; in
Rochester, the
Rochester Subway
operated from 1927 until 1956 but has fallen into disuse.
Portions of the transportation system are
intermodal, allowing
travelers to easily switch from one mode of transportation to
another.
One of the most notable examples is AirTrain JFK which allows rail passengers to
travel directly to terminals at John F.
Kennedy International Airport
.
In May 2009 the
New York City
Department of Transportation under the control of
Transportation Commissioner
Janette
Sadik-Khan banned cars from
Times
Square. The move designed to reduce
pollution and pedestrian accidents looks likely to
be implemented permantly, and will last at least until the end of
the year.
Politics and government
Under its
present constitution
(adopted in 1938), New York is governed by three branches: the
executive branch, consisting
of the Governor of New York and
the other independently elected constitutional officers; the
legislative branch, consisting of
the bicameral New York State Legislature; and
the judicial branch, consisting of
the state's highest court, the New York Court of Appeals
, and lower courts.
New
York's capital is Albany. The state's subordinate political units are
its 62
counties. Other officially
incorporated governmental units are
towns,
cities, and
villages. New
York has more than 4,200 local governments that take one of these
forms. About 52% of all revenue raised by local governments in the
state is raised solely by the
government of New York City,
which is the largest municipal government in the United States,
whereas New York City houses only 42% of the state
population.
The state has a strong imbalance of payments with the federal
government. New York State receives 82 cents in services for every
$1 it sends in taxes to the federal government in Washington. The
state ranks near the bottom, in 42nd place, in federal spending per
tax dollar.
Many of New York's public services are carried out by
public benefit corporations,
frequently called
authorities or
development
corporations. Well known
public benefit corporations
in New York include the
Metropolitan
Transportation Authority, which oversees New York City's public
transportation system, and the
Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey, a bi-state transportation infrastructure
agency.
New York's legal system is explicitly based on
English common Law.
Federal representation
As of the 2000 census and the redistricting for the 2002 elections,
the state has
29
members in the
United States House of
Representatives, and two U.S. senators. New York has 31
electoral votes in
national presidential elections (a drop from its 47 votes during
the 1940s).
Capital punishment
Capital punishment
was reintroduced in 1995 under the Pataki administration but the
statute was declared unconstitutional in 2004, when the New York
Court of Appeals ruled in People
v. LaValle that it violated the
state constitution. The remaining
death sentence was commuted by the court to
life imprisonment in 2007, in
People
v. John Taylor, and the death row was disestablished
in 2008, under executive order from
Governor Paterson. No execution has taken
place in New York since 1963. Legislative efforts to reinstate the
death penalty have failed.
Politics
In the last few decades, New York State has generally supported
candidates belonging to the
Democratic Party in
national elections. Democratic presidential candidate
Barack Obama won New York State by 25
percentage points in 2008, a bigger margin than
John Kerry in 2004.
New York City is a major Democratic stronghold with liberal
politics. Many of the state's other urban areas, such
as Albany, Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse are also Democratic. Rural upstate New York,
however, is generally more conservative than the cities and tends
to favor
Republicans.
Heavily populated
Suburban areas such as Westchester County
and Long
Island have swung between the major parties over the past
25 years, but more often than not support Democrats.
New York City is the most important source of political
fund-raising in the United States for both major parties. Four of
the top five zip codes in the nation for political contributions
are in Manhattan.
The top zip code, 10021 on the Upper East
Side
, generated the most money for the 2000 presidential
campaigns of both George W.
Bush and
Al
Gore.
New York
is represented by Chuck Schumer and
Kirsten Gillibrand in the
United States Senate and has 29
representatives to the United States House of
Representatives, behind California
's 53 congressional districts and Texas
' 32
congressional districts.
Education
The
University of
the State of New York oversees all public primary,
middle-level, and secondary education in the state, while the
New York City
Department of Education manages the public school system in New
York City.
At the college level, the statewide public university system is the
State University of New
York (SUNY). The
City
University of New York (CUNY) is the public university system
of New York City. The SUNY system consists of 64 community
colleges, technical colleges, undergraduate colleges and
universities.
The four university centers are University
at Albany
, Binghamton University
, University at
Buffalo and SUNY
Stony Brook
.
In
addition there are many notable private universities, including the
oldest Catholic institution in the
northeast, Fordham
University
. New York is home to both Columbia University and Cornell
University
, making it the only state to contain more than one
Ivy League school. West Point
, the service academy of the U.S. Army is
located just south of
Newburgh, NY on the
banks of the
Hudson River.
Sports
New York
hosted the 1980 Winter Olympics
at Lake
Placid
, the Games known for the USA-USSR hockey game
dubbed the "Miracle on Ice" in which
a group of American college students and amateurs defeated the
heavily-favored Soviet national ice hockey team 4–3 and went on to
win the gold medal.Lake Placid also hosted the 1932 Winter Olympics.
Along
with St. Moritz,
Switzerland
and Innsbruck, Austria
, it is one of the three places to have twice hosted
the Winter Olympic Games.
New York
is the home of one National
Football League team, the Buffalo
Bills, (based in the suburb of Orchard
Park
). Although the New
York Giants and New York Jets
represent the New York metropolitan area, they play in Giants Stadium
, which is located in East
Rutherford
, New
Jersey.There has been much controversy over the building
of several building proposals for a new New York Jets football
stadium
, the owners of the New York Jets were willing
to split the $1.5 billion cost of building a new football stadium
over Manhattan's West Side rail yards however the proposal never
came to fruition.
New York
also has two Major League
Baseball teams, the New York
Yankees (based in The
Bronx
), and the New York
Mets (based in New York City borough Queens).
Brooklyn
and Queens are City Counties on the westernmost part of Long Island. New York is home to three National Hockey League franchises
(the New York Rangers in Manhattan, the New York
Islanders on Long
Island and the Buffalo
Sabres in Buffalo,
New York). New York has a National Basketball
Association team, the New York
Knicks in Manhattan.The former New York Nets from 1968 to 1977 is now
titled as a New Jersey team however plans to relocate to New York
City are in the works. There a variety of minor league teams
that can be found all through the State of New York such as the
Long Island Ducks.
Navy vessel namesakes
There have been at least six
United
States Navy ships named
USS New
York in honor of the state. The keel was laid for the
USS New York on
September 10, 2004 and she will be the seventh US Navy ship to be
named for the state. The New York's motto will be "Never
Forget."
According to Naval records, several other ships have carried the
name the USS New York. This new ship was given the name the USS New
York when former New York
governor George Pataki wrote to
Secretary of the Navy Gordon England and requested that the Navy
use the name to honor the victims of September 11 and to give it to
a surface ship that would be used to fight the
War on Terror. This is an exception to the
current use of state names for
submarines
only.
The first ship to carry the name USS New York was an armed gondola
built by
Revolutionary War
General Benedict
Arnold in 1776. She was burned to avoid capture later in the
Revolutionary War.
The second ship named
USS New
York was a 36-gun
frigate built in New
York and commissioned in 1800.
She saw service in the Mediterranean
in the war against the Barbary Pirates. She was burned by the
British in 1814 while she was in the Washington
Navy Yard
.
The third USS New York was one of nine built to discourage a future
war with
Britain after the war of
1812. The threat abated, so she was never launched.
Union forces later burned the
74-gun
ship of the line to avoid
her capture at the start of the
American Civil War.
Beginning in 1863, a
screw sloop was
being built that would have carried the name USS New York, but it
also never got launched, being sold in 1888.
The fifth
USS New York was an
armored cruiser commissioned in
1893. She was used in the
Spanish-American War and was the
flagship of
Rear
Admiral William T. Sampson in the
Battle of Santiago de Cuba (July
3, 1898), which destroyed the Spanish fleet. She was later renamed
the
USS Saratoga in 1911 and
then renamed again as the
USS
Rochester in 1917.
The sixth was the
battleship USS New York , commissioned in 1914.
She saw service in both
World War I and
World War II.
She participated in
atomic
testing off the Bikini Islands
surviving both an atmospheric explosion and an
underwater detonation. She was used as a target ship in 1948 and
was sunk off Pearl
Harbor
, Hawaii
.
Finally, the
Los
Angeles-class nuclear attack submarine
USS New York City was in service
from 1979 until 1997.
See also
References
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