Entertainment and performing arts
See also: Music of New York City
The city is also important in the American film industry. Manhatta (1920), an early avant-garde film, was filmed in the city.[82] Today, New York City is the second largest center for the film industry in the United States. The city has more than 2,000 arts and cultural organizations and more than 500 art galleries of all sizes.[83] The city government funds the arts with a larger annual budget than the National Endowment for the Arts.[83] 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, productions such as those of Harrigan and Hart, George M. Cohan and others 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.[84] This area is sometimes referred to as The Main Stem, The Great White Way or The Realto.
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, the New York City Ballet, the Vivian Beaumont Theatre, the Juilliard School and Alice Tully Hall, is the largest performing arts center in the United States. Central Park 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.[85]
Tourism
Main articles: Tourism in New York City and List of museums and cultural institutions in New York City
Times Square has been dubbed "The Crossroads of the World".[86]
Tourism is important to New York City, with about 47 million foreign and American tourists visiting each year.[87] 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.[88] 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.
Cuisine
Main article: Cuisine of New York City
New York's food culture, influenced by the city's immigrants and large number of dining patrons, is diverse. Eastern European and Italian immigrants have 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, although hot dogs and pretzels are still the main street fare.[89] The city is also home to many of the finest haute cuisine restaurants in the United States.[90] New York City's variety of World cuisines is also diverse. Examples could include Italian, French, Spanish, German, Russian, English, Greek, Moroccan, Chinese, Indian, and Japanese cuisines, as well as the diverse indigenous sort.
Media
Main article: Media in New York City
New York's MTA gives the city a large newspaper readership base.[91]
New York is a global center for the television, advertising, music, newspaper and book publishing industries and is also the largest media market in North America (followed by Los Angeles, Chicago, and Toronto).[92]
Some of the city's media conglomerates include Time Warner, the News Corporation, the Hearst Corporation, and Viacom. Seven of the world's top eight global advertising agency networks have their headquarters in New York.[93] Three of the "Big Four" record labels are also based in the city, as well as in Los Angeles.
One-third of all American independent films are produced in New York.[94] More than 200 newspapers and 350 consumer magazines have an office in the city[94] and the book-publishing industry employs about 25,000 people.[95]
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.[96] El Diario La Prensa is New York's largest Spanish-language daily and the oldest in the nation.[97] The New York Amsterdam News, published in Harlem, is a prominent African American newspaper.
The Village Voice is the largest alternative newspaper.
Rockefeller Center – NBC Studios
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.[98]
New York is also a major center for non-commercial media. The oldest public-access television channel in the United States is the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, founded in 1971.[99] 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.[100]
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.
Accent
The New York City area has a distinctive regional speech pattern called the New York dialect, alternatively known as Brooklynese or New Yorkese. It is often considered to be one of the most recognizable accents within American English.[101] The classic version of this dialect is centered on middle and working class people of European American descent, and the influx of non-European immigrants in recent decades has led to changes in this distinctive dialect.[102]
The traditional New York area accent is non-rhotic, so that the sound [ɹ] does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant; hence the pronunciation of the city as "New Yawk".[102] There is no [ɹ] in words like park [pɔːk] (with vowel raised due to the low-back chain shift), butter [bʌɾə], or here [hiə]. In another feature called the low back chain shift, the [ɔ] vowel sound of words like talk, law, cross, and coffee and the often homophonous [ɔr] in core and more are tensed and usually raised more than in General American.
In the most old-fashioned and extreme versions of the New York dialect, the vowel sounds of words like "girl" and of words like "oil" both become a diphthong [ɜɪ]. This is often misperceived by speakers of other accents as a reversal of the er and oy sounds, so that girl is pronounced "goil" and oil is pronounced "erl"; this leads to the caricature of New Yorkers saying things like "Joizey" (Jersey), "Toidy-Toid Street" (33rd St.) and "terlet" (toilet).[102] The character Archie Bunker from the 1970s sitcom All in the Family was a good example of a speaker who had this feature. This particular speech pattern is no longer very prevalent.[102]
Sports
Main article: Sports in New York City
Yankee Stadium was home to the New York Yankees from 1923 to 2008.
New York City has teams in the four major North American professional sports leagues.
New York is one of the few areas of the United States where baseball, rather than American football, remains the most popular sport.[citation needed] There have been fourteen World Series championship series between New York City teams, in matchups called Subway Series. New York is one of only five metro areas (Chicago, Washington-Baltimore, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area being the others) to have two baseball teams. The city's two current Major League Baseball teams are the New York Yankees and the New York Mets, who compete in six games every regular season. The Yankees have enjoyed 26 world titles, while the Mets have taken the Series twice. The city also was once home to the New York Giants (now the San Francisco Giants) and the Brooklyn Dodgers (now the Los Angeles Dodgers). Both teams moved to California in 1958. 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 (officially the New York Football Giants), although both teams play their home games in Giants Stadium in nearby New Jersey.
The New York City Marathon is the largest marathon in the world.
The New York Rangers represent the city in the National Hockey League. Within the metro area are two other teams, the New Jersey Devils and the New York Islanders, who play in Long Island. This is the only instance of any metro area having 3 teams within one of the 4 major North American professional sports leagues.
In Association football, New York is represented by the Major League Soccer side, Red Bull New York. The "Red Bulls" also play their home games at the Giants Stadium in New Jersey.
The city's National Basketball Association team is the New York Knicks and the city's Women's National Basketball Association team is the New York Liberty. Also within the metro area is the NBA team New Jersey Nets. The first national college-level basketball championship, the National Invitation Tournament, was held in New York in 1938 and remains in the city.[103] Rucker Park in Harlem is a celebrated court where many professional athletes play in the summer league.
The U.S. Tennis Open (held in Queens) is the fourth and final event of the Grand Slam tennis tournaments.
As a global city, New York supports many events outside these sports. Queens is host of the U.S. Tennis Open, one of the four Grand Slam tournaments. The New York City Marathon is the world's largest, and the 2004-2006 runnings hold the top three places in the marathons with the largest number of finishers, including 37,866 finishers in 2006.[104] The Millrose Games is an annual track and field meet whose featured event is the Wanamaker Mile. Boxing is also a very prominent part of the city's sporting scene, with events like the Amateur Boxing Golden Gloves being held at Madison Square Garden each year.
Many sports are associated with New York's immigrant communities. Stickball, a street version of baseball, was popularized by youths in working class Italian, German, and Irish neighborhoods in the 1930s. Stickball is still commonly played, as a street in The Bronx has been renamed Stickball Blvd. as tribute to New York's most known street sport. In recent years several amateur cricket leagues have emerged with the arrival of immigrants from South Asia and the Caribbean. Street hockey, football, and baseball are also commonly seen being played on the streets of New York. New York City is often called "The World's Biggest Urban Playground", as street sports are commonly played by people of all ages.[105]
Economy
Main article: Economy of New York City
| The Top 25 Fortune 500 Companies in New York City in 2008 (ranked by 2007 revenues) with New York and U.S. ranks | ||||
| NYC | corporation | US | ||
| Citigroup | ||||
| J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. | ||||
| American International Group | ||||
| Verizon Communications | ||||
| Goldman Sachs Group | ||||
| Morgan Stanley | ||||
| Merrill Lynch | ||||
| Lehman Brothers Holdings | ||||
| MetLife | ||||
| Pfizer | ||||
| Time Warner | ||||
| American Express | ||||
| Hess | ||||
| Alcoa | ||||
| New York Life Insurance | ||||
| News Corp. | ||||
| TIAA-CREF | ||||
| Bristol-Myers Squibb | ||||
| Loews | ||||
| Bear Stearns | ||||
| Bank of New York Mellon Corp. | ||||
| CBS | ||||
| L-3 Communications | ||||
| Colgate-Palmolive | ||||
| Viacom | ||||
| Notes | ||||
| Finance, insurance & securities (14 co's) | ||||
| Entertainment (4 companies) | ||||
| More detailed table and notes in Economy of New York City Source: Fortune[106] |
The New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street is the largest stock exchange in the world by dollar volume.
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).[107] The city is a major center for finance, insurance, real estate, media and the arts in the United States. The New York metropolitan area had an estimated gross metropolitan product of $1.13 trillion in 2005,[108][109] the largest regional economy in the United States and second largest city economy in the world.[110] Many major corporations are headquartered in New York City, including 43 Fortune 500 companies.[106][111] 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.[112]
New York City is home to some of the nation's—and the world's—most valuable real estate. 450 Park Avenue was sold on July 2, 2007 for $510 million, about $1,589 per square foot ($17,104/m²), breaking the barely month-old record for an American office building of $1,476 per square foot ($15,887/m²) set in the June 2007 sale of 660 Madison Avenue.[113]
Manhattan had 353.7 million square feet (32,860,000 m²) of office space in 2001.[114]
Midtown Manhattan is the largest central business district in the United States and is home to the highest concentration of the city's skyscrapers. Lower Manhattan is the third largest central business district in the United States, and is home to The New York Stock Exchange, located on Wall Street, and the NASDAQ, representing the world's first and second largest stock exchanges, respectively, when measured by average daily trading volume and overall market capitalization.[115] Financial services account for more than 35% of the city's employment income.[116] 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.[117] The Time Warner Center is the property with the highest-listed market value in the city, at $1.1 billion in 2006.[117]
The city's television and film industry is the second largest in the country after Hollywood.[118] Creative industries such as new media, advertising, fashion, design and architecture account for a growing share of employment, with New York City possessing a strong competitive advantage in these industries.[119] High-tech industries like biotechnology, software development, game design, and internet services are also growing, bolstered by the city's position at the terminus of several transatlantic fiber optic trunk lines.[120] Other important sectors include medical research and technology, non-profit institutions, and universities.
Manufacturing accounts for a large but declining share of employment. Garments, chemicals, metal products, processed foods, and furniture are some of the principal products.[121] The food-processing industry is the most stable major manufacturing sector in the city.[122] 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.[122]
Demographics
Main article: Demographics of New York City
| Historical populations | ||
| Year | Pop. | %± |
| 4,937 | — | |
| 5,840 | 18.3% | |
| 7,248 | 24.1% | |
| 10,664 | 47.1% | |
| 11,717 | 9.9% | |
| 13,046 | 11.3% | |
| 21,863 | 67.6% | |
| 33,131 | 51.5% | |
| 60,515 | 82.7% | |
| 96,373 | 59.3% | |
| 123,706 | 28.4% | |
| 202,589 | 63.8% | |
| 312,710 | 54.4% | |
| 515,547 | 64.9% | |
| 813,669 | 57.8% | |
| 942,292 | 15.8% | |
| 1,206,299 | 28.0% | |
| 1,515,301 | 25.6% | |
| 3,437,202 | 126.8% | |
| 4,766,883 | 38.7% | |
| 5,620,048 | 17.9% | |
| 6,930,446 | 23.3% | |
| 7,454,995 | 7.6% | |
| 7,891,957 | 5.9% | |
| 7,781,984 | −1.4% | |
| 7,894,862 | 1.5% | |
| 7,071,639 | −10.4% | |
| 7,322,564 | 3.5% | |
| 8,008,288 | 9.4% | |
| 2007* | 8,274,527 | 3.3% |
| Beginning 1900, figures are for consolidated city of five boroughs. Sources: 1698–1771,[123] 1790–1990,[124] *2007 est[125] |
New York is the most populous city in the United States, with an estimated 2007 population of 8,274,527 (up from 7.3 million in 1990).[75] 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's population has been increasing and demographers estimate New York's population will reach between 9.2 and 9.5 million by 2030.[126]
New York's two key demographic features are its population density and cultural diversity. The city's population density of 26,403 people per square mile (10,194/km²) makes it the most densely populated American municipality with a population above 100,000.[127] Manhattan's population density is 66,940 people per square mile (25,846/km²), highest of any county in the United States.[128][129]
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. Today, 36,7% of the city's population is foreign-born and another 3.9% were born in Puerto Rico, U.S. Island areas, or born abroad to American parents. [1] Among American cities, this proportion is exceeded only by Los Angeles and Miami.[129] 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 immigration are the Dominican Republic, China, Jamaica, Guyana, Mexico, Ecuador, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Colombia, and Russia.[130] About 170 languages are spoken in the city.[8]
The New York metropolitan area is home to the largest Jewish community outside Israel; Tel Aviv proper (non-metro/within municipal limits) has a smaller population than the Jewish population of New York City proper, making New York the largest Jewish community in the world. About 12% of New Yorkers are Jewish or of Jewish descent and roots.[131] It is also home to nearly a quarter of the nation's Indian Americans,[132] and the largest African American community of any city in the United States.
The five largest ethnic groups as of the 2005 census estimates are: Puerto Ricans, Italians, West Indians, Dominicans and Chinese.[133] The Puerto Rican population of New York City is the largest outside of Puerto Rico.[134] Italians emigrated to the city in large numbers in the early twentieth century. The Irish, the sixth largest ethnic group, 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.[135]
At the 2005-2007 American Community Survey Estimates, the city's population was 45.3% White (35.1% non-Hispanic White alone), 26.2% Black or African American (23.7% non-Hispanic Black or African American alone), 0.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 12.1% Asian, 0.1% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, 17.7% from some other race and 1.9% from two or more races. 27.4% of the total population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. [2]
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.[136] 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.[137] 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%.[138]
Home ownership in New York City is about 33%, much lower than the national average of 69%.[citation needed] Rental vacancy is usually between 3% and 4.5%, well below the 5% threshold defined to be a housing emergency and used to justify the continuation of rent control and rent stabilization. About 33% of rental units are rent-stabilized. Finding housing, particularly affordable housing, in New York City can be more than challenging.[139]
Government
Main article: Government of New York City
The Manhattan Municipal Building, a 40-story building built to accommodate increased governmental space demands after the 1898 consolidation of New York City.
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.[140] The mayor and councilors are limited to two four-year terms.
The mayor is Michael Bloomberg, a former Democrat and current independent elected as a Republican in 2001 and re-elected in 2005 with 59% of the vote.[141] 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.[142] Together with Boston mayor Thomas Menino, in 2006 he founded the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition, an organization with the goal of "making the public safer by getting illegal guns off the streets."[143] The Democratic Party holds the majority of public offices. As of November 2008, 67% of registered voters in the city are Democrats.[144] New York City has not been carried by a Republican in a statewide or presidential election since 1924. Party platforms center on affordable housing, education and economic development, and labor politics are of importance in the city.
New York City Hall is the oldest City Hall in the United States that still houses its original governmental functions.
New York is the most important source of political fundraising in the United States, as 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.[145] The city has a strong imbalance of payments with the national and state governments. It 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.[146]
Located near City Hall are the courthouse for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building. Manhattan also hosts the NY Appellate Division, First Department. Brooklyn hosts the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, and NY Appellate Division, Second Department. As with any county, each borough has a branch of the New York Supreme Court and other New York State courts.
Crime
Main article: Crime in New York City
See also: Law enforcement in New York City
Since 2005 the city has had the lowest crime rate among the 25 largest U.S. cities, having become significantly safer after a spike in crime in the 1980s and early 1990s from the crack epidemic that impacted many neighborhoods. By 2002, New York City had about the same crime rate as Provo, Utah and was ranked 197th in overall crime among the 216 U.S. cities with populations greater than 100,000. Violent crime in New York City decreased more than 75% from 1993 to 2005 and continued decreasing during periods when the nation as a whole saw increases.[147] In 2005 the homicide rate was at its lowest level since 1966,[148] and in 2007 the city recorded fewer than 500 homicides for the first time ever since crime statistics were first published in 1963.[citation needed]
Sociologists and criminologists have not reached consensus on what explains the dramatic decrease in the city's crime rate. Some attribute the phenomenon to new tactics used by the New York City Police Department, including its use of CompStat and the broken windows theory. Others cite the end of the crack epidemic and demographic changes.[149]
Organized crime has long been associated with New York City, beginning with the Forty Thieves and the Roach Guards in the Five Points in the 1820s. The 20th century saw a rise in the Mafia dominated by the Five Families. Gangs including the Black Spades also grew in the late 20th century.[150]
Education
Main article: Education in New York City
Fordham University's Keating Hall in The Bronx
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.[151] There are approximately 900 additional privately run secular and religious schools in the city, including some of the most prestigious private schools in the United States.[152] 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.[153] 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.[154] Public postsecondary education is provided by the City University of New York, the nation's third-largest public university system, and the Fashion Institute of Technology, part of the State University of New York. New York City is also home to such notable private universities as Barnard College, Columbia University, Cooper Union, Fordham University, New York University, The New School, and Yeshiva University. The city has dozens of other smaller private colleges and universities, including many religious and special-purpose institutions, such as St. John's University, The Juilliard School and The School of Visual Arts.
Columbia University's Low Memorial Library
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.[155] The city receives the second-highest amount of annual funding from the National Institutes of Health among all U.S. cities.[156] Major biomedical research institutions include Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Rockefeller University, SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Weill Cornell Medical College.
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.[157] Queens is served by the Queens Borough Public Library, which is the nation's second largest public library system, and Brooklyn Public Library serves Brooklyn.[157] The New York Public Library has several research libraries, including the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
New York City also features many of the most elite and exclusive private schools in the country. These schools include Brearley School, Dalton School, Spence School, The Chapin School, Nightingale-Bamford School, and Convent of the Sacred Heart on the Upper East Side of Manhattan; Collegiate School and Trinity School on the Upper West Side of Manhattan; Horace Mann School, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, and Riverdale Country School in Riverdale, Bronx; and The Packer Collegiate Institute and Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn.
Some of New York City's renowned public secondary schools, often considered the best in the nation, include: Hunter College High School, Stuyvesant High School, The Bronx High School of Science, Brooklyn Technical High School, Bard High School Early College, Townsend Harris High School, and LaGuardia High School. The city is home to the largest Roman Catholic high school in the U.S., St. Francis Preparatory School in Fresh Meadows, Queens, and the only official Italian-American school in the country, La Scuola d'Italia on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
Transportation
New York City is home to the two busiest rail stations in the US, including Grand Central Terminal, which is seen here.
Main article: Transportation in New York City
Unlike any other major city in the United States, public transit is the most popular way to get around. 54.6% of New Yorkers commuted to work in 2005 using mass transit.[158] 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.[159][160] This is in contrast to the rest of the country, where about 90% of commuters drive automobiles to their workplace.[161] New York is the only city in the United States where more than half of all households do not own a car[not in citation given] (in Manhattan, more than 75% of residents do not own a car;[not in citation given] nationally, the percentage is 8%).[161] According to the US Census Bureau, New York City residents spend an average of 38.4 minutes per day getting to work, the longest commute time in the nation among large cities.[162]
New York City is served by Amtrak, which uses Pennsylvania Station. Amtrak provides connections to Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.
Brooklyn Bridge
The New York City Subway is the largest rapid transit system in the world when measured by the number of stations in operation, with 468. It is the third-largest when measured by annual ridership (1.5 billion passenger trips in 2006).[159] New York's subway is also notable because nearly all of the system remains open 24 hours per day, in contrast to the overnight shutdown common to systems in most cities, including London, Paris, Washington, Madrid and Tokyo. The transportation system in New York City is extensive and complex. It includes the longest suspension bridge in North America,[163] the world's first mechanically ventilated vehicular tunnel,[164] more than 12,000 yellow cabs,[165] an aerial tramway that transports commuters between Roosevelt Island and Manhattan, and a ferry system connecting Manhattan to various locales within and outside the city. The busiest ferry in the United States is the Staten Island Ferry, which annually carries over 19 million passengers on the 5.2-mile (8.4 km) run between Staten Island and Lower Manhattan. The "PATH" train (short for Port Authority Trans-Hudson) is a subway system going under the Hudson River, linking the New York City subway to points in northeast New Jersey.
New York City's public bus fleet and commuter rail network are the largest in North America.[159] The rail network, which connects the suburbs in the tri-state region to the city, has more than 250 stations and 20 rail lines.[159][166] The commuter rail system converges at Grand Central Terminal and Pennsylvania Station.
The TWA Flight Center Building at John F. Kennedy International Airport
New York City is the top international air passenger gateway to the United States.[167] The area is served by three major airports, John F. Kennedy International, Newark Liberty International and LaGuardia, with plans for a fourth airport, Stewart International Airport near Newburgh, NY, to be taken over and enlarged by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (which administers the other three airports), as a "reliever" airport to help cope with increasing passenger volume. 100 million travelers used the three airports in 2005 and the city's airspace is the busiest in the nation.[168] Outbound international travel from JFK and Newark accounted for about a quarter of all U.S. travelers who went overseas in 2004.[169]
The New York City Subway is the world's largest mass transit system by number of stations and length of track.
New York's high rate of public transit use, 120,000 daily cyclists[170] and many pedestrian commuters makes it the most energy-efficient major city in the United States.[46] 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%.[171]
To complement New York's vast mass transit network, the city also has an extensive web of expressways and parkways, that link New York City to northern New Jersey, Westchester County, Long Island, and southwest Connecticut through various bridges and tunnels. Because these highways serve millions of suburban residents who commute into New York, it is quite common for motorists to be stranded for hours in traffic jams that are a daily occurrence, particularly during rush hour. The George Washington Bridge is considered one of the world's busiest bridges in terms of vehicle traffic.[172]
Despite New York's reliance on public transit, roads are a defining feature of the city. Manhattan's street grid plan greatly influenced the city's physical development. Several of the city's streets and avenues, like Broadway, Wall Street and Madison Avenue are also used as shorthand in the American vernacular for national industries located there: the theater, finance, and advertising organizations, respectively.
Sister cities
| Date | Sister City | |
 | Tokyo, Japan | |
 | Beijing, China | |
 | Cairo, Egypt | |
 | Madrid, Spain | |
 | Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic | |
 | Budapest, Hungary | |
 | Rome, Italy | |
 | Jerusalem, Israel | |
 | London,1 United Kingdom | |
 | Johannesburg, South Africa | |
| | Santiago, Dominican Republic | |
| 1. both Greater London and the City of London |
New York City has ten sister cities recognized by Sister Cities International (SCI).[173] The date indicates the year in which the city was twinned with New York City.
Like New York City, all except Beijing are the most populous cities of their respective countries.[174]
Unlike
Great Britain