(Redirected from Manhattan Island)
'Manhattan' is a
borough of
New York,
New York,
USA, with 'New York County'. With a
2000 population of 1,537,195
[New York—Place and County Subdivision, United States Census Bureau, accessed May 1, 2007.] living in a land area of 22.96 square miles (59.47 km²), it is the most densely populated county in the United States at 66,940 residents per square mile (25,846/km²).
[1] The borough consists of Manhattan Island, several much smaller islands, and a small section on the mainland adjacent to
the Bronx.
A commercial, financial, and cultural center of the city, Manhattan has many famous landmarks, tourist attractions, museums, and universities. It is also home to the headquarters of the
United Nations and the seat of city government. Manhattan has the largest central business district in the United States, is the site of both the
New York Stock Exchange and
NASDAQ, and is the home to the largest number of corporate headquarters in the nation.
The name ''Manhattan'' derives from the word Manna-hata, as written in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, an officer on
Henry Hudson's yacht ''
Halve Maen'' (Half Moon).
[2] A 1610 map depicts the name Manahata twice, on both the west and east sides of the Mauritius River (later named the
Hudson River). The word "Manhattan" has been translated as "island of many hills" from the
Lenape language.
[Holloway, Marguerite. "URBAN TACTICS; I'll Take Mannahatta", ''The New York Times'', May 16, 2004, accessed April 30, 2007. "He could envision what Henry Hudson saw in 1609 as he sailed along Mannahatta, which in the Lenape dialect most likely meant ''island of many hills.']
History
Colonial
Main articles: History of New York City
The area that is now Manhattan was long inhabited by the
Lenape. In 1524, Lenape in canoes met
Giovanni da Verrazzano, the first European explorer to pass
New York Harbor, though he did not enter the harbor past
the Narrows.
[3] It was not until the voyage of
Henry Hudson, an Englishman who worked for the
Dutch East India Company, that the area was mapped.
[4] Hudson discovered
Manhattan Island on
September 11,
1609, and continued up the river that bears his name, the
Hudson River, until he arrived at the site of present day
Albany.
["Henry Hudson and His Exploration" ''Scientific American'', September 25, 1909, accessed May 1, 2007. "This was a vain hope, however, and the conviction must finally have come to the heart of the intrepid adventurer that once again he was foiled in his repeated quest for the northwest passage … On the following day the “Half Moon†let go her anchor inside of Sandy Hook. The week was spent in exploring the bay with a shallop, or small boat, and “they found a good entrance]
between two headlands†(the Narrows) “and thus entered on the 11th of September into as fine a river as can be found.â€"
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 a citadel and a Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, later called
New Amsterdam (''Nieuw Amsterdam'').
[5][Tolerance Park Historic New Amsterdam on Governors Island, Tolerance Park. Accessed May 12, 2007. See Legislative Resolutions Senate No. 5476 and Assembly No. 2708.] Manhattan Island was chosen as the site of
Fort Amsterdam, a citadel for the protection of the new arrivals; its 1625 establishment is recognized as the birth date of New York City.
[6] In 1626,
Peter Minuit acquired Manhattan from native people in exchange for trade goods, often said to be worth $24.
[7]
In 1647,
Peter Stuyvesant was appointed as the last Dutch Director General of the colony.
[8] The colony was granted self-government in 1652 and New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on
February 2,
1653.
[9] In 1664, the British conquered the area and renamed it "New York" after the English
Duke of York and Albany.
[10] Stuyvesant and his council negotiated 24 articles of provisional transfer with the British which sought to guarantee New Netherlanders liberties, including
freedom of religion, under British rule.
[11][12]
American Revolution and the early United States
Manhattan was at the heart of the
New York Campaign, a series of major battles in the early
American Revolutionary War. The
Continental Army was forced to abandon Manhattan after the disastrous
Battle of Fort Washington on
November 16,
1776. The city became the British political and military center of operations in North America for the remainder of the war.
[13] Manhattan was greatly damaged by the
Great Fire of New York during the
British military rule that followed. British occupation lasted until
November 25,
1783, when
George Washington returned to Manhattan, as
the last British forces left the city.
[14]
From
January 11,
1785 to Autumn 1788, New York City was the fifth of five capitals under the
Articles of Confederation, with the
Continental Congress residing at
New York City Hall then at
Fraunces Tavern. New York was the first capital under the newly enacted
Constitution of the United States, from
March 4,
1789 to
August 12,
1790 at
Federal Hall.
[15]
19th century growth
New York grew as an economic center, first as a result of
Alexander Hamilton's policies and practices as the first
Secretary of the Treasury and, later, with the opening of the
Erie Canal in 1825, which connected the Atlantic port to the vast agricultural markets of the
Midwestern United States and
Canada. By 1835, New York City had surpassed
Philadelphia as the largest city in the United States.
Tammany Hall, a
Democratic Party political machine, began to grow in influence with the support of many of the immigrant
Irish, culminating in the election of the first Tammany mayor,
Fernando Wood, in 1854. Tammany Hall dominated local politics for decades.
Central Park, which opened to the public in 1858, became the first landscaped park in an American city and the nation's first public park.
[16][17]
Thomas Nast denounces Tammany as a ferocious tiger killing democracy; the tiger image caught on.
During the
American Civil War, the city's strong commercial ties to the
South, its growing immigrant population, anger about
conscription and resentment at those who could afford to pay $300 to avoid service, led to resentment against Lincoln's war policies, culminating in the three-day long
New York Draft Riots of July 1863, one of the worst incidents of
civil disorder in American history, with an estimated 119 participants and passersby massacred.
[18]
After the Civil War, the rate of immigration from Europe grew steeply, and New York became the first stop for millions seeking a new and better life in the United States, a role acknowledged by the dedication of the
Statue of Liberty on
October 28,
1886, a gift from the people of France.
[19][20] The new European immigration brought further social upheaval. In a city of tenements packed with poorly paid laborers from dozens of nations, the city was a hotbed of
revolution,
syndicalism,
racketeering, and
unionization.
In 1874, the western portion of the present
Bronx County was transferred to New York County, and in 1895 the remainder of the present Bronx County was annexed.
[21] The
City of Greater New York was formed in 1898, with Manhattan and the Bronx, though still one county, established as two separate
boroughs. On
January 1,
1914, the New York State Legislature created Bronx County, and New York County was reduced to its present boundaries.
[22]
The 20th Century
The construction of the
New York City Subway, first opened in 1904, helped bind the new city together. Starting in the 1920s, Manhattan saw the influx of African Americans as part of the
Great Migration from the
American South, and the
Harlem Renaissance, part of a larger boom time in the
Prohibition era that saw dueling skyscrapers in the skyline. New York City became the most populous city in the world in 1925, overtaking
London, which had reigned for a century.
[23]
On
March 25,
1911, the
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in
Greenwich Village took the lives of 146 garment workers, which would eventually lead to great improvements in the city's fire department, building codes, and workplace regulations.
[24]
The period between the World Wars saw the election of reformist mayor
Fiorello LaGuardia and the fall of
Tammany Hall after eighty years of political dominance.
[25] As the city's demographics stabilized, labor unionization brought new protections and affluence to the working class, the city's government and infrastructure underwent a dramatic overhaul under LaGuardia. Despite the effects of the
Great Depression, the 1930s saw the building of some of the world's tallest skyscrapers, including numerous
Art Deco masterpieces that are still part of the city's skyline today.
Returning
World War II veterans and immigrants from Europe created a postwar economic boom and led to the development of huge housing developments, targeted at returning veterans, including
Peter Cooper Village—Stuyvesant Town which opened in 1947.
[26] In 1951, the
United Nations relocated from its first headquarters in
Queens, to the East Side of Manhattan.
[27]
Like many major U.S. cities, New York suffered race riots and population and industrial decline in the 1960s. By the 1970s, the city had gained a reputation as a graffiti-covered, crime-ridden relic of history.
[28] In 1975, the city government faced imminent bankruptcy, and its appeals for assistance were initially rejected, summarized by the classic
October 30,
1975 ''
New York Daily News'' headline as "Ford to City: Drop Dead".
[29] The fate was avoided through a federal loan and debt restructuring, and the city was forced to accept increased financial scrutiny by
New York State.
[30]
The 1980s saw a rebirth of
Wall Street, and the city reclaimed its role at the center of the world-wide financial industry. The 1980s also saw Manhattan at the heart of the
AIDS crisis, with
Greenwich Village at its epicenter.
Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) and
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) were founded to advocate on behalf of those stricken with the disease.
Starting in the 1990s, crime rates dropped drastically and the outflow of population turned around, as the city once again became the destination not only of immigrants from around the world, but of many U.S. citizens seeking to live a cosmopolitan lifestyle that New York City can offer.
Modern New York City is familiar to many people around the globe thanks to its popularity as a setting for films and television series. Notable television examples include such award-winning shows as ''
Friends'', ''
Seinfeld'', ''
NYPD Blue'', ''
Law & Order'', ''
Will & Grace'' and ''
Sex and the City''.
Geography
Manhattan Island is bound by the
Hudson River to the west and the
East River to the east. To the north, the
Harlem River divides Manhattan from
The Bronx and the mainland United States. Several small islands are also part of the borough of Manhattan, including
Randall's Island,
Ward's Island, and
Roosevelt Island in the East River, and
Governors Island and
Liberty Island to the south in
New York Harbor.
[New York City Administrative Code Section 2-202 Division into boroughs and boundaries thereof - Division Into Boroughs And Boundaries Thereof., Lawyer Research Center. Accessed May 16, 2007. "The borough of Manhattan shall consist of the territory known as New York county which shall contain all that part of the city and state, including that portion of land commonly known as Marble Hill and included within the county of New York and borough of Manhattan for all purposes pursuant to chapter nine hundred thirty-nine of the laws of nineteen hundred eighty-four and further including the islands called Manhattan Island, Governor's Island, Bedloe's Island, Ellis Island, Franklin D. Roosevelt Island, Randall's Island and Oyster Island..."] Manhattan Island is 22.7 square miles (58.8 km²) in area, 13.4 miles (21.6 km) long and 2.3 miles (3.7 km) wide, at its widest (near
14th Street).
[How New York Works, ''How Stuff Works, accessed April 27, 2007. "The island is 22.7 square miles (58.8 km²), 13.4 miles (21.6 kilometers) long and 2.3 miles (3.7 kilometers) wide (at its widest point)."] New York County as a whole covers a total area of 33.77 square miles (87.46 km²), of which 22.96 square miles (59.47 km²) are land and 10.81 square miles (28.00 km²) are water.
One Manhattan neighborhood is actually contiguous with The Bronx. Marble Hill at one time was part of Manhattan Island, but the Harlem River Ship Canal, dug in 1895 to improve navigation on the Harlem River, separated it from the remainder of Manhattan as an island between the Bronx and the remainder of Manhattan.[31] Before World War I, the section of the original Harlem River channel separating Marble Hill from The Bronx was filled in, and Marble Hill became part of the mainland.[32]
Marble Hill is one example of how Manhattan's land has been considerably altered by human intervention. The borough has seen substantial land reclamation along its waterfronts since Dutch colonial times, and much of the natural variation in topography has been evened out.
A modern redrawing of the 1807 version of the Commissioner's Grid plan for Manhattan, a few years before it was adopted in 1811.
Early in the nineteenth century, landfill was used to expand Lower Manhattan from the natural Hudson shoreline at Greenwich Street to West Street.[33] When building the World Trade Center, 1.2 million cubic yards (917,000 m³) of material was excavated from the site.[34] Rather than dumping the spoil at sea or in landfills, the fill material was used to expand the Manhattan shoreline across West Street, creating Battery Park City.[35] The result was a 700 foot (210 m) extension into the river, running six blocks or 1,484 feet (450 m), covering 92 acres (37 ha), providing a 1.2 mile (1.9 km) riverfront esplanade and over 30 acres (12 ha) of parks.[36]
Manhattan is loosely divided into downtown, midtown, and uptown, with Fifth Avenue dividing Manhattan's east and west sides.
Manhattan is connected by the George Washington Bridge and Holland Tunnel and Lincoln Tunnel to New Jersey to the west, and to three New York City boroughs—the Bronx to the northeast and Brooklyn and Queens on Long Island to the east and south. Its only direct connection with the fifth New York City borough is the Staten Island Ferry across New York Harbor, which is free of charge. The ferry terminal is located at Battery Park at its southern tip. It is possible to travel to Staten Island via Brooklyn, using the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.
The Commissioners' Plan of 1811, called for twelve numbered avenues running north and south roughly parallel to the shore of the Hudson River, each 100 feet wide (30 m), with First Avenue on the east side and Twelfth Avenue in the west. There are several intermittent avenues east of First Avenue, including four additional lettered avenues running from Avenue A eastward to Avenue D in an area now known as Alphabet City in Manhattan's East Village. The numbered streets in Manhattan run east-west, and are 60 feet wide (18 m), with about 200 feet (61 m) between each pair of streets. With each combined street and block adding up to about 260 feet (79 m), there are almost exactly 20 blocks per mile. Fifteen crosstown streets were designated as 100 feet (30 m) wide, including 34th, 42nd, 57th and 125th Streets, some of the borough's most significant transportation and shopping venues.[37] Broadway is the most notable of many exceptions to the grid, starting at Bowling Green in Lower Manhattan and continuing north into the Bronx at Manhattan's northern tip. In much of Midtown Manhattan, Broadway runs at a diagonal to the grid, creating major named intersections at Herald Square (Sixth Avenue and 34th Street), Times Square (Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street) and Columbus Circle (Eighth Avenue/Central Park West and 59th Street)
A consequence of the strict grid plan of most of Manhattan, and the grid's skew of approximately 28.9 degrees, is a phenomenon sometimes referred to as Manhattanhenge (by analogy with Stonehenge).[Silverman, Justin Rocket. "Sunny delight in city sight", ''Newsday'', May 27, 2006. "'Manhattanhenge' occurs Sunday, a day when a happy coincidence of urban planning and astrophysics results in the setting sun lining up exactly with every east-west street in the borough north of 14th Street. Similar to Stonehenge, which is directly aligned with the summer-solstice sun, "Manhattanhenge" catches the sun descending in perfect alignment between buildings. The local phenomenon occurs twice a year, on May 28 and July 12…] On separate occasions in late May and early July (for 2006 the exact dates are May 28 and July 12), the sunset is aligned with the street grid lines, with the result that the sun is visible at or near the western horizon from street level.[38][ A similar phenomenon occurs with the sunrise in January and December (January 11 and December 2 in 2006).]
The Wildlife Conservation Society, which operates the zoos and aquariums in the city, is currently undertaking The Mannahatta Project, a computer simulation to visually reconstruct the ecology and geography of Manhattan when Henry Hudson first sailed by in 1609, and compare it to what we know of the island today.[The Mannahatta Project, Wildlife Conservation Society, January 1, 2006, accessed September 3, 2006.]
;Adjacent counties
★ Bergen County, New Jersey—west/northwest
★ Hudson County, New Jersey—west/northwest
★ Bronx County, New York (the Bronx)—northeast
★ Queens County, New York (Queens)—east/southeast
★ Kings County, New York (Brooklyn)—southeast
★ Richmond County, New York (Staten Island)—southwest
Neighborhoods
Main articles: Neighborhoods of New York City, List of Manhattan neighborhoods
Manhattan's many neighborhoods are not named according to any particular convention. Some are geographical (the Upper East Side), or ethnically descriptive (Chinatown). Others are acronyms, such as TriBeCa (for "TRIangle BElow CAnal Street") or SoHo ("SOuth of HOuston"), or the far more recent vintage NoLIta ("NOrth of Little ITaly") .[39][40] Harlem is a name from the Dutch colonial era after Haarlem, a city in the Netherlands.[41]
Some neighborhoods, such as SoHo, are commercial in nature and known for upscale shopping. Others, such as Greenwich Village, the Lower East Side and the East Village, have long been associated with the "Bohemian" subculture.[42] Chelsea is a neighborhood with a large gay population, and also recently a center of New York's art industry and nightlife.[43] Washington Heights is a vibrant neighborhood of immigrants from the Dominican Republic. Manhattan's Chinatown is the largest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere.[44][45] The Upper West Side is often characterized as more intellectual and creative, in contrast to the old money and conservative values of the Upper East Side, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the United States.[46][47][48]
In Manhattan, ''uptown'' means north (more precisely north-northeast, which is the direction in which the island and its street grid system is oriented) and ''downtown'' means south (south-southwest). [49] This usage differs from that of most American cities, where ''downtown'' refers to the central business district. Manhattan has two central business districts, the Financial District at the southern tip of the island, and Midtown Manhattan. The term ''uptown'' also refers to the northern part of Manhattan (generally speaking, above 59th Street[50]) and ''downtown'' to the southern portion (typically below 14th Street[51]), with ''Midtown'' covering the area in between, though definitions can be rather fluid depending on the situation.
Fifth Avenue roughly bisects Manhattan Island and acts as the demarcation line for east/west designations (e.g., East 27th Street, West 42nd Street); street addresses start at Fifth Avenue and increase by about 100 per block heading away from Fifth Avenue.[52] South of Waverly Place in Manhattan, Fifth Avenue terminates and Broadway becomes the east/west demarcation line. Though the grid does start with 1st Street, just north of Houston Street (pronounced HOW-stin), the grid does not fully take hold until north of 14th Street, where nearly all east-west streets use numeric designations, which increase from south to north to 220th Street, the highest numbered street on the island.
Climate
Although located at about the same latitude as the much warmer European cities of Naples and Madrid, Manhattan has a humid continental climate (Köppen classification Dfa) resulting from prevailing wind patterns that bring cool air from the interior of the North American continent.[53] The city's coastal position keeps temperatures relatively warmer than inland regions during winter, helping to moderate the amount of snow which averages 25 to 35 inches (63.5 to 88.9 cm) each year.
Temperature records have been set as high as 106 °F (41 °C) on July 9, 1936 and as low as -15 °F (-26 °C) on February 9, 1934. These temperatures are not common and have not been matched or surpassed in more than seven decades. Most recently, temperatures have hit 100 degrees as recently as July 2005 and 103 degrees in August 2006, and dropped to just 1 above zero as recently as January 2004. New York can have excessive days of rain or long stretches of dry weather.
Summer evening temperatures are exacerbated by the urban heat island effect which causes heat absorbed during the day to be radiated back at night, raising temperatures by as much as 7 °F (4 °C) when winds are slow.[55]
Government
Main articles: Government of New York City
Since New York City's consolidation in 1898, Manhattan has been governed by the New York City Charter, which has provided for a "strong" mayor-council system since its revision in 1989.[56] The centralized New York City government is responsible for public education, correctional institutions, libraries, public safety, recreational facilities, sanitation, water supply, and welfare services in Manhattan.
The office of Borough President was created in the consolidation of 1898 to balance centralization with local authority. Each borough president had a powerful administrative role derived from having a vote on the New York City Board of Estimate, which was responsible for creating and approving the city's budget and proposals for land use. In 1989 the Supreme Court of the United States declared the Board of Estimate unconstitutional on the grounds that Brooklyn, the most populous borough, had no greater effective representation on the Board than Staten Island, the least populous borough, a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause pursuant to the high court's 1964 "one man, one vote" decision.[57]
Since 1990, the largely-powerless Borough President has acted as an advocate for the borough at the mayoral agencies, the City Council, the New York state government, and corporations. Manhattan's Borough President is Scott Stringer, elected as a Democrat in 2005.[58]
Robert M. Morgenthau, a Democrat, has been the District Attorney of New York County since 1974.[59] Manhattan has ten City Council members, the third largest contingent among the five boroughs. It also has 12 administrative districts, each served by a local Community Board. Community Boards are representative bodies that field complaints and serve as advocates for local residents.
As the host of the United Nations, the borough is home to the world's largest international consular corps, comprising 105 consulates, consulates general and honorary consulates.[60] It is also the home of New York City Hall, the seat of New York City government housing the Mayor of New York City and the New York City Council. The mayor's staff and thirteen municipal agencies are located in the nearby Manhattan Municipal Building, completed in 1916, one of the largest governmental buildings in the world.[61]
Politics
'Presidential elections results'[62]| Year | Reps | Dems |
|---|
| 2004 | 16.7% ''107,405 | '82.1%' ''526,765 |
| 2000 | 14.2% ''79,921 | '79.8%' ''449,300 |
| 1996 | 13.8% ''67,839 | '80.0%' ''394,131 |
| 1992 | 15.9% ''84,501 | '78.2%' ''416,142 |
| 1988 | 22.9% ''115,927 | '76.1%' ''385,675 |
| 1984 | 27.4% ''144,281 | '72.1%' ''379,521 |
| 1980 | 26.2% ''115,911 | '62.4%' ''275,742 |
| 1976 | 25.5% ''117,702 | '73.2%' ''337,438 |
| 1972 | 33.4% ''178,515 | '66.2%' ''354,326 |
| 1968 | 25.6% ''135,458 | '70.0%' ''370,806 |
| 1964 | 19.2% ''120,125 | '80.5%' ''503,848 |
| 1960 | 34.2% ''217,271 | '65.3%' ''414,902 |
The Democratic Party holds the majority of public offices. Registered voters of the Republican Party are a small minority in the borough, with nearly 85% of those registered in a party registered as Democrats.[63] Republicans constitute more than 20% of the electorate only on the Upper East Side and the Financial District. Local party platforms center on affordable housing, education and economic development. Controversial political issues in Manhattan include development, noise, and the cost of housing.
No Republican has won the presidential election in Manhattan since 1924, when Calvin Coolidge won a plurality of the New York County vote over Democrat John W. Davis, 41.20%–39.55%. Warren G. Harding was the most recent Republican presidential candidate to win a majority of the Manhattan vote, with 59.22% of the 1920 vote.[64] In the 2004 presidential election, Democrat John Kerry received 82.1% of the vote in Manhattan and Republican George W. Bush received 16.7%.[65] The borough is the most important source of funding for presidential campaigns in the United States; in 2004, it was home to six of the top seven zip codes in the nation for political contributions.[66] The top ZIP code, 10021 on the Upper East Side, generated the most money for the United States presidential election for all presidential candidates, including both Kerry and Bush during the 2004 election.[67]
Crime
Main articles: Crime in New York City
Policeman leads upper class people through the Five Points in an 1885 sketch
Starting in the mid-19th century, the United States became a magnet for immigrants seeking to escape poverty in their home countries. After arriving in New York, many new arrivals ended up living in squalor in the slums of the Five Points neighborhood, an area between Broadway and the Bowery, northeast of New York City Hall. By the 1820s, the area was home to many gambling dens and "houses of ill repute", and was known as a dangerous place to go to. In 1842, Charles Dickens visited the area and was appalled at the horrendous living conditions he had seen.[68] The area was so notorious at the time that it even caught the attention of Abraham Lincoln, who visited the area before his Cooper Union Address in 1860.[69] The predominantly Irish Five Points Gang was one of the country's first major organized crime entities.
As Italian immigration grew in the early 1900s, many joined the Irish gangs. Al Capone got his start in crime with the Five Points Gang,[70] as did Lucky Luciano.[71] The Mafia (also known as ''Cosa Nostra'') first developed in the mid-19th century in Sicily and spread to the East Coast of the United States during the late 19th century following waves of Sicilian and Southern Italian emigration. Lucky Luciano established La Cosa Nostra in Manhattan, forming alliances with other criminal enterprises, including the Jewish mob, led by Meyer Lansky, the leading Jewish gangster of that period.[Jaffe, Eric. "Talking to the Feds: The chief of the FBI's organized crime unit on the history of La Cosa Nostra", ''Smithsonian (magazine)'', April 2007. Accessed May 16, 2007.] from 1920–1933, Prohibition helped create a thriving black market in liquor, which the Mafia was quick to capitalize on.
New York City experienced a sharp increase in crime during the 1960s and 1970s, with a near fivefold jump in the violent crime rate, from 21.09 per thousand in 1960 to a peak of 102.66 in 1981. Homicides continued to increase in the city as a whole for another decade, with murders recorded by the NYPD jumping from 390 in 1960, to 1,117 in 1970, 1,812 in 1980 and reaching its peak of 2,262 in 1990. Starting circa 1990, New York City saw record declines in homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, violent crime, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and property crime, a trend that has continued to today.[72]
Based on 2005 data, New York City has the lowest crime rate among the ten largest cities in the United States.[Zeranski, Todd. NYC Is Safest City as Crime Rises in U.S., FBI Say". ''Bloomberg News'', June 12, 2006. Accessed May 16, 2007.] The city as a whole ranked fourth nationwide in the 13th annual Morgan Quitno survey of the 32 cities surveyed with a population above 500,000.[73] The New York Police Department, with 36,400 officers, is larger than the next four largest U.S. departments combined. The NYPD's counter-terrorism division, with 1,000 officers assigned, is larger than the FBI's.[ The NYPD's CompStat system of crime tracking, reporting and monitoring has been credited with a drop in crime in New York City that has far surpassed the drop elsewhere in the United States.[74] ]
Since 1990, crime in Manhattan has plummeted in all categories tracked by the CompStat profile. A borough that saw 503 murders in 1990 has seen a drop of nearly 78% to 111 in 2006. Robbery and burglary are down by more than 80% during the period, and auto theft has been reduced by more than 90%. Overall crime has declined by more than 75% since 1990 in the seven major crime categories tracked by the system, and year-to-date statistics through May 2007 show continuing declines.[75][76]
Demographics
Main articles: Demographics of Manhattan
| 'Manhattan Compared' |
|---|
| '2000 Census' | 'Manhattan'[77] | 'NY City'[78] | 'NY State[79]' |
| Total population | 1,537,195 | 8,008,278 | 18,976,457 |
| Population density | 66,940.1/mi² | 26,403/mi² | 402/mi² |
| Median household income (1999) | $47,030 | $38,293 | $43,393 |
| Per capita income | $42,922 | $22,402 | $23,389 |
| Bachelor's degree or higher | 49.4% | 27.4% | 27.4% |
| Foreign born | 29.4% | 35.9% | 20.4% |
| White | 54.4% | 44.7% | 67.9% |
| Black | 17.4% | 26.6% | 15.9% |
| Hispanic (any race) | 27.2% | 27.0% | 15.1% |
| Asian | 9.4% | 9.8% | 5.5% |
According to 2006 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, there are 1,611,581 people, 738,644 households, and 302,105 families residing in Manhattan. As of the 2000 Census, the population density of New York County was 66,940.1/mi² (25,849.9/km²), the highest population density of any county in the United States.[80] In 1910, at the height of European immigration to New York, Manhattan's population density reached a peak of 120,250.299/mi² (46,428.9/km²). There were 798,144 housing units in 2000 at an average density of 34,756.7/mi² (13,421.8/km²).[ Only 20.3% of Manhattan residents lived in owner-occupied housing, the second-lowest rate of all counties in the nation, behind The Bronx.][Percent of Occupied Housing Units That are Owner-occupied, United States Census Bureau, accessed April 18, 2007.]
The New York City Department of City Planning projects that Manhattan's population will grow by 289,000 people between 2000 and 2030, an increase of 18.8% over the period, second only to Staten Island., while the rest of the city is projected to grow by 12.7% over the same period. The school-age population is expected to grow 4.4% by 2030, in contrast to a small decline in the city as a whole. The elderly population is forecast to grow by 57.9%, with the borough adding 108,000 persons ages 65 and over, compared to 44.2% growth citywide.[81]
In 2000, 56.4% of people living in Manhattan were White, 27.18% were Hispanic of any race, 17.39% were Black, 14.14% were from other races, 9.40% were Asian, 0.5% were Native American, and 0.07% were Pacific Islander. 4.14% were from two or more races. 24.93% reported speaking Spanish at home, 4.12% Chinese, and 2.19% French.[82]
There were 738,644 households. 25.2% were married couples living together, 12.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 59.1% were non-families. 17.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them. 48% of all households were made up of individuals and 10.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2 and the average family size was 2.99.
Manhattan's population was spread out with 16.8% under the age of 18, 10.2% from 18 to 24, 38.3% from 25 to 44, 22.6% from 45 to 64, and 12.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 90.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.9 males.
Manhattan is one of the highest-income places in the United States with a population greater than 1 million. Based on IRS data for the 2004 tax year, New York County (Manhattan) had the highest average federal income tax liability per return in the country. Average tax liability was $25,875, representing 20.0% of Adjusted Gross Income.[83] As of 2002, Manhattan had the highest per capita income of any county in the country.[84]
The Manhattan ZIP Code 10021, on the Upper East Side, is home to more than 100,000 people and has a per capita income of over $90,000.[85] It is one of the largest concentrations of extreme wealth in the United States. Most Manhattan neighborhoods are not as wealthy. The median income for a household in the county was $47,030, and the median income for a family was $50,229. Males had a median income of $51,856 versus $45,712 for females. The per capita income for the county was $42,922. About 17.6% of families and 20% of the population were below the poverty line, including 31.8% of those under age 18 and 18.9% of those age 65 or over.[86]
Lower Manhattan (Manhattan south of Houston Street) has a sharply different population than the rest of the borough. According to the 2000 census, the neighborhood was 41% Asian, 32% non-Hispanic white, 19% Hispanic and 6% black. 43% of residents were immigrants. These figures are affected by the demographic weight of Chinatown, which accounts for 55% of the population of Lower Manhattan. While the Financial District had few non-commercial residents after the 1950s, the area has seen a significant surge in its residential population, with estimates showing over 30,000 residents living in the area as of 2005, a jump from the 15,000 to 20,000 before the September 11, 2001 attacks.[87]
Manhattan is religiously diverse. The largest religious affiliation is the Roman Catholic Church, whose adherents constitute 564,505 persons (more than 36% of the population) and maintain 110 congregations. Jews comprise the second largest religious group, with 314,500 persons (20.5%) in 102 congregations. The next largest religious groups are Protestants, with 139,732 adherents (9.1%) and Muslims, with 37,078 (2.4%).[88]
The borough is also experiencing a baby boom. Since 2000, the number of children under age 5 living in Manhattan grew by more than 32%.[89]
Landmarks and architecture
Main articles: Architecture in New York City
The skyscraper, which has shaped Manhattan's distinctive skyline, has been closely associated with New York City's identity since the end of the 19th century. From 1890–1973, the world's tallest building was in Manhattan, with nine different buildings holding the title.[90] The New York World Building on Park Row, was the first to take the title, standing 309 feet (91 m) until 1955, when it was demolished to construct a new ramp to the Brooklyn Bridge.[91] The nearby Park Row Building, with its 29 stories standing 391 feet high (119 m) took the title in 1899.[92] The 41-story Singer Building, constructed in 1908 as the headquarters of the eponymous sewing machine manufacturer, stood 612 feet high (187 m) until 1967, when it became the tallest building ever demolished.[93] The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower, standing 700 feet (213 m) at the foot of Madison Avenue, wrested the title in 1909, with a tower reminiscent of St Mark's Campanile in Venice.[94] The Woolworth Building, and its distinctive Gothic architecture, took the title in 1913, topping off at 792 feet (241 m).[95]
The Roaring Twenties saw a race to the sky, with three separate buildings pursuing the world's tallest title in the span of a year. As the stock market soared in the days before the Wall Street Crash of 1929, two developers publicly competed for the crown.[96] At 927 feet (282 m), 40 Wall Street, completed in May 1930 in an astonishing 11 months as the headquarters of the Bank of Manhattan, seemed to have secured the title.[97] At Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street, auto executive Walter Chrysler and his architect William Van Alen developed plans to build the structure's trademark 185 foot-high (56 m) spire in secret, pushing the Chrysler Building to 1,046 feet (319 m) and making it the tallest in the world when it was completed in 1929.[98] Both buildings were soon surpassed, with the May 1931 completion of the 86-story Empire State Building and its Art Deco spire soaring 1,250 feet (381 m) in the air.[99][100]
The former Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, once an iconic symbol of the City, were located in Lower Manhattan. At 1,368 feet (417&m), the 110-story buildings were the world's tallest from 1972, until they were surpassed by the construction of the Sears Tower in 1974.[101] By the end of the 20th century the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were arguably among the world's most famous and recognizable buildings until their destruction in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The Freedom Tower, a replacement for the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, is currently under construction and is slated to be ready for occupancy in 2011.[102]
In 1961, Penn Central unveiled plans to tear down the old Penn Station and replace it with a new Madison Square Garden and office building complex. Organized protests were aimed at preserving the McKim, Mead, and White-designed structure completed in 1910, widely considered a masterpiece of the Beaux-Arts style and one of the architectural jewels of New York City.[103] Despite these efforts, demolition of the structure began in October 1963. The loss of Penn Station—called “an act of irresponsible public vandalism†by historian Lewis Mumford—led directly to the enactment in 1965 of a local law establishing the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, which is responsible to preserve the "city's historic, aesthetic, and cultural heritage".[104] The historic preservation movement triggered by Penn Station's demise has been credited with the retention of some one million structures nationwide, including nearly 1,000 in New York City.[105]
The theatre district around Broadway at Times Square, New York University, Columbia University, Flatiron Building, the Financial District around Wall Street, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Little Italy, Harlem, the American Museum of Natural History, Chinatown, and Central Park are all located on this densely populated island.
The
Hearst Tower. One of the city's new energy-efficient towers, completed in
2006.
The city is a leader in energy-efficient "green" office buildings, such as Hearst Tower and the rebuilt 7 World Trade Center.[106] Central Park is bordered on the north by West 110th Street, on the west by Eighth Avenue, on the south by West 59th Street, and on the east by Fifth Avenue.
Along the park's borders, these streets are usually referred to as Central Park North, Central Park West, and Central Park South, respectively. (Fifth Avenue retains its name along the eastern border.) The park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. The 843 acre (3.4 km²) park offers extensive walking tracks, two ice-skating rinks, a wildlife sanctuary, and grassy areas used for various sporting pursuits, as well as playgrounds for children. The park is a popular oasis for migrating birds, and thus is popular with bird watchers. The 6 mile (10 km) road circling the park is popular with joggers, bicyclists and inline skaters, especially on weekends and in the evenings after 7:00 p.m., when automobile traffic is banned.[Central Park General Information, Central Park Conservancy. Accessed September 21, 2006.]
While much of the park looks natural, it is almost entirely landscaped and contains several artificial lakes. The construction of Central Park in the 1850s was one of the era's most massive public works projects. Some 20,000 workers crafted the topography to create the English-style pastoral landscape Olmsted and Vaux sought to create. Workers moved nearly 3 million cubic yards of soil and planted more than 270,000 trees and shrubs.[107]
17.8% of the borough, a total of 2,686 acres (10.9 km²), are devoted to parkland. Almost 70% of Manhattan's space devoted to parks is located outside of Central Park, including 204 playgrounds, 251 Greenstreets, 371 basketball courts and many other amenities.
Economy
Manhattan is home to some of the nation's most valuable real estate. 450 Park Avenue was sold on July 2, 2007 for $510 million, about $1,589 per square foot ($17,224/m²), breaking the barely month-old record for an American office building of $1,476 per square foot ($137/m²) set in the June 2007 sale of 660 Madison Avenue.[108]
Skyscrapers along Sixth Avenue.
Manhattan is the economic engine of New York City, with its 2.3 million workers drawn from the entire New York metropolitan area accounting for almost â…” of all jobs in New York City.[ Manhattan's daytime population swells to 2.874 million, with commuters adding a net 1.337 million people to the population. This commuter influx of 1.459 million workers coming into Manhattan was the largest of any other county or city in the country, and was more than triple the 481,000 commuters who headed into second-ranked Washington, D.C.[109][110]]
Its most important economic sector is the finance industry, whose 280,000 workers earned more than half of all the wages paid in the borough. Wall Street is frequently used to represent the entire financial industry. In 2006, those in the Manhattan financial industry earned an average weekly pay about $8,300 (including bonuses), while the average weekly pay was about $2,500. The health care sector represented 11.3% of the borough's jobs and 4% of total compensation, with workers taking home about $900 per week.[111]
New York City is home to the most corporate headquarters of any city in the nation, the overwhelming majority based in Manhattan.[112] Midtown Manhattan is the largest central business district in the United States.[113] Lower Manhattan is home to both the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, and is the nation's third-largest central business district (after Chicago's Loop).[114]
Seven of the world's top eight global advertising agency networks are headquartered in Manhattan.[115] "Madison Avenue" is often used metonymously to refer to the entire advertising field, after Madison Avenue became identified with the advertising industry after the explosive growth in the area in the 1920s.
2006 statistics showed that the average weekly wages paid to Manhattan workers is $1,453 (excluding bonuses), the highest in the country's 325 largest counties, and the salary growth of 7.8% was the highest among the ten largest counties. Pay in the borough was 85% higher than the $784 pay earned weekly nationwide and nearly double the amount earned by workers in the outer boroughs. Manhattan's workforce is overwhelmingly focused on white collar professions, with manufacturing (39,800 workers) and construction (31,600) accounting for a small fraction of the borough's employment.[Average Weekly Wage in Manhattan at $1,453 in Second Quarter 2006 (PDF), Bureau of Labor Statistics, United States Department of Labor, February 20, 2007. Accessed February 21, 2007.][Geller, Andy. "N.Y. Hits 'Pay'dirt: Manhattan No. 1 in Nat'l Salary Surge, ''New York Post'', February 21, 2007. Accessed May 18, 2007.]
Historically, this corporate presence has been complemented by many independent retailers, though a recent influx of national chain stores has caused many to lament the creeping homogenization of Manhattan.[116]
Culture
Manhattan has been the scene of many important American cultural movements. In 1912, about 20,000 workers, a quarter of them women, marched on Washington Square Park to commemorate the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which killed 146 workers on March 25, 1911. Many of the women wore fitted tucked-front blouses like those manufactured by the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, a clothing style that became the working woman's uniform and a symbol of female independence, reflecting the alliance of labor and suffrage movements.[117]
The Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s established the African-American literary canon in the United States. Manhattan's vibrant visual art scene in the 1950s and 1960s was a center of the American pop art movement, which gave birth to such giants as Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein. Perhaps no other artist is as associated with the downtown pop art movement of the late 1970s as Andy Warhol, who socialized at clubs like Serendipity 3 and Studio 54.
A popular haven for art, the downtown neighborhood of Chelsea is widely known for its galleries and cultural events, with more than 200 art galleries that are home to modern art from upcoming artists and respected artists as well.[118][119]
Broadway theatre is often considered the highest professional form of theatre in the United States. Plays and musicals are staged in one of the 39 larger professional theatres with at least 500 seats, almost all in and around Times Square.[120] Off-Broadway theatres feature productions in venues with 100-500 seats.[121] A little more than a mile from Times Square is the Lincoln Center, home to one of the world's most prestigious opera houses, that of the Metropolitan Opera.[122]
Manhattan is also home to some of the most extensive art collections, both contemporary and historical, in the world including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Guggenheim Museum.
Manhattan is the borough most closely associated with New York City by non-residents; even some natives of New York City's outer boroughs will describe a trip to Manhattan as "going to the city".[123]
The borough has a place in several American idioms. The phrase ''"a New York minute"'' is meant to convey a very short period of time, sometimes in hyperbolic form, as in "perhaps faster than you would believe is possible". It refers to the rapid pace of life in Manhattan.[124] The term "melting pot" was first popularly coined to describe the densely populated immigrant neighborhoods on the Lower East Side in Israel Zangwill's play ''The Melting Pot'', which was an adaptation of William Shakespeare's ''Romeo and Juliet'' set by Zangwill in New York City in 1908.[125] The iconic Flatiron Building is said to have been the source of the phrase "23 skidoo" or scram, from what cops would shout at men who tried to get glimpses of women's dresses being blown up by the winds created by the triangular building.[126] The "Big Apple" dates back to the 1920s, when a reporter heard the term used by New Orleans stablehands to refer to New York City's racetracks and named his racing column "Around The Big Apple." Jazz musicians adopted the term to refer to the city as the world's jazz capital, and a 1970s ad campaign by the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau helped popularize the term.[127]
Sports
Today, Manhattan is home of the NBA's New York Knicks and NHL's New York Rangers, who play their home games at Madison Square Garden, the only major professional sports arena in the borough. The New York Jets proposed a West Side Stadium for their home field, but the proposal was eventually defeated in June 2005, leaving them at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
The
Polo Grounds was home to the baseball Giants, Yankees and Mets, and both the football Giants and Jets.
Today, Manhattan is the only borough in New York City that does not have a pro baseball franchise. The Bronx has the Yankees and Queens has the Mets of the Major League Baseball. The Minor League Baseball Brooklyn Cyclones play in Brooklyn, while the Staten Island Yankees play in Staten Island. Yet three of the four major league teams to play in New York City played in Manhattan. The New York Giants played in the various incarnations of the Polo Grounds at 155th Street and Eighth Avenue from their inception in 1883 — except for 1889, when they split their time between Jersey City and Staten Island, and when they played in Hilltop Park in 1911 — until they headed west with the Brooklyn Dodgers after the 1957 season.[128] The New York Yankees began their franchise as the Hilltoppers, named for Hilltop Park, where they played from their creation in 1903 until 1912. The team moved to the Polo Grounds with the 1913 season, where they were officially christened the ''New York Yankees'', remaining there until they moved across the Harlem River in 1923 to Yankee Stadium.[129] The New York Mets played in the Polo Grounds in 1962 and 1963, their first two seasons, before Shea Stadium was completed in 1964.[130] After the Mets departed, the Polo Grounds was demolished in April 1964, replaced by public housing.[131][132]
The first national college-level basketball championship, the National Invitation Tournament, was held in New York in 1938 and remains in the city.[133] The New York Knicks started play in 1946 as one of the National Basketball Association's original teams, playing their first home games at the 69th Regiment Armory, before making Madison Square Garden their permanent home.[134] The New York Liberty of the WNBA have shared the Garden with the Knicks since their creation in 1997 as one of the league's original eight teams.[135] Rucker Park in Harlem is a playground court, famed for its ''street ball'' style of play, where many NBA athletes have played in the summer league.[136]
Though both of New York City's football teams play today across the Hudson River in Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, both teams started out playing in the Polo Grounds. The New York Giants played side-by-side with their baseball namesakes from the time they entered the National Football League in 1925, until crossing over to Yankee Stadium in 1956.[137] The New York Jets, originally known as the ''Titans'', started out in 1960 at the Polo Grounds, staying there for four seasons before joining the Mets in Queens in 1964.[138]
The New York Rangers of the National Hockey League have played in the various locations of Madison Square Garden since their founding in the 1926–1927 season. The Rangers were predated by the New York Americans, who started play in the Garden the previous season, lasting until the team folded after the 1941–1942 NHL season, a season in which it played in the Garden as the ''Brooklyn Americans''.[139]
Media
Manhattan is served by the major New York City dailies, including ''The New York Times'', ''New York Daily News'', and ''New York Post'', which are all headquartered in the borough. The nation's largest financial newspaper, ''The Wall Street Journal'', is also based here. Other daily newspapers include ''AM New York'', ''The Greenwich Village Gazette'' and ''The Villager''. ''The New York Amsterdam News'', based in Harlem, is one of the leading African American weekly newspapers in the United States. ''The Village Voice'' is a leading alternative weekly based in the borough.[140]
The television industry developed in New York and is a significant employer in the city's economy. The four major American broadcast networks, ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC, are all headquartered in Manhattan, as are many cable channels are based in the city as well, including MTV, Fox News, HBO and Comedy Central. In 1971, WLIB became New York's first black-owned radio station and the crown jewel of Inner City Broadcasting Corporation. A co-founder of Inner City was Percy Sutton, a former Manhattan borough president and long one of the city’s most powerful black leaders.[141] WLIB began broadcasts for the African-American community in 1949 and regularly interviewed civil rights leaders like Malcolm X and aired live broadcasts from conferences of the NAACP. Influential WQHT, also known as ''Hot 97'', claims to be the premier hip-hop station in the United States. WNYC, comprising an AM and FM signal, has the largest public radio audience in the nation and is the most-listened to commercial or non-commercial radio station in Manhattan.[142] WBAI, with news and information programming, is one of the few socialist radio stations operating in the United States.
The oldest public-access television channel in the United States is the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, founded in 1971, offers eclectic local programming that ranges from a jazz hour to discussion of labor issues to foreign language and religious programming.[143] NY1, Time Warner Cable's local news channel, is known for its beat coverage of City Hall and state politics.
Housing
In the early days of Manhattan, wood construction and poor access to water supplies left the city vulnerable to fires. In 1776, shortly after the Continental Army evacuated Manhattan and left it to the British, a massive fire broke out destroying one-third of the city and some 500 houses.[144]
The rise of immigration near the turn of the century left major portions of Manhattan, especially the Lower East Side, densely packed with recent arrivals, crammed into unhealthy and unsanitary housing. Tenements were usually five-stories high, constructed on the then-typical 25x100 lots, with "cockroach landlords" exploiting the new immigrants.[145][Peterson, Iver. "Tenements of 1880s Adapt to 1980s", ''The New York Times'', January 3, 1988, accessed April 30, 2007. "Usually five stories tall and built on a 25-foot lot, their exteriors are hung with fire escapes and the interiors are laid out long and narrow—in fact, the apartments were dubbed railroad flats."] By 1929, stricter fire codes and the increased use of elevators in residential buildings, were the impetus behind a new housing code that effectively ended the tenement as a form of new construction, though many tenement buildings survive today on the East Side of the borough.
Peter Cooper Village—Stuyvesant Town is a sprawling private residential development on the East Side of Manhattan. One of the most successful of postwar private housing communities, Stuyvesant Town was planned in 1943.[146] Its first tenants, two World War II veterans and their families, moved into the first completed building on August 1, 1947.[147] Stuyvesant Town is a collection of red brick apartment buildings with typical housing project-style architecture, stretching from First Avenue to Avenue C, between 14th and 20th Streets. It covers about 80 acres of land. Stuyvesant Town has 8,757 apartments and with its sister development Peter Cooper Village they have a combined 110 buildings, 11,250 apartments, and over 25,000 residents.
Today, Manhattan offers a wide array of public and private housing options. There were 798,144 housing units in Manhattan as of the 2000 Census, at an average density of 34,756.7/mi² (13,421.8/km²).[ Only 20.3% of Manhattan residents lived in owner-occupied housing, the second-lowest rate of all counties in the nation, behind The Bronx.]
Infrastructure
Transportation
Manhattan is unique in the United States for its intense use of public transportation and lack of private car ownership. While 88% of Americans nationwide drive to their jobs and only 5% use public transportation, mass transit is the dominant form of travel for residents of Manhattan, with 72% of borough residents using public transportation and only 18% driving to work.[Highlights of the 2001 National Household Travel Survey, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, United States Department of Transportation. Accessed May 21, 2006.][148] According to the 2000 U.S. Census, more than 75% of Manhattan households do not own a car.
In 2007, Mayor Bloomberg proposed a congestion pricing system that would charge drivers entering Manhattan below 86th Street between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. weekdays a fee of $8 per car or $21 per truck, with lower fees for travel within the pricing zone. The plan would be modeled on a similar system in London, and is intended to improve air quality and traffic flow, with funds raised used for mass transit improvements throughout the city.[149]
The New York City Subway, the second largest subway system in the world by track mileage, is the primary means of travel within the city, connecting to every borough except Staten Island. A second subway, the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) system, connects Manhattan to northern New Jersey. Transit passengers tender their fares with pay-per-ride MetroCards, which are valid on all city buses and subways, as well as on PATH trains. A one-way fare on the bus or subway is $2.00,[150] and PATH costs $1.50.[151] There are daily, 7-day, and 30-day MetroCards that allow unlimited trips on all subways (except PATH) and MTA bus routes (except for express buses).[152] The PATH QuickCard is being phased out, and both PATH and the MTA are testing "smart card" payment systems to replace the MetroCard.[153] Commuter rail services operating to and from Manhattan are the Long Island Rail Road (which connects Manhattan and other New York City boroughs to Long Island), the Metro-North Railroad (which connects Manhattan to Westchester County and Southwestern Connecticut) and New Jersey Transit trains to various points in New Jersey.
The MTA New York City Bus offers a wide variety of local buses within Manhattan. An extensive network of express bus routes serves commuters and other travelers heading into Manhattan. The bus system served 740 million riders in 2004, ranking first in the nation, more than double the ridership in second-ranked Los Angeles.[154]
New York's iconic yellow cabs, which number 13,087 city-wide and must have the requisite medallion authorizing the pick up of street hails, are ubiquitous in the borough.[155] Manhattan also sees tens of thousands of bicycle commuters. The Roosevelt Island Tramway, the only commuter cable car in North America, whisks commuters between Roosevelt Island and Manhattan in less than five minutes, and has been servicing the island since 1978.[156] The Staten Island Ferry, which runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, annually carries over 19 million passengers on the 5.2 mile (8.4 km) run between Manhattan and Staten Island. Each weekday five vessels are used to transport almost 65,000 passengers on 110 boat trips.[157][158] 
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