New York

1. Introduction

Located at the mouth of the Hudson River in southeastern New York state, New York is one of the world's great cities. It has the largest population of any city in the United States, and it is unrivaled in the diversity of its neighborhoods and their often-colorful residents. New York runs the gamut from great concentrations of wealth, epitomized by luxury apartment buildings and hotels and mammoth corporate headquarters, to the grinding urban poverty of its ethnic and racial ghettos. A major financial and economic center, it is also a cultural mecca that has attracted generations of artists and intellectuals and draws millions of tourists every year. In its 400-year history the city has grown and changed rapidly, repeatedly renewing itself through successive waves of immigration and urban development. As a new century approaches, it remains, perhaps more than anything else, a city on the move.

2. Getting There

Located at the southeastern-most point in the state of New York, New York City is situated on the Atlantic coastal plain, at the mouth of the Hudson River.

Highways

New York City is known for its traffic congestion, and many New Yorkers walk or use public transportation within the city itself. The major north-south interstate routes leading to New York are I-95 and I-87 (which approaches New York from the north only). In New Jersey, I-95 becomes the New Jersey Turnpike. East of the Hudson River, it becomes the Cross Bronx Expressway before heading north up the coast of New England. I-95 leads to the Holland and Lincoln tunnels and the George Washington Bridge. I-87 (the New York Thruway) becomes the Major Deegan Expressway as it nears the city from the north. I-80 (the Bergen-Passaic Expressway) approaches New York heading eastward from Pennsylvania.

Bus and Railroad Service

Amtrak offers daily service to New York's Penn Station from Chicago (on the Lake Shore Limited), Miami (the Silver Star), New Orleans (the Crescent), Toronto (the Maple Leaf), and Montreal (the Adirondack). Amtrak also operates a high-speed rail shuttle, the Metroliner , between New York and Washington, D.C. Other rail lines that operate out of Penn Station are the Long Island Railroad and New Jersey Transit. Metro-North operates service from New Haven, Connecticut, and Poughkeepsie, New York, to Manhattan's Grand Central Railroad Terminal.

Airports

Almost every major domestic carrier operates flights to and from New York, as do most international airlines as well. The city is served by three major airports: John F. Kennedy International Airport (which handles over 200 international flights per day) and LaGuardia Airport, both in Queens, and Newark International Airport in New Jersey.

Shipping

New York is home to two Foreign Trade Zones—one at Kennedy International Airport and one at the Brooklyn Navy Yard—which encourage trade by providing exemptions from certain import duties. Although New York has one of the world's largest and safest harbors, shipping traffic through its port (and that of New Jersey) has been cut by more than half in the past 30 years, as shippers have begun using modern railroad flat cars that cross over land bridges. However, the World Trade Center, home to many of the world's largest trading companies, is still owned by the Port Authority of New York.

3. Getting Around

New York City consists of five divisions called boroughs. Manhattan and Staten Island occupy separate islands. Brooklyn and Queens, across the East River, are located at the western end of Long Island, and the Bronx occupies part of the mainland to the north, across the Harlem River.

Although it is the smallest of the five boroughs, Manhattan—bounded on the west by the Hudson River and on the east by the East River and Harlem—is geographically, financially, and culturally the heart of the city. The streets at the southern end of the island—in areas including the Wall Street financial district, Chinatown, and SoHo—are laid out in an irregular pattern that dates back to the days of Dutch settlement in the seventeenth century. As settlement later expanded northward, a grid pattern of streets and avenues emerged. The streets run east-west, with numbers ascending northward; avenues run north-south, with numbers ascending westward. Fifth Avenue, running north-south, is the dividing line between streets labeled "east" and "west": to the east of Fifth Avenue, 23rd Street is East 23rd, to the west it is West 23rd. Instead of numbers, a few avenues east of Fifth Avenue are labeled by names (Madison, Park, Lexington) or, in the southern part of the city, letters (A, B, C, and D). In addition, Sixth Avenue is also known as Avenue of the Americas, and some of the other numbered avenues on the west side are known by other names above 59th Street (Central Park West, Columbus, Amsterdam, and West End avenues).

The streets and avenues north of 14th Street are perpendicular to each other except for Broadway, which runs diagonally across the island, northwest to southeast, from the Upper West Side to 14th Street, after which it runs southward to the tip of Manhattan, serving as the dividing line between east and west for this section of the island. The famous "squares" of the city (Times Square, Herald Square, Union Square, etc.) are located at the intersections of Broadway and the major avenues.

A major point of reference in upper Manhattan is Central Park, which runs northward from 59th to 110th streets and from Fifth to Eighth avenues (Eighth Avenue is called Central Park West for the length of the park).

Bus and Commuter Rail Service

New York's subway system is one of the largest in the world, with 1,149 kilometers (714 miles) of track and 469 stations. Trains run 24 hours a day, making frequent stops during rush hour and other daytime hours. Both local and express trains are available. Buses run daily from 6:00 AM to 9:00 PM in all five boroughs; more than 200 routes are covered by a fleet of 3,700 buses. Taxicabs are a popular mode of transportation in Manhattan—during peak traffic hours, an ocean of yellow cabs seem to fill the city's streets. Taxi stands abound throughout the city, and cabs can be easily hailed in most areas.

Sightseeing

Visitors may tour New York in organized tours by trolley or double-decker bus, and many walking tours of specific neighborhoods are offered, as well as self-guided walking tours of historic sites in Manhattan. Brief helicopter tours offer a dramatic view of the Manhattan skyline, as do scenic cruises of New York Harbor. In addition there are many specialized tours of specific sites, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Radio City, and the studios of the NBC television network.

4. People

New York is the nation's most populous city and has more than twice the population of its nearest competitor, Los Angeles. In 1990, the population of New York was 7,323,000, with the following racial composition: 63.9 percent white, 28.7 percent black, and seven percent Asian/Pacific Islander, with other groups accounting for percentages of less than one percent. Hispanics (an ethnic rather than a racial designation) accounted for 24.4 percent of the population. The 1994 population estimate was 7,333,000. The population of the New York Primary Metropolitan Statistical Area was estimated at 8,611,099 as of 1997. The region's racial composition was listed by the U.S. Census Bureau in 1996 as 91.2 percent white; 4.4 percent black; and 3.4 percent Asian/Pacific Islander. Hispanics accounted for two percent of the metropolitan area population.

5. Neighborhoods

In the busy financial district in lower Manhattan, the maze of narrow streets laid down during the oldest period of the city's history are home to the towering skyscrapers of Wall Street, the nation's foremost symbol of financial power and prosperity. To the north of the financial district lie New York's teeming, colorful Chinatown and Tribeca ("Triangle Below Canal Street"), a former market district whose warehouses have been converted to artists' lofts and galleries to create one of Manhattan's trendiest upscale residential neighborhoods, graced by fashionable shops and restaurants.

The chic SoHo ("South of Houston"; pronounced HOW-stun) neighborhood just to the north of Tribeca has had a similar history of rejuvenation fueled by its popularity with the artistic community; today, however, gentrification has brought the district out of reach of many artists—like the ones who were responsible for the rebirth of the neighborhood in the 1960s. To the east of SoHo are Little Italy, known for its authentic Italian cuisine, and the Lower East Side, the former home to a teeming population of Eastern European immigrants and today a mecca for shoppers in search of both local color and bargains on Orchard Street.

Greenwich Village, between Houston (pronounced HOW-stun) and 14th streets and west of Broadway, is the historical capital of Bohemianism in America, once home to a dizzying array of artists, writers, musicians, and political radicals. Like other once-marginal areas of New York, the Village has become a prime upscale neighborhood with soaring rents, including some of the highest in the city. However, it is still a colorful area and cultural mecca, as well the center of the city's gay community and home to three colleges: New York University, Parsons School Design, and the New School for Social Research. The East Village, located, as its name suggests, east of Greenwich Village, is the edgier counterpart of the Village, although even this formerly gritty area has become more fashionable and expensive since the 1980s. However, it remains a focal point for the city's pierced and tattooed youth culture, a popular site for after-hours clubs, and an ethnically diverse area.

Chelsea, stretching from 14th Street to about 30th Street, west of Sixth Avenue, is yet another neighborhood traditionally linked with artists and writers, especially through its most famous landmark, the Chelsea Hotel. Today it is home to large Hispanic and gay communities, and its "main drag," Eighth Avenue between 15th and 23rd streets, is known for its cafes, bistros, boutiques, fitness clubs, and the Chelsea Piers sports complex, which includes a climbing wall. Midtown Manhattan is primarily a business rather than a residential neighborhood. Home to numerous corporate head-quarters—including those of many entertainment and communications giants—it is also the site of landmarks including Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, the Museum of Modern Art, and the main branch of the New York Public Library, "guarded" by the famous stone lions outside its front entrance.

New York's Upper West Side is a colorful, heavily residential area that is home to many middle-class families and young professionals, although its residents run the gamut from homelessness to upper-echelon wealth. The neighborhood's landmarks include the Lincoln Center performing arts complex, the Museum of Natural History, and, at its northernmost point, Columbia University. The major thoroughfare in this district is Broadway, which offers a wide variety of shopping experiences, including Zabar's gourmet foods and Shakespeare & Company's eclectic book selection. The Upper East Side is New York's most exclusive neighborhood. Its residents live in posh apartment buildings with uniformed doormen; its visitors stay at luxury hotels. It is home to Christie's and Sotheby's auction houses, Bloomingdale's, and a host of foreign embassies and consulates, as well as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim and Frick museums.

Washington Heights, at the northern end of the city, is primarily a Latino enclave. Home to the largest Dominican population in the United States, in recent decades it has been plagued by problems associated with the drug trade. However, it is still the site of noteworthy landmarks, including the Cloisters (home of the Metropolitan Museum's medieval collection), the Audubon Ballroom, Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, and Yeshiva University. Beginning at 125th Street on the West Side and 96th Street on the East Side, Harlem is America's most famous black neighborhood. From the days of the 1920s literary and cultural phenomenon known as the Harlem Renaissance until urban decay and violence set in the 1960s, the neighborhood was a unique cultural and political center and home to many famous black musicians and intellectuals, and such historic venues as the Cotton Club and the Apollo Theater.

6. History

Four hundred years ago, the present-day site of New York City was forest land inhabited by Algonquin and Iroquois Indians who called the central island "Manhattan," which meant "city of hills." In 1609 Henry Hudson (c. 1550–1611), an Englishman employed by the Dutch East India Company, sailed up the river that now bears his name, and settlement of the region began five years later. In 1625 the first permanent European settlement—a trading post called New Amsterdam—was formed on Manhattan, and the Dutch "purchased" the island from its Native American inhabitants by bartering items that amounted to the modern equivalent of $24.

By 1664, the Netherlands' colonial rivals, the British, had taken control of the growing settlement and renamed it New York, and it became their second-busiest trading port in North America, surpassed only by Boston to the north. The rapidly growing town had about 4,000 residents by the turn of the century, and had nearly doubled its population by 1720, becoming the third-largest population center in the British colonies. New Yorkers played an active role in the agitation that led to the American Revolutionary Revolutionary War (1775–83). The city was overrun and occupied by British forces early in the war, and the occupation continued throughout the conflict. In the period after the colonies won their independence, New York served briefly as the seat of the new nation's government (from 1785 to 1790).

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, New York—with a population of 30,000—had become the nation's second-largest city, after Philadelphia. In the first half of the century, the city's growth was further bolstered by the opening of the Erie Canal linking the East Coast with the Great Lakes, and by the first waves of mass immigration, from Ireland, Germany, and Scandinavia. Although New York was a center of the abolitionist movement, pro-slavery feeling was strong among unskilled laborers who feared that their jobs would be threatened by freed slaves. The Civil War (1861–65) brought a new economic boom, and the city's population reached one million by the 1870s. By this time, New York's government had become a locus of graft and corruption under the infamous Tammany Hall political machine, which spurred a series of political reforms. The last two decades of the century saw new waves of immigration, much of it from Eastern Europe, and the completion of some of the city's greatest landmarks, including the Metropolitan Opera House and the Statue of Liberty (1882), and the Brooklyn Bridge (1883). The immigration station at Ellis Island opened in 1892.

In 1898 New York achieved its present form with the official consolidation of its five boroughs to form Greater New York City, with a population of three million. The shape of things to come was previewed in the first years of the new century: the Flatiron building—one of its first skyscrapers—went up in 1902, and the first subway line opened in 1904. During World War I (1914–18), New York was a major shipping center for Allied weapons and military equipment. The 1920s brought an era of cultural brilliance marked by the achievements of the Harlem Renaissance, the heyday of the Algonquin Round Table and the founding of the New Yorker magazine, and the growth of Greenwich Village as a bohemian mecca for writers and others involved in the arts. In 1929 New York was the epicenter of the stock market crash that ushered in the Great Depression of the following decade. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia (1882–1947; mayor, 1933–1945) led the city through these dark times, which nevertheless saw the construction of the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, and the Chrysler Building, the reform of local government, the hosting of two World's Fairs, and the introduction of the Art Deco style into art and architecture.

New York's international stature was further enhanced with the establishment of United Nations headquarters in the city following World War II (1939–45). It was also during the post-war era that the city became an international leader in the fields of culture and fashion. In every decade, the city became a focal point for trends in popular culture, from the literary "beat generation" of the 1950s to the counterculture of the 1960s and the opening of the disco club Studio 54 in the 1970s. Beginning in the 1950s, a wave of Puerto Rican immigration and increased migration of blacks to the city from rural areas transformed the city's ethnic makeup, leading to the flight of whites from the city and the eruption of racial tensions in the 1960s. The erosion of the city's tax base, aggravated by the flight of businesses, brought the city to the point of bankruptcy by 1975. It was rescued by the newly formed Municipal Assistance Corporation, and a new mayor, Ed Koch (b. 1924; mayor 1978–90) helped reverse the city's decline through his policies and his popularity with ordinary citizens.

By the late 1980s New York, together with much of the country, was slipping into recession. In 1989 the city elected its first black mayor, David Dinkins (b. 1927; mayor 1990–1994), who was replaced in the 1993 mayoral election by U.S. attorney Rudolph Giuliani (b. 1944; mayor 1994–), the first Republican to hold the post in 28 years. The city's fortunes revived in the 1990s as the city shared in the country's economic upswing, and tourism boomed. Giuliani was credited with a major decrease in the New York's crime rate, although the city's police department drew universal condemnation in the late 1990s for widely publicized incidents of brutality against members of minority groups.

7. Government

New York City has a mayor-council government. The mayor and the council president (who presides over council meetings) are elected to four-years terms by all the city's voters. Of the 51 council members (all of whom also serve four-year terms), 35 are elected from their own districts, and 16 are elected at large. New York had an estimated 232,588 city employees in 1997.

8. Public Safety

In spite of its violent reputation, New York City actually has less crime per capita than a number of other major cities, including Washington, D.C., Boston, New Orleans, and Dallas. The city's crime rate actually has dropped in recent years, thanks partly to public safety policies, such as gun amnesties and gun confiscation, as well as anti-drug initiatives. In 1997, New York's crime rate was the lowest it had been since 1968. The New York Police Department is one of the country's largest. It covers a jurisdiction of some 829 square kilometers (320 square miles) and has an annual budget of $2.4 million. Over 38,000 uniformed officers and about 9,000 civilians are employed by the department. The city's five boroughs are divided into eight Patrol Borough Commands, which are in turn subdivided into 76 precincts.

In 1995, violent crimes reported to police (per 100,000 population) totaled 1,573 and included 16 murders, 32 rapes, 810 robberies, and 715 aggravated assaults. Property crimes totaled 4,503 and included 1,009 burglaries, 2,500 cases of larceny/theft, and 993 motor vehicle thefts.

9. Economy

With over 200,000 businesses—and the headquarters of some 65 Fortune 500 companies—New York is one of the country's major economic and financial centers. All of the world's major financial institutions—including some 400 foreign banks—have offices in the city, and more than $15 billion worth of stocks are traded every day on the New York Stock Exchange. In addition to banking and finance, New York is also an important center for the major service industries of insurance, accounting, and law.

New York is the nation's publishing capital. By far the largest number of major publishers in the country are located here, as well as the two leading newsmagazines, Time and Newsweek, and the major wire services, the Associated Press and United Press International. Film and television production are also thriving industries in New York. Madison Avenue is famed as the world's advertising capital, and the city boasts over 1,000 ad agencies.

Although it now takes a back seat to the service sector, manufacturing still plays an active role in New York's economy. The city is home to some 11,000 manufacturers and 20 industrial parks. The garment industry, in which the city has historically been a leader, still employs approximately 75,000 people, and the city is known worldwide as a center of high fashion. New York is also known for its diamond and jewelry industry, which has traditionally been centered around Canal Street and West 47th Street. Newer sectors that are emerging as industrial leaders include semiconductors, computer equipment, and health-care equipment.

10. Environment

Although New York is better known for skyscrapers and traffic congestion, the city Department of Parks and Recreation has jurisdiction over 834 square kilometers (322 square miles) of urban wilderness, including 83,368 hectares (206,000 acres) of parkland and 2,024 hectares (5,000 acres) of forest preserves. Also included in the resources protected by the parks department are approximately 500,000 trees located on the city's streets. These trees are also protected by the Department of Environmental Conservation and citizens' groups, notably Trees New York, founded in 1976.

In addition, volunteers are helping restore 341 hectares (843 acres) of wild-life habitat in Central Park, including areas frequented by migrating birds and the New Yorkers who gather regularly to watch them. Also within the city's borders are beachfront wildlife habitats, such as that along Rockaway Peninsula in Queens, which is home to two federally listed endangered species and one listed by the state of New York. The city's Urban Park Rangers have taken measures to protect these rare beach-dwelling species, including monitoring, patrolling, vehicle exclusion, and fencing.

11. Shopping

New York is a mecca for shoppers, in terms of sheer abundance and variety. The most famous shopping venue is Fifth Avenue, with its major department stores, including Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord & Taylor, and large bookstores (Borders, Barnes & Noble, Rizzoli). Specialty retailers include Cartier, Tiffany, the Warner Brothers Studio Store, and the famed toy store FAO Schwarz. Also located on Fifth Avenue is the Trump Tower shopping complex, which boasts more than 40 stores and restaurants. Seventh Avenue is home to garment and fur wholesalers (some of which will also sell retail). In the Chelsea neighborhood are the Manhattan Mall and Macy's (West 34th St.), the world's largest department store.

The Upper East Side mixes upscale retailers, including Bloomingdale's, with fashionable second-hand shops. The Lower East Side is famous as a bargain hunter's paradise, with designer clothing and other high-quality items regularly sold at a discount, especially on Orchard Street, the best-known shopping venue in the area. Specialty shops and boutiques abound in Greenwich Village, whose Bleecker Street is home to ethnic bakeries and grocery stores.

A special form of shopping is available at New York's exclusive auction houses, which include Christie's and Sotheby's, and the city's many museum gift shops also offer unusual and high-quality items.

Mixing commerce and local color are New York's open-air markets, which sell everything from flowers to antiques. Specialty gourmet food markets include Dean & Deluca, Zabar's, and Balducci's.

12. Education

In the fall of 1996 the New York City Public School System—the nation's largest—enrolled 1,063,561 students in grades K through 12; 16.1 percent were white, and 83.9 percent belonged to minorities, including 37.3 percent Hispanic, 36.1 percent black, and ten percent Asian/Pacific Islander. The school system operated 1,120 schools with a staff of 110,709, of whom 57,338 were teachers, making a pupil-teacher ratio of 18 to one. The school system has won acclaim for its career magnet schools, which include the High School of Music and Art, the High School of Fashion Industries, the School of the Performing Arts, the New York School of Printing, Bronx High School of Science, and Stuyvesant High School.

The City University of New York operates branches in all five boroughs, including eight liberal arts colleges, the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Since 1970, the city university system has had an open admissions policy for all New York City high school graduates. New York also has more than 20 private colleges, some of the best known being Columbia University (the oldest), New York University, Fordham University, Rockefeller University, and the Juilliard School, which trains students for careers in music, theater, and dance.

13. Health Care

New York City has over 130 hospitals, including more than 30 teaching hospitals. Its public hospital system is the largest in the country, employing over 45,000 people at over 20 facilities, including acute care hospitals, long-term care institutions, and family care centers. Among the city's best-known hospitals are Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and Mount Sinai Medical Center, whose health system consists of 21 hospitals and 13 long-term care facilities. The New York University School of Medicine, which dates back to 1837, has 1,360 full-time and 2,175 part-time faculty members.

In 1995, New York's primary metropolitan statistical area was served by 19,337 office-based physicians and 84 community hospitals, with a total of 39,205 beds.

14. Media

New York's major daily newspaper is the New York Times, the nation's "paper of record." Although competition from the city's spirited tabloid publications has expanded the Times' local coverage, it is still known for the breadth and depth of its international and national coverage and its news analysis, as well as its coverage of specific areas such as business and the arts. Favorite features of the Sunday edition include the weekly magazine, the book review supplement (whose reviews are influential throughout the literary and academic world), and the notoriously huge and difficult crossword puzzle.

Specializing in local news are the city's two remaining tabloid newspapers, the New York Post (the city's oldest newspaper, founded in 1801), and the New York Daily News. Among the most-quoted examples of their bold banner headlines are the Daily News' "FORD TO CITY—DROP DEAD" (referring to President Gerald Ford and the 1970s budget crisis) and the Post 's "HEADLESS WOMAN FOUND IN TOPLESS BAR." A fourth daily newspaper is published in New York: the Wall Street Journal, the country's most authoritative financial publication. The city's best-known weekly newspaper is the Village Voice, which features investigative reporting on local topics and comprehensive arts coverage and listings. Other weeklies include New York magazine, Time Out New York, and the New York Press. Another local publication with a national audience is the New Yorker magazine (also a weekly), whose tradition of urbanity and high-quality writing received a contemporary spin in the 1990s by British-born editor Tina Brown.

In addition to the wide spectrum of cable television programming, New York has over a dozen broadcast television stations, representing the four major networks and the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), as well as independent, educational, and Spanish-language stations. The city also has 17 AM and 33 FM radio stations.

15. Sports

The professional sports scene in New York is a busy one, with two major league teams in all the main professional sports. The New York Yankees of the American League, who play at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, are the city's most famous sports team. The team of such baseball legends as Babe Ruth (1895–1948) and Joe DiMaggio (1914–99), the Yankees have won more World Series than any other baseball team. The New York Mets, of the National League, play at Shea Stadium in Queens. In football, New York is home to New York Giants and the New York Jets; both teams play at Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands Sports Complex in New Jersey. New York has two NBA (National Basketball Association) teams: the Knicks, who play at Madison Square Garden, and the Jets, who play at Continental Airlines Arena. The city's two NHL (National Hockey League) teams are the New York Islanders, who play at the Nassau Coliseum, and the New York Rangers, who play at Madison Square Garden.

The New York area also has four horse racing tracks (the Aqueduct, Belmont, and Meadowlands race tracks and the Yonkers Raceway) and is the site of the annual U.S. Open tennis championship games.

16. Parks and Recreation

Extending over 341 hectares (843 acres) at the heart of the city, Central Park is one of New York's most famous landmarks. Designed by famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead (1822–1903), together with Calvert Vaux (1824–95), the park was laid out between 1859 and 1870. In spite of its association with some high-profile crimes, the park is still heavily used by a wide spectrum of New Yorkers, from joggers and rollerbladers to picnicking families. Special features of the park include the Central Park Zoo (and recently opened children's petting zoo), International Peace Garden, Belvedere Castle Shakespeare Garden, Conservatory Garden, and many others. Other parks in Manhattan include Battery Park, at the island's southern-most tip; Bryant Park, located behind the public library at 42nd Street; Union Square Park, Gramercy Park, and Washington Square Park.

The Bronx Zoo—one of the nation's most famous—is home to more than 4,000 animals. Over the years, the century-old facility has transferred many of its animals from cages to areas resembling their natural habitats, a change reflected in the zoo's current name: the Bronx Zoo/Wildlife Conservation Park. Also located in the Bronx is the 101-hectare (250-acre) New York Botanical Garden, the city's oldest and largest public garden. Brooklyn is home to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Prospect Park, and Flushing Meadow-Corona Park is located in Queens.

In Manhattan, Central Park is a favorite venue for recreational activities of many kinds, including jogging, inline skating, walking, frisbee, and bicycling (altogether New York has some 161 kilometers/100 miles of bicycle paths). The Chelsea Piers Sports and Entertainment Complex in the Chelsea neighborhood offers a gymnastics center, golf club, running track, roller and ice-skating rinks, and rock-climbing wall.

17. Performing Arts

Home to 240 performance venues, including such famous sites as Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall, and Lincoln Center, New York is one of the world's great centers for the performing arts. It is the theatrical capital of the nation, with performances ranging from large, expensive Broadway hits to the smaller and more innovative Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway productions (the last two designations are actually determined by the size of the theater rather than its location). New York is also home to the prestigious New York Shakespeare Festival, which mounts productions at the Joseph Papp Public Theater most of the year and presents the Shakespeare in the Park series in Central Park in the summer.

New York is home to the New York Philharmonic, one of the nation's most acclaimed symphony orchestras (and its oldest), and the country's premier opera company (the Metropolitan Opera), as well as classical music ensembles of all kinds, from early music groups to those specializing in contemporary performance. Opera is also presented by the New York City Opera and several other groups. In addition to the famous Juilliard School, the city is home to two other highly regarded schools of music, the Manhattan School Music and the Mannes College of Music, both of which present their own concert series featuring performances by both students and faculty. A unique classical music experience is offered by Barge-music, a series of chamber music concerts presented on a boat docked on the East River.

New York is also a thriving center for all kinds of dance and is particularly known for its classical ballet companies, notably the American Ballet Theater and the New York City Ballet, which have boasted such illustrious names as George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and Mikhail Baryshnikov. New York also has several other ballet companies, and modern dance is represented by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and other groups.

Many types of popular music—including jazz, rock, blues, and Latin music—thrive in New York in clubs scattered throughout the city. Among the city's legendary jazz clubs are the Blue Note, Sweet Basil, the Five Spot, and the Village Vanguard.

18. Libraries and Museums

The main branch of the New York Public Library has one of the world's five largest library collections, with book stacks stored on eight different levels and covering an area of at least half an acre. Its legendary reading room is one of the city's treasures. Founded in 1895, the New York Public Library System consists of both research libraries and branch libraries that serve the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island. The library's book holdings total 17,762,034 volumes. The library system operates 79 neighborhood branches, serving a population of 3,070,302, with an annual circulation of over 11 million items.

There are 150 museums and some 400 art galleries in New York. With over 3.5 million artworks, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is the largest museum in the Western Hemisphere, as well as the premier American museum. Its 148,640 square meters (1.6 million square feet) house not only its famed European and American collections, but also extensive Asian, Classical, and Islamic collections. Special features include the Frank Lloyd Wright Room, a Costume Hall, the largest Arms and Armor galleries in the West, and a Musical Instrument Collection containing the world's oldest piano. The Cloisters at the northern-most tip of Manhattan houses the museum's medieval collection.

The Museum of Modern Art (known as MOMA) has one of the world's most extensive collections of modern art, with holdings that include not only paintings and sculpture but also architectural plans, photographs, and films (two classic or foreign films are screened daily). The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum displays twentieth-century artworks in a unique Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building featuring a spiral that winds down through six levels of displays on its outer walls. A ten-story annex completed in 1992 provides room for four additional galleries.

Manhattan's other museums include the Frick and Whitney collections; the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, which features a restored tenement that re-creates nineteenth-century apartment life as lived by New York's immigrant population; the Jewish Museum; the Children's Museum of Manhattan; El Museo del Barrio; and the International Center of Photography. Museums in New York's other boroughs include the Brooklyn Museum, the New York Transit Museum, and the Brooklyn Historical Society in Brooklyn and the American Museum of the Moving Image in Queens.

19. Tourism

Over 25 million people visit New York every year to see its historic landmarks, sample its cultural activities, and enjoy its fine dining and varied shopping. The city's hotel rooms have an average occupancy rate of about three-quarters, and new hotel construction activity has been brisk in recent years. Conventions generate millions of dollars in income annually for the city.

New York attracts more foreign visitors than any other U.S. city. In 1995 approximately 4,252,000 foreign travelers visited the city.

20. Holidays and Festivals

JANUARY
Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Observance
National Black Fine Art Show
New York National Boat Show
Outsider Art Fair

FEBRUARY
Chinese New Year Celebrations

MARCH
Art Expo New York
New York Restaurant & Foodservice Show
New York Underground Film Festival
Saint Patrick's Day Parade

MARCH-APRIL
Passports to Off-Broadway Theatres

APRIL
African Film Festival

APRIL-MAY
Music Hall at Snug Harbor

MAY
Ninth Avenue International Food Festival
Crafts on Columbus
Brooklyn Botanic Garden Center Flower Sale

MAY-AUGUST
Seafest

JUNE
American Crafts Festival
Belmont Stakes
JVC Jazz Festival
New York Lesbian & Gay Film Festival
Queens Day Festival
Texaco New York Jazz Festival
Welcome Back to Brooklyn Festival

JUNE-JULY
Shakespeare in the Park
Washington Square Music Festival

JUNE-AUGUST
Bryant Park Summer Film Festival
Summer Stage

JULY
Fourth of July Concert in Battery Park
Great July Fourth Festival
Lincoln Center Festival
Macy's Fireworks Celebration

JULY-AUGUST
Celebrate Brooklyn Festival
Mostly Mozart Festival

JULY-OCTOBER
Moonlight Dancing in the Park

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER
U.S. Open Tennis Championships

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER
New York Film Festival

OCTOBER
Fifth Avenue Art & Antiques Show
Chrysanthemum & Bonsai Festival
Greenwich Village Halloween Parade

OCTOBER-JANUARY
Big Apple Circus

NOVEMBER
Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
New York Marathon

NOVEMBER-DECEMBER
Radio City Christmas Spectacular

DECEMBER
First Night New York
Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting
Paul Winter's Winter Solstice Celebration

New Year's Celebration & Ball Drop in Times Square

DECEMBER-JANUARY
Empire State Building Holiday
Lights Lincoln Center Family Art Show
Winter Wildlife Holiday Events

21. Famous Citizens

Film director, comedian, and author Woody Allen (b. 1935).

Abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887).

Poet William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878).

Statesman Aaron Burr (1756–1836).

Industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919).

Composer George M. Cohan (1878–1942).

Former New York state governor Mario Cuomo (b. 1932).

Former New York City mayor David N. Dinkins (b. 1927).

African-American activist Marcus Garvey (1887–1940).

"Beat" poet Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997).

Journalist Horace Greeley (1811–72).

Writer and editor Pete Hamill (b. 1935).

Statesman Alexander Hamilton (1755–1804).

Artist Keith Haring (1938–90).

Author Washington Irving (1783–1859).

Architect Philip Johnson (b. 1906).

Former mayor Ed Koch (b. 1924).

Former mayor Fiorello LaGuardia (1882–1947).

Novelist Norman Mailer (b. 1923).

Industrialist and financier J. Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913).

City planner Robert Moses (1889–1981).

Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead (1822–1903).

First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929–94).

Playwright Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953).

Humorist Dorothy Parker (1893–1967).

Photojournalist Jacob Riis (1849–1914).

Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937).

New York governor Nelson Rockefeller (1908–79).

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld (b. 1954).

Playwright Neil Simon (b. 1927).

Baseball entrepreneur George Steinbrenner (b. 1930).

Real estate developer Donald Trump (b. 1946).

Railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877).

Pop artist Andy Warhol (1926–1987).

22. For Further Study

Websites

New York Convention and Visitors Bureau. [Online] Available http://www.nycvisit.com/ (accessed October 14, 1999).

The Official New York City Website. [Online] Available http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/ (accessed October 14, 1999).

Government Offices

Mayor's Office
1 Centre St. Municipal Building
New York, NY 10007
(212) 788-3000

New York City Hall
1 Centre St. Municipal Building
New York, NY 10007
(212) 788-3000

New York County
60 Centre St.
New York, NY 10007
(212) 374-8359

Tourist and Convention Bureaus

Jacob K. Javits Convention Center
655 W. 34th St.
New York, NY 10001
(212) 216-2300

New York Convention & Visitors Bureau
810 7th Avenue, 3rd Fl.
New York, NY 10019
(212) 484-1200

Publications

The New York Post
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036

The New York Times
229 W. 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036

The Village Voice
36 Cooper Square
New York, NY 10003

The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty St.
New York, NY 10281

Books

Alleman, Richard. The Movie Lover's Guide to New York. New York: Perennial Library, 1988.

Auster, Paul. The New York Trilogy: City of Glass, Ghosts, and The Locked Room. San Bernardino, CA: Borgo Press, 1996.

Baldwin, James. Another Country. New York: Dial Press, 1962.

Barile, Susan Paula. The Bookworm's Big Apple: A Guide to Manhattan's Booksellers. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.

Biondi, Joann, and James Kaskins. Hippocrene U.S.A. Guide to Black New York. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1994.

Hijuelos, Oscar. Our House in the Last World. New York: Persea Books, 1983.

Jackson, Kenneth T., ed. The Encyclopedia of New York City. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995.

Leeds, Mark. Ethnic New York. Lincolnwood, IL: Passport Books, 1995.

Mitchell, Joseph. Up in the Old Hotel. New York: Pantheon Books, 1992.

Parker, Dorothy. Complete Stories. New York: Penguin, 1995.

Riis, Jacob. How the Other Half Lives. New York: Penguin Books, 1997.

Roth, Andrew. Infamous Manhattan. New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1996.

White, N., and E. Willensky, eds. AIA Guide to New York. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988.