New York – General info

The state of New York has an area of 141,080 square kilometers and, with 18.98 million inhabitants, is the third most populous state in the USA after California and Texas.

The capital of the state of New York is Albany and the largest city in the state is New York City.

New York is located on the east coast of the United States and is located in New York Bay at the confluence of the Hudson River and East River. The city of New York rises only about six meters above sea level. Its coordinates are 40.46 degrees north latitude and 73.54 degrees west longitude.

New York’s city center is located on the island of Manhattan. The buildings of the city extend from the river banks with several suburbs far into the country. The suburban communities are Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and Manhattan. The city area has an area of 800 square kilometers.

New York’s coastal plain extends as far as Jacksonville as the foothills of the southern Appalachian Mountains.

The city is divided into five municipalities, the so-called boroughs. Each borough is subordinate to a borough president.

Manhattan (New York County) has a population of 1.6 million and a land area of 59 square kilometers. Manhattan consists mainly of Manhattan Island, which is surrounded by the Hudson River to the west, the East River to the east, and the Harlem River to the northeast. There are also other small islands such as Roosevelt Island, Belmont Island, Governors Island and a small piece of the mainland, Marble Hill.

Brooklyn (Kings County) has a population of 2.5 million and is the most populous community in New York. Brooklyn is located in the southeast of the city and at the western end of Long Island. The area is 183 square kilometers.

Queens (Queens County) has 2.3 million inhabitants and is the largest borough of New York with its area of 283 square kilometers. It is located in the west of Long Island. Queens was founded on November 1, 1683. It is also home to two of New York’s largest airports: John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport.

The Bronx (Bronx County) has 1.4 million inhabitants and is 109 square kilometers in size. The Bronx used to be a city in its own right. Since January 1, 1874, it has been incorporated into New York. Bronx takes its name from an emigrant named Jonas Broncks, who came from Sweden.

Staten Island (Richmond County) has a population of 460,000 and a land area of 151 square kilometers. Staten Island is located southwest of Manhattan Island and west of Brooklyn, which is located on Long Island. The island is connected to Brooklyn via the Verrazano-Narrows toll bridge. New Jersey can be reached via the Goethals Bridge, the Bayonne Bridge and the Outerbridge Crossing. The highest point on the island is Todt Hill.

The city of New York is located in the temperate climate zone.

The weather in New York is predominantly influenced by the continental landmasses in the west.

Summers are usually very hot and winters are very cold.

The temperature often rises above 30 degrees Celsius in July and August and can drop below -20 degrees Celsius in January.

Sometimes sea air from the northeast (the northeasters) brings moisture from the Atlantic Ocean combined with strong winds and heavy rainfall or snowfall.

The average annual average is 12.5 degrees Celsius and the average annual precipitation is 1,070 millimetres.

The warmest month is July with an average temperature of 24.7 degrees Celsius and the coldest is January with an average temperature of -0.4 degrees Celsius.

Most precipitation falls in the month of July with an average of 104 millimetres, the least in January with an average of 80 millimetres.

As early as 1524, the first voyages of discovery to the area of present-day New York took place by Giovanni da Verrazano and in 1609 by Henry Hudson. Around 1610, merchants from the Netherlands began an extensive fur trade with the Indians living here.

The colonization of the area around New York began in 1624. The first settlers were 30 Dutch families who gained a foothold on the island of Manhattan and in the Delaware area.

In 1626, Peter Minuit bought the island from the natives, probably a branch of the Lenni-Lenape Indians, who called the island “Manna-hatta”, for 60 guilders. The settlement was given the name Nieuw Amsterdam and became the capital of the colony of Nieuw Nederland.

During the war between England and the Netherlands, Nieuw Nederland was plundered by the English, whereupon the governor Petrus Stuyvesant ceded the city on 24 September 1664. The colony was awarded to the Duke of York, later King James II. In his honor, the city was renamed New York. In 1667, the Dutch gave up all claims to the colony in the Treaty of Breda.

In the 18th century, New York actively participated in the independence movement. They did not leave the city until 1783, after American independence was also recognized by European states, including Great Britain. This year, a devastating fire destroyed large parts of New York. In 1785, another fire disaster devastated other areas of the city.

From 1788 to 1790, New York was the capital of the USA. George Washington was sworn in as the first president in New York in 1789. In the difficult economic times after the war, securities traders founded the New York Stock Exchange on May 17, 1792. In 1797, Albany was named the capital of the state of New York instead of New York. Albany is still the capital today.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the city grew faster than ever before in its history. In 1811, New York’s city planners decided to plan the entire island of Manhattan with a grid-shaped network of streets.

The completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 created a connection between New York, the Great Lakes, and thus the Midwest. Overnight, the city became the largest goods transshipment center on the American East Coast.

In the middle of the 19th century, a large city park, the so-called Central Park, was planned. Construction began in 1858 and was completed in 1866. In the second half of the 19th century, more and more immigrants came to New York. Irish, Italians and Germans came in the hope of a better life. However, many of them did not get out of the slums such as Five Points and the Bowery. Naturally, this led to strong conflicts that plunged the city into the greatest chaos in its history.

In 1898, the five boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens and the Bronx merged to form Greater New York.

In the first half of the 20th century, the city rose to become a center of industry and trade. In the Roaring Twenties, New York fell into a stock market frenzy, which came to an abrupt end on October 24, 1929. The economic crisis that followed hit New York hard.

The unemployment rate rose to over 25 percent. Many people lost their jobs and homes. The turning point came with the construction programs launched by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. This is how the first skyscrapers were built at the beginning of the 20th century, most notably the Woolworth Building and the Empire State Building as well as the Chrysler Building. All of them became landmarks of the city of Ney York.

After the end of the Second World War, the economy went downhill again. The middle class moved to the suburbs. Many industrial companies emigrated. In 1975, the city had to declare bankruptcy. Edward Koch redeveloped the city of New York during his term as mayor (1978-1989). In the economic boom that followed in the 1980s, Wall Street established itself in the financial world. In the 1990s, the popular New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani achieved resounding success in the fight against crime with the so-called zero tolerance strategy. This brought a new decisive influx of higher-earning citizens to New York.

In the late summer of 2001, the World Trade Center was completely destroyed in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. This was the blackest day in New York’s history. It was not until May 2002 that the clean-up work on Ground Zero was completed. The city’s payment deficit is more than 7 billion dollars.

The decision for the Memorial at Ground Zero was made in 2004 – “Reflecting Absence” by Michael Arad and Peter Walkers.

Since January 1, 2002, Michael Bloomberg has been the 108th mayor of New York. In 2001, he won the mayoral election, succeeding Rudolph Giuliani, and was re-elected in 2005 with 59 percent of all votes cast.