NEW YORK

Index

1.Introduction2.History3.Cityscape4.Wall Street5.Sports6.Tourism

"NYC" and "New York"

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. The city is referred to as New York City or the City of New York to distinguish it from the State of New York, of which it is a part. A global power city, New York exerts a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment. The home of the United Nations Headquarters, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has been described as the cultural capital of the world.

History

The Battle of Long Island, the largest battle of the American Revolutionary War, was fought in August 1776 entirely within the modern day borough of Brooklyn. After the battle, in which the Americans were routed, leaving subsequent smaller engagements following in its wake, the city became the British military and political base of operations in North America. The city was a haven for Loyalist refugees, as well as escaped slaves who joined the British lines for the freedom promised by the Crown. As many as 10,000 escaped slaves crowded into the city during the British occupation. When the British forces evacuated in 1783, they transported 3,000 freedmen for resettlement in Nova Scotia. They resettled other freedmen in England and the Caribbean.

The Battle of Long Island, the largest battle of the American Revolution, took place in Brooklyn in 1776.

Cityscape

New York Harbor's Statue of Liberty National Monument, in May 2001, with the former Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and Lower Manhattan in the background.

Gateway National Recreation Area contains over 26,000 acres (10,521.83 ha) in total, most of it surrounded by New York City; the New York State portion includes the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Brooklyn and Queens, over 9,000 acres (36 km2) of salt marsh, islands and water that includes most of Jamaica Bay. Also in Queens the park includes a significant portion of the western Rockaway Peninsula, most notably Jacob Riis Park and Fort Tilden. Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island with historic pre-Civil War era Battery Weed and Fort Tompkins, and Great Kills Park with beaches, trails and marina also on Staten Island.

Wall Street

Manhattan had 353.7 million square feet (32,860,000 m) of office space in 2001.[ Midtown Manhattan is the largest central business district in the United States. Lower Manhattan is the third largest central business district in the United States and is home to the New York Stock Exchange, located on Wall Street, and the NASDAQ, representing the world's first and second largest stock exchanges, respectively, when measured by average daily trading volume and overall market capitalization. Financial services account for more than 35% of the city's employment income.

The financial district has sometimes been a scene of conflict such as with the recurrent protests during "Occupy Wall Street", which subsequently sparked an international Occupy Movement. It has also sometimes turned deadly such as with the Wall Street bombing in 1929.

Sports

City Field has been home to the New York Mets since 2009.

New York has been described as the "Capital of Baseball."There have been 35 Major League Baseball World Series and 73 pennants won by New York teams. It is one of only five metro areas (Los Angeles, Chicago, BaltimoreWashington, and the San Francisco Bay Area being the others) to have two baseball teams. Additionally, there have been 14 World Series in which two New York City teams played each other, known as a Subway Series and occurring most recently in 2000. No other metropolitan area has had this happen more than once (Chicago in 1906, St. Louis in 1944, and the San Francisco Bay Area in 1989).

Tourism

Tourism is one of New York City's most vital industries, with more than 40 million combined domestic and international tourists visiting each year in the past five years.

Major destinations include the Empire State Building; Statue of Liberty; Ellis Island; Broadway theater productions; museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art; greenspaces such as Central Park and Washington Square Park; Rockefeller Center; Times Square; the Manhattan Chinatown; luxury shopping along Fifth and Madison Avenues; and events such as the Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village; the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade; the St. Patrick's Day parade; seasonal activities such as ice skating in Central Park in the wintertime.