NEW YORK. New York attract people fromall over. Get on a subway in New York and look at the newspapers that peoplearound you are reading . One person is reading a newspaper in Spanish , anotherin Chinese, yet others in Arabic , Russian , Italian , Yiddish, and French .New York was always a city of immigrants.
It still is .The are5 boroughs in New York – Manhattan , Brooklyn , Queens , the Bronx , and StatenIsland. Brooklyn alone has so many people that if it were a separate city , itwould be the fourth largest in the United States.Manhattan Geography. Manhattan is an island just 13miles long and 2 miles wide . It is the center of American finance, advertising, art theatre, publishing , fashion – and much more.
The borough of Manhattanis what most people think of New York, one of the most exciting cities in theworld.Manhattan is divided into theEast Side and the West Side. The dividing line is Fifth Avenue. So, for example, East 47th Street begins at Fifth Avenue, as does West 47th
Street.Manhattan is also divided ,with less exactness, into Lower Downtown , Midtown and Upper Up-town Manhattan. As you go North, or uptown, the street numbers get higher. LowerManhattan refers to street numbers below 14th Street and Central Park, andUpper Manhattan to the renaming, northern, part of the island.
The Financial District . The Dutch were the firstEuropeans to settle Manhattan. To protect themselves from attacks, they built asturdy wooden wall. Although it s now long gone, this wall gave it s name to astreet in Lower Manhattan and the street, in turn, became synonymous withAmerican capitalism. The street, of course, is Wall Street. The New York
StockExchange and the American Stock Exchange are both in the Wall Street area. Soare many stock brokers, investment blanks and others bank, and headquarters ofmany large corporations.To escape the commotion ofWall Street you can visit the nearby South Street Seaport, an open area of lowbuildings on the East River. In addition to many shops and restaurants, theseaport has a museum.
Two good ways to get thelarger picture of New York are to circle it in a bout and to hover over it inhelicopter. In the financial district, though, there s another way to see NewYork. The twin towers of the World TradeCenter rise 1,350 feet above the city. There s an observation deck on the 107thfloor of one of the towers.Appropriately, the very firstbusiness deal in Manhattan was made in what became the financial district.
As everyAmerican schoolchild knows, the Dutch bought Manhattan from the Indians, for the ridiculously low priceof 24 dollars worth of beads and trinkets. There is, however, another, lessknown side of this evidently, the Indians who had sold Manhattan did notthemselves live there or in any sense own it. The Dutch and the Indians alikewalked away pleased.
The Lower East Side. The lower East Side wasoriginal an elegant neighborhood. When New York was the capital of the UnitedStates, President George Washington lived on the Lower East Side.By the mid-1880s the LowerEast Side had changed greatly. It was characterized by crime and the povertyand hopes of it s residents.
By the mid-1800s the Lower East Side had become anarea in which immigrants settled. First there were many Irish, then came manyJews from Eastern Europe.Near the Lower East Side thereare two other neighborhoods that also attracted immigrants and that are famousfor their food. The Italian restaurants of Little Italy remain popularto tourists and Italians alike.
Today Chinatown is the only immigrantcommunity that s still growing. Chinatown has seven newspaper of it s own. Italso nearly 200 restaurants.Greenwich Village and the East Village. Greenwich Village and the East Village havealways been at the center of New York s excitement. Both have been places forpeople with different and creative ideas.
Both have an active nightlife withplenty of bars, restaurants and clubs.In the early 1900s the charmGreenwich Village attracted bohemians – writers and artists. By the 1920s, thestreets of the Village were filled with other peel, curious to see how theseodd Villagers lived. The artists and writers began moving out, some to the EastVillage. Today, the Village has many elements students attending
New YorkUniversity an active jazz scene and in Washington Square – it s center -street performers, police. Drug dealers, joggers, roller skates, and just abouteveryone else.When bohemians moved to theEast Village 1920s, they found an area similar to the Lower East Side. Therewere many immigrants, much dirt and grime. The East Village has changed verylittle. Over the years it has been a center for many movements – for
the beatpoets of the 1950s, the hippies of the 1960s, and, more recently, for NewYork s punk scene.Midtown Manhattan.Many