About New York City (courteay of Wikipedia)
New York City is the largest city in the United States and one of the world's major global cities. Located in the state of New York, the city has a population of over 8.1 million within an area of 321 square miles (830 km²), making it the most densely populated city in North America. Its metropolitan area has a population of 18.7 million and is one of the largest urban areas in the world.
New York City is an international center for business, finance, fashion, medicine, entertainment, media and culture, with an extraordinary collection of museums, galleries, performance venues, media outlets, international corporations, and financial markets. It is also home to the headquarters of the United Nations and to some of the world's most famous skyscrapers.
Popularly known as the "Big Apple" or the "Capital of the World," the city attracts large numbers of immigrants—over one-third of its population is foreign-born—as well as people from all over the United States who come for its culture, diversity, fast-paced lifestyle, cosmopolitanism, and economic opportunity. The city is also distinguished for having the lowest crime rate among the 25 largest American cities.Baseball is the city's most closely followed sport. There have been fourteen World Series championship series between New York City teams; such matchups are called Subway Series. The city's two Major League Baseball teams are the New York Yankees and the New York Mets, which enjoy a fierce rivalry.
In American football the city's teams are the New York Giants and New York Jets, who share a stadium outside the city limits in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The New York Rangers represent the city in ice hockey. The National Hockey League is headquartered in Manhattan.
The first national college-level basketball championship, the National Invitation Tournament, was held in New York in 1938 and remains in the city. The New York Knicks are the city's National Basketball Association team.
As a global city, New York supports many events outside the big four American sports. Examples are the U.S. Tennis Open, the New York City Marathon, and many amateur leagues in sports such as soccer, cricket and stickball. The New York Cosmos (1971-1985) was a former franchise in the North American Soccer League, renowned for signing the great Brazilian player Pelé. Red Bull New York, formerly known as the MetroStars, is a professional soccer club based in New Jersey that participates in Major League Soccer.
New York is often called "the media capital of the world". It is home several of the largest media conglomerates in the world, including Time Warner, News Corporation, the Hearst Corporation, and Viacom. Three of the "Big Four" record labels have their headquarters in the city. One-third of all independent films in the world are produced in New York. More than 200 newspapers and 350 consumer magazines have an office in the city. The book-publishing industry alone employs about 13,000 people.
The city is home to two of the three national daily newspapers in the United States: The New York Times (circulation 1.1 million), and the The Wall Street Journal (circulation 2.1 million). Aside from the Times, the other leading papers are New York Daily News (circulation 730,000), and the New York Post (circulation 650,000), which was founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton. The city also has a large ethnic press with newspapers in over twenty languages; El Diario La Prensa (circulation 265,000) is New York's largest Spanish-language daily and the oldest in the nation.
New York City is the nation's largest metropolitan media market, comprising about 7% of American television-viewing households. The city is the national headquarters of the four major American broadcast television networks, ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC. It is also the home of many large cable television channels, including MTV, Fox News, HBO and Comedy Central. In 2005 there were more than 100 television shows taped in New York City.[ Radio broadcasting in the city is equally varied. Shock jocks Opie and Anthony and conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh are based in the city. WQHT ("Hot 97"), claims to be the nation's premier hip-hop station, while the morning radio program El Vacilón de la Mañana on WSKQ is the highest-rated Spanish-language radio show in the United States.
Public access television got its start in New York, and WNET, the city's major public television station, is a primary national provider of PBS programming. WNYC is the most listened-to public radio station in the United States.
New York City is also the home of NY1, a 24-hour news channel owned by Time Warner and broadcast on Time Warner Cable and Cablevision.
The skyline of New York is one of the most recognizable in the world. New York actually has three separately recognizable skylines: Midtown Manhattan, Lower Manhattan, and Downtown Brooklyn. New York City has architecturally important buildings in a variety of styles, including French Second Empire (The Kings County Savings Bank Building), gothic revival (the Woolworth Building), Art Deco (the Empire State Building and Chrysler Building), international style (the New School, Seagram Building and Lever House), and post-modern (the AT&T Building). The Condé Nast Building is an important example of green design in American skyscrapers.
The residential parts of the city have a distinctive character from the skyscrapers of the commercial cores that is defined by the elegant brownstone rowhouses and apartment buildings which were built during the city's rapid expansion from 1870–1930. Stone and brick became the city's building materials of choice after the construction of wood-frame houses was limited in the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1835. Unlike Paris, which for centuries was built from its own limestone bedrock, New York has always drawn its building stone from a far-flung network of quarries and its stone buildings have a variety of textures and hues
39 million foreign and American tourists visit New York City each year. Major destinations include the Empire State Building, Radio City Music Hall (home of the The Rockettes), Broadway productions, scores of museums from the El Museo del Barrio to the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, the Bronx Zoo and New York Botanical Garden, luxury shopping along Fifth and Madison Avenues, and events like the Halloween Parade in the East Village and the Tribeca Film Festival. Many of the city's ethnic enclaves, such as Jackson Heights, Flushing, and Brighton Beach are major shopping destinations for first and second generation Americans up and down the East Coast.
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