New York Introduction

New York City (also known by the initials NYC), officially the City of New York, is the most populous city in the United States and the most densely populated major city in North America. Located in the state of New York, New York City has a population of over 8.1 million within an area of 321 square miles (approximately 830 km²).

The city is a center for international finance, fashion, entertainment and culture, and is widely considered to be one of the world's major global cities with an extraordinary collection of museums, galleries, performance venues, media outlets, international corporations and financial markets. It is also home to the headquarters of the United Nations.

The New York metropolitan area has a population of about 22 million, which makes it one of the largest urban areas in the world. [4] The city proper consists of five boroughs: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. With the exception of Staten Island, each of these boroughs is home to at least a million people and would be among the nation's largest cities if considered independently.

Nicknamed "the Big Apple", the city attracts large numbers of immigrants, with over a third of its population foreign born. Moreover, it attracts people from all over the United States, who come for its culture, energy, cosmopolitanism, and economic opportunity. At present, the city has the lowest crime rate among the 25 largest American cities.

New York Weather

Generally the nicest and most temperate time to visit New York is from mid-September to mid-October, along with all of May and early June. Unfortunately, as these months are popular with tourists, hotel prices are scaled accordingly. Long periods of wet weather are common in November and April, with freezing sheet rain and snow abundant from December to February. In summer, humidity reigns supreme to make a unique, quintessentially New York kind of soupy heat that drives everyone to despair. This is perhaps the time to explore further afield and leave the city to its temper.

New York Attractions

New Museum of Contemporary Art

Temporarily located on W 22nd St until it moves into its new premises on the Bowery in 2006, this place stays at the vanguard of the contemporary scene by showing installations, video, painting and sculpture with a global outlook. Downstairs there's a great art bookshop and the Media Z Lounge presenting works in new media.

Central Park

This vast rectangle of green is a welcome contrast to the concrete and traffic mosh of the rest of Manhattan. Inevitably the city's commotion does seep in, through skaters, joggers, musicians and tourists, but there are quieter areas to be enjoyed, along with free theatrical performances in summer.

There's a small zoo in the park, organised and casual sport (predominantly baseball and Frisbee) to watch or play and a swimming pool.

Empire State Building

New York's original skyline symbol, the Empire State Building, is a limestone classic built in just 410 days during the depths of the Depression. It stands 102 storeys and almost 449m (1472ft) tall. The famous antenna was originally to be a mooring mast for zeppelins, but the Hindenberg disaster put a stop to that plan.

One airship accidentally met up with the building: a B25 crashed into the 79th floor on a foggy day in July 1945, killing 14 people. Taking the ear-popping lift to the 86th or 102nd floor observation desks can entail a bit of waiting around, but it's worth it when you get there. Come very early or very late; a late-night trip to the top makes a wonderfully romantic interlude.

American Museum of Natural History

Founded in 1869, this museum began with a mastodon's tooth and a few thousand beetles; today, its collection includes more than 30 million artefacts, interactive exhibits and loads of taxidermy. It's most famous for its three dinosaur halls, which underwent a complete overhaul several years ago and reflect current knowledge on how these behemoths behaved.

Enthusiastic guides roam the dinosaur halls ready to answer questions, and the 'please touch' displays allow kids to handle many items, including the skullcap of a pachycephulasaurus, a plant-eating dinosaur that roamed the earth 65 million years ago.

Other treasures in the permanent collection include the enormous (fake) blue whale that hangs from the ceiling above the Hall of Ocean Life and the Star of India sapphire in the Hall of Minerals and Gems. Newer exhibitions, such as the Hall of Biodiversity, feature a strong ecological slant, with a video display about the earth's habitats. The Butterfly Conservancy is a popular recurring exhibition, open from November to May and featuring 600 butterflies from all over the world (admission is extra). The building itself is amazing: turn the corner to admire the 77th St facade.

Museum of Modern Art

The new MoMA, back where it belongs in renovated Midtown digs after a two-year stint in Queens, is undoubtedly one of New York's finest museums. In its new location on W53rd st, between Fifth and Sixth Aves, the MoMA is a perfect excuse to explore its 100,000-plus paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, architectural models and design objects.

Its collection of masterpieces includes Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Van Gogh's Starry Night and Piet Mondrian's Broadway Boogie-Woogie. Claude Monet's Water Lilies rates a whole gallery to itself.

New York History

The region was inhabited by the Lenape Native Americans at the time of its discovery by Italian Giovanni da Verrazano. Although Verrazano sailed into New York Harbor, his voyage did not continue upstream and instead he sailed back into the Atlantic. It was not until the voyage of Henry Hudson, an Englishman who was employed by the Dutch monarchy that the area was mapped. He discovered Manhattan on September 11, 1609, and continued up the river that bears his name, the Hudson River, until he arrived at the site where Albany now stands. The Dutch established New Amsterdam in 1613, which was granted self-government in 1652 under Peter Stuyvesant. The British conquered the city in September, 1664 and renamed it "New York" after the English Duke of York and Albany (who later became King James II of England and James VII of Scotland. The Dutch briefly regained it in August 1673, renaming the city "New Orange", but ceded it permanently in November 1674.

Under British rule the City of New York continued to develop, and while there was growing sentiment in the city for greater political independence, the area was decidedly split in its loyalties during the New York Campaign, a series of major early battles during the American Revolutionary War. The city was under British occupation until the end of the war and was the last port British ships evacuated in 1783.

New York City was the capital of the newly-formed United States from 1788 to 1790. In the 19th century, the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 enabled New York to overtake Boston and Philadelphia in economic importance, and local politics became dominated by a Democratic Party political machine known as Tammany Hall that drew on the support of Irish immigrants. The New York Draft Riots during the American Civil War were suppressed by the Union Army. In later years known as the Gilded Age, the city's upper classes enjoyed great prosperity amid the further growth of a poor immigrant working class; it was also an era associated with economic and municipal consolidation of what would become the five boroughs in 1898.

The 1980s was a period of modest boom and bust, followed by a major boom in the 1990s. Racial tensions calmed in latter years; a dramatic fall in crime rates, improvements in quality of life and a major reinvigoration of immigration and growth renewed the city, and New York's population surged past eight million for the first time in its history. In the late 1990s, the city benefited disproportionately from the success of the financial services industry during the dot com boom, one of the factors driving a decade of booming residential and commercial real estate values.