A panorama of New York City taken from Hoboken, NJ. Beginning at the George Washington Bridge on the far left to Midtown Manhattan in the middle and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge at the far right.
View of the Midtown Manhattan skyline, looking north from the Empire State Building
Architecture
Brownstone rowhouses in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
The Empire State Building and Chrysler Building
The building design most closely associated with New York City is the skyscraper, whose introduction and widespread adoption saw New York buildings shift from the low-scale European convention to the vertical rise of business districts.
As of August 2008, New York City has 5,538 highrise buildings with 50 completed skyscrapers taller than 656 feet (200 m). This is more than any other city in United States, and second in the world behind Hong Kong.
New York has architecturally noteworthy 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 1916 Zoning Resolution required setback in new buildings, and restricted towers to a percentage of the lot size, to allow sunlight to reach the streets below
Manhattan's architectural skyline is universally recognized, and the city has been home to several of the tallest buildings in the world. The original Chinatown in Lower Manhattan is one of the most prominent ethnic Chinese enclaves outside of Asia and draws throngs of tourists to its bustling sidewalks, restaurants, and discount retail establishments.
The Art Deco style of the Chrysler Building (1930), with its tapered top and steel spire, reflected the zoning requirements. The building is considered by many historians and architects to be New York's finest building, with its 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.
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 prominent example of green design in American skyscrapers.
New York's large residential districts are often defined by the classic brownstone rowhouses, townhouses, and shabby tenements that were built during a period of rapid growth 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 contain a variety of textures and hues
A distinctive feature of many of the city's buildings is the 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 break municipal water pipes.
Garden apartments became popular during the 1920s in outlying areas, including Jackson Heights in Queens, which became more accessible with expansion of the subway
Parks
1) Central Park
2) Van Cortlandt Park
3) Bronx Park
4) Pelham Bay Park
5) Flushing Meadows Park
6) Forest Park
7) Prospect Park
8) Floyd Bennett Field
9) Jamaica Bay
A) Jacob Riis Park and Fort Tilden
B) Fort Wadsworth
C) Miller Field
D) Great Kills Park
New York City has over 28,000 acres (110 km
2) of municipal parkland and 14 miles (23 km) of public beaches.
This parkland is augmented by thousands of acres of Gateway National Recreation Area, part of the National Park system, that lie within city boundaries.
The Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, the only wildlife refuge in the National Park System, alone is over 9,000 acres (36 km2) of wetland islands and water taking up most of Jamaica Bay.
The Unisphere in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens.
Manhattan's Central Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, is the most visited city park in the United States with 30 million visitors each year. While much of the park looks natural, it is almost entirely landscaped.
It contains several natural-looking lakes and ponds, extensive walking tracks, bridle paths, two ice-skating rinks one of which is a swimming pool in July and August, the Central Park Zoo, the Central Park Conservatory Garden, a wildlife sanctuary, a large expanse of natural woods, a 106-acre (43 ha) billion gallon reservoir with an encircling running track, and an outdoor amphitheater called the Delacorte Theater which hosts the "Shakespeare in the Park" summer festivals. Indoor attractions include Belvedere Castle with its nature center, the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre, and the historic Carousel.
In addition there are numerous major and minor grassy areas. Some are used for informal or team sports, some are set aside as quiet areas, and some are enclosed as playgrounds for children. The park has its own wildlife and serves as an oasis for migrating birds, especially in the fall and the spring, making it a significant attraction for bird watchers; 200 species of birds are regularly seen. The 6 miles (10 km) of drives within the park are used by joggers, bicyclists and inline skaters, especially on weekends, and in the evenings after 7:00 p.m., when automobile traffic is banned. Prospect Park in Brooklyn, also designed by Olmsted and Vaux, has a 90-acre (360,000 m2) meadow.
Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, the city's third largest, was the setting for the 1939 World's Fair and the 1964 World's Fair.
Over a fifth of the Bronx's area, 7,000 acres (28 km2), is given over to open space and parks, including Van Cortlandt Park, Pelham Bay Park, the Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Gardens.
Boroughs
Main articles: Borough (New York City) and Neighborhoods of New York City
New York City is composed of five boroughs, an unusual form of government Each borough is coextensive with a respective county of New York State as shown below. Throughout the boroughs there are hundreds of distinct neighborhoods, many with a definable history and character to call 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.
| New York's Five Boroughs at a Glance |
| Jurisdiction | Population | Land Area |
| Borough of | County of | estimate for
1 July 2008 | square
miles | square
km |
| Manhattan | New York | 1,634,795 | 23 | 59 |
| the Bronx | Bronx | 1,391,903 | 42 | 109 |
| Brooklyn | Kings | 2,556,598 | 71 | 183 |
| Queens | Queens | 2,293,007 | 109 | 283 |
| Staten Island | Richmond | 487,407 | 58 | 151 |
| City of New York | 8,363,710 | 303 | 786 |
| State of New York | 19,490,297 | 47,214 | 122,284 |
| Source: United States Census Bureau[74][75][76] |
The Bronx (Bronx County: Pop. 1,391,903) is New York City's northernmost borough, the location of Yankee Stadium, home of the New York Yankees, and home to the largest cooperatively owned housing complex in the United States, Co-op City.
Except for a small section of Manhattan known as Marble Hill, the Bronx is the only section of the city that is part of the United States mainland. It is home to the Bronx Zoo, the largest metropolitan zoo in the United States, which spans 265 acres (1.07 km
2) and is home to over 6,000 animals.
The Bronx is the birthplace of rap and hip hop culture
Manhattan (New York County: Pop. 1,620,867)
is the most densely populated borough and is home to Central Park and most of the city's skyscrapers. The borough is the financial center of the city and contains the headquarters of many major corporations, the United Nations, a number of important universities, and many cultural attractions. Manhattan is loosely divided into Lower, Midtown, and Uptown regions. Uptown Manhattan is divided by Central Park into the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side, and above the park is Harlem.
The five boroughs:
1.Manhattan,
2.Brooklyn,
3.Queens,
4.The Bronx,
5.Staten Island
Brooklyn (Kings County: Pop. 2,528,050) is the city's most populous borough and was an independent city until 1898. Brooklyn is known for its cultural, social and ethnic diversity, an independent art scene, distinct neighborhoods and a distinctive architectural heritage.
It is also the only borough outside of Manhattan with a distinct downtown neighborhood. The borough features a long beachfront and Coney Island, established in the 1870s as one of the earliest amusement grounds in the country.
Queens (Queens County: Pop. 2,270,338)
is geographically the largest borough and the most ethnically diverse county in the United States,
and may overtake Brooklyn as the city's most populous borough due to its growth. Historically a collection of small towns and villages founded by the Dutch, today the borough is predominantly residential and middle class. Queens County is the only large county in the United States where the median income among African Americans, approximately $52,000 a year, is higher than that of White Americans.
Queens is the site of Citi Field, the home of the New York Mets, and annually hosts the U.S. Open tennis tournament. Additionally, it is home to two of the three major airports serving the New York metropolitan area, LaGuardia Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport. (The third is Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey.)
Staten Island (Richmond County: Pop. 481,613)
is the most suburban in character of the five boroughs. Staten Island is connected to Brooklyn by the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and to Manhattan by way of the free Staten Island Ferry. The Staten Island Ferry is one of the most popular tourist attractions in New York City as it provides unsurpassed views of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and lower Manhattan. Located in central Staten Island, the 25 km² Greenbelt has some 35 miles (56 km) of walking trails and one of the last undisturbed forests in the city. Designated in 1984 to protect the island's natural lands, the Greenbelt comprises seven city parks. The FDR Boardwalk along South Beach is 2.5 miles (4.0 km) long, the fourth largest in the world
