Figure 1: Skyline New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States of America. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education and entertainment. Also international New York is an important centre. New York is built up out of five boroughs: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island. With the more than 8 million people living in these five boroughs there are more than 800 languages are spoken. This makes New York the most linguistically diverse city in the world.
The history of New York City
In 1624 the founding of New York was done by the Dutch colonist and the city was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The settlement outside of Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan island, was a provincial extension of the Dutch Republic. Situated on the strategic, strengthen southern tip of the island of Manhattan, the fort was meant to defend the Dutch East India company’s fur trade operations in the North River.
On August 27, 1664, while England and the Dutch Republic were at peace, four English warships sailed into New Amsterdam's harbor and demanded New Netherlands surrender. This resulted in the Second Anglo-Dutch War, between England and the Dutch Republic. In June 1665, New Amsterdam was taken over by England and named New York City after the Duke of York (later King James II). He was brother of the English King Charles II, who had been given the lands.In 1667 the Treaty of Breda ended the conflict. The Dutch did not press their claims on New Netherland. In July 1673, During the Third Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch occupied New York City and renamed it New Orange. Anthony Colve was installed as the first Governor. Previously there had only been West India Company Directors. After the signing of the Treaty of Westminster in November 1674, the city was relinquished to the English and the name reverted to "New York". Suriname became an official Dutch possession in return.
Figure 2: Nieuw Amsterdam onlangs Nieuw Jorck
The assembly of the Congress of the Confederation made New York the national capital in 1785, shortly after the war. New York was the last capital of the United States under the Articles of Confederation and the first capital under the Constitution of the United States. In 1789 the first President, George Washington, was inaugurated; the first United States Congress and the Supreme Court of the United States each assembled for the first time, and the United States Bill of Rights was drafted, all at Federal Hall on Wall Street. By 1790, New York had surpassed Philadelphia as the largest city in the United States.
Public-minded members of the old merchant aristocracy lobbied for the establishment of Central Park, which became the first landscaped park in an American city in 1857. A significant free-black population also existed in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Slaves had been held in New York through 1827, but during the 1830s New York became a center of interracial abolitionist activism in the North. In the 1920s, New York City was a prime destination for African Americans during the Great Migration from the American South. By 1916, New York City was home to the largest urban African Diasporas in North America. The Harlem Renaissance flourished during the era of Prohibition, coincident with a larger economic boom that saw the skyline develop with the construction of competing skyscrapers. In the 1960s, New York City began to suffer from economic problems and rising crime rates. While resurgence in the financial industry greatly improved the city's economic health in the 1980s, New York's crime rate continued a steep uphill climb through the decade and into the beginning of the 1990s. By the 1990s, crime rates started to drop dramatically due to increased police presence and gentrification, and many American transplants and waves of new immigrants arrived from Asia and Latin America. The city was one of the sites of the September 11, 2001 attacks, when nearly 3,000 people died in the destruction of the World Trade Center. A new 1 World Trade Center, a World Trade Center Memorial and three other office towers, are being built on the site and are scheduled for completion by 2014. The new World Trade Center site skyscrapers, memorial, and a new transportation hub that are under construction at the site will bring about a more modern Lower Manhattan and restore the skyline of New York City.
Climate
New York City is located in the Northeastern of the United States of America. New York is almost at the same height as Lisboan is. The city has a lot of water flowing trough. The biggest river is the Hudson. The winters are cold and the wind that blows next to the coast is so strong that the moderating affects of the warmer Atlantic Ocean has almost no influence. In summer the average temperature is 25°C but can exceed 38°C.
Culture
New York has a lot of museums. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the most important art museums in the world. This is located at the edge of Central Park. Futhermore you have the Brooklyn Museum the permanent collection includes more than one-and-a-half million objects, this contains a diverse arts. The Jewish Museum of New York was extablished after the Jewish Theological Seminary received a gift of 26 Jewish ceremonial art objects. Nowadays the museum shows the Jewish history and culture. There is even a Museum of the City of New York. The last few years in New York City has seen a major building boom among its cultural institutions.
Industry
Despite the loss of the World Trade Center buildings, New York has remained at the core of national and international financial dealings and has continued as the global center of corporate headquarters in finance and services, media, entertainment and telecommunications, manufacturing, and trade. Hundreds of nationwide corporations make their home in New York, from finance to insurance to advertising. New York City leads the country in the number of Fortune 500 and 1000 companies headquartered there, including 8 of the world's top 10 securities firms, and about two-fifths of the country's 50 leading law firms, as well as 219 banks representing every major country. The city's biggest industry is publishing, with more printing plants than anywhere else in the United States. New York's clothing industry is headquartered in the Garment District near Times Square, where hundreds of factories are located.
In recent years, the high-tech and "new media" industries have taken a $9.2 billion toehold in the city, particularly in what is being termed Silicon Alley—Upper Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. New York City has supported growth in this arena through its Digital NYC: Wired to the World program that assists with construction and remodeling efforts that result in affordable spaces with ready access to the Internet. New York City offers hundreds of thousands of miles of installed fiber-optic cable, enabling businesses to communicate with clients around the globe. Life science research and development is seeing a similar surge in activity, as the headquarters of at least three of the world's primary pharmaceutical companies have located within midtown Manhattan. New York tourism contributes greatly to the local economy, fueled by huge advertising campaigns and interest in the site of the 9/11 tragedy. Hotel room occupancy rates are steadily increasing to more than 85 percent, and traffic through the area's airports broke the 8,000,000 mark in early 2005. Many tourists visit the city in order to experience its art and culture. Television and film production in New York City constitutes another growth industry, demonstrating a significant increase in the number of overall shooting days for movies, videos, advertisements, and television programs. Almost 150 studios and stages support the industry, and film production costs in the city are now so reasonable that they rival those of Los Angeles. Three of the "Big Five" music recording businesses have headquarters in New York City.
Education
New York City is home to such notable private universities as Barnard College, Columbia University, Cooper Union, Fordham University, New York University, The New School, Pace University, and Yeshiva University. The public City University of New York system is one of the largest universities in the nation, and includes a number of undergraduate colleges and associate degree community colleges, with options in each borough. The city has dozens of other smaller private colleges and universities, including many religious and special-purpose institutions.
Much of the scientific research in the city is done in medicine and the life sciences. New York City has the most post-graduate life sciences degrees awarded annually in the United States. The city receives the second-highest amount of annual funding from the National Institutes of Health among all U.S. cities. The New York Public Library, which has the largest collection of any public library system in the country, serves Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island. The New York Public Library has several research libraries, including the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Figure 3: Fordham University's Keating Hall in The Bronx