Child Prodigy Harlem Mixed Race Negatives Philippa Schuyler African American

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Seller: memorabilia111 ✉️ (807) 100%, Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan, US, Ships to: US & many other countries, Item: 176278959825 CHILD PRODIGY HARLEM MIXED RACE NEGATIVES PHILIPPA SCHUYLER AFRICAN AMERICAN. South Africa. Apollo Theater, a New York City landmark and NRHP-listed site[88][81]. Abyssinian Baptist Church, a New York City landmark[87]. Berber-Tunisian 21% 43% 26% 10%. Officially designated landmarks. 4 EXCEEDINGLT RARE 1946 NEGATIVES OF CHILD PRODIGY PHILIPPA SCHUYLER EACH MEASURING 4X5 INCHES WITH  NEGATIVE ENVELOPE. PHOTOGRAPHER BY THE FAMEOUS PHOTOGRAPHER LEO LIEB AND WERE TAKEN IN  JULY 5, 1946 PHILIIPPA SCHUYLER, CHILD PRODIGY AT HOME 270 CONVENT AVE, NY AND MOTHER AND FATHER Philippa Duke Schuyler (/ˈskaɪlər/; August 2, 1931 – May 9, 1967) was an American concert pianist, composer, author, and journalist. A child prodigy, she was the daughter of black journalist George Schuyler and Josephine Schuyler, a white Texan heiress, Schuyler became famous in the 1930s for her talent, intellect, mixed race parentage, and the eccentric parenting methods employed by her mother. Hailed as "the Shirley Temple of American Negroes," Schuyler performed public piano recitals and radio broadcasts by the age of four. She performed two recitals at the New York World's Fair at the age of eight. Schuyler won numerous music competitions such as the New York Philharmonic Young People's Concerts at Carnegie Hall. She became the youngest member of the National Association for American Composers and Conductors at age eleven. Schuyler encountered racism as she grew older, and had trouble coming to terms with her mixed race heritage. She later became a journalist and was killed in a helicopter crash in South Vietnam in 1967. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Philippa Duke Schuyler (/ˈskaɪlər/; August 2, 1931 – May 9, 1967) was an American concert pianist, composer, author, and journalist. A child prodigy, she was the daughter of black journalist George Schuyler and Josephine Schuyler, a white Texan heiress, Schuyler became famous in the 1930s for her talent, intellect, mixed race parentage, and the eccentric parenting methods employed by her mother. Hailed as "the Shirley Temple of American Negroes,"[1] Schuyler performed public piano recitals and radio broadcasts by the age of four. She performed two recitals at the New York World's Fair at the age of eight. Schuyler won numerous music competitions such as the New York Philharmonic Young People's Concerts at Carnegie Hall. She became the youngest member of the National Association for American Composers and Conductors at age eleven. Schuyler encountered racism as she grew older, and had trouble coming to terms with her mixed race heritage. She later became a journalist and was killed in a helicopter crash in South Vietnam in 1967. Life and career Early life Philippa Duke Schuyler was born in Harlem, New York on August 2, 1931. She was the only child of George Schuyler, a prominent black essayist and journalist, and his wife Josephine Schuyler (née Cogdell), a white Texan and one-time Mack Sennett bathing beauty and the granddaughter of slave owners.[1][2] Her parents believed that intermarriage could "invigorate" both races and produce extraordinary offspring. They also advocated that mixed-race marriage could help to solve many of the social problems in the United States. For three years before Schuyler's birth, her mother ate only natural and raw food, avoided meat, went on a body and mind preparing regime to cleanse her system in preparation to bear a "superior" child.[3] Mrs. Schuyler further believed that genius could best be developed by a diet consisting exclusively of raw foods. As a result, Philippa grew up in her New York City apartment eating a diet predominantly comprising raw carrots, peas and yams and raw steak. She was given a daily ration of cod liver oil and lemon slices in place of sweets. "When we travel," Mrs. Schuyler said, "Philippa and I amaze waiters. You have to argue with most waiters before they will bring you raw meat. I guess it is rather unusual to see a little girl eating a raw steak."[4] Recognized as a prodigy at an early age, a New York Herald Tribune writer in 1933 wrote about her as the "Negro Baby." Schuyler reportedly knew the alphabet at nineteen months and was able to read and write at the age of two. By four years old she could play Schumann and Mozart compositions, and she was writing her own compositions.[5][6] Her intelligence quotient (IQ) at the age of six was found to be 185.[7] Music career Schuyler's mother was an overbearing stage mother who entered her into every possible music competition.[5] In June 1936, Schuyler won her first gold medal at the age of four at the annual tournament sponsored by the National Guild of Piano Teachers, where she performed ten original compositions.[8][9] She won eight consecutive prizes from the New York Philharmonic Young People's Concerts at Carnegie Hall, then was barred from competing because the other children didn't stand a chance to win against her.[10][7] She also won gold medals from the Music Education League and from the City of New York.[10] Schuyler's piano recitals and radio broadcasts attracted significant press coverage. New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia was one of Schuyler's admirers and visited her at home on more than one occasion. He declared June 19, 1940 "Philippa Duke Schuyler Day" at the New York World's Fair, where she performed two recitals.[11][6] At nine, Schuyler became the subject of "Evening With A Gifted Child", a profile written by Joseph Mitchell, correspondent for The New Yorker, who heard several of her early compositions. He noted that she addressed both her parents by their first names.[12] Schuyler completed the eighth grade at the age of eleven and by the age of fourteen she had composed 200 musical selections.[6] She became the youngest member of the National Association for American Composers and Conductors in 1942.[11] By the time she reached adolescence, Schuyler was touring constantly, both in the United States and overseas. At fifteen, Schuyler graduated from Father Young S. J. Memorial High School, the Schola Cantorum of Pius X School of Liturgical Music.[13] She also performed with the New York Philharmonic at Lewisohn Stadium.[5] Schuyler continued her studies at Manhattanville College.[14] Her talent as a pianist was widely acknowledged, although many critics believed that her forte lay in playing vigorous pieces and criticized her style when tackling more nuanced works. Acclaim for her performances led to her becoming a role model for many children in the United States, but Schuyler's own childhood was blighted when, during her teenage years, her parents showed her the scrapbooks they had compiled recording her life and career. The books contained numerous newspaper clippings in which both George and Josephine Schuyler commented on their beliefs and ambitions for their daughter. Realization that she had been conceived and raised, in a sense, as a genetic experiment, robbed the pianist of many of the illusions that had made her earlier youth a happy one.[15] In later life, Schuyler grew disillusioned with the racial and gender prejudice she encountered, particularly when performing in the United States, and much of her musical career was spent playing overseas. She fled to Latin America, where people of mixed races were more prevalent. She chose a voluntary exile of traveling and performing in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, Africa and Europe.[5][16][17] She played at the inauguration of three successive presidents in Haiti. In Africa, she performed for various notables such as Haile Selassie of Ethiopia,[18] at Independence Day celebrations for Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Kasavubu of the Congo,[19] President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, and for Albert Schweitzer in his isolated leper colony in Lamberéné. She began passing for white in 1959, at first so she could travel in South Africa, then again years later thinking she would have a better career if she reentered the American concert scene as a white performer.[5][11] Journalism career As her concert schedule decreased in the early 1960s, Schuyler followed her father George Schuyler into journalism in her thirties. She supplemented her limited income by writing about her travels. She published more than 100 newspaper and magazine articles internationally, and was one of the few black writers for the United Press International.[5] Schuyler published four non-fiction books: Adventures in Black and White (a biography, 1960); Who Killed the Congo? (a summary of the Belgian Congo's fight for independence, 1962); Jungle Saints (about Catholic missionaries, 1963); and Kingdom of Dreams (a quixotic study of scientific dream interpretation written with her mother, 1966).[20] Personal life Schuyler's personal life was frequently unhappy since childhood. Her mother punished her severely with whippings, and she never made friends because she did not attend school regularly. When she did attend school, she was ahead of other children her age, and was usually the only minority.[21] Schuyler developed an inferiority complex about her race and viewed her blackness as a "stigma".[22] Schuyler rejected many of her parents' values and viewed their interracial marriage as a mistake.[5] She increasingly became a vocal feminist and made many attempts to pass herself off as a woman of Ibero-American descent named Felipa Monterro y Schuyler.[11][5] Although Schuyler engaged in a number of affairs, she never married. In 1965, she endured a dangerous late-term abortion in Tijuana after an affair with Ghanaian diplomat Georges Apedo-Amah, because she did not want to have a child with a black man.[23] Schuyler wanted to marry an Aryan man to boost her career and produce offspring she deemed ideal.[24] Schuyler and her father were members of the John Birch Society.[20] In addition to her native English language, she spoke French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and German.[6][7] She was also a devout Catholic.[25] Death In 1966, Schuyler traveled to South Vietnam to perform for the troops and Vietnamese groups.[26] She returned in April 1967 as a war correspondent for William Loeb's Manchester Union Leader and served as a lay missionary.[20] On May 9, 1967, Schuyler was killed in a crash of a United States Army helicopter during a mission in Da Nang to evacuate Vietnamese orphans. The helicopter crashed into Danang Bay.[27] While she survived the crash impact, her inability to swim caused her to drown. Schuyler had planned to leave Vietnam a few days prior, but she extended her stay to bring Catholic children from Hue, where there was tension between Catholic and Buddhist factions.[26] 2,000 mourners attended her funeral at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City on May 18, 1967.[28] She was the second of two American women journalists to die in Vietnam.[29] A court of inquiry found that the pilot had deliberately cut his motor and descended in an uncontrolled glide – possibly in an attempt to give his civilian passengers an insight into the dangers of flying in a combat zone – eventually losing control of the aircraft.[citation needed] Schuyler's mother was profoundly affected by her death and committed suicide a few days before the second anniversary of her death in 1969.[3][30] Legacy Schuyler's parents established the Philippa Schuyler Memorial Foundation in her memory.[3] Philippa Schuyler Middle School for the Gifted and Talented in Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York is dedicated to preserving the memory of the child prodigy by offering an arts-focused education to New York City children. It was reported in 2004 that Halle Berry owned the film rights to Schuyler's biography. Berry intended to co-produce the biopic with Marc Platt, starring Alicia Keys as Schuyler.[31][32] Books Philippa Duke Schuyler, Adventures in Black and White, with foreword by Deems Taylor, (New York: R. Speller, 1960) Philippa Duke Schuyler, Who Killed the Congo?, (New York: Devin-Adair, 1962)[33] Philippa Duke Schuyler, Jungle Saints: Africa's Heroic Catholic Missionaries, (Roma: Verlag Herder, 1963) Philippa Duke Schuyler and Josephine Schuyler, Kingdom of Dreams, (New York: R. Speller, 1966) Philippa Duke Schuyler, Good Men Die, (New York: Twin Circle, 1969) See also List of journalists killed and missing in the Vietnam War Of 103 piano pupils who entered the annual tournament conducted in Manhattan by the National Guild of Piano Teachers, youngest this spring was Philippa Duke Schuyler, 4, a Negro child who blithely played ten compositions, six of them her own. Reward for superior playing is a gold seal certificate, a place on the Guild's national roll of honor. Seven of the contestants were so rated last week and among them 4-year-old Philippa Schuyler. Prodigious at more than music is this Harlem-born daughter of a white mother and a coal-black father (TIME, Aug 26). Mrs. Schuyler paints, writes for Negro newspapers. George Schuyler was a day laborer and a dishwasher before he became a novelist (Black No More, Slaves Today), a contributor to American Mercury and Saturday Evening Post. All three Schuylers subsist on raw vegetables, raw meat, a diet which Mrs. Schuyler claims is largely responsible for her daughter's precocity. At two Philippa amazed the neighbors by reading, writing her name, spelling 150 long words. At four her spelling is up to pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoniosis.* She is keen at mathematics, reads fourth-grade books, writes poetry, draws and paints, turns out neat letters on her father's type writer. Judges at the recent piano tournament were impressed by the facility with which she played Mozart's Minuet in G, the imagination shown in her original pieces. Best was a Nigerian Dance which she wrote when a Nigerian friend sent her a mahogany elephant. Others were: Rolling Home on My Roller Skates, Pansy Bells, The Butterfly, The Wolf (inspired by Little Red Ridinghood&), Golden Fish in Silver Waters, the result of a visit to the Aquarium. "Susanna" v. "Happy Days" Whether or not he is elected 33rd President of the U. S., squinty-smiling Governor Alf M. Landon of Kansas was last week indelibly imprinted upon his countrymen's memory as The Man Who revived the tune Oh! Susanna as a national theme song. In the course of six days at Cleveland, bands at the Republican National Convention played Oh! Susanna 1,800 times by official count. Into a class with The Sidewalks of New York and California, Here I Come passed the old banjo ballad written by Stephen Foster nearly 100 years ago and first sung into U. S. tradition by the gold-rushing Forty-Niners. Schuyler, Philippa Duke (1931–1967) African-American pianist and composer whose well-known compositions include "Manhattan Nocturne" (1943), "Rhapsody of Youth" (1948), and "Nile Fantasy" (1965). Name variations: Felipa Monterro y Schuyler; Felipa Monterro. Born in 1931 in Harlem, New York; died on May 9, 1967, in a helicopter crash in Vietnam; daughter of Josephine "Jody" Cogdell Schuyler (an artist and writer who used maiden name Josephine Cogdell) and George Schuyler (a journalist); privately educated in New York. Selected writings: Adventures in Black and White (1960); Who Killed the Congo? (1962); Jungle Saints (1963); (with Josephine Cogdell) Kingdom of Dreams (1966); a fifth book, Good Men Die, was published posthumously (1968). Philippa Schuyler was born in Harlem in 1931 to interracial parents who were convinced that their differing racial backgrounds would produce an extraordinary child. Josephine Cogdell , a white writer, and George Schuyler, a prominent African-American journalist, encouraged and directed Philippa's life from an early age. As a child, she received acclaim for her music from audiences of all races; once she became an adult, however, she felt she did not fit in on either side of America's racially divided society. Indeed, despite Schuyler's gift in music and her impressively high IQ (tested at 185 by New York University and others), America in the 1950s was not ready for an adult interracial artist. Schuyler left the United States and toured throughout Europe, Africa and Asia, but was never able to feel at home anywhere. Philippa Duke Schuyler was the product of parents who planned to make her an example of the excellence that could be attained through a mulatto race as a solution to America's troubled race problem. Their high expectations were evident even in her name, "Philippa," referring to Philip of Macedonia and Philip Schuyler, the Revolutionary War general, and she did not disappoint. Schuyler's childhood was spent under the watchful eye of her mother, who served as her business manager, best friend, and director. Educated by private tutors, she was isolated from other children, and her diet was strictly controlled by Josephine. Throughout her life, Schuyler would maintain a regimented diet which did not permit artificial products such as sodas, nor alcohol, sugar, meat, cooked foods and most fats. Philippa was reading and writing at age two, composing music at age four, and performing Mozart in front of audiences at age five. By age ten, Schuyler was nationally recognized and celebrated as the brightest young composer in America. She was invited to become a member of the National Association of American Composers and Conductors, and won several prizes for her compositions and performances. Biographical articles on her appeared in the New York Herald Tribune, The New Yorker, Look, Time, and her father's employer, the Pittsburgh Courier, due in large part to his visibility as a journalist and his active campaigning on her behalf. AD In 1946, Schuyler made her debut as a composer and pianist with the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra in New York City, before an audience of 12,000. As a young pianist, her reviews by both black and white critics were uniformly exceptional. Her compositions, although the efforts of a young mind, were also judged to be extraordinary. Composing seemed to come as naturally to Schuyler as seeing and hearing. She would visit a toy shop with her mother and then sit down to write "The Toy Maker's Ball," with the clacking of tiny mechanical figures beating steadily in the background. AD Despite Schuyler's success as a child prodigy, her appeal to white America faded as soon as she entered young adulthood. She was no longer an intriguing phenomenon, and soon her mother could book only concerts backed by African-American organizations. Schuyler became aware for the first time of the racial prejudice from which she had been shielded throughout her childhood. "It was a ruthless shock to me that, at first, made the walls of my self-confidence crumble," she wrote. "It horrified, humiliated me." AD Schuyler's response to American racism was to flee the country for Latin America, where mixed races were more prevalent. Never again would she settle permanently in the United States, choosing instead a voluntary exile of traveling and performing in more than 80 countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe. In Haiti, she played at the inauguration of three successive presidents. In Africa, she performed for such notables as Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, King George of Toro, King Kalonji of the Baluba tribe, at Independence Day celebrations for Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Kasavubu of the Congo and President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, and for Albert Schweitzer in his isolated leper colony in Lamberéné. But despite her tremendous international success, she was never invited to play before an American of note. AD Schuyler's performances before distinguished audiences around the world failed to heal the deep wounds inflicted by America's rejection, and neither could they restore to her a stable sense of identity. She wrote bitterly of the isolation she felt: "I'm a beauty but I'm half colored, so I'm not to be accepted anyplace. I'm always destined to be an outsider, never, never part of anything. I hate my country and no one wants me in any other. I am emotionally part of nothing…. And that will always be my destiny." AD As her concert schedule decreased in the early 1960s, Schuyler supplemented her limited performing income by writing about her travels. She published more than 100 newspaper and magazine articles in the United States and Europe, and was one of the few black writers to be syndicated by United Press International, the large newswire company. She also published four non-fiction books: Adventures in Black and White (a biography, 1960); Who Killed the Congo? (a summary of the Belgian Congo's fight for independence, 1962); Jungle Saints (a tribute to African missionaries, 1963); and Kingdom of Dreams (a quixotic study of scientific dream interpretation written with her mother, 1966). All her books tend to be provocative. An intrepid traveler and a quick-sketch artist of landscapes and people, she reported on the political scenes of the day. In Saigon, she visited an overcrowded and undermanned city hospital where the bug-ridden wards stank in the sweltering heat and patients might share a bed with a corpse for an entire day or more. In Africa, she saw the rioting in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa). From her hotel window, she watched as the severed heads of rival tribesmen were paraded through the street on the spears of the victors. In Buenos Aires, caught in the midst of an uprising against the Peronistas, with revolution raging in the streets, she heard machine gun and mortar fire, saw bombs exploding, and passed dead bodies in the gutters. AD Schuyler's most dramatic move in her quest for identity came in 1962 when she reinvented herself as "Felipa Monterro y Schuyler" in the hopes of re-entering the American music community as a Spanish musician. With this new persona, Schuyler tried to erase all the aspects of her life which had troubled her in the past, including her African-American ethnicity and her status as a former child prodigy. By the end of 1963, Schuyler had dropped "y Schuyler" to further cement a European identity and invented a whole new past for herself. Writing from Belgium to the American John Birch Society offering to join their lecture circuit on such topics as "The Red Menace in Africa," she described herself as a social worker, born and educated in Europe but working in Africa with the missionaries. She was so convincing that the society took her on as a lecturer, and she made a substantial sum on tours. But the crowning objective of the Monterro gambit was to break into white America as a classical pianist. Both Schuyler and her mother hoped that if Monterro could establish a solid reputation in Europe, she could re-enter the American concert scene as a white and be able to perform for audiences thus far denied Philippa Schuyler. In April 1963, Felipa Monterro debuted in Switzerland. Her reviews, however, were mediocre, although the critics were impressed with her technical prowess. They seemed to be confused by the sudden appearance from nowhere of such an accomplished pianist. AD Philippa Schuyler died on Tuesday, May 9, 1967, in a helicopter crash in Vietnam. She had gone there as a correspondent for William Loeb's Manchester Union Leader to perform for the troops, and in her unofficial capacity as lay missionary—evacuating young children, nuns, and priests from Hué to Da Nang. She was on her last "mission of mercy" when the helicopter in which she was riding crashed yards from shore. Schuyler was 35 years old. Ironically, she had visited a clairvoyant several days before and been told that on Tuesday, May 9, "her malefic period would be over and that she would emerge from the mouth of the Dragon." In her last letter home to her mother, she had written: "God, I can't wait to emerge from the Dragon's mouth." sources: Bailey, Brooke. The Remarkable Lives of 100 Women Artists. Holbrook, MA: Bob Adams, 1994. Smith, Jessie Carney, ed. Notable Black American Women. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1992. This one's a heartbreaker. This one will make you wring your hands about America, what it means to be a woman, and what it means to be black. In case you ever harbored any utopian ideals about how -- with hard work and good intentions -- we might make this a better country, this book will certainly disabuse you of any daydreams in that regard. Also, if you ever had any mushy, personal thoughts about fame -- how, if you ever managed to get your picture in Time magazine, you could transcend your own personal history and achieve a secular heaven of success -- this book will disabuse you of that, too. Philippa Duke Schuyler was born in 1931 to a black journalist father and a wealthy Southern white mother who sold themselves on the idea that only by miscegenation could the race question in America be solved. (Or, more accurately, Josephine, the mom, wrote that down in her diary. George Schuyler may have had another whole agenda.) Josephine had gone from man to man and wanted to make a statement, put some kind of meaning in her life. She married that black man, scandalized her folks, fed her daughter on raw liver and brains and began keeping scrapbooks on her "hybrid experiment." The raw liver must have worked because in no time Philippa was walking, talking, reading, writing. Her IQ tested out at 180, and by age 4 she was playing Mozart. Her dad was already fooling around with the ladies, but her mother had found her life's work, the creation of a musical genius. Here, Philippa's story takes a terrible turn. Her mother whipped her regularly. She never had any friends because she hardly ever got to go to school. When she did go, she was years ahead of the other kids, and she was the only person "of color" for miles around. Thanks to her journalist father, she had her picture in the magazines as a talented "Negro" prodigy, but in day-to-day life it was only Philippa and her mother, locked in an isolated, manipulative struggle. Even her piano teachers, who might have offered her various windows onto the world, were dismissed by her mother as soon as there was any emotional attachment between them and Philippa. The prodigy and her mother went on tour. The reviews were almost always good. But both Philippa and her mother were incredibly slow learners about the nature of the outside world: As a woman, Philippa would have a terribly hard time making it as a concert pianist; as a mulatto she would find it almost impossible. She would do well enough as a child prodigy, but there would come a time when she would hit the wall. Had her mother turned out a genius or a freak of nature? Kathryn Talalay, the author of this sad and thoughtful biography, doesn't jump to conclusions; she just lets the story play out. When Philippa is presented, in her early teens, with the scrapbooks that chronicle her life, she's horrified; she understands that from her parents' point of view, she's been a genetic experiment. She can't even take credit for her own "genius" since her mother has been so relentlessly pulling the strings in her life. But she has no recourse; her whole existence has been playing the piano, dolling up in the spotlight and then either working for, with, or against her mother. There is no way out. After Philippa is grown, her touring takes her through South America, Europe, Africa. She's well received, but her life is at once adventurous and intensely narrow. She rarely has the time to have fun or even see where she's touring. In Africa, she's tormented by all that it means to be black. She sees women toiling, disregarded, disrespected. Indeed, as time goes by, she decides she really isn't black. "I am not a Negro!" she writes her mother, and using mental sleight-of-hand, she decides that her father came from Madagascar, and that she's really "Malay-American-Indian and European." So desperate was she not to be "colored" that she took out a passport in another name, Felipa Monterro y Schuyler, suggesting that she had an Iberian heritage. Her politics had by this time become so strange that she lectured regularly to the John Birch Society. She had strings of suitors who treated her badly, and the one man who loved her she couldn't abide. She was, in a phrase, totally screwed up. She was unable to resolve the elements of black and white in her own life, unable to shake off her demon mother, unable to love or be loved. She died in 1967 in a helicopter accident in Vietnam, where she had gone in her new career as a reporter. And yet, for hundreds, thousands of black kids in the '40s and '50s, she was a role model, a reason to take piano lessons. This is a bleak, extraordinarily weird American life. Kathryn Talalay has done a gorgeous job with this unique material. Six Harlem youths gently tapping drums led a funeral procession down Fifth Avenue yesterday for Philippa Duke Schuyler, American pianist, composer and writer who was killed in the crash of a United States Army helicopter in Danang Bay, South Vietnam. A child prodigy is defined in psychology research literature as a person under the age of ten who produces meaningful output in some domain at the level of an adult expert.[1][2][3] The term is also applied more broadly to young people who are extraordinarily talented in some field.[4] The term wunderkind (from German Wunderkind; literally "wonder child") is sometimes used as a synonym for child prodigy, particularly in media accounts. Wunderkind also is used to recognize those who achieve success and acclaim early in their adult careers.[5] Examples Main article: List of child prodigies Memory capacity of prodigies PET scans performed on several mathematics prodigies have suggested that they think in terms of long-term working memory (LTWM).[6] This memory, specific to a field of expertise, is capable of holding relevant information for extended periods, usually hours. For example, experienced waiters have been found to hold the orders of up to twenty customers in their heads while they serve them, but perform only as well as an average person in number-sequence recognition. The PET scans also answer questions about which specific areas of the brain associate themselves with manipulating numbers.[6] One subject never excelled as a child in mathematics, but he taught himself algorithms and tricks for calculatory speed, becoming capable of extremely complex mental math. His brain, compared to six other controls, was studied using the PET scan, revealing separate areas of his brain that he manipulated to solve the complex problems. Some of the areas that he and presumably prodigies use are brain sectors dealing in visual and spatial memory, as well as visual mental imagery. Other areas of the brain showed use by the subject, including a sector of the brain generally related to childlike "finger counting", probably used in his mind to relate numbers to the visual cortex.[6] Working memory/cerebellum theory "My mother said that I should finish high school and go to college first." Saul Kripke in response to an invitation to apply for a teaching position at Harvard[7] Noting that the cerebellum acts to streamline the speed and efficiency of all thought processes, Vandervert[8] explained the abilities of prodigies in terms of the collaboration of working memory and the cognitive functions of the cerebellum. Citing extensive imaging evidence, Vandervert first proposed this approach in two publications which appeared in 2003. In addition to imaging evidence, Vandervert's approach is supported by the substantial award-winning studies of the cerebellum by Masao Ito.[9] Vandervert[10] provided extensive argument that, in the prodigy, the transition from visual-spatial working memory to other forms of thought (language, art, mathematics) is accelerated by the unique emotional disposition of the prodigy and the cognitive functions of the cerebellum. According to Vandervert, in the emotion-driven prodigy (commonly observed as a "rage to master") the cerebellum accelerates the streamlining of the efficiencies of working memory in its manipulation and decomposition/re-composition of visual-spatial content into language acquisition and into linguistic, mathematical, and artistic precocity.[11] Essentially, Vandervert has argued that when a child is confronted with a challenging new situation, visual-spatial working memory and speech-related and other notational system-related working memory are decomposed and re-composed (fractionated) by the cerebellum and then blended in the cerebral cortex in an attempt to deal with the new situation.[12] In child prodigies, Vandervert believes this blending process is accelerated due to their unique emotional sensitivities which result in high levels of repetitious focus on, in most cases, particular rule-governed knowledge domains. He has also argued that child prodigies first began to appear about 10,000 years ago when rule-governed knowledge had accumulated to a significant point, perhaps at the agricultural-religious settlements of Göbekli Tepe or Cyprus.[13] Development Further information: Nature versus nurture Some researchers believe that prodigious talent tends to arise as a result of the innate talent of the child, and the energetic and emotional investment that the child ventures. Others believe that the environment plays the dominant role, many times in obvious ways. For example, László Polgár set out to raise his children to be chess players, and all three of his daughters went on to become world-class players (two of whom are grandmasters), emphasizing the potency a child's environment can have in determining the pursuits toward which a child's energy will be directed, and showing that an incredible amount of skill can be developed through suitable training.[14] But on the other hand George Frideric Handel was an example of the natural talent ... "he had discovered such a strong propensity to music, that his father who always intended him for the study of the Civil Law, had reason to be alarmed. He strictly forbade him to meddle with any musical instrument but Handel found means to get a little clavichord privately convey'd to a room at the top of the house. To this room he constantly stole when the family was asleep".[15] Despite his father's opposition, Handel became a skillful performer on the harpsichord and pipe organ.[16] Prodigiousness in childhood is not always maintained into adulthood. Some researchers have found that gifted children fall behind due to lack of effort. Jim Taylor, professor at the University of San Francisco, theorizes that this is because gifted children experience success at an early age with little to no effort and may not develop a sense of ownership of success. Therefore, these children might not develop a connection between effort and outcome. Some children might also believe that they can succeed without effort in the future as well. Dr. Anders Ericcson, professor at Florida State University, researches expert performance in sports, music, mathematics, and other activities. His findings demonstrate that prodigiousness in childhood is not a strong indicator of later success. Rather, the number of hours devoted to the activity was a better indicator. [17] Rosemary Callard-Szulgit and other educators have written extensively about the problem of perfectionism in bright children, calling it their "number one social-emotional trait". Gifted children often associate even slight imperfection with failure, so that they become fearful of effort, even in their personal lives, and in extreme cases end up virtually immobilized.[18] See also icon Education portal Psychology portal Chess prodigy Genius Gifted education Intellectual giftedness Late bloomer List of child music prodigies List of child prodigies List of fictional child prodigies Malleability of intelligence Polymath Savant syndrome George Samuel Schuyler (/ˈskaɪlər/; February 25, 1895 – August 31, 1977) was an American writer, journalist, and social commentator known for his conservatism after he had initially supported socialism. Early life George Samuel Schuyler was born in Providence, Rhode Island, to George Francis Schuyler, a chef, and Eliza Jane Schuyler (née Fischer). Schuyler's paternal great-grandfather was believed to be a black soldier working for general Philip Schuyler, whose surname the soldier adopted. Schuyler's maternal great-grandmother was an ethnic-Malagasy servant who married a ship captain from Saxe-Coburg in Bavaria.[1] Schuyler's father died when he was young. George spent his early years in Syracuse, New York, where his mother moved their family after she remarried. In 1912, Schuyler, at the age of 17, enlisted in the U.S. Army and was promoted to the rank of First Lieutenant, serving in Seattle and Hawaii. He went AWOL after a Greek immigrant, who had been instructed to shine Schuyler's shoes, refused to do so because of Schuyler's skin color. After turning himself in, Schuyler was convicted by a military court and sentenced to five years in prison. He was released after nine months as a model prisoner.[citation needed] Socialist beginnings After his discharge, Schuyler moved to New York City, where he worked as a handyman, doing odd jobs. During this period, he read many books which sparked his interest in socialism. He lived for a period in the Phyllis Wheatley Hotel, run by Black nationalist Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and attended UNIA meetings. Schuyler dissented from Garvey's philosophy, and began writing about his own perspectives.[citation needed] Although not fully comfortable with socialist thought, Schuyler engaged himself in a circle of socialist friends, including the Black socialist group Friends of Negro Freedom. This connection led to his employment by A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen's magazine, The Messenger, the group's journal. Schuyler's column, "Shafts and Darts: A Page of Calumny and Satire", came to the attention of Ira F. Lewis, manager of the Pittsburgh Courier, which was one of the leading African American newspapers in the United States.[2] In 1924, Schuyler accepted an offer from the Courier to author a weekly column.[citation needed] Early journalist days By the mid-1920s, Schuyler had come to disdain socialism, believing that socialists were frauds who actually cared very little about Negroes. Schuyler's writing caught the eye of journalist and social critic H. L. Mencken, who wrote, "I am more and more convinced that [Schuyler] is the most competent editorial writer now in practice in this great free republic." Schuyler contributed ten articles[3] to the American Mercury during Mencken's tenure as editor, all dealing with Black issues, and all notable for Schuyler's wit and incisive analysis. Because of his close association with Mencken, as well as their compatible ideologies and sharp use of satire, Schuyler during this period was often referred to as "the Black Mencken."[4][5] In 1926, the Pittsburgh Courier sent Schuyler on an editorial assignment to the South, where he developed his journalistic protocol: ride with a cab driver, then chat with a local barber, bellboy, landlord, and policeman. These encounters would precede interviews with local town officials. In 1926, Schuyler became the Chief Editorial Writer at the Courier. That year, he published a controversial article entitled "The Negro-Art Hokum" in The Nation, in which he claimed that because blacks have been influenced by Euroamerican culture for 300 years, "the Aframerican is merely a lampblacked Anglo-Saxon" and that no distinctly "negro" style of art exists in the USA.[6] Langston Hughes's "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain", a response to Schuyler's piece, appeared in the same magazine. Schuyler objected to the segregation of art by race, writing about a decade after his "Negro-Art Hokum" in an essay that appeared in The Courier in 1936: "All of this hullabaloo about the Negro Renaissance in art and literature did stimulate the writing of some literature of importance which will live. The amount, however, is very small, but such as it is, it is meritorious because it is literature and not Negro literature. It is judged by literary and not by racial standards, which is as it should be."[7][8] In 1929, Schuyler's pamphlet Racial Inter-Marriage in the United States called for solving the country's race problem through miscegenation, which was then illegal in most states.[citation needed] In 1931, Schuyler published Black No More, which tells the story of a scientist who develops a process that turns black people to white, a book that has since been reprinted twice. Two of Schuyler's targets in the book were Christianity and organized religion, reflecting his innate skepticism of both. His mother had been religious but not a regular churchgoer. As Schuyler aged, he held both white and black churches in contempt. Both, in his mind, contained ignorant, conniving preachers who exploited their listeners for personal gain. White Christianity was viewed by Schuyler as pro-slavery and pro-racism.[9] In an article for the American Mercury entitled Black America Begins to Doubt, Schuyler wrote: "On the horizon loom a growing number of iconoclasts and Atheists, young black men and women who can read, think and ask questions; and who impertinently demand to know why Negroes should revere a god that permits them to be lynched, Jim-Crowed, and disenfranchised".[10] He also positively reviewed Georg Brandes' book Jesus: A Myth in an article called "Disrobing Superstition." In his review, Schuyler states: "It is doubtful whether any intelligent person accepts the Jesus Christ of the Scriptures as a fact. His alleged exploits, career, death and resurrection can only be wholly swallowed by the same gullible folk who swarm into the sideshows at Coney Island; who believe that George Washington never told a lie; that Congressmen are exceptionally honorable; that the YMCA is something other than a training school for young babbits, or that the common people rule this country. The reviewer ditched this Jesus Myth about the same time that he threw Santa Claus overboard; i.e., at the age of eight. Now comes Mister Brandes, the noted Danish critic. He cleans up for this old myth in a very effective manner. His disposal of Jesus will satisfy most any rational being, that is to say, it will satisfy about one-twentieth of the people. The rest want to believe such myth because of the satisfaction and compensation they derive therefrom. If they didn't swallow the Jesus Myth, they would be worshipping Buddha, Osiris or Jupiter. Mentally inferior people must worship something or somebody. Thus, while this book will be read with interest by the intelligent minority, it will be shoved into the trash can with shocked silence by Baptists, Catholics, Methodists, Holy Rollers, Christian Scientists, Rotarians and such folk. The author holds that Jesus is as much a myth as William Tell. . . . The author's criticism is always keen and searching. . . . This is probably the most Spirited and iron-clad attack that has ever been written on the authenticity of the so-called Savior of Mankind."[11] Between 1936 and 1938 Schuyler published in the Pittsburgh Courier a weekly serial, which he later collected and published as a novel entitled Black Empire. He also published the highly controversial book Slaves Today: A Story of Liberia, a novel about the slave trade created by former American slaves who settled Liberia in the 1820s.[citation needed] In the 1930s, Schuyler published scores of short stories in the Pittsburgh Courier under various pseudonyms. He was published in many prestigious black journals, including Negro Digest, The Messenger, and W.E.B. Du Bois's The Crisis. Schuyler's journalism also appeared in such mainstream magazines as The Nation and Common Ground, and in such newspapers as The Washington Post and The New York Evening Post (forerunner of the New York Post).[citation needed] Shift in politics From 1937 to 1944, Schuyler was the business manager of the NAACP. During the McCarthy Era, Schuyler moved sharply to the political right and would later contribute to American Opinion, the journal of the John Birch Society.[citation needed] In 1947, he published The Communist Conspiracy against the Negroes. His conservatism was a counterpoint to the predominant liberal philosophy of the civil rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1964, Schuyler wrote a controversial opinion column in the ultraconservative Manchester Union Leader that opposed Martin Luther King Jr.'s being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He wrote, "Dr. King's principal contribution to world peace has been to roam the country like some sable Typhoid Mary, infecting the mentally disturbed with perversions of Christian doctrine, and grabbing fat lecture fees from the shallow-pated."[12][13] Schuyler opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. While acknowledging that white discrimination against blacks was "morally wrong, nonsensical, unfair, un-Christian and cruelly unjust", he opposed federal action to coerce changes in public attitudes. "New countries have a passion for novelty," he wrote, "and a country like America, which grew out of conquest, immigration, revolution and civil war, is prone to speed social change by law, or try to do so, on the assumption that by such legerdemain it is possible to make people better by force." Despite the inherent unfairness of racial discrimination, he considered federal intrusion into private affairs an infringement on individual liberty, explaining that "it takes lots of time to change social mores, especially with regard to such hardy perennials as religion, race and nationality, to say nothing of social classes."[14] In 1964, he ran for the United States House of Representatives in New York's 18th congressional district on the Conservative Party ticket[15] and endorsed Republican candidate Barry Goldwater for president. The Courier's leadership disallowed Schuyler's title of associate editor. A formal refutation was communicated in a letter to the editor of the New York Times, signed by Courier Associate Publisher and Editor Percival L. Prattis, who had been a long-time friend since the 1920s. In the 1960s, Schuyler, who had earlier supported the rights of Black South Africans, was led by his anticommunism to oppose taking any action against South African apartheid, saying in a radio broadcast, "In South Africa you have a system of apartheid. That's their business. I don't think it's the business of other people to change their society."[16][17] Outlets for Schuyler's written work diminished until he was a more obscure figure by the time of his death in 1977.[18] As the liberal black writer Ishmael Reed notes in his introduction to a 1999 republication of Black No More, Schuyler's 1931 race satire, in the final years of Schuyler's life, it was considered taboo in black circles even to interview the aging writer.[third-party source needed] He wrote a syndicated column (1965–1977) for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Schuyler's autobiography, Black and Conservative, was published in 1966. Influence Schuyler was influenced by Black Muslims and people like H. G. Wells, and in turn he affected future generations.[19] In 1973 writers Ishmael Reed and Steve Cannon interviewed Schuyler about his career and controversy for Reed's publication Yardbird II.[20] Family Schuyler married Josephine Lewis Cogdell, a liberal white Texan heiress and writer, in 1928.[21][22] Their daughter, Philippa Schuyler (1931–1967), was a child prodigy and noted concert pianist, who later followed in her father's footsteps and embarked on a career in journalism. In 1967 Phillipa was killed on an assignment in Vietnam for the Manchester Union Leader. Josephine Schuyler died by suicide two years later.[23] Selected writings Slaves Today: A Story of Liberia, 1931 Black No More: Being an Account of the Strange and Wonderful Workings of Science in the Land of the Free, A.D. 1933–1940, 1931 Devil Town: An Enthralling Story of Tropical Africa (novella; published pseudonymously in the Pittsburgh Courier, June–July 1933) Golden Gods: A Story of Love, Intrigue and Adventure in African Jungles (novella; published pseudonymously in the Pittsburgh Courier, December 1933 – February 1934) The Beast of Bradhurst Avenue: A Gripping Tale of Adventure in the Heart of Harlem (novella; published pseudonymously in the Pittsburgh Courier, March–May 1934) Strange Valley (novella; published pseudonymously in the Pittsburgh Courier, August–November 1934) Black Empire, 1936–38, 1993 (originally published pseudonymously in the Pittsburgh Courier in serial form as two separate works under the titles "The Black Internationale" and "Black Empire") Ethiopian Stories, 1995 (originally published pseudonymously in the Pittsburgh Courier in serial form as two separate works entitled "The Ethiopian Murder Mystery" and "Revolt in Ethiopia") Black and Conservative: the Autobiography of George Schuyler, Arlington House, 1966. ASIN: B000O66XD8 Rac(e)ing to the Right: Selected Essays of George S. Schuyler, 2001 See also African American African American culture African American history Africanfuturism Afrofuturism American literature List of African-American writers Black conservatism in the United States Multiracial people or mixed race people are people of more than one race.[1] A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including multiethnic, polyethnic, occasionally bi-ethnic, Métis, Muwallad,[2] Colored, Dougla, half-caste, ʻafakasi, mestizo,[3] mutt,[4] Melungeon,[5] quadroon,[6] octoroon, sambo/zambo,[7] Eurasian,[8] hapa, hāfu, Garifuna, pardo, and Gurans. A number of these terms are now considered offensive, in addition to those that were initially coined for pejorative use. Melezi (Мелези) are called the offspring of Muslim Romani men and woman of Host populations.[9] Individuals of mixed-race backgrounds make up a significant portion of the population in many parts of the world. In North America, studies have found that the mixed race population is continuing to grow. In many countries of Latin America, mestizos make up the majority of the population and in some others also mulattoes. In the Caribbean, mixed race people officially make up the majority of the population in the Dominican Republic (73%), Aruba (68%), and Cuba (51%).[10] Definitions While defining race is controversial,[11] race remains a commonly used term for classification, often related to visible physical characteristics or known community. In so far as race is defined differently in different cultures, perceptions of mixed race are subjective. According to U.S. sociologist Troy Duster and ethicist Pilar Ossorio: Some percentage of people who look white or European will possess genetic markers indicating that a significant majority of their recent ancestors were African. Some percentage of people who look black will possess genetic markers indicating the majority of their recent ancestors were European.[12] In the United States: Many state and local agencies comply with the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 1997 revised standards for the collection, tabulation, and presentation of federal data on race and ethnicity. The revised OMB standards identify a minimum of five racial categories: White or European American; Black or African American; American Indian and Alaska Native; Asian; and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander. Perhaps the most significant change for Census 2000 was that respondents were given the option to mark one or more races on the questionnaire to indicate their racial identity. Census 2000 race data are shown for people who reported a race either alone or in combination with one or more other races.[13] Related terms In the English-speaking world, many terms for mixed race people exist, some of which are pejorative or are no longer used. Mulato, zambo and mestizo are used in Spanish, mulato, caboclo, cafuzo, ainoko (from Japanese) and mestiço in Portuguese, and mulâtre and métis in French. These terms are also in certain contexts used in the English-speaking world. In Canada, the Métis are a recognized ethnic group of mixed European and Indigenous American descent, who have status in the law similar to that of First Nations. Terms such as mulatto for people of partially African descent and mestizo for people of partially Native American descent are still used by English-speaking people of the Western Hemisphere[citation needed] but mostly to refer to the past or to the demography of Latin America and its diasporic population. Half-breed is a historic term that referred to people of partial Native American ancestry; it is now considered pejorative and discouraged from use. Mestee, once widely used, is now used mostly for members of historically mixed-race groups, such as Louisiana Creoles, Melungeons, Redbones, Brass Ankles and Mayles. In South Africa and much of English-speaking southern Africa, the term Coloured was used to describe both mixed-race persons of African and European descent, and those Asians not of African descent.[14] While the term is socially accepted, it is becoming outdated because of its association with the apartheid era.[citation needed] In Latin America, populations became triracial after the introduction of African slavery. A panoply of terms developed during the Spanish and Portuguese colonial periods, including terms such as zambo for persons of Amerindian and African descent. Charts and diagrams intended to explain the classifications were common. The well-known Casta paintings in Mexico and, to some extent, Peru, were illustrations of the different classifications. At one time, Latin American census categories have used such classifications. In Brazilian censuses since the Imperial times, for example, most persons of mixed heritage, except Asian Brazilians with some European descent (or any other to the extent it is not clearly perceptible) and vice versa, tend to be thrown into the single category of "pardo". But racial boundaries in Brazil are related less to ancestry than to phenotype. A westernized Amerindian with copper-colored skin may also be classified as a "pardo", a caboclo in this case, despite not being mixed race. A European-looking person, even with one or more African or Indigenous ancestors, is not classified as "pardo" but as "branco", a white Brazilian. The same applies to "negros", Afro-Brazilians whose European or Amerindian ancestors are not visible in their appearance. According to genetic research, most Brazilians of all racial groups (except Asian-Brazilians and natives) are, to some extent, mixed-race. In English, the terms miscegenation and amalgamation were used for unions between whites, blacks, and other ethnic groups. Those terms are now often considered offensive and are becoming obsolete.[citation needed] The terms mixed-race, biracial or multiracial are becoming generally accepted. In other languages, terms for miscegenation are not necessarily considered offensive.[15] Regions with significant mixed race populations Africa In East Africa, specifically Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania (including portions of the East African Community), people of mixed race are called half-castes (in English) or chotara (singular, in Swahili), wachotara (plural in Swahili).[16] North Africa Further information: Afro-Arab In North Africa, numerous mixed race communities can be found, reflecting a history of both extensive Mediterranean trade around the region and later colonization and migration by African groups. Among these are the Haratin, oasis-dwellers of Saharan southern Morocco, Algeria, and Mauritania. They are believed to be an ethnicity composed of Sub-Saharan Africans and Berber ancestry. They constitute a socially and ethnically distinct group.[17] For centuries Arab slave traders sold sub-Saharan Africans as slaves in cumulatively large numbers throughout the Persian Gulf, Anatolia, Central Asia and the Arab world. Communities descended from these slaves and local peoples can be found throughout these regions.[18] Barbary pirates were known to attack European and British ships and take Europeans into slavery as well. So many were taken, that the memoirs of survivors are considered a literary genre known as captivity narratives. When English and other European colonists were taken captive by Native Americans, they had models for recounting their trials. According to a recent genetic study in 2019, North African populations are composed of admixture of extensive gene flow from four different geographical regions (North Africa (Iberomaurusian), Europe, West Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa) and temporal sources (Palaeolithic migrations, Neolithization, Arabization, and recent migrations).[19] Pop Indigenous North African (Iberomaurusian) European West Asian Sub-Saharan African Saharawi 37% 34% 18% 11% Moroccan 30% 38% 19% 14% Berber-Moroccan 28% 47% 17% 8% Berber-Mozabite 26% 43% 18% 13% Algerian 22% 46% 17% 15% Berber-Zenata 22% 27% 12% 39% Libyan 22% 34% 35% 9% Berber-Tunisian 21% 43% 26% 10% Tunisian 18% 44% 25% 13% Egyptian 11% 41% 38% 10% South Africa Extended Coloured family from South Africa. Main article: Coloureds In South Africa, the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949 prohibited marriage between Whites (people of European descent) and non-Whites (being classified as Black, Asian and Coloured). But this followed centuries of interaction and unions resulting in mixed race children. This law was repealed in 1985. Mixed race South Africans are commonly referred to as Coloureds. According to the 2016 South African Census,[20] they are the second-largest ethnic group (8.8%), behind Black Africans, or Bantu peoples, who constitute (80.8%) of the current population. White South Africans make up 8.1%.[20] Asia India Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, a radical thinker and educator, was of Indian and European background.[relevant?] Prior to colonization, the peoples of India had a long history of trade and other interaction with other peoples. More recently a Eurasian mix developed during the Colonial period, beginning with the French, Dutch, Portuguese and other European traders and merchants, including British. Such interaction continued during the British Rule in India, although it lessened as British families settled in the country. The estimated population of Anglo-Indians, the term for these Eurasians, is 600,000 worldwide, with the majority living in India and the UK. Article 366(2) of the Indian Constitution defines Anglo-Indian as:[21][22] (2) an Anglo-Indian means a person whose father or any of whose other male progenitors in the male line is or was of European descent but who is domiciled within the territory of India and is or was born within such territory of parents habitually resident therein and not established there for temporary purposes only; Myanmar (Burma) Myanmar (formerly Burma) was a British colony from 1826 until 1948. Other European nationals were active in the country before the British arrived. Intermarriage and relationships took place among such settlers and merchants with the local Burmese population, and subsequently between British colonists and the Burmese. The local Eurasian population is known as the Anglo-Burmese. This group dominated colonial society and through the early years of independence. After Burma gained independence in 1948, many Anglo-Burmese left the country; the diaspora resides primarily in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. An estimated 52,000 Anglo-Burmese live in Burma. Philippines See also: Filipino mestizo Mestizos as illustrated in the Carta Hydrographica y Chorographica de las Yslas Filipinas, 1734. The Philippines was a Spanish colony for almost four centuries, or 333 years. The United States took it over after the Spanish-American War, ruling for 46 years. Many Filipinos are of mixed Spanish Filipino and Philippine-American descent. After the defeat of Spain during the Spanish–American War in 1898, the Philippines and other remaining Spanish colonies were ceded to the United States in the Treaty of Paris. The Philippines was under U.S. sovereignty until 1946, though occupied by Japan during World War II. In 1946, in the Treaty of Manila, the U.S. recognized the Republic of the Philippines as an independent nation. Even after 1946, the U.S. maintained a strong military presence in the Philippines, with as many as 21 U.S. military bases and 100,000 U.S. military personnel stationed there as defense in Asia and during the Vietnam War. After the bases closed in 1992, American troops left, often abandoning partners and their Amerasian children.[23] The Pearl S. Buck International foundation estimates there are 52,000 Amerasians in the Philippines, with 5,000 in the Clark area of Angeles City.[24] An academic research paper presented in 2012 in the U.S. by an Angeles, Pampanga, Philippines Amerasian college research study unit suggests that the number could be much higher.[25] In the United States, intermarriage between Filipinos and other ethnicities is common. They have the highest number of interracial marriages among Asian immigrant groups, as documented in California.[26] Some 21.8% of Philippine-Americans are of mixed ancestry.[27] Singapore and Malaysia According to government statistics, the population of Singapore as of September 2007 was 4.68 million. Mixed race people, including Chindians and Eurasians, formed 2.4%. In Singapore and Malaysia, the majority of inter-ethnic marriages are between Chinese and Indians. The offspring of such marriages are informally known as "Chindian". The Malaysian government classifies them only by their father's ethnicity. As the majority of these intermarriages usually involve an Indian groom and Chinese bride, the majority of Chindians in Malaysia are usually classified as "Indian" by the government. As for the Malays, who are predominantly Muslim, legal restrictions in Malaysia make it uncommon for them to intermarry with either the Indians, who are predominantly Hindu, or the Chinese, who are predominantly Buddhist and Taoist.[28] But Indian Muslims and Arabs in Singapore and Malaysia often take local Malay wives, because of their common Islamic faith.[29] The Chitty people, in Singapore and the Malacca state of Malaysia, are Tamils with considerable Malay ancestry. The early Tamil settlers took local wives, as they had not brought their own women at that time. In the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, intermarriage has been common between Chinese and native tribespeople, such as the Murut and Dusun in Sabah, and the Iban and Bisaya in Sarawak. A mixture of cultures has resulted in both states. The offspring of these marriages are called "Sino-(name of tribe)", e.g. Sino-Dusun. Normally, children are strongly affected by the father's ethnicity and culture, being raised in his culture. These Sino-natives usually become fluent in both Malay and English. A smaller number are able to speak Chinese dialects and Mandarin, especially those who have received education in vernacular Chinese schools. Sri Lanka Due to its strategic location in the Indian Ocean, the island of Sri Lanka has been a confluence for settlers from various parts of the world. There are several mixed-race ethnicities in the Island. The most notable mixed-race group are the Sri Lankan Moors, who trace their ancestry to Arab traders who settled on the island and intermarried with local women. Today, the Sri Lankan Moors live primarily in urban communities. They preserve Arab-Islamic cultural heritage while adopting many Southern Asian customs. The Burghers are a Eurasian ethnic group. They are descendants through paternal lines of European colonists from the 16th to 20th centuries (mostly Portuguese, Dutch, German and British) and with maternal ancestry among local women. Other European minorities in such admixtures include Swedish, Norwegian, French and Irish. The Sri Lanka Kaffirs are an ethnic group partially descended from 16th-century Portuguese traders and their enslaved Africans. The Kaffirs spoke a distinctive creole based on Portuguese, the Sri Lanka Kaffir language, which is now extinct. Their cultural heritage includes the dance styles Kaffringna and Manja, as well as the Portuguese Sinhalese, Creole, Afro-Sinhalese varieties. Taiwan During the 1662 Siege of Fort Zeelandia in which Chinese Ming loyalist forces commanded by Koxinga besieged and defeated the Dutch East India Company and conquered Taiwan, the Chinese took Dutch women and child prisoners. The Dutch missionary Antonius Hambroek, two of his daughters, and his wife were among the Dutch prisoners of war with Koxinga. Koxinga sent Hambroek to Fort Zeelandia demanding Hambroek persuade them to surrender or else he would be killed when he returned. Hambroek returned to the Fort where two of his other daughters were. He urged the Fort not to surrender, and returned to Koxinga's camp. He was then executed by decapitation. In addition to this, a rumor was spreading among the Chinese that the Dutch were encouraging native Taiwan aboriginals to kill the Chinese, so Koxinga ordered the mass execution of Dutch male prisoners in retaliation, in addition to a few women and children also being killed. The surviving Dutch women and children were then turned into slaves. Koxinga took Hambroek's teenage daughter as a concubine,[30][31] and Dutch women were sold to Chinese soldiers to become their wives. The daily journal of the Dutch fort recorded that "the best were preserved for the use of the commanders, and then sold to the common soldiers. Happy was she that fell to the lot of an unmarried man, being thereby freed from vexations by the Chinese women, who are very jealous of their husbands."[32] In 1684 some of these Dutch wives were still captives of the Chinese.[33] Some Dutch physical traits like auburn and red hair among people in regions of south Taiwan are a consequence of this episode of Dutch women becoming concubines to the Chinese commanders.[32] The Chinese took Dutch women as slave concubines and wives who were never freed: in 1684 some were reported to be living. In Quemoy a Dutch merchant was contacted with an arrangement to release the prisoners, proposed by a son of Koxinga's, but it came to nothing.[33] The Chinese officers used the Dutch women they received as concubines.[34][35] The Dutch women were used for sexual pleasure by Koxinga's commanders.[36] This event of Dutch women being distributed to the Chinese soldiers and commanders was recorded in the daily journal of the fort.[32] A teenage daughter of the Dutch missionary Anthonius Hambroek became a concubine to Koxinga. She was described by the Dutch commander Caeuw as "a very sweet and pleasing maiden".[37][38] Dutch language accounts record this incident of Chinese taking Dutch women as concubines and the date of Hambroek's daughter.[39][40][41][42] Vietnam Under terms of the Geneva Accords of 1954, departing French troops took thousands of Vietnamese wives and children with them after the First Indochina War. Some Eurasians stayed in Vietnam, after independence from French rule.[43] China Main article: Hùnxuě'ér West Asia Further information: Afro-Arab, Afro-Iranians, and Afro Turks Ottoman slave traders sold slaves in cumulatively large numbers over the centuries throughout the Persian Gulf, Anatolia, Central Asia and the Arab world and communities descended from these slaves can be found throughout these regions.[18] Europe United Kingdom Main article: Mixed (United Kingdom ethnicity category) In 1991 an analysis of the census showed that 50% of Black/Mixed Caribbean men born in the UK have white partners,[44] and the 2011 BBC documentary Mixed Britannia noted that 1 in 10 British children are growing up in mixed households. In 2000, The Sunday Times reported that "Britain has the highest rate of interracial relationships in the world" and certainly the UK has the highest rate in the European Union.[45] The 2001 census showed the population of England to be 1.4% mixed-race, compared with 2.7% in Canada and 1.4% in the U.S. (estimate from 2002), although this U.S. figure did not include mixed-race people who had a black parent. Both the US and UK have fewer people identifying as mixed race, however, than Canada. In the United Kingdom, many mixed race people have Caribbean, African or Asian heritage. For example, supermodel Naomi Campbell, who has Jamaican, African and Asian roots. Some, like 2008 Formula One World Champion, Lewis Hamilton, are referred to or describe themselves as 'mixed'. The 2001 UK Census included a section entitled 'Mixed' to which 1.4% (1.6% by 2005 estimates) of people responded, which was split further into White and Black Caribbean, White and Asian, White and Black African and Other Mixed.[citation needed] In the 2011 census, 2.2% chose 'Mixed' for the question on ethnicity.[46] North America Canada See also: Métis in Canada Canadian actor and musician Keanu Reeves is of English, Native Hawaiian, Irish, Portuguese and Chinese descent.[47][48][49] Canada Census Multiple Visible Minority 1996 – 2016 Mixed race Canadians in 2006 officially totaled 1.5% of the population, up from 1.2% in 2001. The official mixed race population grew by 25% since the previous census. Of these, the most frequent combinations were multiple visible minorities (for example, people of mixed black and South Asian heritage form the majority, specifically in Toronto), followed closely by white-black, white-Chinese, white-Arab and many other smaller mixes.[50] During the time of slavery in the United States, a very large but unknown number of African American slaves escaped to Canada, where slavery was made illegal in 1834, via the Underground Railroad. Many of these people married in with European Canadian and Native Canadian populations, although their precise numbers and the numbers of their descendants, are not known. Another 1.2% of Canadians officially are Métis (descendants of a historical population who were partially Aboriginal—also called "Indian" or "Native"—and European, particularly English, Scottish, Irish and French ethnic groups). Although the term "Métis" stems from the Latin verb miscēre, "to mix", the Métis people are a distinct ethnic group within Canada. United States Main article: Multiracial Americans Further information: Black Indians in the United States, Melungeons, Métis in the United States, and Children of the Plantation US Census reporting of Two or Mixed Races 2010 – 2019 In the United States, the 2000 census was the first in the history of the country to offer respondents the option of identifying themselves as belonging to more than one race. This mixed race option was considered a necessary adaptation to the demographic and cultural changes that the United States has been experiencing.[51] Mixed race Americans officially numbered 6.1 million in 2006, or 2.0% of the population.[52][53] There is considerable evidence that an accurate number would be much higher. Prior to the mid-20th century, many people hid their mixed race heritage. The development of binary thinking about race meant that African Americans, a high proportion of whom have also had European ancestry, were classified as black. Some are now reclaiming additional ancestries. Many Americans today are multi-racial without knowing it. According to the Census Bureau, as of 2002, 75% of all African Americans had mixed ancestries usually European and Native American.[54] In 2010, the number of Americans who checked both "black" and "white" on their census forms was 134 percent higher than it had been a decade earlier.[55] In 2012, those choosing 'Two or more races' on the census was 2.4% of the total.[56] According to James P. Allen and Eugene Turner, by some calculations in the 2000 Census, the mixed race population that is part white is as follows: White/Native American and Alaskan Native: 7,015,017 White/African American: 737,492 White/Asian: 727,197 and White/Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander: 125,628.[57] The stigma of a mixed race heritage, associated with racial discrimination among numerous racial groups, has decreased significantly in the United States. People of mixed-race heritage can identify themselves now in the U.S. Census by any combination of races, whereas before Americans were required to select from only one category. For example, in 2010, they were offered choices of one or more racial categories from the following list:[58] White Black, African Am. or Negro American Indian or Alaska Native Asian Indian Chinese Filipino Japanese Korean Vietnamese Native Hawaiian Guamanian or Chamorro Samoan Other Asian [specify] Other Pacific Islander [specify] Some Other Race [specify] Barack Obama, the first America's mixed race president The US has a growing mixed race identity movement, reflective of a desire by people to claim their full identities. Interracial marriage, most notably between whites and blacks, was historically deemed immoral and illegal in most states in the 18th, 19th and first half of the 20th century because of its long association of blacks with the slave caste. California and the Western United States had similar laws to prohibit European-Asian marriages, which was associated with discrimination against Chinese and Japanese on the West Coast. Many states eventually repealed such laws and a 1967 decision by the US Supreme Court (Loving v. Virginia) overturned all remaining US anti-miscegenation laws. The United States is one of the most racially diverse countries in the world. Americans are mostly mixed ethnic descendants of various immigrant nationalities culturally distinct in their former countries. Assimilation and integration took place, unevenly at different periods of history, depending on the American region. The "Americanization" of foreign ethnic groups and the inter-racial diversity of millions of Americans has been a fundamental part of its history, especially on frontiers where different groups of people came together.[59] On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama was sworn in as America's first mixed race president,[60] as he is the son of a European American mother and a Luo father from Kenya. He acknowledges both parents. His official White House biography describes him as African American.[61] In Hawai'i, the U.S. state in which he was born, he would be called "hapa", which is the Hawaiian word for "mixed race".[62] Oceania See also: Euronesian Fiji Fiji has long been a multi-ethnic country, with a vast majority of people being mixed race even if they do not self-identify in that manner. The indigenous Fijians are of mixed Melanesian and Polynesian ancestry, resulting from years of migration of islanders from various places mixing with each other. Fiji Islanders from the Lau group have intermarried with Tongans and other Polynesians over the years. The overwhelming majority of the rest of the indigenous Fijians, though, can be genetically traced to having mixed Polynesian/Melanesian ancestry. The Indo-Fijian population is also a hodge-podge of South Asian immigrants (called Girmits in Fiji), who came as indentured labourers beginning in 1879. While a few of these labourers managed to bring wives, many of them either took or were given wives once they arrived in Fiji. The Girmits, who are classified as simply "Indians" to this day, came from many parts of the Indian subcontinent of present-day India, Pakistan and to a lesser degree Bangladesh and Myanmar. It is easy to recognize the Indian mixtures present in Fiji and see obvious traces of Southern and Northern Indians and other groups who have been categorised together. To some degree, even more of this phenomenon would have likely happened if the religious groups represented (primarily Hindu, Muslim and Sikh) had not resisted to some degree marriage between religious groups, which tended to be from more similar parts of the Indian subcontinent. Over the years, particularly in the sugar cane-growing regions of Western Viti Levu and parts of Vanua Levu, Indo-Fijians and Indigenous Fijians have mixed. Others have Chinese/Fijian ancestry, Indo-Fijian/Samoan or Rotuman ancestry and European/Fijian ancestry (often called "part Fijians"). The latter are often descendants of shipwrecked sailors and settlers who came during the colonial period. Migration from a dozen or more different Pacific countries (Tuvalu, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Samoa and Wallis and Futuna being the most prevalent) have added to the various ethnicities and intermarriages. Latin America and the Caribbean Main articles: Race and ethnicity in Latin America and Casta See also: Mestizo, Pardo, Zambo, Mulatto, and Dougla people Jamaican dancehall artist Sean Paul's mother is of English and Chinese Jamaican descent; his paternal grandmother was Afro-Caribbean and his paternal grandfather was a Sephardic Jew from Portugal.[63] Mestizo is the common word used to describe mixed race people in Latin America, especially people with Native American and Spanish or other European ancestry. Mestizos make up a large portion of Latin Americans, comprising a majority in many countries. In Latin America, racial mixture was officially acknowledged from colonial times. There was official nomenclature for every conceivable mixture present in the various countries. Initially, this classification was used as a type of caste system, where rights and privileges were accorded depending on one's official racial classification. Official caste distinctions were abolished in many countries of the Spanish-speaking Americas as they became independent of Spain. Several terms have remained in common usage. Race and racial mixture have played a significant role in the politics of many Latin American countries. In most countries, for example Mexico, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Panama, a majority of the population can be described as biracial or mixed race (depending on the country). In Mexico, over 80% of the population is mestizo in some degree or another.[64] The Mexican philosopher and educator José Vasconcelos authored an essay on the subject, La Raza Cósmica, celebrating racial mixture. Venezuelan ex-president Hugo Chávez, himself of Spanish, indigenous and African ancestry, made positive references to the mixed race ancestry of most Latin Americans from time to time. Colonialism throughout the West Indies has created diverse populations on many islands, including people of mixed race identities. Of note is the mixture of West African communities, most brought to the region as slaves and East Indian settlers most of whom came as indentured labor after the abolition of slavery. Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Suriname claim the highest populations of such mixtures, known locally as douglas. In addition to such mixtures, many inhabitants of the West Indies can also have any combination of Amerindian, Latino, European, Chinese, Arab and Jewish heritage. Brazil This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Main articles: Pardo Brazilians and Mixed-race Brazilian Adriana Lima is of Portuguese,[65] Afro-Brazilian, Native Brazilian, Swiss, West Indian and Japanese ancestry, which classifies her as a Pardo Brazilian.[66] According to the 2010 official census, 43.13% of Brazilians identified themselves as pardo skin color.[67] That option is normally marked by people that consider themselves mixed race (mestiço). The Mixed Race Day or Mestizo Day (Dia do Mestiço), on 27 June, is official event in States of Amazonas, Roraima e Paraíba and a holiday in two cities. The term pardo is formally used in the official census but is not used by the population. In Brazilian society, most people who are mixed race call themselves moreno: light-moreno or dark-moreno. Those terms are not considered offensive and focus more on skin color than on ethnicity (it is considered more like other human characteristics such as being short or tall). The most common mixed race groups are between European and African (mulatto) and Amerindian and European (caboclo or mameluco). But there are also African and Amerindian (cafuzo) and East Asian (mostly Japanese) and European/other (ainoko or more recently, hāfu). All groups are more or less found throughout the whole country. Brazilian mixed race people with the following three origins, Amerindian, European and African, make up the majority. It is said today[who?] that 89% or even more of the "Pardo" population in Brazil has at least one Amerindian ancestor (most of brancos or White Brazilian population have some Amerindian or African ancestry too despite nearly half of the country's population self-labeling as "Caucasian" in the censuses.[citation needed] In Brazil, it is very common for mixed race people to claim that they have no Amerindian ancestry, but studies have found[who?] that if a Brazilian mixed race people can trace their ancestry back to nearly eight to nine generations, they will have at least one Amerindian ancestor from their maternal side of the family. Since mixed race relations in Brazilian society have occurred for many generations, some people find it difficult to trace their own ethnic ancestry. Today a majority of mixed-race Brazilians do not really know their ethnic ancestry. Their unique features make them Brazilian-looking in skin color, lips and nose shape or hair texture, but they are aware only that their ancestors were probably Portuguese, African or Amerindian. Also, there was a very large number of other Europeans (counted in the millions) who contributed to the Brazilian racial make up, Japanese (the largest Japanese population outside Japan), Italian (the largest Italian population outside Italy) Lebanese (the largest population of Lebanese outside Lebanon), Germans, Poles and Russians. There is also a high percentage of Brazilians of Jewish descent, perhaps hundreds of thousands, mostly found in the northeast of the country who cannot be sure of their ancestry as they descend from the so-called "Crypto-Jews" (Jews who practiced Judaism in secret but outwardly pretended to be Catholics), also called Marranos or New Christians, often considered Portuguese. According to some sources, one third of families arrived from Portugal during colonization were of Jewish origin.[citation needed] There is a high level of integration between all groups but also a great social and economic difference between European descendants (more common in upper and middle classes) and African, Amerindian and mixed race descendants (more common tin lower classes), which is called Brazilian apartheid. See also Amalgamation (history) Interracial marriage Half-caste Hyphenated ethnicity Melting pot Miscegenation Mixed Race Day Race (human classification) Race and genetics Multiethnic society One-drop rule Origins of Tutsi and Hutu Passing (racial identity) Plaçage Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact hypotheses Race and society Race traitor William Loren Katz Gurans (Transbaikal people) Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Harlem area encompasses several other neighborhoods and extends west and north to 155th Street, east to the East River, and south to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Central Park, and East 96th Street. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658,[5] it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands. Harlem's history has been defined by a series of economic boom-and-bust cycles, with significant population shifts accompanying each cycle.[6] Harlem was predominantly occupied by Jewish and Italian Americans in the 19th century, but African-American residents began to arrive in large numbers during the Great Migration in the 20th century. In the 1920s and 1930s, Central and West Harlem were the center of the Harlem Renaissance, a major African-American cultural movement. With job losses during the Great Depression of the 1930s and the deindustrialization of New York City after World War II, rates of crime and poverty increased significantly.[7] In the 21st century, crime rates decreased significantly, and Harlem started to gentrify. The area is served by the New York City Subway and local bus routes. It contains several public elementary, middle, and high schools, and is close to several colleges, including Columbia University, Manhattan School of Music, and the City College of New York. Central Harlem is part of Manhattan Community District 10.[1] It is patrolled by the 28th and 32nd Precincts of the New York City Police Department. The greater Harlem area also includes Manhattan Community Districts 9 and 11 and several police precincts, while fire services are provided by four New York City Fire Department companies. Geography A map of Upper Manhattan, with Greater Harlem highlighted. Harlem proper is the neighborhood in the center. Harlem is located in Upper Manhattan, often referred to as "Uptown" by locals. The three neighborhoods comprising the greater Harlem area—West, Central, and East Harlem—stretch from the Harlem River and East River to the east, to the Hudson River to the west; and between 155th Street in the north, where it meets Washington Heights, and an uneven boundary along the south that runs along 96th Street east of Fifth Avenue, 110th Street between Fifth Avenue to Morningside Park, and 125th Street west of Morningside Park to the Hudson River.[8][9][10] Encyclopædia Britannica references these boundaries,[11] though the Encyclopedia of New York City takes a much more conservative view of Harlem's boundaries, regarding only central Harlem as part of Harlem proper.[12]: 573  Central Harlem is the name of Harlem proper; it falls under Manhattan Community District 10.[8] This section is bounded by Fifth Avenue on the east; Central Park on the south; Morningside Park, St. Nicholas Avenue and Edgecombe Avenue on the west; and the Harlem River on the north.[8] A chain of three large linear parks—Morningside Park, St. Nicholas Park and Jackie Robinson Park—situated on steeply rising banks, form most of the district's western boundary. Fifth Avenue, as well as Marcus Garvey Park (also known as Mount Morris Park), separate this area from East Harlem to the east.[8] Central Harlem includes the Mount Morris Park Historic District. West Harlem (Manhattanville and Hamilton Heights) comprises Manhattan Community District 9 and does not form part of Harlem proper. The two neighborhoods' area is bounded by Cathedral Parkway/110th Street on the south; 155th Street on the north; Manhattan/Morningside Ave/St. Nicholas/Bradhurst/Edgecombe Avenues on the east; and Riverside Park/the Hudson River on the west. Manhattanville begins at roughly 123rd Street and extends northward to 135th Street. The northernmost section of West Harlem is Hamilton Heights.[9] East Harlem, also called Spanish Harlem or El Barrio, is located within Manhattan Community District 11, which is bounded by East 96th Street on the south, East 138th Street on the north, Fifth Avenue on the west, and the Harlem River on the east. It is not part of Harlem proper.[10] SoHa controversy Further information: Morningside Heights, Manhattan § SoHa controversy In the 2010s some real estate professionals started rebranding south Harlem and Morningside Heights as "SoHa" (a name standing for "South Harlem" in the style of SoHo or NoHo) in an attempt to accelerate gentrification of the neighborhoods. "SoHa", applied to the area between West 110th and 125th Streets, has become a controversial name.[13][14][15] Residents and other critics seeking to prevent this renaming of the area have labelled the SoHa brand as "insulting and another sign of gentrification run amok"[16] and have said that "the rebranding not only places their neighborhood's rich history under erasure but also appears to be intent on attracting new tenants, including students from nearby Columbia University".[17] Multiple New York City politicians have initiated legislative efforts to curtail this practice of neighborhood rebranding, which when successfully introduced in other New York City neighborhoods, have led to increases in rents and real estate values, as well as "shifting demographics".[17] In 2011, U.S. Representative Hakeem Jeffries attempted but failed to implement legislation "that would punish real estate agents for inventing false neighborhoods and redrawing neighborhood boundaries without city approval."[17] By 2017, New York State Senator Brian Benjamin also worked to render illegal the practice of rebranding historically recognized neighborhoods.[17] Political representation Politically, central Harlem is in New York's 13th congressional district.[18][19] It is in the New York State Senate's 30th district,[20][21] the New York State Assembly's 68th and 70th districts,[22][23] and the New York City Council's 7th, 8th, and 9th districts.[24] History Harlem, from the old fort in the Central Park, New York Public Library Three Harlem Women, ca. 1930 Main article: History of Harlem Before the arrival of European settlers, the area that would become Harlem (originally Haarlem) was inhabited by a Native American band, the Wecquaesgeek, dubbed Manhattans or Manhattoe by Dutch settlers, who along with other Native Americans, most likely Lenape,[25] occupied the area on a semi-nomadic basis. As many as several hundred farmed the Harlem flatlands.[26] Between 1637 and 1639, a few settlements were established.[27][28] The settlement of Harlem was formally incorporated in 1660[2] under the leadership of Peter Stuyvesant.[29] During the American Revolution, the British burned Harlem to the ground.[30] It took a long time to rebuild, as Harlem grew more slowly than the rest of Manhattan during the late 18th century.[31] After the American Civil War, Harlem experienced an economic boom starting in 1868. The neighborhood continued to serve as a refuge for New Yorkers, but increasingly those coming north were poor and Jewish or Italian.[32] The New York and Harlem Railroad,[33] as well as the Interborough Rapid Transit and elevated railway lines,[34] helped Harlem's economic growth, as they connected Harlem to lower and midtown Manhattan. Apartment building in Central Harlem A condemned building in Harlem after the 1970s The Jewish and Italian demographic decreased, while the black and Puerto Rican population increased in this time.[35] The early-20th century Great Migration of black people to northern industrial cities was fueled by their desire to leave behind the Jim Crow South, seek better jobs and education for their children, and escape a culture of lynching violence; during World War I, expanding industries recruited black laborers to fill new jobs, thinly staffed after the draft began to take young men.[36] In 1910, Central Harlem population was about 10% black people. By 1930, it had reached 70%.[37] Starting around the time of the end of World War I, Harlem became associated with the New Negro movement, and then the artistic outpouring known as the Harlem Renaissance, which extended to poetry, novels, theater, and the visual arts. So many black people came that it "threaten[ed] the very existence of some of the leading industries of Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama."[38] Many settled in Harlem. By 1920, central Harlem was 32.43% black. The 1930 census revealed that 70.18% of central Harlem's residents were black and lived as far south as Central Park, at 110th Street.[39] However, by the 1930s, the neighborhood was hit hard by job losses in the Great Depression. In the early 1930s, 25% of Harlemites were out of work, and employment prospects for Harlemites stayed bad for decades. Employment among black New Yorkers fell as some traditionally black businesses, including domestic service and some types of manual labor, were taken over by other ethnic groups. Major industries left New York City altogether, especially after 1950. Several riots happened in this period, including in 1935 and 1943. There were major changes following World War II. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Harlem was the scene of a series of rent strikes by neighborhood tenants, led by local activist Jesse Gray, together with the Congress of Racial Equality, Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited (HARYOU), and other groups. These groups wanted the city to force landlords to improve the quality of housing by bringing them up to code, to take action against rats and roaches, to provide heat during the winter, and to keep prices in line with existing rent control regulations.[40] The largest public works projects in Harlem in these years were public housing, with the largest concentration built in East Harlem.[41] Typically, existing structures were torn down and replaced with city-designed and managed properties that would, in theory, present a safer and more pleasant environment than those available from private landlords. Ultimately, community objections halted the construction of new projects.[42] From the mid-20th century, the low quality of education in Harlem has been a source of distress. In the 1960s, about 75% of Harlem students tested under grade levels in reading skills, and 80% tested under grade level in math.[43] In 1964, residents of Harlem staged two school boycotts to call attention to the problem. In central Harlem, 92% of students stayed home.[44] In the post-World War II era, Harlem ceased to be home to a majority of the city's black people,[45] but it remained the cultural and political capital of black New York, and possibly black America.[46][47] By the 1970s, many of those Harlemites who were able to escape from poverty left the neighborhood in search of better schools and homes, and safer streets. Those who remained were the poorest and least skilled, with the fewest opportunities for success. Though the federal government's Model Cities Program spent $100 million on job training, health care, education, public safety, sanitation, housing, and other projects over a ten-year period, Harlem showed no improvement.[48] The city began auctioning its enormous portfolio of Harlem properties to the public in 1985. This was intended to improve the community by placing property in the hands of people who would live in them and maintain them. In many cases, the city would even pay to completely renovate a property before selling it (by lottery) below market value.[49] After the 1990s, Harlem began to grow again. Between 1990 and 2006 the neighborhood's population grew by 16.9%, with the percentage of black people decreasing from 87.6% to 69.3%,[39] then dropping to 54.4% by 2010,[50] and the percentage of whites increasing from 1.5% to 6.6% by 2006,[39] and to "almost 10%" by 2010.[50] A renovation of 125th Street and new properties along the thoroughfare[51][52] also helped to revitalize Harlem.[53] Culture See also: Harlem Renaissance Welcome to Harlem sign above the now defunct Victoria 5 cinema theater on 125th st In the 1920s and 1930s, Central and West Harlem was the focus of the "Harlem Renaissance", an outpouring of artistic work without precedent in the American Black community. Though Harlem musicians and writers are particularly well remembered, the community has also hosted numerous actors and theater companies, including the New Heritage Repertory Theater,[29] National Black Theater, Lafayette Players, Harlem Suitcase Theater, The Negro Playwrights, American Negro Theater, and the Rose McClendon Players.[54] The Apollo Theater on 125th Street in November 2006 The Apollo Theater opened on 125th Street on January 26, 1934, in a former burlesque house. The Savoy Ballroom, on Lenox Avenue, was a renowned venue for swing dancing, and was immortalized in a popular song of the era, "Stompin' at the Savoy". In the 1920s and 1930s, between Lenox and Seventh Avenues in central Harlem, over 125 entertainment venues were in operation, including speakeasies, cellars, lounges, cafes, taverns, supper clubs, rib joints, theaters, dance halls, and bars and grills.[55] 133rd Street, known as "Swing Street", became known for its cabarets, speakeasies and jazz scene during the Prohibition era, and was dubbed "Jungle Alley" because of "inter-racial mingling" on the street.[56][57] Some jazz venues, including the Cotton Club, where Duke Ellington played, and Connie's Inn, were restricted to whites only. Others were integrated, including the Renaissance Ballroom and the Savoy Ballroom. In 1936, Orson Welles produced his black Macbeth at the Lafayette Theater in Harlem.[58] Grand theaters from the late 19th and early 20th centuries were torn down or converted to churches. Harlem lacked any permanent performance space until the creation of the Gatehouse Theater in an old Croton aqueduct building on 135th Street in 2006.[59] Spiritual African Drummer on 135th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard and Frederick Douglass Boulevard From 1965 until 2007, the community was home to the Harlem Boys Choir, a touring choir and education program for young boys, most of whom are black.[60] The Girls Choir of Harlem was founded in 1989, and closed with the Boys Choir.[61] From 1967 to 1969, the Harlem Cultural Festival took place in Mount Morris Park. Another name for this festival is "Black Woodstock". Artists like Stevie Wonder, The 5th Dimension, and Gladys Knight performed here.[62][63] Harlem is also home to the largest African American Day Parade, which celebrates the culture of African diaspora in America. The parade was started up in the spring of 1969 with Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. as the Grand Marshal of the first celebration.[64] Arthur Mitchell, a former dancer with the New York City Ballet, established Dance Theatre of Harlem as a school and company of classical ballet and theater training in the late 1960s. The company has toured nationally and internationally. Generations of theater artists have gotten a start at the school. By the 2010s, new dining hotspots were opening in Harlem around Frederick Douglass Boulevard.[65] At the same time, some residents fought back against the powerful waves of gentrification the neighborhood is experiencing. In 2013, residents staged a sidewalk sit-in to protest a five-days-a-week farmers market that would shut down Macombs Place at 150th Street.[66] Uptown Night Market was founded in 2021 to celebrate cuisine, community, and culture.[67] It is one of the largest night markets in Manhattan. The main attractions include musical performances, arts and crafts shows, and food.[68] Music Black Ivory in Harlem 2017 Many R&B/Soul groups and artists formed in Harlem. The Main Ingredient, Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers, Black Ivory, Cameo, Keith Sweat, Freddie Jackson, Alyson Williams, Johnny Kemp, Teddy Riley and others got their start in Harlem. Manhattan's contributions to hip-hop stems largely from artists with Harlem roots such as Doug E. Fresh, Big L, Kurtis Blow, The Diplomats, Mase or Immortal Technique. Harlem is also the birthplace of popular hip-hop dances such as the Harlem shake, toe wop, and Chicken Noodle Soup. Harlem's classical music birthed organizations and chamber ensembles such as Roberta Guaspari's Opus 118,[69] Harlem Chamber Players,[70] Omnipresent Music Festival BIPOC Musicians Festival,[71] Harlem Quartet, and musicians such as violinist Edward W. Hardy.[72] In the 1920s, African American pianists who lived in Harlem invented their own style of jazz piano, called stride, which was heavily influenced by ragtime. This style played a very important role in early jazz piano[73][74] Language In 1938, jazz bandleader and singer Cab Calloway published the first dictionary by an African-American, Cab Calloway's Cat-ologue: A "Hepster's" Dictionary, which became the official jive language reference book of the New York Public Library.[75][76] In 1939, Calloway published an accompanying book titled Professor Cab Calloway’s Swingformation Bureau, which instructed readers how to apply the words and phrases from the dictionary. He released several editions until 1944, the last being The New Cab Calloway’s Hepsters Dictionary: Language of Jive.[77] Poet Lemn Sissay observed that "Cab Calloway was taking ownership of language for a people who, just a few generations before, had their own languages taken away."[78] Religious life St. Andrew's Episcopal Church Religious life has historically had a strong presence in Black Harlem. The area is home to over 400 churches,[79] some of which are official city or national landmarks.[80][81] Major Christian denominations include Baptists, Pentecostals, Methodists (generally African Methodist Episcopal Zionist, or "AMEZ" and African Methodist Episcopalian, or "AME"), Episcopalians, and Roman Catholic. The Abyssinian Baptist Church has long been influential because of its large congregation. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints built a chapel on 128th Street in 2005. Many of the area's churches are "storefront churches", which operate in an empty store, or a basement, or a converted brownstone townhouse. These congregations may have fewer than 30–50 members each, but there are hundreds of them.[82] Others are old, large, and designated landmarks. Especially in the years before World War II, Harlem produced popular Christian charismatic "cult" leaders, including George Wilson Becton and Father Divine.[83] Mosques in Harlem include the Masjid Malcolm Shabazz (formerly Mosque No. 7 Nation of Islam, and the location of the 1972 Harlem mosque incident), the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood and Masjid Aqsa. Judaism, too, maintains a presence in Harlem through the Old Broadway Synagogue. A non-mainstream synagogue of Black Hebrews, known as Commandment Keepers, was based in a synagogue at 1 West 123rd Street until 2008. Landmarks St Martin's Episcopal Church, at Lenox Avenue and 122nd Street Hotel Theresa building at the corner of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and 125th Street Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building, at the same intersection as the Hotel Theresa Officially designated landmarks Many places in Harlem are official city landmarks labeled by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission or are listed on the National Register of Historic Places: 12 West 129th Street, a New York City landmark[84] 17 East 128th Street, a New York City landmark[85] 369th Regiment Armory, a New York City landmark and NRHP-listed site[86][81] Abyssinian Baptist Church, a New York City landmark[87] Apollo Theater, a New York City landmark and NRHP-listed site[88][81] Astor Row, a set of New York City landmark houses[80]: 207  Blockhouse No. 1, Fort Clinton, and Nutter's Battery, part of Central Park, a New York City scenic landmark and NRHP-listed site[89][81] Central Harlem West–130–132nd Streets Historic District, a New York City landmark[90] Dunbar Apartments, a New York City landmark[91] Graham Court Apartments, a New York City landmark[92] Hamilton Grange, a New York City landmark and NRHP-listed site[93] Harlem River Houses, a New York City landmark[94] Harlem YMCA, a New York City landmark[95] Hotel Theresa, a New York City landmark[96] Jackie Robinson YMCA Youth Center, a New York City landmark[97] Langston Hughes House, a New York City landmark and NRHP-listed site[98][81] Macombs Dam Bridge and 155th Street Viaduct, a New York City landmark[99] Manhattan Avenue-West 120th-123rd Streets Historic District, a NRHP historic district[81] Metropolitan Baptist Church, a New York City landmark and NRHP-listed site[100][81] Minton's Playhouse, a NRHP-listed site[81] Morningside Park, a New York City scenic landmark[101] Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, a New York City landmark[102] Mount Morris Park Historic District, a New York City landmark district[103] Mount Olive Fire Baptized Holiness Church, a New York City landmark[104] New York Public Library 115th Street Branch, a New York City landmark and NRHP-listed site[105][81] Regent Theatre, a New York City landmark[106] Schomburg Collection for Research in Black Culture, a New York City landmark and NRHP-listed site[107][81] St. Aloysius Roman Catholic Church, a New York City landmark[108] St. Andrew's Church, a New York City landmark and NRHP-listed site[109][81] St. Philip's Protestant Episcopal Church, a New York City landmark[110] St. Martin's Episcopal Church (formerly Trinity Church), a New York City landmark[111] St. Nicholas Historic District, a New York City landmark district[112] St. Paul's German Evangelical Lutheran Church, a New York City landmark[113] Wadleigh High School for Girls, a New York City landmark[114] Washington Apartments, a New York City landmark[115] Other points of interest Other prominent points of interest include: Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building All Saints Church ATLAH World Missionary Church Bushman Steps, stairway that led baseball fans from the subway to The Polo Grounds ticket booth.[116] Cotton Club Duke Ellington Circle Frederick Douglass Circle Harbor Conservatory for the Performing Arts Harlem Children's Zone Harlem Hospital Center The Harlem School of the Arts Lenox Lounge Marcus Garvey Park Harlem Fire Watchtower, a New York City landmark and NRHP-listed site[117][81] Morningside Park National Black Theatre New York College of Podiatric Medicine Red Rooster Rucker Park Savoy Ballroom St. Nicholas Houses Studio Museum in Harlem Sylvia's Soul Food Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine New York Amsterdam News Demographics The demographics of Harlem's communities have changed throughout its history. In 1910, black residents formed 10% of Harlem's population, but by 1930, they had become a 70% majority.[7] The period between 1910 and 1930 was marked by the Great Migration of African Americans from the South to northern cities, including New York. Within the city, this era also witnessed an influx of black residents from downtown Manhattan neighborhoods, where blacks were feeling less welcome, to the Harlem area.[7] The black population in Harlem peaked in 1950, with a 98% share of the population of 233,000. As of 2000, central Harlem's black residents comprised 77% of the total population of that area; however, the black population has recently declined as many African Americans move out and more immigrants move in.[118] As of 2021, central Harlem's black residents comprises 44% of the total population area, estimating 56,668 black residents. [119] In that regard, there are an estimated 27% (34,773) Hispanics, 18% (23,182) White, 4% (5,151) Asian, 6% (7,727) of two or more races and 2% (2,575) Other. Harlem suffers from unemployment rates generally more than twice the citywide average, as well as high poverty rates.[120] and the numbers for men have been consistently worse than the numbers for women. Private and governmental initiatives to ameliorate unemployment and poverty have not been successful. During the Great Depression, unemployment in Harlem went past 20% and people were being evicted from their homes.[121] At the same time, the federal government developed and instituted the redlining policy. This policy rated neighborhoods, such as Central Harlem, as unappealing based on the race, ethnicity, and national origins of the residents.[3] Central Harlem was deemed 'hazardous' and residents living in Central Harlem were refused home loans or other investments.[3] Comparably, wealthy and white residents in New York City neighborhoods were approved more often for housing loans and investment applications.[3] Overall, they were given preferential treatment by city and state institutions. In the 1960s, uneducated blacks could find jobs more easily than educated ones could, confounding efforts to improve the lives of people who lived in the neighborhood through education.[3] Land owners took advantage of the neighborhood and offered apartments to the lower-class families for cheaper rent but in lower-class conditions.[122] By 1999 there were 179,000 housing units available in Harlem.[123] Housing activists in Harlem state that, even after residents were given vouchers for the Section 8 housing that was being placed, many were not able to live there and had to find homes elsewhere or become homeless.[123] These policies are examples of societal racism, also known as structural racism. As public health leaders have named structural racism as a key social determinant of health disparities between racial and ethnic minorities,[124] these 20th century policies have contributed to the current population health disparities between Central Harlem and other New York City neighborhoods.[3] Central Harlem For census purposes, the New York City government classifies Central Harlem into two neighborhood tabulation areas: Central Harlem North and Central Harlem South, divided by 126th street.[125] Based on data from the 2010 United States Census, the population of Central Harlem was 118,665, a change of 9,574 (8.1%) from the 109,091 counted in 2000. Covering an area of 926.05 acres (374.76 ha), the neighborhood had a population density of 128.1 inhabitants per acre (82,000/sq mi; 31,700/km2).[126] The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 9.5% (11,322) White, 63% (74,735) African American, 0.3% (367) Native American, 2.4% (2,839) Asian, 0% (46) Pacific Islander, 0.3% (372) from other races, and 2.2% (2,651) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 22.2% (26,333) of the population. Harlem's Black population was more concentrated in Central Harlem North, and its White population more concentrated in Central Harlem South, while the Hispanic / Latino population was evenly split.[127] The most significant shifts in the racial composition of Central Harlem between 2000 and 2010 were the White population's increase by 402% (9,067), the Hispanic / Latino population's increase by 43% (7,982), and the Black population's decrease by 11% (9,544). While the growth of the Hispanic / Latino was predominantly in Central Harlem North, the decrease in the Black population was slightly greater in Central Harlem South, and the drastic increase in the White population was split evenly across the two census tabulation areas. Meanwhile, the Asian population grew by 211% (1,927) but remained a small minority, and the small population of all other races increased by 4% (142).[128] The entirety of Community District 10, which comprises Central Harlem, had 116,345 inhabitants as of NYC Health's 2018 Community Health Profile, with an average life expectancy of 76.2 years.[3]: 2, 20  This is lower than the median life expectancy of 81.2 for all New York City neighborhoods.[129]: 53 (PDF p. 84)  Most inhabitants are children and middle-aged adults: 21% are between the ages of 0–17, while 35% are between 25 and 44, and 24% between 45 and 64. The ratio of college-aged and elderly residents was lower, at 10% and 11% respectively.[3]: 2  As of 2017, the median household income in Community District 10 was $49,059.[4] In 2018, an estimated 21% of Community District 10 residents lived in poverty, compared to 14% in all of Manhattan and 20% in all of New York City. Around 12% of residents were unemployed, compared to 7% in Manhattan and 9% in New York City. Rent burden, or the percentage of residents who have difficulty paying their rent, is 48% in Community District 10, compared to the boroughwide and citywide rates of 45% and 51% respectively. Based on this calculation, as of 2018, Community District 10 is considered to be gentrifying: according to the Community Health Profile, the district was low-income in 1990 and has seen above-median rent growth up to 2010.[3]: 7  Other sections In 2010, the population of West Harlem was 110,193.[130] West Harlem, consisting of Manhattanville and Hamilton Heights, is predominately Hispanic / Latino, while African Americans make up about a quarter of the West Harlem population.[9] In 2010, the population of East Harlem was 120,000.[131] East Harlem originally formed as a predominantly Italian American neighborhood.[132] The area began its transition from Italian Harlem to Spanish Harlem when Puerto Rican migration began after World War II,[133] though in recent decades, many Dominican, Mexican and Salvadoran immigrants have also settled in East Harlem.[134] East Harlem is now predominantly Hispanic / Latino, with a significant African-American presence.[133] 2020 Census In the 2020 census, Harlem's demographics were broken up into North Harlem, South Harlem, Hamilton Heights, West Harlem, and Morningside Heights. North Harlem had 40,000+ Black residents being the largest concentration of the black population of the Harlem area, 20,000 to 29,999 Hispanic residents, 5,000 to 9,999 White residents, and less than 5000 Asian residents. South Harlem had 20,000 to 29,999 Black residents, 5,000 to 9,999 Hispanic residents, 10,000 to 19,999 White residents, and fewer than 5,000 Asian residents. Hamilton Heights had 10,000 to 19,999 Black residents, 20,000 to 29,999 Hispanic residents being the largest population group in this section, 5,000 to 9,999 White residents, and fewer than 5,000 Asian residents. West Harlem had an equal number of Black and Hispanic residents with each of their population at 5,000 to 9,999 residents and each the White and Asian population were fewer than 5,000 residents. Morningside Heights had and equal amount of Black and Hispanic residents with each of their population at 5,000 to 9,999 residents, 10,000 to 19,999 White residents, and 5,000 to 9,999 Asian residents; the only section of Harlem to have a significant concentration of Asian residents.[135] Police and crime NYPD Police Service Area 6, which serves NYCHA developments in greater Harlem Central Harlem is patrolled by two precincts of the New York City Police Department (NYPD).[136] Central Harlem North is covered by the 32nd Precinct, located at 250 West 135th Street,[137] while Central Harlem South is patrolled by the 28th Precinct, located at 2271–2289 Eighth Avenue.[138] The 28th Precinct has a lower crime rate than it did in the 1990s, with crimes across all categories having decreased by 72.2% between 1990 and 2021. The precinct reported 2 murders, 9 rapes, 172 robberies, 245 felony assaults, 153 burglaries, 384 grand larcenies, and 52 grand larcenies auto in 2021.[139] Of the five major violent felonies (murder, rape, felony assault, robbery, and burglary), the 28th Precinct had a rate of 1,125 crimes per 100,000 residents in 2019, compared to the boroughwide average of 632 crimes per 100,000 and the citywide average of 572 crimes per 100,000.[140][141][142] The crime rate in the 32nd Precinct has also decreased since the 1990s, with crimes across all categories having decreased by 71.4% between 1990 and 2021. The precinct reported 16 murders, 18 rapes, 183 robberies, 519 felony assaults, 168 burglaries, 320 grand larcenies, and 54 grand larcenies auto in 2021.[143] Of the five major violent felonies (murder, rape, felony assault, robbery, and burglary), the 32nd Precinct had a rate of 1,042 crimes per 100,000 residents in 2019, compared to the boroughwide average of 632 crimes per 100,000 and the citywide average of 572 crimes per 100,000.[140][141][142] As of 2018, Community District 10 has a non-fatal assault hospitalization rate of 116 per 100,000 people, compared to the boroughwide rate of 49 per 100,000 and the citywide rate of 59 per 100,000. Its incarceration rate is 1,347 per 100,000 people, the second-highest in the city, compared to the boroughwide rate of 407 per 100,000 and the citywide rate of 425 per 100,000.[3]: 8  Crime trends Main article: Crime in Harlem Police hit a man on the ground with batons during the Harlem riot of 1964 In the early 20th century, Harlem was a stronghold of the Sicilian Mafia, other Italian organized crime groups, and later the Italian-American Mafia. As the ethnic composition of the neighborhood changed, black criminals began to organize themselves similarly. However, rather than compete with the established mobs, gangs concentrated on the "policy racket", also called the numbers game, or bolita in East Harlem. This was a gambling scheme similar to a lottery that could be played, illegally, from countless locations around Harlem. According to Francis Ianni, "By 1925 there were thirty black policy banks in Harlem, several of them large enough to collect bets in an area of twenty city blocks and across three or four avenues."[144] By the early 1950s, the total money at play amounted to billions of dollars, and the police force had been thoroughly corrupted by bribes from numbers bosses.[145] These bosses became financial powerhouses, providing capital for loans for those who could not qualify for them from traditional financial institutions, and investing in legitimate businesses and real estate. One of the powerful early numbers bosses was a woman, Madame Stephanie St. Clair, who fought gun battles with mobster Dutch Schultz over control of the lucrative trade.[146] The popularity of playing the numbers waned with the introduction of the state lottery, which is legal but has lower payouts and has taxes collected on winnings.[147] The practice continues on a smaller scale among those who prefer the numbers tradition or who prefer to trust their local numbers bank to the state. Statistics from 1940 show about 100 murders per year in Harlem, "but rape is very rare".[148] By 1950, many whites had left Harlem and by 1960, much of the black middle class had departed. At the same time, control of organized crime shifted from Italian syndicates to local black, Puerto Rican, and Cuban groups that were somewhat less formally organized.[144] At the time of the 1964 riots, the drug addiction rate in Harlem was ten times higher than the New York City average, and twelve times higher than the United States as a whole. Of the 30,000 drug addicts then estimated to live in New York City, 15,000 to 20,000 lived in Harlem. Property crime was pervasive, and the murder rate was six times higher than New York's average. Half of the children in Harlem grew up with one parent, or none, and lack of supervision contributed to juvenile delinquency; between 1953 and 1962, the crime rate among young people increased throughout New York City, but was consistently 50% higher in Harlem than in New York City as a whole.[149] Injecting heroin grew in popularity in Harlem through the 1950s and 1960s, though the use of this drug then leveled off. In the 1980s, use of crack cocaine became widespread, which produced collateral crime as addicts stole to finance their purchasing of additional drugs, and as dealers fought for the right to sell in particular regions, or over deals gone bad.[150] With the end of the "crack wars" in the mid-1990s, and with the initiation of aggressive policing under mayors David Dinkins and his successor Rudy Giuliani, crime in Harlem plummeted. Compared to in 1981, when 6,500 robberies were reported in Harlem, reports of robberies dropped to 4,800 in 1990; to 1,700 in 2000; and to 1,100 in 2010.[151] Within the 28th and 32nd precincts, there have been similar changes in all categories of crimes tracked by the NYPD.[137][138] Despite reductions versus historic highs, Harlem continues to have a high rate of violent crime and one of the highest rates of violent crime in New York City.[140] This crime is largely correlated with high concentrations of poverty. Illicit activities such as theft, robbery, drug trafficking, prostitution are prevalent. Criminal organizations like street gangs are responsible for many of the murders and shootings in the neighborhood. Gangs There are many gangs in Harlem, often based in housing projects; when one gang member is killed by another gang, revenge violence erupts which can last for years.[152] In addition, the East Harlem Purple Gang of the 1970s, which operated in East Harlem and surroundings, was an Italian American group of hitmen and heroin dealers.[153] Harlem and its gangsters have a strong link to hip hop, rap and R&B culture in the United States, and many successful rappers in the music industry came from gangs in Harlem.[154] Gangster rap, which has its origins in the late 1980s, often has lyrics that are "misogynistic or that glamorize violence", glamorizing guns, drugs and easy women in Harlem and New York City.[155][154] Fire safety The Quarters of FDNY Engine Company 59/Ladder Company 30 Central Harlem is served by four New York City Fire Department (FDNY) fire stations:[156] Engine Company 37/Ladder Company 40 – 415 West 125th Street[157] Engine Company 58/Ladder Company 26 – 1367 5th Avenue[158] Engine Company 59/Ladder Company 30 – 111 West 133rd Street[159] Engine Company 69/Ladder Company 28/Battalion 16 – 248 West 143rd Street[160] Five additional firehouses are located in West and East Harlem. West Harlem contains Engine Company 47 and Engine Company 80/Ladder Company 23, while East Harlem contains Engine Company 35/Ladder Company 14/Battalion 12, Engine Company 53/Ladder Company 43, and Engine Company 91.[156] Health As of 2018, preterm births and births to teenage mothers are more common in Central Harlem than in other places citywide. In Central Harlem, there were 103 preterm births per 1,000 live births (compared to 87 per 1,000 citywide), and 23 births to teenage mothers per 1,000 live births (compared to 19.3 per 1,000 citywide), though the teenage birth rate is based on a small sample size.[3]: 11  Central Harlem has a low population of residents who are uninsured. In 2018, this population of uninsured residents was estimated to be 8%, less than the citywide rate of 12%.[3]: 14  The concentration of fine particulate matter, the deadliest type of air pollutant, in Central Harlem is 0.0079 milligrams per cubic metre (7.9×10−9 oz/cu ft), slightly more than the city average.[3]: 9  Ten percent of Central Harlem residents are smokers, which is less than the city average of 14% of residents being smokers.[3]: 13  In Central Harlem, 34% of residents are obese, 12% are diabetic, and 35% have high blood pressure, the highest rates in the city—compared to the citywide averages of 24%, 11%, and 28% respectively.[3]: 16  In addition, 21% of children are obese, compared to the citywide average of 20%.[3]: 12  Eighty-four percent of residents eat some fruits and vegetables every day, which is less than the city's average of 87%. In 2018, 79% of residents described their health as "good," "very good," or "excellent," more than the city's average of 78%.[3]: 13  For every supermarket in Central Harlem, there are 11 bodegas.[3]: 10  The nearest major hospital is NYC Health + Hospitals/Harlem in north-central Harlem.[161][162] Social factors The population health of Central Harlem is closely linked to influential social factors on health, also known as social determinants of health, and the impact of structural racism on the neighborhood. The impact of discriminatory policies such as redlining have contributed to residents' bearing worse health outcomes in comparison to the average New York city resident. This applies to life expectancy, poverty rates, environmental neighborhood health, housing quality, and childhood and adult asthma rates. Additionally, the health of Central Harlem residents are linked to their experience of racism.[163][164] Public health and scientific research studies have found evidence that experiencing racism creates and exacerbates chronic stress that can contribute to major causes of death, particularly for African-American and Hispanic populations in the United States, like cardiovascular diseases.[164][165][166][167] Certain health disparities between Central Harlem and the rest of New York City can be attributed to 'avoidable causes' such as substandard housing quality, poverty, and law enforcement violence – all of which are issues identified by the American Public Health Association as key social determinants of health. These deaths that can be attributed to avoidable causes are known as "avertable deaths" of "excess mortality'"in public health.[168] Health problems Health and housing conditions Access to affordable housing and employment opportunities with fair wages and benefits are closely associated with good health.[169] Public health leaders have shown that inadequate housing qualities is linked to poor health.[170] As Central Harlem also bears the effects of racial segregation, public health researchers claim that racial segregation is also linked to substandard housing and exposure to pollutants and toxins. These associations have been documented to increase individual risk of chronic diseases and adverse birth outcomes.[124] Historical income segregation via redlining also positions residents to be more exposed to risks that contribute to adverse mental health status, inadequate access to healthy foods, asthma triggers, and lead exposure.[170][169] Drew Hamilton Houses, a large low-income NYCHA housing project in Central Harlem Asthma Asthma is more common in children and adults in Central Harlem, compared to other New York City neighborhoods.[171] The factors that can increase risk of childhood and adult asthma are associated with substandard housing conditions.[172] Substandard housing conditions are water leaks, cracks and holes, inadequate heating, presence of mice or rats, peeling paint and can include the presence of mold, moisture, dust mites.[173] In 2014, Central Harlem tracked worse in regards to home maintenance conditions, compared to the average rates Manhattan and New York City. Twenty percent of homes had cracks or holes; 21% had leaks and 19% had three or more maintenance deficiencies.[171] Adequate housing is defined as housing that is free from heating breakdowns, cracks, holes, peeling paint and other defects. Housing conditions in Central Harlem reveal that only 37% of its renter-occupied homes were adequately maintained by landlords in 2014. Meanwhile, 25% of Central Harlem households and 27% of adults reported seeing cockroaches (a potential trigger for asthma), a rate higher than the city average. Neighborhood conditions are also indicators of population: in 2014, Central Harlem had 32 per 100,000 people hospitalized due to pedestrian injuries, higher than Manhattan's and the city's average.[171] The environment also factors into the health of the people of Central Harlem with the neighborhood being found to have levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) at 7.9 micrograms per cubic meter compared to all of NYC at 7.5 micrograms per cubic meter. Poorer neighborhoods have some of the highest levels of air pollution in the city. Adults with asthma emergencies experiencing high rates of poverty visit the emergency department at rates nearly 5 times higher than those neighborhoods with lower levels of poverty. Nearly 3 in 4 deaths related to PM2.5 occurs in adults 65 years or older. The attribution of premature adult mortality rate to exposure of PM2.5 experiencing 77.4-117.7 deaths per 100,000 people.[174] Additionally, poverty levels can indicate one's risk of vulnerability to asthma. In 2016, Central Harlem saw 565 children aged 5–17 years old per 10,000 residents visiting emergency departments for Asthma emergencies, over twice both Manhattan's and the citywide rates. The rate of childhood asthma hospitalization in 2016 was more than twice that of Manhattan and New York City, with 62 hospitalizations per 10,000 residents.[171] Rates of adult hospitalization due to asthma in Central Harlem trends higher in comparison to other neighborhoods. In 2016, 270 adults per 10,000 residents visited the emergency department due to asthma, close to three times the average rates of both Manhattan and New York City.[171] Other health problems Health outcomes for men have generally been worse than those of women. Infant mortality was 124 per thousand in 1928, meaning that 12.4% of infants would die.[175] By 1940, infant mortality in Harlem was 5%, and the death rate from disease generally was twice that of the rest of New York. Tuberculosis was the main killer, and four times as prevalent among Harlem citizens than among the rest of New York's population.[175] A 1990 study of life expectancy of teenagers in Harlem reported that 15-year-old girls in Harlem had a 65% chance of surviving to the age of 65, about the same as women in Pakistan. Fifteen-year-old men in Harlem, on the other hand, had a 37% chance of surviving to 65, about the same as men in Angola; for men, the survival rate beyond the age of 40 was lower in Harlem than Bangladesh.[176] Infectious diseases and diseases of the circulatory system were to blame, with a variety of contributing factors, including consumption of the deep-fried foods traditional to the South, which may contribute to heart disease. Post offices and ZIP Codes Harlem is located within five primary ZIP Codes. From south to north they are 10026 (from 110th to 120th Streets), 10027 (from 120th to 133rd Streets), 10037 (east of Lenox Avenue and north of 130th Street), 10030 (west of Lenox Avenue from 133rd to 145th Streets) and 10039 (from 145th to 155th Streets). Harlem also includes parts of ZIP Codes 10031, 10032, and 10035.[177] The United States Postal Service operates five post offices in Harlem: Morningside Station – 232 West 116th Street[178] Manhattanville Station and Morningside Annex – 365 West 125th Street[179] College Station – 217 West 140th Street[180] Colonial Park Station – 99 Macombs Place[181] Lincoln Station – 2266 5th Avenue[182] Education Main article: Education in Harlem Central Harlem generally has a similar rate of college-educated residents to the rest of the city as of 2018. While 42% of residents age 25 and older have a college education or higher, 19% have less than a high school education and 39% are high school graduates or have some college education. By contrast, 64% of Manhattan residents and 43% of city residents have a college education or higher.[3]: 6  The percentage of Central Harlem students excelling in math rose from 21% in 2000 to 48% in 2011, and reading achievement increased from 29% to 37% during the same time period.[183] Central Harlem's rate of elementary school student absenteeism is higher than the rest of New York City. In Central Harlem, 25% of elementary school students missed twenty or more days per school year, more than the citywide average of 20%.[129]: 24 (PDF p. 55) [3]: 6  Additionally, 64% of high school students in Central Harlem graduate on time, less than the citywide average of 75%.[3]: 6  Schools The New York City Department of Education operates the following public elementary schools in Central Harlem:[184] PS 76 A Phillip Randolph (grades PK-8)[185] PS 92 Mary Mcleod Bethune (grades PK-5)[186] PS 123 Mahalia Jackson (grades PK-8)[187] PS 149 Sojourner Truth (grades PK-8)[188] PS 154 Harriet Tubman (grades PK-5)[189] PS 175 Henry H Garnet (grades PK-5)[190] PS 185 the Early Childhood Discovery and Design Magnet School (grades PK-2)[191] PS 194 Countee Cullen (grades PK-5)[192] PS 197 John B Russwurm (grades PK-5)[193] PS 200 The James Mccune Smith School (grades PK-5)[194] PS 242 The Young Diplomats Magnet School (grades PK-5)[195] Stem Institute of Manhattan (grades K-5)[196] Thurgood Marshall Academy Lower School (grades K-5)[197] The following middle and high schools are located in Central Harlem:[184] Frederick Douglass Academy (grades 6–12)[198] Frederick Douglass Academy II Secondary School (grades 6–12)[199] Mott Hall High School (grades 9–12)[200] Thurgood Marshall Academy For Learning And Social Change (grades 6–12)[201] Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing and Visual Arts (grades 6–12)[202] Harlem has a high rate of charter school enrollment: a fifth of students were enrolled in charter schools in 2010.[203] By 2017, that proportion had increased to 36%, about the same that attended their zoned public schools. Another 20% of Harlem students were enrolled in public schools elsewhere.[204] Higher education The CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, New York College of Podiatric Medicine, City College of New York, and Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine, in addition to a branch of College of New Rochelle, are all located in Harlem. The Morningside Heights and Manhattanville campuses of Columbia University are located just west of Harlem. Libraries New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture The New York Public Library (NYPL) operates four circulating branches and one research branch in Harlem, as well as several others in adjacent neighborhoods. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a research branch, is located at 515 Malcolm X Boulevard. It is housed in a Carnegie library structure that opened in 1905, though the branch itself was established in 1925 based on a collection from its namesake, Arturo Alfonso Schomburg. The Schomburg Center is a National Historic Landmark, as well as a city designated landmark and a National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)-listed site.[205] The Countee Cullen branch is located at 104 West 136th Street. It was originally housed in the building now occupied by the Schomburg Center. The current structure, in 1941, is an annex of the Schomburg building.[206] The Harry Belafonte 115th Street branch is located at 203 West 115th Street. The three-story Carnegie library, built in 1908, is both a city designated landmark and an NRHP-listed site. It was renamed for the entertainer and Harlem resident Harry Belafonte in 2017.[207] The Harlem branch is located at 9 West 124th Street. It is one of the oldest libraries in the NYPL system, having operated in Harlem since 1826. The current three-story Carnegie library building was built in 1909 and renovated in 2004.[208] The Macomb's Bridge branch is located at 2633 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard. The branch opened in 1955 at 2650 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, inside the Harlem River Houses, and was the smallest NYPL branch at 685 square feet (63.6 m2). In January 2020, the branch moved across the street to a larger space.[209] Other nearby branches include the 125th Street and Aguilar branches in East Harlem; the Morningside Heights branch in Morningside Heights; and the George Bruce and Hamilton Grange branches in western Harlem.[210] Transportation Bridges Bridges spanning the Harlem River between Harlem to the left and the Bronx to the right Harlem–125th Street station on the Metro-North Railroad The Harlem River separates the Bronx and Manhattan, necessitating several spans between the two New York City boroughs. Five free bridges connect Harlem and the Bronx: the Willis Avenue Bridge (for northbound traffic only), Third Avenue Bridge (for southbound traffic only), Madison Avenue Bridge, 145th Street Bridge, and Macombs Dam Bridge. In East Harlem, the Wards Island Bridge, also known as the 103rd Street Footbridge, connects Manhattan with Wards Island. The Triborough Bridge is a complex of three separate bridges that offers connections between Queens, East Harlem, and the Bronx.[211] Public transportation Public transportation service is provided by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. This includes the New York City Subway and MTA Regional Bus Operations. Some Bronx local routes also serve Manhattan, providing customers with access between both boroughs.[212][213] Metro-North Railroad has a commuter rail station at Harlem–125th Street, serving trains to the Lower Hudson Valley and Connecticut.[214] Subway Harlem is served by the following subway lines: IRT Lenox Avenue Line (2 and ​3 trains) between Central Park North–110th Street and Harlem–148th Street[215] IND Eighth Avenue Line (A, ​B, ​C, and ​D trains) between Cathedral Parkway–110th Street and 155th Street[215] IND Concourse Line (B and ​D trains) at 155th Street[215] In addition, several other lines stop nearby: IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line (1 train) between Cathedral Parkway–110th Street and 145th Street, serving western Harlem[215] IRT Lexington Avenue Line (4, ​5, ​6, and <6> trains) between 96th Street and 125th Street, serving East Harlem[215] Phase 2 of the Second Avenue Subway is also planned to serve East Harlem, with stops at 106th Street, 116th Street, and Harlem–125th Street.[216][217] Bus Harlem is served by numerous local bus routes operated by MTA Regional Bus Operations:[213] Bx6 and Bx6 SBS along 155th Street Bx19 along 145th Street Bx33 along 135th Street M1 along Fifth/Madison Avenues M2 along Seventh Avenue, Central Park North, and Fifth/Madison Avenues M3 along Manhattan Avenue, Central Park North, and Fifth/Madison Avenues M4 along Broadway, Central Park North, and Fifth/Madison Avenues M60 SBS, M100, M101 and Bx15 along 125th Street M7 and M102 along Lenox Avenue and 116th Street M10 along Frederick Douglass Boulevard M116 along 116th Street Routes that run near Harlem, but do not stop in the neighborhood, include:[213] M5 along Riverside Drive M11 along Amsterdam Avenue M35 via Triborough Bridge M98 and M103 along Third/Lexington Avenues M104 along Broadway Sennett Bathing Beauties was a bevy of women performing in bathing costumes assembled by film producer Mack Sennett during the silent film era. Description The Sennett Bathing Beauties appeared in Mack Sennett comedy short subjects, in promotional material, and in promotional events such as Venice Beach beauty contests from c. 1915 to 1928. Beginning in 1915,[1] the original trio assembled by Sennett consisted of Evelyn Lynn, Cecile Evans, and Marie Prevost.[2] Hundreds more would follow; many remained nameless. Not individually featured or named, many of these young women ascended to significant careers of their own, including Juanita Hansen, Claire Anderson, Marie Prevost, Phyllis Haver, Myrtle Lind and Carole Lombard. Other notable[3] Bathing Beauties include: Marion Aye, Alice Day, Polly Moran, Madeline Hurlock, Vera Reynolds, Mary Thurman, Thelma Hill, Thelma Parr, Marvel Rea, Harriet Hammond, Evelyn Francisco, Vera Steadman, Josephine Cogdell,[4] Elinor Field, and Ora Carew. Actor Billy Bevan flanked by four bathing beauties, 1920s Two of those often named as Bathing Beauties later distanced themselves from the appellation: Mabel Normand and Gloria Swanson. Normand was a featured player, and her 1912 8-minute film The Water Nymph may have been the direct inspiration for the Bathing Beauties.[5] Although Gloria Swanson worked for Sennett in 1916 and was photographed in a bathing suit, she was also a star and "vehemently denied" being one of the bathing beauties.[6] Sennett explained his inspiration for the Bathing Beauties: One morning as I went through the Times, in my tub, I noticed a three-column picture on Page One of a pretty girl who had been involved in a minor traffic accident. The picture made the front page for two obvious and attractive reasons. The young lady's knees were showing. — Mack Sennett, King of Comedy [7] In the 1920s, Sennett's Bathing Beauties remained popular enough to provoke imitators such as the Christie Studios' Bathing Beauties (counting Raquel Torres and Laura La Plante as alumnae[8]) and Fox Film Corporation's "Sunshine Girls" (counting Janet Gaynor as an alumna).[9] The Sennett Bathing Beauties continued to appear through 1928. There was a brief revival in 1949, in connection with publicity for the Sennett comedy compilation film Down Memory Lane. References' Philippa Duke Schuyler Philippa Schuyler as a young woman Born August 2, 1931, New York, N.Y. Died May 9, 1967, Da Nang, Vietnam American concert pianist and writer, interracial daughter of author George Schuyler. Phillippa Schuyler was the only child of the most celebrated interracial marriage of the Harlem Renaissance – between African American author and journalist George Schuyler and white Texan artist and journalist Josephine Cogdell. As a consequence of Cogdell’s family farming background, she and Schuyler applied to their daughter the agricultural theory that crossing different genetic strains produced superior offspring known as “hybrid vigor.” The Schuylers were firmly convinced that racial disharmony in the United States could be rectified through creating interracial children, investing all of their hopes for this in their daughter. As if to materialize her parents’ unusual expectations, Phillippa Schuyler was in fact a child prodigy whose extraordinary talents were developed by tutors in isolation from her peers. With an IQ of 185, she could read and write at the age of two-and-a-half, and began playing the piano at the age of three. At four, Schuyler was composing, and she performed at the age of five on the radio. By 11, she was touring, with over 100 piano compositions to her credit by the age of 13. She scored “Manhattan Nocturne” for 100 instruments and performed it with the New York Philharmonic in 1944. At the New York World’s Fair, New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia declared June 19, 1940 “Phillippa Duke Schuyler Day.”   Despite her abilities, Schuyler’s parents shunned the word prodigy and attributed her talent to “hybrid genetics, proper nutrition, and intensive education.” Her diet consisted exclusively of raw foods as a result of her mother’s steadfast belief that cooking destroyed vitamin content. Raised on wheat germ, unpasteurized milk, cod liver oil, mother’s milk, fruit and daily doses of Vitamin C, Schuyler also avoided alcohol, tobacco and sugar – all forbidden in the Schuyler home – for her entire life.   While the country was awed by her genius, Phillippa Schuyler’s visibility and fame were significantly heightened by her father’s media connections as well as his own regular coverage of her exemplary progress in the Pittsburgh Courier. Moreover, her mother’s multiple roles as impresario, relentless business manager, confidante, and best friend guided Schuyler well into adulthood.   For the better part of Schuyler’s youth, George Schuyler was away on national and international assignments. A great admirer of her father, she inherited his conservative beliefs in educational advancement, self-help and introspection. But, despite her proximity to the black intelligentsia, “her precocity was fed on notions and conceits of the white milieu; and her passion for classical music would essentially reflect the same bias.”   As a young adult, when white America lost interest in her, Schuyler encountered the race prejudice from which she had previously been shielded as a child curiosity and the daughter of well-to-do parents. Forced to play piano concerts overseas, she traveled to over 80 countries, giving command performances for Ethiopia’s Emperor Haile Selassie, Queen Elizabeth of Belgium and many other international leaders. In spite of her worldwide fame, she was never invited to perform in the United States for comparable leaders.   Spending more than half of the last ten years of her life abroad, Schuyler sought an alternative home where she could find comfort and acceptance: “I had 30 miserable years in the U.S.A. because of having the taint of being a ‘strange curiosity’ applied to me.”   In the late 1950s, Schuyler traveled with a visa from Rome and performed to white audiences in apartheid-era South Africa. Shortly after, she briefly toured in Europe as Felipa Monterro, a gifted musician and writer who was no longer identifiable as the daughter of a Negro journalist. Between 1960 and 1969, she published five books about her life and travels, including one in collaboration with her mother.   In 1963, along with Leontyne Price and Lena Horne, Schuyler was honored at the Delta Sigma Theta “We Salute Women of Achievement” awards.   Just before her death, Schuyler had begun a career as a news correspondent, publishing articles in several languages including French and German. She died at the age of 35 in a helicopter crash during the Vietnam War while attempting to rescue Catholic schoolchildren from a war zone in Hue to the shelter of a school in Da Nang. Philippa Duke Schuyler was an African American child prodigy, pianist, composer, journalist, and author. She became famous in the 1930s and 1940s for her unique musical talents, mixed-race background, and the abnormal methods her parents used to raise her. Schuyler was born on August 2, 1931, and grew up in Harlem, New York. She was the daughter of George S. Schuyler, a highly esteemed black journalist, and Josephine Cogdell, a wealthy white Texan from a former slave-owning ranching and banking family. Philippa Schuyler’s mixed-race background was notable because her parents believed that only miscegenation could help solve the racial and social issues in the United States. Additionally, they believed intermarriage could “invigorate” both races and produce extraordinary offspring, which led to Philippa essentially being her parents’ genetic experiment. Intelligence, education, and artistic expression were core values to the Schuyler household. Schuyler’s parents focused particularly on Philippa’s education, as it was apparent that she was very gifted. When she was two, she appeared in the newspaper because of her spelling abilities and precocious development such as crawling at four weeks, walking at eight months, or reading at two years. At age four, Schuyler started playing recitals, and appeared on radio broadcasts with her own compositions. At age eight, she tested at an IQ of 185. By age 13 she had written over 100 compositions and for her high school graduation ceremony at age 15, Schuyler wrote “The Rhapsody of Youth” in honor of the inauguration of Haitian president Paul Magloire. Schuyler’s talents were described in media reports as framed as a result of her parents’ eccentric style of care. For example, giving her a diet of raw food such as liver or brains, and a scrapbook was kept on her “hybrid experiment.” Schuyler was given a “careful education” which included years of private tutors financed through her performance income. If she did go to school, Schuyler was usually the only person of color in that institution. Moreover, her parents restricted her contact with other young children usually only in the Schuyler’s house, which resulted in her having an isolated life.  There were also rumors that her mother allegedly beat her. As Schuyler grew older, she encountered racial prejudice. During the 1950s she was easily booking performances as a young concert pianist throughout Europe, South America, and Africa, but failed to find similar success and acclaim in the United States. As Schuyler entered her thirties, she expanded her career beyond music to working as a journalist like her father. Adopting his political views, she wrote primarily for conservative organizations like the John Birch Society. A devoted Catholic, fluent in several languages, she published several books over her career.  By 1965, she was employed by the conservative Manchester Union Leader in Manchester, New Hampshire and soon after became their correspondent covering the Vietnam War. Tragically, on May 9, 1967, Schuyler died near Da Nang, Vietnam at the age of 36 when a U.S. Army helicopter she was in crashed into the ocean. This sudden death led to Josephine Schuyler’s depression and caused her to take her own life in 1969. George Schuyler later died in 1977. He [George Schuyler] was a man of contradictions. For someone so utterly unsentimental and sternly rational about race and blackness, he indulged his wife’s [Josephine Cogdell] strange neoessentialist belief in “hybrid vigor”—that is, her belief that their daughter’s racial fusion of black and white represented the birth of a new, superior race. With Schuyler’s help, his wife turned their only daughter into a social experiment, raising Philippa on a scientifically prepared diet of raw meat, unpasteurized milk, and castor oil, and keeping her in near isolation from other children. The child’s strange upbringing was both a raging success and a terrible failure. Philippa learned to read at two, became an accomplished pianist at four, and a composer by five. She was a child celebrity, a kind of black Shirley Temple with a high IQ who became the subject of scores of articles in publications such as Time, The New York Times, and The New Yorker, and was roundly hailed as a genius. There is a poignant moment in Kathryn Talalay’s biography of Philippa Schuyler, Composition in Black and White, when Philippa is thirteen and her parents finally show her the detailed scrapbook they’ve been keeping about her upbringing and career—notes and articles they’ve been keeping diligently over the years. Philippa, rather than being touched, was horrified to realize, with sudden clarity, all the ways she’d been her parents’ social experiment and “puppet.” In the years that followed, she grew increasingly disillusioned with America, her own blackness, and the musical career of her youth. Like a character out of Black No More, she eventually changed her name and began to pass as white—as an Iberian-American named Filipa Montera. She spent most of her adult life overseas, still playing music, but less seriously, and trying to find herself in various romantic affairs. She eventually tried to reinvent herself as an international journalist and children’s advocate, and in 1967 she died in a helicopter crash while attempting to evacuate war orphans out of Vietnam. Seven Pillars of Wisdom was performed by Schuyler during her lifetime, but the manuscript pages have remained scattered among archive boxes since her untimely death,” said Masterson, whose recent research has focused on the work of 20th-century American women composers. “I reassembled and transcribed the full work, using Schuyler’s combination of handwritten musical notation and performance instructions. It is my hope that this recording will inspire a renewed interest in Schuyler’s life and music.”   Schuyler was born in 1931 Harlem to George Schuyler, an African American journalist, and Josephine Cogdell, a white artist and writer from Texas. Educated privately and managed by her mother, Philippa Schuyler was performing Mozart at age five, and by 10 she had earned national fame as a young composer. As she entered young adulthood, her appeal among white Americans had declined, and she noted racial prejudice for the first time. After that, she left the U.S. and toured more than 80 countries, performing for numerous world leaders. In the 1960s, Schuyler became a published writer, and later a Vietnam correspondent for the Manchester Union Leader. She died in Vietnam in 1967 while on a helicopter rescue mission.   “Inspired by T.E. Lawrence’s book of the same title, the hourlong Seven Pillars includes a prologue, seven movements and an extended epilogue,” said Masterson. “Perhaps also influenced by Schuyler’s experiences reporting on war crimes in the Congo, the piece explores challenging ideas about conflict, violence and faith through interwoven themes spelled with her own musical alphabet.”   To bring this project to fruition, Masterson will need to raise $2,500 to cover the album’s production and international distribution. Masterson will hold recitals to assist with this effort, and to educate the public about Schuyler and her until-recently lost music. The album can be released about four to six months after the necessary funds are raised, Masterson said. A child prodigy fêted by Leonard Bernstein and Virgil Thomson, performed by five leading American orchestras while still a teenager, accompanied by the New York Philharmonic at age 16, ranked alongside Aaron Copland and Marc Blitzstein, mourned with a Pontifical Requiem Mass in St Patrick's Cathedral, New York, and the rumoured subject of a Hollywood biopic. That is the executive summary of an American musical legend who was born eighty years ago tomorrow. Child prodigies, anniversaries and even executive summaries are the common currency of classical music today. But there are several reasons why the story that is going to be told On An Overgrown Path over the next two days is important. The first is that the legendary figure was a woman who had a black father and white mother. The second is that she experienced the barriers to musicians of colour that still linger on today. And thirdly, despite her legendary status, until the second part of this feature appears tomorrow her music will have been completely inaccessible to modern audiences. This is a long and often painful story but it is also important, so do please read on. Philippa Schuyler was born on August 2, 1931. Her father, George Schuyler, was a renowned and controversial black journalist and her mother, Josephine Cogdell, was a blond, blue-eyed Texan heiress. Josephine Cogdell followed the path of miscegenation because she believed "the white race, the Anglo Saxon especially, is spiritually depleted and America must mate with the Negro to save herself". The young Philippa was raised on a diet of raw food, and even the meat was uncooked because her mother believed cooking destroyed the vitamin content. When the family moved into a new apartment the cooker was ripped out as it was redundant. The young Philippa is seen above and the accompanying photos form one of the most comprehensive set of images of Philippa Schuyler available online. Philippa's upbringing followed the recommendation of the behavourial psychologist John B. Watson that a child should never be hugged or kissed, and her mother's journals contain numerous references to beating, whipping and slapping. Watson also recommended that parents should talk to their children frankly about sex at the earliest possible age. The approach may have been unconventional, but the results were spectacular. When Philippa was not yet three she had a 500 word reading and writing vocabulary, and when she was 5 her IQ was measured at 180. She displayed musical talent at a very early age and made her first broadcast public appearance as a pianist aged four. Shortly before her fifth birthday she entered her first musical competition and as well as playing four set pieces performed six of her own compositions to win a gold seal certificate. Her mother, seen with Philippa above, became obsessed with the idea that her brilliant interracial child could single-handedly break the American race barrier by a gruelling schedule of public appearances. In her early years she became an important role model, and her achievement was summed up by the sociologist Hylan Lewis when he asked "Do you know how many blacks took piano lessons because of Philippa?" But Lewis went on to describe her with great prescience as a "A prodigy puppet, and she has two very good puppeteers". In pursuit of artistic excellence Philippa's piano teachers were repeatedly changes and over a fourteen year period she studied with almost as many teachers. One was Antonia Brico, who was the first woman to conduct the Berlin and New York Philharmonic Orchestras. Brico resigned from teaching the young Philippa because of the concert schedule imposed by her mother. Otto Cesana was her first composition teacher, she also attended conducting classes with Dean Dixon and for a time she studied with Paul Wittgenstein for who Ravel composed his Piano Concerto for the Left Hand. In the mid-1940s it became clear that Philippa's colour was an insurmountable barrier to her career as a soloist in America, so she switched her focus to composing. Her Manhattan Nocturne was performed and broadcast in April 1945 at a New York Philarmonic Young People's Concert and this marked the emergence of Philippa Schuyler the composer. Twelve months later she made her debut in the dual role of pianist and composer with the New York Philharmonic at Lewisholm Stadium playing Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto in G in a programme that also included. Thor Johnson conducting her Rumpelstiltskin Scherzo and a work by Paul Creston. By the end of 1946, when she was still only 15, Philippa's compositions had been performed by the Chicago, San Francisco and Detroit Symphony Orchestras as well as the New York Philharmonic. In 1947 she played a piano transcription of her Fairy Tale Symphony at a festival in Nashville that also featured music by Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, William Schuman, Marc Blitzstein and the African American William Grant Still. After the concert the influential critic Virgil Thomson wrote of her Symphony "It is in every way as interesting as the symphonies Mozart wrote at the same age". But despite a limited number of high profile concerts in front of white audiences Philippa's appeal remained largely limited to the African American community. In a Look magazine profile she was described as "The Shirley Temple of American negroes" and her appearance with Arthur Fiedler in Boston was in the ghetto of the "Colored American night at the Pops". Philippa later wrote that it was in the late 1940s that she became intellectually aware of America's racial prejudice. Her insecurity was further fuelled by the increasing realisation that her mother viewed her simply as a genetic and behavourial experiment whose success was due to nutrition and training rather than natural talent. In 1950 Philippa's search for new audiences took her on extensive tours of Central and South America and it was on one of these tours that she was introduced to the occult ritual of tarot cards. She consulted the tarot for the rest of her life and used them to take important decisions including planning recital programmes. Her European debut was made with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1953 and during her visit to England she formed a lasting friendship with the black Guyanese conductor Rudolph Dunbar while the African American Everett Lee conducted several of the orchestras that accompanied her on her tours (see note below). In 1955 Philippa visited Africa for the first time and in 1958 undertook a world tour that took her to thirty-three countries. On returning she made her Carnegie Hall recital debut in June 1959 in front of an audience drawn from New York's A-list including Leonard Bernstein. The photo below shows Philippa with her parents after her adult recital debut at New York's Town Hall six years earlier. Philippa Schuyler was a pioneering feminist. Her militancy increased as her travels widened and she was a notable early campaigner against female circumcision in Africa. But there was a darker side to her sexuality and in Kathryn Talalay's biography a close friend of Philippa's, when asked what her greatest ambition was replied "Sex - and not of the nicest kind". Despite expressing public indifference to matrimony she was desperate to marry. This led her into several disastrous liaisons, one of which ended with an abortion in Mexico in 1965. Yet, in another example of the internal conflicts that tormented her, Philippa had converted to Catholicism in 1958. Despite her mother's involvement with the psychic and supernatural and her own involvement with the tarot she remained a devout Catholic for the rest of her life and visited more than 150 Christian missions in Africa during her travels. Her early success notwithstanding, it became clear that Philippa's colour was an insurmountable barrier to her ambitions as a pianist. So in 1959 she started to experiment with her ambiguous ethincity by describing herself as 'white' on visa applications. This allowed her to travel to South Africa which was then in the grip of apartheid, and during her brief visit she was championed by white residents. In the early 1960s the bold experiment in miscegenation reinvented herself as a white performer using the Iberian American name Felipa Monterro Schuyler and successfully applied for a Portugese passport using this identity. The photo below shows Philippa in Istanbul on one of her concert tours in 1953. Her black father had made the extraordinary political journey from moderate left to the extreme right. In his later years George Schuyler was described by a Harlem friend as politically to the right of Barry Goldwater and he finally fell from grace after writing a front page article for an ultra-conservative newspaper condemning the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Martin Luther King. What is even more extraordinary is that his daughter followed him on that journey and, as part of the plan to establish herself as a white performer, went on the John Birch Society lecture circuit using her Felipa identity to talk on subjects such "Red terror in Angola and Central America". In April 1963 Felipa Monterro Schuyler made her recital debut in Switzerland to mixed reviews and then followed a sequence of events that would be comic if they were not so tragic. After her 'white' debut in Europe she returned to America as Philippa Schuyler to make a recording and receive an award as a black woman of achievement. She then returned to Europe where she played as the 'white' Felipa in Italy and France before crossing the border into Germany where she changed identity again and appeared as the 'black' Philippa Schuyler. At this point it must have been apparent even to Philippa and her mother that her career as a pianist and composer had reached an impasse. Philippa had discovered the vocation of political journalist when she found herself in the Congo in 1960 as the country lurched towards independence. As well as a journalist she was a prolific author whose output included a semi-apocryphal autobiography, two novels, non-fiction books on the Congo and Vietnam, and a feminist tract. Her new career as a journalist was confirmed when she returned to the Congo to report with United Press International accreditation. Then, in 1966, she was invited by the US Ambassador in South Vietnam to play for wounded troops and was also retained as a correspondent by the ultra-conservative Manchester Union Leader that had published her father's infamous condemnation of Martin Luther King. Philippa Schuyler returned to Vietnam in spring 1967 where, despite supporting US involvement in Vietnam and her accreditation as a journalist to a notably right-wing newspaper, she attracted the attention of American intelligence officers. The attitudes that she found among the American forces on her second visit reignited her oppositiion to racism, and this was expressed in her second novel Dau Tranh! The heroine Jeanette, who is modeled on Philippa, is the child of a white and a black parent. Her dilemna is lucidly expressed in this extract: 'Her skin was light enough for her to be accepted as second-class white in Rhodesia, Kenya or South Africa, and its color made no difference in Europe. But to Americans it was the most important of all characteristics. It categorised one as a person to be insulted, to be treated as a pariah, to be deprived of respect in all deeper human relationships. The same white Americans who were supposed to be bringing democracy to Vietnam were incapable of practicing it themselves in any context that went deeper than the superficial.' Philippa gave a recital on South Vietnamese television on April 15, 1967. The programme consisted of her piano transcriptions of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and American in Paris, Copland's Scherzo humoristique and her own composition Normandie. On May 9, 1967 she was travelling on a US military helicopter to Da Nang on her way back to America for a recital in New York's Town Hall. When it was ten miles from its destination the Lycoming UH-1D crashed into Da Nang Bay, capsized and sank. Three of the sixteen personnel on board perished: the dead were an American soldier, a young Vietnamese orphan and Philippa Schuyler. An accident investigation board was unable to find a satisfactory explanation as to why the helicopter crashed on what should have been a routine flight. Philippa was 36 when she died and was the second woman journalist to be killed in Vietnam. She was buried in her favourite gold concert gown and President and Mrs Johnson sent a basket of red and white flowers to the funeral. Two years later her mother, Josephine Schuyler, hung herself. That is the story of Philippa Schuyler, all of which is in the public domain and much of it drawn from the the definitive Composition in Black and White, the life of Philippa Schuyler by Kathryn Talalay. It is a powerful and moving story. But as I retold it I was very aware of the dangers of slipping into the rhetoric of "undiscovered genius" and "neglected masterpiece". I was also aware that if my appreciation ended at this point it would fail to answer the question posed in my headline - Philippa Schuyler, genius or genetic experiment? What was missing was the music, and the apparently insurmountable problem was that there are no catalogue CDs of her as pianist or composer, and the only scores are at Syracuse University (see below). At which point Grammy winner, violinist, pianist, conductor, champion of the musically marginalised and African American John McLaughlin Williams enters the story. When I was first planning this feature I emailed John asking if he knew of any recordings of Philippa Schuyler's music. John replied no, but said his mother had an autographed score of some of Philippa's piano teaching pieces. Thinking 'nothing ventured, nothing gained', I then put the crazy idea to John that he record some of Philippa Schuyler's music for piano as part of my anniversary tribute. And that was what John agreed to do. Sadly we will not be able to hear Manhattan Nocturne or any of her other orchestral works. But we will be able to hear the first samples of her music to be widely available for decades, and John also generously agreed to keep a journal of his encounter with the child prodigy to shed some light on the question - Philippa Schuyler, genius or genetic experiment? I am very grateful to John McLaughlin Williams for his participation and his contribution can be read here. + Philippa Schuyler - August 2, 1931 to May 9, 1967 + * Sources include: 1. Composition in Black and White, the life of Philippa Schuyler by Kathryn Talalay (ISBN0195113934) 2. Jet magazine online archives via Vieille Annonce & Flickr 3. Philippa Schuyler Collection, Syracuse University online resources 4. Private collection of Norma McLaughlin Nelson, Shaker Heights, Ohio * A spread sheet prepared by the conductor's son and kindly made available to me shows Everett Lee's concets accompanying Philippa as including the following: Buenos Aires Philharmonic 1955, Buenos Aires Radio Orchestra 1955, Cordoba Symphony 1955, Barcelona Symphony 1956 and Madrid Philharmonic in 1956. * Music manuscripts in Philippa Schuyler Collection, Syracuse University by location: Oversize 4 - Manhattan Nocturne 1945 - full score, parts, loose parts, and envelope with notes written on it Oversize 5 - Nile Fantasia 1946 - full score, another full score, and piano parts for movements 2, 3, and 4 Oversize 5 - Rumpelstiltsken circa 1947 - full score, another full score, and loose parts in an envelope Oversize 6 - Rumpelstiltsken photostat sheets circa 1947 Box 6 - Published 1938-1955 Contains Three Little Pieces by Philippa Schuyler, 1938 (The Wolf, Autumn Rain, The Jolly Pig); Eight Little Pieces by Philippa Schuyler, 3rd edition circa 1940 (The Wolf, Autumn Rain, The Jolly Pig, At the Circus, Farewell, Song of the Machine, Morning Miniature, Postscript); Rumpelstiltsken para Piano, 1955 (3 copies). * Photo sources from top downwards: 1. Vieilles Annonces via Flickr 2. Vangobot 3. Beinecke Library Yale 4. Bibiophule 5. Vieilles Annonce via Flickr 6. Vieilles Annonce via Flickr 7. Vieille Annonce via Flickr 8. Wikipedia 9. Vangabot 10. Beinecke Library Yale * In 2004 rumours of a Philippa Schuyler biographical movie based on Kathryn Talalay's biography circulated. Associated Press reported bi-racial singer-songwriter Alicia Keys would make her acting debut playing Philippa Schuyler with the movie produced by Halle Berry, who acquired the film rights for the biography, and Marc Platt. But that path leads no further and it must be assumed that the film option has long since expired. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Mathematical trivia - the character count including spaces for this article is 17260, which is the equivalent of 124 tweets. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk Version 1.1 02/08/2010 - 'Grammy winner' corrected. Also on Facebook and Twitter. Comments ho'b said… The psychological aspect alone is astonishing. Look forward to the second part. 12:23 pm Philip Amos said… I knew just the bare bones of her story -- nothing like in as much detail as you have given us here. My mind is reeling a bit. Can't wait for part two. I think you may have excelled yourself with this one, Pliable. My thanks. 2:02 pm Anonymous said… Done as fiction, her story would be considered implausible. Superb item in all respects ... thank you! On to part two ... 2:08 pm Christinne said… Excellent article. Poor Phillippa was a victim of mind control. Google the term and u will see whats all about. Im sure she was used by the CIA in Vietnam and when she became useless and/or considered a threat, they disposed of her like of any other object aka the plane crash. One day the truth will come out... 2:47 pm new deal said… There are some interesting details in this article, but I heard a talk in Chicago that debunks the idea that Talalay's biography is 'definitive' (it represses key elements of Schuyler's life story). He also seemed to suggest that Schuyler's anti-black racism was more important than you suggest. His talk is available to download here http://works.bepress.com/danielmcneil/4/ 9:18 pm Unknown said… Thank you for this article except for one terrible sentence: "The approach [of child raising by not hugging and by beatings] may have been unconventional, but the results were spectacular. " No, no, no. Current literature suggests exactly the opposite. No physical affection and beatings hinder development most often. Even if it somehow "worked" in this case, the cost was way to great in my opinion. 12:29 pm Unknown said… I had never heard of her or her mother until recently. Her mother's COGDELL FAMILY in Texas relocated there in 1858 from Henderson County Tn. My grandmother was a COGDELL from the same lineage who remained in Tennessee. 1:55 pm Kevin Scott said… I don't know if I mentioned it here or not, but I am one of the few musicians who has reviewed most of Philippa Duke Schuyler's orchestral music. Suffice it to say, it would fill one CD comfortably. What is the music like? In her brief lifespan she composed a significant number of works, all of which were heard during her lifetime. All of the compositions, save Manhattan Nocturne, reside in the Arthur Schomburg branch of the New York Public Library in Harlem. The works are: Three Short Pieces (ca. 1939 - one movement for brass, one for strings and one for chamber orchestra) Manhattan Nocturne (1942; orchestrated from her piano piece - the score resides at Syracuse University) Rumpelstiltskin (Scherzo for Orchestra)(1944) Sleepy Hollow Sketches (Two pieces for Orchestra)(1946) The Nile Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra (Two versions: first version a one-movement concert piece, date unknown and never performed, second version an expanded four-movement concerto premiered in Egypt around 1965) The CD could feature both versions of the Nile Fantasy (1st version ca. 15 minutes, 2nd version ca. 22-25 minutes) in addition to all the other works whose total time is approximately 33-35 minutes. With the exception of her setting of excerpts from T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom for recitant and piano (Similar to Strauss' Enoch Arden), all works between 1946 and the mid-1960s are unfinished and in such a state that they can't be reconstructed (Example - her setting of T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock for chorus and orchestra barely lasts some thirteen to twenty measures in full score, unless complete sketches abound in another box of her music either at NYPL Schomburg or Syracuse University). "Seven Pillars of Wisdom", on the other hand, can be orchestrated, although the music serves more as an atmospheric accompaniment to Lawrence's prose, as one critic likened the music to Bartok, so anyone who attempts to orchestrate Schuyler's setting would have to take many things into consideration. One of the works that fascinated Philippa the pianist was Charles Tomlinson Griffes' thorny, expressionistic piano sonata which may play a significant role in her later compositions, both finished and incomplete. It was my goal back in the 1980s, and again around the late 1990s or early part of this century, to record the entire corpus of Schuyler's completed orchestral works. I had tried to interest Naxos to include her in their American Classics series, and almost had a deal to record the music in Belarus which fell through. To date I have not returned to this music, so when John McLaughlin Williams took an interest in it, I informed him of what the music is like and figured, since his connections are far more solid than mine are at present, that he could get a hold of the music and record it himself. I should note that I believe Schuyler's executrix is no longer with us, and that John or myself should contact Kathy Talalay, who has seen all of Schuyler's music at Schomburg. Upper Manhattan is the most northern region of the New York City borough of Manhattan. Its southern boundary has been variously defined, but some of the most common usages are 96th Street, the northern boundary of Central Park (110th Street), 125th Street, or 155th Street.[citation needed] The term Uptown can refer to Upper Manhattan, but is often used more generally for neighborhoods above 59th Street; in the broader definition, Uptown encompasses Upper Manhattan.[1] Upper Manhattan is generally taken to include the neighborhoods of Marble Hill, Inwood, Washington Heights (including Fort George, Sherman Creek and Hudson Heights), Harlem (including Sugar Hill, Hamilton Heights and Manhattanville), East Harlem, Morningside Heights, and Manhattan Valley (in the Upper West Side). The George Washington Bridge connects Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan across the Hudson River to Fort Lee, New Jersey, and is the world's busiest motor vehicle bridge.[2][3] In the late 19th century, the IRT Ninth Avenue Line and other elevated railroads brought people to the previously rustic Upper Manhattan. Until the late 20th century it was less influenced by the gentrification that had taken place in other parts of New York over the previous 30 years. Tourist attractions Like other residential areas, Upper Manhattan is not a major center of tourism in New York City, although many tourist attractions lie within it, such as Grant's Tomb, the Apollo Theater, United Palace, and The Cloisters, Sylvia's Restaurant, the Hamilton Grange, the Morris–Jumel Mansion, Minton's Playhouse, Sugar Hill, Riverside Church, the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, and the Dyckman House, along with Fort Tryon Park, most of Riverside Park, Riverbank State Park, Sakura Park, and other parks. Gallery City College of New York in Hamilton Heights City College of New York in Hamilton Heights   The Cloisters in Fort Tryon Park houses the medieval art collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Cloisters in Fort Tryon Park houses the medieval art collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.   The Little Red Lighthouse under the George Washington Bridge The Little Red Lighthouse under the George Washington Bridge   Inwood Hill Park contains the last remnant of the primeval forest which once covered Manhattan; these caves were used by native Lenape people. Inwood Hill Park contains the last remnant of the primeval forest which once covered Manhattan; these caves were used by native Lenape people. New York, often called New York City[a] or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over 300.46 square miles (778.2 km2), New York City is the most densely populated major city in the United States. The city is more than twice as populous as Los Angeles, the nation's second-largest city, and has a larger population than 38 of the nation's 50 states. New York City is located at the southern tip of the state of New York. The city is the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the U.S. by both population and urban area. With over 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York City is one of the world's most populous megacities.[10] New York City is a global cultural, financial, high-tech,[11] entertainment, glamor,[12] and media center with a significant influence on commerce, health care and life sciences,[13] research, technology, education, politics, tourism, dining, art, fashion, and sports. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York City is an important center for international diplomacy,[14][15] and it is sometimes described as the capital of the world.[16][17] Situated on one of the world's largest natural harbors, New York City comprises five boroughs, each of which is coextensive with a respective county of the state of New York. The five boroughs, which were created in 1898 when local governments were consolidated into a single municipal entity, are: Brooklyn (Kings County), Queens (Queens County), Manhattan (New York County), the Bronx (Bronx County), and Staten Island (Richmond County).[18] As of 2021, the New York metropolitan area is the second largest metropolitan economy in the world with a gross metropolitan product of over $2.4 trillion. If the New York metropolitan area were a sovereign state, it would have the eighth-largest economy in the world. New York City is an established safe haven for global investors.[19] As of 2023, New York City is the most expensive city in the world for expatriates to live.[20] New York City is home to the highest number of billionaires,[21][22] individuals of ultra-high net worth (greater than US$30 million),[23] and millionaires of any city in the world.[24] The city and its metropolitan area are the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York,[25] making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. New York City is home to more than 3.2 million residents born outside the U.S., the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world as of 2016.[26] It is the most visited U.S. city by international visitors.[27] New York City traces its origins to Fort Amsterdam and a trading post founded on the southern tip of Manhattan Island by Dutch colonists in approximately 1624. The settlement was named New Amsterdam (Dutch: Nieuw Amsterdam) in 1626 and was chartered as a city in 1653. The city came under British control in 1664 and was renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York.[28][29] The city was regained by the Dutch in July 1673 and was renamed New Orange for one year and three months; the city has been continuously named New York since November 1674. New York City was the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790,[30] and has been the largest U.S. city since 1790. The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the U.S. by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and is a symbol of the U.S. and its ideals of liberty and peace.[31] In the 21st century, New York City has emerged as a global node of creativity, entrepreneurship,[32] and as a symbol of freedom and cultural diversity.[33] The New York Times has won the most Pulitzer Prizes for journalism and remains the U.S. media's "Newspaper of record".[34] Many districts and monuments in New York City are major landmarks, including three of the world's ten-most visited tourist attractions in 2023.[35] A record 66.6 million tourists visited New York City in 2019. Times Square is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway Theater District,[36] one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections[37] and a major center of the world's entertainment industry.[38] New York's residential and commercial real estate markets are the most expensive in the world.[39][better source needed] Providing continuous 24/7 service and contributing to the nickname The City That Never Sleeps, the New York City Subway is the largest single-operator rapid transit system in the world with 472 passenger rail stations, and Penn Station in Midtown Manhattan is the busiest transportation hub in the Western Hemisphere.[40] The city features over 120 colleges and universities, including some of the world's top universities.[41] Its public urban university system, the City University of New York, is the largest in the nation.[42] Anchored by Wall Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City has been called both the world's leading financial and fintech center[43][44] and the most economically powerful city in the world,[45] and is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization, the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq.[46][47] The Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, part of the Stonewall National Monument, is considered the historic epicenter of LGBTQ+ culture[48] and the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement.[49][50] New York City is the headquarters of the global art market, with numerous art galleries and auction houses collectively hosting half of the world's art auctions; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art is both the largest and second-most-visited art museum in the United States and hosts the globally focused Met Gala haute couture fashion event annually.[51][52] Governors Island in New York Harbor is planned to host a US$1 billion research and education center as a leader in the climate crisis.[53] Etymology See also: Nicknames of New York City In 1664, New York was named in honor of the Duke of York, who would become King James II of England.[54] James's elder brother, King Charles II, appointed the Duke as proprietor of the former territory of New Netherland, including the city of New Amsterdam, when England seized it from Dutch control.[55] History Main article: History of New York City For a chronological guide, see Timeline of New York City. Early history Main article: History of New York City (prehistory–1664) Lenape sites in Lower Manhattan In the pre-Columbian era, the area of present-day New York City was inhabited by Algonquian Native Americans, including the Lenape. Their homeland, known as Lenapehoking, included the present-day areas of Staten Island, Manhattan, the Bronx, the western portion of Long Island (including the areas that would later become the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens), and the Lower Hudson Valley.[56] The first documented visit into New York Harbor by a European was in 1524 by Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano, an explorer from Florence in the service of the French crown.[57] He claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême (New Angoulême).[58] A Spanish expedition, led by the Portuguese captain Estêvão Gomes sailing for Emperor Charles V, arrived in New York Harbor in January 1525 and charted the mouth of the Hudson River, which he named Río de San Antonio ('Saint Anthony's River'). The Padrón Real of 1527, the first scientific map to show the East Coast of North America continuously, was informed by Gomes' expedition and labeled the northeastern United States as Tierra de Esteban Gómez in his honor.[59] In 1609, the English explorer Henry Hudson rediscovered New York Harbor while searching for the Northwest Passage to the Orient for the Dutch East India Company.[60] He proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River (now the Hudson River), named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange. Hudson's first mate described the harbor as "a very good Harbour for all windes" and the river as "a mile broad" and "full of fish".[61] Hudson sailed roughly 150 miles (240 km) north,[62] past the site of the present-day New York State capital city of Albany, in the belief that it might be an oceanic tributary before the river became too shallow to continue.[61] He made a ten-day exploration of the area and claimed the region for the Dutch East India Company. In 1614, the area between Cape Cod and Delaware Bay was claimed by the Netherlands and called Nieuw-Nederland ('New Netherland'). The first non–Native American inhabitant of what would eventually become New York City was Juan Rodriguez (transliterated to the Dutch language as Jan Rodrigues), a merchant from Santo Domingo. Born in Santo Domingo of Portuguese and African descent, he arrived in Manhattan during the winter of 1613–14, trapping for pelts and trading with the local population as a representative of the Dutch. Broadway, from 159th Street to 218th Street in Upper Manhattan, is named Juan Rodriguez Way in his honor.[63][64] Dutch rule Main articles: New Amsterdam  and  Fort Amsterdam New Amsterdam, centered in what eventually became Lower Manhattan, in 1664, the year England took control and renamed it New York The Castello Plan, a 1660 map of New Amsterdam (the top right corner is roughly north) in Lower Manhattan A permanent European presence near New York Harbor was established in 1624, making New York the 12th-oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement in the continental United States,[65] with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island. In 1625, construction was started on a citadel and Fort Amsterdam, later called Nieuw Amsterdam (New Amsterdam), on present-day Manhattan Island.[66][67] The colony of New Amsterdam was centered on what would ultimately become Lower Manhattan. Its area extended from the southern tip of Manhattan to modern-day Wall Street, where a 12-foot (3.7 m) wooden stockade was built in 1653 to protect against Native American and British raids.[68] In 1626, the Dutch colonial Director-General Peter Minuit, acting as charged by the Dutch West India Company, purchased the island of Manhattan from the Canarsie, a small Lenape band,[69] for "the value of 60 guilders"[70] (about $900 in 2018).[71] A frequently told but disproved legend claims that Manhattan was purchased for $24 worth of glass beads.[72][73] Following the purchase, New Amsterdam grew slowly.[29] To attract settlers, the Dutch instituted the patroon system in 1628, whereby wealthy Dutchmen (patroons, or patrons) who brought 50 colonists to New Netherland would be awarded swaths of land, along with local political autonomy and rights to participate in the lucrative fur trade. This program had little success.[74] Since 1621, the Dutch West India Company had operated as a monopoly in New Netherland, on authority granted by the Dutch States General. In 1639–1640, in an effort to bolster economic growth, the Dutch West India Company relinquished its monopoly over the fur trade, leading to growth in the production and trade of food, timber, tobacco, and slaves (particularly with the Dutch West Indies).[29][75] In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant began his tenure as the last Director-General of New Netherland. During his tenure, the population of New Netherland grew from 2,000 to 8,000.[76][77] Stuyvesant has been credited with improving law and order in the colony; however, he also earned a reputation as a despotic leader. He instituted regulations on liquor sales, attempted to assert control over the Dutch Reformed Church, and blocked other religious groups (including Quakers, Jews, and Lutherans) from establishing houses of worship.[78] The Dutch West India Company would eventually attempt to ease tensions between Stuyvesant and residents of New Amsterdam.[79] English rule Main article: History of New York City (1665–1783) The Fall of New Amsterdam by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, part of the Conquest of New Netherland A painting of a ship firing its cannons in a harbor Fort George and New York with British Navy ships of the line c. 1731 In 1664, unable to summon any significant resistance, Stuyvesant surrendered New Amsterdam to English troops, led by Colonel Richard Nicolls, without bloodshed.[78][79] The terms of the surrender permitted Dutch residents to remain in the colony and allowed for religious freedom.[80] In 1667, during negotiations leading to the Treaty of Breda after the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch decided to keep the nascent plantation colony of what is now Suriname (on the northern South American coast) they had gained from the English; and in return, the English kept New Amsterdam. The fledgling settlement was promptly renamed "New York" after the Duke of York (the future King James II and VII), who would eventually be deposed in the Glorious Revolution.[81] After the founding, the duke gave part of the colony to proprietors George Carteret and John Berkeley. Fort Orange, 150 miles (240 km) north on the Hudson River, was renamed Albany after James's Scottish title.[82] The transfer was confirmed in 1667 by the Treaty of Breda, which concluded the Second Anglo-Dutch War.[83] On August 24, 1673, during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, Dutch captain Anthony Colve seized the colony of New York from the English at the behest of Cornelis Evertsen the Youngest and rechristened it "New Orange" after William III, the Prince of Orange.[84] The Dutch would soon return the island to England under the Treaty of Westminster of November 1674.[85][86] Several intertribal wars among the Native Americans and some epidemics brought on by contact with the Europeans caused sizeable population losses for the Lenape between the years 1660 and 1670.[87] By 1700, the Lenape population had diminished to 200.[88] New York experienced several yellow fever epidemics in the 18th century, losing ten percent of its population to the disease in 1702 alone.[89][90] Province of New York and slavery Slave being burned at the stake in N.Y.C. after the 1741 slave revolt. Thirteen slaves were burned.[91] In the early 18th century, New York grew in importance as a trading port while as a part of the colony of New York.[92] It also became a center of slavery, with 42% of households enslaving Africans by 1730, the highest percentage outside Charleston, South Carolina.[93] Most cases were that of domestic slavery, as a New York household then commonly used one or more slaves as cooks and house keepers. Others were hired out to work at labor. Slavery became integrally tied to New York's economy through the labor of slaves throughout the port, and the banking and shipping industries trading with the American South. During construction in Foley Square in the 1990s, the African Burying Ground was discovered; the cemetery included 10,000 to 20,000 of graves of colonial-era Africans, some enslaved and some free.[94] The 1735 trial and acquittal in Manhattan of John Peter Zenger, who had been accused of seditious libel after criticizing colonial governor William Cosby, helped to establish the freedom of the press in North America.[95] In 1754, Columbia University was founded under charter by King George II as King's College in Lower Manhattan.[96] American Revolution Further information: American Revolution An illustration of the Battle of Long Island, one of the largest battles of the American Revolutionary War, which took place in Brooklyn on August 27, 1776 The Stamp Act Congress met in New York in October 1765, as the Sons of Liberty organization emerged in the city and skirmished over the next ten years with British troops stationed there.[97] The Battle of Long Island, the largest battle of the American Revolutionary War, was fought in August 1776 within the modern-day borough of Brooklyn.[98] After the battle, in which the Americans were defeated, the British made the city their military and political base of operations in North America. The city was a haven for Loyalist refugees and escaped slaves who joined the British lines for freedom newly promised by the Crown for all fighters. As many as 10,000 escaped slaves crowded into the city during the British occupation. When the British forces evacuated at the close of the war in 1783, they transported 3,000 freedmen for resettlement in Nova Scotia.[99] They resettled other freedmen in England and the Caribbean. The only attempt at a peaceful solution to the war took place at the Conference House on Staten Island between American delegates, including Benjamin Franklin, and British general Lord Howe on September 11, 1776. Shortly after the British occupation began, the Great Fire of New York occurred, a large conflagration on the West Side of Lower Manhattan, which destroyed about a quarter of the buildings in the city, including Trinity Church.[100] Post-Revolutionary War Main article: History of New York City (1784–1854) First inauguration of George Washington in 1789 In 1785, the assembly of the Congress of the Confederation made New York City the national capital shortly after the war. New York was the last capital of the U.S. under the Articles of Confederation and the first capital under the Constitution of the United States. As the U.S. capital, New York City hosted several events of national scope in 1789—the first President of the United States, George Washington, was inaugurated; the first United States Congress and the Supreme Court of the United States each assembled for the first time; and the United States Bill of Rights was drafted, all at Federal Hall on Wall Street.[101] In 1790, for the first time, New York City, surpassed Philadelphia as the nation's largest city. At the end of that year, pursuant to the Residence Act, the national capital was moved to Philadelphia.[102][103] Late 19th century Main article: History of New York City (1855–1897) A painting of a snowy city street with horse-drawn sleds and a 19th-century fire truck under blue sky Broadway, which follows the Native American Wecquaesgeek Trail through Manhattan, in 1840.[104] The Great East River Bridge To connect the cities of New York and Brooklyn, Currier & Ives, 1872 Over the course of the nineteenth century, New York City's population grew from 60,000 to 3.43 million.[105] Under New York State's abolition act of 1799, children of slave mothers were to be eventually liberated but to be held in indentured servitude until their mid-to-late twenties.[106][107] Together with slaves freed by their masters after the Revolutionary War and escaped slaves, a significant free-Black population gradually developed in Manhattan. Under such influential United States founders as Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, the New York Manumission Society worked for abolition and established the African Free School to educate Black children.[108] It was not until 1827 that slavery was completely abolished in the state, and free Blacks struggled afterward with discrimination. New York interracial abolitionist activism continued; among its leaders were graduates of the African Free School. New York city's population jumped from 123,706 in 1820 to 312,710 by 1840, 16,000 of whom were Black.[109][110] In the 19th century, the city was transformed by both commercial and residential development relating to its status as a national and international trading center, as well as by European immigration, respectively.[111] The city adopted the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which expanded the city street grid to encompass almost all of Manhattan. The 1825 completion of the Erie Canal through central New York connected the Atlantic port to the agricultural markets and commodities of the North American interior via the Hudson River and the Great Lakes.[112] Local politics became dominated by Tammany Hall, a political machine supported by Irish and German immigrants.[113] Several prominent American literary figures lived in New York during the 1830s and 1840s, including William Cullen Bryant, Washington Irving, Herman Melville, Rufus Wilmot Griswold, John Keese, Nathaniel Parker Willis, and Edgar Allan Poe. Public-minded members of the contemporaneous business elite lobbied for the establishment of Central Park, which in 1857 became the first landscaped park in an American city. The Great Irish Famine brought a large influx of Irish immigrants, of whom more than 200,000 were living in New York by 1860, representing upward of one-quarter of the city's population.[114] There was also extensive immigration from the German provinces, where revolutions had disrupted societies, and Germans comprised another 25% of New York's population by 1860.[115][116] American Civil War Main article: New York City in the American Civil War A drawing from The Illustrated London News showing armed rioters clashing with Union Army soldiers during the New York City draft riots in 1863 Democratic Party candidates were consistently elected to local office, increasing the city's ties to the South and its dominant party. In 1861, Mayor Fernando Wood called upon the aldermen to declare independence from Albany and the United States after the South seceded, but his proposal was not acted on.[108] Anger at new military conscription laws during the American Civil War (1861–1865), which spared wealthier men who could afford to pay a $300 (equivalent to $7,130 in 2022) commutation fee to hire a substitute,[117] led to the Draft Riots of 1863, whose most visible participants were ethnic Irish working class.[108] The draft riots deteriorated into attacks on New York's elite, followed by attacks on Black New Yorkers and their property after fierce competition for a decade between Irish immigrants and Black people for work. Rioters burned the Colored Orphan Asylum to the ground, with more than 200 children escaping harm due to efforts of the New York Police Department, which was mainly made up of Irish immigrants.[115] At least 120 people were killed.[118] Eleven Black men were lynched over five days, and the riots forced hundreds of Blacks to flee the city for Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and New Jersey. The Black population in Manhattan fell below 10,000 by 1865, which it had last been in 1820. The White working class had established dominance.[115][118] Violence by longshoremen against Black men was especially fierce in the docks area.[115] It was one of the worst incidents of civil unrest in American history.[119] In 1898, the City of New York was formed with the consolidation of Brooklyn (until then a separate city), the County of New York (which then included parts of the Bronx), the County of Richmond, and the western portion of the County of Queens.[120] The opening of the subway in 1904, first built as separate private systems, helped bind the new city together.[121] Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the city became a world center for industry, commerce, and communication.[122] Early 20th century Main articles: History of New York City (1898–1945) and History of New York City (1946–1977) Manhattan's Little Italy in the Lower East Side, c. 1900 In 1904, the steamship General Slocum caught fire in the East River, killing 1,021 people on board.[123] In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the city's worst industrial disaster, took the lives of 146 garment workers and spurred the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and major improvements in factory safety standards.[124] New York's non-White population was 36,620 in 1890.[125] New York City was a prime destination in the early twentieth century for African Americans during the Great Migration from the American South, and by 1916, New York City had become home to the largest urban African diaspora in North America.[126] The Harlem Renaissance of literary and cultural life flourished during the era of Prohibition.[127] The larger economic boom generated construction of skyscrapers competing in height and creating an identifiable skyline. A man working on a steel girder high about a city skyline. A construction worker atop the Empire State Building during its construction in 1930. The Chrysler Building is visible behind him. New York City became the most populous urbanized area in the world in the early 1920s, overtaking London. The metropolitan area surpassed the 10 million mark in the early 1930s, becoming the first megacity in human history.[128] The Great Depression saw the election of reformer Fiorello La Guardia as mayor and the fall of Tammany Hall after eighty years of political dominance.[129] Returning World War II veterans created a post-war economic boom and the development of large housing tracts in eastern Queens and Nassau County as well as similar suburban areas in New Jersey. New York emerged from the war unscathed as the leading city of the world, with Wall Street leading America's place as the world's dominant economic power. The United Nations headquarters was completed in 1952, solidifying New York's global geopolitical influence, and the rise of abstract expressionism in the city precipitated New York's displacement of Paris as the center of the art world.[130] A two-story building with brick on the first floor, with two arched doorways, and gray stucco on the second floor off of which hang numerous rainbow flags. Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, a designated U.S. National Historic Landmark and National Monument, was the site of the June 1969 Stonewall riots and the cradle of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.[131][132][133] The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent protests by members of the gay community against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan.[134] They are widely considered to be the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement[131][135][136][137] and the modern fight for LGBT rights.[138][139] Wayne R. Dynes, author of the Encyclopedia of Homosexuality, wrote that drag queens were the only "transgender folks around" during the June 1969 Stonewall riots. The transgender community in New York City played a significant role in fighting for LGBT equality during the period of the Stonewall riots and thereafter.[140] In the 1970s, job losses due to industrial restructuring caused New York City to suffer from economic problems and rising crime rates.[141] Late 20th century to present Main articles: History of New York City (1978–present) and September 11 attacks While a resurgence in the financial industry greatly improved the city's economic health in the 1980s, New York's crime rate continued to increase through that decade and into the beginning of the 1990s.[142] By the mid 1990s, crime rates started to drop dramatically due to revised police strategies, improving economic opportunities, gentrification, and new residents, both American transplants and new immigrants from Asia and Latin America. Important new sectors, such as Silicon Alley, emerged in the city's economy.[143] New York City's population reached all-time highs in the 2000, 2010, and 2020 US censuses. Two tall, gray, rectangular buildings spewing black smoke and flames, particularly from the left of the two. United Airlines Flight 175 hits the South Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the largest terrorist attack in world history. New York City suffered the bulk of the economic damage and largest loss of human life in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks.[144] Two of the four airliners hijacked that day were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, destroying the towers and killing 2,192 civilians, 343 firefighters, and 71 law enforcement officers. The North Tower became, and remains, the tallest building to ever be destroyed.[145] The area was rebuilt with a new World Trade Center, the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, and other new buildings and infrastructure.[146] The World Trade Center PATH station, which had opened on July 19, 1909, as the Hudson Terminal, was also destroyed in the attacks. A temporary station was built and opened on November 23, 2003. An 800,000-square-foot (74,000 m2) permanent rail station designed by Santiago Calatrava, the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, the city's third-largest hub, was completed in 2016.[147] The new One World Trade Center is the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere[148] and the seventh-tallest building in the world by pinnacle height, with its spire reaching a symbolic 1,776 feet (541.3 m) in reference to the year of U.S. independence.[149][150][151][152] The Occupy Wall Street protests in Zuccotti Park in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan began on September 17, 2011, receiving global attention and popularizing the Occupy movement against social and economic inequality worldwide.[153] Manhattan in the aftermath of the Hurricane Sandy in 2012, the worst to strike the city since 1700.[154] New York City was heavily affected by Hurricane Sandy in late October 2012. Sandy's impacts included the flooding of the New York City Subway system, of many suburban communities, and of all road tunnels entering Manhattan except the Lincoln Tunnel. The New York Stock Exchange closed for two consecutive days. Numerous homes and businesses were destroyed by fire, including over 100 homes in Breezy Point, Queens. Large parts of the city and surrounding areas lost electricity for several days. Several thousand people in Midtown Manhattan were evacuated for six days due to a crane collapse at Extell's One57. Bellevue Hospital Center and a few other large hospitals were closed and evacuated. Flooding at 140 West Street and another exchange disrupted voice and data communication in Lower Manhattan. At least 43 people lost their lives in New York City as a result of Sandy, and the economic losses in New York City were estimated to be roughly $19 billion. The disaster spawned long-term efforts towards infrastructural projects to counter climate change and rising seas.[155][156] In March 2020, the first case of COVID-19 in the city was confirmed in Manhattan.[157] The city rapidly replaced Wuhan, China to become the global epicenter of the pandemic during the early phase, before the infection became widespread across the world and the rest of the nation. As of March 2021, New York City had recorded over 30,000 deaths from COVID-19-related complications. Geography Main articles: Geography of New York City and Geography of New York–New Jersey Harbor Estuary Aerial view of the New York City metropolitan area with Manhattan at its center During the Wisconsin glaciation, 75,000 to 11,000 years ago, the New York City area was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 2,000 feet (610 m) in depth.[158] The erosive forward movement of the ice (and its subsequent retreat) contributed to the separation of what is now Long Island and Staten Island. That action also left bedrock at a relatively shallow depth, providing a solid foundation for most of Manhattan's skyscrapers.[159] New York City is situated in the northeastern United States, in southeastern New York State, approximately halfway between Washington, D.C. and Boston. The location at the mouth of the Hudson River, which feeds into a naturally sheltered harbor and then into the Atlantic Ocean, has helped the city grow in significance as a trading port. Most of New York City is built on the three islands of Long Island, Manhattan, and Staten Island. The Hudson River flows through the Hudson Valley into New York Bay. Between New York City and Troy, New York, the river is an estuary.[160] The Hudson River separates the city from the U.S. state of New Jersey. The East River—a tidal strait—flows from Long Island Sound and separates the Bronx and Manhattan from Long Island. The Harlem River, another tidal strait between the East and Hudson rivers, separates most of Manhattan from the Bronx. The Bronx River, which flows through the Bronx and Westchester County, is the only entirely freshwater river in the city.[161] The city's land has been altered substantially by human intervention, with considerable land reclamation along the waterfronts since Dutch colonial times; reclamation is most prominent in Lower Manhattan, with developments such as Battery Park City in the 1970s and 1980s.[162] Some of the natural relief in topography has been evened out, especially in Manhattan.[163] The city's total area is 468.484 square miles (1,213.37 km2); 302.643 sq mi (783.84 km2) of the city is land and 165.841 sq mi (429.53 km2) of this is water.[164][165] The highest point in the city is Todt Hill on Staten Island, which, at 409.8 feet (124.9 m) above sea level, is the highest point on the eastern seaboard south of Maine.[166] The summit of the ridge is mostly covered in woodlands as part of the Staten Island Greenbelt.[167] Boroughs Main articles: Boroughs of New York City and Neighborhoods in New York City A map showing five boroughs in different colors.   1. Manhattan   2. Brooklyn   3. Queens   4. The Bronx   5. Staten Island New York City's five boroughsvte Jurisdiction Population Land area Density of population GDP † Borough County Census (2020) square miles square km people/ sq. mile people/ sq. km billions (2012 US$) 2 The Bronx Bronx 1,472,654 42.2 109.3 34,920 13,482 $38.726 Brooklyn Kings 2,736,074 69.4 179.7 39,438 15,227 $92.300 Manhattan New York 1,694,251 22.7 58.8 74,781 28,872 $651.619 Queens Queens 2,405,464 108.7 281.5 22,125 8,542 $88.578 Staten Island Richmond 495,747 57.5 148.9 8,618 3,327 $14.806 City of New York 8,804,190 302.6 783.8 29,095 11,234 $885.958 State of New York 20,215,751 47,126.4 122,056.8 429 166 $1,514.779 † GDP = Gross Domestic Product    Sources:[168][169][170][171] and see individual borough articles. New York City is sometimes referred to collectively as the Five Boroughs.[172] Each borough is coextensive with a respective county of New York State, making New York City one of the U.S. municipalities in multiple counties. There are hundreds of distinct neighborhoods throughout the boroughs, many with a definable history and character. If the boroughs were each independent cities, four of the boroughs (Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx) would be among the ten most populous cities in the United States (Staten Island would be ranked 37th as of 2020); these same boroughs are coterminous with the four most densely populated counties in the United States: New York (Manhattan), Kings (Brooklyn), Bronx, and Queens. Manhattan Lower and Midtown Manhattan photographed by a SkySat satellite in August 2017 Midtown Manhattan, the world's largest central business district Manhattan (New York County) is the geographically smallest and most densely populated borough. It is home to Central Park and most of the city's skyscrapers, and is sometimes locally known as The City.[173] Manhattan's population density of 72,033 people per square mile (27,812/km2) in 2015 makes it the highest of any county in the United States and higher than the density of any individual American city.[174] Manhattan is the cultural, administrative, and financial center of New York City and contains the headquarters of many major multinational corporations, the United Nations headquarters, Wall Street, and a number of important universities. The borough of Manhattan is often described as the financial and cultural center of the world.[175][176] Most of the borough is situated on Manhattan Island, at the mouth of the Hudson River and the East River, and its southern tip, at the confluence of the two rivers, represents the birthplace of New York City itself. Several small islands also compose part of the borough of Manhattan, including Randalls and Wards Islands, and Roosevelt Island in the East River, and Governors Island and Liberty Island to the south in New York Harbor. Manhattan Island is loosely divided into the Lower, Midtown, and Uptown regions. Uptown Manhattan is divided by Central Park into the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side, and above the park is Harlem, bordering the Bronx (Bronx County). Harlem was predominantly occupied by Jewish and Italian Americans in the 19th century until the Great Migration. It was the center of the Harlem Renaissance. The borough of Manhattan also includes a small neighborhood on the mainland, called Marble Hill, which is contiguous with the Bronx. New York City's remaining four boroughs are collectively referred to as the Outer Boroughs. Brooklyn Panorama of Gowanus Canal, as viewed from Union Street Bridge, Gowanus, Brooklyn Brooklyn (Kings County), on the western tip of Long Island, is the city's most populous borough. Brooklyn is known for its cultural, social, and ethnic diversity, an independent art scene, distinct neighborhoods, and a distinctive architectural heritage. Downtown Brooklyn is the largest central core neighborhood in the Outer Boroughs. The borough has a long beachfront shoreline including Coney Island, established in the 1870s as one of the earliest amusement grounds in the U.S.[177] Marine Park and Prospect Park are the two largest parks in Brooklyn.[178] Since 2010, Brooklyn has evolved into a thriving hub of entrepreneurship and high technology startup firms,[179][180] and of postmodern art and design.[180][181] Queens The growing skyline of Long Island City in Queens,[182] facing the East River Queens (Queens County), on Long Island north and east of Brooklyn, is geographically the largest borough, the most ethnically diverse county in the United States,[183] and the most ethnically diverse urban area in the world.[184][185] Historically a collection of small towns and villages founded by the Dutch, the borough has since developed both commercial and residential prominence. Downtown Flushing has become one of the busiest central core neighborhoods in the outer boroughs. Queens is the site of the Citi Field baseball stadium, home of the New York Mets, and hosts the annual U.S. Open tennis tournament at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park. Additionally, two of the three busiest airports serving the New York metropolitan area, John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport, are in Queens. The third is Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey. The Bronx The Yankee Stadium in the Bronx The Bronx (Bronx County) is both New York City's northernmost borough, and the only one that is mostly on the mainland. It is the location of Yankee Stadium, the baseball park of the New York Yankees, and home to the largest cooperatively-owned housing complex in the United States, Co-op City.[186] It is also home to the Bronx Zoo, the world's largest metropolitan zoo,[187] which spans 265 acres (1.07 km2) and houses more than 6,000 animals.[188] The Bronx is also the birthplace of hip hop music and its associated culture.[189] Pelham Bay Park is the largest park in New York City, at 2,772 acres (1,122 ha).[190] Staten Island St. George, Staten Island Staten Island (Richmond County) is the most suburban in character of the five boroughs. Staten Island is connected to Brooklyn by the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, and to Manhattan by way of the free Staten Island Ferry, a daily commuter ferry that provides unobstructed views of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and Lower Manhattan. In central Staten Island, the Staten Island Greenbelt spans approximately 2,500 acres (10 km2), including 28 miles (45 km) of walking trails and one of the last undisturbed forests in the city.[191] Designated in 1984 to protect the island's natural lands, the Greenbelt comprises seven city parks. Architecture Further information: Architecture of New York City; List of buildings, sites, and monuments in New York City; List of tallest buildings in New York City; and List of hotels in New York City The Empire State Building has setbacks, Art Deco details, and a spire. It was the world's tallest building from 1931 to 1970. The Chrysler Building, built in 1930, is in the Art Deco style, with ornamental hubcaps and a spire. Landmark 19th-century rowhouses, including brownstones, on tree-lined Kent Street in the Greenpoint Historic District, Brooklyn Modernist and Gothic Revival architecture in Midtown Manhattan New York has architecturally noteworthy buildings in a wide range of styles and from distinct time periods, from the Dutch Colonial Pieter Claesen Wyckoff House in Brooklyn, the oldest section of which dates to 1656, to the modern One World Trade Center, the skyscraper at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan and the most expensive office tower in the world by construction cost.[192] Manhattan's skyline, with its many skyscrapers, is universally recognized, and the city has been home to several of the tallest buildings in the world. As of 2019, New York City had 6,455 high-rise buildings, the third most in the world after Hong Kong and Seoul.[193] Of these, as of 2011, 550 completed structures were at least 330 feet (100 m) high, with more than fifty completed skyscrapers taller than 656 feet (200 m). These include the Woolworth Building, an early example of Gothic Revival architecture in skyscraper design, built with massively scaled Gothic detailing; completed in 1913, for 17 years it was the world's tallest building.[194] The 1916 Zoning Resolution required setbacks in new buildings and restricted towers to a percentage of the lot size, to allow sunlight to reach the streets below.[195] The Art Deco style of the Chrysler Building (1930) and Empire State Building (1931), with their tapered tops and steel spires, reflected the zoning requirements. The buildings have distinctive ornamentation, such as the eagles at the corners of the 61st floor on the Chrysler Building, and are considered some of the finest examples of the Art Deco style.[196] A highly influential example of the International Style in the United States is the Seagram Building (1957), distinctive for its façade using visible bronze-toned I-beams to evoke the building's structure. The Condé Nast Building (2000) is a prominent example of green design in American skyscrapers[197] and has received an award from the American Institute of Architects and AIA New York State for its design. The character of New York's large residential districts is often defined by the elegant brownstone rowhouses and townhouses and shabby tenements that were built during a period of rapid expansion from 1870 to 1930.[198] In contrast, New York City also has neighborhoods that are less densely populated and feature free-standing dwellings. In neighborhoods such as Riverdale (in the Bronx), Ditmas Park (in Brooklyn), and Douglaston (in Queens), large single-family homes are common in various architectural styles such as Tudor Revival and Victorian.[199][200][201] 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.[202] A distinctive feature of many of the city's buildings is the roof-mounted wooden water tower. In the 1800s, the city required their installation on buildings higher than six stories to prevent the need for excessively high water pressures at lower elevations, which could break municipal water pipes.[203] Garden apartments became popular during the 1920s in outlying areas, such as Jackson Heights.[204] According to the United States Geological Survey, an updated analysis of seismic hazard in July 2014 revealed a "slightly lower hazard for tall buildings" in New York City than previously assessed. Scientists estimated this lessened risk based upon a lower likelihood than previously thought of slow shaking near the city, which would be more likely to cause damage to taller structures from an earthquake in the vicinity of the city.[205] Manhattan contained over 500 million square feet of office space as of 2022; the COVID-19 pandemic and hybrid work model have prompted consideration of commercial-to-residential conversion within Midtown Manhattan.[206] Ten mile (16km) Manhattan skyline panorama from 120th Street to the Battery, taken in February 2018 from across the Hudson River in Weehawken, New Jersey Riverside ChurchDeutsche Bank Center220 Central Park SouthCentral Park TowerOne57432 Park Avenue53W53Chrysler BuildingBank of America Tower4 Times SquareThe New York Times BuildingEmpire State BuildingManhattan Westa: 55 Hudson Yards, 14b: 35 Hudson Yards, 14c: 10 Hudson Yards, 14d: 15 Hudson Yards56 Leonard Street8 Spruce StreetWoolworth Building70 Pine StreetFour Seasons Downtown40 Wall Street3 World Trade Center4 World Trade CenterOne World Trade Center Climate Main article: Climate of New York City New York City Climate chart (explanation) J F M A M J J A S O N D   3.6  4028   3.2  4230   4.3  5036   4.1  6246   4  7155   4.5  8064   4.6  8570   4.6  8369   4.3  7662   4.4  6551   3.6  5442   4.4  4434 █ Average max. and min. temperatures in °F █ Precipitation totals in inches Metric conversion Deep snow in Brooklyn during the Blizzard of 2006 Nor'easter Under the Köppen climate classification, using the 0 °C (32 °F) isotherm, New York City features a humid subtropical climate (Cfa), and is thus the northernmost major city on the North American continent with this categorization. The suburbs to the immediate north and west lie in the transitional zone between humid subtropical and humid continental climates (Dfa).[207][208] By the Trewartha classification, the city is defined as having an oceanic climate (Do).[209][210] Annually, the city averages 234 days with at least some sunshine.[211] The city lies in the USDA 7b plant hardiness zone.[212] Winters are chilly and damp, and prevailing wind patterns that blow sea breezes offshore temper the moderating effects of the Atlantic Ocean; yet the Atlantic and the partial shielding from colder air by the Appalachian Mountains keep the city warmer in the winter than inland North American cities at similar or lesser latitudes such as Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis. The daily mean temperature in January, the area's coldest month, is 33.3 °F (0.7 °C).[213] Temperatures usually drop to 10 °F (−12 °C) several times per winter,[214] yet can also reach 60 °F (16 °C) for several days even in the coldest winter month. Spring and autumn are unpredictable and can range from cool to warm, although they are usually mild with low humidity. Summers are typically hot and humid, with a daily mean temperature of 77.5 °F (25.3 °C) in July.[213] Nighttime temperatures are often enhanced due to the urban heat island effect. Daytime temperatures exceed 90 °F (32 °C) on average of 17 days each summer and in some years exceed 100 °F (38 °C), although this is a rare achievement, last occurring on July 18, 2012.[215] Similarly, readings of 0 °F (−18 °C) are also extremely rare, last occurring on February 14, 2016.[216] Extreme temperatures have ranged from −15 °F (−26 °C), recorded on February 9, 1934, up to 106 °F (41 °C) on July 9, 1936;[213] the coldest recorded wind chill was −37 °F (−38 °C) on the same day as the all-time record low.[217] The record cold daily maximum was 2 °F (−17 °C) on December 30, 1917, while, conversely, the record warm daily minimum was 87 °F (31 °C), on July 2, 1903.[215] The average water temperature of the nearby Atlantic Ocean ranges from 39.7 °F (4.3 °C) in February to 74.1 °F (23.4 °C) in August.[218] The city receives 49.5 inches (1,260 mm) of precipitation annually, which is relatively evenly spread throughout the year. Average winter snowfall between 1991 and 2020 has been 29.8 inches (76 cm); this varies considerably between years. Hurricanes and tropical storms are rare in the New York area.[219] Hurricane Sandy brought a destructive storm surge to New York City on the evening of October 29, 2012, flooding numerous streets, tunnels, and subway lines in Lower Manhattan and other areas of the city and cutting off electricity in many parts of the city and its suburbs.[220] The storm and its profound impacts have prompted the discussion of constructing seawalls and other coastal barriers around the shorelines of the city and the metropolitan area to minimize the risk of destructive consequences from another such event in the future.[155][156] The coldest month on record is January 1857, with a mean temperature of 19.6 °F (−6.9 °C) whereas the warmest months on record are July 1825 and July 1999, both with a mean temperature of 81.4 °F (27.4 °C).[221] The warmest years on record are 2012 and 2020, both with mean temperatures of 57.1 °F (13.9 °C). The coldest year is 1836, with a mean temperature of 47.3 °F (8.5 °C).[221][222] The driest month on record is June 1949, with 0.02 inches (0.51 mm) of rainfall. The wettest month was August 2011, with 18.95 inches (481 mm) of rainfall. The driest year on record is 1965, with 26.09 inches (663 mm) of rainfall. The wettest year was 1983, with 80.56 inches (2,046 mm) of rainfall.[223] The snowiest month on record is February 2010, with 36.9 inches (94 cm) of snowfall. The snowiest season (Jul–Jun) on record is 1995–1996, with 75.6 inches (192 cm) of snowfall. The least snowy season was 2022–2023, with 2.3 inches (5.8 cm) of snowfall.[224] The earliest seasonal trace of snowfall occurred on October 10, in both 1979 and 1925. The latest seasonal trace of snowfall occurred on May 9, in both 2020 and 1977.[225] vte Climate data for New York (Belvedere Castle, Central Park), 1991–2020 normals,[b] extremes 1869–present[c] Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year Record high °F (°C) 72 (22) 78 (26) 86 (30) 96 (36) 99 (37) 101 (38) 106 (41) 104 (40) 102 (39) 94 (34) 84 (29) 75 (24) 106 (41) Mean maximum °F (°C) 60.4 (15.8) 60.7 (15.9) 70.3 (21.3) 82.9 (28.3) 88.5 (31.4) 92.1 (33.4) 95.7 (35.4) 93.4 (34.1) 89.0 (31.7) 79.7 (26.5) 70.7 (21.5) 62.9 (17.2) 97.0 (36.1) Average high °F (°C) 39.5 (4.2) 42.2 (5.7) 49.9 (9.9) 61.8 (16.6) 71.4 (21.9) 79.7 (26.5) 84.9 (29.4) 83.3 (28.5) 76.2 (24.6) 64.5 (18.1) 54.0 (12.2) 44.3 (6.8) 62.6 (17.0) Daily mean °F (°C) 33.7 (0.9) 35.9 (2.2) 42.8 (6.0) 53.7 (12.1) 63.2 (17.3) 72.0 (22.2) 77.5 (25.3) 76.1 (24.5) 69.2 (20.7) 57.9 (14.4) 48.0 (8.9) 39.1 (3.9) 55.8 (13.2) Average low °F (°C) 27.9 (−2.3) 29.5 (−1.4) 35.8 (2.1) 45.5 (7.5) 55.0 (12.8) 64.4 (18.0) 70.1 (21.2) 68.9 (20.5) 62.3 (16.8) 51.4 (10.8) 42.0 (5.6) 33.8 (1.0) 48.9 (9.4) Mean minimum °F (°C) 9.8 (−12.3) 12.7 (−10.7) 19.7 (−6.8) 32.8 (0.4) 43.9 (6.6) 52.7 (11.5) 61.8 (16.6) 60.3 (15.7) 50.2 (10.1) 38.4 (3.6) 27.7 (−2.4) 18.0 (−7.8) 7.7 (−13.5) Record low °F (°C) −6 (−21) −15 (−26) 3 (−16) 12 (−11) 32 (0) 44 (7) 52 (11) 50 (10) 39 (4) 28 (−2) 5 (−15) −13 (−25) −15 (−26) Average precipitation inches (mm) 3.64 (92) 3.19 (81) 4.29 (109) 4.09 (104) 3.96 (101) 4.54 (115) 4.60 (117) 4.56 (116) 4.31 (109) 4.38 (111) 3.58 (91) 4.38 (111) 49.52 (1,258) Average snowfall inches (cm) 8.8 (22) 10.1 (26) 5.0 (13) 0.4 (1.0) 0.0 (0.0) 0.0 (0.0) 0.0 (0.0) 0.0 (0.0) 0.0 (0.0) 0.1 (0.25) 0.5 (1.3) 4.9 (12) 29.8 (76) Average precipitation days (≥ 0.01 in) 10.8 10.0 11.1 11.4 11.5 11.2 10.5 10.0 8.8 9.5 9.2 11.4 125.4 Average snowy days (≥ 0.1 in) 3.7 3.2 2.0 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.2 2.1 11.4 Average relative humidity (%) 61.5 60.2 58.5 55.3 62.7 65.2 64.2 66.0 67.8 65.6 64.6 64.1 63.0 Average dew point °F (°C) 18.0 (−7.8) 19.0 (−7.2) 25.9 (−3.4) 34.0 (1.1) 47.3 (8.5) 57.4 (14.1) 61.9 (16.6) 62.1 (16.7) 55.6 (13.1) 44.1 (6.7) 34.0 (1.1) 24.6 (−4.1) 40.3 (4.6) Mean monthly sunshine hours 162.7 163.1 212.5 225.6 256.6 257.3 268.2 268.2 219.3 211.2 151.0 139.0 2,534.7 Percent possible sunshine 54 55 57 57 57 57 59 63 59 61 51 48 57 Average ultraviolet index 2 3 4 6 7 8 8 8 6 4 2 1 5 Source 1: NOAA (relative humidity and sun 1961–1990; dew point 1965–1984)[215][227][211][228] Source 2: Weather Atlas[229] See Climate of New York City for additional climate information from the outer boroughs. Sea temperature data for New York Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year Average sea temperature °F (°C) 41.7 (5.4) 39.7 (4.3) 40.2 (4.5) 45.1 (7.3) 52.5 (11.4) 64.5 (18.1) 72.1 (22.3) 74.1 (23.4) 70.1 (21.2) 63.0 (17.2) 54.3 (12.4) 47.2 (8.4) 55.4 (13.0) Source: Weather Atlas[229] Graphs are temporarily unavailable due to technical issues. See or edit raw graph data. Parks Main article: List of New York City parks A spherical sculpture and several attractions line a park during a World's Fair. Flushing Meadows–Corona Park was used in both the 1939 and 1964 New York World's Fair. The city of New York has a complex park system, with various lands operated by the National Park Service, the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. In its 2018 ParkScore ranking, the Trust for Public Land reported that the park system in New York City was the ninth-best park system among the fifty most populous U.S. cities.[230] ParkScore ranks urban park systems by a formula that analyzes median park size, park acres as percent of city area, the percent of city residents within a half-mile of a park, spending of park services per resident, and the number of playgrounds per 10,000 residents. In 2021, the New York City Council banned the use of synthetic pesticides by city agencies and instead required organic lawn management. The effort was started by teacher Paula Rogovin's kindergarten class at P.S. 290.[231] National parks Main article: National Park Service The Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, a global symbol of the United States and its ideals of liberty, freedom, and opportunity[31] Gateway National Recreation Area contains over 26,000 acres (110 km2), most of it in New York City.[232] In Brooklyn and Queens, the park contains over 9,000 acres (36 km2) of salt marsh, wetlands, islands, and water, including most of Jamaica Bay and the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. Also in Queens, the park includes a significant portion of the western Rockaway Peninsula, most notably Jacob Riis Park and Fort Tilden. In Staten Island, it includes Fort Wadsworth, with historic pre-Civil War era Battery Weed and Fort Tompkins, and Great Kills Park, with beaches, trails, and a marina. The Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island Immigration Museum are managed by the National Park Service and are in both New York and New Jersey. They are joined in the harbor by Governors Island National Monument. Historic sites under federal management on Manhattan Island include Stonewall National Monument; Castle Clinton National Monument; Federal Hall National Memorial; Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site; General Grant National Memorial (Grant's Tomb); African Burial Ground National Monument; and Hamilton Grange National Memorial. Hundreds of properties are listed on the National Register of Historic Places or as a National Historic Landmark. State parks Main article: New York state parks There are seven state parks within the confines of New York City. Some of them include: The Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserve is a natural area that includes extensive riding trails. Riverbank State Park is a 28-acre (11 ha) facility that rises 69 feet (21 m) over the Hudson River.[233] Marsha P. Johnson State Park is a state park in Brooklyn and Manhattan that borders the East River that was renamed in honor of Marsha P. Johnson.[234] City parks See also: New York City Department of Parks and Recreation The Pond and Midtown Manhattan as seen from Gapstow Bridge in Central Park The Boathouse on the Lullwater in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, almost demolished in 1964 New York City has over 28,000 acres (110 km2) of municipal parkland and 14 miles (23 km) of public beaches.[235] The largest municipal park in the city is Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, with 2,772 acres (1,122 ha).[190][236] Central Park, an 843-acre (3.41 km2)[190] park in middle-upper Manhattan, is the most visited urban park in the United States and one of the most filmed and visited locations in the world, with 40 million visitors in 2013.[237] The park has a wide range of attractions; there are several lakes and ponds, two ice-skating rinks, the Central Park Zoo, the Central Park Conservatory Garden, and the 106-acre (0.43 km2) Jackie Onassis Reservoir.[238] Indoor attractions include Belvedere Castle with its nature center, the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theater, and the historic Carousel. On October 23, 2012, hedge fund manager John A. Paulson announced a $100 million gift to the Central Park Conservancy, the largest ever monetary donation to New York City's park system.[239] Washington Square Park is a prominent landmark in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. The Washington Square Arch at the northern gateway to the park is an iconic symbol of both New York University and Greenwich Village. Prospect Park in Brooklyn has a 90-acre (36 ha) meadow, a lake, and extensive woodlands. Within the park is the historic Battle Pass, prominent in the Battle of Long Island.[240] Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, with its 897 acres (363 ha) making it the city's fourth largest park,[241] was the setting for the 1939 World's Fair and the 1964 World's Fair[242] and is host to the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center and the annual U.S. Open Tennis Championships tournament.[243] Over a fifth of the Bronx's area, 7,000 acres (28 km2), is dedicated to open space and parks, including Pelham Bay Park, Van Cortlandt Park, the Bronx Zoo, and the New York Botanical Gardens.[244] In Staten Island, the Conference House Park contains the historic Conference House, site of the only attempt of a peaceful resolution to the American Revolution which was conducted in September 1775, attended by Benjamin Franklin representing the Americans and Lord Howe representing the British Crown.[245] The historic Burial Ridge, the largest Native American burial ground within New York City, is within the park.[246] Military installations Brooklyn is home to Fort Hamilton, the U.S. military's only active duty installation within New York City,[247] aside from Coast Guard operations. The facility was established in 1825 on the site of a small battery used during the American Revolution, and it is one of America's longest serving military forts.[248] Today, Fort Hamilton serves as the headquarters of the North Atlantic Division of the United States Army Corps of Engineers and for the New York City Recruiting Battalion. It also houses the 1179th Transportation Brigade, the 722nd Aeromedical Staging Squadron, and a military entrance processing station. Other formerly active military reservations still used for National Guard and military training or reserve operations in the city include Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island and Fort Totten in Queens. Demographics Historical population Year Pop. ±% 1698 4,937 —     1712 5,840 +18.3% 1723 7,248 +24.1% 1737 10,664 +47.1% 1746 11,717 +9.9% 1756 13,046 +11.3% 1771 21,863 +67.6% 1790 49,401 +126.0% 1800 79,216 +60.4% 1810 119,734 +51.1% 1820 152,056 +27.0% 1830 242,278 +59.3% 1840 391,114 +61.4% 1850 696,115 +78.0% 1860 1,174,779 +68.8% 1870 1,478,103 +25.8% 1880 1,911,698 +29.3% 1890 2,507,414 +31.2% 1900 3,437,202 +37.1% 1910 4,766,883 +38.7% 1920 5,620,048 +17.9% 1930 6,930,446 +23.3% 1940 7,454,995 +7.6% 1950 7,891,957 +5.9% 1960 7,781,984 −1.4% 1970 7,894,862 +1.5% 1980 7,071,639 −10.4% 1990 7,322,564 +3.5% 2000 8,008,278 +9.4% 2010 8,175,133 +2.1% 2020 8,804,190 +7.7% Note: Census figures (1790–2010) cover the present area of all five boroughs, before and after the 1898 consolidation. For New York City itself before annexing part of the Bronx in 1874, see Manhattan#Demographics.[249] Source: U.S. Decennial Census;[250] 1698–1771[251] 1790–1890[249][252] 1900–1990[253] 2000–2010[254][255][256] 2010–2020[257] Main articles: Demographics of New York City, New York City ethnic enclaves, and Demographic history of New York City Historical demographics 2020[258] 2010[259] 1990[260] 1970[260] 1940[260] New York City is the most populous city in the United States,[261] with 8,804,190 residents incorporating more immigration into the city than outmigration since the 2010 United States census.[257][262][263] More than twice as many people live in New York City as compared to Los Angeles, the second-most populous U.S. city;[261] and New York has more than three times the population of Chicago, the third-most populous U.S. city. New York City gained more residents between 2010 and 2020 (629,000) than any other U.S. city, and a greater amount than the total sum of the gains over the same decade of the next four largest U.S. cities, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Phoenix, Arizona combined.[264][265] New York City's population is about 44% of New York State's population,[266] and about 39% of the population of the New York metropolitan area.[267] The majority of New York City residents in 2020 (5,141,538, or 58.4%) were living on Long Island, in Brooklyn, or in Queens.[268] The New York City metropolitan statistical area, has the largest foreign-born population of any metropolitan region in the world. The New York region continues to be by far the leading metropolitan gateway for legal immigrants admitted into the United States, substantially exceeding the combined totals of Los Angeles and Miami.[269] Population density In 2020, the city had an estimated population density of 29,302.37 inhabitants per square mile (11,313.71/km2), rendering it the nation's most densely populated of all larger municipalities (those with more than 100,000 residents), with several small cities (of fewer than 100,000) in adjacent Hudson County, New Jersey having greater density, as per the 2010 census.[270] Geographically co-extensive with New York County, the borough of Manhattan's 2017 population density of 72,918 inhabitants per square mile (28,154/km2) makes it the highest of any county in the United States and higher than the density of any individual American city.[271][272][273] The next three densest counties in the United States, placing second through fourth, are also New York boroughs: Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens respectively.[274] Race and ethnicity Further information: African Americans in New York City, Bangladeshis in New York City, Caribbeans in New York City, Chinese in New York City, Dominican Americans in New York City, Filipinos in New York City, Fuzhounese in New York City, Indians in New York City, Irish in New York City, Italians in New York City, Japanese in New York City, Koreans in New York City, Pakistanis in New York City, Puerto Ricans in New York City, Russians in New York City, and Ukrainians in New York City The city's population in 2020 was 30.9% White (non-Hispanic), 28.7% Hispanic or Latino, 20.2% Black or African American (non-Hispanic), 15.6% Asian, and 0.2% Native American (non-Hispanic).[275] A total of 3.4% of the non-Hispanic population identified with more than one race. Throughout its history, New York has been a major port of entry for immigrants into the United States. More than 12 million European immigrants were received at Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954.[276] The term "melting pot" was first coined to describe densely populated immigrant neighborhoods on the Lower East Side. By 1900, Germans were the largest immigrant group, followed by the Irish, Jews, and Italians.[277] In 1940, Whites represented 92% of the city's population.[260] Approximately 37% of the city's population is foreign born, and more than half of all children are born to mothers who are immigrants as of 2013.[278][279] In New York, no single country or region of origin dominates.[278] The ten largest sources of foreign-born individuals in the city as of 2011 were the Dominican Republic, China, Mexico, Guyana, Jamaica, Ecuador, Haiti, India, Russia, and Trinidad and Tobago,[280] while the Bangladeshi-born immigrant population has become one of the fastest growing in the city, counting over 74,000 by 2011.[26][281] Asian Americans in New York City, according to the 2010 census, number more than one million, greater than the combined totals of San Francisco and Los Angeles.[282] New York contains the highest total Asian population of any U.S. city proper.[283] The New York City borough of Queens is home to the state's largest Asian American population and the largest Andean (Colombian, Ecuadorian, Peruvian, and Bolivian) populations in the United States, and is also the most ethnically and linguistically diverse urban area in the world.[284][185] Tens of thousands of asylum seekers from Venezuela have arrived in New York City since 2022.[285] Chinatown, Manhattan Lower Manhattan's Little Italy Koreatown, Midtown Manhattan Upper Manhattan's Spanish Harlem Little Russia, Brooklyn Little India, Queens Little Brazil, Manhattan Little Manila, Queens The Chinese population is the fastest-growing nationality in New York State. Multiple satellites of the original Manhattan's Chinatown—home to the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere,[286] as well as in Brooklyn, and around Flushing, Queens, are thriving as traditionally urban enclaves—while also expanding rapidly eastward into suburban Nassau County[287] on Long Island,[288] as the New York metropolitan region and New York State have become the top destinations for new Chinese immigrants, respectively, and large-scale Chinese immigration continues into New York City and surrounding areas,[269][289][290][291][292][293] with the largest metropolitan Chinese diaspora outside Asia,[26][294] including an estimated 812,410 individuals in 2015.[295] In 2012, 6.3% of New York City was of Chinese ethnicity, with nearly three-fourths living in either Queens or Brooklyn, geographically on Long Island.[296] A community numbering 20,000 Korean-Chinese (Chaoxianzu or Joseonjok) is centered in Flushing, Queens, while New York City is also home to the largest Tibetan population outside China, India, and Nepal, also centered in Queens.[297] Koreans made up 1.2% of the city's population, and Japanese 0.3%. Filipinos were the largest Southeast Asian ethnic group at 0.8%, followed by Vietnamese, who made up 0.2% of New York City's population in 2010. Indians are the largest South Asian group, comprising 2.4% of the city's population, with Bangladeshis and Pakistanis at 0.7% and 0.5%, respectively.[298] Queens is the preferred borough of settlement for Asian Indians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Malaysians,[299][269] and other Southeast Asians;[300] while Brooklyn is receiving large numbers of both West Indian and Asian Indian immigrants, and Manhattan is the favored destination for Japanese. New York City has the largest European and non-Hispanic white population of any American city. At 2.7 million in 2012, New York's non-Hispanic White population is larger than the non-Hispanic White populations of Los Angeles (1.1 million), Chicago (865,000), and Houston (550,000) combined.[301] The non-Hispanic White population was 6.6 million in 1940.[302] The non-Hispanic White population has begun to increase since 2010.[303] The European diaspora residing in the city is very diverse. According to 2012 census estimates, there were roughly 560,000 Italian Americans, 385,000 Irish Americans, 253,000 German Americans, 223,000 Russian Americans, 201,000 Polish Americans, and 137,000 English Americans. Additionally, Greek and French Americans numbered 65,000 each, with those of Hungarian descent estimated at 60,000 people. Ukrainian and Scottish Americans numbered 55,000 and 35,000, respectively. People identifying ancestry from Spain numbered 30,838 total in 2010.[304] People of Norwegian and Swedish descent both stood at about 20,000 each, while people of Czech, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Scotch-Irish, and Welsh descent all numbered between 12,000 and 14,000.[305] Arab Americans number over 160,000 in New York City,[306] with the highest concentration in Brooklyn. Central Asians, primarily Uzbek Americans, are a rapidly growing segment of the city's non-Hispanic White population, enumerating over 30,000, and including more than half of all Central Asian immigrants to the United States,[307] most settling in Queens or Brooklyn. Albanian Americans are most highly concentrated in the Bronx,[308] while Astoria, Queens is the epicenter of American Greek culture as well as the Cypriot community. New York is also home to the highest Jewish population of any city in the world, numbering 1.6 million in 2022, more than Tel Aviv and Jerusalem combined.[309] In the borough of Brooklyn, an estimated 1 in 4 residents is Jewish.[310] The city's Jewish communities are derived from many diverse sects, predominantly from around the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and including a rapidly growing Orthodox Jewish population, also the largest outside Israel.[297] The metropolitan area is also home to 20% of the nation's Indian Americans and at least 20 Little India enclaves, and 15% of all Korean Americans and four Koreatowns;[255] the largest Asian Indian population in the Western Hemisphere; the largest Russian American,[289] Italian American, and African American populations; the largest Dominican American, Puerto Rican American, and South American[289] and second-largest overall Hispanic population in the United States, numbering 4.8 million;[304] and includes multiple established Chinatowns within New York City alone.[311] Ecuador, Colombia, Guyana, Peru, Brazil, and Venezuela are the top source countries from South America for immigrants to the New York City region; the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Haiti, and Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean; Nigeria, Egypt, Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, and South Africa from Africa; and El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala in Central America.[312] Amidst a resurgence of Puerto Rican migration to New York City, this population had increased to approximately 1.3 million in the metropolitan area as of 2013. Since 2010, Little Australia has emerged and is growing rapidly, representing the Australasian presence in Nolita, Manhattan.[313][314][315][316] In 2011, there were an estimated 20,000 Australian residents of New York City, nearly quadruple the 5,537 in 2005.[317][318] Qantas Airways of Australia and Air New Zealand have been planning for long-haul flights from New York to Sydney and Auckland, which would both rank among the longest non-stop flights in the world.[319] A Little Sri Lanka has developed in the Tompkinsville neighborhood of Staten Island.[320] Le Petit Sénégal, or Little Senegal, is based in Harlem. Richmond Hill, Queens is often thought of as "Little Guyana" for its large Guyanese community,[321] as well as Punjab Avenue (ਪੰਜਾਬ ਐਵੇਨਿਊ), or Little Punjab, for its high concentration of Punjabi people. Little Poland is expanding rapidly in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Sexual orientation and gender identity Main articles: LGBT culture in New York City, Stonewall riots, NYC Pride March, List of largest LGBT events, and List of LGBT people from New York City Further information: New York City Drag March, Queens Liberation Front, Queens Pride Parade, Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, and Same-sex marriage in New York Philippine-born Geena Rocero introducing International Transgender Day of Visibility Caribbean NYC-LGBTQ Equality Project The NYC Dyke March, the world's largest celebration of lesbian pride and culture[322] Spectators at a BDSM street fair in Lower Manhattan NYC Pride March in Manhattan, the world's largest[323][324] The Multicultural Festival at the 2018 Queens Pride Parade New York City has been described as the gay capital of the world and the central node of the LGBTQ+ sociopolitical ecosystem, and is home to one of the world's largest LGBTQ populations and the most prominent.[48] The New York metropolitan area is home to about 570,000 self-identifying gay and bisexual people, the largest in the United States.[325][326] Same-sex sexual activity between consenting adults has been legal in New York since the New York v. Onofre case in 1980 which invalidated the state's sodomy law.[327] Same-sex marriages in New York were legalized on June 24, 2011, and were authorized to take place on July 23, 2011.[328] Brian Silverman, the author of Frommer's New York City from $90 a Day, wrote the city has "one of the world's largest, loudest, and most powerful LGBT communities", and "Gay and lesbian culture is as much a part of New York's basic identity as yellow cabs, high-rise buildings, and Broadway theatre".[329] LGBT travel guide Queer in the World states, "The fabulosity of Gay New York is unrivaled on Earth, and queer culture seeps into every corner of its five boroughs".[330] LGBT advocate and entertainer Madonna stated metaphorically, "Anyways, not only is New York City the best place in the world because of the queer people here. Let me tell you something, if you can make it here, then you must be queer."[331] The annual New York City Pride March (or gay pride parade) proceeds southward down Fifth Avenue and ends at Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan; the parade is the largest pride parade in the world, attracting tens of thousands of participants and millions of sidewalk spectators each June.[332][323] The annual Queens Pride Parade is held in Jackson Heights and is accompanied by the ensuing Multicultural Parade.[333] Stonewall 50 – WorldPride NYC 2019 was the largest international Pride celebration in history, produced by Heritage of Pride and enhanced through a partnership with the I ❤ NY program's LGBT division, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, with 150,000 participants and five million spectators attending in Manhattan alone.[334] New York City is also home to the largest transgender population in the world, estimated at more than 50,000 in 2018, concentrated in Manhattan and Queens; however, until the June 1969 Stonewall riots, this community had felt marginalized and neglected by the gay community.[333][140] Brooklyn Liberation March, the largest transgender-rights demonstration in LGBTQ history, took place on June 14, 2020, stretching from Grand Army Plaza to Fort Greene, Brooklyn, focused on supporting Black transgender lives, drawing an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 participants.[335][336] Religion Religious affiliation (2014)[337][338] Christian   59% Catholic   33% Protestant   23% Other Christian   3% Unaffiliated   24% Jewish   8% Muslim   4% Hindu   2% Buddhist   1% Other faiths   1% Religious affiliations in New York City The landmark Neo-Gothic Roman Catholic St. Patrick's Cathedral, Midtown Manhattan Central Synagogue, a notable Reform synagogue located at 652 Lexington Avenue The Islamic Cultural Center of New York in Upper Manhattan, the first mosque built in New York City Ganesh Temple in Flushing, Queens, the oldest Hindu temple in the U.S. Christianity Further information: St. Patrick's Cathedral (Midtown Manhattan), Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, and Christmas in New York Largely as a result of Western European missionary work and colonialism, Christianity is the largest religion (59% adherent) in New York City,[337] which is home to the highest number of churches of any city in the world.[16] Roman Catholicism is the largest Christian denomination (33%), followed by Protestantism (23%), and other Christian denominations (3%). The Roman Catholic population are primarily served by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and Diocese of Brooklyn. Eastern Catholics are divided into numerous jurisdictions throughout the city. Evangelical Protestantism is the largest branch of Protestantism in the city (9%), followed by Mainline Protestantism (8%), while the converse is usually true for other cities and metropolitan areas.[338] In Evangelicalism, Baptists are the largest group; in Mainline Protestantism, Reformed Protestants compose the largest subset. The majority of historically African American churches are affiliated with the National Baptist Convention (USA) and Progressive National Baptist Convention. The Church of God in Christ is one of the largest predominantly Black Pentecostal denominations in the area. Approximately 1% of the population is Mormon. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and other Orthodox Christians (mainstream and independent) were the largest Eastern Christian groups. The American Orthodox Catholic Church (initially led by Aftimios Ofiesh) was founded in New York City in 1927. Judaism Main articles: Judaism in New York City, History of the Jews in New York, and Jewish arrival in New Amsterdam Judaism, the second-largest religion practiced in New York City, with approximately 1.6 million adherents as of 2022, represents the largest Jewish community of any city in the world, greater than the combined totals of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.[339][340] Nearly half of the city's Jews live in Brooklyn, which is one-quarter Jewish.[341][342] The ethno-religious population makes up 18.4% of the city and its religious demographic makes up 8%.[343] The first recorded Jewish settler was Jacob Barsimson, who arrived in August 1654 on a passport from the Dutch West India Company.[344] Following the assassination of Alexander II of Russia, for which many blamed "the Jews", the 36 years beginning in 1881 experienced the largest wave of Jewish immigration to the United States.[345] In 2012, the largest Jewish denominations were Orthodox, Haredi, and Conservative Judaism.[346] Reform Jewish communities are prevalent through the area. 770 Eastern Parkway is the headquarters of the international Chabad Lubavitch movement, and is considered an icon, while Congregation Emanu-El of New York in Manhattan is the largest Reform synagogue in the world. Islam Main article: Islam in New York City Islam ranks as the third largest religion in New York City, following Christianity and Judaism, with estimates ranging between 600,000 and 1,000,000 observers of Islam, including 10% of the city's public school children.[347] Given both the size and scale of the city, as well as its relative proxinity and accessibility by air transportation to the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and South Asia, 22.3% of American Muslims live in New York City, with 1.5 million Muslims in the greater New York metropolitan area, representing the largest metropolitan Muslim population in the Western Hemisphere[348]—and the most ethnically diverse Muslim population of any city in the world.[349] Powers Street Mosque in Brooklyn is one of the oldest continuously operating mosques in the U.S., and represents the first Islamic organization in both the city and the state of New York.[350][351] Hinduism and other religious affiliations Further information: Hindu Temple Society of North America Following these three largest religious groups in New York City are Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, and a variety of other religions. As of 2023, 24% of Greater New Yorkers identified with no organized religious affiliation, including 4% Atheist.[352] Wealth and income disparity New York City, like other large cities, has a high degree of income disparity, as indicated by its Gini coefficient of 0.55 as of 2017.[353] In the first quarter of 2014, the average weekly wage in New York County (Manhattan) was $2,749, representing the highest total among large counties in the United States.[354] In 2022, New York City was home to the highest number of billionaires of any city in the world, including former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, with a total of 107.[21] New York also had the highest density of millionaires per capita among major U.S. cities in 2014, at 4.6% of residents.[355] New York City is one of the relatively few American cities levying an income tax (about 3%) on its residents.[356][357][358] As of 2018, there were 78,676 homeless people in New York City.[359] Economy Main article: Economy of New York City Further information: Economy of Long Island and Economy of New York Midtown Manhattan, the world's largest central business district[360] see caption The Financial District of Lower Manhattan New York City is a global hub of business and commerce and an established safe haven for global investors, and is sometimes described as the capital of the world.[361] The term global city was popularized by sociologist Saskia Sassen in her 1991 work, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo.[362] New York is a center for worldwide banking and finance, health care and life sciences,[13] medical technology and research, retailing, world trade, transportation, tourism, real estate, new media, traditional media, advertising, legal services, accountancy, insurance, both musical and prose theater, fashion, and the arts in the United States; while Silicon Alley, metonymous for New York's broad-spectrum high technology sphere, continues to expand. The Port of New York and New Jersey is a major economic engine, benefitting post-Panamax from the expansion of the Panama Canal, and accelerating ahead of California seaports in monthly cargo volumes in 2023.[363][364][365] Many Fortune 500 corporations are headquartered in New York City,[366] as are a large number of multinational corporations. New York City has been ranked first among cities across the globe in attracting capital, business, and tourists.[367][368] New York City's role as the top global center for the advertising industry is metonymously reflected as Madison Avenue.[369] The city's fashion industry provides approximately 180,000 employees with $11 billion in annual wages.[370] The non-profit Partnership for New York City, currently headed by Kathryn Wylde, is the city's pre-eminent private business association, comprising approximately 330 corporate leaders in membership. The fashion industry is based in Midtown Manhattan and is represented by the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CDFA), headquartered in Lower Manhattan. Significant economic sectors also include non-profit institutions, and universities. Manufacturing declined over the 20th century but still accounts for significant employment. particularly in smaller operations. The city's apparel and garment industry, historically centered on the Garment District in Manhattan, peaked in 1950, when more than 323,000 workers were employed in the industry in New York. In 2015, fewer than 23,000 New York City residents were employed in the manufacture of garments, accessories, and finished textiles, although efforts to revive the industry were underway,[371] and the American fashion industry continues to be metonymized as Seventh Avenue.[372] Chocolate is New York City's leading specialty-food export, with up to $234 million worth of exports each year.[373] Godiva, one of the world's largest chocolatiers, is headquartered in Manhattan,[374] and an unofficial chocolate district in Brooklyn is home to several chocolate makers and retailers.[375] Food processing is a $5 billion industry that employs more than 19,000 residents. In 2017, there were 205,592 employer firms in New York City.[259] Of those firms, 64,514 were owned by minorities, and 125,877 were shown to be owned by non-minorities. Veterans owned 5,506 of those firms.[259] View of Midtown Manhattan from New Jersey, taken in September 2021 Wall Street Main article: Wall Street A large flag is stretched over Roman style columns on the front of a large building. The New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street, the world's largest stock exchange per total market capitalization of its listed companies[376][377] New York City's most important economic sector lies in its role as the headquarters for the U.S. financial industry, metonymously known as Wall Street. The city's securities industry continues to form the largest segment of the city's financial sector and is an important economic engine. Many large financial companies are headquartered in New York City, and the city is also home to a burgeoning number of financial startup companies. Lower Manhattan is home to the New York Stock Exchange, at 11 Wall Street, and the Nasdaq, at 165 Broadway, representing the world's largest and second largest stock exchanges, respectively, when measured both by overall average daily trading volume and by total market capitalization of their listed companies in 2013.[376][377] Investment banking fees on Wall Street totaled approximately $40 billion in 2012,[378] while in 2013, senior New York City bank officers who manage risk and compliance functions earned as much as $324,000 annually.[379] In fiscal year 2013–14, Wall Street's securities industry generated 19% of New York State's tax revenue.[380] New York City remains the largest global center for trading in public equity and debt capital markets, driven in part by the size and financial development of the U.S. economy.[381]: 31–32 [382] New York also leads in hedge fund management; private equity; and the monetary volume of mergers and acquisitions. Several investment banks and investment managers headquartered in Manhattan are important participants in other global financial centers.[381]: 34–35  New York is also the principal commercial banking center of the United States.[383] Many of the world's largest media conglomerates are also based in the city. Manhattan contained over 500 million square feet (46.5 million m2) of office space in 2018,[384] making it the largest office market in the United States,[385] while Midtown Manhattan, with 400 million square feet (37.2 million m2) in 2018,[384] is the largest central business district in the world.[386] Tech and biotech Further information: Tech:NYC, Tech companies in New York City, Biotech companies in New York City, and Silicon Alley View from the Empire State Building looking southward (downtown) at the central Flatiron District, the cradle of Silicon Alley, now metonymous for the New York metropolitan region's high tech sector The Cornell Tech at the Roosevelt Island New York is a top-tier global technology hub.[11] Silicon Alley, once a metonym for the sphere encompassing the metropolitan region's high technology industries,[387] is no longer a relevant moniker as the city's tech environment has expanded dramatically both in location and in its scope. New York City's current tech sphere encompasses a universal array of applications involving artificial intelligence, the internet, new media, financial technology (fintech) and cryptocurrency, biotechnology, game design, and other fields within information technology that are supported by its entrepreneurship ecosystem and venture capital investments. Technology-driven startup companies and entrepreneurial employment are growing in New York City and the region. The technology sector has been claiming a greater share of New York City's economy since 2010.[388] Tech:NYC, founded in 2016, is a non-profit organization which represents New York City's technology industry with government, civic institutions, in business, and in the media, and whose primary goals are to further augment New York's substantial tech talent base and to advocate for policies that will nurture tech companies to grow in the city.[389] The biotechnology sector is also growing in New York City, based upon the city's strength in academic scientific research and public and commercial financial support. On December 19, 2011, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced his choice of Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to build a $2 billion graduate school of applied sciences called Cornell Tech on Roosevelt Island with the goal of transforming New York City into the world's premier technology capital.[390][391] By mid-2014, Accelerator, a biotech investment firm, had raised more than $30 million from investors, including Eli Lilly and Company, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson, for initial funding to create biotechnology startups at the Alexandria Center for Life Science, which encompasses more than 700,000 square feet (65,000 m2) on East 29th Street and promotes collaboration among scientists and entrepreneurs at the center and with nearby academic, medical, and research institutions. The New York City Economic Development Corporation's Early Stage Life Sciences Funding Initiative and venture capital partners, including Celgene, General Electric Ventures, and Eli Lilly, committed a minimum of $100 million to help launch 15 to 20 ventures in life sciences and biotechnology.[392] Real estate Deutsche Bank Center as seen from Central Park West Real estate is a major force in the city's economy, as the total value of all New York City property was assessed at US$1.072 trillion for the 2017 fiscal year, an increase of 10.6% from the previous year, with 89% of the increase coming from market effects.[393] In 2014, Manhattan was home to six of the top ten ZIP codes in the United States by median housing price.[394] Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan commands the highest retail rents in the world, at $3,000 per square foot ($32,000/m2) in 2017.[395] In 2019, the most expensive home sale ever in the United States achieved completion in Manhattan, at a selling price of $238 million, for a 24,000 square feet (2,200 m2) penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park.[396] In 2022, one-bedroom apartments in Manhattan rented at a median monthly price of US$3,600.00, one of the world's highest. New York City real estate is a safe haven for global investors.[19] Tourism Main article: Tourism in New York City Times Square, the hub of the Broadway theater district and a global media center, is one of the world's leading tourist attractions with 50 million tourists annually.[37] The I Love New York logo designed by Milton Glaser in 1977 Tourism is a vital industry for New York City, and NYC & Company represents the city's official bureau of tourism. New York has witnessed a growing combined volume of international and domestic tourists, reflecting over 60 million visitors to the city per year, the world's busiest tourist destination.[16] Approximately 12 million visitors to New York City have been from outside the United States, with the highest numbers from the United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil, and China. Multiple sources have called New York the most photographed city in the world.[397][398][399] I Love New York (stylized I ❤ NY) is both a logo and a song that are the basis of an advertising campaign and have been used since 1977 to promote tourism in New York City,[400] and later to promote New York State as well. The trademarked logo, owned by New York State Empire State Development,[401] appears in souvenir shops and brochures throughout the city and state, some licensed, many not. The song is the state song of New York. The majority of the most high-profile tourist destinations to the city are situated in Manhattan. These include Times Square; Broadway theater productions; the Empire State Building; the Statue of Liberty; Ellis Island; the United Nations headquarters; the World Trade Center (including the National September 11 Memorial & Museum and One World Trade Center); the art museums along Museum Mile; green spaces such as Central Park, Washington Square Park, the High Line, and the medieval gardens of The Cloisters; the Stonewall Inn; Rockefeller Center; ethnic enclaves including the Manhattan Chinatown, Koreatown, Curry Hill, Harlem, Spanish Harlem, Little Italy, and Little Australia; luxury shopping along Fifth and Madison Avenues; and events such as the Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village; the Brooklyn Bridge (shared with Brooklyn); the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade; the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree; the St. Patrick's Day Parade; seasonal activities such as ice skating in Central Park in the wintertime; the Tribeca Film Festival; and free performances in Central Park at SummerStage.[402] Points of interest have also developed in the city outside Manhattan and have made the outer boroughs tourist destinations in their own right. These include numerous ethnic enclaves; the Unisphere, Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, and Downtown Flushing in Queens; Downtown Brooklyn, Coney Island, Williamsburg, Park Slope, and Prospect Park in Brooklyn; the Bronx Zoo, the New York Botanical Garden, and the Grand Concourse in the Bronx; and the Staten Island Ferry shuttling passengers between Staten Island and the South Ferry Terminal bordering Battery Park in Lower Manhattan, at the historical birthplace of New York City. Media and entertainment Main article: Media in New York City Further information: New Yorkers in journalism Rockefeller Center, one of Manhattan's leading media and entertainment hubs Times Square Studios on Times Square is sometimes called the "Crossroads of the World". New York City has been described as the entertainment[16][403][404] and digital media capital of the world.[405] The city is a prominent location for the American entertainment industry, with many films, television series, books, and other media being set there.[406] As of 2019, New York City was the second-largest center for filmmaking and television production in the United States, producing about 200 feature films annually, employing 130,000 individuals. The filmed entertainment industry has been growing in New York, contributing nearly $9 billion to the New York City economy alone as of 2015.[407] By volume, New York is the world leader in independent film production—one-third of all American independent films are produced there.[408][409] The Association of Independent Commercial Producers is also based in New York.[410] In the first five months of 2014 alone, location filming for television pilots in New York City exceeded the record production levels for all of 2013,[411] with New York surpassing Los Angeles as the top North American city for the same distinction during the 2013–2014 cycle.[412] New York City is the center for the advertising, music, newspaper, digital media, and publishing industries and is also the largest media market in North America.[413] Some of the city's media conglomerates and institutions include Warner Bros. Discovery, the Thomson Reuters Corporation, the Associated Press, Bloomberg L.P., the News Corp, The New York Times Company, NBCUniversal, the Hearst Corporation, AOL, Fox Corporation, and Paramount Global. Seven of the world's top eight global advertising agency networks have their headquarters in New York.[414] Two of the top three record labels' headquarters are in New York: Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group. Universal Music Group also has offices in New York. New media enterprises are contributing an increasingly important component to the city's central role in the media sphere. More than 200 newspapers and 350 consumer magazines have an office in the city,[409] and the publishing industry employs about 25,000 people.[415] Two of the three national daily newspapers with the largest circulations in the United States are published in New York: The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times (NYT). Nicknamed "the Grey Lady", the NYT has won the most Pulitzer Prizes for journalism and is considered the U.S. media's newspaper of record.[34] Tabloid newspapers in the city include the New York Daily News, which was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson,[416] and The New York Post, founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton.[417] At the local news end of the media spectrum, Patch Media is also headquartered in Manhattan. New York City also has a comprehensive ethnic press, with 270 newspapers and magazines published in more than 40 languages.[418] El Diario La Prensa is New York's largest Spanish-language daily and the oldest in the nation.[419] The New York Amsterdam News, published in Harlem, is a prominent African American newspaper. The Village Voice, historically the largest alternative newspaper in the United States, announced in 2017 that it would cease publication of its print edition and convert to a fully digital venture.[420] The television and radio industry developed in New York and is a significant employer in the city's economy. The three major American broadcast networks are all headquartered in New York: ABC, CBS, and NBC. Many cable networks are based in the city as well, including CNN, MSNBC, MTV, Fox News, HBO, Showtime, Bravo, Food Network, AMC, and Comedy Central. News 12 Networks operated News 12 The Bronx and News 12 Brooklyn. WBAI, with news and information programming, is one of the few socialist radio stations operating in the United States. New York is also a major center for non-commercial educational media. NYC Media is the official public radio, television, and online media network and broadcasting service of New York City,[421] and this network has produced several original Emmy Award-winning shows covering music and culture in city neighborhoods and city government. The oldest public-access television channel in the United States is the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, founded in 1971.[422] WNET is the city's major public television station and a primary source of national Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) television programming. WNYC, a public radio station owned by the city until 1997, has the largest public radio audience in the United States.[423] Climate resiliency As an oceanic port city, New York City is vulnerable to the long-term manifestations of global warming and rising seas. Climate change has spawned the development of a significant climate resiliency and environmental sustainability economy in the city. Governors Island is slated to host a US$1 billion research and education center intended to establish New York's role as the global leader in addressing the climate crisis.[424] Education Main article: Education in New York City Butler Library at Columbia University, described as one of the most beautiful college libraries in the United States[425] The Washington Square Arch, an unofficial icon of both New York University and the Greenwich Village neighborhood that surrounds it Fordham University's Keating Hall in the Bronx New York City has the largest educational system of any city in the world.[16] The city's educational infrastructure spans primary education, secondary education, higher education, and research. Primary and secondary education The New York City Public Schools system, managed by the New York City Department of Education, is the largest public school system in the United States, serving about 1.1 million students in more than 1,700 separate primary and secondary schools.[426] The city's public school system includes nine specialized high schools to serve academically and artistically gifted students. The city government pays the Pelham Public Schools to educate a very small, detached section of the Bronx.[427] The New York City Charter School Center assists the setup of new charter schools.[428] There are approximately 900 additional privately run secular and religious schools in the city.[429] Higher education and research More than a million students, the highest number of any city in the United States,[430] are enrolled in New York City's more than 120 higher education institutions, with more than half a million in the City University of New York (CUNY) system alone as of 2020, including both degree and professional programs.[431] According to Academic Ranking of World Universities, New York City has, on average, the best higher education institutions of any global city.[432] The public CUNY system is one of the largest universities in the nation, comprising 25 institutions across all five boroughs: senior colleges, community colleges, and other graduate/professional schools. The public State University of New York (SUNY) system includes campuses in New York City, including SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY Maritime College, and SUNY College of Optometry. New York City is home to such notable private universities as Barnard College, Columbia University, Cooper Union, Fordham University, New York University, New York Institute of Technology, Rockefeller University, and Yeshiva University; several of these universities are ranked among the top universities in the world,[433][434] while some of the world's most prestigious institutions like Princeton University and Yale University remain in the New York metropolitan area. The city also hosts other smaller private colleges and universities, including many religious and special-purpose institutions, such as Pace University, St. John's University, The Juilliard School, Manhattan College, Adelphi University - Manhattan, Mercy College (New York), The College of Mount Saint Vincent, Parsons School of Design, The New School, Pratt Institute, New York Film Academy, The School of Visual Arts, The King's College, Marymount Manhattan College, and Wagner College. Much of the scientific research in the city is done in medicine and the life sciences. In 2019, the New York metropolitan area ranked first on the list of cities and metropolitan areas by share of published articles in life sciences.[435] New York City has the most postgraduate life sciences degrees awarded annually in the United States, and in 2012, 43,523 licensed physicians were practicing in New York City.[436] There are 127 Nobel laureates with roots in local institutions as of 2004.[437] Major biomedical research institutions include Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Rockefeller University, SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and Weill Cornell Medical College, being joined by the Cornell University/Technion-Israel Institute of Technology venture on Roosevelt Island. The graduates of SUNY Maritime College in the Bronx earned the highest average annual salary of any university graduates in the United States, $144,000 as of 2017.[438] Human resources Public health Main articles: New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation and New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene New York-Presbyterian Hospital, affiliated with Columbia University and Cornell University, is the largest hospital and largest private employer in New York City and one of the world's busiest hospitals.[439] The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) operates the public hospitals and outpatient clinics in New York City. A public benefit corporation with As of 2021, HHC is the largest municipal healthcare system in the United States with $10.9 billion in annual revenues,[440] HHC is the largest municipal healthcare system in the United States serving 1.4 million patients, including more than 475,000 uninsured city residents.[441] HHC was created in 1969 by the New York State Legislature as a public benefit corporation (Chapter 1016 of the Laws 1969).[442] HHC operates 11 acute care hospitals, five nursing homes, six diagnostic and treatment centers, and more than 70 community-based primary care sites, serving primarily the poor and working class. HHC's MetroPlus Health Plan is one of the New York area's largest providers of government-sponsored health insurance and is the plan of choice for nearly half a million New Yorkers.[443] HHC's facilities annually provide millions of New Yorkers services interpreted in more than 190 languages.[444] The most well-known hospital in the HHC system is Bellevue Hospital, the oldest public hospital in the United States. Bellevue is the designated hospital for treatment of the President of the United States and other world leaders if they become sick or injured while in New York City.[445] The president of HHC is Ramanathan Raju, MD, a surgeon and former CEO of the Cook County health system in Illinois.[446] In August 2017, Mayor Bill de Blasio signed legislation outlawing pharmacies from selling cigarettes once their existing licenses to do so expired, beginning in 2018.[447] Public safety Police and law enforcement Main articles: New York City Police Department and Law enforcement in New York City Further information: Police surveillance in New York City and Crime in New York City The New York Police Department (NYPD), the largest police force in the United States NYPD police officers in Brooklyn The New York Police Department (NYPD) has been the largest police force in the United States by a significant margin, with more than 35,000 sworn officers.[448] Members of the NYPD are frequently referred to by politicians, the media, and their own police cars by the nickname, New York's Finest. Crime overall has trended downward in New York City since the 1990s.[449] In 2012, the NYPD came under scrutiny for its use of a stop-and-frisk program,[450][451][452] which has undergone several policy revisions since then. In 2014, New York City had the third-lowest murder rate among the largest U.S. cities,[453] having become significantly safer after a spike in crime in the 1970s through 1990s.[454] Violent crime in New York City decreased more than 75% from 1993 to 2005, and continued decreasing during periods when the nation as a whole saw increases.[455] By 2002, New York City was ranked 197th in crime among the 216 U.S. cities with populations greater than 100,000.[455] In 1992, the city recorded 2,245 murders.[456] In 2005, the homicide rate was at its lowest level since 1966,[457] and in 2009, the city recorded fewer than 461 homicides for the first time ever since crime statistics were first published in 1963.[456] New York City has stricter gun laws than most other cities in the U.S.—a license to own any firearm is required in New York City, and the NY SAFE Act of 2013 banned assault weapons—and New York state had the fifth lowest gun death rate of the fifty states in 2020.[458] New York City recorded 491 murders in 2021.[459] In 2017, 60.1% of violent crime suspects were Black, 29.6% Hispanic, 6.5% White, 3.6% Asian and 0.2% American Indian.[460] Sociologists and criminologists have not reached consensus on the explanation for the dramatic long-term decrease in the city's crime rate. Some attribute the phenomenon to new tactics used by the NYPD,[461] including its use of CompStat and the broken windows theory.[462] Others cite the end of the crack epidemic and demographic changes,[463] including from immigration.[464] Another theory is that widespread exposure to lead pollution from automobile exhaust, which can lower intelligence and increase aggression levels, incited the initial crime wave in the mid-20th century, most acutely affecting heavily trafficked cities like New York. A strong correlation was found demonstrating that violent crime rates in New York and other big cities began to fall after lead was removed from American gasoline in the 1970s.[465] Another theory cited to explain New York City's falling homicide rate is the inverse correlation between the number of murders and the increasingly wet climate in the city.[466] Organized crime has long been associated with New York City, beginning with the Forty Thieves and the Roach Guards in the Five Points neighborhood in the 1820s, followed by the Tongs in the same neighborhood, which ultimately evolved into Chinatown, Manhattan. The 20th century saw a rise in the Mafia, dominated by the Five Families, as well as in gangs, including the Black Spades.[467] The Mafia and gang presence has declined in the city in the 21st century.[468][469] Firefighting Main article: New York City Fire Department The Fire Department of New York (FDNY), the largest municipal fire department in the United States The Fire Department of New York (FDNY) provides fire protection, technical rescue, primary response to biological, chemical, and radioactive hazards, and emergency medical services for the five boroughs of New York City. The FDNY is the largest municipal fire department in the United States and the second largest in the world after the Tokyo Fire Department. The FDNY employs approximately 11,080 uniformed firefighters and more than 3,300 uniformed EMTs and paramedics. The FDNY's motto is New York's Bravest. The fire department faces multifaceted firefighting challenges in many ways unique to New York. In addition to responding to building types that range from wood-frame single family homes to high-rise structures, the FDNY also responds to fires that occur in the New York City Subway.[470] Secluded bridges and tunnels, as well as large parks and wooded areas that can give rise to brush fires, also present challenges. The FDNY is headquartered at 9 MetroTech Center in Downtown Brooklyn,[471] and the FDNY Fire Academy is on the Randalls Island.[472] There are three Bureau of Fire Communications alarm offices which receive and dispatch alarms to appropriate units. One office, at 11 Metrotech Center in Brooklyn, houses Manhattan/Citywide, Brooklyn, and Staten Island Fire Communications; the Bronx and Queens offices are in separate buildings. Public library system The Stephen A. Schwarzman Headquarters Building of the New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street The New York Public Library (NYPL), which has the largest collection of any public library system in the United States.[473] Queens is served by the Queens Borough Public Library (QPL), the nation's second-largest public library system, while the Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) serves Brooklyn.[473] In 2013, the New York Public Library and the Brooklyn Public Library announced that they would merge their technical services departments into a new department called BookOps. This proposed merger anticipated a savings of $2 million for the Brooklyn Public Library and $1.5 million for the New York Public Library. Although not currently part of the merger, it is expected that the Queens Public Library will eventually share some resources with the other city libraries.[474][475] Culture and contemporary life Main article: Culture of New York City Further information: Broadway theatre, LGBT culture in New York City, List of museums and cultural institutions in New York City, Music of New York City, List of nightclubs in New York City, List of LGBT people from New York City, List of people from New York City, New York Fashion Week, and Met Gala New York City has been described as the cultural capital of the world by Manhattan's Baruch College.[476] A book containing a series of essays titled New York, Culture Capital of the World, 1940–1965 has also been published as showcased by the National Library of Australia.[477] In describing New York, author Tom Wolfe said, "Culture just seems to be in the air, like part of the weather."[478] Numerous major American cultural movements began in the city, such as the Harlem Renaissance, which established the African-American literary canon in the United States.[479][480] The city became the center of stand-up comedy in the early 20th century, jazz[481] in the 1940s, abstract expressionism in the 1950s, and the birthplace of hip-hop in the 1970s.[482] The city's punk[483] and hardcore[484] scenes were influential in the 1970s and 1980s. New York has long had a flourishing scene for Jewish American literature. The city is the birthplace of many cultural movements, including the Harlem Renaissance in literature and visual art; abstract expressionism (also known as the New York School) in painting; and hip-hop,[189] punk, salsa, freestyle, Tin Pan Alley, certain forms of jazz, and (along with Philadelphia) disco in music. New York City has been considered the dance capital of the world.[485][486] The city is also frequently the setting for novels, movies (see List of films set in New York City), and television programs. New York Fashion Week is one of the world's preeminent fashion events and is afforded extensive coverage by the media.[487][488] New York has also frequently been ranked the top fashion capital of the world on the annual list compiled by the Global Language Monitor.[489] Pace Midtown Manhattan in January 2020 One of the most common traits attributed to New York City is its fast pace,[490][491] which spawned the term New York minute.[492] Journalist Walt Whitman characterized New York's streets as being traversed by "hurrying, feverish, electric crowds".[491] Resilience New York City's residents are prominently known for their resilience historically, and more recently related to their management of the impacts of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic.[493][494][495] New York was voted the world's most resilient city in 2021 and 2022 per Time Out's global poll of urban residents.[494] Arts New York City has more than 2,000 arts and cultural organizations and more than 500 art galleries.[496] The city government funds the arts with a larger annual budget than the National Endowment for the Arts.[496] Wealthy business magnates in the 19th century built a network of major cultural institutions, such as Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which have become internationally renowned. The advent of electric lighting led to elaborate theater productions, and in the 1880s, New York City theaters on Broadway and along 42nd Street began featuring a new stage form that became known as the Broadway musical. Strongly influenced by the city's immigrants, productions such as those of Harrigan and Hart, George M. Cohan, and others used song in narratives that often reflected themes of hope and ambition. New York City itself is the subject or background of many plays and musicals. Performing arts Main articles: Broadway theatre and Music of New York City The corner of a lit up plaza with a fountain in the center and the ends of two brightly lit buildings with tall arches on the square. Lincoln Center in Manhattan The Metropolitan Museum of Art, part of Museum Mile, is one of the largest museums in the world.[497] Broadway theatre is one of the premier forms of English-language theatre in the world, named after Broadway, the major thoroughfare that crosses Times Square,[498] also sometimes referred to as "The Great White Way".[499][500][501] Forty-one venues in Midtown Manhattan's Theatre District, each with at least 500 seats, are classified as Broadway theatres. According to The Broadway League, Broadway shows sold approximately $1.27 billion worth of tickets in the 2013–2014 season, an 11.4% increase from $1.139 billion in the 2012–2013 season. Attendance in 2013–2014 stood at 12.21 million, representing a 5.5% increase from the 2012–2013 season's 11.57 million.[502] Performance artists displaying diverse skills are ubiquitous on the streets of Manhattan. Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, anchoring Lincoln Square on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is home to numerous influential arts organizations, including the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, New York Philharmonic, and New York City Ballet, as well as the Vivian Beaumont Theater, the Juilliard School, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Alice Tully Hall. The Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute is in Union Square, and Tisch School of the Arts is based at New York University, while Central Park SummerStage presents free music concerts in Central Park.[503] Visual arts Main article: List of museums and cultural institutions in New York City New York City is home to hundreds of cultural institutions and historic sites. Museum Mile is the name for a section of Fifth Avenue running from 82nd to 105th streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan,[504] in an area sometimes called Upper Carnegie Hill.[505] Nine museums occupy the length of this section of Fifth Avenue, making it one of the densest displays of culture in the world.[506] Its art museums include the Guggenheim, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Neue Galerie New York, and The Africa Center, which opened in late 2012. In addition to other programming, the museums collaborate for the annual Museum Mile Festival, held each year in June, to promote the museums and increase visitation.[507] Many of the world's most lucrative art auctions are held in New York City.[508][509] Cuisine Main articles: Cuisine of New York City, List of restaurants in New York City, and List of Michelin starred restaurants in New York City People crowd around white tents in the foreground next to a red brick wall with arched windows. Above and to the left is a towering stone bridge. Smorgasburg, which opened in 2011 as an open-air food market, is part of the Brooklyn Flea.[510] New York City's food culture includes an array of international cuisines influenced by the city's immigrant history. Central and Eastern European immigrants, especially Jewish immigrants from those regions, brought bagels, cheesecake, hot dogs, knishes, and delicatessens (delis) to the city. Italian immigrants brought New York-style pizza and Italian cuisine into the city, while Jewish immigrants and Irish immigrants brought pastrami[511] and corned beef,[512] respectively. Chinese and other Asian restaurants, sandwich joints, trattorias, diners, and coffeehouses are ubiquitous throughout the city. Some 4,000 mobile food vendors licensed by the city, many immigrant-owned, have made Middle Eastern foods such as falafel and kebabs[513] examples of modern New York street food. The city is home to "nearly one thousand of the finest and most diverse haute cuisine restaurants in the world", according to Michelin.[514] The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene assigns letter grades to the city's restaurants based upon their inspection results.[515] As of 2019, there were 27,043 restaurants in the city, up from 24,865 in 2017.[516] The Queens Night Market in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park attracts more than ten thousand people nightly to sample food from more than 85 countries.[517] Parades The annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the world's largest parade[518] The annual Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village, the world's largest Halloween parade[519] The ticker-tape parade for the Apollo 11 astronauts on August 13, 1969 The annual Philippine Independence Day Parade, the largest outside the Philippines New York City is well known for its street parades, which celebrate a broad array of themes, including holidays, nationalities, human rights, and major league sports team championship victories. The majority of parades are held in Manhattan. The primary orientation of the annual street parades is typically from north to south, marching along major avenues. The annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is the world's largest parade,[518] beginning alongside Central Park and processing southward to the flagship Macy's Herald Square store;[520] the parade is viewed on telecasts worldwide and draws millions of spectators in person.[518] Other notable parades including the annual New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade in March, the NYC LGBT Pride March in June, the LGBT-inspired Greenwich Village Halloween Parade in October, and numerous parades commemorating the independence days of many nations. Ticker-tape parades celebrating championships won by sports teams as well as other heroic accomplishments march northward along the Canyon of Heroes on Broadway from Bowling Green to City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan. Accent and dialect Main articles: New York City English and New York accent The New York area is home to a distinctive regional accent and speech pattern called the New York dialect, alternatively known as Brooklynese or New Yorkese. It has generally been considered one of the most recognizable accents within American English.[521] The traditional New York area speech pattern is known for its rapid delivery, and its accent is characterized as non-rhotic so that the sound [ɹ] does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant; therefore the pronunciation of the city name as "New Yawk."[522] There is no [ɹ] in words like park [pɑək] or [pɒək] (with vowel backed and diphthongized due to the low-back chain shift), butter [bʌɾə], or here [hiə]. In another feature called the low back chain shift, the [ɔ] vowel sound of words like talk, law, cross, chocolate, and coffee and the often homophonous [ɔr] in core and more are tensed and usually raised more than in General American English. In the most old-fashioned and extreme versions of the New York dialect, the vowel sounds of words like "girl" and of words like "oil" became a diphthong [ɜɪ]. This is often misperceived by speakers of other accents as a reversal of the er and oy sounds, so that girl is pronounced "goil" and oil is pronounced "erl"; this leads to the caricature of New Yorkers saying things like "Joizey" (Jersey), "Toidy-Toid Street" (33rd St.) and "terlet" (toilet).[522] The character Archie Bunker from the 1970s television sitcom All in the Family was an example of this pattern of speech. The classic version of the New York City dialect is generally centered on middle- and working-class New Yorkers. The influx of non-European immigrants in recent decades has led to changes in this distinctive dialect,[522] and the traditional form of this speech pattern is no longer as prevalent among general New Yorkers as it has been in the past.[522] Sports Main article: Sports in the New York metropolitan area Three runners in a race down a street where onlookers are cheering behind barriers. The New York Marathon, held annually in November, is the largest marathon in the world.[523] A tennis stadium pack with fans watching a grass court. The U.S. Open Tennis Championships are held every August and September in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens. A baseball stadium from behind home plate in the evening. Citi Field, also in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, has been home to the New York Mets since 2009. Madison Square Garden in Midtown Manhattan is home to the New York Knicks, New York Rangers, and St. John's Red Storm. New York City is home to the headquarters of the National Football League,[524] Major League Baseball,[525] the National Basketball Association,[526] the National Hockey League,[527] and Major League Soccer.[528] The New York metropolitan area hosts the most sports teams in the first four major North American professional sports leagues with nine, one more than Los Angeles, and has 11 top-level professional sports teams if Major League Soccer is included, also one more than Los Angeles. Participation in professional sports in the city predates all professional leagues. The city has played host to more than 40 major professional teams in the five sports and their respective competing leagues. Four of the ten most expensive stadiums ever built worldwide (MetLife Stadium, the new Yankee Stadium, Madison Square Garden, and Citi Field) are in the New York metropolitan area.[529] Madison Square Garden, its predecessor, the original Yankee Stadium and Ebbets Field, are sporting venues in New York City, the latter two having been commemorated on U.S. postage stamps. New York was the first of eight American cities to have won titles in all four major leagues (MLB, NHL, NFL and NBA), having done so following the Knicks' 1970 title. In 1972, it became the first city to win titles in five sports when the Cosmos won the NASL final. American football The city is represented in the National Football League by the New York Giants and the New York Jets, although both teams play their home games at MetLife Stadium in nearby East Rutherford, New Jersey,[530] which hosted Super Bowl XLVIII in 2014.[531] Baseball New York has been described as the "Capital of Baseball".[532] There have been 35 Major League Baseball World Series and 73 pennants won by New York teams. It is one of only five metro areas to host two Major League Baseball teams, the others being Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore–Washington, and until the Athletics depart Oakland, California, the San Francisco Bay Area. Additionally, there have been 14 World Series in which two New York City teams played each other, known as a Subway Series and occurring most recently in 2000. No other metropolitan area has had this happen more than once (Chicago in 1906, St. Louis in 1944, and the San Francisco Bay Area in 1989). The city's two Major League Baseball teams are the New York Mets, who play at Citi Field in Queens,[533] and the New York Yankees, who play at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. These teams compete in six games of interleague play every regular season that has also come to be called the Subway Series. The Yankees have won a record 27 championships,[534] while the Mets have won the World Series twice.[535] The city also was once home to the Brooklyn Dodgers (now the Los Angeles Dodgers), who won the World Series once,[536] and the New York Giants (now the San Francisco Giants), who won the World Series five times. Both teams moved to California in 1958.[537] There is also one Minor League Baseball team in the city, the Mets-affiliated Brooklyn Cyclones,[538] and the city gained a club in the independent Atlantic League when the Staten Island FerryHawks began play in 2022.[539] Basketball The city's National Basketball Association teams are the Brooklyn Nets (previously known as the New York Nets and New Jersey Nets as they moved around the metropolitan area) and the New York Knicks, while the New York Liberty is the city's Women's National Basketball Association team. The first national college-level basketball championship, the National Invitation Tournament, was held in New York in 1938 and remains in the city.[540] The city is well known for its links to basketball, which is played in nearly every park in the city by local youth, many of whom have gone on to play for major college programs and in the NBA. Ice hockey The metropolitan area is home to three National Hockey League teams. The New York Rangers, the traditional representative of the city itself and one of the league's Original Six, play at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. The New York Islanders, traditionally representing Nassau and Suffolk Counties of Long Island, play in UBS Arena in Elmont, New York, and played in Brooklyn's Barclays Center from 2015 to 2020. The New Jersey Devils play at Prudential Center in nearby Newark, New Jersey and traditionally represent the counties of neighboring New Jersey which are coextensive with the boundaries of the New York metropolitan area and media market. Soccer In soccer, New York City is represented by New York City FC of Major League Soccer, who play their home games at Yankee Stadium[541] and the New York Red Bulls, who play their home games at Red Bull Arena in nearby Harrison, New Jersey.[542] NJ/NY Gotham FC also plays their home games in Red Bull Arena, representing the metropolitan area in the National Women's Soccer League. Historically, the city is known for the New York Cosmos, the highly successful former professional soccer team which was the American home of Pelé. A new version of the New York Cosmos was formed in 2010, and most recently played in the third-division National Independent Soccer Association before going on hiatus in January 2021. New York was a host city for the 1994 FIFA World Cup[543] and will be one of eleven US host cities for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.[544] Tennis and other The annual United States Open Tennis Championships is one of the world's four Grand Slam tennis tournaments and is held at the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, Queens.[545] The New York City Marathon, which courses through all five boroughs, is the world's largest running marathon,[523] with 51,394 finishers in 2016[546] and 98,247 applicants for the 2017 race.[523] The Millrose Games is an annual track and field meet whose featured event is the Wanamaker Mile. Boxing is also a prominent part of the city's sporting scene, with events like the Amateur Boxing Golden Gloves being held at Madison Square Garden each year.[547] The city is also considered the host of the Belmont Stakes, the last, longest and oldest of horse racing's Triple Crown races, held just over the city's border at Belmont Park on the first or second Sunday of June. The city also hosted the 1932 U.S. Open golf tournament and the 1930 and 1939 PGA Championships, and has been host city for both events several times, most notably for nearby Winged Foot Golf Club. The Gaelic games are played in Riverdale, Bronx at Gaelic Park, home to the New York GAA, the only North American team to compete at the senior inter-county level. International events In terms of hosting multi-sport events, New York City hosted the 1984 Summer Paralympics and the 1998 Goodwill Games. New York City's bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics was one of five finalists, but lost out to London.[548] Environment Main article: Environmental issues in New York City Two yellow taxis on a narrow street lined with shops. As of 2012, New York City had about 6,000 hybrid taxis in service, the largest number of any city in North America.[549] Environmental issues in New York City are affected by the city's size, density, abundant public transportation infrastructure, and its location at the mouth of the Hudson River. For example, it is one of the country's biggest sources of pollution and has the lowest per-capita greenhouse gas emissions rate and electricity usage. Governors Island is planned to host a US$1 billion research and education center to make New York City the global leader in addressing the climate crisis.[550] Environmental impact reduction New York City has focused on reducing its environmental impact and carbon footprint.[551] Mass transit use in New York City is the highest in the United States. Also, by 2010, the city had 3,715 hybrid taxis and other clean diesel vehicles, representing around 28% of New York's taxi fleet in service, the most of any city in North America.[552] New York City is the host of Climate Week NYC, the largest Climate Week to take place globally and regarded as major annual climate summit. New York's high rate of public transit use, more than 200,000 daily cyclists as of 2014,[553] and many pedestrian commuters make it the most energy-efficient major city in the United States.[554] Walk and bicycle modes of travel account for 21% of all modes for trips in the city; nationally the rate for metro regions is about 8%.[555] In both its 2011 and 2015 rankings, Walk Score named New York City the most walkable large city in the United States,[556][557][558] and in 2018, Stacker ranked New York the most walkable U.S. city.[559] Citibank sponsored the introduction of 10,000 public bicycles for the city's bike-share project in the summer of 2013.[560] New York City's numerical "in-season cycling indicator" of bicycling in the city had hit an all-time high of 437 when measured in 2014.[561] The city government was a petitioner in the landmark Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency Supreme Court case forcing the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants. The city is a leader in the construction of energy-efficient green office buildings, including the Hearst Tower among others.[197] Mayor Bill de Blasio has committed to an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions between 2014 and 2050 to reduce the city's contributions to climate change, beginning with a comprehensive "Green Buildings" plan.[551] Water purity and availability Main articles: Food and water in New York City and New York City water supply system The New York City drinking water supply is extracted from the protected Catskill Mountains watershed.[562] As a result of the watershed's integrity and undisturbed natural water filtration system, New York is one of only four major cities in the United States the majority of whose drinking water is pure enough not to require purification through water treatment plants.[563] The city's municipal water system is the largest in the United States, moving over one billion gallons of water per day;[564] a leak in the Delaware aqueduct results in some 20 million gallons a day being lost under the Hudson River.[565] The Croton Watershed north of the city is undergoing construction of a $3.2 billion water purification plant to augment New York City's water supply by an estimated 290 million gallons daily, representing a greater than 20% addition to the city's current availability of water.[566] The ongoing expansion of New York City Water Tunnel No. 3, an integral part of the New York City water supply system, is the largest capital construction project in the city's history,[567] with segments serving Manhattan and the Bronx completed, and with segments serving Brooklyn and Queens planned for construction in 2020.[568] In 2018, New York City announced a $1 billion investment to protect the integrity of its water system and to maintain the purity of its unfiltered water supply.[564] Air quality According to the 2016 World Health Organization Global Urban Ambient Air Pollution Database,[569] the annual average concentration in New York City's air of particulate matter measuring 2.5 micrometers or less (PM2.5) was 7.0 micrograms per cubic meter, or 3.0 micrograms within the recommended limit of the WHO Air Quality Guidelines for the annual mean PM2.5.[570] The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, in partnership with Queens College, conducts the New York Community Air Survey to measure pollutants at about 150 locations.[571] Environmental revitalization Newtown Creek, a 3.5-mile (6-kilometer) a long estuary that forms part of the border between the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, has been designated a Superfund site for environmental clean-up and remediation of the waterway's recreational and economic resources for many communities.[572] One of the most heavily used bodies of water in the Port of New York and New Jersey, it had been one of the most contaminated industrial sites in the country,[573] containing years of discarded toxins, an estimated 30 million US gallons (110,000 m3) of spilled oil, including the Greenpoint oil spill, raw sewage from New York City's sewer system,[573] and other accumulation. Government and politics Main articles: Government of New York City, Politics of New York City, and Elections in New York City Government New York City Hall is the oldest City Hall in the United States that still houses its original governmental functions. New York County Courthouse houses the New York Supreme Court and other governmental offices. Eric Adams, the current and 110th Mayor of New York City New York City has been a metropolitan municipality with a Strong mayor–council form of government[574] since its consolidation in 1898. In New York City, the city government is responsible for public education, correctional institutions, public safety, recreational facilities, sanitation, water supply, and welfare services. The mayor and council members are elected to four-year terms. The City Council is a unicameral body consisting of 51 council members whose districts are defined by geographic population boundaries.[575] Each term for the mayor and council members lasts four years and has a two consecutive-term limit,[576] which is reset after a four-year break. The New York City Administrative Code, the New York City Rules, and the City Record are the code of local laws, compilation of regulations, and official journal, respectively.[577][578] Each borough is coextensive with a judicial district of the state Unified Court System, of which the Criminal Court and the Civil Court are the local courts, while the New York Supreme Court conducts major trials and appeals. Manhattan hosts the First Department of the Supreme Court, Appellate Division while Brooklyn hosts the Second Department. There are also several extrajudicial administrative courts, which are executive agencies and not part of the state Unified Court System. Uniquely among major American cities, New York is divided between, and is host to the main branches of, two different U.S. district courts: the District Court for the Southern District of New York, whose main courthouse is on Foley Square near City Hall in Manhattan and whose jurisdiction includes Manhattan and the Bronx; and the District Court for the Eastern District of New York, whose main courthouse is in Brooklyn and whose jurisdiction includes Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and U.S. Court of International Trade are also based in New York, also on Foley Square in Manhattan. Politics The present mayor is Eric Adams. He was elected in 2021 with 67% of the vote, and assumed office on January 1, 2022. The Democratic Party holds the majority of public offices. As of April 2016, 69% of registered voters in the city are Democrats and 10% are Republicans.[579] New York City has not been carried by a Republican presidential election since President Calvin Coolidge won the five boroughs in 1924. A Republican candidate for statewide office has not won all five boroughs of the city since it was incorporated in 1898. In 2012, Democrat Barack Obama became the first presidential candidate of any party to receive more than 80% of the overall vote in New York City, sweeping all five boroughs. Party platforms center on affordable housing, education, and economic development, and labor politics are of importance in the city. Thirteen out of 26 U.S. congressional districts in the state of New York include portions of New York City.[580] New York City is the most important geographical source of political fundraising in the United States. At least four of the top five ZIP Codes in the nation for political contributions were in Manhattan for the 2004, 2006, and 2008 elections. The top ZIP Code, 10021 on the Upper East Side, generated the most money for the 2004 presidential campaigns of George W. Bush and John Kerry.[581] The city has a strong imbalance of payments with the national and state governments. It receives 83 cents in services for every $1 it sends to the federal government in taxes (or annually sends $11.4 billion more than it receives back). City residents and businesses also sent an additional $4.1 billion in the 2009–2010 fiscal year to the state of New York than the city received in return.[582] Transportation Main article: Transportation in New York City A row of yellow taxis in front of a multi-story ornate stone building with three huge arched windows. New York City is home to the two busiest train stations in the U.S., Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station. New York City's comprehensive transportation system is both complex and extensive. The front end of a subway train, with a red E on a LED display on the top. To the right of the train is a platform with a group of people waiting for their train. The New York City Subway, the world's largest rapid transit system by number of stations Rapid transit Mass transit in New York City, most of which runs 24 hours a day, accounts for one in every three users of mass transit in the United States, and two-thirds of the nation's rail riders live in the New York City metropolitan area.[583][584] Rail The New York City Subway system is the largest rapid transit system in the world when measured by stations in operation, with 472, and by length of routes. Nearly all of New York's subway system is open 24 hours a day, in contrast to the overnight shutdown common to systems in most cities, including Hong Kong,[585][586] London, Paris, Seoul,[587][588] and Tokyo. The New York City Subway is also the busiest metropolitan rail transit system in the Western Hemisphere, with 1.76 billion passenger rides in 2015,[589] while Grand Central Terminal, also referred to as "Grand Central Station", is the world's largest railway station by number of train platforms. Public transport is widely used in New York City. 54.6% of New Yorkers commuted to work in 2005 using mass transit.[590] This is in contrast to the rest of the United States, where 91% of commuters travel in automobiles to their workplace.[591] According to the New York City Comptroller, workers in the New York City area spend an average of 6 hours and 18 minutes getting to work each week, the longest commute time in the nation among large cities.[592] New York is the only U.S. city in which a majority (52%) of households do not have a car; only 22% of Manhattanites own a car.[593] Due to their high usage of mass transit, New Yorkers spend less of their household income on transportation than the national average, saving $19 billion annually on transportation compared to other urban Americans.[594] New York City's commuter rail network is the largest in North America.[583] The rail network, connecting New York City to its suburbs, consists of the Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Railroad, and New Jersey Transit. The combined systems converge at Grand Central Terminal and Pennsylvania Station and contain more than 250 stations and 20 rail lines.[583] In Queens, the elevated AirTrain people mover system connects 24 hours a day JFK International Airport to the New York City Subway and the Long Island Rail Road; a separate AirTrain system is planned alongside the Grand Central Parkway to connect LaGuardia Airport to these transit systems.[595][596] For inter-city rail, New York City is served by Amtrak, whose busiest station by a significant margin is Pennsylvania Station on the West Side of Manhattan, from which Amtrak provides connections to Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. along the Northeast Corridor, and long-distance train service to other North American cities.[597] The Staten Island Railway rapid transit system solely serves Staten Island, operating 24 hours a day. The Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH train) links Midtown and Lower Manhattan to northeastern New Jersey, primarily Hoboken, Jersey City, and Newark. Like the New York City Subway, the PATH operates 24 hours a day; meaning three of the six rapid transit systems in the world which operate on 24-hour schedules are wholly or partly in New York (the others are a portion of the Chicago "L", the PATCO Speedline serving Philadelphia, and the Copenhagen Metro). Multibillion-dollar heavy rail transit projects under construction in New York City include the Second Avenue Subway, and the East Side Access project.[598] Buses Port Authority Bus Terminal, the world's busiest bus station, at Eighth Avenue and 42nd Street[599] New York City's public bus fleet runs 24/7 and is the largest in North America.[600] The Port Authority Bus Terminal, the main intercity bus terminal of the city, serves 7,000 buses and 200,000 commuters daily, making it the busiest bus station in the world.[599] Air Five jumbo airplanes wait in a line on a runway next to a small body of water. Behind them in the distance is the airport and control tower. John F. Kennedy Airport in Queens, the busiest international airport to the United States with over 12 million inbound and outbound flights as of 2021 New York's airspace is the busiest in the United States and one of the world's busiest air transportation corridors. The three busiest airports in the New York metropolitan area include John F. Kennedy International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport, and LaGuardia Airport; 130.5 million travelers used these three airports in 2016.[601] JFK and Newark Liberty were the busiest and fourth busiest U.S. gateways for international air passengers, respectively, in 2012; as of 2011, JFK was the busiest airport for international passengers in North America.[602] Plans have advanced to expand passenger volume at a fourth airport, Stewart International Airport near Newburgh, New York, by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.[603] Plans were announced in July 2015 to entirely rebuild LaGuardia Airport in a multibillion-dollar project to replace its aging facilities.[604] Other commercial airports in or serving the New York metropolitan area include Long Island MacArthur Airport, Trenton–Mercer Airport and Westchester County Airport. The primary general aviation airport serving the area is Teterboro Airport. Ferries Staten Island Ferry shuttles commuters between Manhattan and Staten Island. The Staten Island Ferry is the world's busiest ferry route, carrying more than 23 million passengers from July 2015 through June 2016 on the 5.2-mile (8.4 km) route between Staten Island and Lower Manhattan and running 24 hours a day.[605] Other ferry systems shuttle commuters between Manhattan and other locales within the city and the metropolitan area. NYC Ferry, a NYCEDC initiative with routes planned to travel to all five boroughs, was launched in 2017, with second graders choosing the names of the ferries.[606] Meanwhile, Seastreak ferry announced construction of a 600-passenger high-speed luxury ferry in September 2016, to shuttle riders between the Jersey Shore and Manhattan, anticipated to start service in 2017; this would be the largest vessel in its class.[607] Taxis, vehicles for hire, and trams See also: Taxis of New York City Yellow medallion taxicabs are a widely recognized icon of New York City. Other features of the city's transportation infrastructure encompass 13,587 yellow taxicabs;[608] other vehicle for hire companies;[609][610] and the Roosevelt Island Tramway, an aerial tramway that transports commuters between Roosevelt Island and Manhattan Island. Streets and highways 8th Avenue in Manhattan looking north (uptown) Despite New York's heavy reliance on its vast public transit system, streets are a defining feature of the city. The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 greatly influenced the city's physical development. Several of the city's streets and avenues, including Broadway,[611] Wall Street,[612] Madison Avenue,[369] and Seventh Avenue are also used as metonyms for national industries there: the theater, finance, advertising, and fashion organizations, respectively. New York City also has an extensive web of freeways and parkways, which link the city's boroughs to each other and to North Jersey, Westchester County, Long Island, and southwestern Connecticut through various bridges and tunnels. Because these highways serve millions of outer borough and suburban residents who commute into Manhattan, it is quite common for motorists to be stranded for hours in traffic congestion that are a daily occurrence, particularly during rush hour.[613][614] Congestion pricing in New York City will go into effect in 2022 at the earliest.[615][616][617] New York City is also known for its rules regarding turning at red lights. Unlike the rest of the United States, New York State prohibits right or left turns on red in cities with a population greater than one million, to reduce traffic collisions and increase pedestrian safety. In New York City, therefore, all turns at red lights are illegal unless a sign permitting such maneuvers is present.[618] River crossings The George Washington Bridge, connecting Upper Manhattan (background) and Fort Lee, New Jersey across the Hudson River, is the world's busiest motor vehicle bridge.[619][620] New York City is located on one of the world's largest natural harbors, and the boroughs of Manhattan and Staten Island are primarily coterminous with islands of the same names, while Queens and Brooklyn are at the west end of the larger Long Island, and the Bronx is on New York State's mainland. This situation of boroughs separated by water led to the development of an extensive infrastructure of bridges and tunnels. The George Washington Bridge is the world's busiest motor vehicle bridge,[619][620] connecting Manhattan to Bergen County, New Jersey. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge is the longest suspension bridge in the Americas and one of the world's longest.[621][622] The Brooklyn Bridge is an icon of the city itself. The towers of the Brooklyn Bridge are built of limestone, granite, and Rosendale cement, and their architectural style is neo-Gothic, with characteristic pointed arches above the passageways through the stone towers. This bridge was also the longest suspension bridge in the world from its opening until 1903, and is the first steel-wire suspension bridge. The Queensboro Bridge is an important piece of cantilever architecture. The Manhattan Bridge, opened in 1909, is considered to be the forerunner of modern suspension bridges, and its design served as the model for many of the long-span suspension bridges around the world; the Manhattan Bridge, Throgs Neck Bridge, Triborough Bridge, and Verrazano-Narrows Bridge are all examples of structural expressionism.[623][624] Manhattan Island is linked to New York City's outer boroughs and to New Jersey. The Lincoln Tunnel, which carries 120,000 vehicles a day under the Hudson River between New Jersey and Midtown Manhattan, is the busiest vehicular tunnel in the world.[625] The tunnel was built instead of a bridge to allow unfettered passage of large passenger and cargo ships that sailed through New York Harbor and up the Hudson River to Manhattan's piers. The Holland Tunnel, connecting Lower Manhattan to Jersey City, New Jersey, was the world's first mechanically ventilated vehicular tunnel when it opened in 1927.[626][627] The Queens–Midtown Tunnel, built to relieve congestion on the bridges connecting Manhattan with Queens and Brooklyn, was the largest non-federal project in its time when it was completed in 1940.[628] President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first person to drive through it.[629] The Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel (officially known as the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel) runs underneath Battery Park and connects the Financial District at the southern tip of Manhattan to Red Hook in Brooklyn. Cycling network Main article: Cycling in New York City Cycling in New York City is associated with mixed cycling conditions that include urban density, relatively flat terrain, congested roadways with stop-and-go traffic, and many pedestrians. The city's large cycling population includes utility cyclists, such as delivery and messenger services; cycling clubs for recreational cyclists; and an increasing number of commuters. Cycling is increasingly popular in New York City; in 2017 there were approximately 450,000 daily bike trips, compared with 170,000 daily bike trips in 2005.[630] As of 2017, New York City had 1,333 miles (2,145 km) of bike lanes, compared to 513 miles (826 km) of bike lanes in 2006.[630] As of 2019, there are 126 miles (203 km) of segregated or "protected" bike lanes citywide.[631] People Main article: List of people from New York City Global outreach Main article: List of sister cities of New York City In 2006, the sister city Program of the City of New York, Inc.[632] was restructured and renamed New York City Global Partners. Through this program, New York City has expanded its international outreach to a network of cities worldwide, promoting the exchange of ideas and innovation between their citizenry and policymakers. New York's historic sister cities are denoted below by the year they joined New York City's partnership network.[633] The Farm Security Administration (FSA) was a New Deal agency created in 1937 to combat rural poverty during the Great Depression in the United States. It succeeded the Resettlement Administration (1935–1937).[1] The FSA is famous for its small but highly influential photography program, 1935–44, that portrayed the challenges of rural poverty. The photographs in the FSA/Office of War Information Photograph Collection form an extensive pictorial record of American life between 1935 and 1944. This U.S. government photography project was headed for most of its existence by Roy Stryker, who guided the effort in a succession of government agencies: the Resettlement Administration (1935–1937), the Farm Security Administration (1937–1942), and the Office of War Information (1942–1944). The collection also includes photographs acquired from other governmental and nongovernmental sources, including the News Bureau at the Offices of Emergency Management (OEM), various branches of the military, and industrial corporations.[2] In total, the black-and-white portion of the collection consists of about 175,000 black-and-white film negatives, encompassing both negatives that were printed for FSA-OWI use and those that were not printed at the time. Color transparencies also made by the FSA/OWI are available in a separate section of the catalog: FSA/OWI Color Photographs.[2] The FSA stressed "rural rehabilitation" efforts to improve the lifestyle of very poor landowning farmers, and a program to purchase submarginal land owned by poor farmers and resettle them in group farms on land more suitable for efficient farming. Reactionary critics, including the Farm Bureau, strongly opposed the FSA as an alleged experiment in collectivizing agriculture—that is, in bringing farmers together to work on large government-owned farms using modern techniques under the supervision of experts. After the Conservative coalition took control of Congress, it transformed the FSA into a program to help poor farmers buy land, and that program continues to operate in the 21st century as the Farmers Home Administration. Origins Walker Evans portrait of Allie Mae Burroughs (1936) Arthur Rothstein photograph "Dust Bowl Cimarron County, Oklahoma" of a farmer and two sons during a dust storm in Cimarron County, Oklahoma (1936) Dorothea Lange photograph of an Arkansas squatter of three years near Bakersfield, California (1935) The projects that were combined in 1935 to form the Resettlement Administration (RA) started in 1933 as an assortment of programs tried out by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. The RA was headed by Rexford Tugwell, an economic advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.[3] However, Tugwell's goal moving 650,000 people into 100,000,000 acres (400,000 km2) of exhausted, worn-out land was unpopular among the majority in Congress.[3] This goal seemed socialistic to some and threatened to deprive powerful farm proprietors of their tenant workforce.[3] The RA was thus left with only enough resources to relocate a few thousand people from 9 million acres (36,000 km2) and build several greenbelt cities,[3] which planners admired as models for a cooperative future that never arrived.[3] The main focus of the RA was to now build relief camps in California for migratory workers, especially refugees from the drought-stricken Dust Bowl of the Southwest.[3] This move was resisted by a large share of Californians, who did not want destitute migrants to settle in their midst.[3] The RA managed to construct 95 camps that gave migrants unaccustomed clean quarters with running water and other amenities,[3] but the 75,000 people who had the benefit of these camps were a small share of those in need and could only stay temporarily.[3] After facing enormous criticism for his poor management of the RA, Tugwell resigned in 1936.[3] On January 1, 1937,[4] with hopes of making the RA more effective, the RA was transferred to the Department of Agriculture through executive order 7530.[4] On July 22, 1937,[5] Congress passed the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act.[5] This law authorized a modest credit program to assist tenant farmers to purchase land,[5] and it was the culmination of a long effort to secure legislation for their benefit.[5] Following the passage of the act, Congress passed the Farm Security Act into law. The Farm Security Act officially transformed the RA into the Farm Security Administration (FSA).[3] The FSA expanded through funds given by the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act.[3] Relief work One of the activities performed by the RA and FSA was the buying out of small farms that were not economically viable, and the setting up of 34 subsistence homestead communities, in which groups of farmers lived together under the guidance of government experts and worked a common area. They were not allowed to purchase their farms for fear that they would fall back into inefficient practices not guided by RA and FSA experts.[6] The Dust Bowl in the Great Plains displaced thousands of tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and laborers, many of whom (known as "Okies" or "Arkies") moved on to California. The FSA operated camps for them, such as Weedpatch Camp as depicted in The Grapes of Wrath. The RA and the FSA gave educational aid to 455,000 farm families during the period 1936-1943. In June, 1936, Roosevelt wrote: "You are right about the farmers who suffer through their own fault... I wish you would have a talk with Tugwell about what he is doing to educate this type of farmer to become self-sustaining. During the past year, his organization has made 104,000 farm families practically self-sustaining by supervision and education along practical lines. That is a pretty good record!"[7] The FSA's primary mission was not to aid farm production or prices. Roosevelt's agricultural policy had, in fact, been to try to decrease agricultural production to increase prices. When production was discouraged, though, the tenant farmers and small holders suffered most by not being able to ship enough to market to pay rents. Many renters wanted money to buy farms, but the Agriculture Department realized there already were too many farmers, and did not have a program for farm purchases. Instead, they used education to help the poor stretch their money further. Congress, however, demanded that the FSA help tenant farmers purchase farms, and purchase loans of $191 million were made, which were eventually repaid. A much larger program was $778 million in loans (at effective rates of about 1% interest) to 950,000 tenant farmers. The goal was to make the farmer more efficient so the loans were used for new machinery, trucks, or animals, or to repay old debts. At all times, the borrower was closely advised by a government agent. Family needs were on the agenda, as the FSA set up a health insurance program and taught farm wives how to cook and raise children. Upward of a third of the amount was never repaid, as the tenants moved to much better opportunities in the cities.[8] The FSA was also one of the authorities administering relief efforts in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico during the Great Depression. Between 1938 and 1945, under the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration, it oversaw the purchase of 590 farms with the intent of distributing land to working and middle-class Puerto Ricans.[9] Modernization The FSA resettlement communities appear in the literature as efforts to ameliorate the wretched condition of southern sharecroppers and tenants, but those evicted to make way for the new settlers are virtually invisible in the historic record. The resettlement projects were part of larger efforts to modernize rural America. The removal of former tenants and their replacement by FSA clients in the lower Mississippi alluvial plain—the Delta—reveals core elements of New Deal modernizing policies. The key concepts that guided the FSA's tenant removals were: the definition of rural poverty as rooted in the problem of tenancy; the belief that economic success entailed particular cultural practices and social forms; and the commitment by those with political power to gain local support. These assumptions undergirded acceptance of racial segregation and the criteria used to select new settlers. Alternatives could only become visible through political or legal action—capacities sharecroppers seldom had. In succeeding decades, though, these modernizing assumptions created conditions for Delta African Americans on resettlement projects to challenge white supremacy.[10] FSA and its contribution to society The documentary photography genre describes photographs that would work as a time capsule for evidence in the future or a certain method that a person can use for a frame of reference. Facts presented in a photograph can speak for themselves after the viewer gets time to analyze it. The motto of the FSA was simply, as Beaumont Newhall insists, "not to inform us, but to move us."[citation needed] Those photographers wanted the government to move and give a hand to the people, as they were completely neglected and overlooked, thus they decided to start taking photographs in a style that we today call "documentary photography." The FSA photography has been influential due to its realist point of view, and because it works as a frame of reference and an educational tool from which later generations could learn. Society has benefited and will benefit from it for more years to come, as this photography can unveil the ambiguous and question the conditions that are taking place.[11] Photography program The RA and FSA are well known for the influence of their photography program, 1935–1944. Photographers and writers were hired to report and document the plight of poor farmers. The Information Division (ID) of the FSA was responsible for providing educational materials and press information to the public. Under Roy Stryker, the ID of the FSA adopted a goal of "introducing America to Americans." Many of the most famous Depression-era photographers were fostered by the FSA project. Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Gordon Parks were three of the most famous FSA alumni.[12] The FSA was also cited in Gordon Parks' autobiographical novel, A Choice of Weapons. The FSA's photography was one of the first large-scale visual documentations of the lives of African-Americans.[13] These images were widely disseminated through the Twelve Million Black Voices collection, published in October 1941, which combined FSA photographs selected by Edwin Rosskam and text by author and poet Richard Wright. Photographers Fifteen photographers (ordered by year of hire) would produce the bulk of work on this project. Their diverse, visual documentation elevated government's mission from the "relocation" tactics of a Resettlement Administration to strategic solutions which would depend on America recognizing rural and already poor Americans, facing death by depression and dust. FSA photographers: Arthur Rothstein (1935), Theodor Jung (1935), Ben Shahn (1935), Walker Evans (1935), Dorothea Lange (1935), Carl Mydans (1935), Russell Lee (1936), Marion Post Wolcott (1936), John Vachon (1936, photo assignments began in 1938), Jack Delano (1940), John Collier (1941), Marjory Collins (1941), Louise Rosskam (1941), Gordon Parks (1942) and Esther Bubley (1942). With America's entry into World War II, FSA would focus on a different kind of relocation as orders were issued for internment of Japanese Americans. FSA photographers would be transferred to the Office of War Information during the last years of the war and completely disbanded at the war's end. Photographers like Howard R. Hollem, Alfred T. Palmer, Arthur Siegel and OWI's Chief of Photographers John Rous were working in OWI before FSA's reorganization there. As a result of both teams coming under one unit name, these other individuals are sometimes associated with RA-FSA's pre-war images of American life. Though collectively credited with thousands of Library of Congress images, military ordered, positive-spin assignments like these four received starting in 1942, should be separately considered from pre-war, depression triggered imagery. FSA photographers were able to take time to study local circumstances and discuss editorial approaches with each other before capturing that first image. Each one talented in her or his own right, equal credit belongs to Roy Stryker who recognized, hired and empowered that talent. John Collier Jr. John Collier Jr.   Jack Delano Jack Delano   Walker Evans Walker Evans   Dorothea Lange Dorothea Lange   Russell Lee Russell Lee   Carl Mydans Carl Mydans   Gordon Parks Gordon Parks   Arthur Rothstein Arthur Rothstein   John Vachon John Vachon   Marion Post Wolcott Marion Post Wolcott These 15 photographers, some shown above, all played a significant role, not only in producing images for this project, but also in molding the resulting images in the final project through conversations held between the group members. The photographers produced images that breathed a humanistic social visual catalyst of the sort found in novels, theatrical productions, and music of the time. Their images are now regarded as a "national treasure" in the United States, which is why this project is regarded as a work of art.[14] Photograph of Chicago's rail yards by Jack Delano, circa 1943 Together with John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (not a government project) and documentary prose (for example Walker Evans and James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men), the FSA photography project is most responsible for creating the image of the Depression in the United States. Many of the images appeared in popular magazines. The photographers were under instruction from Washington, DC, as to what overall impression the New Deal wanted to portray. Stryker's agenda focused on his faith in social engineering, the poor conditions among tenant cotton farmers, and the very poor conditions among migrant farm workers; above all, he was committed to social reform through New Deal intervention in people's lives. Stryker demanded photographs that "related people to the land and vice versa" because these photographs reinforced the RA's position that poverty could be controlled by "changing land practices." Though Stryker did not dictate to his photographers how they should compose the shots, he did send them lists of desirable themes, for example, "church", "court day", and "barns". Stryker sought photographs of migratory workers that would tell a story about how they lived day-to-day. He asked Dorothea Lange to emphasize cooking, sleeping, praying, and socializing.[15] RA-FSA made 250,000 images of rural poverty. Fewer than half of those images survive and are housed in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. The library has placed all 164,000 developed negatives online.[16] From these, some 77,000 different finished photographic prints were originally made for the press, plus 644 color images, from 1600 negatives. Documentary films The RA also funded two documentary films by Pare Lorentz: The Plow That Broke the Plains, about the creation of the Dust Bowl, and The River, about the importance of the Mississippi River. The films were deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. World War II activities During World War II, the FSA was assigned to work under the purview of the Wartime Civil Control Administration, a subagency of the War Relocation Authority. These agencies were responsible for relocating Japanese Americans from their homes on the West Coast to Internment camps. The FSA controlled the agricultural part of the evacuation. Starting in March 1942 they were responsible for transferring the farms owned and operated by Japanese Americans to alternate operators. They were given the dual mandate of ensuring fair compensation for Japanese Americans, and for maintaining correct use of the agricultural land. During this period, Lawrence Hewes Jr was the regional director and in charge of these activities.[17] Reformers ousted; Farmers Home Administration After the war started and millions of factory jobs in the cities were unfilled, no need for FSA remained.[citation needed] In late 1942, Roosevelt moved the housing programs to the National Housing Agency, and in 1943, Congress greatly reduced FSA's activities. The photographic unit was subsumed by the Office of War Information for one year, then disbanded. Finally in 1946, all the social reformers had left and FSA was replaced by a new agency, the Farmers Home Administration, which had the goal of helping finance farm purchases by tenants—and especially by war veterans—with no personal oversight by experts. It became part of Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty in the 1960s, with a greatly expanded budget to facilitate loans to low-income rural families and cooperatives, injecting $4.2 billion into rural America.[18] The Great Depression The Great Depression began in August 1929, when the United States economy first went into an economic recession. Although the country spent two months with declining GDP, the effects of a declining economy were not felt until the Wall Street Crash in October 1929, and a major worldwide economic downturn ensued. Although its causes are still uncertain and controversial, the net effect was a sudden and general loss of confidence in the economic future and a reduction in living standards for most ordinary Americans. The market crash highlighted a decade of high unemployment, poverty, low profits for industrial firms, deflation, plunging farm incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth.[19]
  • Condition: Used
  • Type: Negative
  • Year of Production: 1946

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