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The City of New York

New York has been the largest city in the United States since 1790. It was first settled by the Dutch in 1624 as New Amsterdam and served as the first capital of the United States before Washington, D.C.  The city has long been an influencial center for finance, international affairs, business, educations, arts, food, fashion, and culture.  This position combined with the various historic and social landmarks has made New York the hands-down top tourist destination in the U.S. — if not the world.

The city is comprised of five administrative boroughs. The most well-known is Manhattan, which is home to many of the business, cultural, and financial landmarks of the city.  Here is also where you’ll find most of the five star New York hotels, top restaurants, and trendiest nightclubs.  The other boroughs are the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island.

Long known for its strong immigrant population, New York continues to be a multicultural microcosm of the entire United States.  Approximately 170 different languages are spoken in the city, the result of not only immigration, but also of the international business interests and large diplomatic corp located in the city (the United Nations has their world headquarters in New York). As of 2005, over one-third of the city’s population was foreign-born. This conglomeration of languages and cultures has given the city a staggering array of food, shops, and neighborhoods that feature individual cultures or fusions of two or more regions of the world.

Some of the more popular attractions in the city include the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, Central Park, Times Square, and Rockefeller Center. New York City is also home to Wall Street, Broadway, Greenwich Village, and Harlem.  There are numerous world-famous art museums from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Whitney Museum, from the Guggenheim to the Museum of Modern Art.  The site of the World Trade Center is a popular memorial and will be the home of the Freedom Tower which is scheduled for completion in the next five years.

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2. English Accents in New York Opens Doors
3. It’s Too Cold in New York
4. Organic from New York to California
5. Free Things to Do in New York

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