With an estimated population in 2022 of 8,335,897 distributed over 300.46 square miles (778.2 km2), the city is the most densely populated major city in the United States. New York has more than double the population of Los Angeles, the nation's second-most populous city. New York is the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the U.S. by both population and urban area. With more than 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York City is one of the world's most populous megacities. The city and its metropolitan area are the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. In 2021, the city was home to nearly 3.1 million residents born outside the U.S., the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world. (Full article...)
The area was initially occupied by the Canarsee band of Munsee-speaking Lenape until the first European settlement occurred in 1636. Through the late 19th century, Sunset Park was sparsely developed and was considered part of Bay Ridge or South Brooklyn. The arrival of elevated railways and the subway led to Sunset Park's development, with middle-class row houses and industrial buildings being erected in the 1890s through the 1920s. After the decline of the industrial hubs in the 1940s and 1950s, the name "Sunset Park" was given to the region north of 65th Street as part of an urban renewal initiative. Immigrant groups started moving to the neighborhood in the late 20th century due to its relative affordability. By the 21st century, the neighborhood's population is primarily composed of Hispanics and Chinese immigrants along with swaths of predominantly white young urban professionals and the remaining vestiges of Scandinavian, Irish and Italian communities.
Constance Hopkins Snow Dallas (April 28, 1902 – January 13, 1983) was an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, she served on the Philadelphia City Council as a representative of the city's 8th district. Born in New York and educated in Europe, Dallas came to Philadelphia as a teenager. After marriage and raising children, she entered local politics as a reform-minded Democrat. Following an unsuccessful run for City Council in 1947, she was elected in 1951, the first woman to serve in that legislative body.
Dallas was elected as part of a coalition between the Democratic Party organization and reforming independents who wished to challenge the Republican city government. The reforms in question focused many on shifting power from the city council to the mayor and in converting the longstanding patronage system to convert to a merit system of city employment. Her reformist tendencies clashed with some of the party organization, and she went down to defeat in 1955. After a second career as a newspaper editor and investment banker, she retired in 1978 and died in 1983. (Full article...)
The Tiffany Building has a marble facade inspired by that of the Palazzo Grimani di San Luca in Venice. The facade is divided by large entablatures and cornices into three horizontal tiers; the lowest tier has square piers and rectangular openings, while the second and third tiers have round columns and arched openings. The Tiffany Building has a steel superstructure and a sloped metal roof that resembles a tiled roof. The interior originally comprised seven above-ground stories and two basement levels; a mezzanine was added above the first story in 1952. The basement contained a vault, the first six stories contained various departments of the store, and the seventh story was an exhibition space. The interiors were decorated with various woods, marbles, and Guastavino tiles, much of which has since been removed.
Tiffany & Co.'s president Charles T. Cook developed the building, which cost $600,000 and opened on September 5, 1905. The Tiffany store prospered through the 1920s, but it suffered through the Great Depression. After the company moved to a new flagship store on 57th Street in 1940, the building was occupied by American Red Cross and Textron in the 1940s. Henry Goelet of the Goelet family acquired the building in 1951 and renovated the lower stories, while the upper stories were occupied by Allied Stores from 1950 to 1973. Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church bought the Tiffany Building in 1977 and used it as a newspaper office. Following a failed plan in the late 1980s to build a tower above the Tiffany Building, the upper stories were used as television studios. The Stahl Real Estate Company bought the building in 2000 and renovated the lower stories. (Full article...)
The Circle in the Square Theatre was named for its first location at 5 Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village, which opened in February 1951 and was operated as a theater in the round. During the 1950s and 1960s, the theater became what Women's Wear Daily described as the "center of Off-Broadway". The Sheridan Square theater was closed temporarily between 1954 and 1955 and was demolished in 1960. The company then moved to 159 Bleecker Street, known as Circle in the Square Downtown; that location continued to operate until about 1995. In addition to its Sheridan Square and Bleecker Street locations, the Circle hosted shows at other locations such as Ford's Theatre and the Henry Miller's Theatre.
The Gershwin Theatre and the Circle in the Square's Broadway house were built as part of Paramount Plaza (originally known as the Uris Building). The Circle's Broadway house opened on November 15, 1972, and operated as a nonprofit subscription-supported producing house for the next 25 years. The theater typically presented three or four shows per year in the 1970s and 1980s, but, by the 1990s, the theater had a $1.5 million deficit. Following an unsuccessful attempt to appoint new leadership in 1994, the company filed for bankruptcy in 1997. The theater reopened in 1999, now operating as an independent commercial receiving house. The Circle in the Square Theatre School, a drama school within Paramount Plaza, is associated with the Circle in the Square Theatre. (Full article...)
The mansion's limestone facade is rusticated on its lowest two stories, with segmental archways and multiple entrances to the south and east. There is French-inspired detailing on the facade, especially around the double-height windows and balcony on the third story. The house has French-style interiors and is divided into front and rear sections, with an oval entrance hall connecting the floors. The first floor originally contained reception spaces while the second floor was devoted to living quarters. On the third story were spaces such as Burdens' ballroom, dining room, and reception hall; there were two additional stories above it.
Andrew Carnegie purchased the site in 1898 to protect the value of his nearby mansion. William D. Sloane, of the W. & J. Sloane furniture family, acquired the site from Carnegie in 1901 and commissioned the Burden House and the adjacent John Henry Hammond House as wedding presents for his daughters. The house served as the Burden family's home from 1905 to 1933. The contents of the house were auctioned by Parke-Bernet, and the Convent of the Sacred Heart purchased the mansion in 1940. The Convent used the house as a boarding school until 1966, then converted it into classrooms. The house was renovated in the late 20th century, though many of the interior spaces have been preserved. (Full article...)
Coney Island beach, amusement parks, and high-rises, as seen from the pier in June 2016
Coney Island is a peninsular neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach to its east, Lower New York Bay to the south and west, and Gravesend to the north and includes the subsection of Sea Gate on its west. More broadly, the Coney Island peninsula consists of Coney Island proper, Brighton Beach, and Manhattan Beach. This was formerly the westernmost of the Outer Barrier islands on the southern shore of Long Island, but in the early 20th century it became a peninsula, connected to the rest of Long Island by land fill.
The origin of Coney Island's name is disputed, but the area was originally part of the colonial town of Gravesend. By the mid-19th century it had become a seaside resort, and by the late 19th century, amusement parks had also been built at the location. The attractions reached a historical peak during the first half of the 20th century. However, they declined in popularity after World War II and, following years of neglect, several structures were torn down. Various redevelopment projects were proposed for Coney Island in the 1970s through the 2000s, though most of these were not carried out. The area was revitalized with the opening of the venue now known as Maimonides Park in 2001 and several amusement rides starting in the 2010s.
Coney Island had around 32,000 residents as of the 2010 United States Census. The neighborhood is ethnically diverse, and the neighborhood's poverty rate of 27% is slightly higher than that of the city as a whole. (Full article...)
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Judah in 2010
Zabdiel Judah (born October 27, 1977) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1996 to 2019. He held multiple world championships in two weight classes, including the IBF and WBOjunior welterweight titles between 2000 and 2004; the undisputedwelterweight title in 2005, which included a reign as the lineal champion from 2005 to 2006; and the IBF junior welterweight title again in 2011. Judah's career ended in 2019 when he was hospitalized after suffering a brain bleed in a stoppage loss to Cletus Seldin. (Full article...)
The 40-story building is designed in the Art Deco style and contains numerous setbacks as mandated by the 1916 Zoning Resolution. The facade of the lowest six stories are clad with black granite and contain large display windows for stores, as well as large windows for art galleries. The triple-height main entrance is decorated with architectural sculpture by Elie Nadelman. The remaining stories are largely designed with light cast stone and smaller windows. The interior has richly decorated vestibules and lobby featuring marble walls, bronze detailing, and mosaic floors.
The Fuller Building was constructed as part of the artistic hub that occupied East 57th Street during the early 20th century. At the time of its completion, the Fuller Building housed several art galleries with the address 41 East 57th Street, as well as offices at the address 595 Madison Avenue. It was purchased several times over the years before being acquired in 1999 by Vornado Realty Trust, its owner . The Fuller Building and its interior became New York City designated landmarks in 1986. (Full article...)
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Seen at sunset in 2019
The Rockaway Beach and Boardwalk is a public park in Rockaway, Queens, New York, composed of the 170-acre (69 ha) Rockaway Beach and the adjacent 5.5-mile (8.9 km) Rockaway Boardwalk. The beach runs from Beach 9th Street in Far Rockaway to Beach 149th Street in Neponsit, a distance of 7 miles (11 km). The boardwalk, a concrete deck, runs from Beach 9th Street to Beach 126th Street in Rockaway Park, at the edge of Belle Harbor. There are also numerous recreational facilities within the park, parallel to the beach and boardwalk.
The beach became a popular resort area in the late 19th century, and several disconnected sections of the boardwalk were constructed by the end of the century. The first section of city-owned boardwalk between Beach 109th and 126th Street was completed in 1923, and the city announced plans for a massive boardwalk two years later, stretching across most of the Rockaway peninsula's southern shore. The city government completed the sections between Beach 19th and 109th Streets in three phases between 1928 and 1930. The concrete boardwalk from Beach 9th Street to Beach 19th Street was completed in 1963. After Hurricane Sandy destroyed much of the boardwalk in 2012, it was rebuilt in several phases through 2017.
Steiger was born in Westhampton, New York, the son of a vaudevillian. He had a difficult childhood, running away from home to escape an alcoholic mother at the age of 16. After serving in the South Pacific during World War II, he began his acting career with television roles in 1947, and went on to garner critical acclaim for his portrayal of the main character in the teleplay "Marty" (1953). He made his stage debut in 1946, in a production of Curse you, Jack Dalton! at the Civic Repertory Theatre of Newark, and subsequently appeared in productions such as An Enemy of the People (1950), Clifford Odets's Night Music (1951), Seagulls Over Sorrento (1952), and Rashomon (1959).
Steiger made his film debut in Fred Zinnemann's Teresa in 1951, and subsequently appeared in films such as The Big Knife (1955), Oklahoma! (1955), Jubal (1956), Across the Bridge (1957), and Al Capone (1959). After his performance in The Pawnbroker in 1964, in which he played an embittered Jewish Holocaust survivor working as a pawnbroker in New York City, he portrayed an opportunistic Russian politician in David Lean's Doctor Zhivago (1965). In the Heat of the Night (1967) won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Steiger, who was lauded for his performance as a Mississippi police chief who learns to respect an African-American officer (Poitier) as they search for a killer. The following year, he played a serial killer of many guises in No Way to Treat a Lady. (Full article...)
One and Two United Nations Plaza, which respectively opened in 1975 and 1983, are both mixed-use buildings with offices on their lowest stories. The exteriors of both buildings have an angular massing bent at several places, as well as a facade made of glass. The ground story contains the lobby, which consists of a reception area, foyer, and ramp with mirrored surfaces and polygonal lamps. The ramp leads to the Ambassador Grill and Bar at the rear of the hotel; the grill is a popular meeting spot for United Nations diplomats. There are restaurants and meeting spaces on the second story and guest rooms on the 27th through 39th stories. In addition, the hotel contains a swimming pool and an indoor tennis court.
The United Nations Development Corporation (UNDC) developed the hotel, which was owned by the New York City government and operated by Hyatt. The hotel opened on June 8, 1976, with 288 rooms on the top 13 stories of One UN Plaza. The UN Plaza Hotel was further expanded in 1984 after the completion of Two UN Plaza. The hotel was popular among UN diplomats and was consistently profitable in the first two decades of its operation. The New York City government sold the hotel in 1997 to Regal Hotels International, and Millennium & Copthorne Hotels took over the hotel in 1999, renovating it two years later. The hotel was further renovated in the 2010s, during which the Ambassador Grill and the lobby were protected as landmarks. The UN Plaza Hotel became part of the Hilton brand in 2017. (Full article...)
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Junction in Jersey City at tubes' west end from a 1909 illustration
Dewitt Clinton Haskin first attempted to construct the Uptown Hudson Tubes in 1873. Work was delayed by five years by a lawsuit, and was further disrupted by an 1880 accident that killed twenty workers. The project was canceled in 1883 due to a lack of money. A British company attempted to complete the tunnels in 1888, but also ran out of money by 1892, by which point the tunnels were nearly half-finished. In 1901, a company formed by William Gibbs McAdoo resumed work on the tubes, and by 1907, the tunnels were fully bored. The Uptown Hudson Tubes opened to passenger service in 1908 as part of the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad (H&M) and were completed by 1910.
After the Uptown Hudson Tubes' opening, the H&M proposed extending them northward to Grand Central Terminal, as well as creating a crosstown spur line that would run under Ninth Street in Manhattan. However, neither extension was ultimately constructed. In the 1930s, parts of the tubes under Sixth Avenue were rebuilt due to the construction of the Independent Subway System (IND)'s Sixth Avenue Line. The Uptown Hudson Tubes contained seven original stations; two stations at 19th and 28th streets were later closed and the 33rd Street terminal was rebuilt. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey took over the H&M and the tunnels in 1962, rebranding the H&M as part of the PATH system. The Hoboken–33rd Street and Journal Square–33rd Street services operate through the tubes on weekdays, while the Journal Square–33rd Street (via Hoboken) service operates on weekends, nights, and holidays. (Full article...)
Pelham Bay Park contains many geographical features, both natural and man-made. The park includes several peninsulas, including Rodman's Neck, Tallapoosa Point, and the former Hunter and Twin Islands. A lagoon runs through the center of Pelham Bay Park, and Eastchester Bay splits the southwestern corner from the rest of the park. There are also several recreational areas within the park. Orchard Beach runs along Pelham Bay on the park's eastern shore. Two golf courses and various nature trails are located within the park's central section. Other landmarks include the Bartow-Pell Mansion, a city landmark, as well as the Bronx Victory Column & Memorial Grove.
Before its creation, the land comprising the current Pelham Bay Park was part of Anne Hutchinson's short-lived dissident colony. Part of New Netherland, it was destroyed in 1643 by a Siwanoy attack in reprisal for the unrelated massacres carried out under Willem Kieft's direction of the Dutch West India Company's New Amsterdam colony. In 1654 an Englishman named Thomas Pell purchased 50,000 acres (20,000 ha) from the Siwanoy, land which would become known as Pelham Manor after Charles II's 1666 charter. During the American Revolutionary War, the land was a buffer between British-held New York City and rebel-held Westchester, serving as the site of the Battle of Pell's Point, where Massachusettsmilitia hiding behind stone walls (still visible at one of the park's golf courses) stopped a British advance. (Full article...)
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Times Square Theater, with entrance to Apollo Theater (left), 1922
The Times Square Theater was designed simultaneously with the now-demolished Apollo Theatre immediately to the north and west. The theaters shared a symmetrical facade on 42nd Street, which is made of limestone and contains a central colonnade. The Times Square Theater took up most of the facade, though the western section was occupied by the Apollo Theatre's entrance. Inside, the Times Square Theater had a fan-shaped auditorium that could seat 1,155 people. The auditorium was designed in a silver, green, and black color scheme and had a shallow balcony, box seats, and murals. As part of a renovation proposed in 2018, the theater building will be substantially expanded with a glass annex, the original facade will be raised, and some of the interior elements will be preserved.
The Times Square opened on September 30, 1920, with Edgar Selwyn's play The Mirage. The theater mostly hosted legitimate shows in its first decade, but it briefly screened films in 1926 and 1928. Notable shows included The Front Page (1928), Strike Up the Band (1930), and Private Lives (1931). The theater staged its last show in 1933, and the theater became a cinema the next year. The Brandt family operated the Times Square for the next five decades, showing westerns and action films. There were several proposals to redevelop theaters along 42nd Street in the 1980s. New 42nd Street took over the Times Square and several neighboring theaters in 1990, but the theater building was difficult to lease out because of its lack of a rear entrance. Among the unsuccessful bids were those by MTV, Marvel Mania, Livent, Ecko Unltd., and a 4D theater company. Stillman Development International leased the building in 2017 and hired Beyer Blinder Belle to renovate it. (Full article...)
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Signature Bank was an American full-service commercial bank headquartered in New York City and with 40 private client offices in the states of New York, Connecticut, California, Nevada, and North Carolina. In addition to banking products, specialty national businesses provided services specific to industries such as commercial real estate, private equity, mortgage servicing, and venture banking; subsidiaries of the bank provided equipment financing and investment services. At the end of 2022, the bank had total assets of US$110.4 billion and deposits of $82.6 billion; as of 2021, it had loans of $65.25 billion.
Signature Bank was founded in 2001 by former executives and employees of Republic National Bank of New York after its purchase by HSBC. It focused on wealthy clients and built personal relationships with them. For most of its history, it had offices only in the New York City area. In the late 2010s, it began to expand geographically and in terms of services, though it was most noted for its 2018 decision to open itself to the cryptocurrency industry. By 2021, cryptocurrency businesses had represented 30 percent of its deposits.
Banking officials in the state of New York closed the bank on March 12, 2023, two days after the failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). After SVB failed and in light of the closure of the cryptocurrency-friendly Silvergate Bank earlier in the week, nervous customers withdrew more than $10 billion in deposits. It was the third-largest bank failure in U.S. history. Two days after Signature was closed, it became known that the bank was being investigated by the United States Department of Justice concerning its failure to properly scrutinize clients' activities for signs of money laundering. At the time of its closure by state banking officials, the bank was rated as the fourth U.S. bank by uninsured banking deposits, with 89.3 percent of deposits being uninsured; internal reviews by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and New York state regulators noted that Signature's risk control and corporate governance had not grown commensurate with an increase in deposits in the late 2010s and early 2020s. (Full article...)
Organized in 1924, the congregation's Renaissance revival building that was completed in 1929 typified the large multi-purpose synagogue centers being built at the time, and was from the 1990s until 2010 the only synagogue with a working swimming pool in Brooklyn. The building has been unmodified architecturally since its construction, and in 2006 was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Membership dropped during the Great Depression, and the synagogue suffered financial hardship, but it recovered, and by 1941 had 1,100 member families. In 1950 the congregation built an adjoining school; at its peak its enrollment was almost 1,000. As neighborhood demographics changed in the late 20th century, and Brooklyn's Jewish population became more Orthodox, the East Midwood Jewish Center absorbed three other Conservative Brooklyn congregations. (Full article...)
Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Islam (NOI) until 1964, he was a vocal advocate for Black empowerment and the promotion of Islam within the Black community. A posthumous autobiography, on which he collaborated with Alex Haley, was published in 1965.
Malcolm spent his adolescence living in a series of foster homes or with relatives after his father's death and his mother's hospitalization. He committed various crimes, being sentenced to 8 to 10 years in prison in 1946 for larceny and burglary. In prison, he joined the Nation of Islam, adopting the name MalcolmX to symbolize his unknown African ancestral surname while discarding "the white slavemaster name of 'Little'", and after his parole in 1952 quickly became one of the organization's most influential leaders. He was the public face of the organization for 12 years, advocating Black empowerment and separation of Black and White Americans, and criticizing Martin Luther King Jr. and the mainstream civil rights movement for its emphasis on non-violence and racial integration. Malcolm X also expressed pride in some of the Nation's social welfare achievements, such as its free drug rehabilitation program. From the 1950s onward, Malcolm X was subjected to surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). (Full article...)
The Bronx is divided by the Bronx River into a hillier section in the west, and a flatter eastern section. East and west street names are divided by Jerome Avenue. The West Bronx was annexed to New York City in 1874, and the areas east of the Bronx River in 1895. Bronx County was separated from New York County (modern-day Manhattan) in 1914. About a quarter of the Bronx's area is open space, including Woodlawn Cemetery, Van Cortlandt Park, Pelham Bay Park, the New York Botanical Garden, and the Bronx Zoo in the borough's north and center. The Thain Family Forest at the New York Botanical Garden is thousands of years old and is New York City's largest remaining tract of the original forest that once covered the city. These open spaces are primarily on land reserved in the late 19th century as urban development progressed north and east from Manhattan. (Full article...)
Staten Island (/ˈstætən/STAT-ən) is the southernmost borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County and situated at the southern most point of New York. The borough is separated from the adjacent state of New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull and from the rest of New York by New York Bay. With a population of 495,747 in the 2020 Census, Staten Island is the least populated New York City borough but the third largest in land area at 58.5 sq mi (152 km2); it is also the least densely populated and most suburban borough in the city.
A home to the Lenape indigenous people, the island was settled by Dutch colonists in the 17th century. It was one of the 12 original counties of New York state. Staten Island was consolidated with New York City in 1898. It was formerly known as the Borough of Richmond until 1975, when its name was changed to Borough of Staten Island. Staten Island has sometimes been called "the forgotten borough" by inhabitants who feel neglected by the city government. It has also been referred to as the "borough of parks" due to its 12,300 acres of protected parkland and over 170 parks. (Full article...)
With a population of 2,405,464 as of the 2020 census, Queens is the second-most populous county in New York state, behind Kings County (Brooklyn), and is therefore also the second-most populous of the five New York City boroughs. If Queens were its own city, it would be the fourth most-populous in the U.S. after New York City itself, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Queens is the fourth-most densely populated borough in New York City and the fourth-most densely populated U.S. county. About 47% of its residents are foreign-born. Queens is the most linguistically and ethnically diverse place on Earth. (Full article...)
Named after the Dutch town of Breukelen in the Netherlands, Brooklyn shares a border with the borough of Queens. It has several bridge and tunnel connections to the borough of Manhattan, across the East River, and is connected to Staten Island by way of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. With a land area of 69.38 square miles (179.7 km2) and a water area of 27.48 square miles (71.2 km2), Kings County is the state of New York's fourth-smallest county by land area and third smallest by total area. (Full article...)
Image 12The Sunday magazine of the New York World appealed to immigrants with this April 29, 1906 cover page celebrating their arrival at Ellis Island. (from History of New York City (1898–1945))
Image 14Anderson Avenue garbage strike. A common scene throughout New York City in 1968 during a sanitation workers strike (from History of New York City (1946–1977))
... that Lucy Feagin founded the Feagin School of Dramatic Art in New York City, where talent scouts for radio, screen, and stage were always present to watch her senior students' plays?
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