"New York City!!!!!" a New York City Travel Page by bct341

Everyone has their own impressions of NYC, regardless if you love or hate the city...it is hard not to have an opinion :)

There is no place like New York City in the world.. just like there is only one Venice or Paris. Other cities may have tall buildings.. maybe even taller buildings but will never be able to capture the magic which is New York. It is the combination of people.. buildings, history, entertainment and more that make the city unique.

* Without firing a shot, the British seized control of Nieuwe Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664 and renamed it New York City.

* Legend has it that Peter Minuit paid $24 in trinkets to purchase the island of Manhattan from Leni Lenape Indians at Bowling Green.

* In 1898, the five boroughs – The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island – were incorporated into a single entity, known as Greater New York.

* Downtown Manhattan was the site of the nation's first capital.

*As late as the 1840s, thousands of pigs roamed Wall Street to consume garbage - an early sanitation system

* The Brooklyn Bridge was the first bridge to be lit using electricity

* The world’s largest gothic cathedral is the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine – and it’s still under construction. Its first stone was laid in 1892

* Macy’s is the world’s largest store; it covers 2.1 million square feet of space and stocks over 500,000 different items

* Broadway began as an Algonquin trade route called the Wiechquaekeck Trail.

* New York City (all 5 boroughs): 8,008,278

* Number of licensed medallion taxis: 12,184

* Why Are Cabs Yellow?

John Hertz, who founded the Yellow Cab Company in 1907, chose yellow because he had read a study conducted by the University of Chicago that indicated it was the easiest color to spot.