Manhattan

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Manhattan is a borough of New York City, USA, coterminous with New York County. Although its population of 1.6 million is only third largest of the five boroughs (after Brooklyn and Queens), it is the most densely populated county in the United States.^[1] The Island of Manhattan is the largest section of the borough (and county), which also includes numerous smaller islands.

Manhattan is the borough that some tourists most closely associate with New York City. A commercial, financial, and cultural center of the world, Manhattan has many famous landmarks, tourist attractions, museums and universities. It is also home to the headquarters of the United Nations and the seat of city government. Historically, its commercial streets have been characterized by thousands of unique and diverse shops, though a more recent influx of national chains has caused it to increasingly resemble other American cities and suburbs at a higher density. Manhattan has the largest central business district in the United States and is the site of most of the city's corporate headquarters, as well as both the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ.

Contents 1 History 2 Geography 3 Neighborhoods 3.1 Adjacent counties 4 Government 4.1 Politics 5 Demographics 6 Economy 7 Culture 7.1 Media 7.2 Landmarks 8 Transportation 9 Education 10 See also 11 References 12 External links 12.1 Manhattan local government and services 12.2 Maps, streets, and neighborhoods 12.3 Historical references 12.4 Manhattan guides 12.5 Photographs and videos of Manhattan

[edit] History

The name Manhattan derives from the word Manna-hata, which translates into "island of many hills" in Lenape, so written earliest in the 1609 logbook (Record of October 2) of Robert Juet, an officer of the Dutch East India Company yacht Halve Maen or Half Moon.^[2] The ship was captained by Henry Hudson, who, in the service of the Dutch Republic, was covertly commissioned to seek a Northwest Passage to China. The Half Moon first entered Upper New York Bay on September 11, 1609, and sailing up the lower Hudson River, anchored off the tip of northern Manhattan that night. As emissary of Holland’s Lord-Lieutenant Maurits he named the river he discovered after him; the Mauritius River.

A manuscript map of 1610 depicts the name Manahata twice, on the west as well as the east side of the Mauritius River, later named Hudson River, thereby referring to the tribes that dwelled at the mouth of the river as the Manahata Indians (later historians supposed that these people would have been the Lenape). In 1625, Johannes de Laet, Director of the Dutch West India Company wrote in his “New World”: “The great North River of New-Netherland is called by some the Manhattas River from the people who dwell near its mouth; but by our countrymen it is generally called the Great River”. In the 1630 edition, he continues to write of “another fort of greater importance at the mouth of the same North River, upon an island which our people call Manhattas or Manhattans Island, because of this nation of Indians happened to possess the same, and by them it has been sold to the company”. He thus confirmed that the island had been purchased in 1626 by Peter Minuit, the third director of New Netherland from the native Lenape Native Americans for 60 guilders worth of trade goods (traditionally translated to about $24, which according to the Oregon State University website's estimated conversion factors, is about the equivalent of $500-$700 American in today's currency. However, if the money had been invested at anything above a 6.25% return (essentially a bond's current yield), it would be worth over $250 billion today, which exceeds Manhattan's estimated value of $200 billion.^[3]

It is generally assumed that the Italian navigator Giovanni da Verrazzano explored New York Harbor in 1524 and that a few months later the Portuguese Esteban Gómez did the same. However, there is no evidence of any exploration, latitude calculations, surveying or mapping. There is only a vague textual description of having seen an estuary that may perhaps resemble Hudson’s river. None of those navigators from other nations had penetrated well into the bay or explored the chief river substantiated with textual and visual evidence until the Dutch did so in 1609.

The province of New Netherland was settled in 1624 at Governors Island (the birth date of New York State), whereas the town of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island was founded in 1625 (the birth date of New York City) by New Netherland's second director, Willem Verhulst, who, together with his council, had selected Manhattan as the optimal place for permanent settlement. That year, in 1625, military engineer and surveyor Cryn Fredericksz van Lobbrecht laid out a citadel with Fort Amsterdam as centerpiece.

In 1664, King Charles II had resolved to annex New Netherland and consolidate it with his North American possessions in order “to install one form of government, both in church and state... to install the Anglican government as in Old England”. He sent an expeditionary force composed of New Englanders and “reinforced by four royal ships crammed full with an extraordinary amount of men and warlike stores” and demanded New Netherland’s surrender. Director General Peter Stuyvesant and his council negotiated 24 articles of provisional transfer, which gave New Netherlanders liberties and freedoms unlike those available to New Englanders and Virginians.

In October 1665, Stuyvesant reported that “many verbal warnings came from diverse country people on Long Island, who daily noticed the growing and increasing strength of the English, and gathered from their talk that their business was not only with New Netherland but with the booty and plunder, and for these were they called out and enrolled. Which was afterwards confirmed not only by the dissolute English soldiery, but even by the most steady officers and by a striking example exhibited to the colonists of New Amstel on the South Delaware River, who, notwithstanding they had offered no resistance, but requested good terms, could not obtain them, but were invaded, stripped, utterly plundered and many of them sold as slaves to Virginia”.

Consequently, the negotiations assured that the legal and political tradition of tolerance as the basis of cultural diversity and pluralism since 1624 was perpetuated by the Articles of Transfer under English authority. Thus safeguarded, the notion of tolerance endured after conclusive jurisdictional establishment of English dominion over New Netherland in 1674, and through the formation of the United States of America, when it was reintroduced as a constitutional right under the Bill of Rights in 1791.

New Amsterdam’s significance, therefore, lies in the fact that it gave rise to what would become the most diverse city in the world, and the nation’s largest municipality ― itself a legal concept introduced, in 1653, in New Amsterdam.

Having so saved the New Netherland culture from destruction, the political power of a minority among the majority was soon to transform, over time, the region from a utilitarian community based on the values of a republic and the Dutch language to a class society based on royal values and the English language. Hence, New York County is named in honor of the Royal Majesty of Great Britain, the Duke of York, later to become the Catholic James II of England after whom the City and State of New York were also named. In 1691, however, the Catholic religion was outlawed in New York by an act of parliament. This ban technically remained in effect until the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

From January 11, 1785 to Autumn 1788, New York City was the fifth of five capitals under the Articles of Confederation, with the Continental Congress residing at New York City Hall then at Fraunces Tavern. New York was the first capital of the country under the newly enacted Constitution of the United States from March 4, 1789 to August 12, 1790 at Federal Hall.^[4]

New York City, surrounded by two brackish rivers, had a limited supply of fresh water available on the island, which dwindled as the city grew rapidly after the American Revolutionary War. To supply the needs of the growing population, the city acquired land in Westchester County and constructed the Croton Aqueduct system, which went into service in 1842. The system took water from a dam at the Croton River, and sent it down through the Bronx, over the Harlem River via the High Bridge, to storage reservoirs in Central Park and at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, and through a network of cast iron pipes on to consumer's faucets. In the early twentieth century, the existing water supply system was supplemented with much larger reservoirs in the Catskill Mountains, connected to the city by a series of mammoth water tunnels.^[5]

At the time of creation of New York County, its territory consisted of Manhattan Island, and occupied the same area that it occupies today. In 1873, the western portion of the present Bronx County was transferred to New York County, and in 1895 the remainder of the present Bronx County was transferred to New York County. In 1898, when New York City was constituted as five boroughs, the separate boroughs of Manhattan and of the Bronx were formed, though both remained within the single County of New York. In 1914, those parts of the then New York County which had been annexed from Westchester County were constituted the new Bronx County, and New York County was reduced again to its present boundaries.

From the latter half of the 1960s through most of the 1970s, Manhattan suffered from urban flight as much of the middle-class fled to the suburbs due to an increase in crime. However, as with many other American cities, there was an increase in population growth in the latter part of the century due to a renewed interest in the urban lifestyle, a trend that began in the late 1980s and has continued to present day. It was thought that the September 11, 2001 attacks would initiate a new exodus from the City due to a fear of terrorism, but this has not occurred.

See also: History of New York City

[edit] Geography

Manhattan Island is bound by the Hudson River to the west and the East River to the east. To the north, the Harlem River divides Manhattan from The Bronx and the mainland United States. The island is 20 mi² (51.8 km²) of land measuring 13 miles (21 km) long and 2.3 miles (3.7 km) across at its widest point. The borough of Manhattan includes both Manhattan Island and several small islands, including Randall's Island, Ward's Island, and Roosevelt Island to the east, and Governors Island to the south in New York Harbor. The borough has an area of 33.8 mi² (87.5 km²), of which 32.01% is water.

One Manhattan neighborhood is actually contiguous with The Bronx. Marble Hill at one time was part of Manhattan Island, but the Harlem River Ship Canal, dug in 1895 to improve navigation on the Harlem River, separated it from the remainder of Manhattan.^[6] Eventually the part of the original Harlem River channel separating Marble Hill from The Bronx was filled in, and Marble Hill became part of the mainland.

Marble Hill is one example of how Manhattan's land has been considerably altered by human intervention. The borough has seen substantial land reclamation along its waterfronts since Dutch colonial times. Reclamation is most notable in Lower Manhattan with modern developments such as Battery Park City, created from land excavated during the construction of the World Trade Center. Much of the natural variations in topography have been evened out. One possible meaning for "Manhattan" is "island of hills"; in fact, the island was quite hilly before European settlement.

Manhattan is loosely divided into downtown, midtown, and uptown regions, with Fifth Avenue demarcating Manhattan's east and west sides.

Manhattan is connected by a bridge as well as vehicular and train tunnels to New Jersey to the west, and three New York City boroughs: the Bronx to the northeast; Brooklyn and Queens on Long Island to the east and south. Its only direct connection with the fifth New York City borough is the Staten Island Ferry across New York Harbor, which is free of charge. Its terminal is located at Battery Park at its southern tip. It is possible to travel to Staten Island via Brooklyn, using one of Brooklyn's bridges, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

A consequence of the strict grid plan of most of Manhattan, and the grid's skew of approximately 28.9 degrees, is a phenomenon sometimes referred to as Manhattanhenge (by analogy with Stonehenge). On separate occasions in late May and early July (for 2006 the exact dates are May 28 and July 12), the sunset is aligned with the street grid lines, with the result that the sun is visible at or near the western horizon from street level.^[7] A similar phenomenon occurs with the sunrise in January and December (January 11 and December 2 in 2006).

The Wildlife Conservation Society, which operates the zoos and aquariums in the city, is currently undertaking The Manhattan Project, a computer simulation to visually reconstruct the ecology and geography of Manhattan when Henry Hudson first sailed by in 1609, and compare it to what we know of the island today.^[8]

For economic geography, see the map links to radicalcartography at the bottom of the page.

See also: Geography and environment of New York City

[edit] Neighborhoods

Main articles: Neighborhoods of New York City and Manhattan neighborhoods

Manhattan's many neighborhoods are not named according to any particular convention. Some are geographical (the Upper East Side), ethnically descriptive (Chinatown), or abbreviations (TriBeCa, which stands for "Triangle Below Canal Street"). Harlem is a name from the Dutch colonial era after Haarlem, a city in the Netherlands.

Some neighborhoods, like SoHo (South of Houston), are commercial in nature and known for upscale shopping. Others, like the Lower East Side and East Village, have been associated with the "Bohemian" subculture, though many artists have relocated to Brooklyn from these neighborhoods. Chelsea is a neighborhood with a large gay population, and also a center of New York's art industry and nightlife. Washington Heights is a vibrant neighborhood of immigrants from the Dominican Republic. Manhattan's Chinatown is the largest in the Western hemisphere. The Upper West Side is often characterized as a liberal and family-friendly alternative to the Upper East Side, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the United States.

In Manhattan, uptown means north and downtown means south. (Though even north and south here are relative - north in Manhattan is a logical north, determined by the main axis of the island, and corresponding to the direction of the avenues of the street grid. Uptown is actually more like north-by-northeast.) This usage differs from that of most American cities, where downtown refers to the central business district. Manhattan has two central business districts, the Financial District at the southern tip of the island, and the business district in Midtown. The term uptown refers to the northern part of Manhattan (generally speaking, above 59th Street) and downtown to the southern portion (typically below 23rd Street or 14th Street).

Fifth Avenue roughly bisects Manhattan Island and acts as the demarcation line for east/west designations (e.g., East 27th Street, West 42nd Street). South of Waverly Place in Manhattan, Fifth Avenue terminates and Broadway becomes the east/west demarcation line. North of 14th Street, nearly all east-west streets use numeric designations, which increase from south to north to 220th Street, the highest numbered street on the island.

[edit] Adjacent counties

• Bergen County, New Jersey - west/northwest
• Hudson County, New Jersey - west/northwest
• Bronx County, New York (the Bronx) - northeast
• Queens County, New York (Queens) - east/southeast
• Kings County, New York (Brooklyn) - southeast
• Richmond County, New York (Staten Island) - southwest

[edit] Government

Main article: Government of New York City

Since New York City's consolidation in 1898, Manhattan has been governed by the New York City Charter that provides for a "strong" mayor-council system. The centralized New York City government is responsible for public education, correctional institutions, libraries, public safety, recreational facilities, sanitation, water supply, and welfare services in Manhattan.

The office of Borough President was created in the consolidation of 1898 to balance centralization with local authority. Each borough president had a powerful administrative role derived from having a vote on the New York City Board of Estimate, which was responsible for creating and approving the city's budget and proposals for land use. In 1989 the Supreme Court of the United States declared the Board of Estimate unconstitutional on the grounds that Brooklyn, the most populous borough, had no greater effective representation on the Board than Staten Island, the least populous borough, a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause pursuant to the high court's 1964 "one man, one vote" decision.^[9]

Since 1990, the Borough President has acted as an advocate for the borough at the mayoral agencies, the City Council, the New York state government, and corporations. Manhattan's Borough President is Scott Stringer, elected as a Democrat in 2005.

Each of the city's five counties (coterminous with each borough) has its own criminal court system and District Attorney, the chief public prosecutor who is directly elected by popular vote. Robert M. Morgenthau, a Democrat, has been the District Attorney of New York County since 1974. Manhattan has 10 City Council members, the third largest number among the five boroughs. It also has 12 administrative districts, each served by a local Community Board. Community Boards are representative bodies that field complaints and serve as advocates for local residents.

Presidential elections results

Year	Reps	Dems
2004	16.7% 107,405	82.1% 526,765
2000	14.2% 79,921	79.8% 449,300
1996	13.8% 67,839	80.0% 394,131
1992	15.9% 84,501	78.2% 416,142
1988	22.9% 115,927	76.1% 385,675
1984	27.4% 144,281	72.1% 379,521
1980	26.2% 115,911	62.4% 275,742
1976	25.5% 117,702	73.2% 337,438
1972	33.4% 178,515	66.2% 354,326
1968	25.6% 135,458	70.0% 370,806
1964	19.2% 120,125	80.5% 503,848
1960	34.2% 217,271	65.3% 414,902

As the host of the United Nations, the borough is home to the world's largest international consular corps, comprising 105 consulates, consulates general and honorary consulates.^[10] It is also the home of New York City Hall, the seat of New York City government housing the Mayor of New York City and the New York City Council. The mayor's staff and thirteen municipal agencies are located in the nearby Manhattan Municipal Building, one of the largest governmental buildings in the world.

[edit] Politics

The Democratic Party holds the majority of public offices. Registered voters of the Republican Party are a small minority in the borough; they constitute more than 20% of the electorate only on the Upper East Side and the Financial District. Local party platforms center on affordable housing, education and economic development. Controversial political issues in Manhattan include development, noise, and the cost of housing.

Manhattan has not voted for a Republican in a national presidential election since 1924. In the 2004 presidential election, Democrat John Kerry received 82.1% of the vote in Manhattan and Republican George W. Bush received 16.7%. The borough is the most important source of funding for presidential campaigns in the United States; it is home to four of the top five zip codes in the nation for political contributions. The top zip code, 10021, is on the Upper East Side and generated the most money for the United States presidential election for all presidential candidates, including both Kerry and Bush during the 2004 election.^[11]

See also: Community Boards of Manhattan

[edit] Demographics

Main article: Demographics of Manhattan

Manhattan Compared
2000 Census	Manhattan	NY City	NY State
Total population	1,537,195	8,008,278	18,976,457
Population density	66,940.1/mi²	26,403/mi²	402/mi²
Median household income (1999)	$47,030	$38,293	$43,393
Per capita income	$42,922	$22,402	$23,389
Bachelor's degree or higher	49%	27%	24%
Foreign born	29%	36%	20%
White	56%	45%	62%
Black	17%	27%	16%
Hispanic (any race)	27%	27%	14%
Asian	9%	10%	6%

According to 2005 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, there are 1,593,200 people (up from 1.4 million in 1990) 738,644 households, and 302,105 families residing in Manhattan.^GR2 Counted on its own, Manhattan would be the fifth largest city in the United States, after the rest of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston.

The population density was 66,940.1/mi² (25,849.9/km²), the highest population density of any county in the United States. In 1910, at the summit of European immigration to New York, Manhattan's population density reached a peak of 120,250.299/mi² (46,428.9/km²). There were 798,144 housing units in 2000 at an average density of 34,756.7/mi² (13,421.8/km²).

In 2000 56.4% of people living in Manhattan were White, 27.18% were Hispanic of any race, 17.39% were Black, 14.14% were from other races, 9.40% were Asian, 0.5% were Native American, and 0.07% were Pacific Islander. 4.14% were from two or more races. 24.93% reported speaking Spanish at home, 4.12% Chinese, and 2.19% French.[1]

There were 738,644 households. 25.2% were married couples living together, 12.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 59.1% were non-families. 17.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them. 48% of all households were made up of individuals and 10.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2 and the average family size was 2.99.

Manhattan's population was spread out with 16.8% under the age of 18, 10.2% from 18 to 24, 38.3% from 25 to 44, 22.6% from 45 to 64, and 12.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 90.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.9 males.

Manhattan is one of the highest-income places in the United States with a population greater than 1 million. The Manhattan zip code 10021, on the Upper East Side, is home to more than 100,000 people and has a per capita income of over $90,000. It is one of the largest concentrations of extreme wealth in the United States. Most Manhattan neighborhoods are not as wealthy. The median income for a household in the county was $47,030, and the median income for a family was $50,229. Males had a median income of $51,856 versus $45,712 for females. The per capita income for the county was $42,922. About 17.6% of families and 20% of the population were below the poverty line, including 31.8% of those under age 18 and 18.9% of those age 65 or over.

Lower Manhattan (Manhattan south of Houston street) has a sharply different population than the rest of the borough. According to the 2000 census, the neighborhood was 41% Asian, 32% non-Hispanic white, 19% Hispanic and 6% black. 43% of residents were immigrants. These figures are affected by the demographic weight of Chinatown, which accounts for 55% of the population of Lower Manhattan.

Manhattan is a religiously diverse community. The largest religious affiliation is the Roman Catholic Church, whose adherents constitute 564,505 persons (more than 36% of the population) and maintain 110 congregations. Jews comprise the second largest religious group, with 314,500 persons (20.5%) and have 102 congregations. The next largest religious groups are Protestants, with 139,732 adherents (9.1%) and Muslims, with 37,078 (2.4%).^[12]

The borough is also experiencing a baby boom that is unique among American cities; since 2000, the number of children under age 5 living in Manhattan grew by more than 32%. The growth is largely driven by the children of affluent white families. Manhattan’s 35,000 or so white non-Hispanic toddlers are being raised by parents whose median income was $284,208 in 2005, which means they are growing up in wealthier households than similar youngsters in any other large county in the country. Among white families with toddlers, San Francisco ranked second, with a median income of $150,763, followed by Somerset, N.J. ($136,807); San Jose, Calif. ($134,668); Fairfield, Conn. ($132,427); and Westchester ($122,240).^[13]

See also: Demographics of New York City

[edit] Economy

Manhattan is the economic engine of New York City. Its most important economic sector is the finance industry. The 280,000 workers in the finance industry collect more than half of all the wages paid in Manhattan, although they hold fewer than one of every six jobs in the borough. The pay gap between them and the 1.5 million other workers in Manhattan continues to widen, causing some economists to worry about New York City's growing dependence on their extraordinary incomes. Those high salaries contribute to job growth, but most of this job growth occurs in lower-paying service jobs in restaurants, retail and home health care and not many jobs in highly paid areas.^[14]

In 2006 the average weekly wage in Manhattan was $1,453, the highest among the 325 largest counties in the United States. The national average was $784.^[15] Wages in Manhattan were also the fastest growing among the nation's 10 largest counties.^[15]

[edit] Culture

Manhattan has been the scene of many important American cultural movements. In 1912, about 20,000 workers, a quarter of them women, marched on Washington Square Park to commemorate the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which killed 146 workers on March 25, 1911. Many of the women wore fitted tucked-front blouses like those manufactured by the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, a clothing style that became the working woman's uniform and a symbol of female independence, reflecting the alliance of labor and suffrage movements.

The Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s established the African-American literary canon in the United States. Manhattan's vibrant visual art scene in the 1950s and 1960s defined the American pop art movement, which gave birth to such giants as Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein. Perhaps no other artist is as associated with the downtown pop art movement of the late 1970s as Andy Warhol, who socialized at clubs like Serendipity 3 and Studio 54 and was shot in the chest in 1968 by the radical feminist Valerie Solanas, founder of the group "Society for Cutting Up Men" (S.C.U.M.) and author of the SCUM Manifesto.

A popular haven for art, the downtown neighborhood of Chelsea is widely known for its galleries and cultural events.

Broadway theatre is often considered the highest professional form of theatre in the United States. Plays and musicals are staged in one of the thirty-nine larger professional theatres, all but one located in Midtown Manhattan in and around Times Square, with 500 seats or more, that appeal to the mass audience. Broadway theatres are usually run by a producing organization or another theatre group. A short stroll from Times Square will take you to the Lincoln Center, home to one of the world's most prestigious opera houses, that of the Metropolitan Opera.

Manhattan is also home to some of the most extensive art collections, both contemporary and historical, in the world including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Guggenheim Museum.

The borough has a place in several American idioms. The phrase "a New York minute" is meant to convey a very short period of time, sometimes in hyperbolic form, as in "perhaps faster than you would believe is possible". It refers to the rapid pace of life in Manhattan.^[16] The term "melting pot" was first popularly coined to describe the densely populated immigrant neighborhoods on the Lower East Side in Israel Zangwill's play The Melting Pot, which was an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet set by Zangwill in New York City in 1908.

See also: Culture of New York City

[edit] Media

Manhattan is served by the major New York City dailies, including The New York Times, New York Daily News, and New York Post, which are all headquartered in the borough. Other daily newspapers include AM New York, The Greenwich Village Gazette and The Villager. The New York Amsterdam News, based in Harlem, is one of the leading African American weekly newspapers in the United States. The Village Voice is a leading alternative weekly with emphasis on arts coverage in the borough. The Epoch Times is an international weekly published in both English and Chinese.

Manhattan is home to several major radio stations. In 1971, WLIB became New York's first black-owned radio station and the crown jewel of Inner City Broadcasting Corporation. A co-founder of Inner City was Percy Sutton, a former Manhattan borough president and long one of the city’s most powerful black leaders. WLIB began broadcasts for the African-American community in 1949 and regularly interviewed civil rights leaders like Malcolm X and aired live broadcasts from conferences of the NAACP. Influential WQHT, also known as Hot 97, claims to be the premier hip-hop station in the United States. WNYC, comprising an AM and FM signal, has the largest public radio audience in the nation and is the most-listened to commercial or non-commercial radio station in Manhattan. WBAI, with news and information programming, is one of the few socialist radio stations operating in the United States.

The oldest public-access television channel in the United States is the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, well known for its eclectic local programming that ranges from a jazz hour to discussion of labor issues to foreign language and religious programming. Another notable channel in the borough is NY1, Time Warner Cable's first local news channel, known for its beat coverage of City Hall and state politics that is closely watched by political insiders.

[edit] Landmarks

The Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, the theater district around Broadway, New York University, Columbia University, Baruch College, the financial center around Wall Street, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Harlem, the American Museum of Natural History, Chinatown, and Central Park are all located on this densely populated island.

The city is a leader in energy-efficient "green" office buildings, such as Hearst Tower and the rebuilt 7 World Trade Center.^[17]

Main article: Central Park

Central Park is bordered on the north by West 110th Street, on the west by Eighth Avenue, on the south by West 59th Street, and on the east by Fifth Avenue. Along the park's borders, these streets are usually referred to as Central Park North, Central Park West, and Central Park South, respectively. (Fifth Avenue retains its name along the eastern border.) The park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. The park offers extensive walking tracks, two ice-skating rinks, a wildlife sanctuary, and grassy areas used for various sporting pursuits, as well as playgrounds for children. The park is a popular oasis for migrating birds, and thus is popular with bird watchers. The 6-mile (10 km) road circling the park is popular with joggers, bicyclists and inline skaters, especially on weekends and in the evenings after 7:00 p.m., when automobile traffic is banned.^[18]

While much of the park looks natural, it is in fact almost entirely landscaped and contains several artificial lakes. The construction of Central Park in the 1850s was one of the era's most massive public works projects. Some 20,000 workers crafted the topography to create the English-style pastoral landscape Olmsted and Vaux sought to create. Workers moved nearly 3 million cubic yards of soil and planted more than 270,000 trees and shrubs.^[19]

360° Panorama of Manhattan seen from the Empire State Building

[edit] Transportation

See also: Transportation in New York City

Manhattan is unique in the United States for its intense use of public transportation and lack of private car ownership. While nearly 90% of Americans drive to their jobs, public transit is the overwhelmingly dominant form of travel for residents of Manhattan.^[20] According to the 2000 U.S. Census, more than 75% of Manhattan households do not own a car (car ownership is greater in the other boroughs, but New York City as a whole is the only locality in the United States where more than half of all households do not own a car).^[20]

The New York City Subway, the largest subway system in the world by track mileage, is the primary means of travel in the city. It connects to every borough except Staten Island. A second subway, the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) system, connects Manhattan to northern New Jersey. Commuter rail services operating in Manhattan are the Long Island Rail Road, which connects Manhattan and other New York City boroughs to Long Island, the Metro North Rail Road which connects Manhattan to Westchester County and Southwestern Connecticut, and New Jersey Transit trains to various points in New Jersey. Transit passengers tender their fares with pay-per-ride MetroCards, which are valid on all city buses and subways, as well as on PATH trains. A one-way fare on the bus or subway is $2.00,^[21] and PATH costs $1.50.^[22] There are daily, 7-day, and 30-day MetroCards that allow unlimited trips on all subways (except PATH) and MTA bus routes (except for express buses). The PATH QuickCard is being phased out, and both PATH and the MTA are testing "smart card" payment systems to replace the MetroCard.

Manhattan's transportation system is dense and varied. New York's iconic yellow cabs, which number 13,087 city-wide and must have the requisite medallion authorizing the pick up of street hails, are ubiquitous in the borough.^[23] Manhattan also sees tens of thousands of bicycle commuters. The Roosevelt Island Tramway whisks commuters between Roosevelt Island and Manhattan in less than five minutes. The Staten Island Ferry, which runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, annually carries over 19 million passengers on the 5.2 mile (8.4 km) run between Manhattan and Staten Island. Each day approximately five boats transport almost 65,000 passengers during 104 boat trips. The fare has been free since 1997.

The metro region's commuter rail lines converge at Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal, on the west and east sides of Midtown Manhattan, respectively. They are the two busiest rail stations in the United States. About one in every three users of mass transit in the country and two-thirds of the nation's rail riders live in New York and its suburbs.^[24] Amtrak provides inter-city passenger rail service from Penn Station to Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.; Upstate New York, New England; cross-border service to Toronto and Montreal; and destinations in the South and Midwest.

The Lincoln Tunnel, which carries 120,000 vehicles per day under the Hudson River between New Jersey and Manhattan, is the world's busiest vehicular tunnel. It was built instead of a bridge to allow for the free passage of large passenger and cargo ships that sailed through New York Harbor and up the Hudson to Manhattan's piers. The Queens Midtown Tunnel, built to relieve congestion on the bridges connecting Manhattan with Queens and Brooklyn, was the largest non-Federal project of its time when it was completed in 1940. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the first person to drive through it.

The FDR Drive and Harlem River Drive are two limited-access routes that skirt the East Side of Manhattan along the East River, designed by controversial New York master planner Robert Moses.

Manhattan has three public heliports. US Helicopter offers regularly scheduled helicopter service connecting the Downtown Manhattan Heliport with John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens.

New York has the largest clean-air diesel-hybrid and compressed natural gas bus fleet in the country, and some of the first hybrid taxis, most of which operate in Manhattan.^[25][26]

[edit] Education

See also: Education in New York City

Education in Manhattan is provided by a vast number of public and private institutions. Public schools in the borough are operated by the New York City Department of Education, the largest public school system in the United States,^[27] serving 1.1 million students.^[28]

Some of the best-known New York City public high schools, such as Stuyvesant High School, Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, High School of Fashion Industries, Murry Bergtraum High School and Hunter College High School, are located in Manhattan. It also hosts a new hybrid school, Bard High School Early College, which serves students from around the city.

Manhattan has various colleges and universities (see List of colleges and universities in New York City). The list includes Columbia University as well as New York University (NYU) and Fordham University. Other schools include New York Institute of Technology, Pace University, Cooper Union and The New School.

The world-renowned City University of New York (CUNY) is the municipal college system of New York City. The City University is the largest urban university system in the United States as well as the third largest system in terms of enrollment. A third of college graduates in New York City graduate from CUNY, with the institution enrolling about half of all college students in New York City. CUNY senior colleges located in Manhattan include: Baruch College, City College of New York, Hunter College, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and the CUNY Graduate Center (graduate studies and doctoral granting institution). The only CUNY community college located in Manhattan is the Borough of Manhattan Community College.

[edit] See also

• Midtown
• Lower Manhattan
• Sawing off of Manhattan Island

[edit] References

[edit] External links

[edit] Manhattan local government and services

• Manhattan Borough President official site
• Manhattan District Attorney official site
• New York City Transit Bus Map of Manhattan (PDF file)

[edit] Maps, streets, and neighborhoods

• Aerial view of all bridges in Manhattan
• New York City subway and road map
• Maps of Building Heights and Land Value, plus theoretical and zoning-based maps of underdevelopment, all from www.radicalcartography.net
• air visit of all the districts of Manhattan in photographs
• Avenues + streets of Manhattan (translated from French)

• Interactive Manhattan Map
• Manhattan Neighborhood Maps: MondoMap

[edit] Historical references

• New York and its origins
• Letter of 1626 stating that Manhattan Island had been purchased for the value of 60 guilders (PD)
• Map of Mannados or Manhattan in 1661 (PD)
• 1729 map of Manhattan

• The log book of Robert Juet. The earliest written information on Manhattan.
• YouTube - NEW YORK CITY 1941 An educational video from 1941 on things such as work and transportation in Manhattan.

[edit] Manhattan guides

• Search and Compare Parking Rates and Locations
• Randall's Lost New York City
• New York City Walk
• Manhattan Official Mobile Website

[edit] Photographs and videos of Manhattan

• Tim Fearn's Flickr Gallery
• NewYorkDailyPhoto
• Photographs of Manhattan
• Forgotten New York
• gallery ' Manhattan' in Black and White
• Manhattan Skyline Panoramas
• Photographs and a video of a ride around Manhattan on rollerblades

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