Topic 3. New York City

3.1. Read and translate the text:

New York is the largest city in the USA. Its population numbers about 17 million (1990). New York, N.Y., is the post office designation of the largest metropolis in the United States. Officially it is the City of New York, and popularly it is called New York City.

New York City is situated at the mouth of the deep Hudson River and is the gate of the USA. The symbol of New York City and the country is Statue of Liberty (Fig. 4). The Statue of Liberty was presented to the American people by the French government in 1884 on the hundredth anniversary of American independence and was installed on the island in the bay in 1886. The French people collected 250,000 dollars to make this present which expressed friendship of the two nations in the American Revolution (the War of Independence). American schloolchildren and adults participated in a nationwide drive to raise funds for the pedestal.

Fig. 4. The Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty was the work of French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi. It is a bronze female figure about 50 metres high that stands on a pedestal of about 50 metres high. The right hand of the figure holds the torch of liberty high above the harbour that can be seen at night for many miles. The book that Liberty holds in her left hand symbolizes the Declaration of Independence. The main figure is attached to an iron framework designed by Gustave Eifell, builder of the Eifell Tower in Paris. A new American Museum of Immigration is open at the base of the Statue.

New York City was founded by the Dutchs. In 1626 Dutch colonists set up here the first settlement named New Amsterdam. They bought the Manhattan Island (now the centre of New York) from the Indians for a handful of trinkets that cost twenty-four dollars and a barrel of rum. In 1664 the colony was captured by British fleet under command of Duke of York and was renamed New York.

New York City includes five boroughs: Manhattan, on the Manhattan Island between the Hudson and East Rivers; the Bronx, on the southernmost part of the mainland; Queens and Brooklyn, on Long Island, separated from Manhattan by East River; and Richmond on Staten Island in New York Bay (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5. The plan of New York City

Thanks to its geographical position and historical past, New York has grown into a big financial, commercial, industrial and cultural center with the heart in Manhattan. The Empire State Building, the World Trade Center destroyed on September 11, 2001, Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Central Park, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Broadway – all these world famous sights are in Manhattan. What unites them is probably a small street, only a few blocks long, which is the financial center of the whole United States – Wall Street. Economic and financial power of the United States is concentrated in Wall Street area: the Bank of New York, founded in 1784, the New York Stock Exchange and the American Stock Exchange, many stockbrokers, investment banks and other banks, and headquarters of many large corporations. There is also the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a branch of the National Bank of the United States – and the only branch that buys and sells government securities.

Wall Street (Fig. 6) is a short street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, which takes its name from the town wall built in 1653 across Manhattan Island to protect the Dutch colonists of New Amsterdam from both the Native American Indians and the English. Symbolically however «Wall Street» means the financial center of the United States (just as the «City» of London is the financial center of the United Kingdom) because of the concentration of business institutions in the area.

Fig. 6. Wall Street

Everyone who visits New York City today wants to see Rockefeller Center (Fig. 7). It is one of the most popular places of interest. Rockefeller Center is really a small city with thousands of offices, all kinds of stores, restaurants and small shops. The buildings are very large and very high. The style of the buildings is modern. There is little decoration. The architects who planned them tried to do two things. First, they tried to make the buildings look like one group. Second, they tried at the same time to make each building a little different in form from the others.

John Rockefeller together with some other companions began to work on Rockefeller Center in 1930. It took about ten years to complete all of the original buildings.

Fig. 7. Rockefeller Center

Very few people live in Manhattan, though the majority work here. Harlem is also in Manhattan. 450,000 coloured people live here.

Manhattan is an island just 13 miles long and 2 miles wide. The value of land in Manhattan has turned the island into a sea of concrete. Fortunately for New York^,s residents there is one major exception: Central Park (Fig. 8).

This huge park in the middle of Manhattan was designed in the 1850^,s by landscape architect Frederic Law Olmsted who wanted the park to be a rural paradise within an urban area, a place for all – rich and poor, young and old. Central Park was opened in 1876 and is still much as he intended.

You can take a horse and buggy to ride through Central Park. You can explore the park even better by renting a bicycle. Attractions in the park include gardens, a Zoo, a skating rink, an old-fashioned carousel, a lake where you can row, and an outdoor theatre where events are held each summer.

Fig. 8. Central Park

The part of Fifth Avenue along Central Park east side has so many museums with wonderful art collections that it is called «Museum Mile». The Metropolitan Museum of Art⁶ (Fig. 9), with huge collections of art from around the world, may be the most important museum in the USA.

Fig. 9. Metropolitan Museum of Arts

The Manhattan Island is connected by six long bridges as well as by tunnels and ferries with the other four parts of New York City. One of the most popular places of interest in New York City is the Brooklyn Bridge (see Fig. 10).

The Brooklyn Bridge was built in 1883. The plan for this bridge was made in 1867 by Johann August Röbling (1806 - 1869), a German who emigrated to the USA when he was twenty-five. In 1867 Johann Röbling was already quite famous. Years before he had invented steel cable and using it he built several bridges, for example, the suspension bridge at Niagara Falls.

According to the plan the Brooklyn Bridge had two large towers – one tower on the Brooklyn side of the East River and the other tower on the Manhattan side. From the towers hung a system of steel cables. These steel cables were to hold the bridge.

Johann Röbling began to construct the bridge and his son Washington completed its construction. In 1876 the first steel cable was placed from one tower to the other. The Brooklyn Bridge was being built for about fifteen years and was officially opened in 1883. It was one of the wonders of the nineteenth century and is still today. There is more traffic on it today than ever before. The bridge remains very strong. The Brooklyn Bridge has three spans that are hold by four steel cables, each 400 mm thick. The Brooklyn Bridge is about 1100 metres long and has two railway tracks, tracks for cars and lorries and for foot-passengers as well.

Fig. 10. The Brooklyn Bridge

The Bronx is more residential rather than industrial part of the city. The well-known Zoo and Botanic Garden are in the Bronx.

Queens is both a residential and industrial area. New York’s two biggest airports are both there.

Brooklyn has more people than any other part of the city – about 3,000,000. If it were a separate city, it would be the fourth largest in the United States. Brooklyn is mostly a district of middle-class people. The Brooklyn Navy Yard is the largest naval shipbuilding centre in the world.

Richmond is the borough of piers and warehouses. Its population is only 200,000.

New York is a city of striking contrasts. It is a place where most of the millionaires live and at the same time a greater proportion of New Yorkers live at a lower level than the average for the USA.

New York City is one of the leading manufacturing cities in the world. The most important industries are those producing textile and clothes, paper products, vehicles, glass, chemicals, machinery. New York City has a considerable printing industry and many bookshops.

New York City is also the largest seaport in the USA.

New York is undoubtedly one of the centres of social and spiritual life of America. There are many Art Galleries and Art museums including Metropolitan Museum of Arts, Museum of Modern Art⁷, American Art Museum (Fig. 11) and others.

Fig. 11. American Art Museum

For a long time New York City specializes in giving visitors a good time at its theatres, restaurants, night clubs, sporting arenas and therefore it has a large hotel industry. It is also the main publishing, advertising and radio centre.

There are six universities including Columbia⁸, George Washington⁹ and New York universities and various city colleges in New York City.

New York City houses the headquarters of the United Nations Organization (UNO) (Fig. 12) and a number of other international organizations.

Fig. 12. The United Nations Organization

New York City is inhabited by people of almost all nationalities and races. They came to the USA from different countries. Now many outstanding scientists and capable specialists from Russia also live and work in New York City. The citizens of New York City speak more than seventy-five different languages.