Silicon Alley is an area of

high tech High technology (high tech or high-tech), also known as advanced technology (advanced tech) or exotechnology, is technology that is at the state of the art, cutting edge: the highest form of technology available. It can be defined as either the ...

companies centered around southern Manhattan's

Flatiron district The Flatiron District is a neighborhood in the borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan of New York City, named after the Flatiron Building at 23rd Street (Manhattan), 23rd Street, Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Generally ...

New York City 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 w ...

. The term was coined in the 1990s during the dot-com boom, alluding to California's

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

tech center. The term has grown somewhat obsolete since 2003 as New York tech companies spread outside of Manhattan, and New York as a whole is now a top-tier global high technology hub. Silicon Alley, once a

metonym Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something associated with that thing or concept. For example, the word "wikt:suit, suit" may refer to a person from groups commonly wearing business attire, such ...

for the sphere encompassing the metropolitan region's

nology industries, is no longer a relevant moniker as the city's tech environment has expanded dramatically both in location and in its scope. New York City's current tech sphere encompasses a universal array of applications involving

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

, the

internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

, new media,

financial technology Financial technology (abbreviated as fintech) refers to the application of innovative technologies to products and services in the financial industry. This broad term encompasses a wide array of technological advancements in financial services, ...

(''fintech'') and

cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency (colloquially crypto) is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. Individual coin ownership record ...

biotechnology Biotechnology is a multidisciplinary field that involves the integration of natural sciences and Engineering Science, engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms and parts thereof for products and services. Specialists ...

game design Game design is the process of creating and shaping the mechanics, systems, rules, and gameplay of a game. Game design processes apply to board games, card games, dice games, casino games, role-playing games, sports, Wargame (video games), war ga ...

, and other fields within

information technology Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...

that are supported by its entrepreneurship ecosystem and

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

investments.

Origin

The term Silicon Alley was derived from the long-established Silicon Valley in California. It was originally centered in the

Flatiron District The Flatiron District is a neighborhood in the borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan of New York City, named after the Flatiron Building at 23rd Street (Manhattan), 23rd Street, Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Generally ...

, in the vicinity of the Flatiron Building at

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan in New York City. The avenue runs south from 143rd Street (Manhattan), West 143rd Street in Harlem to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. The se ...

near Broadway and 23rd Street, straddling Midtown and

Lower Manhattan Lower Manhattan, also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York City, is the southernmost part of the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of Manhattan. The neighborhood is History of New York City, the historical birthplace o ...

. Silicon Alley initially also used to extend to Dumbo, a neighborhood in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

and NYU's leaderships were especially important in the alley's early development. The term Silicon Alley may have originated in 1995 by a New York staffing recruiter, Jason Denmark, who was supporting clients in the newly dubbed technical hub in downtown Manhattan; in an effort to attract candidates who, at that time, were focusing on positions in Silicon Valley, he posted in public

usenet Usenet (), a portmanteau of User's Network, is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose UUCP, Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Elli ...

postings of Object Technology Developers, job ads with the Silicon Alley label. "Subject: NYC - silicon ALLEY" shows up in an internet post by Jason Denmark on February 16, 1995; another Jason Denmark post on June 16, 1995, is "Subject: SILICON 'ALLEY' POSITIONS." The first publication to cover Silicon Alley was @NY, an online newsletter founded in the summer of 1995 by Tom Watson and Jason Chervokas. The first magazine to focus on

opportunities in Silicon Alley, AlleyCat News co-founded by Anna Copeland Wheatley and Janet Stites, was launched in the fall of 1996. Courtney Pulitzer branched off from her @The Scene column with @NY and created Courtney Pulitzer's Cyber Scene and her popular networking events Cocktails with Courtney. First Tuesday, co-founded by Vincent Grimaldi de Puget and John Grossbart, became the largest gathering of Silicon Alley, welcoming 500 to 1000 venture capitalists and entrepreneurs every month. It was an initiative of law firm Sonnenschein and the Kellogg School of Management, as well as other corporate founders, including Accenture (then Andersen Consulting), AlleyCat News and Merrill Lynch. Silicon Alley Reporter started publishing in October 1996. It was founded by

Jason Calacanis Jason McCabe Calacanis (born November 28, 1970) is a podcaster, American Internet entrepreneur, angel investor, and author. His first company was part of the Dot-com bubble, dot-com era in New York. His second venture, Weblogs, Inc., a publishi ...

and was in business from 1996 to 2001. @NY, print magazines, and the attending media coverage by the larger New York press helped to popularize both the name, and the idea of New York City as a dot-com center. In 1997, over 200 members and leaders of Silicon Alley joined NYC entrepreneurs, Andrew Rasiej and Cecilia Pagkalinawan to help wire Washington Irving High School to the Internet. This response and the Department of Education's growing need for technology integration marked the birth of Making Opportunities for Upgrading Schools and Education (MOUSE), an organization that today serves tens of thousands of underserved youth in schools in five states and over 20 countries.

Dot-com bust

The rapid growth of internet companies during the 1990s, known as the dot-com bubble, came to a rapid halt during the early 2000s recession. During this economic contraction, many internet companies in Silicon Alley folded. The recession also affected publications that covered the sector. After the dot-com bust, the ''Silicon Alley Reporter'' was rebranded as ''Venture Reporter'', in September 2001, and sold to Dow Jones. Self-financed AlleyCat News ceased publication in October 2001.

Recovery

A couple of years after the dot-com bust, Silicon Alley began making its comeback with the help of NY Tech Meetup, and NextNY. On December 19, 2011, then Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced his choice of

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to build a US$2 billion

graduate school Postgraduate education, graduate education, or graduate school consists of academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications usually pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate (bachel ...

applied science Applied science is the application of the scientific method and scientific knowledge to attain practical goals. It includes a broad range of disciplines, such as engineering and medicine. Applied science is often contrasted with basic science, ...

s on Roosevelt Island, with the goal of transforming New York City into the world's premier technology capital. As of 2013,

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

's second largest office by number of employees, 111 Eighth Avenue, is located in New York. Verizon Communications, headquartered at 140 West Street in Lower Manhattan, was in 2014 in the final stages of completing a US$3 billion fiber-optic telecommunications upgrade throughout New York City. This revival was not restricted to Lower Manhattan, but was spread throughout New York City. Hence "Silicon Alley" has been considered by some observers to be an obsolete term. On September 6, 2024 IBM opened its new flagship office at One Madison Avenue. Located at the southeast corner of Madison Square Park, the new 270,000 square-foot IBM office spans five floors of One Madison Avenue – owned and managed by SL Green Realty Corp. – and will be home to more than 2,000 New York-area employees.

Origin

Dot-com bust

Recovery

See also

References

Further reading