New York

New York, New York! The double whammy of one of the world's greatest cities in a beautiful and historic state. Part of the great conurbation of the Eastern Seaboard of the United States of America that runs from Washington D.C. in the north to Boston in the south, New York City is world class and world famous. Attracting tourists and residents from every corner of the globe, it is a truly cosmopolitan place with the speed and vibrancy that you would expect from this economic powerhouse.

New York City's nickname of “The Big Apple” is said to derive either from an old show business saying used by Jazz musicians or from horse racing slang. Home of the skyscraper, the Manhattan skyline is instantly recognizable by people around the world from countless movies and iconic photographs. A New York City Guide is essential if a visitor wants to make the most of their time in the city.

As for New York State, this is a bucolic landscape both farmed and forested, with mountain ranges and a National Park. One of the most populous of the states, New York is of only medium size, being a little less than 55,000 square miles. It borders the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario and the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont in the region of New England.

The state capital is Albany, situated on the banks of the Hudson River. It is a far smaller place than New York City, but no less important historically. It was here in 1754 that Benjamin Franklin and other representatives of seven British North American colonies formed the Albany Congress, an early step on the journey to independence.

New York City is at the southernmost point of New York State, leading to a generalized distinction between Upstate and Downstate New York. The city is divided into the five boroughs of The Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. The New York Metro reaches all but Staten Island and is a good way to get around.

Situated on the North Atlantic coast, New York City is surrounded by water. Manhattan is bordered by the Hudson River to the west, the East River to the east, and Harlem River to the North. Long Island Sound laps against both Queens and The Bronx, whilst Brooklyn plays host to Jamaica Bay. Staten Island lies across New York Bay. New York State is also well served with bodies of water, with shorelines on two of the Great Lakes, Ontario, and Erie, which are connected by the mighty Niagara River, as well as the demoted Lake Champlain.

At 5,344 feet, Mount Marcy is the highest point in New York State and is found in the Adirondack State Park, the largest national park within the contiguous United States. Initially created out of concern for environmental damage that would also harm New York's economy and prosperity, the park continues to grow. The Catskill State Park, whilst smaller than its Adirondack sister, also draws New York's enthusiasts of outdoor and wilderness activities, including hikers, skiers, hunters, and fishermen.

Niagara Falls, the set of waterfalls after which the two adjacent cities are named, is a major tourist attraction of New York State and also a center for hydroelectric power generation. Visitors can take a boat trip on a Maid of the Mist and imagine the exploits of New York's daredevil waterfall jumpers.

New York City has a plethora of artistic organizations and events. Lovers of the visual arts will find New York full of museums to their taste, whilst those who prefer performance are well served with festivals and theatrical establishments.

Art lovers have the Metropolitan Museum of Art, housing a permanent collection of artworks and artifacts from many periods and places, including even armaments, musical instruments, and textiles. New York's Museum of Modern Art holds a great range of art in the more contemporary disciplines. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is just as famous for its modernist building by Frank Lloyd Wright as its art collections.

The Whitney Museum of American Art has strong connections with artists such as Edward Hopper and Louise Nevelson, some of whose wood and metal collages are exhibited outdoors in a garden in Lower Manhattan. The beautiful Beaux-Arts building of the Brooklyn Museum has its own station on the New York subway. The American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan provides plenty to see and do for those more interested in science.

The annual New York Comedy Festival features both mainstream acts and cutting-edge talent; whilst the New York Film Festival showcases the best that new national and international cinema has to offer. For diverse and eclectic entertainment, CultureFest takes place in Battery Park and presents performing arts groups and the work of visual artists from all five of New York's boroughs.

Music is well represented in New York City with the Metropolitan Opera staging new and established works in the most multidisciplinary of art forms and the New York Philharmonic providing a program for all ages, starting with their Very Young People's Concerts for those aged 3 to 5!

Business is what drives New York City and Wall Street is the spiritual, if now historical, home of its financial sector. This narrow Manhattan street no longer houses most of the headquarters of the American financial industry, but is still emblematic of its prominence in both New York City and New York State.

The New York Stock Exchange still has its trading floors in its Wall Street premises and is the largest United States stock exchange by dollar volume and the second largest by listed company numbers. The Bank Street building, near the southern tip of Manhattan Island, is on the National Register of Historic Places. The six massive Corinthian columns of the neoclassical facade make George Browne Post's building one of New York's iconic images.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, also in downtown Manhattan, plays a leading role in US monetary policy, as well as financial supervision within the Federal Reserve System. Hidden 50 feet below sea level, their gold vault holds billions of dollars worth of the precious metal. Above ground, tours of the Bank are available under strict security conditions. Visitors will note the Florentine palace inspired design of the building by the architects York and Sawyer.

Business and commerce in New York City is diverse and dynamic, but certain sectors are particularly well represented. The film and television industries are present in New York to an extent surpassed in the US only by Hollywood itself, which could be why there are so many movies set in New York. The fashion industry has long been associated with New York, and many fashion houses have a strong presence, including Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, and Ralph Lauren.

Many visitors to New York arrive via John F Kennedy International Airport. Operated by The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, it employs over 35 thousand people and sees over 40 million passengers pass through every year. The AirTrain JFK light rail system carries people around the airport and connects with the New York City Transit subways and other parts of the mass transport system. JFK is one of three airports serving New York, the others being LaGuardia and Newark Liberty International. All three lie within 16 miles of midtown Manhattan.

The counterpart of the Port Authority for the land is the Metropolitan Transport Authority, among whose agencies are the New York City Transit, Bridges and Tunnels, and the Staten Island Railway, the latter being reached by the Staten Island Ferry from Manhattan. The Bridges and Tunnels agency operates the two tunnels and seven bridges that form essential parts of the New York City transport infrastructure. The most impressive and arguably most important bridge is the Triborough Bridge complex that connects Manhattan, Queens, and The Bronx, each part meeting at the interchange on Randall's Island.

The Brooklyn Battery Tunnel remains the longest continuous underwater tunnel for vehicles in North America, a distinction that it has held for over 50 years. The tunnel connects Manhattan and Brooklyn. The Queens Midtown Tunnel links Queens and Manhattan, as it has done since 1940, having been designed and built under the direction of Ole Singstad who had to overcome difficult tunneling conditions under New York's East River.

Those with a passion for athletics have the New York City Marathon as an attraction, both as a spectator spectacle and as a potential challenge, with 90,000 applying to take part each year. Several world records in both the men’s and women’s race have been set in New York over the years, including that of the Norwegian Grete Waitz in 1978 with a time of 2:32:30. As well as runners, the New York City Marathon welcomes athletes who compete using wheelchairs and hand cycles.

Team sports are also well represented, as the city hosts both the New York Mets, whose historic home is the famous Shea Stadium, and the New York Yankees, the 2006 AL East Division Champions, baseball teams. As well as baseball, Shea Stadium has seen many notable events over the years, from concerts by The Beatles in 1965 and 1966 to international soccer matches, boxing, wrestling, and even the preaching of Billy Graham.

The New York Knicks is the city's resident basketball team and play in Madison Square Garden, another historic New York name of which there have been four incarnations, with a fifth being planned. The current Madison Square Garden has seen many notable rock concerts from artists as diverse as Pink Floyd, Bob Marley, and Bruce Springsteen.

Football in the city is represented by both the New York Jets and the New York Giants. Both the Jets and the Giants play at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey and therefore not in New York itself. The Jets refer to this stadium as The Meadowlands to avoid the association with their rivals for whom it is named.

New York is replete with parks and green spaces, a necessary complement to the urban nature of most of the city. The most famous of these is Central Park, a large rectangle of foliage in the heart of Manhattan. Prospect Park contains Brooklyn's only lake and was landscaped by Olmsted and Vaux shortly after the end of the American Civil War and designed to evoke the wild nature that they had experienced during journeys across the States.

The New York Botanical Gardens, set in Bronx Park, is a center for education about horticulture and gardening and features the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, the Jane Watson Irwin Perennial Garden, and the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden amongst its permanent collection of trees, shrubs, herbs, and flowers.

The Bronx Zoo caters to a collection of over four thousand animals in the heart of New York City and is a leading member of the Wildlife Conservation Society, acting for sustainable co-existence with wildlife both locally and globally. Western lowland gorillas and snow leopards are among the attractions for those seeking exotic species alien to New York.

The Zoo's sister organization, the New York Aquarium, houses over 8,000 aquatic animals in accessible exhibits, showcasing creatures from marine environments as diverse as those of Africa, the Americas, and even the Arctic.

Orchard Beach in Pelham Bay Park is worth a visit. Created by Robert Moses, Parks Commissioner for Long Island Sound in the 1930’s, it features plenty of sporting facilities and a long sandy beach that is perfect for sunbathing on warm summer days in New York.

New York Harbor is the home of the Statue of Liberty, a present from the people of France to the people of the United States as a symbol of the friendship between the two countries that developed during the American Revolution. Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, of Eiffel Tower fame, was commissioned to provide the interior structure to support the sculptural exterior created by Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi.

Those arriving at New York by sea, such as the European newcomers headed for Ellis Island in the early years of the twentieth century, are greeted by the monumental appearance of the Statue standing on Liberty Island. More than any other landmark, the Statue of Liberty is the internationally recognized symbol of New York.

Manhattan’s Chinatown is both a residential and commercial center that serves the needs of New York's Chinese community and provides a tourist attraction, with restaurants, fishmongers, and greengrocers in evidence. There is still some garment work undertaken there for the fashion industry, but much of the employment is in catering for New York’s diners.

Times Square was renamed from Longacre Square in 1904 on the advent of the construction of the New York Times building there, marking the transition of the area from one of notoriety to growing respectability. The locality was already notable for Oscar Hammerstein's construction of theaters that rapidly became popular with New Yorkers. The popularity and profitability of the theaters dropped during the Great Depression, and many were converted to show the movies now being produced by Hollywood, being far cheaper entertainments to show. For over a hundred years, people have congregated in Times Square to witness the ball-dropping ceremony that marks the New Year in New York.

Macy's is possibly New York's most famous department store and a magnet for those visiting New York City for the volume and variety of the shopping opportunities. The first store opened in 1858 and the company has since developed into one of New York's institutions, putting on their Thanksgiving Day Parade since the 1920’s.

Whilst Washington D.C. is the center of national government and politics, New York City plays an important part on the world stage by hosting the United Nations. This organization was founded in 1945 in the wake of World War II as a replacement for the defunct League of Nations. The United Nations headquarters building on the banks of New York's East River was completed in 1950, a truly international accomplishment in the International Style, whose architects included Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer.

New York's interest and involvement in world affairs is also served by journalism in the form of newspapers, notably the New York Times. The Times, nicknamed The Grey Lady, is published in New York City, but distributed internationally. The quality of its journalists is reflected in the fact that it has won 94 Pulitzer Prizes since 1918 and a record 7 in 2002 alone.

The New York Sun is a more conservative broadsheet newspaper. Its modern incarnation was launched in 2002 as a general interest newspaper and has received praise for its sports journalism and coverage of the arts in all their forms.

The New York Post, another daily newspaper, is a different proposition again, being a tabloid and regarded as somewhat sensationalist and partisan. This reputation has developed since the newspaper's acquisition by Rupert Murdoch and later his company News Corporation, whose headquarters is on Sixth Avenue in New York City.