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Basic island data Location: New York City, southeastern New York state,
between the Hudson and East rivers Coordinates: 40.78° N, 73.97° W
[1] Area: 22.6 sq mi / 59 sq
km High point: 265 feet / 81
meters [2] Population: 1,615,000 (2008
est.) [3] Alternate names: –
Former Lenape Mannahatta [4] –
Former New York Island SOURCES: – 1. Trails.com,
viewed September 2009. – 2. “Manhattan High Point, New
York,” Peakbagger.com, viewed September 2009. Source #4 (Sanderson) claims 268 feet. – 3.
WorldIslandInfo.com calculations from U.S. Census Bureau, Population
Division, via Google Public Data, July 31, 2009. – 4. Eric W.
Sanderson, Mannahatta: A Natural
History of New York City (New York: Abrams, 2009), 15, 20, 64. – 5. Peter T. White,
“The World in New York City,” National
Geographic, July 1964, 71. – 6. Spencer P.M.
Harrington, “New York’s Great Cemetery Imbroglio,” Archeology, March-April 1993, 29-31. – 7. Edwin G. Burrows,
Gotham: A History of New York City to
1898 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). – 8. “New York,” The University Encyclopedia, Vol. 6
(New York: The Cooperative Publication Society, 1909). – 9. “About the
New-York Historical Society ‘Slavery and the Making of New York,’” New York Historical
Society, viewed September 2009. – 10. “New York:
Episode 1,” PBS, 1999. – 11. Burkhard
Bilger, “Mystery
on Pearl Street,” The New Yorker,
January 7, 2008, 59, 60. – 12. Frank
Hercules, “To Live in Harlem...,” National
Geographic, February 1977, 185, 187. – 13. “New York:
Episode 7,” PBS, 1999. – 14. E. Benjamin
Andres, History of the United States
Volume III (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1894), 135. – 15. “Manhattan”
map, National Geographic Society, September 1990. – 16. National Park
Service, “Dutch
Colonies,” NPS.gov, viewed September 2009. – 17. Bernard
Bailyn, The Peopling of British North
America (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1986), 97. – 18. Henry Adams, The United States in 1800 (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1955, 17. – 19. “World
Trade Center,” Greatbuildings.com, viewed September 2009. |
Manhattan
Manhattan is long and narrow, outlined by
the Hudson River to the west and the Harlem River and the East River—an inlet
of the Atlantic connecting Long Island Sound to New York Harbor—to the
east. The island is 22.6 square miles
(59 square km) and rises to 265 feet (81 meters) above sea level.[2] The shoreline of the island has been built
outward over the centuries, particularly at the southern end. With a few small offshore islands, notably
Roosevelt Island in the East River, and a small area on the mainland,
Manhattan forms the borough of Manhattan within New York City, and New York’s
New York County. Before 1898, New York
City was limited to Manhattan Island. With about 1.6 million inhabitants, it is
the second-most populous island in the United States after Long Island, and
the world’s smallest island with more than one million inhabitants. As such, it is heavily built up, with many
skyscrapers and high-rise dwellings. It is connected by many bridges and tunnels
to the mainland and to Long Island, as well as a number of ferry routes. Manhattan is a national and global
financial, media, and cultural center, and a nexus of American business and
trade. It is the site of the actual
Wall Street, for which the US financial industry is named, and of the New
York Stock Exchange. It hosts the headquarters of the United
Nations in a complex on the East River. The island is racially and ethnically
diverse. The northern end is heavily
black and Hispanic, and Chinatown, in the southeast, has a concentration of
Chinese Americans, many of them recent immigrants. A significant fraction of the white
population is Jewish. History
to 1800 Manhattan took shape at the end of the last
Ice Age. The island was inhabited by
Native Americans for as long as 10,000 years.[4] It was first visited by Europeans in 1609, when
Dutch-sponsored explorer Henry Hudson arrived. Dutch settlement took root in 1624, and in
1626 the Dutch “bought” the island from the Indians.[16] Africans were first brought to the island
as slaves in 1626.[6] The Dutch
settlement reached a population of 3,000 by 1653, when a wall was built to
protect the town at the southern tip of the island.[1][15] The English took control of the colony in
1664, changing its name to New York.
As of that year, up to 40% of the population were enslaved Africans.[6] The island was briefly under Dutch control
1673–1674. The mutineers of Leisler's
Rebellion seized New York from 1689 to 1691, when royal authority was
restored. The first bridge to the
mainland was built in 1693, at the north end of the island.[7] By 1700, the population of the town reached
5,000.[17] People gradually spread up
Manhattan; wolves were eliminated from the island in the 1720s.[4] The totalitarian slave system was an
important part of early New York: up to 6,800 Africans were imported from
1700 to 1774, and in 1740 about 1 in 6 – 2,000 of 12,000 people – were
slaves.[6][10] Slaves rose in revolt
in 1712 and 1741.[8] After an American defeat on Long Island in
1776, the British occupied Manhattan, causing 80% of the population to flee. The British remained for the duration of
the American Revolution, until 1783.
During this time, thousands of escaped slaves fled to the city, in
response to a British offer of emancipation.[10] Devastating fires struck New York City in
1776 and 1778.[4] Population grew rapidly from 1790 to 1800,
rising from 33,000 to 60,000.[18] History
1800–present By 1804, the city’s population reached
80,000.[10] Castle Clinton was built
at the southern end of the island in 1807. The completion of the Erie Canal in 1825
boosted Manhattan’s role in inland commerce, and the city’s population
tripled from 1825 to 1850.[11] Slavery
was abolished in New York state and thus Manhattan in 1827.[9] The first gas-light company was
incorporated in the city in 1823.[14]
This innovation was not without cost; a gas-triggered fire destroyed
600 buildings in 1835.[11] The city expanded northward over the course
of the 19th century, gradually replacing farmland and small communities. Manhattan developed into a major manufacturing
center, and one of the chief American ports.[13] By 1854, the city covered roughly the lower
third of the island.[15] Central Park was constructed on 843 acres
of land in the center of the island from 1857 to 1873. The first elevated train was built in
Manhattan in 1867. Immense numbers of immigrants settled in
Manhattan in the late 19th and early 20th century, with large numbers from
Ireland, Germany, Central and Eastern Europe, and Italy.
Elevated and tram lines spread in the late
19th century, and by 1900 many were electrified.[8] The first underground subway line was
opened in 1904.[15] Substantial black migration to Manhattan
began in the early 20th century, concentrated in Harlem at the
northern end of Manhattan. By the
1920s and 1930s, the neighborhood was a cultural center of black America. The headquarters of the United Nations was
completed in 1950. From the middle of
the 20th century, manufacturing declined on the island, in part driven by
demolition of whole neighborhoods in the name of “urban renewal” in the
1950s.[13] Hundreds of historic buildings were
demolished at the south end of Manhattan in the mid-1960s to build the World
Trade Center complex. When its twin
towers were completed, they became the tallest buildings on the island (and
the world).[13] [19] Along with the rest of New York City,
Manhattan suffered acutely from urban blight and high crime rates from the
1960s to the 1980s. Immigration also
boomed anew from the 1960s onwards, with diverse influxes from Latin America,
Asia, and other regions. The 1990s saw rapid declines in crime, but
the island was targeted by terrorists.
A bombing at the World Trade Center in southern Manhattan in February
1993 killed 6 people. On September 11,
2001, terrorists flew hijacked commercial jetliners into the two towers of
the World Trade Center, causing their collapse. About 2,700 people died in the
attacks. (With the destruction of the
World Trade Center, the Empire State Building resumed its place as the
tallest building on Manhattan.) The 2000s brought prosperity and
gentrification, but the island was also hit by the recession of the late
2000s. |
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