New York. New York is the country's largest city and port located at the mouth of the Hudson River.The city occupies Manhattan and Staten islands

New York is the country's largest city and port located at the mouth of the Hudson River.The city occupies Manhattan and Staten islands, the western end of Long Island, a portion of the mainland, and various islands in New York Harbor and Long Island Sound.

New York's recorded history begins with an Italian navigator, Giovanni da Verrezano, who around 1524 sailed into the present New York bay. In 1609 Captain Henry Hudson explored the harbour and the river, later named after him. In 1624 Dutch colonists arrived and established their permanent settlement, named New Amsterdam. The following year the Dutch West Indian Company bought the whole island of Manhattan from Indians for a few trinkets. In 1663 the colony was captured by the British fleet under Duke of York and renamed New York, but the Dutch and those who came with them stayed, so from the very first days of its existence New York was truly an international city.

Depending on one's point of view, New York City is any one of four cities: to social scientists it is a laboratory in which to study the challenges of urban life, from ghastly slum to tycoon luxury; to tourists it is a city of jostling crowds, traffic jams, dirty streets, smelly subways--all in dramatic contast to such international symbols as the skyscraper skyline, the United Nations buildings, Wall Street, the Statue of Liberty, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Times Square, and Broadway theatres; to commuters it is an enervating beehive of world trade and finance, mass media, business administration, fashion, and assorted entrepreneurial activities and manufacture--a place to leave as soon as possible in the evening for the calmer suburbian atmosphere.But to the residents of this temperate, humid city, New York is in reality a collection of many neighbourhoods scattered among the city's five boroughs--Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island (formerly called Richmond)--each exhibiting its own life-style. To move from one neighbourhood to another in the city's 304 square miles (787 square kilometres) may be like passing from one country to another. One can often hear that "New York is not the United States" or "It's a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there".

Much of the style and tone of life in the United States is set in New York City, which remains the artistic, cultural, and economic capital of the nation.

The heart of the nation's live theatre is found on and off Broadway; many television programs originate in New York City, where several broadcast and cable networks have their home offices, and many motion pictures are filmed on its streets. The city's museums--particularly the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the American Museum of Natural History--set a standard for similar institutions across the country.Several major publishing houses have their headquarters in New York City, as do a large number of national magazines. The central offices of many of the country's largest corporations are located there, supporting a great many banks, public-relations firms, advertising agencies, management consultants, and law firms. Because of this concentration of business and culture, New York City maintains a leading national position in American life.

The heart of the New York City is Manhattan. It is here that the major museums, theatres and businesses are situated. Except for Greenwich Village, most of Manhattan is laid down in rectangles. Its Avenues run north and south and are numbered from First Avenue on the east to Twelfth Avenue on the west. The Streets run east and west and are also numbered. Broadway is the longest street running across the island from west (in the north) to east (in the south). Where Broadway crosses an avenue, a square or circle is formed: Columbus Circle at Eighth Ave. and 59^th St., Times Square at Seventh Ave. and 42 St.

Lower Manhattan is the oldest part of the city. Most streets are named here. Greenwich Village, Soho, Chinatown and the well-known Wall Street are situated here.Wall Street is only a quarter of a mile long. Principal offices of most of the city’s largest banks and the largest insurance companies are located here, as well as the New York Stock Exchange.

New York is famous for its skyscrapers. The Manhattan skyline can leave no one indifferent. The Empire State Building held the world’s record for tallness untill the 1970s. Then the twin towers of the World Trade Center pushed it down.

New York is a great scientific and educational centre. Among its numerous colleges and universities are such giants as the State University of New York, the City University of New York, New York University, Columbia University and others.