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New York City is the largest city in the United States, the home of the United Nations, and the center of global finance, communications, and business. New York City is unusual among cities because of its high residential density, its extraordinarily diverse population, its hundreds of tall office and apartment buildings, its thriving central business district, its extensive public transportation system, and its more than 400 distinct neighborhoods. The city’s concert houses, museums, galleries, and theaters constitute an ensemble of cultural richness rivaled by few cities. In 2000 the population of the city of New York was 8,008,278; the population of the metropolitan region was 21,199,865.
Unlike most American cities, which make up only a part of a particular county, New York is made up of five separate counties, which are called boroughs. Originally the city included only the borough of Manhattan, located on an island between the Hudson and East rivers. In 1898 a number of surrounding communities were incorporated into the city as the boroughs of Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island. Manhattan is the glittering heart of the metropolis. It is the site of virtually all of the hundreds of skyscrapers that are the symbol of the city. Among the more famous of these are the Empire State Building (1931), the Chrysler Building (1930), and Citicorp Center (1977). (The 110-story twin towers of the World Trade Center were also among New York's famous skyscrapers until they were destroyed in a terrorist attack in 2001.) Manhattan is also the oldest, densest, and most built-up part of the entire urbanized region. Other noteworthy buildings include City Hall (1802-1811), the Seagram Building (1958), and Grant’s Tomb (1897), the tomb of President Ulysses S. Grant and his wife. Notable religious structures include Saint Patrick’s Cathedral (1879), and the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine (begun 1892), the largest Gothic-style cathedral in the world. Manhattan is the center of New York’s cultural life. Numerous stage and motion picture theaters are located around Broadway in Midtown, which includes Times Square. The borough is the home of prominent music and dance organizations, such as the New York City Opera Company, the Metropolitan Opera Association, the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, American Ballet Theatre, and the New York City Ballet. New York has been the most ethnically diverse city in the world since the 1640s, when fewer than 1,000 total residents spoke more than 15 languages. Between 1880 and 1919, more than 23 million Europeans immigrated to the United States. At least 17 million of them disembarked in New York. No one knows how many remained there, but as early as 1880, more than half the city’s working population was foreign-born, providing New York with the largest immigrant labor force on earth. In 1996 the U.S. Census Bureau reported that more than 11 out of every 20 New Yorkers were immigrants or the children of immigrants. Nearly half of all Bronx residents and one-third of Manhattan’s were Hispanic and nearly one-fifth of the population of Queens was Asian-American. Researchers estimated that immigrants would make up about 33 percent of the city’s population in 2000, approaching the 20th-century peak of about 40 percent, reached in 1910. New York’s 250 museums cater to every specialty and every taste and include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Natural History Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and many smaller museums such as the Tenement Museum and the Frick Collection. History source: Microsoft Encarta Online 2003 | |
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Chinatown is just one of the many hundred of defined neighborhoods in New York City.
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Battery Park is a 21 acre park at the southern tip of Manhattan, and is one of the city's oldest pieces of public open space. Dutch settlers landed here in 1623 and erected a "battery" of canons to defend New Amsterdam.
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The Coney Island Beach is a popular spot destination for residents and tourists looking to beat the city's summer heat. | |
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| The Sister City Program of the City of New York, Inc (“SCP”)., and the City of | |
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|  Mayor of NYC Michael Bloomberg | |
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|  Dutchman Peter Minuit supposedly bought Manhattan from its Native American inhabitants for about $24 worth of trinkets in 1696. | |
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