|
HOME PAGE |  |
TOURISM & TRAVEL INDEX | |
NORTH AMERICA INDEX |
SEARCH |
 |
 Tourism and Travel |
New York |
|
The City of New York is located at the southeastern tip of the state of New York. It is the most populous city in the United States of America and the third most populous metropolitan area in the world. New York City is one of the preeminent global economic centers, with its business, financial, legal, and media organizations having worldwide influence. New York is an important cultural center, with many museums, galleries, and performance venues. As the home of the United Nations, the city is a hub for international diplomacy. Residents of the city are known as New Yorkers. The current mayor is Michael Bloomberg.
New York City comprises five boroughs, each of which is coterminous with a county: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island. With over 8.2 million residents within an area of 322 square miles (830 kmē), New York City is the most densely populated major city in North America. The New York metropolitan area, with a population of nearly 22 million (21,976,224), ranks among the largest urban areas in the world. The city has many neighborhoods and landmarks known around the world. The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Wall Street, in Lower Manhattan, has been a dominant global financial center since World War II and is home to the New York Stock Exchange. The city has been home to several of the tallest buildings in the world, including the Empire State Building (standing 1,453 feet 8 9/16 inches from the base to the top of the lightning rod) and the former twin towers of the World Trade Center. The city is the birthplace of many American cultural movements, including the Harlem Renaissance in literature and visual art, abstract expressionism (also known as the New York school) in painting, and hip hop[5] along with the Tin Pan Alley in music. In 2005, nearly 170 languages were spoken in the city and 36 percent of its population was foreign born. Because of areas such as Times Square, New York has earned the nickname "The City that Never Sleeps". Tourism About 40 million foreign and American tourists visit New York City each year. Major destinations include the Empire State Building, Ellis Island, Broadway theatre productions, museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and other tourist attractions including Central Park, Washington Square Park, Rockefeller Center, Times Square, the Bronx Zoo, New York Botanical Garden, luxury shopping along Fifth and Madison Avenues, and events such as the Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village, the Tribeca Film Festival, and free performances in Central Park at Summerstage. The Statue of Liberty is a major tourist attraction and one of the most recognizable icons of the United States. Many of the city's ethnic enclaves, such as Jackson Heights, Flushing, and Brighton Beach are major shopping destinations for first and second generation Americans up and down the East Coast. New York City has over 28,000 acres (113 kmē) of parkland and 14 miles (22 km) of public beaches. Manhattan's Central Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, is the most visited city park in the United States. Prospect Park in Brooklyn, also designed by Olmsted and Vaux, has a 90 acre (36 Hectare) meadow. Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, the city's third largest, was the setting for the 1939 World's Fair and 1964 World's Fair. New York's food culture, influenced by the city's immigrants and large number of dining patrons, is diverse. Jewish and Italian immigrants made the city famous for bagels, cheesecake and New York style pizza. Some 4,000 mobile food vendors licensed by the city, many immigrant-owned, have made Middle Eastern foods such as falafels and kebabs standbys of contemporary New York street food. The city is also home to many of the finest haute cuisine restaurants in the United States. |
|
|
