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.
Brooklyn
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Brooklyn is the most populous borough of New York City, with a Census-estimated 2,636,735 residents in 2015. It borders the borough of Queens at the end of Long Island. Today, if New York City dissolved, Brooklyn would rank as the third-most populous city in the U. S. behind Los Angeles, the borough continues, however, to maintain a distinct culture. Many Brooklyn neighborhoods are ethnic enclaves, Brooklyns official motto, displayed on the Borough seal and flag, is Eendraght Maeckt Maght which translates from early modern Dutch as Unity makes strength. Since 2010, Brooklyn has evolved into a hub of entrepreneurship and high technology startup firms. The history of European settlement in Brooklyn spans more than 350 years, the neighborhood of Marine Park was home to North Americas first tidal mill. It was built by the Dutch, and the foundation can be seen today, however, the area was not formally settled as a town. Many incidents and documents relating to this period are in Gabriel Furmans early compilation, what is today Brooklyn left Dutch hands after the final English conquest of New Netherland in 1664, a prelude to the Second Anglo–Dutch War. The English reorganized the six old Dutch towns on southwestern Long Island as Kings County on November 1,1683 and this tract of land was recognized as a political entity for the first time, and the municipal groundwork was laid for a later expansive idea of Brooklyn identity. On August 27,1776 was fought the Battle of Long Island, the first major engagement fought in the American Revolutionary War after independence was declared, and the largest of the entire conflict. British troops forced Continental Army troops under George Washington off the heights near the sites of Green-Wood Cemetery, Prospect Park. The fortified American positions at Brooklyn Heights consequently became untenable and were evacuated a few days later, One result of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 was the evacuation of the British from New York City, celebrated by residents into the 20th century. The New York Navy Yard operated in Wallabout Bay for the entire 19th century, the first center of urbanization sprang up in the Town of Brooklyn, directly across from Lower Manhattan, which saw the incorporation of the Village of Brooklyn in 1817. Reliable steam ferry service across the East River to Fulton Landing converted Brooklyn Heights into a town for Wall Street. Ferry Road to Jamaica Pass became Fulton Street to East New York, Town and Village were combined to form the first, kernel incarnation of the City of Brooklyn in 1834. Industrial deconcentration in mid-century was bringing shipbuilding and other manufacturing to the part of the county. Each of the two cities and six towns in Kings County remained independent municipalities, and purposely created non-aligning street grids with different naming systems and it later became the most popular and highest circulation afternoon paper in America. The publisher changed to L. Van Anden on April 19,1842, on May 14,1849 the name was shortened to The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, on September 5,1938 it was further shortened to Brooklyn Eagle
3.
Queens
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Queens is the easternmost and largest in area of the five boroughs of New York City. Coterminous with Queens County since 1899, the borough of Queens is the second-largest in population, with a census-estimated 2,339,150 residents in 2015, approximately 48% of them foreign-born. Queens County also is the second-most populous county in the U. S. state of New York, behind the borough of Brooklyn. Queens is the fourth-most densely populated county among New York Citys boroughs, if each of New York Citys boroughs were an independent city, Queens also would be the nations fourth most populous city, after Los Angeles, Chicago, and Brooklyn. Queens is the most ethnically diverse area in the world. Queens was established in 1683 as one of the original 12 counties of New York and it was named after the Portuguese Princess Catherine of Braganza, Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland. It became a borough of New York City in 1898, and from 1683 until 1899, Queens has the most diversified economy of the five boroughs of New York City It is home to JFK International Airport and LaGuardia Airport. These airports are among the busiest in the world, causing the airspace above Queens to be the most congested in the country, attractions in Queens include Flushing Meadows Park, Citi Field, the US Open tennis tournament, Kaufman Astoria Studios, Silvercup Studios, and Aqueduct Racetrack. European colonization brought Dutch and English settlers, as a part of the New Netherland colony, First settlements occurred in 1635 followed by early colonizations at Maspeth in 1642, and Vlissingen in 1643. Other early settlements included Newtown and Jamaica, however, these towns were mostly inhabited by English settlers from New England via eastern Long Island subject to Dutch law. After the capture of the colony by the English and its renaming as New York in 1664, the Flushing Remonstrance signed by colonists in 1657 is considered a precursor to the United States Constitutions provision on freedom of religion in the Bill of Rights. The signers protested the Dutch colonial authorities persecution of Quakers in what is today the borough of Queens, originally, Queens County included the adjacent area now comprising Nassau County. It was a county of New York State, one of twelve created on November 1,1683. The county was named after Catherine of Braganza, since she was queen of England at the time, the county was founded alongside Kings County, and Richmond County. On October 7,1691, all counties in the Colony of New York were redefined, Queens gained North Brother Island, South Brother Island, and Huletts Island. On December 3,1768, Queens gained other islands in Long Island Sound that were not already assigned to a county, Queens played a minor role in the American Revolution, as compared to Brooklyn, where the Battle of Long Island was largely fought. Queens, like the rest of Long Island, remained under British occupation after the Battle of Long Island in 1776 and was occupied throughout most of the rest of the Revolutionary War. Under the Quartering Act, British soldiers used, as barracks, even though many local people were against unannounced quartering, sentiment throughout the county remained in favor of the British crown
4.
The Bronx
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The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City, within the U. S. state of New York. Since 1914, the Bronx has had the boundaries as Bronx County, a county of New York. The Bronx is divided by the Bronx River into a section in the west, closer to Manhattan. East and west street addresses are divided by Jerome Avenue—the continuation of Manhattans Fifth 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 in 1914, about a quarter of the Bronxs area is open space, including Woodlawn Cemetery, Van Cortlandt Park, Pelham Bay Park, the New York Botanical Garden, and the Bronx Zoo in the boroughs north and center. These open spaces are situated primarily on land reserved in the late 19th century as urban development progressed north. The name Bronx originated with Jonas Bronck, who established the first settlement in the area as part of the New Netherland colony in 1639, the native Lenape were displaced after 1643 by settlers. This cultural mix has made the Bronx a wellspring of both Latin music and hip hop. The Bronx, particularly the South Bronx, saw a decline in population, livable housing, and the quality of life in the late 1960s. Since then the communities have shown significant redevelopment starting in the late 1980s before picking up pace from the 1990s until today, the Bronx was called Rananchqua by the native Siwanoy band of Lenape, while other Native Americans knew the Bronx as Keskeskeck. It was divided by the Aquahung River, the origin of Jonas Bronck is contested. Some sources claim he was a Swedish born emigrant from Komstad, Norra Ljunga parish in Småland, Sweden, who arrived in New Netherland during the spring of 1639. Bronck became the first recorded European settler in the now known as the Bronx and built a farm named Emmanus close to what today is the corner of Willis Avenue. He leased land from the Dutch West India Company on the neck of the mainland north of the Dutch settlement in Harlem. He eventually accumulated 500 acres between the Harlem River and the Aquahung, which known as Broncks River or the Bronx. Dutch and English settlers referred to the area as Broncks Land, the American poet William Bronk was a descendant of Pieter Bronck, either Jonas Broncks son or his younger brother. More recent research indicates that Pieter was probably Jonas nephew or cousin, the Bronx is referred to with the definite article as The Bronx, both legally and colloquially. The region was named after the Bronx River and first appeared in the Annexed District of The Bronx created in 1874 out of part of Westchester County
5.
Staten Island
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Staten Island /ˌstætən ˈaɪlənd/ is one of the five boroughs of New York City in the U. S. state of New York. In the southwest of the city, Staten Island is the southernmost part of both the city and state of New York, with Conference House Park at the tip of the island. The borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, with a 2015 Census-estimated population of 474,558, Staten Island is the least populated of the boroughs but is the third-largest in area at 58 sq mi. Staten Island is the borough of New York with a non-Hispanic White majority. The borough is coextensive with Richmond County, and until 1975 was the Borough of Richmond and its flag was later changed to reflect this. Staten Island has been called the forgotten borough by inhabitants who feel neglected by the city government. The East Shore is home to the 2. 5-mile F. D. R, Boardwalk, the fourth-longest in the world. The South Shore, site of the 17th-century Dutch and French Huguenot settlement, the West Shore is the least populated and most industrial part of the island. Motor traffic can reach the borough from Brooklyn via the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and from New Jersey via the Outerbridge Crossing, Goethals Bridge, and Bayonne Bridge. Staten Island has Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus lines and an MTA rapid transit line, the Staten Island Railway, Staten Island is the only borough that is not connected to the New York City Subway system. The free Staten Island Ferry connects the borough to Manhattan and is a popular tourist attraction, providing views of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and Lower Manhattan. The landfill is being redeveloped as Freshkills Park, a devoted to restoring habitat. As in much of North America, human habitation appeared in the island fairly rapidly after the retreat of the ice sheet, archaeologists have recovered tool evidence of Clovis culture activity dating from about 14,000 years ago. This evidence was first discovered in 1917 in the Charleston section of the island, various Clovis artifacts have been discovered since then, on property owned by Mobil Oil. The island was abandoned later, possibly because of the extirpation of large mammals on the island. Rossville points are a type of arrowhead that defines a Native American cultural period that runs from the Archaic period to the Early Woodland period. They are named for the Rossville section of Staten Island, where they were first found near the old Rossville Post Office building, at the time of European contact, the island was inhabited by the Raritan band of the Unami division of the Lenape. In Lenape, one of the Algonquian languages, Staten Island was called Aquehonga Manacknong, meaning as far as the place of the bad woods, or Eghquhous, the area was part of the Lenape homeland known as Lenapehoking
6.
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
7.
County (United States)
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In the United States, an administrative or political sub-division of a state is a county, which is a region having specific boundaries and usually some level of governmental authority. The term county is used in 48 U. S. states, while Louisiana and Alaska have functionally equivalent subdivisions called parishes, most counties have subdivisions which may include municipalities and unincorporated areas. Others have no divisions, or may serve as a singular consolidated city-county. Some municipalities are in multiple counties, New York City is uniquely partitioned into multiple counties/boroughs, the U. S. federal government uses the term county equivalent to describe non-county administrative or statistical areas that are comparable to counties. Alaskas Unorganized Borough is divided into 11 census areas that are equivalent to counties. As of 2013, the United States has 3,007 counties and 137 county equivalents for a total of 3,144 counties, the number of counties per state ranges from the 3 counties of Delaware to the 254 counties of Texas. Counties have significant governmental functions in all states except Rhode Island and Connecticut, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has removed most government functions from eight of its 14 counties. The county with the largest population, Los Angeles County, counties were among the earliest units of local government established in the Thirteen Colonies that would become the United States. Virginia created the first counties in order to ease the workload in Jamestown. Americas oldest intact county court records can be found at Eastville, Virginia, in Northampton County, maryland established its first county, St. Marys, in 1637, and Massachusetts followed in 1643. When independence came, the framers of the Constitution did not provide for local governments, rather, they left the matter to the states. Subsequently, early state constitutions generally conceptualized county government as an arm of the state, in some states, these powers are partly or mostly devolved to the counties smaller divisions usually called townships, though in New York, New England and Wisconsin they are called towns. The county may or may not be able to override its townships on certain matters, the newest county in the United States is the city and county of Broomfield, Colorado, established in 2001 as a consolidated city-county. The newest county-equivalents are the Alaskan boroughs of Skagway established in 2007, Wrangell established in 2008, there are 40 consolidated city-counties in the U. S. Similarly, some of Alaskas boroughs have merged with their principal cities creating unified city-boroughs. Some such consolidations and mergers have created cities that rank among the geographically largest cities in the world, see also, #County names, regarding Louisiana. Independent cities, These are cities that legally belong to no county, Washington, D. C. outside the jurisdiction of any state, has a special status. The city of Washington comprises the entirety of the District of Columbia, when founded in 1801, the District consisted of two counties and three cities. In 1846, Alexandria County – including the then–City of Alexandria – was given back to Virginia, in 1871, the three remaining entities – the City of Washington, Georgetown City, and Washington County – were merged into a consolidated government by an act of Congress
8.
Administrative divisions of New York (state)
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The administrative divisions of New York are the various units of government that provide local government services in the state of New York. The state is divided into counties, cities, towns, and villages, each such government is granted varying home rule powers as provided by the New York Constitution. New York has various corporate entities that serve purposes that are also local governments, such as school. New York has 62 counties, which are subdivided into 932 towns and 62 cities, in total, the state has more than 3,400 active local governments and more than 4,200 taxing jurisdictions. They do so while adhering to the United States Constitution and the Constitution of the State of New York, articles VIII and IX of the state constitution establish the rights and responsibilities of the municipal governments. The New York State Constitution provides for democratically elected bodies for counties, cities, towns. These legislative bodies are granted the power to local laws as needed in order to provide services to their citizens. The county is the administrative division of New York. There are sixty-two counties in the state, five of the counties are boroughs of the city of New York and do not have functioning county governments. Such services generally include law enforcement and public safety, social and health services, every county outside of New York City has a county seat, which is the location of county government. Nineteen counties operate under county charters, while 38 operate under the provisions of the County Law. Although all counties have a certain latitude to govern themselves, charter counties are afforded greater home rule powers, sixteen counties are governed by a Board of Supervisors, composed of the supervisors of its constituent towns and cities. In most of counties, each supervisors vote is weighted in accordance with the towns population in order to abide by the U. S. Supreme Court mandate of one person. Other counties have legislative districts of equal population, which may cross municipal borders, most counties in New York do not use the term Board of Supervisors. 34 counties have a County Legislature, six counties have a Board of Legislators, the five counties, or boroughs, of New York City are governed by a 51-member City Council. In non-charter counties, the legislative body exercises executive power as well, many, but not all, charter counties have an elected executive who is independent of the legislature, the exact form of government is defined in the County Charter. In New York, each city is a highly autonomous incorporated area that, with the exceptions of New York City, cities in New York are classified by the U. S. Census Bureau as incorporated places. They provide almost all services to their residents and have the highest degree of home rule, also, villages are part of a town, with residents who pay taxes to and receive services from the town
9.
New York (state)
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New York is a state in the northeastern United States, and is the 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated U. S. state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. With an estimated population of 8.55 million in 2015, New York City is the most populous city in the United States, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State, two-thirds of the states population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% lives on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th-century Duke of York, the next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. New York has a diverse geography and these more mountainous regions are bisected by two major river valleys—the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley, which forms the core of the Erie Canal. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes Region and straddles Lake Ontario, between the two lakes lies Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. The first Europeans to arrive were French colonists and Jesuit missionaries who arrived southward from settlements at Montreal for trade, the British annexed the colony from the Dutch in 1664. The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were similar to those of the present-day state, New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. On April 17,1524 Verrazanno entered New York Bay, by way of the now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita. Verrazzano described it as a vast coastline with a delta in which every kind of ship could pass and he adds. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats and he landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazannos stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Marthas Vineyard, in 1540 French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany, due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, also within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse, located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary fort was washed away by flooding in 1617, and abandoned for good after Fort Orange was built nearby in 1623. Henry Hudsons 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year
10.
Westchester County, New York
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Westchester County is a county in the U. S. state of New York. It is the second-most populous county on the mainland of New York, according to the 2010 Census, the county had a population of 949,113, estimated to have increased by 2. 9% to 976,396 by 2015. Situated in the Hudson Valley, Westchester covers an area of 450 square miles, consisting of 6 cities,19 towns, established in 1683, Westchester was named after the city of Chester, England. The county seat is the city of White Plains, the annual per capita income for Westchester was $47,813 in 2011. The 2011 median household income of $77,006 was the fifth highest in New York, by 2014, the countys median household income had risen to $83,422. Westchester County ranks second in the state after New York County for median income per person, Westchester County is one of the centrally located counties within the New York metropolitan area. They called the region Lenapehoking, which consisted of the area around, the first European explorers to visit the Westchester area were Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524 and Henry Hudson in 1609. Dutch settlers began arriving in the 1620s, followed by settlers from England in the 1640s, Westchester County was one of the original twelve counties of the Province of New York, created by an act of the New York General Assembly in 1683. At the time it included present day Bronx County, and abutted then-Dutchess County to the north, by 1775, Westchester was the richest and most populous county in the colony of New York. Although the Revolutionary War devastated the county, recovery after the war was rapid, in 1788, five years after the end of the war, the county was divided into 20 towns. In 1798, the first federal census recorded a population of 24,000 for the county. Two developments in the first half of the 19th century – the construction of the first Croton Dam and Aqueduct, and the coming of the railroad – had enormous impacts on the growth of Westchester. The Croton Dam and Aqueduct was begun in 1837 and completed in 1842, now a National Historic Landmark, the Croton Aqueduct is considered one of the great engineering achievements of the 19th century. In the 1840s, the first railroads were built in Westchester, and included the New York and Harlem Railroad, the Hudson River Railroad, the railroads often determined the growth of a town, and the population shifted from Northern to Southern Westchester. By 1860, the county population was 99,000. The period following the American Civil War enabled entrepreneurs in the New York area to create fortunes, during the latter half of the 19th century, Westchesters transportation system and labor force attracted a manufacturing base, particularly along the Hudson River and Nepperhan Creek. In 1874, the portion of the present Bronx County was transferred to New York County. These would later split from Manhattan to form their own county, during the 20th century, the rural character of Westchester would transform into the suburban county known today
11.
Nassau County, New York
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Nassau County /ˈnæsɔː/ is a suburban county on Long Island in the U. S. state of New York. At the 2010 census, the population was 1,339,532. The county seat is in the Village of Garden City, within the boundaries of the Mineola 11501 zip code, Nassau County is immediately east of New York City, within the New York-Newark-Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Two cities, three towns,64 incorporated villages, and more than 60 unincorporated hamlets are located within the county, there are 56 public school districts within the county. Post office districts and school use the same names as a city, hamlet, or village within them. In 2012, Forbes magazine, in an article based on the U. S and it also ranks as the most expensive county in America. Nassau County has a police department, fire commission. The county colors are also the colors of the House of Orange-Nassau, several alternate names had been considered for the county, including Bryant, Matinecock, Norfolk, and Sagamore. However, Nassau had the advantage of having at one time been the name of Long Island itself. In 1784, the Town of North Hempstead, was formed through secession by the portions of the Town of Hempstead. When the first European settlers arrived, among the Native Americans to occupy the present area of Nassau County were the Marsapeque, Matinecoc, Dutch settlers in New Netherland predominated in the western portion of Long Island, while English settlers from Connecticut occupied the eastern portion. Until 1664, Long Island was split, roughly at the present border between Nassau and Suffolk counties, between the Dutch in the west and Connecticut claiming the east. The Dutch did grant an English settlement in Hempstead, but drove settlers from the present-day eastern Nassau hamlet of Oyster Bay as part of a boundary dispute, in 1664, all of Long Island became part of the English Province of New York within the Shire of York. Present-day Queens and Nassau were then just part of a larger North Riding, in 1683, Yorkshire was dissolved, Suffolk County and Queens County were established, and the local seat of government was moved west from Hempstead to Jamaica. By 1700, very little of Long Island had not been purchased from the native Indians by the English colonists, the courthouse in Jamaica was torn down by the British during the American Revolution to use the materials to build barracks. About 1787, a new Queens County Courthouse was erected in the new Town of North Hempstead, near present-day Mineola, the Long Island Rail Road reached as far east as Hicksville in 1837, but did not proceed to Farmingdale until 1841 due to the Panic of 1837. The 1850 census was the first in which the population of the three western towns exceeded that of the three towns that are now part of Nassau County. Around 1874, the seat of county government was moved to Long Island City from Mineola
12.
Municipal corporation
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A municipal corporation is the legal term for a local governing body, including cities, counties, towns, townships, charter townships, villages, and boroughs. Municipal incorporation occurs when such municipalities become self-governing entities under the laws of the state or province in which they are located, often, this event is marked by the award or declaration of a municipal charter. A city charter or town charter is a document establishing a municipality such as a city or town. The concept developed in Europe during the Middle Ages and is considered to be a version of a constitution. Traditionally the granting of a charter gave a settlement and its inhabitants the right to town privileges under the feudal system, townspeople who lived in chartered towns were burghers, as opposed to serfs who lived in villages. Towns were often free, in the sense that they were protected by the king or emperor. Today the process for granting charters is determined by the type of government of the state in question, in monarchies, charters are still often a royal charter given by the Crown or the state authorities acting on behalf of the Crown. In federations, the granting of charters may be within the jurisdiction of the level of government such as a state or province. In Brazil, municipal corporations are called municípios and are created by means of legislation at the state level. All municipal corporations must also abide by a municipal law which is passed and amended at the municipal level. In Canada charters are granted by provincial authorities, in Germany, municipal corporations existed since antiquity and through medieval times, until they became out of favour during the absolutism. In order to strengthen the spirit, the city law of Prussia dated 19 November 1808 picked up this concept. It is the basis of municipal law. In India, a Municipal Corporation is a local government body. This standard varies from state to state, according to laws passed by state legislatures, the Corporation of Chennai was the first Municipal Corporation in India. It was established on 29 September 1688 by the British East India Company, the second was Hyderabad Municipal Corporation established in 1869 by the Nizam rulers of Hyderabad State. The third was the Calcutta Municipal Corporation, established in 1876, the Bombay Municipal Corporation was established in 1888 by the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act. The Delhi Municipal Council was established in 1911 during the Delhi Durbar when New Delhi was proclaimed to be the new Capital of India and it was elevated to Municipal Corporation level on 7 April 1958 by an Act of Parliament which established the Municipal Corporation of Delhi
13.
Government of New York City
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The government of New York City, headquartered at New York City Hall in Lower Manhattan, is organized under the New York City Charter and provides for a strong mayor-council system. The mayor is elected to a term and is responsible for the administration of city government. The New York City Council is a body consisting of 51 members, each elected from a geographic district. All elected officials are limited to a two consecutive-term limit, the court system consists of two city courts and three state courts. New York City government employs 325,000 people, more than any city in the United States and more than any U. S. state. However, each county retains its own district attorney to prosecute crimes, three main public-library systems represent the citys five boroughs, namely Brooklyn Public Library, New York Public Library, and Queens Public Library. The executive branch of New York City consists of the Mayor, the Mayor also appoints several deputy mayors to head major offices within the executive branch of the city government. The City Record is the journal published each weekday containing legal notices produced by city agencies. The mayor is elected by popular vote for a four-year term. Along with the mayor, the Public Advocate and the Comptroller are the only three directly elected officials in New York City. The Public Advocate is a member of the Council, the Public Advocate stands first in line of succession to the mayoralty. The Comptroller stands second, after the Public Advocate, in the line to succeed a mayor who has become unable to serve, legislative power in the City of New York is vested in the New York City Council. The New York State Constitution empowers local governments to local laws in addition to ordinances, resolutions, rules. The Council is a body consisting of 51 Council members. The Speaker of the Council, selected by the 51 Council members, is considered the second most powerful post in New York Citys government after the Mayor. Bills passed by a majority are sent to the mayor. If the mayor vetoes a bill, the Council has 30 days to override the veto by a majority vote. The codified local laws of New York City are contained in the New York City Administrative Code, the Council has several committees with oversight of various functions of the city government
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Borough (Pennsylvania)
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Boros also tend to have more developed business districts and concentrations of public and commercial office buildings, including court houses. Both are larger, less spacious, more developed than the rural townships. There are 958 boroughs in Pennsylvania, but only one town, all municipalities in Pennsylvania are classified as either cities, boroughs, or townships. The only exception is the town of Bloomsburg, which is recognized by government as the only incorporated town in Pennsylvania. Many home rule municipalities remain classified as boroughs or townships for certain purposes even if the states Borough, Borough List of towns and boroughs in Pennsylvania Category, Self-governance References Sources
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Borough (United States)
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A borough in some U. S. states is a unit of local government or other administrative division below the level of the state. In Alaska, the borough is used instead of county. Like counties, boroughs are administrative divisions of the state, each borough in Alaska has a borough seat, which is the administrative center for the borough. The Municipality of Anchorage is a consolidated city-borough, as are Sitka, Juneau, Haines, most of the states area, however, is part of the vast Unorganized Borough, which has no borough-level government at all. The United States Census Bureau has divided the Unorganized Borough into ten areas for statistical purposes. In addition to cities, Connecticut also has another type of dependent municipality known as a borough, boroughs are usually the populated center of a town that decided to incorporate in order to have more responsive local government. When a borough is formed, it is part of. There are nine boroughs in Connecticut, one borough, Naugatuck, is coextensive and consolidated with its town. The other eight boroughs, such as Woodmont, have jurisdiction over only a part of their town, in Minnesota the term borough was applied to one municipality, Belle Plaine, from 1868 to 1974. Many boroughs were formed out of townships, but even in such cases there is no continuing link between the borough and the township. Most boroughs were formed during the Boroughitis phenomenon of the mid-1890s, New York City is subdivided into five boroughs, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island. Each of these is coterminous with a county, Kings, New York, Queens, Bronx, the powers of the borough governments are inferior to the powers of the city-wide government. The boroughs of New York City are still treated as counties for judicial purposes. In Pennsylvanias state laws that govern classes of municipalities, the borough is used the way other states sometimes use the word town. A borough is an entity that is generally smaller than a city. If an area is not governed by either a borough or city, villages or hamlets are unincorporated and have no municipal government, other than the township in which they are found. By tradition, as recognized by publications of the state government, in Virginia, under Code of Virginia §15. Those boroughs are not separate local governments, in Virginia Beach, the seven boroughs were abolished effective July 1,1998
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London boroughs
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London boroughs are 32 of the 33 local authority districts of the Greater London administrative area and are each governed by a London borough council. The London boroughs were all created at the time as Greater London on 1 April 1965 by the London Government Act 1963 and are a type of local government district. Twelve were designated as Inner London boroughs and twenty as Outer London boroughs, London boroughs have populations of around 150,000 to 300,000. Inner London boroughs tend to be smaller, in population and area, and more densely populated than Outer London boroughs. The London boroughs were created by combining groups of local government units. A review undertaken between 1987 and 1992 led to a number of small alterations in borough boundaries. London borough councils provide the majority of government services, in contrast to the strategic Greater London Authority. The councils were first elected in 1964 and acted as shadow authorities until 1 April 1965, each borough is divided into electoral wards, subject to periodic review, for the purpose of electing councillors. Council elections take place four years, with the most recent elections in 2014. The political make-up of London borough councils is dominated by the Conservative, Labour, twenty-eight councils follow the leader and cabinet model of executive governance, with directly elected mayors in Hackney, Lewisham, Newham, and Tower Hamlets. The City of London is instead governed by the City of London Corporation, from the mid-1930s, the Greater London area comprised four types of local government authorities. There were county boroughs, municipal boroughs, urban districts and metropolitan boroughs, the large county boroughs provided all local government services and held the powers usually invested in county councils. The municipal borough and urban district authorities had fewer powers, reform of London local government sought to regularise this arrangement. The Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London was established in 1957 and it proposed 52 Greater London Boroughs with a population range of 100,000 to 250,000. This was made up of a mixture of existing units. In December 1961 the government proposed that there would be 34 boroughs rather than 52, the proposed number was further reduced to 32 in 1962. On 1 April 1965, the 32 London boroughs and Greater London were created by the London Government Act 1963,12 boroughs in the former County of London area were designated Inner London boroughs and the 20 others were designated Outer London boroughs. The City of London continued to be administered by the City of London Corporation, elections were held on 7 May 1964, with the new councils acting as shadow authorities before coming into their powers the following year
17.
New York metropolitan area
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The New York metropolitan area continues to be the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States, with the largest foreign-born population of any metropolitan region in the world. The MSA covers 6,720 sq mi, while the CSA area is 13,318 sq mi, encompassing an ethnically and geographically diverse region. In 2012, the New York metropolitan area was home to seven of the 25 wealthiest counties in the United States by median household income. According to Forbes, in 2014, the New York City metropolitan area was home to eight of the top ten ZIP codes in the United States by median housing price, with six in Manhattan alone. The U. S. Office of Management and Budget utilizes two definitions of the area, the Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Combined Statistical Area, the MSA is further subdivided into four metropolitan divisions. The 25-county metropolitan area includes 12 counties in New York State,12 counties in Northern and Central New Jersey, the largest urbanized area in the United States is at the heart of the metropolitan area, the New York–Newark, NY–NJ–CT Urbanized Area. The New York-Newark, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area had an population of 23.7 million as of 2014. About one out of every fifteen Americans resides in this region, which includes seven counties in New York, New Jersey. This area, less the Pennsylvania portion, is referred to as the Tri-State Area. The New York City television designated market area includes Pike County, Pennsylvania, for instance, Long Island can be divided into its South and North Shores and the East End. The Hudson Valley and Connecticut are sometimes grouped together and referred to as the Northern Suburbs, the geographical, cultural, and economic center of the metropolitan area is New York City, which consists of five boroughs, each of which is also a county of New York State. The five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, with a Census-estimated population of 8,550,405 in 2015, distributed over a land area of just 305 square miles, New York is the most densely populated major city in the United States. Long Island is a located just off the northeast coast of the United States. Stretching east-northeast from New York Harbor into the Atlantic Ocean, the island comprises four counties, Kings and Queens to the west, then Nassau, North of the island is Long Island Sound, across which are the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island. Its population density is 5,571 inhabitants per square mile, Queens is the most ethnically diverse urban area in the world. Long Island is the most populated island in the United States, known especially for recreation, boating and miles of public beaches, including numerous town, county and state parks and Fire Island National Seashore. The East End of Long Island boasts open spaces for farmland, passenger rail access is provided by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Long Island Rail Road, one of the largest commuter railroads in the United States. Air travel needs are served by several airports – most notably Farmingdale-Republic Airport and Islip-MacArthur Airport, within Queens, it is home to John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport, two of the three major airline hubs serving the New York City area
18.
Referendum
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A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to vote on a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new law, in some countries it is synonymous with a plebiscite or a vote on a ballot question. Some definitions of plebiscite suggest that it is a type of vote to change the constitution or government of a country, however, some other countries define it differently. For example, Australia defines referendum as a vote to change the constitution, the addition of the verb sum to a gerundive, denotes the idea of necessity or compulsion, that which must be done, rather than that which is fit for doing). This determines the form of the plural in English, which according to English grammar should be referendums, the use of referenda as a plural form in English is thus insupportable according to the rules of both Latin and English grammar alike. The Latin plural gerundive referenda, meaning things to be referred, compare also, Agenda those matters which must be driven forward, from ago, to drive, Memorandum, that matter which must be remembered, from memoro, to call to mind, etc. The name and use of the referendum is thought to have originated in the Swiss canton of Graubünden as early as the 16th century. Today, a referendum can also often be referred to as a plebiscite, for example, Australia defines referendum as a vote to change the constitution, and plebiscite as a vote that does not affect the constitution. In contrast, Ireland has only held one plebiscite, which was the vote to adopt its constitution. Of that which has most definitely already occurred and this is in line with Eamon De Valeras oft stated belief that the people do not have the right to do wrong which in this context means to reject his new Eire constitution. The term referendum covers a variety of different meanings, a referendum can be binding or advisory. In some countries, different names are used for two types of referendum. From a political-philosophical perspective, referendums are an expression of direct democracy, however, in the modern world, most referendums need to be understood within the context of representative democracy. Australia ranked second with dozens of referendums, a referendum usually offers the electorate a choice of accepting or rejecting a proposal, but this is not necessarily the case. In Switzerland, for example, multiple choice referendums are common and this question can be resolved by applying voting systems designed for single winner elections to a multiple-choice referendum. Swiss referendums get around this problem by offering a separate vote on each of the options as well as an additional decision about which of the multiple options should be preferred. In the Swedish case, in both referendums the winning option was chosen by the Single Member Plurality system, in other words, the winning option was deemed to be that supported by a plurality, rather than an absolute majority, of voters. In the 1977, Australian referendum, the winner was chosen by the system of preferential instant-runoff voting, the 1992 New Zealand poll, was counted under the two-round system, as were polls in Newfoundland and Guam, for example
19.
Hempstead, New York
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Hempstead is one of the three towns in Nassau County, New York, United States, occupying the southwestern part of the county, in the western half of Long Island. Twenty-two incorporated villages are completely or partially within the town, hempsteads combined population was 759,757 at the 2010 Census, the majority of the population of the county and by far the most of any town in New York. Also, a village named Hempstead is within the Town, if the town were to be incorporated as a city, it would be the second-largest city in New York behind New York City. It would be the 18th-largest city in the country, behind Charlotte, North Carolina and ahead of Seattle, hofstra Universitys campus is located in Hempstead. The town was first settled around 1644 following the establishment of a treaty between English colonists, John Carman and Robert Fordham, and the Lenape Indians in 1643. Although the settlers were from the English colony of Connecticut, a patent was issued by the government of New Netherland after the settlers had purchased land from the local natives. This transaction is depicted in a mural in the Hempstead Village Hall, in 1664, the settlement under the new Province of New York adopted the Dukes Laws, austere statutes that became the basis upon which the laws of many colonies were to be founded. For a time, Hempstead became known as Old Blue, as a result of the Blue Laws, during the American Revolution, the Loyalists in the south and the American sympathizers in the north caused a split in 1784 into North Hempstead and South Hempstead. Richard Hewlett, who was born in Hempstead, served as a Lieutenant Colonel with the British Army under General Oliver De Lancey in the American Revolution. Afterward, Hewlett departed the United States with other Loyalists and settled in the newly created Province of New Brunswick in what later became Canada, a settlement there was named Hampstead, in Queens County next to Long Island in the Saint John River. The town is headed by the Supervisor, currently Anthony J. Santino, the responsibilities of the office include presiding over meetings of the Town Council and directing the legislative and administrative function of that body. The position also entails creating and implementing the towns budget, Santino succeeds Kate Murray, who was the towns first female supervisor. One famous former supervisor was Republican Alfonse DAmato, who later represented New York in the United States Senate from 1981 to 1999. Caso and Francis T. Purcell, both of whom went on to become the county executive, and then Al DAmato. Having the Presiding Supervisor on the county board along with the Supervisor gave Hempstead—by far the most populous of the three towns and two cities—the most clout on that body. As a result of that ruling, the Board of Supervisors was replaced by a 19-member county legislature, Gregory P. Peterson served as the last Presiding Supervisor, as the position was abolished with the demise of the county board. The Town Council comprises six voting members, elected from a councilmanic district, the clerk is responsible for issuing birth, marriage, and death certificates and is considered the towns record keeper. The clerk is currently Nasrin Ahmad of Salisbury, the Receiver of Taxes is Donald X. Clavin, Jr. of Garden City, New York
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North Hempstead, New York
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The Town of North Hempstead is one of three towns in Nassau County, New York, USA. As of the 2010 census, the population was 226,322. The town occupies the northwest part of the county and its Supervisor is Judi Bosworth, a former Nassau County legislator, who was inaugurated on Jan. A Democrat, she succeeded Interim Supervisor John B, riordan, the former Nassau County Surrogate, who served since the resignation of Jon Kaiman on Sept.23,2013 to work for Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Bosworth is the fifth consecutive Democrat to head the former Republican stronghold since Ben Zwirn was elected in 1989, the area was first settled by Europeans around 1643 and became part of the town of Hempstead. During the American Revolution the southern part of Hempstead was primarily Tory, while the part, having been settled by Yankees. Following the war, the Town of North Hempstead was split off in 1784, the signers, passionate Patriots, declared their independence from the Town of Hempstead, which, in their opinion, had the bad habit of pledging allegiance to the king. Therefore, the northern necks declared themselves a separate and independent beat or district. The beat would officially become the Town of North Hempstead in 1784, during the Revolution, the northern Patriots had their own militia headed by Capt. John Sands of Cow Neck, which invaded South Hempstead in search of arms, the rift caused a north-south animosity that would take years to heal. The first North Hempstead Town Board, headed by Patriot Adrian Onderdonk, had to cope with an impoverished area, the councilmen met in Roslyn taverns and didnt get a permanent home until 1907, when the present town hall opened in Manhasset. North Hempstead became more affluent with the opening of the Long Island Rail Road through to Great Neck, the town of North Hempstead is made up of 30 incorporated villages that had the right to set zoning restrictions to protect their rights and resources. No new villages have been created since 1936, when a county charter denied zoning power to future villages. There are also some unincorporated areas in the town of North Hempstead that are not part of villages, the west town line is the border of Queens County, New York, part of New York City. The north town line, delineated by Long Island Sound, is the border of Bronx County, the town of Oyster Bay is the eastern neighbor. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has an area of 69.1 square miles, of which 53.6 square miles is land and 15.5 square miles. Between the 1990 census and the 2000 census, North Hempstead lost some population growth to Queens, as of the census of 2000, there were 222,611 people,76,820 households, and 58,460 families residing in the town. The population density was 4,154.9 people per square mile, there were 78,927 housing units at an average density of 1,473.1 per square mile
21.
Oyster Bay (town), New York
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The Town of Oyster Bay is easternmost of the three towns in Nassau County, New York, in the United States. Part of the New York metropolitan area, it is the town in Nassau County that extends from the North Shore to the South Shore of Long Island. As of the 2010 census, the population was 293,214. There are 18 villages and 18 hamlets within the town of Oyster Bay, the U. S. Postal Service has organized these 36 places into 30 different 5-digit ZIP codes served by 20 different post offices. Each post office has the name as a hamlet or village. Oyster Bay is also the name of a hamlet on the north shore, near this hamlet, in the village of Cove Neck, is Sagamore Hill, the former residence and summer White House of Theodore Roosevelt and now a museum. Succeeding cultures of indigenous peoples had lived in the area for thousands of years, at the time of European contact, the Lenape nation inhabited western Long Island. By 1600 the band inhabiting the area was called the Matinecock after their location. Following European colonization, the became part of the colony of New Netherland. In 1639, the Dutch West India Company made its first purchase of land on Long Island from the local Native Americans, the English also had colonies on Long Island at this time. The Dutch did not dispute English claims to what is now Suffolk County, in 1643, Englishmen purchased land in the present-day town of Hempstead from the Indians that included land purchased by the Dutch in 1639. Nevertheless, in 1644, the Dutch director granted a patent for Hempstead to the English, the Dutch also granted other English settlements in Flushing, Newtown, and Jamaica. Meanwhile, the government of England came under the control of Oliver Cromwell as a republic, in 1653, English settlers made their first purchase of land in Oyster Bay from the local Matinecock tribe, though there were already some rogue English settlements there. The monarchy was restored in England in 1660, and in 1664 King Charles gave Long Island to his brother James, in 1667 the settlement at Oyster Bay received its charter from the new English colony of New York, becoming the Township of Oyster Bay. By 1687, the last piece of land was sold by the Indians, during most of the American Revolution the town was under the control of British forces. The town was part of Queens County, until the western portion of that county was amalgamated into New York City in 1898. In 1918 Glen Cove, to the west, incorporated as a city, following World War II, housing replaced farmland as the population grew from about 40,000 in 1950 to more than 290,000 in 1990. Oyster Bay is home to the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club, one of the oldest yacht clubs in the Western Hemisphere, there are 40 buildings and sites presently named Town of Oyster Bay Landmarks
22.
Chinatown, Manhattan
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Manhattans Chinatown is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, bordering the Lower East Side to its east, Little Italy to its north, Civic Center to its south, and Tribeca to its west. Chinatown is home to the largest enclave of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with an estimated population of 90,000 to 100,000 people, Manhattans Chinatown is also one of the oldest Chinese ethnic enclaves. Historically it was populated by Cantonese speakers. However, in the 1980s-90s, large numbers of Fuzhounese-speaking immigrants also arrived, a new and rapidly growing Chinese community is now forming in East Harlem, Uptown Manhattan, nearly tripling in population between the years 2000 and 2010, according to U. S. Census figures. After the City of New York itself, the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn encompass the largest Chinese populations, respectively, Ah Ken is claimed to have arrived in the area during the 1840s, he is the first Chinese person credited as having permanently immigrated to Chinatown. As a Cantonese businessman, Ah Ken eventually founded a cigar store on Park Row. It has been speculated that it may have been Ah Ken who kept a boarding house on lower Mott Street. It was with the profits he earned as a landlord, earning an average of $100 a month, faced with increasing racial discrimination and new laws that prevented participation in many occupations on the U. S. West Coast, some Chinese immigrants moved to the East Coast cities in search of employment, early businesses in these cities included hand laundries and restaurants. Chinatown started on Mott, Park, Pell, and Doyers Streets, by 1870, there was a Chinese population of 200. By the time the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was passed, in 1900, the US Census reported 7,028 Chinese males in residence, but only 142 Chinese women. This significant gender inequality remained present until the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943, wenfei Wang, Shangyi Zhou, and C. Cindy Fan, authors of Growth and Decline of Muslim Hui Enclaves in Beijing, wrote that because of immigration restrictions, Chinatown continued to be virtually a bachelor society until 1965. The early days of Chinatown were dominated by Chinese tongs, which were a mixture of clan associations, landsmans associations, political alliances, the associations started to give protection from harassment due to anti-Chinese sentiment. Each of these associations was aligned with a street gang, the associations were a source of assistance to new immigrants, giving out loans, aiding in starting businesses, and so forth. The associations formed a body named the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association. Though this body was meant to foster relations between the Tongs, open warfare periodically flared between the On Leong and Hip Sing tongs, much of the Chinese gang warfare took place on Doyers street. Gangs like the Ghost Shadows and Flying Dragons were prevalent until the 1990s, the Chinese gangs controlled certain territories of Manhattans Chinatown
23.
Brownstone
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Brownstone is a brown Triassic-Jurassic sandstone which was once a popular building material. The term is used in the United States to refer to a townhouse clad in this material. In the 19th century, Basswood Island, Wisconsin, was the site of a run by the Bass Island Brownstone Company which operated from 1868 into the 1890s. The stone comes from the Hummelstown Quarry in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, the Hummelstown Quarry is the largest provider of brownstone on the east coast. Typically the stone was transported out of Hummelstown through the Brownstone, connecticut River Brownstone, is also very popular. C. and Baltimore. Quarries from the Passaic Formation in northern New Jersey once supplied most of the used in New York City. The Manhattan neighborhood of the Upper West Side, too, retains many brownstones, Brownstones also predominate in some Hudson County neighborhoods directly across the Hudson River from Manhattan, especially in Hoboken and around Van Vorst Park and Hamilton Park in Jersey City. New York City brownstones usually cost several million dollars to purchase, a typical architectural detail of brownstones in and around New York City is the stoop, a steep staircase rising from the street to the entrance on what amounts to almost the second-floor level. This design was seen as hygienic at the many were built. Lately, it has become fashionable to use the term brownstone to refer to almost any townhouse from a certain period, many townhouses in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, for example, are basically built of brick, some having concrete masonry cladding to make them resemble actual stone. The Rittenhouse Square and Fairmount, Philadelphia neighborhoods of Philadelphia also include examples of brownstone architecture, many of these homes have been converted into apartment buildings. Back Bay, Boston, is known for its Victorian brownstone homes – considered some of the examples of 19th-century urban design in the United States. Although some brownstones exist in Chicago, a similar residential form known as greystones are by far more prevalent, a greystone is a type of residential structure that utilizes Indiana limestone for its facade, regardless of its overall architectural style. As in Brooklyn, there exists a Greystone Belt in Chicago, with numbers of such structures located in the south. It is estimated that around 30,000 of Chicagos greystones built between 1890 and 1930 are still standing, Brownstone, also known as freestone due to its durability and advantages as a building material, was used by early Quakers in Pennsylvania to construct stone mills and mill houses. In central Pennsylvania, some 1700s-era structures survive, including one used as a residence. Archived from the original on 2006-08-13, cS1 maint, BOT, original-url status unknown in Wisconsin. Website devoted to the Weser brownstone quarries from Germany being imported into the US, after Fight, a Brooklyn Brownstones Costly Rescue, The New York Times Website devoted to the colonial-era Quaker Mill House in Pennsylvania
24.
Greenpoint, Brooklyn
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Greenpoint is the northernmost neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, in the U. S. state of New York. It has a large Polish immigrant and Polish-American community and has often referred to as Little Poland. The recent and continuing building boom in the neighborhood, especially of multifamily dwellings, the neighborhood is part of New Yorks 12th congressional district, State Senate Districts 17 and 25, State Assembly District 50, City Council District 33, and Brooklyn Community Board 1. The neighborhood is served by the NYPDs 94th Precinct and the FDNY Engine 238, at the time of European settlement in New York, Greenpoint was inhabited by the Keskachauge Indians, a sub-tribe of the Lenape. Contemporary accounts describe the area as remarkably verdant and beautiful, with Jack pine and oak forest, meadows, fresh water creeks, water fowl and fish were abundant. In 1638, the Dutch West India Company negotiated the right to settle Brooklyn from the Lenape, the first recorded European settler of what is now Greenpoint was Dirck Volckertsen, a Norwegian immigrant who in 1645 built a 1 1⁄2-story farmhouse there with the help of two Dutch carpenters. It was built in the contemporary Dutch style just west of what is now the intersection of Calyer Street, there he planted orchards and raised crops, sheep and cattle. He was called Dirck de Noorman by the Dutch colonists of the region, the creek that ran by his farmhouse became known as Norman Kill, it ran into a large salt marsh and was later filled in. Volckertsen received title to the land after prevailing in court the year before over a Jan De Pree, volckertsens wife, Christine Vigne, was a Walloon. Volckertsen had had conflicts with the Keshaechqueren, who killed two of his sons-in-law and tortured a third in separate incidents throughout the 1650s. Jan Meserole established a farm in 1663, his farmhouse at what is now 723 Manhattan Avenue stood until 1919 and last served as a Young Women’s Hebrew Association. Praa had no heirs when he died in 1740. The families used boats to travel to Manhattan to sell their farm produce. Little historical information exists about this period of Greenpoints history other than the personal papers, Greenpoint first began to change significantly when entrepreneur Neziah Bliss married into the Meserole family in the early 1830s after purchasing land from them. He eventually bought out most of the land in Greenpoint, in 1834 he had the area surveyed, and in 1839 opened a public turnpike along what is now Franklin Street. He established regular service to Manhattan around 1850. All of these contributed to the rapid and radical transformation of Greenpoint. Germans and Irish arrived in the century and large numbers of Poles began arriving before the turn of the century
25.
Unisphere
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The Unisphere, with a diameter of 120 ft, is a spherical stainless steel representation of the Earth, located in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in the borough of Queens, New York City. There were two Worlds Fairs at the site, both largely the inspiration of Robert Moses, because of the fairs, there were additions of new landscape and one of them is the Unisphere. The Unisphere is one of the boroughs most iconic and enduring symbols, commissioned to celebrate the beginning of the space age, the Unisphere was conceived and constructed as the theme symbol of the 1964–1965 New York Worlds Fair. The theme of the Worlds Fair was Peace Through Understanding and the Unisphere represented the theme of global interdependence and it was dedicated to Mans Achievements on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe. Robert Moses was president of the World’s Fair Corporation, which leased the park from the city and it is the worlds largest global structure, rising 140 ft and weighing 700,000 lb. Some sources say the Unisphere weighs 900,000 lb, a figure that includes the weight of its 100-ton inverted tripod base. The diameter of the sphere is 120 ft and it is constructed of Type 304L stainless steel. The continents on the sphere are fabricated with a special texture-pattern by Rigidized Metals Corporation, based in Buffalo, developed for this architectural project, the patterns name, “1 UN” stands for,1 Unisphere. The 96 fountainheads arranged in pairs are designed to obscure its tripod pedestal, the effect is meant to make the Unisphere appear as if it is floating in space. During the fair, dramatic lighting at night gave the effect of moving over the surface of the globe. Additionally, the capitals of nations were marked by lights, one of these lights is placed at the location of the Kahnawake Indian Reservation, which the Mohawk ironworkers requested to be placed there to honor their labor. Three large orbit rings of stainless steel encircle the Unisphere at various angles, in fact, the early design was to have a ring for each of a dozen satellites in place at the time of the Fair. This proved impractical, not only in the number of satellites, but also in the height of their orbits, as a result, a symbolic number of three was chosen for aesthetic reasons. The Unisphere was climbed in 1976 by George Willig, and Jerry Hewitt as part of a film called The Third Stone, directed by NYU Film student. Every year at least three people are taken to hospitals for injuries from trying to climb the Unisphere. The Beastie Boys, Depeche Mode, and The B-52s all have been photographed in front of the Unisphere for promotional purposes, a climactic scene in the movie Men in Black was set and filmed here. A crucial plot point in Iron Man 2 depended on the structure, in season 6 of Law and Order Criminal Intent an episode has the victim found under the Unisphere. The 1989 movie Black Rain begins with a shot of the Unisphere, in 1989, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation announced a multimillion-dollar rehabilitation of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park
26.
Multiculturalism
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This can happen when a jurisdiction is created or expanded by amalgamating areas with two or more different cultures or through immigration from different jurisdictions around the world. Multiculturalism has been described as a bowl and cultural mosaic. Two different and seemingly inconsistent strategies have developed through different government policies and strategies, the first focuses on interaction and communication between different cultures, this approach is also often known as interculturalism. The second centers on diversity and cultural uniqueness which can result in intercultural competition over jobs among other things. Cultural isolation can protect the uniqueness of the culture of a nation or area. A common aspect of many policies following the approach is that they avoid presenting any specific ethnic, religious. Multiculturalism centers on the thought in political philosophy about the way to respond to cultural and it is closely associated with identity politics, the politics of difference, and the politics of recognition. It is also a matter of economic interests and political power, Multiculturalism can refer to a demographic fact, a particular set of philosophical ideas, or a specific orientation by government or institutions toward a diverse population. Most of the debate over multiculturalism centers around whether or not public multiculturalism is the way to deal with diversity. The term multiculturalism is most often used in reference to Western nation-states, the Canadian government has often been described as the instigator of multicultural ideology because of its public emphasis on the social importance of immigration. The Canadian Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism is often referred to as the origins of political awareness of multiculturalism. In the Western English-speaking countries, multiculturalism as an national policy started in Canada in 1971. It was quickly adopted as policy by most member-states of the European Union. Recently, right-of-center governments in several European states—notably the Netherlands and Denmark— have reversed the national policy, a similar reversal is the subject of debate in the United Kingdom, among others, due to evidence of incipient segregation and anxieties over home-grown terrorism. Many nation-states in Africa, Asia, and the Americas are culturally diverse, in some, communalism is a major political issue. The Australian government retains multiculturalism in policy, and as an aspect of Australia today. The White Australia Policy was quietly dismantled after World War II by various changes to immigration policy, the election of John Howards Liberal-National Coalition government in 1996 was a major watershed for Australian multiculturalism. Howard had long been a critic of multiculturalism, releasing his One Australia policy in the late 1980s, the first edition was published in 1999
27.
Contiguous United States
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The contiguous United States consists of the 48 adjoining U. S. states plus Washington, D. C. on the continent of North America. S. The greatest distance entirely within the 48 contiguous states is 2,802 miles, the greatest north-south line is 1,650 miles. Together, the 48 contiguous states and Washington, D. C. occupy an area of 3,119,884.69 square miles. Of this area,2,959,064.44 square miles is land, composing 83. 65% of U. S. land area, officially,160,820.25 square miles is water area, composing 62. 66% of the nations total water area. The contiguous United States would be placed 5th in the list of states and dependencies by area. The 2010 census population of area was 306,675,006, comprising 99. 33% of the nations population. While conterminous U. S. has the meaning of contiguous U. S. other terms commonly used to describe the 48 contiguous states have a greater degree of ambiguity. The term was in use prior to the admission of Alaska and Hawaii as states of the United States, the District of Columbia is not always specifically mentioned as being part of CONUS. OCONUS is derived from CONUS with O for outside added, thus referring to Outside of Continental United States, the term Lower 48 is also used to refer to the conterminous United States. The National Geographic style guide recommends the use of contiguous or conterminous United States instead of lower 48 when the 48 states are meant, both Alaskans and Hawaiians have unique labels for the contiguous United States because of their own locations relative to them. Alaska became the 49th state of the United States on January 3,1959, Alaska is on the northwest end of the North American continent, but separated from the rest of the United States Pacific coast by the Canadian province of British Columbia. In Alaska, given the ambiguity surrounding the usage of continental, several other terms have been used over the years. Hawaii became the 50th state of the United States on August 21,1959 and it is the southernmost and so far, the latest state to join the Union. Not part of any continent, Hawaii is located in the Pacific Ocean, about 2,200 miles from North America, in Hawaii and overseas American territories, for instance, the terms the Mainland or U. S. Mainland are often used to refer to the continental United States, apart from off-shore US islands, a few continental portions of the contiguous US are accessible by road only by traveling through Canada. Point Roberts, Washington, Elm Point, Minnesota, and the Northwest Angle in Minnesota are three such places, alburgh, Vermont, is not directly connected by land, but is accessible by road via bridges from within Vermont and from from New York. The 48 contiguous United States are, Washington, D. C. is distinct from the state of Washington, extreme points of the United States Mainland Definition of continental Definition of contiguous Definition of coterminous and conterminous
28.
Borough president
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A borough president is an elective office in each of the five boroughs of New York City. Borough presidents currently have little power in New York City government and they generally act as advocates for their boroughs at the mayoral agencies, the city council, the New York State government, public corporations, and private businesses. Their authorizing law is codified in title 4, sections 81 to 85 of the New York City Charter, Borough presidents currently have a relatively small discretionary budget for projects within their boroughs. They also act as advocates for their boroughs at mayoral agencies, the City Council, the New York State government, public corporations, Borough presidents are currently elected by popular vote to four-year terms, and can serve up to three consecutive terms. Borough presidents influence the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure by appointing NYC community boards, each of the five boroughs has a borough board. They are composed of the president, council members from the borough. Community boards advise on land use and zoning, participate in the city budget process, community boards act in an advisory capacity, and have no authority to make or enforce laws. On January 1,1898, the boroughs of Manhattan, The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, as part of the consolidation, all town and county governments within the city were dissolved, and their powers were given to the city and the boroughs. The boroughs assumed most county functions, but did not replace them, the eastern two-thirds of Queens County was not part of the borough of Queens. The initial city charter established the five borough president offices with terms of four years, the salaries of the presidents of Manhattan, The Bronx, and Brooklyn were $5,000, and those of Queens and Richmond were $3,000. The borough presidents were subject to removal for cause by the mayor, with approval by the governor, in a later writers words, the offices of the borough presidents were created to preserve local pride and affection for the old municipalities after consolidation. Borough presidents gradually gained more authority, assisting in the formulation of more aspects of the city budget and controlling land use, contracts, and franchise powers. Although some borough presidents served for decades, the position was used as a stepping-stone to other elective offices such as judgeships or, in the case of Robert F. Wagner. On March 22,1989, the Supreme Court of the United States, the city charter was quickly revised and passed in a referendum that fall, and the Board of Estimate was abolished. The offices of the presidents were retained, but with greatly reduced power. The borough budgets became the responsibility of the mayor and City Council, Borough presidents currently have a relatively small discretionary budget for projects within their boroughs. The two major remaining appointments of the presidents are one member each on the City Planning Commission. Borough presidents generally adopt specific projects to promote while in office and they also act as advocates for their boroughs at mayoral agencies, the City Council, the New York State government, public corporations, and private businesses
29.
St. George, Staten Island
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St. George is a neighborhood on the northeastern tip of Staten Island in New York City, where the Kill Van Kull enters Upper New York Bay. It is the most densely developed neighborhood on Staten Island, the Staten Island terminal of the Staten Island Ferry is located here, as well as the northern terminus of the Staten Island Railway. St. George is bordered on the south by the neighborhood of Tompkinsville, Fort Hill, one of the hills overlooking the harbor, was the location on Duxburys Point or Ducksberry Point fortified by the British during the American Revolutionary War. The area was primarily rural through the early 19th century, the name was derived not from the dragon-slaying saint, but from George Law, a developer who acquired rights to the waterfront at bargain prices. In the late 1880s, Wiman operated the Staten Island Amusement Company in the neighborhood, offering public athletic events, an illuminated fountain, the St. George Cricket Grounds was part of that complex, but only lasted a few years. In the 1830s, the area facing the Kill Van Kull became a resort area. Marks Place across from the present site of Curtis High School, the grandest and last of these hotels was the Hotel Castleton, built in 1889 and destroyed by fire in 1907. In 1918, the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences moved to its present location in the neighborhood, the United States Coast Guard operated a facility in the neighborhood until moving to Governors Island in 1967. The Office Building and U. S. Light-House Depot Complex was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, in the early 20th century the neighborhood grew rapidly, municipal ferry service to Manhattan began in 1905. The neighborhood had several elegant buildings by the firm of Carrère. These included a branch of the New York Public Library, the present Staten Island Borough Hall, and the Richmond County Courthouse. This three-digit prefix, now identified by numbers —727 — is the one of five exchanges which existed immediately prior to the aforementioned upgrade that is still in service on the island. The community underwent a revival in the late 1990s and property values have continued to rise since 2000, in 1994, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated a St. George Historic District. The historic district consists of 78 houses and one church—St, peters Roman Catholic, the oldest parish on Staten Island—and is a mix of Victorian styles, such as Queen Anne, Shingle style, Colonial Revival, and Tudor. Currently, the area of Fort Hill comprises the remains of the streets and homes where the descendants of the Tompkins, Westervelt and Low families lived. Here originally stood the mansion of Vice President and former New York State Governor Daniel D. Tompkins, the Anson Phelps-Stokes mansion, another prominent landowner was August Belmont, whose name is enshrined in Belmont Place. Many of the houses remaining today represent the homes and summer homes of the Low-Tompkins extended family, another popular upscale residential development, Bay Street Landing, abuts the bay between the ferry terminal and the head of Victory Boulevard. Many condominium buildings are currently being built along the shore, and near the terminal, as they offer unsurpassed views of lower Manhattan
30.
Suburb
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A suburb is a residential area or a mixed use area, either existing as part of a city or urban area or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city. In some areas, such as Australia, China, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and a few U. S. states, new suburbs are routinely annexed by adjacent cities. In others, such as Arabia, Canada, France, and much of the United States, Suburbs first emerged on a large scale in the 19th and 20th centuries as a result of improved rail and road transport, which led to an increase in commuting. Suburbs tend to proliferate around cities that have an abundance of adjacent flat land, the English word is derived from the Old French subburbe, which is in turn derived from the Latin suburbium, formed from sub and urbs. The first recorded usage of the term in English, was made by John Wycliffe in 1380, in Australia and New Zealand, suburbs have become formalised as geographic subdivisions of a city and are used by postal services in addressing. In rural areas in both countries, their equivalents are called localities, the terms inner suburb and outer suburb are used to differentiate between the higher-density suburbs in proximity to the city center, and the lower-density suburbs on the outskirts of the urban area. The term middle suburbs is also used, Suburbs, in this sense, can range from areas that seem more like residential areas of a city proper to areas separated by open countryside from the city centre. In large cities such as London, suburbs include formerly separate towns and villages that have been gradually absorbed during a growth and expansion. In the United States and Canada, suburb can refer either to an residential area of a city or town or to a separate municipality or unincorporated area outside a town or city. The earliest appearance of suburbs coincided with the spread of the first urban settlements, large walled towns tended to be the focus around which smaller villages grew up in a symbiotic relationship with the market town. The word suburbani was first used by the Roman statesman Cicero in reference to the large villas, as populations grew during the Early Modern Period in Europe, urban towns swelled with a steady influx of people from the countryside. In some places, nearby settlements were swallowed up as the city expanded. The peripheral areas on the outskirts of the city were generally inhabited by the very poorest, by the mid-19th century, the first major suburban areas were springing up around London as the city became more overcrowded and unsanitary. A major catalyst in suburban growth came from the opening of the Metropolitan Railway in the 1860s, the line joined the capitals financial heart in the City to what were to become the suburbs of Middlesex. Harrow was reached in 1880, and the line extended as far as Verney Junction in Buckinghamshire, more than 50 miles from Baker Street. Unlike other railway companies, which were required to dispose of surplus land, in 1912, it was suggested that a specially formed company should take over from the Surplus Lands Committee and develop suburban estates near the railway. However, World War I delayed these plans and it was only in 1919, with expectation of a housing boom. The term Metro-land was coined by the Mets marketing department in 1915 when the Guide to the Extension Line became the Metro-land guide and this promoted the land served by the Met for the walker, visitor and later the house-hunter
31.
Neighborhoods in New York City
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The neighborhoods in New York City are located within the five boroughs of the City of New York. Their names and borders are not officially defined, and they change from time to time, New York City is split up into five boroughs, which are the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. Each borough has the boundaries as a county of the state. The county governments were dissolved when the city consolidated in 1898, along all city, town. The term borough was adopted to describe a form of governmental administration for each of the five fundamental constituent parts of the newly consolidated city
32.
Skyscraper
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A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building having multiple floors. When the term was used in the 1880s it described a building of 10 to 20 floors. Mostly designed for office, commercial and residential uses, a skyscraper can also be called a high-rise, for buildings above a height of 300 m, the term supertall can be used, while skyscrapers reaching beyond 600 m are classified as megatall. One common feature of skyscrapers is having a steel framework that supports curtain walls and these curtain walls either bear on the framework below or are suspended from the framework above, rather than resting on load-bearing walls of conventional construction. Some early skyscrapers have a frame that enables the construction of load-bearing walls taller than of those made of reinforced concrete. Modern skyscrapers walls are not load-bearing, and most skyscrapers are characterized by surface areas of windows made possible by steel frames. However, skyscrapers can have curtain walls that mimic conventional walls with a surface area of windows. Modern skyscrapers often have a structure, and are designed to act like a hollow cylinder to resist wind, seismic. To appear more slender, allow less wind exposure, and transmit more daylight to the ground, many skyscrapers have a design with setbacks, a relatively big building may be considered a skyscraper if it protrudes well above its built environment and changes the overall skyline. The maximum height of structures has progressed historically with building methods and technologies, the Burj Khalifa is currently the tallest building in the world. High-rise buildings are considered shorter than skyscrapers, the first steel-frame skyscraper was the Home Insurance Building in Chicago, Illinois in 1885. Even the scholars making the argument find it to be purely academic and this definition was based on the steel skeleton—as opposed to constructions of load-bearing masonry, which passed their practical limit in 1891 with Chicagos Monadnock Building. What is the characteristic of the tall office building. The force and power of altitude must be in it, the glory and it must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exaltation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line. Some structural engineers define a highrise as any vertical construction for which wind is a significant load factor than earthquake or weight. Note that this criterion fits not only high-rises but some other tall structures, the word skyscraper often carries a connotation of pride and achievement. A loose convention of some in the United States and Europe draws the limit of a skyscraper at 150 m or 490 ft. The tallest building in ancient times was the 146 m Great Pyramid of Giza in ancient Egypt and it was not surpassed in height for thousands of years, the 14th century AD Lincoln Cathedral being conjectured by many to have exceeded it
33.
Times Square
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It stretches from West 42nd to West 47th Streets. One of the worlds busiest pedestrian areas, it is also the hub of the Broadway Theater District, Times Square is one of the worlds most visited tourist attractions, drawing an estimated 50 million visitors annually. Approximately 330,000 people pass through Times Square daily, many of them tourists, the southern triangle of Times Square has no specific name, but the northernmost of the two triangles is called Father Duffy Square. Since 2008, the booth has been backed by a red, sloped, triangular set of stairs, which is used by people to sit, talk, eat. When Manhattan Island was first settled by the Dutch, three small streams united near what is now 10th Avenue and 40th street and these three streams formed the Great Kill. From there the Great Kill wound through the low-lying Reed Valley, known for fish and waterfowl, the name was retained in a tiny hamlet, Great Kill, that became a center for carriage-making, as the upland to the south and east became known as Longacre. Before and after the American Revolution, the area belonged to John Morin Scott, scotts manor house was at what is currently 43rd Street, surrounded by countryside used for farming and breeding horses. By 1872, the area had become the center of New Yorks horse carriage industry, the locality had not previously been given a name, and city authorities called it Longacre Square after Long Acre in London, where the horse and carriage trade was centered in that city. William Henry Vanderbilt owned and ran the American Horse Exchange there, in 1910 it became the Winter Garden Theatre. The first theater on the square, the Olympia, was built by cigar manufacturer, by the early 1890s this once sparsely settled stretch of Broadway was ablaze with electric light and thronged by crowds of middle- and upper-class theatre, restaurant and cafe patrons. In 1904, New York Times publisher Adolph S. Ochs persuaded Mayor George B, mcClellan, Jr. to construct a subway station there, and the area was renamed Times Square on April 8,1904. Just three weeks later, the first electrified advertisement appeared on the side of a bank at the corner of 46th Street, the north end later became Duffy Square, and the former Horse Exchange became the Winter Garden Theatre. The New York Times, according to Nolan, moved to spacious offices west of the square in 1913. The old Times Building was later named the Allied Chemical Building in 1963, now known simply as One Times Square, it is famed for the Times Square Ball drop on its roof every New Years Eve. In 1913, the Lincoln Highway Association, headed by entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, chose the intersection of 42nd Street and Broadway to be the Eastern Terminus of the Lincoln Highway. This was the first road across the United States, which originally spanned 3,389 miles coast-to-coast through 13 states to its terminus in Lincoln Park in San Francisco. Times Square grew dramatically after World War I and it became a cultural hub full of theatres, music halls, and upscale hotels. Times Square quickly became New Yorks agora, a place to gather to await great tidings and to celebrate them, advertising also grew significantly in the 1920s, growing from $25 million to $85 million over the decade
34.
Central Park
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Central Park is an urban park in Manhattan, New York City. Central Park is the most visited park in the United States, with 40 million visitors in 2013. The park was established in 1857 on 778 acres of city-owned land, construction began the same year and the parks first area was opened to the public in the winter of 1858. Construction continued during the American Civil War farther north, and was expanded to its current size of 843 acres in 1873, Central Park was designated a National Historic Landmark by the U. S. Department of the Interior in 1962. The Conservancy is a organization that contributes 75 percent of Central Parks $65 million annual budget and is responsible for all basic care of the 843-acre park. Between 1821 and 1855, New York City nearly quadrupled in population, as the city expanded northward up Manhattan, people were drawn to the few existing open spaces, mainly cemeteries, to get away from the noise and chaotic life in the city. Since Central Park was not part of the original Commissioners Plan of 1811, John Randel, Jr. surveyed the grounds. The only remaining surveying bolt from his survey is still visible, it is embedded in a rock just north of the present Dairy and the 65th Street Transverse, the bolt marks the location where West 65th Street would have intersected Sixth Avenue. The state appointed a Central Park Commission to oversee the development of the park, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux developed what came to be known as the Greensward Plan, which was selected as the winning design. The Greensward Plan called for some 36 bridges, all designed by Vaux, ranging from rugged spans of Manhattan schist or granite, to lacy Neo-Gothic cast iron, several influences came together in the design. Landscaped cemeteries, such as Mount Auburn and Green-Wood had set examples of idyllic, naturalistic landscapes, the most influential innovations in the Central Park design were the separate circulation systems for pedestrians, horseback riders, and pleasure vehicles. The crosstown commercial traffic was entirely concealed in sunken roadways, screened with densely planted shrub belts so as to maintain a rustic ambiance, before the construction of the park could start, the area had to be cleared of its inhabitants. Most lived in villages, such as Harsenville, the Piggery District, or Seneca Village, or in the school. Approximately 1,600 residents were evicted under the rule of eminent domain during 1857, Seneca Village and parts of the other communities were razed to make room for the park. During the parks construction, Olmsted fought constant battles with the park commissioners, between 1860 and 1873, most of the major hurdles to construction were overcome and the park was substantially completed. The work was documented with technical drawings and photographs. More gunpowder was used to clear the area than was used at the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War, the parks commissioners assigned a name to each of the original 18 gates in 1862. The names were chosen to represent the diversity of New York Citys trades, for example, Mariners Gate for the entrance at 85th Street
35.
County statistics of the United States
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In 48 of the 50 states of the United States, the county is used for the level of local government immediately below the state itself. Louisiana uses parishes, and Alaska uses boroughs, there are 3,142 counties and county equivalent administrative units in total, including the District of Columbia. There are 41 independent cities in the United States, in Virginia, any municipality that is incorporated as a city legally becomes independent of any county. Where indicated, the statistics below do not include Virginias 38 independent cities, in Alaska, most of the land area of the state has no county-level government. Those parts of the state are divided by the United States Census Bureau into census areas, the states largest statistical division by area is the Yukon–Koyukuk Census Area, which is larger than any of the states boroughs. Although Anchorage is called a municipality, it is considered a consolidated city, lists of counties and county equivalents by number per political division, Total,3,142 Average county equivalents per state,62.84 These rankings include county equivalents. The following tables exclude county equivalents, the largest counties and county equivalents are organized boroughs and the census areas of Alaska with the top two being Yukon–Koyukuk Census Area and North Slope Borough. The smallest counties and county equivalents are the independent cities of Virginia with the extreme being Falls Church. If independent cities are included, Falls Church becomes the smallest county in the state and this list excludes Alaskan Census Areas, but includes other county equivalents. The North Slope Borough is the largest independently incorporated county equivalent, the Unorganized Borough is substantially larger, but is an extension of the State of Alaska government and not independently incorporated. Data presented below is based on U. S. Census department data from 2010, calculations are made by dividing the population by the land area. This list generated by dividing the population by the land area, the list is dominated by just a few states, Alaska, Montana, and Texas together comprise about two-thirds of the entries. The Unorganized Borough is not included here as a unit, if the census areas were removed from the list, the Unorganized Borough would rank fourteenth with a density of 0.38 per square mile. Data presented below is based on U. S. Census Bureau data from 2010, calculations are made by dividing the population by the land area. Excluding the census areas of Alaska, Lake and Peninsula Borough is the least densely populated county equivalent with 0. 069/sq mi, map of the US showing population density per county 2002 Census of Governments, Volume 1, No. Page 8 shows a chart of counties by population and by state, labor Statistics County Employment and Wages
36.
Financial centre
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A financial centre is a location that is home to a cluster of nationally or internationally significant financial services providers such as banks, investment managers or stock exchanges. A prominent financial centre can be described as a financial centre or a global financial centre and is often also a global city. Regional and national financial centres interact with these leading centres and may act as business feeders or provide access to them. An offshore financial centre is typically a smaller, lower-tax, more lightly regulated jurisdiction that primarily serves non-residents. In a number of cities, the name International Financial Centre is given to skyscrapers located in business districts, for example the landmark. Financial centres are locations with an agglomeration of participants in financial markets, participants can include financial intermediaries, institutional investors, as well as central banks. Trading activity takes place on such as exchanges and involve clearing houses, although many transactions take place over-the-counter. Financial centres serve the business of their home country and may also serve international business. The term international financial centre or global financial centre is used to indicate a prominent financial centre where such international or cross-border business takes place. International financial centres started an early life in the 11th century in England at the annual fair of St. Giles. The first real international financial center was the City State of Venice which slowly emerged from the 9th century to its peak in the 14th century, tradable bonds as a commonly used type of security, was invented by the Italian city-states of the late medieval and early Renaissance periods. They, too, became important centres of financial innovation, as Richard Sylla noted, “In modern history, several nations had what some of us call financial revolutions. These can be thought of as creating in a period of time all the key components of a modern financial system. The first was the Dutch Republic four centuries ago, Amsterdam – unlike its predecessors such as Bruges, Antwerp, Genoa, and Venice – controlled crucial resources and markets directly, sending its fleets to all quarters of the world. As the first listed company, the VOC was the first company to issue stock. With its pioneering features, the VOC is generally considered a major institutional breakthrough, and it officially ushered in the era of the modern multinational/transnational corporations that now dominate the world economy. The second major innovation was the creation of the worlds first fully functioning financial market, while the Italian city-states produced the first transferable government bonds, they didnt develop the other ingredient necessary to produce a fully fledged capital market, corporate shareholders. The VOC was the first company in history to issue bonds
37.
Headquarters
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Headquarters denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the top of a corporation taking full responsibility for managing all business activities, in the UK, the term head office is most commonly used for the HQs of large corporations. The term is also used regarding military organizations, a headquarters is the entity at the top of a corporation that takes full responsibility for the overall success of the corporation, and ensures corporate governance. Many companies have an office at a different address to their corporate office. A headquarters normally includes the leader of business unit and his or her staff as well as all functions to manage the business unit, the head of the business unit is responsible for overall result of the business unit. Military headquarters take many forms depending on the size and nature of the unit or formation they command, typically, they are split into the forward, main and rear components, both within NATO nations, and those following the organization and doctrine of the former Soviet Union. The forward or tactical HQs is a group of staff. The main HQs is less mobile and is involved in both the planning and execution of operations, there are a number of staff assembled here from various staff branches to advise the commander, and to control the various aspects of planning and the conduct of discrete operations. A main HQ for a large formation will have a chief of staff who coordinates the staff effort, the rear or logistic HQs is some distance from the battle or front line in conventional operations. The headquarters of the Catholic Church is Vatican City, the headquarters of the Russian Orthodox Church is in Danilov Monastery, Moscow. The World Council of Churches, including Orthodox Churches, has its headquarters in Geneva, the headquarters of Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is located in Istanbul, Turkey. The headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is located in Salt Lake City, Utah, the Anglican Communion Office is in London. In Japanese budō martial arts such as karate, judo, aikido, kendo, there is usually a headquarters for each organization or region. The Japanese word honbu is generally used for that, also outside Japan, sometimes they refer to this headquarters as honbu dojo in which dojo is a facility provided for practicing discipline, the training ground. Sometimes honbu is written as hombu, the way it is pronounced, but according to the Hepburn transcription, weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army Janes, London,516 pp. Wanner, Herbert Global and regional corporate headquarters in, Kählin, Christian, H. Switzerland Business & Investment Handbook, Orell Füssli and Wiley, Wanner, Herbert, LeClef, Xavier, & Shimizu, Hiroshi Global Headquarters on the Move, From Administrators to Facilitators Prims Second Semester 2004, Arthur D. Little
38.
Headquarters of the United Nations
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The headquarters of the United Nations is a complex in New York City designed by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer. The complex has served as the headquarters of the United Nations since its completion in 1952. It is located in the Turtle Bay neighborhood of Manhattan, on spacious grounds overlooking the East River and its borders are First Avenue on the west, East 42nd Street to the south, East 48th Street on the north and the East River to the east. The term Turtle Bay is occasionally used as a metonym for the UN headquarters or for the United Nations as a whole, the United Nations has three additional, subsidiary, regional headquarters, or headquarters districts. These were opened in Geneva in 1946, Vienna in 1980 and they are technically extraterritorial through a treaty agreement with the U. S. government. However, in exchange for police, fire protection and other services, the United Nations agrees to acknowledge most local, state. The United Nations Headquarters complex was constructed in stages with the complex completed between 1948 and 1952. The US$8.5 million purchase was funded by his father, John D. Rockefeller. The Rockefeller family owned the Tudor City Apartments across First Avenue from the site, Wallace Harrison, the personal architectural adviser for the Rockefeller family and brother-in-law to a Rockefeller daughter, served as the Director of Planning for the United Nations Headquarters. His firm, Harrison and Abramovitz, oversaw the execution of the design, the property was originally a slaughterhouse before the donation took place, bordered on one side by the Rockefeller owned Tudor City Apartments. While the United Nations had dreamed of constructing an independent city for its new world capital, the diminutive site on the East River necessitated a Rockefeller Center-type vertical complex, thus, it was a given that the Secretariat would be housed in a tall office tower. During daily meetings from February to June 1947, the team produced at least 45 designs and variations. Rather than hold a competition for the design of the facilities for the headquarters, the American architect Wallace K. Harrison was named as Director of Planning, and a Board of Design Consultants was composed of architects, planners and engineers nominated by member governments. Niemeyer met with Corbusier at the latters request shortly after the arrived in New York City. Corbusier had already been lobbying hard to promote his own scheme 23, instead, he asked the younger architect to assist him with his project. Niemeyer began to absent himself from the meetings, only after Wallace Harrison and Max Abramovitz repeatedly pressed him to participate did Niemeyer agree to submit his own project. This would not split the site, but on the contrary, after much discussion, Harrison, who coordinated the meetings, determined that a design based on Niemeyers project 32 and Le Corbusiers project 23 would be developed for the final project. The complex as built, however, repositioned Niemeyers General Assembly building to the north of this tripartite composition and this plan included a public plaza as well
39.
Wall Street
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Wall Street is an eight-block-long street running roughly northwest to southeast from Broadway to South Street, at the East River, in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the markets of the United States as a whole. Several other major exchanges have or had headquarters in the Wall Street area, including the New York Mercantile Exchange, the New York Board of Trade, there are varying accounts about how the Dutch-named de Walstraat got its name. A conflicting explanation is that Wall Street was named after Walloons— the Dutch name for a Walloon is Waal, among the first settlers that embarked on the ship Nieu Nederlandt in 1624 were 30 Walloon families. The Dutch word wal can be translated as rampart, however, even some English maps show the name as Waal Straat, and not as Wal Straat. But soon after that, the Dutch governor, Kieft, sent his men out there one night, few of them escaped, but they spread the story of what had been done, and this did much to antagonize all the remaining tribes against all the white settlers. Shortly after, Nieuw Amsterdam erected a palisade for defense against its now enraged red neighbors. The space between the walls is now called Wall Street, and its spirit is still that of a bulwark against the people. In the 1640s basic picket and plank fences denoted plots and residences in the colony, in 1685, surveyors laid out Wall Street along the lines of the original stockade. In these early days, local merchants and traders would gather at disparate spots to buy and sell shares and bonds, Wall Street was also the marketplace where owners could hire out their slaves by the day or week. The rampart was removed in 1699, the slave market operated from 1711 to 1762 at the corner of Wall and Pearl Streets. It was a structure with a roof and open sides, although walls may have been added over the years. The city directly benefited from the sale of slaves by implementing taxes on every person who was bought, in the late 18th century there was a buttonwood tree at the foot of Wall Street under which traders and speculators would gather to trade securities. The benefit was being in proximity to each other, in 1792, traders formalized their association with the Buttonwood Agreement which was the origin of the New York Stock Exchange. The idea of the agreement was to make the more structured and without the manipulative auctions. Persons signing the agreement agreed to each other a standard commission rate, persons not signing could still participate. In 1789 Wall Street was the scene of the United States first presidential inauguration when George Washington took the oath of office on the balcony of Federal Hall on April 30,1789 and this was also the location of the passing of the Bill Of Rights. Alexander Hamilton, who was the first Treasury secretary and architect of the early United States financial system, is buried in the cemetery of Trinity Church, in the first few decades, both residences and businesses occupied the area, but increasingly business predominated
40.
University
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A university is an institution of higher education and research which grants academic degrees in various academic disciplines. Universities typically provide undergraduate education and postgraduate education, the word university is derived from the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which roughly means community of teachers and scholars. Universities were created in Italy and evolved from Cathedral schools for the clergy during the High Middle Ages, the original Latin word universitas refers in general to a number of persons associated into one body, a society, company, community, guild, corporation, etc. Like other guilds, they were self-regulating and determined the qualifications of their members, an important idea in the definition of a university is the notion of academic freedom. The first documentary evidence of this comes from early in the life of the first university, the University of Bologna adopted an academic charter, the Constitutio Habita, in 1158 or 1155, which guaranteed the right of a traveling scholar to unhindered passage in the interests of education. Today this is claimed as the origin of academic freedom and this is now widely recognised internationally - on 18 September 1988,430 university rectors signed the Magna Charta Universitatum, marking the 900th anniversary of Bolognas foundation. The number of universities signing the Magna Charta Universitatum continues to grow, the university is generally regarded as a formal institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting. The earliest universities were developed under the aegis of the Latin Church by papal bull as studia generalia and it is possible, however, that the development of cathedral schools into universities was quite rare, with the University of Paris being an exception. Later they were founded by Kings or municipal administrations. In the early period, most new universities were founded from pre-existing schools. Many historians state that universities and cathedral schools were a continuation of the interest in learning promoted by monasteries, the first universities in Europe with a form of corporate/guild structure were the University of Bologna, the University of Paris, and the University of Oxford. The students had all the power … and dominated the masters, princes and leaders of city governments perceived the potential benefits of having a scholarly expertise develop with the ability to address difficult problems and achieve desired ends. The emergence of humanism was essential to understanding of the possible utility of universities as well as the revival of interest in knowledge gained from ancient Greek texts. The rediscovery of Aristotles works–more than 3000 pages of it would eventually be translated–fuelled a spirit of inquiry into natural processes that had begun to emerge in the 12th century. Some scholars believe that these represented one of the most important document discoveries in Western intellectual history. Richard Dales, for instance, calls the discovery of Aristotles works a turning point in the history of Western thought and this became the primary mission of lecturers, and the expectation of students. The university culture developed differently in northern Europe than it did in the south, Latin was the language of the university, used for all texts, lectures, disputations and examinations. Professors lectured on the books of Aristotle for logic, natural philosophy, and metaphysics, while Hippocrates, Galen, outside of these commonalities, great differences separated north and south, primarily in subject matter
41.
Hudson River
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The Hudson River is a 315-mile river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York in the United States. The river originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York, flows through the Hudson Valley, the river serves as a political boundary between the states of New Jersey and New York, and further north between New York counties. The lower half of the river is a tidal estuary occupying the Hudson Fjord, tidal waters influence the Hudsons flow from as far north as Troy. The river is named after Henry Hudson, an Englishman sailing for the Dutch East India Company, who explored it in 1609, and after whom Canadas Hudson Bay is also named. The Dutch called the river the North River – with the Delaware River called the South River –, during the eighteenth century, the river valley and its inhabitants were the subject and inspiration of Washington Irving, the first internationally acclaimed American author. In the nineteenth century, the area inspired the Hudson River School of landscape painting, the Hudson was also the eastern outlet for the Erie Canal, which, when completed in 1825, became an important transportation artery for the early-19th-century United States. The source of the Hudson River is Lake Tear of the Clouds in the Adirondack Park at an altitude of 4,322 feet, the river is not cartographically called the Hudson River until miles downstream. From that point on, the stream is known as the Hudson River. Popular culture and convention, however, more often cite the photogenic Lake Tear of the Clouds as the source, South of the confluence of Indian Pass Brook and Calamity Brook, the Hudson River flows south into Sanford Lake. South of the outlet of the lake, the Opalescent River flows into the Hudson, the Hudson then flows south, taking in Beaver Brook and the outlet of Lake Harris. After its confluence with the Indian River, the Hudson forms the boundary between Essex and Hamilton counties, in the hamlet of North River, the Hudson flows entirely in Warren County and takes in the Schroon River. Further south, the forms the boundary between Warren and Saratoga Counties. The river then takes in the Sacandaga River from the Great Sacandaga Lake, shortly thereafter, the river leaves the Adirondack Park, flows under Interstate 87, and through Glens Falls, just south of Lake George although receiving no streamflow from the lake. It next goes through Hudson Falls, at this point the river forms the boundary between Washington and Saratoga Counties. At this point the river has an altitude of 200 feet, further south the Hudson takes in water from the Batten Kill River and Fish Creek near Schuylerville. The river then forms the boundary between Saratoga and Rensselaer counties, the river then enters the heart of the Capital District. It takes in water from the Hoosic River, which extends into Massachusetts, shortly thereafter the river has its confluence with the Mohawk River, the largest tributary of the Hudson River, in Waterford. Shortly thereafter, the river reaches the Federal Dam in Troy, at an elevation of 2 feet, the bottom of the dam marks the beginning of the tidal influence in the Hudson as well as the beginning of the lower Hudson River
42.
Randalls and Wards Islands
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The two islands were formerly separate, with the channel between them, Little Hell Gate, being filled in by the early 1960s. The island had a population of 1,648 living on 2.09 square kilometers in 2010, most of the island is parkland, spanning a total of 432.69 acres. The parks offer athletic fields, a range, greenways, playgrounds. The island is crossed by the Triborough and Hell Gate bridges, Randalls Island is the home of two music festivals, Governors Ball Music Festival & Panorama Music Festival. Native Americans called Wards Island Tenkenas which translated to Wild Lands or uninhabited place, the islands were acquired by Wouter Van Twiller, Director General of the Dutch colony of New Netherland, in July 1637. The islands first European names were Great Barent Island and Little Barent Island after a Danish cowherd named Barent Jansen Blom, both islands names changed several times. At times Randalls was known as Buchanans Island and Great Barn Island, John Montresor, an engineer with the British army, purchased Randalls Island in 1772. He renamed it Montresors Island and lived on it with his wife until the Revolutionary War forced him to deploy, during the Revolutionary War, both islands hosted military posts for the British military. The British used his island to launch attacks on Manhattan. He resigned his commission and returned to England in 1778, but retained ownership of the island until the British evacuated the city in 1783, both islands gained their current names from new owners after the war. In November 1784, Jonathan Randell bought Randalls Island, while Jaspar Ward and Bartholomew Ward, sons of judge Stephen Ward, the wooden drawbridge connected the island with Manhattan at 114th Street, and was paid for by Bartholomew Ward and Philip Milledolar. The bridge lasted until 1821, when it was destroyed in a storm, after the destruction of the bridge, Wards island was largely abandoned until 1840. Jonathan Randels heirs sold Randalls to the city in 1835 for $60,000, in the mid-19th century, both Randalls and Wards Islands, like nearby Blackwells Island became home to a variety of social facilities. With 4,400 patients, it was the largest psychiatric institution in the world, the 1920 census notes that the hospital had a total of 6,045 patients. It later became the Manhattan Psychiatric Center, in 1984, the point at the southeastern tip of the island was officially designated Negro Point, based on the unofficial usage of riverboat workers. The United States Geological Survey and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration used that name and it still appears on charts of the area today. In 2001 the Parks Commissioner Henry Stern, upon learning of the name, despite the name change Negro Point is still used by tug captains and mates as they sail past the area. Randalls Island Park is operated by the Randalls Island Park Alliance, the Alliance works with the City and local communities to provide sports venues, cultural events and environmental exploration
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