NYC Epicenters 9 11→2021½

New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive with a respective county. The city is the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the United States by both population and urban area. New York is a global center of finance and commerce, culture, technology, entertainment and media, academics, and scientific output, the arts and fashion, and, as home to the headquarters of the United Nations, international diplomacy.

With an estimated population in 2024 of 8,478,072 distributed over , the city is the most densely populated major city in the United States. New York City has more than double the population of Los Angeles, the nation's second-most populous city.U.S. Census Bureau History: New York City and the New Year
United States Census Bureau. Accessed January 30, 2024. "In 2021, 3,079,776 New Yorkers identified themselves as foreign-born, including 1,542,413 Latin American, 910,151 Asian, and 443,113 European immigrants.... The 2020 Census found that New York City was home to 8,804,190 people. Los Angeles, CA, was the nation's distant second most populous city with 3,898,747 residents." With more than 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York City is one of the world's most populous megacities. The city and its metropolitan area are the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York City, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. In 2021, the city was home to nearly 3.1 million residents who were born outside the United States, the largest foreign-born city population in the world.

New York City traces its origins to Fort Amsterdam and a trading post founded on Manhattan Island by Dutch colonists around 1624. The settlement was named New Amsterdam in 1626 and was chartered as a city in 1653. The city came under English control in 1664 and was temporarily renamed New York after King Charles II granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York, before being permanently renamed New York in November 1674. Following independence from Great Britain, the city was the national capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. The modern city was formed by the 1898 consolidation of its five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island.

Anchored by Wall Street in the Financial District, Manhattan, New York City has been called both the world's premier financial and fintech center and the most economically powerful city in the world. , the New York metropolitan area is the largest metropolitan economy in the world, with a gross metropolitan product of over US$2.16 trillion. The New York metropolitan area's economy is larger than all but nine countries in the world. Despite having a 24/7 rapid transit system, New York also leads the world in urban automobile traffic congestion. The city is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by market capitalization of their listed companies: the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. New York City is an established safe haven for global investors. , New York City is the most expensive city in the world for expatriates and has by a wide margin the highest residential rents of any city in the nation. Fifth Avenue is the most expensive shopping street in the world. New York City is home, by a significant margin, to the highest number of billionaires, individuals of ultra-high net worth (greater than US$30 million), and millionaires of any city in the world.

Etymology

In 1664, New York was named in honor of the Duke of York (later King James II of England). James's elder brother, King Charles II, appointed him proprietor of the former territory of New Netherland, including the city of New Amsterdam, when the Kingdom of England seized it from Dutch control.

History

Early history

In the pre-Columbian era, the area of present-day New York City was inhabited by Algonquians, including the Lenape. Their homeland, known as Lenapehoking, included the present-day areas of Staten Island, Manhattan, the Bronx, the western portion of Long Island (including Brooklyn and Queens), and the Lower Hudson Valley.

The first documented visit into New York Harbor by a European was in 1524 by explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano. He claimed the area for France and named it ''Nouvelle Angoulême'' (New Angoulême). A Spanish expedition, led by the Portuguese captain Estêvão Gomes sailing for Emperor Charles V, arrived in New York Harbor in January 1525 and charted the mouth of the Hudson River, which he named ('Saint Anthony's River').

In 1609, the English explorer Henry Hudson rediscovered New York Harbor while searching for the Northwest Passage to the Orient for the Dutch East India Company. He sailed up what the Dutch called North River (now the Hudson River), named first by Hudson as the ''Mauritius'' after Maurice, Prince of Orange.

Hudson claimed the region for the Dutch East India Company. In 1614, the area between Cape Cod and Delaware Bay was claimed by the Netherlands and called ('New Netherland'). The first non–Native American inhabitant of what became New York City was Juan Rodriguez, a merchant from Santo Domingo who arrived in Manhattan during the winter of 1613–14, trapping for pelts and trading with the local population as a representative of the Dutch.

Dutch rule

A permanent European presence near New York Harbor was established in 1624, making New York the 12th-oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement in the continental United States, with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island. In 1625, construction was started on a citadel and Fort Amsterdam, later called ''Nieuw Amsterdam'' (New Amsterdam), on present-day Manhattan Island.GovIsland Park-to-Tolerance: through Broad Awareness and Conscious Vigilance
Tolerance Park. Retrieved February 9, 2017. See Legislative Resolutions Senate No. 5476 and Assembly No. 2708.

The colony of New Amsterdam extended from the southern tip of Manhattan to modern-day Wall Street, where a wooden stockade was built in 1653 to protect against Native American and English raids. In 1626, the Dutch colonial Director-General Peter Minuit, as charged by the Dutch West India Company, purchased the island of Manhattan from the ''Canarsie'', a small Lenape band, for "the value of 60 guilders" (about $900 in 2018). A frequently told but disproved legend claims that Manhattan was purchased for $24 worth of glass beads.

Following the purchase, New Amsterdam grew slowly. To attract settlers, the Dutch instituted the patroon system in 1628, whereby wealthy Dutchmen (''patroons'', or patrons) who brought 50 colonists to New Netherland would be awarded land, local political autonomy, and rights to participate in the lucrative fur trade. This program had little success.

Since 1621, the Dutch West India Company had operated as a monopoly in New Netherland, on authority granted by the Dutch States General. In 1639–1640, in an effort to bolster economic growth, the Dutch West India Company relinquished its monopoly over the fur trade, leading to growth in the production and trade of food, timber, tobacco, and slaves (particularly with the Dutch West Indies).

In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant began his tenure as the last Director-General of New Netherland. During his tenure, the population of New Netherland grew from 2,000 to 8,000. Stuyvesant has been credited with improving law and order; however, he earned a reputation as a despotic leader. He instituted regulations on liquor sales, attempted to assert control over the Dutch Reformed Church, and blocked other religious groups from establishing houses of worship.

English rule

In 1664, unable to summon any significant resistance, Stuyvesant surrendered New Amsterdam to English troops, led by Colonel Richard Nicolls, without bloodshed. The terms of the surrender permitted Dutch residents to remain in the colony and allowed for religious freedom.

In 1667, during negotiations leading to the Treaty of Breda after the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the victorious Dutch decided to keep the nascent plantation colony of what is now Suriname, which they had gained from the English, and in return the English kept New Amsterdam. The settlement was promptly renamed "New York" after the Duke of York (the future King James II and VII). The duke gave part of the colony to proprietors George Carteret and John Berkeley.

On August 24, 1673, during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, Anthony Colve of the Dutch navy seized New York at the behest of Cornelis Evertsen the Youngest and rechristened it "New Orange" after William III, the Prince of Orange. The Dutch soon returned the island to England under the Treaty of Westminster of November 1674.

Several intertribal wars among the Native Americans and epidemics brought on by contact with the Europeans caused sizeable population losses for the Lenape between 1660 and 1670. By 1700, the Lenape population had diminished to 200. New York experienced several yellow fever epidemics in the 18th century, losing ten percent of its population in 1702 alone.

In the early 18th century, New York grew in importance as a trading port while as a part of the colony of New York. It became a center of slavery, with 42% of households enslaving Africans by 1730. Most were domestic slaves; others were hired out as labor. Slavery became integrally tied to New York's economy through the labor of slaves throughout the port, and the banking and shipping industries trading with the American South. During construction in Foley Square in the 1990s, the African Burying Ground was discovered; the cemetery included 10,000 to 20,000 graves of colonial-era Africans, some enslaved and some free.

The 1735 trial and acquittal in Manhattan of John Peter Zenger, who had been accused of seditious libel after criticizing colonial governor William Cosby, helped to establish freedom of the press in North America. In 1754, Columbia University was founded.

American Revolution

The Stamp Act Congress met in New York in October 1765, as the Sons of Liberty organization emerged in the city and skirmished over the next ten years with British troops stationed there. The Battle of Long Island, the largest battle of the American Revolutionary War, was fought in August 1776 within modern-day Brooklyn. A British rout of the Continental Army at the Battle of Fort Washington in November 1776 eliminated the last American stronghold in Manhattan, causing George Washington and his forces to retreat across the Hudson River to New Jersey, pursued by British forces.

After the battle, in which the Americans were defeated, the British made New York their military and political base of operations in North America. The city was a haven for Loyalist refugees and escaped slaves who joined the British lines for freedom promised by the Crown, with as many as 10,000 escaped slaves crowded into the city during the British occupation, the largest such community on the continent. When the British forces evacuated New York at the close of the war in 1783, they transported thousands of freedmen for resettlement in Nova Scotia, England, and the Caribbean.

The attempt at a peaceful solution to the war took place at the Conference House on Staten Island between American delegates, including Benjamin Franklin, and British general Lord Howe on September 11, 1776. Shortly after the British occupation began, the Great Fire of New York destroyed nearly 500 buildings, about a quarter of the structures in the city, including Trinity Church.

Post-revolutionary period and early 19th century

In January 1785, the assembly of the Congress of the Confederation made New York City the national capital. New York was the last capital of the United States under the Articles of Confederation and the first under the Constitution. As the capital, New York City hosted the inauguration of the first President, George Washington, and the first Congress, at Federal Hall on Wall Street. Congress drafted the Bill of Rights there. The Supreme Court held its first organizational sessions in New York in 1790.

In 1790, for the first time, New York City surpassed Philadelphia as the nation's largest city. At the end of 1790, the national capital was moved to Philadelphia, where it remained while the new capital in Washington, D.C. was being constructed.

During the 19th century, New York City's population grew from 60,000 to 3.43 million. Under New York State's gradual emancipation act of 1799, children of slave mothers were to be eventually liberated but to be held in indentured servitude until their mid-to-late twenties. A significant free Black population gradually developed in Manhattan, made up of former slaves who had been freed by their masters after the American Revolutionary War, as well as escaped slaves. The New York Manumission Society worked for abolition and established the African Free School to educate Black children. It was not until 1827 that slavery was completely abolished in the state. Free Blacks struggled with discrimination and interracial abolitionist activism continued. New York City's population jumped from 123,706 in 1820 (10,886 of whom were Black and of which 518 were enslaved) to 312,710 by 1840 (16,358 of whom were Black).

Also in the 19th century, the city was transformed by both commercial and residential development relating to its status as a national and international trading center, as well as by European immigration, respectively. The city adopted the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which expanded the city street grid to encompass almost all of Manhattan. The 1825 completion of the Erie Canal through central New York connected the Atlantic port to the agricultural markets and commodities of the North American interior via the Hudson River and the Great Lakes. Local politics became dominated by Tammany Hall, a political machine supported by Irish and German immigrants. In 1831, New York University was founded.

Several prominent American literary figures lived in New York during the 1830s and 1840s, including William Cullen Bryant, Washington Irving, Herman Melville, Rufus Wilmot Griswold, John Keese, Nathaniel Parker Willis, and Edgar Allan Poe. Members of the business elite lobbied for the establishment of Central Park, which in 1857 became the first landscaped park in an American city.

The Great Irish Famine brought a large influx of Irish immigrants, of whom more than 200,000 were living in New York by 1860, representing over a quarter of the city's population. Extensive immigration from the German provinces meant that Germans comprised another 25% of New York's population by 1860.

American Civil War

Democratic Party candidates were consistently elected to local office, increasing the city's ties to the South and its dominant party. In 1861, Mayor Fernando Wood called on the aldermen to declare independence from Albany and the United States after the South seceded, but his proposal was not acted on. Anger at new military conscription laws during the American Civil War (1861–1865), which spared wealthier men who could afford to hire a substitute, led to the Draft Riots of 1863, whose most visible participants were ethnic Irish working class.

The draft riots deteriorated into attacks on New York's elite, followed by attacks on Black New Yorkers after fierce competition for a decade between Irish immigrants and Black people for work. Rioters burned the Colored Orphan Asylum to the ground. At least 120 people were killed. Eleven Black men were lynched over five days, and the riots forced hundreds of Blacks to flee. The Black population in Manhattan fell below 10,000 by 1865. The White working class had established dominance. It was one of the worst incidents of civil unrest in American history.

Late 19th and early 20th century

In 1886, the Statue of Liberty, a gift from France, was dedicated in New York Harbor. The statue welcomed 14 million immigrants as they arrived via Ellis Island by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and is a symbol of the United States and American ideals of liberty and peace.Statue of Liberty
UNESCO. Accessed December 28, 2023. "Inaugurated in 1886, the sculpture stands at the entrance to New York Harbour and has welcomed millions of immigrants to the United States ever since."

In 1898, the City of New York was formed with the consolidation of Brooklyn (until then a separate city), the County of New York (which then included parts of the Bronx), the County of Richmond, and the western portion of the County of Queens. The opening of the New York City Subway in 1904, first built as separate private systems, helped bind the new city together. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the city became a world center for industry, commerce, and communication.

In 1904, the steamship '' General Slocum'' caught fire in the East River, killing 1,021 people. In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the city's worst industrial disaster, killed 146 garment workers and spurred the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and major improvements in factory safety standards.

New York's non-White population was 36,620 in 1890. New York City was a prime destination in the early 20th century for Blacks during the Great Migration from the American South, and by 1916, New York City had the largest urban African diaspora in North America. The Harlem Renaissance of literary and cultural life flourished during the era of Prohibition. The larger economic boom generated construction of skyscrapers competing in height.

New York City became the most populous urbanized area in the world in the early 1920s, overtaking London. The metropolitan area surpassed 10 million in the early 1930s, becoming the first megacity. The Great Depression saw the election of reformer Fiorello La Guardia as mayor and the fall of Tammany Hall after eighty years of political dominance.

Returning World War II veterans created a post-war economic boom and the development of large housing tracts in eastern Queens and Nassau County, with Wall Street leading America's place as the world's dominant economic power. The United Nations headquarters was completed in 1952, solidifying New York's global geopolitical influence, and the rise of abstract expressionism in the city precipitated New York's displacement of Paris as the center of the art world.

Late 20th and early 21st centuries

In 1969, the Stonewall riots were a series of violent protests by members of the gay community against a police raid that took place in the early morning of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. They are widely considered to be the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights. Wayne R. Dynes, author of the ''Encyclopedia of Homosexuality'', wrote that drag queens were the only "transgender folks around" during the Stonewall riots. The transgender community in New York City played a significant role in fighting for LGBT equality.

In the 1970s, job losses due to industrial restructuring caused New York City to suffer from economic problems and rising crime rates. Growing fiscal deficits in 1975 led the city to appeal to the federal government for financial aid; President Gerald Ford gave a speech denying the request, which was paraphrased on the front page of the ''New York Daily News'' as "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD". The Municipal Assistance Corporation was formed and granted oversight authority over the city's finances. While a resurgence in the financial industry greatly improved the city's economic health in the 1980s, New York's crime rate continued to increase through that decade and into the beginning of the 1990s.

New York City's population exceeded 8 million for the first time in the 2000 United States census, 2000 census; further records were set in the 2010 United States census, 2010 and 2020 United States census, 2020 censuses. Important new economic sectors, such as Silicon Alley, emerged.

The year 2000 was celebrated with fanfare in Times Square.

New York City suffered the bulk of the Economic effects of the September 11 attacks#New York City, economic damage and largest loss of human life in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, September 11, 2001, attacks. Two of the four hijacked airliners were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, resulting in the collapse of both buildings and the deaths of 2,753 people, including 343 first responders from the New York City Fire Department and 71 law enforcement officers.

World Trade Center site#Planning for the new World Trade Center, The area was rebuilt with a World Trade Center (2001–present), new World Trade Center, the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, and other new buildings and infrastructure, including the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, the city's third-largest hub. The new One World Trade Center is the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere and the List of tallest buildings in the world, world's seventh-tallest building by pinnacle height, with its spire reaching a symbolic , a reference to the year of United States Declaration of Independence, American independence.

The Occupy Wall Street protests in Zuccotti Park in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan began on September 17, 2011, receiving global attention and popularizing the Occupy movement against Social inequality, social and economic inequality worldwide.

New York City was Effects of Hurricane Sandy in New York, heavily impacted by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, including flooding that led to the days-long shutdown of the subway system, and flooding of all East River subway tunnels and of all road tunnels entering Manhattan except the Lincoln Tunnel. The New York Stock Exchange closed for two days due to weather for the first time since the Great Blizzard of 1888. At least 43 people died in New York City as a result of Sandy, and the economic losses in New York City were estimated to be roughly $19 billion. The disaster spawned long-term efforts towards infrastructural projects to counter climate change and rising seas, with $15 billion in federal funding received through 2022 towards those resiliency efforts.

In March 2020, the first case of Coronavirus disease 2019, COVID-19 in the city was confirmed. With its population density and extensive exposure to global travelers, the city rapidly replaced Wuhan, China as the global epicenter of COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic during the early phase, straining the city's healthcare infrastructure. Through March 2023, New York City recorded COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, more than 80,000 deaths from COVID-19-related complications.

Geography

New York City lies in the northeastern United States, in southeastern New York State, approximately halfway between Washington, D.C. and Boston. Its location at the mouth of the Hudson River, which feeds into a naturally sheltered harbor and then into the Atlantic Ocean, has helped the city become a significant trading port. Most of the city is built on the three islands of Long Island, Manhattan, and Staten Island.

During the Wisconsin glaciation, 75,000 to 11,000 years ago, the New York City area was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet. The erosive forward movement of the ice (and its subsequent retreat) contributed to the separation of what is now Long Island and Staten Island. That action left bedrock at a relatively shallow depth, providing a solid Foundation (engineering), foundation for most of Manhattan's skyscrapers.

The Hudson River flows through the Hudson Valley into New York Bay. Between New York City and Troy, New York, the river is an estuary. The Hudson River separates the city from New Jersey. The East River—a tidal strait—flows from Long Island Sound and separates the Bronx and Manhattan from Long Island. The Harlem River, another tidal strait between the East and Hudson rivers, separates most of Manhattan from the Bronx. The Bronx River, which flows through the Bronx and Westchester County, is the only entirely fresh water, freshwater river in the city.

The city's land has been altered substantially by human intervention, with considerable land reclamation along the Waterfront (area), waterfronts since Dutch colonial times; reclamation is most prominent in Lower Manhattan, with developments such as Battery Park City in the 1970s and 1980s. Some of the natural relief in topography has been evened out, especially in Manhattan.

The city's total area is . of the city is land and of it is water.New York State Gazetteer from 2010 United States Census
United States Census Bureau. Retrieved February 9, 2017. The highest point in the city is Todt Hill on Staten Island, which, at Above mean sea level, above sea level, is the highest point on the eastern seaboard south of Maine. The summit of the ridge is mostly covered in woodlands as part of the Staten Island Greenbelt.

Boroughs

is sometimes referred to collectively as the ''Five Boroughs''. Each borough is coextensive with a respective Administrative divisions of New York (state)#County, county of New York State, making New York City one of the List of U.S. municipalities in multiple counties, U.S. municipalities in multiple counties.

Manhattan (New York County) is the geographically smallest and most densely populated borough. It is home to Central Park and most of the city's skyscrapers, and is sometimes locally known as ''The City''. Manhattan's population density of in 2022 makes it the County statistics of the United States#Population density, highest of any county in the United States and List of United States cities by population density#New York City boroughs, higher than the density of any individual American city. Manhattan is the cultural, administrative, and financial center of New York City and contains the headquarters of many major multinational corporations, the United Nations headquarters, Wall Street, and a number of important universities. The borough is often described as the financial and cultural center of the world.

Brooklyn (Kings County), on the western tip of Long Island, is the city's most populous borough. Brooklyn is known for its cultural, social, and ethnic diversity, an independent art scene, List of Brooklyn neighborhoods, distinct neighborhoods, and a distinctive architectural heritage. Downtown Brooklyn is the largest central core neighborhood in the Outer Boroughs. The borough has a long beachfront shoreline including Coney Island, established in the 1870s as one of the earliest amusement grounds in the United States Marine Park (Brooklyn park), Marine Park and Prospect Park (Brooklyn), Prospect Park are the two largest parks in Brooklyn. Since 2010, Brooklyn has evolved into a thriving hub of entrepreneurship and high technology Startup company, startup firms, and of postmodern art and design. Brooklyn is also home to Fort Hamilton, the United States Armed Forces, U.S. military's only active duty installation within New York City, aside from U.S. Coast Guard, Coast Guard operations. The facility was established in 1825 on the site of a artillery battery, battery used during the American Revolution, and it is one of America's longest-serving military forts.

Queens (Queens County), on Long Island north and east of Brooklyn, is geographically the largest borough, the most Ethnic diversity, ethnically diverse county in the United States, and the most ethnically diverse urban area in the world. Queens is the site of the Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, and hosts the annual US Open (tennis), US Open tennis tournament at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, with plans to build Etihad Park (New York City), Etihad Park, a soccer-specific stadium for New York City FC. Additionally, two of the three busiest airports serving the New York metropolitan area, John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport, are in Queens.

The Bronx (Bronx County) is both New York City's northernmost borough and the only one that is mostly on the U.S. mainland. It is the location of Yankee Stadium, the baseball park of the New York Yankees, and home to the largest Housing cooperative, cooperatively-owned housing complex in the United States, Co-op City, Bronx, Co-op City. It is home to the Bronx Zoo, the world's largest metropolitan zoo, which spans and houses more than 6,000 animals. The Bronx is the birthplace of hip hop music and its associated hip hop culture, culture. Pelham Bay Park is the largest park in New York City, at .

Staten Island (Richmond County) is the most suburban in character of the five boroughs. It is connected to Brooklyn by the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, and to Manhattan by way of the free Staten Island Ferry. In central Staten Island, the Staten Island Greenbelt spans approximately , including of walking trails and one of the last undisturbed forests in the city. Designated in 1984 to protect the island's natural lands, the Greenbelt comprises seven city parks.

Climate

Under the Köppen climate classification, New York City has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa), and is the northernmost major city on the North American continent with this categorization. The suburbs to the immediate north and west are in the transitional zone between humid subtropical and humid continental climates (Dfa). The city receives an average of of precipitation annually, which is relatively evenly spread throughout the year. New York averages Climate of New York City#Other phenomena, over 2,500 hours of sunshine annually.

Winters are chilly and damp, and prevailing wind patterns that blow sea breezes offshore temper the moderating effects of the Atlantic Ocean; yet the Atlantic and the partial shielding from colder air by the Appalachian Mountains keep the city warmer in the winter than inland North American cities at similar or lesser latitudes. The daily mean temperature in January, the area's coldest month, is . Temperatures usually drop to several times per winter, yet can also reach for several days even in the coldest winter month. Spring and autumn are unpredictable and can range from cool to warm, although they are usually mild with low humidity. Summers are typically hot and humid, with a daily mean temperature of in July.

Nighttime temperatures are degrees higher for the average city resident due to the urban heat island effect, caused by paved streets and tall buildings. Daytime temperatures exceed on average of 17 days each summer and in some years exceed , although this is a rare occurrence, last noted on July 18, 2012. Similarly, readings of are extremely rare, last occurring on February 14, 2016. Extreme temperatures have ranged from , recorded on July 9, 1936, down to on February 9, 1934; the coldest recorded wind chill was on the same day as the all-time record low. Average winter snowfall between 1991 and 2020 was ; this varies considerably between years. The record cold daily maximum was on December 30, 1917, while, conversely, the record warm daily minimum was , on July 2, 1903. The average water temperature of the nearby Atlantic Ocean ranges from in February to in August.

Hurricanes and tropical storms are rare in the New York area. Hurricane Sandy brought a destructive storm surge to New York City on the evening of October 29, 2012, flooding numerous streets, tunnels, and subway lines in Lower Manhattan and other areas of the city and cutting off electricity in many parts of the city and its suburbs. The storm and its profound impacts have prompted the discussion of constructing seawalls and other coastal barriers around the shorelines of the city and the metropolitan area to minimize the risk of destructive consequences from another such event in the future.

Parks

The city of New York has a complex park system, with various lands operated by the National Park Service, the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. In its 2023 ParkScore ranking, the Trust for Public Land reported that the park system in New York City was the tenth-best park system among the most populous U.S. cities, citing the city's park acreage, investment in parks and that 99% of residents are within of a park.

Gateway National Recreation Area contains over , most of it in New York City. In Brooklyn and Queens, the park contains over of salt marsh, wetlands, islands, and water, including most of Jamaica Bay and the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. Also in Queens, the park includes a significant portion of the western Rockaway Peninsula, most notably Jacob Riis Park and Fort Tilden. In Staten Island, it includes Fort Wadsworth, with historic pre-Civil War era Battery Weed and Fort Tompkins Quadrangle, Fort Tompkins, and Great Kills Park.

The Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island Immigration Museum are managed by the National Park Service and are in both New York and New Jersey. They are joined in the harbor by Governors Island National Monument. Historic sites under federal management on Manhattan Island include Stonewall National Monument; Castle Clinton National Monument; Federal Hall National Memorial; Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site; General Grant National Memorial (Grant's Tomb); African Burial Ground National Monument; and Hamilton Grange National Memorial. List of National Historic Landmarks in New York City, Hundreds of properties are listed on the National Register of Historic Places or as a National Historic Landmark.

There are seven state parks within the confines of New York City. They include: the Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserve, a natural area that includes extensive Trail riding, riding trails; the Riverbank State Park, a facility; and the Marsha P. Johnson State Park, a state park in Brooklyn and Manhattan that borders the East River renamed in honor of Marsha P. Johnson.

New York City has over of Urban park, municipal parkland and of public beaches. The largest municipal park in the city is Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, with , and the most visited urban park is the Central Park, and one of the most filmed and visited locations in the world, with 42 million visitors in 2023.

Environment

Environmental issues in New York City are affected by the city's size, density, Transportation in New York City, abundant public transportation infrastructure, and its location at the mouth of the Hudson River. For example, it is one of the country's biggest sources of pollution and has the lowest per-capita greenhouse gas emissions rate and electricity usage. Governors Island is planned to host a US$1billion research and education center to make New York City the global leader in addressing the climate change, climate crisis.

As an port, oceanic port city, New York City is vulnerable to long-term manifestations of global warming like sea level rise exacerbated by land subsidence. Climate change has spawned the development of a significant green economy, climate resiliency and environmental sustainability economy in the city. New York City has focused on reducing its Human impact on the environment, environmental impact and carbon footprint. Mass transit use is the highest in the country.

New York's List of U.S. cities with high transit ridership, high rate of public transit use, more than 610,000 daily cycling trips , and List of U.S. cities with most pedestrian commuters, many pedestrian commuters make it the most energy-efficient major city in the United States. Walk and bicycle modes of travel account for 21% of all modes for trips in the city; nationally, the rate for metro regions is about 8%. In both 2011 and 2015, Walk Score named New York City the most Walkability, walkable large city in the United States, and in 2018, ''Stacker'' ranked New York the most walkable American city. Citibank sponsored public bicycles for the city's bike-share project, which became known as Citi Bike, in 2013. New York City's numerical "in-season cycling indicator" of bicycling in the city had hit an all-time high of 437 when measured in 2014.

The New York City drinking water supply is extracted from the protected Catskill Mountains watershed. As a result of the watershed's integrity and undisturbed natural water filtration system, New York is one of only four major cities in the United States the majority of whose drinking water is pure enough not to require water treatment. The city's municipal water system is the nation's largest, moving more than of water daily from a watershed covering

According to the 2016 World Health Organization Global Urban Ambient Air Pollution Database, the annual average concentration in New York City's air of particulate matter measuring 2.5micrometers or less (PM_2.5) was 7.0micrograms per cubic meter, or 3.0micrograms within the recommended limit of the WHO Air Quality Guidelines for the annual mean PM_2.5. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, in partnership with Queens College, City University of New York, Queens College, conducts the New York Community Air Survey to measure pollutants at about 150 locations.

Demographics

New York City is the most populous city in the United States, with 8,804,190 residents as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, its highest decennial count ever, incorporating more immigration into the city than outmigration since the 2010 United States census, 2010 census. More than twice as many people live in New York City as in Los Angeles, the second-most populous American city. The city's population in 2020 was 35.9% White Americans, White, 22.7% African Americans, Black, 14.6% Asian Americans, Asian, 10.5% Multiracial Americans, Mixed, 0.7% Native Americans in the United States, Native American and 0.1% Pacific Islander Americans, Pacific Islander; 28.4% identified themselves as Hispanic and Latino Americans, Hispanic or Latino.

Between 2010 and 2020, New York City gained 629,000 residents, more than the total gains over the same decade of the next four largest American cities (Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix) combined. The city's population density of makes it the densest of any American municipality with a population above 100,000.Highest Density States, Counties and Cities (2022)
United States Census Bureau. Accessed December 30, 2023. Manhattan's population density is , the highest of any county in the United States.

Based on data from the 2020 census, New York City comprises about 43.6% of the state's population of 20,202,320, and about 39% of the population of the New York metropolitan area. The majority of New York City residents in 2020 (5,141,539 or 58.4%) were living in Brooklyn or Queens, the two boroughs on Long Island.QuickFacts New York city, New York; Bronx County, New York; Kings County, New York; New York County, New York; Queens County, New York; Richmond County, New York
United States Census Bureau. Accessed January 14, 2024. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, and the New York City metropolitan statistical area has the largest Foreign born#Metropolitan regions with largest foreign born populations, foreign-born population of any metropolitan region in the world. The New York region continues to be by far the leading metropolitan gateway for legal immigrants admitted into the United States, substantially exceeding the combined totals of Los Angeles and Miami metropolitan area, Miami. Nearly seven times as many young professionals applied for jobs in New York City in 2023 as compared to 2019, making New York the most popular destination for recent college graduates.

Ethnicity and nationality

According to 2022 estimates from the American Community Survey, the largest self-reported ancestries in New York City were Dominican Americans, Dominican (8.7%), Chinese Americans, Chinese (7.5%), Puerto Ricans, Puerto Rican (6.9%), Italian Americans, Italian (5.5%), Mexican Americans, Mexican (4.4%), Irish Americans, Irish (4.4%), Indian Americans, Asian Indian (3.1%), German Americans, German (2.9%), Jamaican Americans, Jamaican (2.4%), Ecuadorian Americans, Ecuadorian (2.3%), English Americans, English (2.1%), Polish Americans, Polish (1.9%), Russian Americans, Russian (1.7%), Arab Americans, Arab (1.4%), Haitian Americans, Haitian (1.4%), Guyanese Americans, Guyanese (1.3%), Filipino Americans, Filipino (1.1%), and Korean Americans, Korean (1.1%).

Based on American Community Survey data from 2018 to 2022, approximately 36.3% of the city's population is foreign born (compared to 13.7% nationwide), and 40% of all children are born to mothers who are immigrants. Throughout its history, New York has been a major port of entry for immigrants.''The Newest New Yorkers: 2013''
New York City Department of City Planning, December 2013. Retrieved February 9, 2017. "The immigrant share of the population has also doubled since 1965, to 37 percent. With foreign-born mothers accounting for 51 percent of all births, approximately 6-in-10 New Yorkers are either immigrants or the children of immigrants." No single country or region of origin dominates. Queens has the largest Asian American and Andean civilizations, Andean populations in the United States, and is also the most ethnically and linguistically diverse urban area in the world.

The metropolitan area has the largest Asian Indian population in the Western Hemisphere; the largest Russian Americans, Russian American, Italian American, and African American populations; the largest Dominican American, Puerto Rican migration to New York City, Puerto Rican American, and South American Americans, South American and second-largest overall Hispanic and Latino American, Hispanic population in the United States, numbering over 5 million. Venezuelan Americans, Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombian Americans, Colombia, Guyanese Americans, Guyana, Peruvian Americans, Peru, and Brazilian Americans, Brazil, are the top source countries from South America for immigrants to the New York City region; the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Haiti, and Trinidadian and Tobagonian Americans, Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbeans in New York City, Caribbean; Nigerian Americans, Nigeria, Egyptian Americans, Egypt, Ghanaian Americans, Ghana, Tanzanian Americans, Tanzania, Kenyan Americans, Kenya, and South African Americans, South Africa from African immigration to the United States, Africa; and Salvadoran Americans, El Salvador, Honduran Americans, Honduras, and Guatemalan Americans, Guatemala in Central America.

New York contains the highest total Asian population of any U.S. city proper. Asian Americans in New York City, according to the 2010 census, number more than 1.2 million, greater than the combined totals of San Francisco and Los Angeles. New York has the largest Chinese people in New York City, Chinese population of any city outside Asia, Chinatown, Manhattan, Manhattan's Chinatown is the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere,*
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* and Queens is home to the largest Tibetan people, Tibetan population outside Asia. Arab Americans number over 160,000 in New York City, with the highest concentration in Brooklyn. New York City has the highest Palestinian Americans, Palestinian population in the United States. Demographics of Central Asia, Central Asians, primarily Uzbek Americans, are a rapidly growing segment of the city's non-Hispanic White population. The metropolitan area is home to 20% of the nation's Indians in the New York City metropolitan region, Indian Americans and at least twenty Little India (location), Little India enclaves, and 15% of all Korean Americans in New York City, Korean Americans and four Koreatown, Manhattan, Koreatowns.

New York City has the largest European American, European and Non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic white population of any American city, numbering 2.7 million in 2012. The European diaspora residing in the city is very diverse and many New York City ethnic enclaves#European, European ethnic groups have formed enclaves. With 960,000 Jewish inhabitants as of 2023, New York City is home to the highest Jewish population by city, Jewish population of any city in the world, and its metropolitan area concentrated over 2 million Jews as of 2021, the second largest Jewish population worldwide after the Tel Aviv metropolitan area in Israel. In the borough of Brooklyn, an estimated one in four residents was Jewish as of 2018.

Sexual orientation and gender identity

New York City has been described as the LGBT culture in New York City, gay capital of the world and the central node of the LGBT, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) political sociology, sociopolitical ecosystem, and is home to one of the world's largest LGBT populations and the most prominent. The New York metropolitan area is home to about 570,000 self-identifying Gays in New York City, gay and Bisexuality, bisexual people, LGBT demographics of the United States#By metropolitan area, the largest in the country. Same-sex sexual activity between consenting adults has been legal in New York since 1980's ''New York v. Onofre'' case, which invalidated the state's Sodomy laws in the United States#State and territorial laws prior to Lawrence v. Texas, sodomy law. Same-sex marriage in New York was legalized on June 24, 2011, and were authorized to take place on July 23, 2011.

The annual NYC Pride March proceeds southward down Fifth Avenue and ends at Greenwich Village, Manhattan, Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan; the parade is the list of largest LGBT events, largest pride parade in the world, attracting tens of thousands of participants and millions of sidewalk spectators each June. The annual Queens Pride Parade is held in Jackson Heights, Queens, Jackson Heights and is accompanied by the ensuing ''Multicultural Parade''.

Stonewall 50 – WorldPride NYC 2019 was the List of largest LGBT events, largest international Pride celebration in history, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, with 150,000 participants and five million spectators attending in Manhattan alone. New York City is home to the largest transgender population in the world, estimated at more than 50,000 in 2018, concentrated in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens; however, until the June 1969 Stonewall riots, this community had felt marginalized and neglected by the gay community. Brooklyn Liberation March, the largest Transgender rights, transgender-rights demonstration in LGBT history, took place on June 14, 2020, stretching from Grand Army Plaza to Fort Greene, Brooklyn, focused on supporting Black transgender lives, drawing an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 participants.

Religion

Christianity is the largest religion (59% adherent) in New York City, which is home to the highest number of church (building), churches of any city in the world. Catholic Church, Catholicism is the largest Christian denomination (33%), followed by Protestantism (23%), and List of Christian denominations, other Christian denominations (3%). The Latin Church, Latin Catholic population is primarily served by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, Diocese of Brooklyn, while Eastern Catholic Churches, Eastern Catholics are divided into numerous jurisdictions throughout the city. Evangelicalism, Evangelical Protestantism is the largest branch of Protestantism in the city (9%), followed by Mainline Protestantism (8%), while the converse is usually true for other cities and metropolitan areas.

With Jews in New York City, 960,000 Jewish inhabitants as of 2023, Judaism is the second-largest religion practiced in New York City. Nearly half of the city's Jews live in Brooklyn.

Islam ranks as the third-largest religion in New York City, following Christianity and Judaism, with estimates ranging between 600,000 and 1,000,000 observers of Islam, including 10% of the city's public school children. 22.3% of Islam in the United States, American Muslims live in New York City, with 1.5 million Muslims in the greater New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan Muslim population in the Western Hemisphere—and the most ethnically diverse Muslim population of any city in the world. Powers Street Mosque in Brooklyn is one of the oldest continuously operating mosques in the United States, and represents the first Islamic organization in both the city and the state.

Following these three largest religious groups in New York City are Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, and others. As of 2023, 24% of Greater New Yorkers identified with no organized religious affiliation, and 4% were self-identified atheists.

Economy

New York City is a global hub of business and commerce, sometimes called the "Capital of the World". Greater New York is the list of cities by GDP, world's largest metropolitan economy, with a gross metropolitan product estimated at US$2.16 trillion in 2022. New York is a center for worldwide banking and finance, health care, and life sciences, medical technology and research, retailing, world trade, transportation, tourism, real estate, new media, traditional media, advertising, legal services, accountancy, insurance, and the arts in the United States; while Silicon Alley, Metonymy, metonymous for New York's high technology sphere, continues to expand. The Port of New York and New Jersey is a major economic engine, benefitting Panamax, post-Panamax from the expansion of the Panama Canal.

Many Fortune 500 corporations are headquartered in New York City, as are a large number of multinational corporations. New York City has been ranked first among cities across the globe in attracting Capital (economics), capital, business, and tourists. New York City's role as the top global center for the Advertising, advertising industry is metonymously reflected as ''Madison Avenue#Advertising industry, Madison Avenue''. The city's fashion industry provides approximately 180,000 employees with $11 billion in annual wages.

Significant other economic sectors include universities and non-profit institutions. Manufacturing in the United States, Manufacturing declined over the 20th century but still accounts for significant employment. The city's apparel and garment industry, historically centered on the Garment District, Manhattan, Garment District in Manhattan, peaked in 1950, when more than 323,000 workers were employed in the industry in New York. In 2015, fewer than 23,000 New York City residents were employed in the industry, although revival efforts were underway, and the American fashion industry continues to be metonymized as ''Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue''. In 2017, the city had 205,592 employer firms, of which 22.0% were owned by women, 31.3% were minority-owned and 2.7% were owned by veterans.QuickFacts for New York city, New York; New York; United States
United States Census Bureau. Accessed January 12, 2024.

In 2022, the gross domestic product of New York City was US$1.053 trillion, of which $781 billion (74%) was produced by Manhattan. Like other large cities, New York City has a degree of income disparity, as indicated by its Gini coefficient of 0.55 as of 2022. In November 2023, the city had total employment of over 4.75 million of which more than a quarter were in education and health services. Manhattan, which accounted for more than half of the city's jobs, had an average weekly wage of $2,590 in the second quarter of 2023, ranking fourth-highest among the nation's 360 largest counties.County Employment And Wages – Second Quarter 2023
Bureau of Labor Statistics, November 21, 2023. Accessed January 12, 2024. New York City is one of the relatively few American cities levying an income tax (about 3%) on its residents; despite this tax levy, New York City in 2024 was home by a significant margin to the highest number of billionaires of any city in the world, with a total of 110.

Wall Street

New York City's most important economic sector lies in its role as a comprehensive financial center, metonymously known as ''Wall Street''. Lower Manhattan is home to the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq, representing the world's largest and second largest stock exchanges, respectively, when measured both by overall average daily trading volume and by total market capitalization of their listed companies in 2013. In fiscal year 2013–14, Wall Street's securities industry generated 19% of New York State's tax revenue.

New York City remains the largest global center for trading in public equity and Security (finance), debt capital markets. New York also leads in hedge fund management; List of private equity firms, private equity; and the monetary volume of mergers and acquisitions. Several Investment Banking, investment banks and Investment management, investment managers headquartered in Manhattan are important participants in other global financial centers. New York is the principal commercial banking center of the United States.

Manhattan contained over 500 million square feet (46.5 million m²) of office space in 2018, making New York City the largest office market in the world, while Midtown Manhattan, with 400 million square feet (37.2 million m²) in 2018, is the largest central business district in the world.

Tech and biotech

New York is a top-tier global technology hub. Silicon Alley, once a metonym for the sphere encompassing the metropolitan region's high technology industries, is no longer a relevant moniker as the city's tech environment has expanded dramatically both in location and in scope since at least 2003, when tech business appeared in more places in Manhattan and in other boroughs, and not much silicon was involved. New York City's current tech sphere encompasses the array of applications involving universal applications of artificial intelligence (AI), broadband internet, new media, financial technology (''fintech'') and cryptocurrency, biotechnology, game design, and other fields within information technology that are supported by its entrepreneurship ecosystem and venture capital investments. Technology-driven startup companies and entrepreneurial employment are growing in New York City and the region. The technology sector has been claiming a greater share of New York City's economy since 2010. Tech:NYC, founded in 2016, is a non-profit organization which represents New York City's technology industry with government, civic institutions, in business, and in the media, and whose primary goals are to further augment New York's substantial tech talent base and to advocate for policies that will nurture tech companies to grow in the city.

New York City's AI sector raised US$483.6 million in venture capital investment in 2022. In 2023, New York unveiled the first comprehensive initiative to create both a framework of rules and a chatbot to regulate the use of AI within the sphere of city government.

The Biotech and pharmaceutical companies in the New Jersey/New York metropolitan region, biotechnology sector is growing in New York City, based on the city's strength in academic scientific research and public and commercial financial support. On December 19, 2011, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced his choice of Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to build a $2 billion graduate school of applied sciences called Cornell Tech on Roosevelt Island with the goal of transforming New York City into the world's premier technology capital.

Real estate

New York City real estate is a safe haven for global investors. The total value of all New York City property was assessed at US$1.479 trillion for the 2017 fiscal year, an increase of 6.1% from the previous year. Of the total market value, single family homes accounted for $765 billion (51.7%); condominiums, Housing cooperative, co-ops, and apartment buildings totaled $351 billion (23.7%); and commercial properties were valued at $317 billion (21.4%). Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan commands the highest retail rents in the world, at in 2023.

New York City has one of the highest cost of living, costs of living in the world, which is exacerbated by the city's housing shortage. In 2023, one-bedroom apartments in Manhattan rented at a median monthly price of US$4,443. The median house price city-wide is over $1 million as of 2023. With 33,000 units available in 2023 among the city's 2.3 million rentable apartments, the vacancy rate was 1.4%, the lowest level since 1968 and a rate that is indicative of a shortage of available units, especially among those with rents below a monthly rental of $1,650, where less than 1% of units were available. Perennially high demand has pushed median monthly one-bedroom apartment rents in New York City to over US$4,000 and two-bedroom rents to over $5,000, the highest in the United States by a significant margin.

Tourism

Tourism is a vital industry for New York City, and New York City Tourism + Conventions represents the city's official bureau of tourism. New York has witnessed a growing combined volume of international and domestic tourists, with as many as 66.6 million visitors to the city per year, including as many as 13.5 million international visitors, with the highest numbers from the United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil, and China. Multiple sources have called New York the most photographed city in the world. ''I Love New York'' (stylized I ❤ NY) is both a logo and a song that are the basis of an advertising campaign and have been used since 1977 to promote tourism in New York City, and later to promote New York State as well. The trademarked logo is owned by Empire State Development Corporation, New York State Empire State Development.

Many Lists of New York City landmarks, districts and monuments in New York City are major landmarks, including three of the world's ten-most-visited tourist attractions in 2023. A record 66.6 million tourists visited New York City in 2019, bringing in $47.4 billion in tourism revenue. Visitor numbers dropped by two-thirds in 2020 during the pandemic, rebounding to 63.3 million in 2023.''The Tourism Industry in New York City Reigniting the Return''
New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, April 2021. Accessed December 29, 2023. "After reaching a record high of 66.6 million visitors in 2019 and generating $47.4 billion in spending, the number of visitors to New York City dropped by 67 percent and their spending declined by 73 percent in 2020.... New York City hosted 66.6 million visitors in 2019 (about 25 percent of the State's 265.5 million visitors that year), a tenth-consecutive annual record. In 2020, the pandemic and related behavioral and governmental restrictions caused the number to drop to 22.3 million, a 67 percent reduction (see Figure 1)." Major landmarks in New York City include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, and Central Park. Times Square is the brightly illuminated hub of the Theater District, Manhattan, Broadway Theater District, and a major center of the world's entertainment industry, attracting 50 million visitors annually to one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections.Alikpala, Gidget
"The top 10 most visited tourist attractions in the USA"
''As (newspaper), As'', September 4, 2023. Accessed January 13, 2024. "Central Park, New York- 42 million annual visitors... Times Square, New York- 50 million annual visitors. At number one is Times Square, one of the most iconic locations in the world." According to The Broadway League, shows on Broadway theatre, Broadway sold approximately US$1.54 billion worth of tickets in both the 2022–2023 and the 2023–2024 seasons. Both seasons featured theater attendance of approximately 12.3 million each.

Media and entertainment

New York City has been described as the show business, entertainment and digital media capital of the world. It is a center for the advertising, Music of New York City, music, List of New York City newspapers and magazines, newspaper, digital media, and publishing industries and is the largest media market in North America. Many of the world's largest media conglomerates are based in the city, including Warner Bros. Discovery, the Thomson Reuters Corporation, the Associated Press, Bloomberg L.P., the News Corp, The New York Times Company, NBCUniversal, the Hearst Corporation, AOL, Fox Corporation, and Paramount Global. Seven of the world's top eight global advertising agency networks have their headquarters in New York.

More than 200 newspapers and 350 consumer magazines have an office in the city, and the publishing industry employs about 11,500 people, with an economic impact of $9.2 billion. The two national daily newspapers with the largest daily Circulation (newspaper), circulations in the United States are published in New York: ''The Wall Street Journal'' and ''The New York Times'' broadsheets. With 132 awards through 2022, ''The Times'' has won the most Pulitzer Prizes for journalism and is considered the U.S. media's newspaper of record. Tabloid (newspaper format), Tabloid newspapers in the city include the ''New York Daily News'', which was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson, and the ''New York Post'', founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton.

, New York City was the second-largest center for filmmaking and television production in the United States, producing about 200 feature films annually. The industry employed more than 100,000 people in 2019, generating $12.2 billion in wages and a total economic impact of $64.1 billion. By volume, New York is the world leader in independent film production—one-third of all American independent films are produced there.

New York is a major center for non-commercial educational media. NYC Media is the official public radio, television, and online media network and broadcasting service of New York City, and has produced several original Emmy Award-winning shows covering music and culture in city neighborhoods and city government. The oldest public-access television channel in the United States is the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, founded in 1971. WNET is the city's major public television station and produces a third of national Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) television programming. WNYC, a public radio station owned by the city until 1997, has the largest public radio audience in the United States.

Culture

New York City is frequently the List of films set in New York City, setting for novels, movies, and television programs and has been described as the cultural capital of the world.
The city is the birthplace of many cultural movements, including the Harlem Renaissance in literature and visual art; abstract expressionism (known as the New York School (art), New York School) in painting; and Hip hop music, hip-hop, Punk rock, punk, Hardcore punk, hardcore, Salsa music, salsa, Freestyle music, freestyle, Tin Pan Alley, certain forms of jazz, and (along with Philadelphia) disco in music. New York City has been considered the dance capital of the world.

One of the most common traits attributed to New York City is its fast pace, which spawned the term ''wiktionary:New York minute, New York minute''. New York City's residents are prominently known for their resilience historically, and more recently related to their management of the impacts of the September 11 terrorist attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, COVID-19 pandemic. New York was voted the world's most resilient city in 2021 and 2022, per Time Out (magazine), ''Time Out'''s global poll of urban residents.

Theater

The central Theater District, Manhattan, hub of the American theater scene is Manhattan, with its divisions of Broadway theatre, Broadway, off-Broadway, and off-off-Broadway. Many movie and television Celebrity, stars have gotten their big break working in New York productions.

Broadway theatre is one of the premier forms of English-language theatre in the world, named after Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway, the major thoroughfare that crosses Times Square, sometimes referred to as "The Great White Way".

List of Broadway theaters, Forty-one venues mostly in Midtown Manhattan's Theatre District, Manhattan, Theatre District, each with at least 500 seats, are classified as Broadway theatres. The 2018–19 Broadway theatre season set records with total attendance of 14.8 million and gross revenue of $1.83 billion Recovering from closures forced by the COVID-19 pandemic, 2022–23 revenues rebounded to $1.58 billion with total attendance of 12.3 million. The Tony Awards recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre and are presented at an annual ceremony in Manhattan.

Accent and dialect

The New York area is home to a distinctive regional accent and speech pattern called the New York City English, New York dialect, alternatively known as ''Brooklynese'' or ''New Yorkese''. It has been considered one of the most recognizable accents within American English. The traditional New York area speech pattern is known for its rapid delivery, and its accent is characterized as Rhoticity in English, non-rhotic so that the sound does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant, therefore the pronunciation of the city name as "New Yawk". The classic version of the New York City dialect is centered on Middle class, middle- and working-class New Yorkers. The influx of non-European immigrants in recent decades has led to changes in this distinctive dialect, and the traditional form of this speech pattern is no longer as prevalent.

Architecture

New York has architecturally noteworthy buildings in a wide range of styles and from distinct time periods, from the Dutch Colonial Wyckoff House, Pieter Claesen Wyckoff House in Brooklyn, the oldest section of which dates to 1656, to the modern One World Trade Center, the skyscraper at World Trade Center site, Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan and the List of most expensive buildings in the world, most expensive office tower in the world by construction cost.

Manhattan's skyline, with its many skyscrapers, has been recognized as an iconic symbol of the city, and the city has been home to several of the Skyscraper#History of the tallest skyscrapers, tallest buildings in the world. , New York City had 6,455 high-rise buildings, the third most in the world after Hong Kong and Seoul.

The character of New York's large residential districts is often defined by the elegant brownstone rowhouses and townhouses and shabby tenements that were built during a period of rapid expansion from 1870 to 1930. Stone and brick became the city's building materials of choice after the construction of wood-frame houses was limited in the aftermath of the Great Fire of New York, Great Fire of 1835.Lankevich (1998), pp. 82–83;

In contrast, New York City also has neighborhoods that are less densely populated and feature free-standing dwellings. In neighborhoods such as Riverdale, Bronx, Riverdale (in the Bronx), Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, Ditmas Park (in Brooklyn), and Douglaston, Queens, Douglaston (in Queens), large single-family homes are common in various architectural styles such as Tudor Revival architecture, Tudor Revival and Victorian architecture, Victorian.

Arts

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, anchoring Lincoln Square, Manhattan, Lincoln Square on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is home to numerous influential arts organizations, including the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, New York Philharmonic, and New York City Ballet, as well as the Vivian Beaumont Theater, the Juilliard School, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Alice Tully Hall. The Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute is in Union Square (New York City), Union Square, and Tisch School of the Arts is based at New York University, while Central Park SummerStage presents free concerts in Central Park.

New York City has more than 2,000 arts and cultural organizations and more than 500 Art gallery, art galleries. The city government funds the arts with a larger annual budget than the National Endowment for the Arts. The city is also home to hundreds of cultural institutions and historic sites. Fifth Avenue, Museum Mile is the name for a section of Fifth Avenue running from 82nd to 105th streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, in the upper portion of Carnegie Hill.

Nine museums occupy this section of Fifth Avenue, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Guggenheim, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Neue Galerie New York, the Jewish Museum (Manhattan), Jewish Museum, and The Africa Center, making it one of the densest displays of high culture in the world. In addition to other programming, the museums collaborate for the annual Museum Mile Festival, held each year in June, to promote the museums and increase visitation. Many of the world's most lucrative art auctions are held in New York City.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the List of largest art museums, largest art museum in the Americas. In 2022, it welcomed 3.2 million visitors, ranking it the List of most-visited museums in the United States, third-most visited museum in the country, and List of most-visited art museums, eighth-most visited art museum in the world. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works across 17 curatorial departments,"Metropolitan Museum Launches New and Expanded Web Site"
, press release, The Met, January 25, 2000. and includes works of art from classical antiquity and Art of ancient Egypt, ancient Egypt; paintings and sculptures from nearly all the Western painting, European masters; and an extensive collection of Visual art of the United States, American and modern art. The Met maintains extensive holdings of African art, African, Asian art, Asian, Oceanian art, Oceanian, Byzantine art, Byzantine, and Islamic art.

Cuisine

New York City's food culture includes an array of international cuisines influenced by the city's long immigration, immigrant history. Central Europe, Central and Eastern European immigrants, especially Jewish Americans, Jewish immigrants from those regions, brought New York-style bagels, Cheesecake#North America, cheesecake, hot dogs, knishes, and delicatessens (delis) to the city. Italian diaspora, Italian immigrants brought New York-style pizza and Italian cuisine into the city, while Jewish immigrants and Irish immigrants brought pastrami and corned beef, respectively. Chinese restaurant, Chinese and other Asian restaurants, sandwich joints, trattorias, diners, and coffeehouses are ubiquitous throughout the city. Some 4,000 mobile food vendors licensed by the city, many immigrant-owned, have made Middle Eastern foods such as falafel and kebabs examples of modern New York street food. The city is home to "nearly one thousand of the finest and most diverse haute cuisine restaurants in the world", according to Michelin. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene assigns letter grades to the city's restaurants based on inspection results. As of 2019, there were 27,043 restaurants in the city, up from 24,865 in 2017. The Queens Night Market in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park attracts more than ten thousand people nightly to sample food from more than 85 countries.

Fashion

New York City is a global fashion capital, and the fashion, fashion industry employs 4.6% of the city's private workforce. New York Fashion Week (NYFW) is a high-profile semiannual event featuring fashion model, models displaying the latest wardrobes created by fashion designers worldwide in advance of these fashions proceeding to the marketplace.

NYFW sets the tone for the global fashion industry. New York's fashion district encompasses roughly 30 city blocks in Midtown Manhattan, clustered around a stretch of Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue nicknamed ''Seventh Avenue (Manhattan)#Notable districts and buildings, Fashion Avenue''.Nemy, Enid.(June 8, 1972
"Everybody – Well, Almost – Attended A Mammoth Party on 'Fashion Ave.'"
''The New York Times'' New York's fashion calendar also includes Couture Fashion Week to showcase haute couture styles. The Met Gala is often described as "Fashion's biggest night".

Parades

New York City is well known for its street parades, the majority in Manhattan. The primary orientation of the annual street parades is typically from north to south, marching along major avenues. The annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is the world's largest parade, beginning alongside Central Park and proceeding southward to the flagship Macy's Herald Square store; the parade is viewed on telecasts worldwide and draws millions of spectators in person. Other notable parades including the annual New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade in March, the NYC Pride March, NYC LGBT Pride March in June, the LGBT-inspired Greenwich Village Halloween Parade in October, and numerous parades commemorating the independence days of many nations. List of ticker-tape parades in New York City, Ticker-tape parades celebrating championships won by sports teams as well as other accomplishments march northward along the Canyon of Heroes on Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway from Bowling Green (New York City), Bowling Green to City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan.

Sports

New York City is home to the headquarters of the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, and Major League Soccer.

New York City hosted the 1984 Summer Paralympics and the 1998 Goodwill Games. New York City's New York City bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics, bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics was one of five finalists, but lost out to London.

The city has played host to more than 40 major professional teams in the five sports and their respective competing leagues. Four of the ten most expensive stadiums ever built worldwide (MetLife Stadium, the new Yankee Stadium, Madison Square Garden, and Citi Field) are in the New York metropolitan area.

The city is represented in the National Football League by the New York Giants and the New York Jets, although both teams play their home games at MetLife Stadium in nearby East Rutherford, New Jersey, which hosted Super Bowl XLVIII in 2014.

The city's two Major League Baseball teams are the New York Mets, who play at 41,800-seat Citi Field in Queens and the New York Yankees, who play at 47,400-seat Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. The Mets–Yankees rivalry, two rivals compete in six games of interleague play every regular season, called the Subway Series. The Yankees have won an MLB-record 27 championships, while the Mets have won the World Series twice. The city was once home to the Brooklyn Dodgers (now the Los Angeles Dodgers), who won the World Series once, and the New York Giants (NL), New York Giants (now the San Francisco Giants), who won the World Series five times. Both teams moved to California in 1958. There is one Minor League Baseball team in the city, the Mets-affiliated Brooklyn Cyclones, and the city gained a club in the independent Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, Atlantic League when the Staten Island FerryHawks began play in 2022.

The city's National Basketball Association teams are the New York Knicks, who play at Madison Square Garden, and the Brooklyn Nets, who play at the Barclays Center. The New York Liberty is the city's Women's National Basketball Association team. The first national college-level basketball championship, the National Invitation Tournament, was held in New York in 1938 and remains in the city.

The metropolitan area is home to three National Hockey League teams. The New York Rangers, one of the league's Original Six, play at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. The New York Islanders, traditionally representing Long Island, play in UBS Arena in Elmont, New York, but played in Brooklyn's Barclays Center from 2015 to 2020. The New Jersey Devils play at Prudential Center in nearby Newark, New Jersey.

New York City is represented by New York City FC of Major League Soccer, who play their home games at Yankee Stadium and the New York Red Bulls, who play their home games at Sports Illustrated Stadium in nearby Harrison, New Jersey. NJ/NY Gotham FC in the National Women's Soccer League plays their home games in Sports Illustrated Stadium. Brooklyn FC (USL), Brooklyn FC is a professional soccer club based in that borough, fielding a women's team in the first-division USL Super League starting in 2024 and a men's team in the second-division USL Championship in 2025. New York was a host city for the 1994 FIFA World Cup, with matches being played at Giants Stadium in neighboring East Rutherford, New Jersey. New York City will be one of eleven host cities for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with the 2026 FIFA World Cup final, final set to be played at MetLife Stadium.

The annual US Open (tennis), US Open is one of four Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Slam tennis tournaments and is held at the USTA National Tennis Center, National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park. The New York City Marathon, which courses through all five boroughs, is the world's largest running marathon, with 51,402 finishers in 2023, who came from all 50 states and 148 nations. The Millrose Games is an annual track and field meet held at the Fort Washington Avenue Armory, whose featured event is the Wanamaker Mile. Boxing is a prominent part of the city's sporting scene, with events like the New York Golden Gloves held at Madison Square Garden each year.

Human resources

Education

New York City has the largest educational system of any city. The city's educational infrastructure spans primary education, secondary education, higher education, and research. The New York City Public Schools system, managed by the New York City Department of Education, is the largest public school system in the United States, serving about 1.1 million students in approximately 1,800 separate primary and secondary schools, including charter schools, as of 2017–2018. There are approximately 900 additional privately run secular and religious schools.

The New York Public Library (NYPL) has the largest collection of any public library system in the United States. Queens is served by the Queens Borough Public Library (QPL), the nation's second-largest public library system, while the Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) serves Brooklyn.

More than a million students, the highest number of any city in the United States, are enrolled in New York City's more than 120 higher education institutions, with more than half a million in the City University of New York (CUNY) system alone . According to Academic Ranking of World Universities, New York City has, on average, the best higher education institutions of any global city.

The public CUNY system comprises 25 institutions across all five boroughs. The public State University of New York (SUNY) system's campuses in New York City include SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY Maritime College, and SUNY College of Optometry. New York City is home to such notable private universities as Adelphi University, Barnard College, Columbia University, Cooper Union, Fordham University, New York University, New York Institute of Technology, Rockefeller University, Mercy University, Cornell Tech and Yeshiva University; several of these are ranked among the top universities in the world, while some of the world's most prestigious institutions like Princeton University and Yale University remain in the New York metropolitan area.

Much of the scientific research in the city is done in medicine and the life sciences. In 2019, the New York metropolitan area ranked first List of cities by scientific output#Leading cities in different fields, by share of published articles in life sciences. New York City has the most postgraduate life sciences degrees awarded annually in the United States, and in 2012, 43,523 licensed physicians were practicing in New York City. There are 127 Nobel laureates with roots in local institutions .

Health

New York City is a center for healthcare and medical training, with employment of over 750,000 in the city's health care sector. Private hospitals in New York City include the Hospital for Special Surgery, Lenox Hill Hospital, Long Island Jewish Medical Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Mount Sinai Hospital (Manhattan), Mount Sinai Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, and NYU Langone Health. Medical schools include SUNY Downstate College of Medicine in Brooklyn, Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, and CUNY School of Medicine, Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Weill Cornell Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and New York University School of Medicine in Manhattan.

NYC Health + Hospitals (HHC) is a New York state public-benefit corporations, public-benefit corporation established in 1969 which operates the city's Public hospital#United States, public hospitals and a network of outpatient care, outpatient clinics. , HHC is the largest American municipal healthcare system with $10.9 billion in annual revenues. HHC serves 1.4 million patients, including more than 475,000 uninsured city residents. HHC operates eleven acute care, acute-care hospitals, four skilled nursing facilities, six diagnostic and treatment centers, and more than 70 community-based primary care sites, serving primarily the city's poor and working-class residents. HHC's MetroPlus Health Plan is one of New York City's largest providers of government-sponsored health insurance, enrolling 670,000 city residents as of June 2022.

HHC's facilities annually provides service to millions of New Yorkers, interpreted in more than 190 languages. The best-known hospital in the HHC system is Bellevue Hospital, the oldest public hospital in the United States, established in 1736. Bellevue is the designated hospital for treatment of the president and other List of current heads of state and government, world leaders should they require care while in New York City.

The city banned smoking in most parts of restaurants in 1995 and prohibited smoking in bars, restaurants and places of public employment in 2003. Pharmacies are banned from selling smoked and vaped products in New York State.

New York City enforces a right to housing, right-to-shelter law guaranteeing shelter to anyone who needs it, regardless of their immigration, socioeconomic, or housing status, which entails providing adequate shelter and food. As a result, while New York has the highest total homeless population of American cities, only 5% were unsheltered by the city, representing a significantly lower percentage of outdoor homelessness than in other cities. As of 2023, there were 92,824 Homelessness in the United States, homeless people sleeping nightly in the shelter system.

Public safety

The New York City Police Department, New York Police Department (NYPD) is the largest police force in the United States, with more than 36,000 sworn officers. Members of the NYPD are frequently referred to by politicians, the media, and their own police cars by the nickname, ''New York's Finest''.

The city saw a spike in crime in the 1970s through 1990s. Crime overall has trended downward in New York City since the 1990s; violent crime decreased more than 75% from 1993 to 2005, and continued decreasing during periods when the nation as a whole saw increases. The Stop-and-frisk in New York City, NYPD's stop-and-frisk program was declared unconstitutional in 2013 as a "policy of indirect racial profiling" of Black and Mixed residents, although claims of disparate impact continued in subsequent years. The stop-and-frisk program had been widely credited as being behind the decline in crime, though rates continued dropping in the years after the program ended.

The city set a record high of 2,245 murders in 1990 and hit a near-70-year record low of 289 in 2018. The number of murders and the rate of 3.3 per 100,000 residents in 2017 was the lowest since 1951. New York City recorded 386 murders in 2023, a decline of 12% from the previous year. New York City had List of cities by homicide rate, one of the lowest homicide rates among the ten largest U.S. cities at 5.5 per 100,000 residents in 2021.

New York City Gun Laws in New York City, has stricter gun laws than most Gun law in the United States, other cities in the United States—a license to own any firearm is required, and the NY SAFE Act of 2013 Assault weapons legislation in the United States, banned assault weapons. New York State had the fifth-lowest gun death rate of the states in 2020.

Organized crime has long been associated with New York City, beginning with the Forty Thieves (New York gang), Forty Thieves and the Roach Guards in the Five Points, Manhattan, Five Points neighborhood in the 1820s, followed by the Tong (organization), Tongs in the same neighborhood, which ultimately evolved into Chinatown, Manhattan. The 20th century saw a rise in the American Mafia, Mafia, dominated by the Five Families, as well as in gangs, including the Black Spades. The Mafia and gang presence has declined in the city in the 21st century.

The New York City Fire Department, Fire Department of New York (FDNY) provides fire protection, technical rescue, primary response to biological, chemical, and radioactive hazards, and emergency medical services. FDNY faces multifaceted firefighting challenges in many ways unique to New York. In addition to responding to List of building types, building types that range from wood-frame single family homes to High-rise, high-rise structures, the FDNY responds to fires that occur in the New York City Subway. Secluded bridges and tunnels, as well as large parks and wooded areas that can give rise to brush fires, also present challenges. The FDNY is headquartered at 9 MetroTech Center in Downtown Brooklyn, and the FDNY Fire Academy is on Randalls and Wards Islands, Randalls Island.

Transportation

Rapid transit

Mass transit in New York City, most of which runs 24 hours a day, accounts for one in every three users of mass transit in the country, and two-thirds of the nation's rail riders live in the New York City metropolitan area.

Buses

New York City's public MTA Regional Bus Operations, bus fleet runs 24/7 service, 24/7 and is the largest in North America. The New York City bus system serves the most passengers of any city in the nation: In 2022, New York City Transit Authority, MTA New York City Transit's buses served 483.5 million trips, while MTA Regional Bus Operations handled 100.3 million trips.

The Port Authority Bus Terminal is the city's main intercity bus terminal and the world's busiest bus station, serving 250,000 passengers on 7,000 buses each workday in a building opened in 1950 that was designed to accommodate 60,000 daily passengers. A 2021 plan announced by the Port Authority would spend $10 billion to expand capacity and modernize the facility.Architect Chosen for Planned Office Tower Above Port Authority Bus Terminal's North Wing
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, dated November 17, 2008. Accessed January 4, 2024. "The Port Authority Bus Terminal opened in 1950 and has become the busiest bus passenger facility in the world, handling 7,000 buses and 200,000 commuters each day. It includes 223 bus gates, retail and commercial space, and public parking for 1,250 vehicles."McGeehan, Patrick; and Hu, Winnie
"'Notorious' Port Authority Bus Terminal May Get a $10 Billion Overhaul"
''The New York Times'', January 21, 2021, updated September 23, 2021. Accessed January 4, 2024. "The bus terminal plan, which has been in the works for more than seven contentious years, would cost as much as $10 billion and could take a decade to complete.... More than 250,000 people passed through it on a typical weekday before the pandemic, according to the Port Authority.... The bus terminal, a brick hulk perched at the mouth of the Lincoln Tunnel, has long exceeded its capacity — when it opened in late 1950, it was expected to handle 60,000 passengers a day."Wilson, Colleen
"Port Authority Bus Terminal was once a marvel. Will the next one meet commuters' needs?"
''The Record (North Jersey), The Record'', June 30, 2021. Accessed January 4, 2024. "Becoming the busiest bus terminal in the world doesn't happen without also bearing the brunt of blame every time a commute goes horribly wrong — deserved or otherwise.... The popularity of bus commuting over the Hudson River has steadily risen over the last seven decades, with some 260,000 people a day coming through the terminal pre-pandemic.... A more efficient terminal should improve some of the delays through the Lincoln Tunnel and exclusive bus lane (XBL), the dedicated lane in the morning that converges all buses into a single lane from I-495 into the Lincoln Tunnel from New Jersey." In 2024, the Port Authority announced plans for a new terminal that would feature a glass atrium at a new main entrance on 41st Street.

Rail

The New York City Subway system is the largest rapid transit system in the world when measured by stations in operation, with , and by length of routes. Nearly all of New York's subway system is open 24 hours a day, in contrast to the overnight shutdown common to most subway systems. The New York City Subway is Metro systems by annual passenger rides, the busiest metropolitan rail transit system in the Western Hemisphere, with 1.70 billion passenger rides in 2019.

Public transport is widely used in New York City. 54.6% of New Yorkers commuted to work in 2005 using Public transport, mass transit. This is in contrast to the rest of the country, where 91% of commuters travel in automobiles to their workplace. According to the New York City Comptroller, workers in the New York City area spend an average of 6hours and 18 minutes getting to work each week, the longest commute time in the nation among large cities. New York is the only American city in which a majority (52%) of households do not have a car; only 22% of Manhattanites own a car. Due to their List of U.S. cities with high transit ridership, high usage of mass transit, New Yorkers spend less of their household income on transportation than the national average, saving $19 billion annually on transportation compared to other urban Americans.

New York City's commuter rail network is the largest in North America. The rail network, connecting New York City to its suburbs, consists of the Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Railroad, and New Jersey Transit rail operations, New Jersey Transit. The combined systems converge at Grand Central Terminal and New York Penn Station and contain more than 250 stations and 20 rail lines. The elevated AirTrain JFK in Queens connects JFK International Airport to the New York City Subway and the Long Island Rail Road. For inter-city rail, New York City is served by Amtrak, whose busiest station by a significant margin is Penn Station on the West Side (Manhattan), West Side of Manhattan, from which Amtrak provides connections to Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. along the Northeast Corridor, and long-distance train service to other North American cities.

The Staten Island Railway rapid transit system solely serves Staten Island, operating 24 hours a day, with access to Manhattan from the St. George Terminal via the Staten Island Ferry. The PATH (rail system), PATH train links Midtown and Lower Manhattan with Hoboken Terminal and Newark Penn Station in New Jersey, and then those stations with the World Trade Center station (PATH), World Trade Center Oculus across the Hudson River. Like the New York City Subway, the PATH operates 24 hours a day, meaning three of the five American rapid transit systems which operate on 24-hour schedules are wholly or partly in New York. Grand Central Terminal is the world's largest train station by number of rail platforms and acres occupied.

Multibillion-dollar heavy rail transit projects under construction in New York City include the Second Avenue Subway.

Air

Aviation in the New York metropolitan area, New York's airspace is the busiest in the United States and one of the world's busiest air corridors. The three busiest airports in the New York metropolitan area are John F. Kennedy International Airport (with 55.3 million passengers), Newark Liberty International Airport (43.6 million) and LaGuardia Airport (29.0 million); 127.9 million travelers used these three airports in 2022. JFK and Newark Liberty were the List of the busiest airports in the United States#10 busiest US airports by international passenger traffic (2012), busiest and fourth-busiest U.S. gateways for international air passengers, respectively, in 2023. , JFK was the World's busiest airports by international passenger traffic, busiest airport for international passengers in North America.

Described in 2014 by then-Vice President of the United States, Vice President Joe Biden as the kind of airport travelers would see in "some third world country", LaGuardia Airport has undergone an $8 billion project with federal and state support that has replaced its aging facilities with modern terminals and roadways. Plans have advanced to expand passenger volume at a fourth airport, Stewart International Airport, near Newburgh, New York, by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Other commercial airports in or serving the New York metropolitan area include Long Island MacArthur Airport, Trenton–Mercer Airport and Westchester County Airport. The primary general aviation airport serving the area is Teterboro Airport.

Ferries, taxis and trams

The Staten Island Ferry is the world's busiest ferry, carrying more than 23 million passengers from July 2015 through June 2016 on a route between Staten Island and Lower Manhattan and running 24/7. Other ferry systems shuttle commuters between Manhattan and other locales within the city and the metropolitan area. NYC Ferry, a New York City Economic Development Corporation, NYCEDC initiative with routes planned to travel to all five boroughs, was launched in 2017.

Identified by their color and taxi medallion, the city's 13,587 Taxis of New York City, yellow taxicabs are the only vehicles allowed to pick up riders making street hails throughout the city. Apple green-colored boro taxis can pick up street hails in Upper Manhattan and the four outer boroughs. Long dominated by yellow taxis, vehicle for hire, high-volume for-hire vehicles from Uber and Lyft have provided the most trips in the city since December 2016, when the for-hire vehicles and cabs each had about 10.5 million trips. By October 2023, the 78,000 vehicles-for-hire combined for 20.3 million trips, while 3.5 million trips were in yellow taxis.

The Roosevelt Island Tramway, an aerial tramway that began operation in 1976, transports 2 million passengers per year the between Roosevelt Island and 59th Street (Manhattan), 59th Street and Second Avenue (Manhattan), Second Avenue on Manhattan Island.

Cycling network

New York City has mixed cycling conditions which include urban density, relatively flat terrain, congested roadways with stop-and-go traffic, and many pedestrians. The city's large cycling population includes Utility cycling, utility cyclists, such as delivery and messenger services; recreational cycling clubs; and an increasing number of Bicycle commuting, commuters. Cycling is increasingly popular in New York City; in 2022 there were approximately 61,200 people who commuted daily using a bicycle and 610,000 daily bike trips, both nearly doubling over the previous decade. , New York City had of bike lanes, including of segregated or "protected" bike lanes citywide.Cycling in the City
New York City Department of Transportation. Accessed January 14, 2024. "1,525 lane miles of bike lanes installed in New York City as of 2022; 644 lane miles of protected bike lanes installed in New York City as of 2022"

Streets and highways

Streets are also a defining feature of the city. New York has been found to lead the world in urban automobile traffic congestion. The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 greatly influenced its physical development. New York City has an extensive web of freeways and parkways, which link the city's boroughs to each other and to North Jersey, Westchester County, Long Island, and southwestern Connecticut through Bridges and tunnels in New York City, bridges and tunnels. Because these highways serve millions of outer borough and suburban residents who Commuting, commute into Manhattan, it is common for motorists to be stranded for hours in dense traffic congestion that is a daily occurrence, particularly during rush hour. Congestion pricing in New York City was activated in January 2025, applying to most motor vehicular traffic using the area of Manhattan south of 60th Street (Manhattan), 60th Street, in an effort to encourage commuters to use rapid transit instead.
Unlike the rest of the country, New York State prohibits Turn on red, turns on red lights in cities with a population greater than one million, to reduce collisions and increase pedestrian safety. In New York City, therefore, all turns on red lights are illegal unless a sign permitting such maneuvers is present.

Bridges and tunnels

The boroughs of Manhattan and Staten Island are located on islands with the same names, while Queens and Brooklyn are at the west end of the larger Long Island, and the Bronx is on New York State's mainland. Manhattan Island is linked to the outer boroughs and to New Jersey by an extensive network of bridges and tunnels. The 14-lane George Washington Bridge, connecting Manhattan to New Jersey across the Hudson River, is the world's busiest motor vehicle bridge. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, spanning the Narrows between Brooklyn and Staten Island, is the longest suspension bridge in the Americas and one of the world's longest. The Brooklyn Bridge, with its stone neo-Gothic suspension towers, is an icon of the city; opened in 1883, it was the first steel-wire suspension bridge and was the longest suspension bridge in the world until 1903. The Queensboro Bridge "was the longest Cantilever bridge, cantilever span in North America" from 1909 to 1917. The Manhattan Bridge, opened in 1909, "is considered to be the forerunner of modern suspension bridges", and its design "served as the model for the major long-span suspension bridges" of the early 20th century. The Throgs Neck Bridge and Whitestone Bridge connect Queens and the Bronx, while the Triborough Bridge connects Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx.

The Lincoln Tunnel, which carries 120,000 vehicles a day under the Hudson River between New Jersey and Midtown Manhattan, is the busiest vehicular tunnel in the world. The tunnel was built instead of a bridge to allow unfettered passage of large passenger and cargo ships that sailed through New York Harbor and up the Hudson River to Manhattan's piers. The Holland Tunnel, connecting Lower Manhattan to Jersey City, New Jersey, was the first mechanically ventilated vehicular tunnel when it opened in 1927. The Queens–Midtown Tunnel, built to relieve congestion on the bridges connecting Manhattan with Queens and Brooklyn, was the largest non-federal project in its time when it was completed in 1940. The Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel (officially the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel) is the longest continuous underwater vehicular tunnel in North America and runs underneath Battery Park, connecting the Financial District, Manhattan, to Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Government and politics

Government

New York City is a metropolitan municipality with a strong Mayor, strong mayor–council form of government. The city government is responsible for public education, correctional institutions, public safety, recreational facilities, sanitation, water supply, and welfare services.

The New York City Council, City Council is a unicameral body of 51 council members whose districts are defined by geographic population boundaries. Each term for the Mayor of New York City, mayor and council members lasts four years and has a two Term limit, consecutive-term limit, (reset after a four-year break). The ''New York City Administrative Code'', the ''New York City Rules'', and ''The City Record'' are the code of local laws, compilation of regulations, and official journal, respectively.

Each borough is coextensive with a judicial district of the state New York State Unified Court System, Unified Court System, of which the New York City Criminal Court, Criminal Court and the New York City Civil Court, Civil Court are the local courts, while the New York Supreme Court conducts major trials and appeals. Manhattan hosts the First Department of the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Supreme Court, Appellate Division, while Brooklyn hosts the Second Department. There are several extrajudicial administrative courts, which are executive agencies and not part of the state Unified Court System.

New York City is divided between, and is host to the main branches of, two different U.S. district courts: the District Court for the Southern District of New York, whose main courthouse is on Foley Square in Manhattan and whose jurisdiction includes Manhattan and the Bronx; and the District Court for the Eastern District of New York, whose main courthouse is in Brooklyn and whose jurisdiction includes Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and U.S. Court of International Trade are also based on Foley Square.

Politics

The city's mayor is Eric Adams, a Democrat who was 2021 New York City mayoral election, elected in 2021. The Democratic Party holds the majority of public offices. As of November 2023, 67% of active registered voters in the city are Democrats and 10.2% are Republican Party (United States), Republicans. New York City has not been carried by a Republican presidential candidate since United States presidential election in New York, 1924, 1924, and no Republican candidate for statewide office has won all five boroughs since the city was incorporated in 1898. In redistricting following the 2020 census, 14 of New York's congressional districts, New York's 26 congressional districts include portions of New York City.

New York City is a significant source of political fundraising. The city has a strong imbalance of payments with the national and state governments. It receives 83 cents in services for every $1 it sends to the federal government in Taxation in the United States, taxes (or annually sends $11.4 billion more than it receives back). City residents and businesses also sent an additional $4.1 billion in the 2009–2010 fiscal year to the state than the city received in return.

International relations

In 2006, the sister city program was restructured as ''New York City Global Partners''. New York's ''historic sister cities'' are denoted below by the year they joined New York City's partnership network.

Notable people

See also

* Index of New York City-related articles
* Outline of New York City

Notes

References

Further reading

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* Holli, Melvin G., and Jones, Peter d'A., eds. ''Biographical Dictionary of American Mayors, 1820–1980'' (Greenwood Press, 1981) short scholarly biographies each of the city's mayors 1820 to 1980
online
see index at p. 410 for list.
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External links

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NYC Go
– official tourism website
*

Collections
– 145,000 NYC photographs at the Museum of the City of New York
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