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New York City (officially the City of New York) is a city in the southern area of the state of New York. It is the most populous city in the United States of America, and arguably the most important in American culture. Its business, finance, trading, law, and media organizations are influential around the globe.[1] The city is one of the world's most important cultural centers, with hundreds of world-class museums, galleries, and performance venues. Home of the United Nations, the city is also one of the world's major centers for international diplomacy.
New York City comprises five boroughs: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. With over 8.2 million residents within an area of 322 square miles (830 km²), New York City has the highest population density of any major North American city.[2][3] The city's metropolitan area, with a population of 18.8 million, ranks among the largest urban areas in the world.[4]
Wall Street, in lower Manhattan, has been a dominant global financial center since World War II. The city is also the birthplace of many American cultural movements, including the Harlem Renaissance in literature and visual art, abstract expressionism in painting, and hip hop[5] along with the Tin Pan Alley in music. The city's cultural vitality has been fueled by immigration since its founding by Dutch colonists in 1625. In 2005, nearly 170 languages were spoken in the city and 36 percent of its population was foreign born.[6][7]
At the time of its European discovery by an Italian, Giovanni da Verrazzano, in 1524[8], the region was inhabited by the Lenape Native Americans. The European settlement began with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement, later called "New Amsterdam," (Dutch- "Nieuw Amsterdam") on the southern tip of Manhattan in 1614. Dutch colonial Director-General Peter Minuit purchased the island of Manhattan from the Canarsie Native Americans in 1626 (legend, now disproved, says that Manhattan was purchased for $24 worth of glass beads).[9] In 1664, the British conquered the city and renamed it "New York" after the English Duke of York, the heir to the throne.
Under British rule New York grew in importance as a trading port. In 1754, Columbia University, now one of the oldest universities in the United States, was founded under charter by King George II as King's College in lower Manhattan. Then, during the American Revolutionary War, the city emerged as the theater for a series of major battles known as the New York Campaign which raged from 1776 through 1777. The Continental Congress met in New York City and in 1789 the first President of the United States, George Washington, was inaugurated at Federal Hall on Wall Street.[10] New York City was made capital of the United States on September 13, 1788 and would retain the honor until the year 1790, when the capital was moved to Philadelphia. [11]
During the 19th century, the city was transformed by immigration; a visionary development proposal called the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 which created a rational street grid to encompass most of Manhattan[12]; and the opening in 1819 of the Erie Canal, which connected the Atlantic port to the vast agricultural markets of the North American interior. By 1835, New York City had surpassed Philadelphia as the largest city in the United States. Local politics fell under the domination of Tammany Hall, a political machine supported by Irish immigrants. Public-minded members of the old merchant aristocracy pressed for Central Park, which became the first landscaped park in an American city in 1857.
Anger at military conscription during the American Civil War (1861–1865) led to the Draft Riots of 1863, one of the worst incidents of civil unrest in American history, in which eleven black men were lynched over a five day period and forced hundreds of blacks out of the city.[13] In 1898 the modern City of New York was formed with the consolidation of Brooklyn (until then an independent city), Manhattan and municipalities in the other boroughs. The opening of the New York City Subway in 1904 helped bind the new city together. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the city became a world center for industry, commerce, and communication. In 1911 the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the city's worst industrial disaster, took the lives of 146 garment workers and spurred the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and major improvements in factory safety standards.[14]
In the 1920s, New York City was a major destination for African Americans during the Great Migration from the American South. By 1916, New York City was home to the largest urban African diaspora in North America. The Harlem Renaissance flourished during the era of Prohibition, and coincident with a larger economic boom that saw the construction of a skyline filled with competing skyscrapers. New York City became the most populous city in the world in 1925, overtaking London, which had reigned for a century. The difficult years of the Great Depression saw the election of reformer Fiorello LaGuardia and the fall of Tammany Hall after eighty years of political dominance.[15]
Returning World War II veterans and immigrants from Europe created a postwar economic boom and the development of huge housing tracts in eastern Queens. Ironically, the city's prosperity would lead many middle class residents to the new suburban developments in Long Island such as Levittown aided by the bridges and thoroughfairs constructed under Robert Moses.[16] New York emerged from the war unscathed and the leading city of the world, with Wall Street leading America's ascendance as the world's dominant economic power, the United Nations headquarters (built in 1952) emphasizing New York's political influence, and the rise of Abstract Expressionism in the city precipitating New York's displacement of Paris as the center of the art world.[17] Yet like many large American cities, New York suffered a decline in manufacturing and rising crime rates, race riots, and white flight in the 1960s. By the 1970s, the city had gained a reputation as a crime-ridden relic of history.
New York's social and economic upheavals became more favorable for the city in the 1980s as a resurgence in the critical financial industry improved the city's fiscal health. By the 1990s racial tensions had calmed, crime rates dropped dramatically, and waves of new immigrants arrived from Asia and Latin America. Important new sectors, such as Silicon Alley, emerged in the city's economy and New York's population reached an all-time high in the 2000 census.
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. It was the worst terrorist attack ever to occur in the United States. The Freedom Tower will be built on the site and is scheduled for completion in 2010.[18]
New York City is located on the coast of the Northeastern United States at the mouth of the Hudson River in southeastern New York state. The city's geography is characterized by its coastal position at the meeting of the Hudson River and the Atlantic Ocean in a naturally sheltered harbor. This position helped the city grow in significance as a trading city. Much of New York is built on the three islands of Manhattan, Staten Island, and western Long Island, making land scarce and encouraging a high population density.
The Hudson River flows from the Hudson Valley into New York Bay, becoming a tidal estuary that separates the city from New Jersey. The East River, actually a tidal strait, flows from Long Island Sound and separates the Bronx and Manhattan from Long Island. The Harlem River, another tidal strait between the East and Hudson Rivers, separates Manhattan from the Bronx.
The city's land has been altered considerably by human intervention, with substantial land reclamation along the waterfronts since Dutch colonial times. Reclamation is most notable in Lower Manhattan with modern developments like Battery Park City. Much of the natural variations in topography have been evened out, particularly in Manhattan.[19]
The city's land area is 321 mi² (831.4 km²).[20] The highest point in the city is Todt Hill on Staten Island, which at 409.8 ft (124.9 m) above sea level is the highest point on the Eastern Seaboard south of Maine. The summit of the ridge is largely covered in woodlands as part of the Staten Island Greenbelt.
New York City is comprised of five boroughs, an unusual form of government used to administer the five constituent counties that make up the city. Throughout the boroughs there are hundreds of distinct , many with a definable history and character all their own. If the boroughs were each independent cities, four of the boroughs (Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx) would be among the ten most populous cities in the United States.
Although located at about the same latitude as the much warmer European cities of Naples and Madrid, New York has a humid continental climate (Köppen classification Dfa) resulting from prevailing wind patterns that bring cool air from the interior of the North American continent.[24] New York winters are typically cold with moderate snowfall. The city's coastal position keeps temperatures relatively warmer than inland regions. It has a frost-free period lasting an average of 220 days between seasonal freezes.[25] April, May, and November are typically the months with greatest precipitation. Spring and Fall in New York City are mild, while summer is very warm and humid, with temperatures of 90°F (32°C) or higher recorded from 18 to 25 days on average during the season.[26] The city's longterm climate patterns are affected by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, a 70-year-long warming and cooling cycle in the Atlantic that influences the frequency and severity of hurricanes and coastal storms in the region.[27]
Environmental issues in the city are chiefly concerned with managing its extraordinary population density, which is a factor in making New York among the most energy efficient and least automobile-dependent cities in the United States but also concentrates pollution. Mass transit use is the highest in the nation and gasoline consumption in the city is at the rate the national average was in the 1920s.[28] New York City, however, is responsible for 1% of the nation's total greenhouse gas emissions.[29] The city's levels are nevertheless relatively low when measured per capita, at 7.1 metric tons per person, below San Francisco, at 11.2 metric tons, and the national average, at 24.5.[30]
In recent years the city has focused on reducing its environmental impact. The city government is required to purchase only the most energy-efficient equipment for use in city offices and public housing.[31] 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.[32] The city is also a leader in energy-efficient green office building, such as Hearst Tower.[33] The average New Yorker consumes less than half the electricity used by a resident of San Francisco and nearly one-quarter the electricity consumed by a resident of Dallas.[34] Although New York City is more populous than all but eleven states, if it were granted statehood it would rank fifty first in per-capita energy use.[35]
The city is supplied with water by the vast Catskill Mountains watershed[1], one of the largest protected wilderness areas in the United States. As a result of the watershed's integrity and undisturbed natural water filtration process, city drinking water does not require purification by water treatment plants.[36][37]
"Culture just seems to be in the air, like part of the weather," the writer Tom Wolfe said as he praised New York City.[38] Numerous major American cultural movements began in the city, such as the Harlem Renaissance, which established the African-American literary canon in the United States. The city was the epicenter of jazz in the 1940s, abstract expressionism in the 1950s, and the birthplace of hip hop in the 1970s. Also, the film Manhatta (1920) is considered the nation's first avante-garde film.[39] The city's punk rock scene was influential in the 1970s and 1980s, and the city has long had a flourishing scene for Jewish American literature. Prominent indie rock bands coming out of New York in recent years include The Strokes, The Mooney Suzuki and Interpol.
The city has more than 2,000 arts and cultural organizations and more than 500 art galleries of all sizes.[40] The city government funds the arts with a larger annual budget than the National Endowment for the Arts.[41] Wealthy industrialists in the 19th century built a network of major cultural institutions, such as the famed Carnegie Hall and Metropolitan Museum of Art, that would become internationally established. The advent of electric lighting led to elaborate theatre productions, and in the 1880s New York City theaters on Broadway and along 42nd Street began showcasing a new stage form that came to be known as the Broadway musical. Strongly influenced by the city's immigrants, these productions used song in narratives that often reflected themes of hope and ambition. Today these productions are a mainstay of the New York theatre scene. The city's 39 largest theatres (with more than 500 seats) are collectively known as "Broadway," after the major thoroughfare that crosses the Times Square theatre district.
The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, which includes Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Opera, the New York Philharmonic and the New York City Ballet, is the largest performing arts center in the United States. Summerstage presents performances of free plays and music in Central Park and 1,200 free concerts, dance, and theater events across all five boroughs in the summer months.
The building form most closely associated with New York City is the skyscraper, a pioneering urban form that saw city building shift from the low-scale European tradition to the vertical rise of business districts. Surrounded mostly by water, New York's residential density and high real estate values in commercial districts saw the city amass the largest collection of individual, free-standing office and residential towers in the world.[42]
New York has architecturally significant buildings in a wide range of styles. These include the Woolworth Building (1913), an early gothic revival skyscraper built with massively scaled gothic detailing able to be read from street level several hundred feet below. The Chrysler Building (1930) is a superlative example of Art Deco architecture with distinctive ornamentation such as replicas at the corners of the 61st floor of the 1928 Chrysler eagle hood ornaments and V-shaped lighting inserts capped by a steel spire at the tower's crown. The building is considered by many historians and architects to be New York's finest building.[43] A highly influential example of the international style in the United States is the Seagram Building (1957), distinctive for its facade using visible bronze-toned I-beams to evoke the building's structure. The Condé Nast Building (2000) is an important example of green design in American skyscrapers.[33]
The character of New York's large residential districts is often defined by the elegant brownstone rowhouses, townhouses, and apartment buildings that were built during a period of rapid expansion from 1870 to 1930. Stone and brick became the city's building materials of choice after the construction of wood-frame houses was limited in the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1835. Unlike Paris, which for centuries was built from its own limestone bedrock, New York has always drawn its building stone from a far-flung network of quarries and its stone buildings have a variety of textures and hues.[44] A distinctive feature of many of the city's buildings is the presence of wooden roof-mounted water towers. In the 1800s the city required their installation on buildings higher than six stories to prevent the need for excessively high water pressures at lower elevations, which could burst municipal water pipes.[45]
New York is a global center for the television, advertising, music, newspaper and book publishing industries and is also the largest media market in the United States. Some of the city's media conglomerates include Time Warner, the News Corporation, the Hearst Corporation, and Viacom. Six of the world's top ten global advertising agencies are headquartered in New York. Three of the "Big Four" record labels are also based in the city. One-third of all American independent films are produced in New York.[46] More than 200 newspapers and 350 consumer magazines have an office in the city.[47] The book-publishing industry employs about 25,000 people.[48] Fotolia, one of the larger microstock agencies that provide stock images, is based in New York.
Two of the three national daily newspapers in the United States are New York papers, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Major tabloid newspapers in the city include The New York Daily News and The New York Post, founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton. The city also has a major ethnic press, with 270 newspapers and magazines published in more than 40 languages.[49] El Diario La Prensa is New York's largest Spanish-language daily and the oldest in the nation. The New York Amsterdam News, published in Harlem, is a prominent African-American newspaper.
The television industry developed in New York and is a significant employer in the city's economy. The four major American broadcast networks, ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC, are all headquartered in New York. Many cable channels are based in the city as well, including MTV, Fox News, HBO and Comedy Central. In 2005 there were more than 100 television shows taped in New York City.[50]
New York is also a major center for non-commercial media. Public access television originated in the city in 1968. WNET is the city's major public television station and a primary provider of national PBS programming. WNYC, a public radio station owned by the city until 1997, has the largest public radio audience in the United States.[51] The City of New York operates a public broadcast service, NYCTV, that produces several original Emmy Award-winning shows covering music and culture in city neighborhoods, as well as city government.
About 40 million foreign and American tourists visit New York City each year.[52] Major destinations include the Empire State Building, Ellis Island, Broadway theatre productions, scores of museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and other tourist attractions like Central Park, Washington Square Park, Rockefeller Center, Times Square, the Bronx Zoo and 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. 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 28,000 acres (113 km²) 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.[53] 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.[54] The city is also home to many of the finest haute cuisine restaurants in the United States.[55]
New York City is a global hub of international business and commerce and is one of three "command centers" for the world economy (along with London and Tokyo).[56] The New York metropolitan area had an estimated gross metropolitan product of $952.6 billion in 2005, the largest regional economy in the United States.[57] The city's economy accounts for the majority of the economic activity in the states of New York and New Jersey.[58]
The city is a major center for finance, insurance, real estate, media and the arts in the United States. Other important sectors include the city's television and film industry, second largest in the country after Hollywood; medical research and technology; non-profit institutions and universities; and fashion. Real estate is a major force in the city's economy, as the total value of all New York City property was $802.4 billion in 2006.[59] The Time Warner Center is the property with the highest-listed market value in the city, at $1.1 billion in 2006.[60]
The city's stock exchanges are among the most important in the world. The New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ are the world's first and second largest stock exchanges, respectively, when measured by average daily trading volume and overall market capitalization.[61] Many major corporations have headquarters in New York. New York is also unique among American cities for its large number of foreign corporations. One out of ten private sector jobs in the city is with a foreign company.[62]
Creative industries such as new media, advertising, design and architecture account for a growing share of employment. High-tech industries like bioscience, software development, game design, and Internet services are also growing; because of its position at the terminus of the transatlantic fiber optic trunk line New York City is the leading Internet gateway in the United States.[63]
Manufacturing accounts for a large but declining share of employment. Garments, chemicals, metal products, processed foods, and furniture are some of the principal products.[64] The food-processing industry is the most stable major manufacturing sector in the city.[65] Food making is a $5 billion industry that employs more than 19,000 residents, many of them immigrants who speak little English. Chocolate is New York City's leading specialty-food export, with $234 million worth of exports each year.[66]
New York is the largest city in the United States. The estimated 2005 population of New York City is 8,213,839 (up from 7.3 million in 1990).[3] This amounts to about 40% of New York State's population and a similar percentage of the metropolitan regional population. Over the last decade the city has been growing rapidly. Demographers estimate New York's population will reach between 9.2 and 9.5 million by 2030.[67]
New York's two key demographic features are its density and diversity. The city has an extremely high population density of 26,403 people per square mile (10,194/km²), about 10,000 more people per square mile than the next densest large American city, San Francisco.[68] Manhattan's population density is 66,940 people per square mile (25,846/km²).[69]
New York City is exceptionally diverse. Throughout its history the city has been a major point of entry for immigrants; the term "melting pot" was first coined to describe densely populated immigrant neighborhoods on the Lower East Side. 36% of the city's population is foreign-born.[70] Among American cities, this proportion is higher only in Los Angeles and Miami.[69] While the immigrant communities in those cities are dominated by a few nationalities, in New York no single country or region of origin dominates. The ten largest countries of origin for modern day immigration are the Dominican Republic, China, Jamaica, Guyana, Mexico, Ecuador, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Colombia and Russia. The largest ethnic groups in New York City are African American, Italian, Jewish, and Irish. [71] About 170 languages are spoken in the city.[72]
The New York City metropolitan area is home to the largest Jewish community outside Israel; however, Tel Aviv proper (non-metro/within municipal limits) has smaller population than the Jewish population of New York City proper, making New York the largest Jewish community in the world.[73] It is also home to nearly a quarter of the nation's South Asians,[74] and the largest African American community of any city in the country. There is also a substantial Puerto Rican and Dominican population. Another historically significant ethnic group are Italians, who emigrated to the city in large numbers in the early twentieth century. The Irish also have a notable presence; one in 50 New Yorkers of European origin carry a distinctive genetic signature on their Y chromosomes inherited from Niall of the Nine Hostages, an Irish high king of the fifth century A.D.[75]
New York City has a high degree of income disparity. In 2005 the median household income in the wealthiest census tract was $188,697, while in the poorest it was $9,320.[76] The disparity is driven by wage growth in high income brackets, while wages have stagnated for middle and lower income brackets. In 2006 the average weekly wage in Manhattan was $1,453, the highest and fastest growing among the largest counties in the United States.[77] 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%.[78]
Since its consolidation in 1898, New York City has been a metropolitan municipality with a "strong" mayor-council form of government. The government of New York is more centralized than that of most other U.S. cities. In New York City, the central government is responsible for public education, correctional institutions, libraries, public safety, recreational facilities, sanitation, water supply and welfare services.
The mayor and councillors are elected to four-year terms. The New York City Council is a unicameral body consisting of 51 Council members whose districts are defined by geographic population boundaries. The mayor and councilors are limited to two four-year terms.
The Democratic Party holds the majority of public offices. 66% of registered voters in the city are Democrats.[79] Party platforms center on affordable housing, education and economic development. Labor politics are important in the city. New York is the most important source of political fundraising in the United States. Four of the top five zip codes in the nation for political contributions are in Manhattan. The top zip code, 10021 on the Upper East Side, generated the most money for the 2004 presidential campaigns of both George W. Bush and John Kerry.[80]
The city has a strong imbalance of payments with the national and state governments. New York City receives 83 cents in services for every $1 it sends to the federal government in taxes (or annually sends $11.4 billion more than it receives back). The city also sends an additional $11 billion more each year to the state of New York than it receives back.[81]
The mayor is Michael Bloomberg, a former Democrat elected as a Republican in 2001 and re-elected in 2005 with 59% of the vote.[82] He is known for taking control of the city's education system from the state, rezoning and economic development, sound fiscal management, and aggressive public health policy. In his second term he has made school reform, poverty reduction, and strict gun control central priorities of his administration.
As the host of the United Nations, New York City is home to the world's largest international consular corps, comprising 122 consulates, consulates general and honorary consulate offices.[83]
New York City has the lowest crime rate among the ten largest cities in the United States.[84] Furthermore, among the 182 U.S. cities with populations of more than 100,000, New York City ranked 136th in overall crime (with about the same crime rate as Boise, Idaho).[85] The city has seen a continuous trend of decreasing crime since 1991, with violent crime dropping 75% since then. Neighborhoods that were once considered dangerous are now much safer. The murder rate in 2005 was at its lowest level since 1963. Overall, New York City had a rate of 2,802 crimes per 100,000 people in 2004, compared with 8,960 in Dallas; 7,904 in Detroit; 7,402 in Phoenix; 7,347 in San Antonio; 7,195 in Houston; 5,471 in Philadelphia; 4,376 in Los Angeles; and 4,103 in San Diego. The city's crime-reduction trend makes it much safer than years such as 1990, when the city had a record 2,605 murders. [86]
The city's public school system, managed by the New York City Department of Education, is the largest in the United States. About 1.1 million students are taught in more than 1,200 separate primary and secondary schools.[87] There are about 1,000 additional privately run secular and religious schools in the city. These include some of the most prestigious private schools in the United States. New York is also home to many major libraries, universities, and research centers.
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, 40,000 licensed physicians, and 127 Nobel laureates with roots in local institutions.[88] The city receives the second-highest amount of annual funding from the National Institutes of Health among all U.S. cities.[89] Major biomedical research institutions include Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Rockefeller University, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Weill Cornell Medical College.
Though it is not often thought of as a "College Town", there are about 594,000 university students in New York City, the highest number of any city in the United States.[90] In 2005, three out of five Manhattan residents were college graduates and one out of four had advanced degrees, forming one of the highest concentrations of highly educated people in any American city.[91] Public postsecondary education is provided by the City University of New York, the nation's third-largest public university system. New York City is also home to such notable private universities as Columbia University, New York University, Polytechnic University, St. John's University, The Cooper Union, Pace University, New York Institute Of Technology, Fordham University and Manhattan College. The city has dozens of other private colleges and universities, including many religious and special-purpose institutions.
The New York Public Library is one of the largest public library systems in the country. Its Library for the Humanities research center has 39 million items in its collection, among them the first five folios of Shakespeare's plays, ancient Torah scrolls, and Alexander Hamilton's handwritten draft of the United States Constitution.
Public transit is overwhelmingly the dominant form of travel for New Yorkers.[92] About one in every three users of mass transit in the United States and two-thirds of the nation's rail riders live in New York and its suburbs.[93][94] This is in contrast to the rest of the country, where about 90% of commuters drive automobiles to their workplace.[92] New York is the only city in the United States where more than half of all households do not own a car (in Manhattan, more than 75% of residents do not own a car; nationally, the percentage is 8%).[92]
The New York City Subway is the largest rapid transit system in the world when measured by track mileage (656 miles, or 1,056 km of mainline track), and the fourth-largest when measured by annual ridership (1.4 billion passenger trips in 2005).[93] The transportation system in New York City is extensive and complex. It includes the longest suspension bridge in North America,[95] the world's first mechanically ventilated vehicular tunnel,[96] more than 12,000 yellow cabs[97] and an aerial tramway that transports commuters between Roosevelt Island and Manhattan. New York City's public bus fleet and commuter rail network are the largest in North America.[93] The rail network, which connects the suburbs in the tri-state region to the city, has more than 250 stations and 20 rail lines.[93][98][99] The commuter rail system converges at the two busiest rail stations in the United States, Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station.[100][101]
New York City is the top international air passenger gateway to the United States.[102] The area is served by three major airports, Kennedy (also known as JFK), Newark and LaGuardia. 100 million travelers used the three airports in 2005; New York City's airspace is the busiest in the nation.[103] Outbound international travel from JFK and Newark accounted for about a quarter of all U.S. travelers who went overseas in 2004.[104]
New York's high rate of public transit use, 120,000 daily cyclists[105] and many pedestrian commuters makes it one of the most energy-efficient cities in the United States.[106] It is well positioned to endure an oil crisis with an extended gasoline price shock in the range of US$3 to US$8 per gallon.[107] Walk and bicycle modes of travel account for 21% of all modes for trips in the city; nationally the rate for metro regions is about 8%.[108]
New York City has teams in each of the major American professional sports leagues. Baseball is the city's most closely followed sport. There have been fourteen World Series championship series between New York City teams; such matchups are called Subway Series. The city's two current Major League Baseball teams are the New York Yankees and the New York Mets, who enjoy a fierce rivalry. There are also two minor league baseball teams in the city, the Staten Island Yankees and Brooklyn Cyclones.
The city is represented in the National Football League by the New York Jets and New York Giants (although both teams play their home games in Giant Stadium in nearby New Jersey), and in the National Hockey League by the New York Rangers. The headquarters of the National Hockey League and the National Football League are in Manhattan.
New York City has a rich basketball history as well. The first national college-level basketball championship, the National Invitation Tournament, was held in New York in 1938 and remains in the city. Rucker Park in Harlem is a celebrated court where many professional athletes play in the summer league. The city's National Basketball Association team is the New York Knicks.
Boxing is also a very prominent part of the cities sporting scene, with events like the Amateur Boxing Golden Gloves being held at Madison Square Gardens each year.
As a global city, New York supports many events outside the big four American sports. These include the U.S. Tennis Open, the New York City Marathon and the Millrose Games, an annual track and field meet whose featured event is the Wanamaker Mile. Red Bull New York, formerly known as the MetroStars, is a professional soccer club based in New Jersey that participates in Major League Soccer. Many sports are associated with New York's immigrant communities. Stickball, a street version of baseball, was popularized by youths in working class Puerto Rican, Italian, and Irish neighborhoods in the 1930s. In recent years several amateur cricket leagues have emerged with the arrival of immigrants from South Asia and the Caribbean.[109] New York City bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics, but failed to reach beyond the second ballot.[110]
New York City has ten sister cities.[111] The year each relationship was formed is shown in parentheses below.
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