New York City. Geography favored the future city of New York, providing a huge protected harbor, river access to the interior, a temperate climate, and stable bedrock.Various Algonkin people, including Carnarsies and Manhattans, first inhabited the site. The first European explorer to visit the area was probably Giovanni da Verrazano, in 1524. In 1609, Englishman Henry Hudson, employed by the Dutch, sailed by Manhattan Island in a futile search for the Northwest Passage.

Others followed, lured by commercial possibilities, especially the fur trade. In 1621, the Dutch government granted a trade monopoly to the Dutch West India Company. By 1624, some thirty families, Protestant Walloons, established the first European settlement, New Amsterdam. Two years later, Peter Minuit, the first director general, purchased Manhattan Island (fifteen thousand acres) from local Indians, probably Carnarsies, for sixty guilders in trade goods. In 1653, during the administration of Peter Stuyvesant (1610?–1672), a city council was established. England seized the land in 1664, changing its name to New York and introducing jury trials and a permanent court system. The settlement, which had grown to 1,500 people, contained a city hall, a church, a canal (later Broad Street), a wall (Wall Street), a main street (Broadway), and about 300 houses.

In 1665, Governor Richard Nichols extended the city limits to include the entire island. By 1680, the population stood at three thousand, and trade in furs and flour was thriving. Six years later, Governor Thomas Dongan, an Irish Catholic, granted the “Dongan Charter,” dividing the city into six wards. A common council was given the power to make laws not contrary to those of England or the province. The overthrow of James II in 1689 led to a political crisis, however, as followers of Jacob Leisler (1640–1691), a German immigrant, seized control of the city and governed it for two years. Leisler was arrested and executed, but the affair left deep political scars as New Yorkers struggled for power. Other notable events in the Colonial Era included the trial of John Peter Zenger in 1735, slave insurrections in 1712 and 1741, and the launching of William Bradford's New York Gazette in 1725. The New York Society Library was created in 1754, John Street Theater in 1764, and New York Hospital in 1771.

Although it hosted the Stamp Act Congress in 1765, New York entered the Revolutionary War reluctantly. The city's 25,000 inhabitants, flourishing under English rule, valued their trade with the empire. After the disastrous Battle of Long Island on 27 August 1776, British forces seized unresisting New York and held it throughout the war.

New York recovered quickly. George Washington was inaugurated president on 30 April 1789 on the balcony of City Hall, renamed Federal Hall, as New York City became the nation's first capital. Adding to the city's growing importance was the founding of the New York Stock Exchange in 1792 and Bellevue Hospital in 1794; the voyage of Robert Fulton's steamboat, the Clermont, to Albany in 1807; the adoption of the grid or Commissioners Plan in 1811; and the opening of Central Park in 1857. The population grew from sixty thousand in 1800 to nearly one million, almost half foreign‐born, by 1860. Most immigrants in the 1840s were from Ireland, with German immigration rising sharply in the 1850s. But with growth came problems. Rising crime and city‐state competition led to the creation of a centralized state‐controlled police force in 1857. Outbreaks of yellow fever and cholera increased the role of city government in public‐health matters. In 1834, after years of pressure to expand the elective process, New York held its first post‐colonial popular mayoral election, won by Democrat Cornelius Lawrence.

During the Civil War, most New Yorkers rallied to the Union cause. More than 400,000 city and state residents served, and 50,000 died. The bloody 1863 Civil War draft riots were an aberration, not indicative of the city's patriotism. Following the war, the city continued its economic expansion and tradition of rough‐and‐tumble politics. In 1871, The New York Times allied with cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840–1902) and Harper's Weekly, all Republican supporters, to pillory William M. “Boss” Tweed, a Democrat whose name quickly became synonymous with municipal corruption. Despite such attacks, greater New York was created in 1898 as the five boroughs—Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island—were incorporated into a single municipality.

By 1900, the city's population exceeded three million. Two‐thirds were foreign born, with 300,000 immigrants from Germany, followed by Ireland with 275,000, Russia (180,000), and Italy (145,000). Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in eastern Europe arrived in great numbers as well. African Americans comprised 10 percent of the population. The Statue of Liberty (1886) in New York harbor symbolized the city's role as a mecca for immigrants. Bridges linked Manhattan and the boroughs, including the Brooklyn Bridge (1883), Manhattan Bridge (1909), and Queensborough Bridge (1909). Subway construction began in 1900. Steel enabled the growth of skyscrapers, including the Flatiron Building (1902), Woolworth Building (1913), and Empire State Building (1931).

Harlem.

The 1920s brought the Harlem Renaissance, a cultural flowering centered in a district of New York City sometimes called “the capital of Black America.” Bounded on the north by the Harlem River and on the south by Central Park, it was named Nieuw Haarlem by the seventeenth‐century Dutch farmers who first settled here. Home to prominent colonial‐era families, it later drew Irish squatters, middle‐class German Jews who lived in spacious brownstones, and poor Eastern European Jews escaping the crowded Lower East Side. By 1917, Harlem's Jewish population stood at 80,000. African Americans from the South as well as Caribbean newcomers arrived as well, and by 1930, with more than 200,000 blacks, Harlem had become largely African American. In the 1920s, Harlem boasted not only a vibrant literary scene, but also jazz and variety shows at venues like the Cotton Club, the Apollo Theater, and the Savoy Ballroom; the headquarters of the National Urban League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; and a rich religious life ranging from storefront places of worship to the thriving Abyssinian Baptist Church (1923). Social problems associated with overcrowding, poor schools, racial discrimination, and lack of jobs worsened in the 1930s, and rioting erupted in 1935. As protests against racism and Harlem's economic plight increased, riots again broke out in 1943, 1964, and 1968.

The 1980s brought signs of community renewal—a growing middle‐ and professional class; new construction; political leaders, including New York's first black mayor, David Dinkins; and such highly regarded cultural institutions as the Dance Theatre of Harlem—but also continuing problems of joblessness and high school‐dropout rates, compounded by drugs—especially crack cocaine—gangs; high out‐of‐wedlock birth rates; and single‐parent households. Harlem also grew more ethnically diverse as the twentieth century progressed, including a growing African community and a large Hispanic population in “Spanish Harlem.”

In the larger history of the city, meanwhile, the 1920s also brought Prohibition‐era speakeasies and the rise of the city's favorite son, Alfred E. Smith, to national prominence. The 1929 stock market crash, reverberating from Wall Street, coupled with the resignation of Mayor James “Gentleman Jimmy” Walker amid charges of corruption, marked the end of an era. Fiorello La Guardia, the “Little Flower,” was elected mayor on a reform ticket in 1933. A new charter in 1936 increased the mayor's power and created a city planning commission.

The post–World War II decades accelerated New York's rise to global economic and cultural dominance. In 1945 the newly formed United Nations made the city its permanent home. Parks commissioner Robert Moses (1889–1981) razed entire neighborhoods to build parks, parkways, playgrounds, and public beaches, and inaugurated other monumental undertakings, including the 1964–1965 New York World's Fair. The completion of the World Trade Center in 1972 bore witness to New York's vitality as an international center not only of commerce and finance, but also publishing, theater, fashion, the arts, intellectual life, and popular culture. But urban unrest and teachers' strikes in 1962 and 1967 exemplified both the city's financial problems and racial divisions. The public schools were decentralized, but the educational system remained troubled. The growing need for social services by the city's vast underclass, mostly African Americans and Hispanic Americans, strained economic resources. As in the late nineteenth century, vast concentrations of wealth coexisted with grinding poverty. Along with imposing and glittering districts, parts of the city resembled war zones, marked by abandoned buildings, joblessness, and drug‐related crime and violence. Adding to the aura of decline, some large corporations moved their headquarters out of Manhattan.

The economic upsurge of the late 1980s and 1990s brought revitalization, however, marked by growing tourism, rising office occupancy rates, a real‐estate boom, and declining crime statistics. As newcomers continued to arrive, including aspiring young people from across America and immigrants from around the world, New York City remained a symbol of hope, glamour, and opportunity.

The destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 dealt a shattering blow to New York City. In addition to the physical devastation, the disaster took some 2,600 lives, many of them New Yorkers, including 343 firefighters and many police. Mayor Rudolph Guiliani won admiration for his leadership in the crisis, but the city's economy was hard hit. The New York Stock Exchange closed for several days; tourism declined; the theater, restaurant, and hotel industries faltered. The clean-up proceeded quickly, however, and by 2004 plans were well underway for reconstruction on the site, including an impressive memorial chosen after an international design competition.
See also Architecture: Public Architecture; Armory Show; Dutch Settlements in North America; German Americans; Glorious Revolution in America; Harlem Renaissance; Immigration; Irish Americans; Italian Americans; Judaism; Parks, Urban; Roman Catholicism; Stock Market; Urbanization; World's Fairs and Expositions; Zenger Trial.

Bibliography

Isaac N.P. Stokes , Iconography of Manhattan Island, 6 vols., 1915–1928.
Ira Rosenwaike , Population History of New York City, 1972.
Susan Lyman , The Story of New York, 1975.
Edwin G. Burrows and and Mike Wallace , Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, 1998.

Leo Hershkowitz

Paul S. Boyer

New York city (1990 pop. 7,322,564), land area 304.8 sq mi (789.4 sq km), SE N.Y., largest city in the United States and one of the largest in the world, on New York Bay at the mouth of the Hudson River. It comprises five boroughs, each coextensive with a county: Manhattan (New York co.), the heart of the city, an island; the Bronx (Bronx co.), on the mainland, NE of Manhattan and separated from it by the Harlem River; Queens (Queens co.), on Long Island, E of Manhattan across the East River; Brooklyn (Kings co.), also on Long Island, on the East River adjoining Queens and on New York Bay; and Staten Island (Richmond co.), on Staten Island, SW of Manhattan and separated from it by the Upper Bay. The metropolitan area (1990 est. pop. 18,087,000) encompasses parts of SE New York state, NE New Jersey, and SW Connecticut. The port of New York (which is now centered on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River) remains one of the world's leading ports.

Economy

New York is a vibrant center for commerce and business and one of the three "world cities" (along with London and Toyko) that control world finance. Manufacturing—primarily of small but highly diverse types—accounts for a large but declining amount of employment. Clothing and other apparel, such as furs; chemicals; metal products; and processed foods are some of the principal manufactures. The city is also a major center of television broadcasting, book publishing, advertising, and other facets of mass communication. It became a major movie-making site in the 1990s, and it is a preeminent art center, with artists revitalizing many of its neighborhoods. The most celebrated newspapers are the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. New York attracts many conventions—including the national Democratic (1868, 1924, 1976, 1980, 1992) and Republican (2004) party conventions—and was the site of two World's Fairs (1939-40; 1964-65). It is served by three major airports: John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport, both in Queens, and Newark International Airport, in New Jersey. Railroads converge upon New York from all points.

With its vast cultural and educational resources, famous shops and restaurants, places of entertainment (including the theater district and many off-Broadway theaters), striking and diversified architecture (including the Chrysler Building and Empire State Building ), and parks and botanical gardens, New York draws millions of tourists every year. Some of its streets and neighborhoods have become symbols throughout the nation. Wall Street means finance; Broadway , the theater; Fifth Avenue , fine shopping; Madison Avenue , advertising; and SoHo, art.

Ethnic Diversity

New York City is also famous for its ethnic diversity, manifesting itself in scores of communities representing virtually every nation on earth, each preserving its identity. Little Italy and Chinatown date back to the mid-19th cent. African Americans from the South began to migrate to Harlem after 1910, and in the 1940s large numbers of Puerto Ricans and other Hispanic-Americans began to settle in what is now known as Spanish Harlem. Since the 1980s New York City has undergone substantial population growth, primarily due to new immigration from Latin America (especially the Dominican Republic), Asia, Jamaica, Haiti, the Soviet Union and Russia, and Africa.

Points of Interest and Educational and Cultural Facilities

The city's many bridges include the George Washington Bridge , Brooklyn Bridge , Henry Hudson Bridge, Triborough Bridge, the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, the Throgs Neck Bridge, and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge . The Holland Tunnel (the first vehicular tunnel under the Hudson) and the Lincoln Tunnel link Manhattan with New Jersey. The Queens-Midtown Tunnel and the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, both under the East River, connect Manhattan with W Long Island. Islands in the East River include Roosevelt Island, Rikers Island (site of a city penitentiary), and Randalls Island (with Downing Stadium). In New York Bay are Liberty Island (with the Statue of Liberty ); Governors Island ; and Ellis Island . New York City is the seat of the United Nations . Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is a complex of buildings housing the Metropolitan Opera Company , the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra , the New York City Ballet , the New York City Opera, and the Juilliard School . Also in the city are Carnegie Hall and New York City Center, featuring performances by musical and theatrical companies.

Among the best known of the city's many museums and scientific collections are the Metropolitan Museum of Art , the Museum of Modern Art , the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright), the Frick Collection (housed in the Frick mansion), the Whitney Museum of American Art , the Neue Galerie, the Museum of the City of New York, the Museum of Jewish Heritage-a Living Memorial to the Holocaust, the American Museum of Natural History (with the Hayden Planetarium), the museum and library of the New-York Historical Society , the Brooklyn Museum (see Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences ), and the Paley Center for Media . The New York Public Library is the largest in the United States. Major educational institutions include the City Univ. of New York (see New York, City Univ. of ), Columbia Univ. , Cooper Union , Fordham Univ. , General Theological Seminary, Jewish Theological Seminary, New School Univ. , New York Univ. , and Union Theological Seminary . A center for medical treatment and research, New York has more than 130 hospitals and several medical schools. Noted hospitals include Bellevue Hospital , Mt. Sinai Hospital (part of Mt. Sinai NYU Health), and New York-Presbyterian Hospital (encompassing Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center and New York Weill Cornell Medical Center). Among New York's noted houses of worship are Trinity Church, St. Paul's Chapel (dedicated 1776), Saint Patrick's Cathedral , the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (see Saint John the Divine, Cathedral of ), Riverside Church, and Temple Emanu-El.

New York's parks and recreation centers include parts of Gateway National Recreation Area (see National Parks and Monuments , table); Central Park , the Battery, Washington Square Park, Riverside Park, and Fort Tryon Park (with the Cloisters ) in Manhattan; the New York Zoological Park (Bronx Zoo) and the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx; Coney Island (with a boardwalk, beaches, and an aquarium) and Prospect Park in Brooklyn; and Flushing Meadows-Corona Park (the site of two World's Fairs, two museums, a botanic garden, and a zoo). Sports events are held at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, home to the Knickerbockers (basketball) and Rangers (hockey); at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, home to the Yankees (baseball); and at Shea Stadium (home to baseball's Mets) and Arthur Ashe Stadium (home to the U.S. Open in tennis) in Queens. In the suburbs are the homes of the Islanders (hockey; in Uniondale, Long Island) and the Giants and the Jets (football; at the Meadowlands, in East Rutherford, N.J.).

Other places of interest are Rockefeller Center ; Battery Park City; Greenwich Village , with its cafés and restaurants; and Times Square , with its lights and theaters. Of historic interest are Fraunces Tavern (built 1719), where Washington said farewell to his officers after the American Revolution; Gracie Mansion (built late 18th cent.), now the official mayoral residence; the Edgar Allan Poe Cottage; and Grant's Tomb.

History

The Colonial Period

Although Giovanni da Verrazano was probably the first European to explore the region and Henry Hudson certainly visited the area, it was with Dutch settlements on Manhattan and Long Island that the city truly began to emerge. In 1624 the colony of New Netherland was established, with the town of New Amsterdam on the lower tip of Manhattan as its capital. Peter Minuit of the Dutch West India Company supposedly bought the island from its Native inhabitants for 60 Dutch guilders worth of merchandise (the sale was completed in 1626). Under the Dutch, schools were opened and the Dutch Reformed Church was established. The indigenous population was forced out the area of European settlement in a series of bloody battles.

In 1664 the English, at war with the Netherlands (see Dutch Wars ), seized the colony for the duke of York, for whom it was renamed. Peter Stuyvesant was replaced by Richard Nicolls as governor, and New York City became the capital of the new British province of New York. The Dutch returned to power briefly (1673-74) before the reestablishment of English rule. A liberal charter, which established the Common Council as the main governing body of the city, was granted under Thomas Dongan in 1686 and remained in effect for many years. English rule was not, however, without dissension, and the autocratic rule of British governors was one of the causes of an insurrection that broke out in 1689 under the leadership of Jacob Leisler . The insurrection ended in the execution of Leisler by his enemies in 1691. In 1741 there was further violence when an alleged plot by African-American slaves to burn New York was ruthlessly suppressed.

Throughout the 18th cent. New York was an expanding commercial and cultural center. The city's first newspaper, the New York Gazette, appeared in 1725. The trial in 1735 of John Peter Zenger , editor of a rival paper, was an important precedent for the principle of a free press. The city's first institution of higher learning, Kings College (now Columbia Univ.), was founded in 1754.

The Revolution through the Nineteenth Century

New York was active in the colonial opposition to British measures after trouble in 1765 over the Stamp Act . As revolutionary sentiments increased, the New York Sons of Liberty forced (1775) Gov. William Tryon and the British colonial government from the city. Although many New Yorkers were Loyalists, Continental forces commanded by George Washington tried to defend the city. After the patriot defeat in the battle of Long Island (see Long Island, battle of ) and the succeeding actions at Harlem Heights and White Plains, Washington gave up New York, and the British occupied the city until the end of the war for independence. Under the British occupation two mysterious fires (1776 and 1778) destroyed a large part of the city. After the Revolution New York was briefly (1785-90) the first capital of the United States and was the state capital until 1797. President Washington was inaugurated (Apr. 30, 1789) at Federal Hall.

New development was marked by such events as the founding (1784) of the Bank of New York under Alexander Hamilton and the beginning of the stock exchange around 1790. By 1790 New York was the largest city in the United States, with over 33,000 inhabitants; by 1800 the number had risen to 60,515. In 1811 plans were adopted for the laying out of most of Manhattan on a grid pattern. The opening of the Erie Canal (1825), ardently supported by former Mayor De Witt Clinton , made New York City the seaboard gateway for the Great Lakes region, ushering in another era of commercial expansion. The New York and Harlem RR was built in 1832. In 1834 the mayor of New York became an elective office. In the next year a massive fire destroyed much of Lower Manhattan, but it brought about new building laws and the construction of the Croton water system.

By 1840 New York had become the leading port of the nation. A substantial Irish and German immigration after 1840 dramatically changed the character of urban life and politics in the city. The coming of the Civil War found New Yorkers unusually divided; many shared Mayor Fernando Wood 's Southern sympathies, but under the leadership of Gov. Horatio Seymour most supported the Union. However, in 1863 the draft riots broke out in protest against the federal Conscription Act. The rioters—many of whom were Irish and other recent immigrants—directed most of their anger against African Americans. Extensive immigration had begun before the Civil War, and after 1865, with the acceleration of industrial development, another wave of immigration began and reached its height in the late 19th and early 20th cent. As a result of this immigration, which was predominantly from E and S Europe, the city's population reached 3,437,000 by 1900 and 7 million by 1930. New York's many distinct neighborhoods, divided along ethnic and class lines, included such notorious slums as Five Points, Hell's Kitchen, and the Lower East Side. They were often side by side with such exclusive neighborhoods as Gramercy Park or Brooklyn Heights.

Municipal politics were dominated by the Democratic party, which was dominated by Tammany Hall (see Tammany ) and the Tweed Ring, led by William M. Tweed . The first of many scandalous disclosures about the city's political life came in 1871, leading to Tweed's downfall. Although not always victorious, Tammany was the center of New York City politics until 1945.

Until 1874, when portions of Westchester were annexed, the city's boundaries were those of present-day Manhattan. With the adoption of a new charter in 1898, New York became a city of five boroughs—New York City was split into the present Manhattan and Bronx boroughs, and the independent city of Brooklyn was annexed, as were the western portions of Queens co. and Staten Island. The opening of the first subway line (1903) and other means of mass transportation spurred the growth of the outer boroughs, and this trend has continued into the 1990s. The Flatiron Building (1902) foreshadowed the skyscrapers that today give Manhattan its famed skyline.

Later History

In the 20th cent., New York City was served by such mayors as Seth Low , William J. Gaynor , James J. Walker (whose resignation was brought about by the Seabury investigation), Fiorello H. LaGuardia , Robert F. Wagner, Jr. (see under Robert Ferdinand Wagner ), Abraham Beame , John V. Lindsay , Edward I. Koch , David Dinkins (New York City's first African-American mayor), and Rudolph Giuliani . The need for regional planning resulted in the nation's first zoning legislation (1916) and the formation of such bodies as the Port of New York Authority (1921; now the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey ), the Regional Plan Association (1929), the Municipal Housing Authority (1934), and the City Planning Commission (1938).

After World War II, New York began to experience the problems that became common to most large U.S. cities, including increased crime, racial and ethnic tensions, homelessness, a movement of residents and companies to the suburbs and the resulting diminished tax base, and a deteriorating infrastructure that hurt city services. These problems were highlighted in the city's near-bankruptcy in 1975. A brief but spectacular boom in the stock and real estate markets in the 1980s brought considerable wealth to some sectors. By the early 1990s, however, corporate downsizing, the outward movement of corporate and back office centers, a still shrinking industrial sector, and the transition to a service-oriented economy meant the city was hard hit by the national recession.

In the late 1990s the city capitalized on its strengths to face a changing economic environment. While the manufacturing base continued to dwindle, the survivors were flexible and, increasingly, specialized companies that custom-tailored products or focused on local customers. Foreign markets were targeted by the city's financial, legal, communications, and other service industries. The city also saw the birth of a strong high-technology sector. Budget cuts in the mid-1990s reduced basic services, but a strong national economy and, especially, a rising stock market had restored vigor and prosperity by the end of the 20th cent.

The destruction of the World Trade Center , formerly the city's tallest building, as a result of a terrorist attack (Sept., 2001) was the worst disaster in the city's history, killing more than 2,700 people. In addition to the wrenching horror of the attack and the blow to the city's pride, New York lost some 10% of its commercial office space and faced months of cleanup and years of reconstruction. The crisis brought national prominence and international renown to Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who provided the city with a forceful and calming focus in the weeks after the attack. Michael R. Bloomberg , a Republican, succeeded Giuliani as mayor in 2002.

Bibliography

See I. N. P. Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island (6 vol., 1915-28, repr. 1967); R. G. Albion, The Rise of New York Port, 1815-1860 (1939); J. A. Kouwenhoven, Columbia Historical Portrait of New York (1953, repr. 1972); N. Glazer and D. P. Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot (1963); E. R. Ellis, The Epic of New York City (1966); R. A. Caro, The Power Broker (1975); D. Hammack, Power and Society (1982); Federal Writers' Project, WPA Guide to New York City (repr. 1982); J. Kieran, A Natural History of New York (1982); J. Charyn, Metropolis: New York as Myth, Marketplace, and Magical Land (1987); R. A. M. Stern, T. Mellins, and D. Fishman, New York 1960 (1995); K. T. Jackson, ed., The Encyclopedia of New York City (1995); E. G. Burrows and M. Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (1998); H. Adam, New York: Architecture & Design (2003); A. S. Dolkart and M. A. Postal, Guide to New York City Landmarks (3d ed. 2003); R. Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America (2004).

New York City City and port in se New York State, at the mouth of the Hudson River; largest city (by population) in the USA. Manhattan Island was settled in 1624 and was bought (1626) from Native Americans by the Dutch West India Company. New Amsterdam was founded at the s end of the island. In 1664, the British took the colony and renamed it New York. The founding of the Bank of New York by Alexander Hamilton, and the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 made New York the principal commercial and financial centre in the USA. After the American Civil War and in the early 20th century, the city received a great influx of immigrants. It is made up of five boroughs: Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. Sights include the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall. It is one of the world's major ports and a vital financial centre. On September 11, 2001, terrorists piloted two hijacked airplanes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, killing c.2750 people and destroying the towers. Industries: clothing, chemicals, metal products, scientific instruments, shipbuilding, broadcasting, entertainment, tourism, publishing. Pop. (2000) 8,008,278.