| Manhattan | |
|---|---|
| — Borough of New York City — | |
| New York County | |
 |
|
 |
|
| Coordinates: 40°43′42″N 73°59′39″W / 40.72833°N 73.99417°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | New York |
| County | New York County |
| City | New York City |
| Settled | 1624 |
| Government | |
| - Borough President | Scott Stringer (D) |
| - District Attorney (New York County) | Cyrus Vance, Jr. |
| Area | |
| - Total | 33.77 sq mi (87.5 km2) |
| - Land | 22.96 sq mi (59.5 km2) |
| - Water | 10.81 sq mi (28 km2) |
| Population | |
| - Total | 1,634,795 |
| - Density | 71,201/sq mi (27,490.9/km2) |
| Website | Official Website of the Manhattan Borough President |
|
New York's Five Boroughs at a Glance
|
||||
| Jurisdiction | Population | Land Area | ||
| Borough of | County of | estimate for 1 July 2008 |
square miles |
square km |
| Manhattan | New York | 1,634,795 | 23 | 59 |
| the Bronx | Bronx | 1,391,903 | 42 | 109 |
| Brooklyn | Kings | 2,556,598 | 71 | 183 |
| Queens | Queens | 2,293,007 | 109 | 283 |
| Staten Island | Richmond | 487,407 | 58 | 151 |
| 8,363,710 | 303 | 786 | ||
| 19,490,297 | 47,214 | 122,284 | ||
| Source: United States Census Bureau[1][2][3] | ||||
Manhattan is one of the 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,[4] and U Thant Island; as well as Marble Hill, a small section on the mainland near the Bronx. The original city of New York began at the southern end of Manhattan, and expanded in 1898 to include surrounding counties. It is the smallest yet most urbanized of the five boroughs.
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[5] 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.[6] 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.[7][8][9] 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.[10] 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. As a result, residents of New York City's other boroughs such as Brooklyn and Queens often refer to a trip to Manhattan as "going to the city".[11]
Contents |
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).[12] 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.[13] The Lenape Indians themselves gave a slightly different, inaccurate[14] account of the name to Moravian missionary John Heckewelder.[15] They called it Manahachtanienk, which in the Lenape language, means "the island where we all became intoxicated."
History
Colonial
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.[16] It was not until the voyage of Henry Hudson, an Englishman who worked for the Dutch East India Company, that the area was mapped.[17] 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.[18]
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).[19][20] 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.[21] 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 60 guilders, often said to be worth 24 dollars, though (by comparing the price of bread and other goods) actually amounts to around $1000 in modern currency[22](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.[23]
In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed as the last Dutch Director General of the colony.[24] New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on February 2, 1653.[25] 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.[26] 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.[27][28]
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 representative body of multiple colonies to assert the concept popularly known as "no taxation without representation." It was also the first time the colonies cooperated 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.[29] 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.[30]
From January 11, 1785 to the fall of 1788, New York City was the fifth of five capitals under the Articles of Confederation, with the Continental Congress meeting 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.[31] 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.[32][33]
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.[34]
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.[35][36] 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.[37] 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.[38]
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 large arrivals of African-Americans 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.[39]
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.[40]
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.[41] 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.[42] In 1951, the United Nations relocated from its first headquarters in Queens, to the East Side of Manhattan.[43]
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.[44] 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".[45] 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.[46]
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.[47] 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.[48]
Since the early to-mid 1990s, inflation has driven rent prices much higher, often causing it to become unaffordable for working and middle class population. As the city became much safer and more desirable, many young people 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 residents 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.
September 11th Attacks
On September 11th, 2001, planes were hijacked and flown into the two towers of the World Trade Center, killing more than 3,000 people. The two towers were destroyed, along with World Trade Center 7, which was evacuated before it collapsed, due to fire damage. There have been plans of reconstructing the towers (see Freedom Tower, and World Trade Center rebuilding controversy)
Television taking place in NYC
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.[49] 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).[50] 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.[51]
One Manhattan neighborhood is 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.[52] 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.[52]
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.[13]
Early in the nineteenth century, landfill was used to expand Lower Manhattan from the natural Hudson shoreline at Greenwich Street to West Street.[53] When building the World Trade Center, 1.2 million cubic yards (917,000 m³) of material was excavated from the site.[54] 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.[55] The result was a 700-foot (210-m) extension into the river, running six blocks or 1,484 feet (450 m), covering 92 acres (370,000 m2), providing a 1.2-mile (1.9-km) riverfront esplanade and over 30 acres (120,000 m2) of parks.[56]
Manhattan has fixed vehicular connections with New Jersey to the west by way of 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 near Battery Park at its southern tip. It is possible to travel to Staten Island by way of 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 100 feet (30 m) 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 60 feet (18 m) 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 feet. 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.[57] 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), and 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).[58] 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.[58][59] 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 Mannahatta 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.[13]
Adjacent counties
- Bergen County, New Jersey—west/northwest
- Hudson County, New Jersey—west/southwest
- Bronx County, New York (The Bronx)—northeast
- Queens County, New York (Queens)—east/southeast
- Kings County, New York (Brooklyn)—south/southeast
- Richmond County, New York (Staten Island)—southwest
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