1.
Manhattan
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Manhattan is the most densely populated borough of New York City, its economic and administrative center, and the citys historical birthplace. The borough is coextensive with New York County, founded on November 1,1683, Manhattan is often described as the cultural and financial capital of the world and hosts the United Nations Headquarters. Many multinational media conglomerates are based in the borough and it is historically documented to have been purchased by Dutch colonists from Native Americans in 1626 for 60 guilders which equals US$1062 today. New York County is the United States second-smallest county by land area, on business days, the influx of commuters increases that number to over 3.9 million, or more than 170,000 people per square mile. Manhattan has the third-largest population of New York Citys five boroughs, after Brooklyn and Queens, the City of New York was founded at the southern tip of Manhattan, and the borough houses New York City Hall, the seat of the citys government. The name Manhattan derives from the word Manna-hata, as written in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, a 1610 map depicts the name as Manna-hata, twice, on both the west and east sides of the Mauritius River. The word Manhattan has been translated as island of hills from the Lenape language. The United States Postal Service prefers that mail addressed to Manhattan use New York, NY rather than Manhattan, the area that is now Manhattan was long inhabited by the Lenape Native Americans. In 1524, Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano – sailing in service of King Francis I of France – was the first European to visit the area that would become New York City. It was not until the voyage of Henry Hudson, an Englishman who worked for the Dutch East India Company, a permanent European presence in New Netherland began in 1624 with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island. In 1625, construction was started on the citadel of Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, later called New Amsterdam, the 1625 establishment of Fort Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan Island is recognized as the birth of New York City. In 1846, New York historian John Romeyn Brodhead converted the figure of Fl 60 to US$23, variable-rate myth being a contradiction in terms, the purchase price remains forever frozen at twenty-four dollars, as Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace remarked in their history of New York. Sixty guilders in 1626 was valued at approximately $1,000 in 2006, based on the price of silver, Straight Dope author Cecil Adams calculated an equivalent of $72 in 1992. In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed as the last Dutch Director General of the colony, New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on February 2,1653. In 1664, the English conquered New Netherland and renamed it New York after the English Duke of York and Albany, the Dutch Republic regained it in August 1673 with a fleet of 21 ships, renaming the city New Orange. Manhattan was at the heart of the New York Campaign, a series of battles in the early American Revolutionary War. The Continental Army was forced to abandon Manhattan after the Battle of Fort Washington on November 16,1776. The city, greatly damaged by the Great Fire of New York during the campaign, became the British political, British occupation lasted until November 25,1783, when George Washington returned to Manhattan, as the last British forces left the city
2.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
3.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
4.
44th Street (Manhattan)
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The New York City borough of Manhattan contains 228 numbered east–west streets, the majority of them created by the Commissioners Plan of 1811. These streets do not run exactly east–west, because the plan is aligned with the Hudson River, rather than with the cardinal direction. Thus, the grids west is approximately 29 degrees north of true west, the grid covers the length of the island from 14th Street north. All numbered streets carry an East or West prefix, which changes from one to the other at Broadway below 8th Street, the numbered streets carry crosstown traffic. In general, but with exceptions, even-numbered streets are one-way eastbound. Most wider streets, and a few of the narrow ones, some streets in that area that do continue farther west change direction before reaching the Hudson River. 220th Street is the highest numbered street on Manhattan Island, but Marble Hill is also within the borough of Manhattan, the numbering system continues in the Bronx, up to 263rd Street. The lowest numbered street in Manhattan is East First Street, which runs through Alphabet City near East Houston Street, there is also a First Place in Battery Park City. East 1st Street begins just north of East Houston Street at Avenue A, peretz Square, a small triangular sliver park where Houston Street, First Street and First Avenue meet marks the spot where the grid takes hold. East 2nd Street begins just north of East Houston Street at Avenue C, the East end of East 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 7th Streets is Avenue D, with East 6th Street continuing further Eastward and connecting to FDR Drive. The west end of these streets is the Bowery and Third Avenue, except for 3rd Street and 4th Street, great Jones Street connects East 3rd to West 3rd. For 4th Street, see 4th Street, East 5th Street goes west to Cooper Square, but is interrupted between Avenues B and C by The Earth School, Public School 364, and between First Avenue and Avenue A by the Village View Apartments. West 8th Street is an important local shopping street, 8th Street between Avenue A and Third Avenue is called St Marks Place, but it is counted in the length below. M8 bus route operates eastbound on 8th Street and westbound on 9th Street between Avenue A and Sixth Avenue, 10th Street begins at the FDR Drive and Avenue C. West of Sixth Avenue, it turns southward about 40 degrees to join the Greenwich Village street grid, because West 4th Street turns northward at Sixth Avenue, it intersects 10th, 11th and 12th and 13th Streets in the West Village. The M8 bus operates on 10th Street in both directions between Avenue D and Avenue A, and eastbound between West Street and Sixth Avenue, 10th Street has an eastbound bike lane from West Street to the East River. In 2009, the section of 10th Street between Avenue A and the East River had bicycle markings and sharrows installed, but it still has no dedicated bike lane. West 10th Street was previously named Amos Street for Charles Chistopher Amos, the end of West 10th Street toward the Hudson River was once the home of Newgate Prison, New York Citys first prison and the United States second
5.
Ninth Avenue (Manhattan)
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Ninth Avenue, known as Columbus Avenue between West 59th and 110th Streets, is a southbound thoroughfare on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Traffic runs downtown along the stretch from Chelsea to the Upper West Side. A one-block stretch of Ninth Avenue between 15th and 16th Streets is also signed as Oreo Way, the first Oreo cookies were manufactured in 1912 at the former Nabisco headquarters on that block. The buildings are separated in mid-block by the narrowest of access alleys, the repeated designs of three or four commercial speculative builders, using the same features and detailing, add to the avenues architectural unity. There are several generously scaled pre-World War I apartment buildings and the former Endicott Hotel, as well as a commercial block from the office of McKim, Mead. Between 77th and 81st Streets, Columbus Avenue borders the American Museum of Natural History, Ninth Avenue reappears in the Inwood neighborhood as a short two-way street in two segments interrupted by the New York City Subways 207th Street Yard. The addresses along this stretch from 201st Street to Broadway are continuous with the lower portion of Ninth Avenue. The Ninth Avenue Elevated was a train that ran above Ninth Avenue beginning in the nineteenth century. The lease for the line was assumed by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company on April 1,1903. The line ran until it was closed and dismantled in 1940 following the purchase of the IRT by the City of New York, Ninth Avenue and Columbus Avenue were converted to carry one-way traffic southbound in two stages. South of its intersection with Broadway the avenue was converted on November 6,1948, the rest to 110th Street was converted on December 6,1951. Former president Bill Clinton initiated a project to revitalize the 9th Avenue corridor centered on the Hells Kitchen area, several street fairs are held every year, including the Ninth Avenue Food Festival in May. Ninth Avenue is the setting of Saul Steinbergs View of the World from 9th Avenue, in the TV show Seinfeld, the street set on which most of the street scenes were filmed was based on Columbus Avenue. In the play Zoo Story by Edward Albee, Jerry claims to live between Columbus Avenue and Central Park, New York City portal Notes New York Songlines, Ninth Avenue, a virtual walking tour
6.
Tenth Avenue (Manhattan)
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Tenth Avenue, known as Amsterdam Avenue between 59th Street and 193rd Street, is a north-south thoroughfare on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City. It carries uptown traffic as far as West 110th Street – also known as Cathedral Parkway, Tenth Avenue begins a block below Gansevoort Street and Eleventh Avenue in the West Village / Meatpacking District. For the southernmost stretch, Tenth Avenue runs southbound, north of 14th Street, Tenth Avenue runs uptown for 45 blocks as a one-way street until its intersection with West 59th Street, where it becomes Amsterdam Avenue but continues without interruption. Amsterdam Avenue continues as a one-way street northbound until Cathedral Parkway, Tenth Avenue runs through the Chelsea and Hells Kitchen neighborhoods on the west side of the borough, and then as Amsterdam Avenue, through the Upper West Side, Harlem and Washington Heights. Much of these areas were working class or poor for much of the 20th century, the street has long been noted for its commercial traffic, and had grade-level railroad lines through the early 20th century. In the 19th century, when the West Side Line ran along the Avenue, the lines were later elevated above street level. Amsterdam Avenue was intended to recall the Dutch roots of Manhattans earliest colonization in the 17th century. According to Sanna Feirsteins Naming New York, What is now Amsterdam Avenue was laid out in the 1811 Commissioners Plan as 10th Avenue and opened from 59th Street to Fort George Avenue in 1816. The name was changed in 1890 in a bid on the part of Upper West Side landowners to confer a measure of old-world cachet to their real estate investments in an area that had yet to catch on. The new avenue name supported the claim that this section would become the New City. Tenth Avenue and Amsterdam Avenue were converted to carry one-way traffic northbound in two stages, south of its intersection with Broadway the avenue was converted on November 6,1948. The rest to 110th Street was converted on December 6,1951, Amsterdam Avenue continues to carry two-way traffic north of 110th Street. During the real boom of the late 20th century, Amsterdam Avenue from roughly 59th Street to 96th Street became one of the citys most expensive residential districts. The M11 bus runs northbound along the avenue, north of 72nd Street, the M7 bus also runs northbound on the avenue, north of 110th Street, the M11 bus runs in both directions along Amsterdam Avenue. As part of the 7 Subway Extension, the 7 <7> was extended to 34th Street in 2015, an intermediate stop, Tenth Avenue, was originally planned but it was dropped from the official plans in 2008. The 1 train serves two stations along the Inwood portion of Tenth Avenue, 207th Street, and 215th Street, a protected bike lane was installed in 2016 from 72nd Street to 110th Street. The Rodgers & Hart play On Your Toes included the dance number Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, performed by Ray Bolger. It was later performed on stage, film and television and it has been performed by the New York City Ballet, and was featured in the film version of On Your Toes, danced by Eddie Albert and Vera Zorina
7.
Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan
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Hells Kitchen, also known as Clinton, is a neighborhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is traditionally considered to be bordered by 34th Street to the south, 59th Street to the north, Eighth Avenue to the east, the area provides transport, medical, and warehouse infrastructure support to Midtowns business district. Once a bastion of poor and working class Irish Americans, Hells Kitchens location in Midtown has changed its personality since the 1970s, since the early 1990s, the area has been gentrifying, and rents have risen rapidly. Located close to both Broadway theaters and the Actors Studio training school, Hells Kitchen has long been a home to learning and practicing actors, the name Hells Kitchen generally refers to the area from 34th to 59th Streets. Starting west of Eighth Avenue and north of 43rd Street, city zoning regulations generally limit buildings to six stories, as a result, most of the buildings are older, and are often walk-up apartments. For the most part, the neighborhood encompasses the ZIP codes 10019 and 10036, the post office for 10019 is called Radio City Station, the original name for Rockefeller Center on Sixth Avenue. To the east, the neighborhood overlaps the Times Square Theater District to the east at Eighth Avenue, on its southeast border, it overlaps the Garment District also on Eighth Avenue. Here, two landmarks reside – the New Yorker Hotel and the dynamic Manhattan Center building, the northern edge of Hells Kitchen borders the southern edge of the Upper West Side. 57th Street is the boundary between the two neighborhoods. The southern boundary is at Chelsea, but the two overlap and are often lumped together as the West Side since they support the Midtown Manhattan business district. The traditional dividing line is 34th Street, the transition area just north of Madison Square Garden and Pennsylvania Station includes the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. The western border of the neighborhood is the Hudson River at the Hudson River Park, several explanations exist for the original name. An early use of the phrase appears in a comment Davy Crockett made about another notorious Irish slum in Manhattan and he was referring to the Five Points. Another explanation points to a building at 39th as the true original. A gang and a local dive took the name as well, a similar slum also existed in London and was known as Hells Kitchen. He referred to a particularly infamous tenement at 39th Street and Tenth Avenue as Hells Kitchen, according to this version, 39th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues became known as Hells Kitchen and the name was later expanded to the surrounding streets. Another version ascribes the origins to a German restaurant in the area known as Heils Kitchen. But the most common version traces it to the story of Dutch Fred the Cop, a veteran policeman, the rookie is supposed to have said, This place is hell itself, to which Fred replied, Hells a mild climate
8.
Elia Kazan
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Elia Kazan was a Greek-American director, producer, writer and actor, described by The New York Times as one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history. He was born in Istanbul, to Cappadocian Greek parents, after attending Williams College and then the Yale School of Drama, he acted professionally for eight years, later joining the Group Theater in 1932, and co-founded the Actors Studio in 1947. With Robert Lewis and Cheryl Crawford, his actors studio introduced Method Acting under the direction of Lee Strasberg, Kazan acted in a few films, including City for Conquest. Noted for drawing out the best dramatic performances from his actors, he directed 21 actors to Oscar nominations and he directed a string of successful films, including A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, and East of Eden. During his career, he won two Oscars as Best Director and received an Honorary Oscar, won three Tony Awards, and four Golden Globes and his films were concerned with personal or social issues of special concern to him. Kazan writes, I dont move unless I have some empathy with the basic theme and his first such issue film was Gentlemans Agreement, with Gregory Peck, which dealt with anti-Semitism in America. It received 8 Oscar nominations and 3 wins, including Kazans first for Best Director and it was followed by Pinky, one of the first films in mainstream Hollywood to address racial prejudice against black people. In 1954, he directed On the Waterfront, a film about corruption on the New York harbor waterfront. A Streetcar Named Desire, an adaptation of the play which he had also directed, received 12 Oscar nominations, winning 4. In 1955, he directed John Steinbecks East of Eden, which introduced James Dean to movie audiences and his testimony helped end the careers of former acting colleagues Morris Carnovsky and Art Smith, along with ending the work of playwright Clifford Odets. Kazan later justified his act by saying he took only the more tolerable of two alternatives that were either way painful and wrong, nearly a half-century later, his anti-Communist testimony continued to cause controversy. When Kazan was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1999, dozens of actors not to applaud as 250 demonstrators picketed the event. Kazan influenced the films of the 1950s and 60s with his provocative, Director Stanley Kubrick called him, without question, the best director we have in America, capable of performing miracles with the actors he uses. Film author Ian Freer concludes that if his achievements are tainted by political controversy, in 2010, Martin Scorsese co-directed the documentary film A Letter to Elia as a personal tribute to Kazan. Elia Kazan was born in the Fener district of Istanbul, to Cappadocian Greek parents originally from Kayseri in Anatolia and his parents, George and Athena Kazantzoglou, emigrated to the United States when he was four years old. He was named after his grandfather, Elia Kazantzoglou. His maternal grandfather was Isaak Shishmanoglou, elias brother, Avraam, was born in Berlin and later became a psychiatrist. As a young boy, he was remembered as being shy, much of his early life was portrayed in his autobiographical book, America America, which he made into a film in 1963
