New york

New York City, named “The Big Apple” by jazz musicians in the 1920s, is the city that never sleeps. It is alive and full of adventure, a magnet for people from all over the world with dreams and ambitions. Founded in 1625, it was chartered as a city in 1653. New York City is one of the largest cities in the United States and is among the largest in the world.
    History – the original inhabitants were Indians, which is resembled by the name of the oldest part – Manhattan Island. This land was bought from the Indians by the Dutch at the beginning of 17th century. The original name was New Amsterdam. In 1664 the British captured the city and renamed it New York. Because of its favourable position it soon became an important trading port. In southern part of Manhattan Island there used to be a wall against Indians, now there is Wall Street – the center of financial life with the most important stock-exchange in the world.
New York City is divided into five boroughs or sections. The island of Manhattan is what many people think of when they think of New York because it is considered the “heart” of the city, but it is only one of the five boroughs. The others are Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Richmond, better known as Staten Island. The boroughs are connected to each other and to the rest of the state by bridges and tunnels. One of New York’s two major league baseball teams, the Mets, play in Shea Stadium in Queens. The Yankees, another major league team, play at the Bronx’s Yankee Stadium.
    While over one and half million people are crowded into Manhattan Island, the city offers many parks and neighborhoods to contain them. The famous central Park and other smaller parks offer places to relax and enjoy the beauty of nature. Manhattan is divided into the East Side and West Side by Fifth Avenue. Housing is a big problem in Manhattan where most people rent the apartments in which they live. Over 200 000 people live in public housing projects. In the other four boroughs, many New Yorkers own their own homes.
    There is so much to do and see in New York. The Empire State Building, for forty years the tallest building in the world, each year carries over a million and a half visitors to its observatory high above the city. The twin towers of the World Trade center were the tallest buildings in the city, but they were destroyed by terrorists. Madison Square Garden is the place to go to see basketball and hockey games, rock concerts, rodeos, and even the circus. The city is home to a number of zoos, including the Bronx Zoo, one of the best in the world. Museums offer a limitless variety of possibilities to view nature (The new York Natural History Museum, the Hayden Planetarium, Coney Island’s New York Aquarium), art (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art), and even an aircraft carrier (The Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum). Broadway and Times Square offer an endless variety of dramatic plays and musical productions, as well as the studios of MTV. All night dance clubs are scattered throughout the city, and patrons include the rich and famous are well as young New York working people who dance to frenetic rhythms spun by DJs.
    A fabulous city, New York is a mecca to Americans living up and down the East coast of the United States and to visitors from all over the United States and the world.