"New York City" a New York City Travel Page by smschley

New York’s location at the confluence of the Hudson River, Long Island and the Atlantic Ocean reflects the city’s importance as a port and as the disembarkation point for millions of immigrants to the USA. The first European settlement on Manhattan was by the Dutch, during the 1620s. They named the city New Amsterdam. In 1664, the British took over and renamed it New York. The settlement rapidly flourished, expanding from south to north along the island. Mass immigration in the 19th and early 20th centuries saw the emergence of distinct ethnic quarters, with the island of Manhattan rapidly developing into a unique cultural melting pot housing an entire world within its 58sq km (23sq miles).

Today New York is the ‘city that never sleeps’, and one of the world’s great metropolises. After spending some time there, I think the reason it never sleeps is that the car horns are always honking. It's got its share of the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses, but it also has world-renowned restaurants, architectural masterpieces and venerable art institutions that make it one the world’s greatest cultural cities. Whatever one thinks of Rudy Giuliani, he did take a city know for crime and prostitution and make one that even I felt safe walking around in the early hours of the morning, according to FBI crime statistics, the city is the safest large city in the USA

New York City is made up of five boroughs - Staten Island, The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan, but most visitors never leave Manhattan. There is a lot packed into this tiny area: the 24-hour pasta restaurants of Little Italy and the bustling sidewalks of Chinatown, the jazz clubs of Greenwich Village and the theatres of Broadway; and of course the iconic sights of the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building and Times Square.