Portal:New York City/Selected article

Portal:New York City/Selected article/1

The Statue of Liberty is a neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886. The statue, a gift to the United States from the people of France, is of a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom, who bears a torch and a tabula ansata (a tablet evoking the law) upon which is inscribed the date of the American Declaration of Independence. A broken chain lies at her feet. The statue has become an iconic symbol of freedom and of the United States.

The statue was administered by the United States Lighthouse Board until 1901 and then by the Department of War; since 1933 it has been maintained by the National Park Service. The statue was closed for renovation for much of 1938. In the early 1980s, it was found to have deteriorated to such an extent that a major restoration was required. While the statue was closed from 1984 to 1986, the torch and a large part of the internal structure were replaced. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, it was closed for reasons of safety and security; the pedestal reopened in 2004 and the statue in 2009, with limits on the number of visitors allowed to ascend to the crown. The statue is scheduled to close for up to a year beginning in late 2011 so that a secondary staircase can be installed. Public access to the balcony surrounding the torch has been barred for safety reasons since 1916.

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Portal:New York City/Selected article/2

The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a 1969 police raid at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. They have become the defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world. American gays and lesbians in the 1950s and 1960s faced a legal system more anti-homosexual than those of some Warsaw Pact countries. The last years of the 1960s were very contentious, as many social movements were active, including the African American Civil Rights Movement, the Counterculture of the 1960s, and antiwar demonstrations. These influences, along with the liberal environment of Greenwich Village, served as catalysts for the Stonewall riots.

Very few establishments welcomed openly gay people in the 1950s and 1960s. Those that did were often bars, although bar owners and managers were rarely gay. The Stonewall Inn, at the time, was popular with the poorest and most marginalized people in the gay community. Police raids on gay bars were routine in the 1960s, but officers quickly lost control of the situation at the Stonewall Inn, and attracted a crowd that was incited to riot. Tensions between New York City police and gay residents of Greenwich Village erupted into more protests the next evening, and again several nights later. Within six months, two gay activist organizations were formed in New York, and within a few years, gay rights organizations were founded across the U.S. and the world. The first Gay Pride marches commemorated the anniversary of the riots.Today, Gay Pride events are held annually throughout the world toward the end of June to mark the Stonewall riots.

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Portal:New York City/Selected article/3

Stuyvesant High School is a New York City public high school that specializes in mathematics and science. The school was established in 1904 on Manhattan's East Side as an academic and vocational school for boys, but became coeducational in 1969. Stuyvesant moved to a new building in Battery Park City in 1992, and upon the construction of its Battery Park City building, the facilities for girls became equal with those for boys. The school is noted for its strong academic programs, having produced many notable alumni including four Nobel laureates.

Together with Brooklyn Technical High School and Bronx High School of Science, Stuyvesant is one of the three original academic Specialized High Schools of New York City. Run by the New York City Department of Education, the trio are open to New York City residents and charge no tuition. Admission to each is by competitive examination only, of which Stuyvesant has the highest cutoff score. A long-standing friendly rivalry between Stuyvesant and Bronx Science exists over the Intel Science Talent Search, with each school claiming dominance over the other at various times.

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Portal:New York City/Selected article/4

Beth Hamedrash Hagodol is an Orthodox Jewish congregation that for over 120 years was located in a historic synagogue building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was the first Eastern European congregation founded in New York City and the oldest Russian Jewish Orthodox congregation in the United States. Founded in 1852 by Rabbi Abraham Ash as Beth Hamedrash, the congregation split in 1859, with the rabbi and most of the members renaming their congregation Beth Hamedrash Hagadol. The congregation's president and a small number of the members eventually formed the nucleus of Kahal Adath Jeshurun. The congregation's building, a Gothic Revival structure built in 1850 and purchased in 1885, was one of the largest synagogues on the Lower East Side. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. In the late 20th century the congregation dwindled and was unable to maintain the building, which had been damaged by storms.

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Portal:New York City/Selected article/5

Campbell's Soup Cans is a work of art produced in 1962 by Andy Warhol. It consists of thirty-two canvases, each measuring 20 by 16 inches (510 by 410 mm) and consisting one of each of the canned soup varieties the company offered at the time. The individual paintings were produced by a printmaking method—the semi-mechanized silkscreen process, using a non-painterly style. Warhol's exhibition of the piece marked the West Coast debut of pop art. The combination of the semi-mechanized process, the non-painterly style, and the commercial subject initially caused offense, as the work's blatantly mundane commercialism represented a direct affront to the technique and philosophy of abstract expressionism. This controversy led to a great deal of debate about the merits and ethics of such work. Warhol's motives as an artist were questioned, and they continue to be topical to this day. The large public commotion helped transform Warhol from being an accomplished 1950s commercial illustrator to a notable fine artist. Because of the eventual popularity of the entire series of similarly themed works, Warhol's reputation grew to the point where he was not only the most-renowned American pop art artist, but also the highest-priced living American artist.

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Portal:New York City/Selected article/6

Congregation Baith Israel Anshei Emes is an egalitarian Conservative synagogue in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, New York City, United States. It is currently the oldest continuously operating synagogue in Brooklyn. Founded as Baith Israel in 1856, the congregation constructed the first synagogue on Long Island, and hired Rabbi Aaron Wise for his first rabbinical position in the United States. Early tensions between traditionalists and reformers led to the latter forming Congregation Beth Elohim, a Reform synagogue, in 1861.

The synagogue nearly failed in the early 20th century, but the 1905 hiring of Israel Goldfarb as rabbi, the purchase of its current buildings, and the 1908 merger with Talmud Torah Anshei Emes re-invigorated the congregation. The famous composer Aaron Copland celebrated his Bar Mitzvah there in 1913, and long-time Goldman Sachs head Sidney Weinberg was married there in 1920. Membership peaked in the 1920s, but declined steadily with the onset of the Great Depression. By the 1970s the congregation could no longer afford to heat the sanctuary. Membership has recovered since that low point; the congregation renovated its school/community center in 2004, and in 2008 embarked on a million-dollar capital campaign to renovate the sanctuary.

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Portal:New York City/Selected article/7

Congregation Beth Elohim is a Reform Jewish congregation in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 as a more liberal breakaway from Congregation Baith Israel, within 65 years it attempted four mergers with other congregations, including three with Baith Israel. The congregation completed its current Classical Revival synagogue building in 1910 and its "Jewish Deco" (Romanesque Revival and Art Deco) Temple House in 1929. These two buildings were contributing properties to the Park Slope historic district, listed as a New York City Landmark district and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The congregation went through difficult times during the Great Depression, and the bank almost foreclosed on its buildings in 1946. Membership dropped significantly in the 1930s because of the Depression, grew after World War II, and dropped again in the 1960s and 1970s as a result of demographic shifts. Programs for young children helped draw Jewish families back into the neighborhood and revitalize the membership. By 2006, Beth Elohim had over 1,000 members. As of 2009, it was the largest and most active Reform congregation in Brooklyn, and its pulpit was the oldest in continuous use in any Brooklyn synagogue.

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Portal:New York City/Selected article/8

The First Roumanian-American Congregation is an Orthodox Jewish congregation which, for over 100 years, occupied an historic building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York. Those who organized the congregation in 1885 were part of a substantial wave of Romanian-Jewish immigrants, most of whom settled in the Lower East Side. The Rivington Street building, built around 1860, had previously been a church, then a synagogue, then a church again, and had been extensively remodeled in 1889. It was transformed into a synagogue for a second time when the First Roumanian-American congregation purchased it in 1902 and again remodeled it.

The synagogue became famous as the "Cantor's Carnegie Hall", because of its high ceiling, good acoustics, and seating for up to 1,800 people. The congregation's membership was in the thousands in the 1940s, but by the early 2000s had declined to around 40, as Jews moved out of the Lower East Side. Though its building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998, the congregation was reluctant to accept outside assistance in maintaining it. In December 2005, water damage was found in the structural beams, and services were moved to the living room of the rabbi's mother. In January 2006, the synagogue's roof collapsed, and the building was demolished two months later.

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Portal:New York City/Selected article/9

"The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" is the first episode of The Simpsons' ninth season, and premiered on September 21, 1997 on Fox. The episode sees the Simpson family traveling to Manhattan to recover the family car, which was taken by Barney Gumble and abandoned outside the World Trade Center complex, thereby gaining numerous parking tickets and a wheel clamp. Upon arrival, the family tours the city, while Homer waits beside his car outside the World Trade Center for a parking officer to remove the clamp. However, that officer turns up while Homer is using the restroom inside one of the towers. In frustration, Homer decides to drive the car with the clamp attached. He eventually succeeds in removing it and races to Central Park to find his family and leave the city.

Writer Ian Maxtone-Graham was interested in making an episode where the Simpson family travels to New York to retrieve their lost car. Executive producers Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein suggested that the car be found in the World Trade Center plaza, as they wanted a location that would be widely known. Great lengths were taken to make a detailed replica of the borough of Manhattan. The episode received generally positive reviews, and has since been on accolade lists of Simpsons episodes. The "I'm Checkin' In" musical sequence won two awards. Because of the World Trade Center's central role, the episode was initially taken off syndication in many areas following the September 11, 2001 attacks, but has come back into syndication in recent years.

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Portal:New York City/Selected article/10

USS President was a nominally rated 44-gun wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the United States Navy. She was named by George Washington. She was launched in April 1800 from a shipyard in New York City. President was one of the original six frigates whose construction the Naval Act of 1794 had authorized, and she was the last to be completed. Joshua Humphreys designed these frigates to be the young Navy's capital ships, and so President and her sisters were larger and more heavily armed and built than standard frigates of the period. Her first duties with the newly formed United States Navy were to provide protection for American merchant shipping during the Quasi War with France and to defeat the Barbary pirates in the First Barbary War.

In May 1811, President was at the center of the Little Belt Affair; her crew mistakenly identified HMS Little Belt as HMS Guerriere, which had impressed an American seaman. The ships exchanged cannon fire for several minutes, and the incident contributed to tensions between the U.S. and Great Britain, leading to the War of 1812. During the war, President made several extended cruises, patrolling as far away as the English Channel and Norway, and capturing numerous ships. In January 1815, after having been blockaded in New York for a year by the Royal Navy, President engaged the frigate HMS Endymion off the coast of the city. She was captured soon afterward by a British squadron, and the Royal Navy placed her into their service until she was broken up in 1818. President's design was reused to build HMS President, in 1829.

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Portal:New York City/Selected article/11

The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco style skyscraper in New York City, located on the east side of Manhattan in the Turtle Bay area at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue. At 1,046 feet (319 m), the structure was the world's tallest building for 11 months before it was surpassed by the Empire State Building in 1931. It is still the tallest brick building in the world, albeit with an internal steel skeleton. After the destruction of the World Trade Center, it was again the second-tallest building in New York City until December 2007, when the spire was raised on the 1,200-foot (365.8 m) Bank of America Tower, pushing the Chrysler Building into third position. In addition, The New York Times Building, which opened in 2007, is exactly level with the Chrysler Building in height. Both buildings were then pushed into 4th position, when the under construction One World Trade Center surpassed their height.

The Chrysler Building is a classic example of Art Deco architecture and considered by many contemporary architects to be one of the finest buildings in New York City. In 2007, it was ranked ninth on the List of America's Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects. It was the headquarters of the Chrysler Corporation from 1930 until the mid-1950s. Although the building was built and designed specifically for the car manufacturer, the corporation did not pay for the construction of it and never owned it, as Walter P. Chrysler decided to pay for it himself, so that his children could inherit it.

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Portal:New York City/Selected article/12

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The New York Times (or NYT) is an American daily newspaper, founded and continuously published in New York City since September 18, 1851. It has won 112 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other news organization. Its website is one of America's most popular news sites - and most popular among all the nation's newspapers - receiving more than 30 million unique visitors per month.

The paper's print version remains the largest local metropolitan newspaper in the United States and third-largest newspaper overall, behind The Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Following industry trends, its weekday circulation has fallen to fewer than one million daily since 1990. Nicknamed The Gray Lady, The Times is long regarded within the industry as a national "newspaper of record". It is owned by The New York Times Company. The company's chairman is Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., whose family has controlled the paper since 1896. Its international version, formerly The International Herald Tribune, is now called The International New York Times.

The paper's motto, "All the News That's Fit to Print", appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page. Its website has adapted it to "All the News That's Fit to Click". It is organized into sections: News, Opinions, Business, Arts, Science, Sports, Style, Home, and Features. The New York Times stayed with the eight-column format for several years after most papers switched to six, and was one of the last newspapers to adopt color photography.

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Portal:New York City/Selected article/13

7 World Trade Center is a building in the World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The building is 52 stories tall (plus one underground floor), making it the 28th-tallest in New York. It is the second building to bear that name and address in that location. The original structure was completed in 1987 and was destroyed in the September 11 attacks. The current building opened in 2006. Both buildings were developed by Larry Silverstein, who holds a ground lease for the site from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

The original 7 World Trade Center was 47 stories tall, clad in red exterior masonry, and occupied a trapezoidal footprint. An elevated walkway connected the building to the World Trade Center plaza. The building was situated above a Consolidated Edison power substation, which imposed unique structural design constraints. When the nearby North Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed on September 11, 2001, the building was damaged by debris, which ignited fires, leading to its collapse. Construction of the new 7 World Trade Center began in 2002 and was completed in 2006. It is built on a smaller footprint than the original, allowing Greenwich Street to be restored from TriBeCa through the World Trade Center site and south to Battery Park. The new building is bounded by Greenwich, Vesey, Washington, and Barclay streets. A small park across Greenwich Street occupies space that was part of the original building's footprint. The current building's design emphasizes safety, with a reinforced concrete core, wider stairways, and thicker fireproofing of steel columns. It also incorporates numerous green design features. The building was the first commercial office building in New York City to receive the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification, where it won a gold rating. It was also one of the first projects accepted to be part of the Council's Pilot Program for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – Core and Shell Development (LEED-CS).

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Portal:New York City/Selected article/14

The 68th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Also known as the Cameron Rifles or the Second German Rifle Regiment, the men were mostly German immigrants. Organized in July 1861, three months after the outbreak of war, the 68th saw service in the Eastern and Western theaters.

As a part of the Army of the Potomac, it was initially assigned to the defenses of Washington, D.C. Later, the 68th was transferred to the Shenandoah Valley and fought at the Battle of Cross Keys. The men of the 68th were then reassigned to central Virginia and found themselves in the thick of the fighting at Second Bull Run. After returning to the nation's capital, the regiment fought in Chancellorsville and was routed by Confederate forces. At Gettysburg, they saw battle on two of the three days and took heavy losses.

The regiment was then transferred to the west and participated in the Chattanooga campaign. The 68th fought in the battles of Wauhatchie and Missionary Ridge, assisting in the Union victories there. The regiment marched to relieve the siege of Knoxville, and then spent the last year of the war on occupation duty in Tennessee and Georgia, before being disbanded in November 1865.

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Portal:New York City/Selected article/15

The 7 Subway Extension — Hudson Yards Rezoning and Development Program is the plan to extend the IRT Flushing Line of the New York City Subway, which carries the 7 local and <7> express services, further westward into the New York City borough of Manhattan. The extension stretches a total of 1 mile (1.6 km) from its current terminus at Times Square to a new western terminus at 34th Street and 11th Avenue. The extension's opening had been delayed to June 2014, with the rest of the 34th Street station to open at the end of 2015. Complications brought the projected date of the opening to November 2014.

The extension is a key part of the Hudson Yards Redevelopment Project, and is expected to bring business and entertainment into the area; the project is intended to aid redevelopment of Hell's Kitchen around the West Side Yard of the Long Island Rail Road. It was originally proposed as part of the failed attempt to build the West Side Stadium for the New York Jets and the city's bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics. Although the stadium plan was rejected by city and state planning agencies, the 7 subway extension plan received approval, as New York political leaders wanted to see the warehouse district west of Eighth Avenue and north of 34th Street redeveloped. The extension would also serve the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, renovated in 2006. The New York State Society of Professional Engineers awarded the first construction phase its 2013 Construction Project of the Year. According to the society, the project team won the award "for outstanding professional engineering efforts in developing creative solutions and innovative technologies in construction of an infrastructure project. The No. 7 project used the first double-shielded tunnel boring machines (TBMs) to tunnel under New York City while placing precast concrete segments to form the tunnels’ walls. For the first time in the world, a ground freezing method was used to harden soil to act as rock to allow TBMs to maintain proper course while boring and placing the tunnel liners."

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Portal:New York City/Selected article/16

The Construction of the World Trade Center was conceived as an urban renewal project, spearheaded by David Rockefeller, to help revitalize Lower Manhattan. The project was developed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which hired architect Minoru Yamasaki who came up with the specific idea for twin towers. After extensive negotiations, the New Jersey and New York State governments, which oversee the Port Authority, agreed to support the World Trade Center project at the Radio Row site on the lower-west side of Manhattan. To make the agreement acceptable to New Jersey, the Port Authority agreed to take over the bankrupt Hudson & Manhattan Railroad (renamed as PATH), which brought commuters from New Jersey to the Lower Manhattan site.

The towers were designed as framed tube structures, which provided tenants with open floor plans, uninterrupted by columns or walls. This was accomplished using numerous closely spaced perimeter columns to provide much of the strength to the structure, along with gravity load shared with the core columns. The elevator system, which made use of sky lobbies and a system of express and local elevators, allowed substantial floor space to be freed up for use as office space by making the structural core smaller. The design and construction of the World Trade Center twin towers involved many other innovative techniques, such as the slurry wall for digging the foundation, and wind tunnel experiments. Construction of the World Trade Center's North Tower began in August 1968, and the South Tower in 1969. Extensive use of prefabricated components helped to speed up the construction process. The first tenants moved into the North Tower in December 1970 and into the South Tower in January 1972. Four other low-level buildings were constructed as part of the World Trade Center in the 1970s, and a seventh building was constructed in the mid-1980s.

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The 2008 World Science Festival was a science festival held in New York City. The festival (May 28 – June 1, 2008) consisted mainly of panel discussions and on-stage conversations, accompanied by multimedia presentations. A youth and family program presented topics such as sports from a scientific perspective and included an extensive street fair. A cultural program led by actor and writer Alan Alda focused on art inspired by science. The festival also included a World Science Summit, a meeting of high-level participants from the worlds of science, politics, administration, and business.

The festival was the brainchild of Columbia University physicist Brian Greene and his wife, Emmy Award-winning television journalist Tracy Day. It was held in partnership with major New York City cultural and academic institutions, including Columbia University, New York University and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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Portal:New York City/Selected article/18

The 1951 National League tie-breaker series was a best-of-three playoff to decide the winner of Major League Baseball's (MLB) National League (NL) pennant. The games occurred on October 1, 2, and 3, 1951, between the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers. It was necessary after both teams finished the season with records of 96–58. It is most famous for the walk-off home run hit by Bobby Thomson of the Giants in the deciding game, which has come to be known as baseball's "Shot Heard 'Round the World".

This was the second three-game playoff in National League history. After no tiebreakers had been needed since the American League (AL) became a major league in 1901, this was the third such tie in just six seasons. The Dodgers had been involved in the previous one as well, losing to the St. Louis Cardinals during the 1946 season in two straight games. In addition to the 1946 series, the AL had a one-game playoff in 1948.

The Giants won game one, while the Dodgers came back to win game two. After being behind most of game three, the Giants rallied to win the game and the series. In baseball statistics, the tie-breaker counted as the 155th, 156th, and 157th regular season games by both teams; all events in the games were added to regular season statistics.

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Portal:New York City/Selected article/19

The Times Square Ball is a time ball located in New York City's Times Square. Located on the roof of One Times Square, the ball is a prominent part of a New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square colloquially known as the ball drop, where the ball descends 141 feet (43 m) in 60 seconds down a specially designed flagpole, beginning at 11:59 p.m. ET, and resting at midnight to signal the start of the new year.

The event was first organized by Adolph Ochs, owner of The New York Times newspaper, as a successor to a series of New Year's Eve fireworks displays he held at the building to promote its status as the new headquarters of the Times, while the ball itself was designed by Artkraft Strauss. First held on December 31, 1907, to welcome 1908, the ball drop has been held annually since, except in 1942 and 1943 in observance of wartime blackouts. The ball's design has also been updated over the years to reflect improvements in lighting technology.

The Times Square ball drop is one of the best-known New Year's celebrations internationally, attended by over 1 million spectators yearly and watched by around a billion people across major broadcast television networks, several major cable networks, and over the Internet. The prevalence of the Times Square ball drop has also inspired similar "drops" at local New Year's Eve events across the country, often substituting balls for other objects that represent local history or culture.

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Portal:New York City/Selected article/20

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) is a joint venture between the States of New York and New Jersey and authorized by the US Congress, established in 1921 (as the Port of New York Authority) through an interstate compact, that oversees much of the regional transportation infrastructure, including bridges, tunnels, airports, and seaports, within the Port of New York and New Jersey. This 1,500 square mile (3,900 km²) district is the region generally within 25 miles (40 km) of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. The Port Authority is headquartered at 225 Park Avenue South in Manhattan.

The Port Authority operates the Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal, which handled the third largest amount of shipping of all ports in the United States in 2004 and the largest on the Eastern Seaboard. The Port Authority also operates Hudson River crossings, including the Holland Tunnel, Lincoln Tunnel, and George Washington Bridge connecting New Jersey with Manhattan, and three crossings that connect New Jersey with Staten Island. The Port Authority Bus Terminal and the PATH rail system are also run by the Port Authority, as well as LaGuardia Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport, Teterboro Airport, Stewart International Airport and Atlantic City International Airport. The agency has its own 1,600-member Port Authority Police Department, which is responsible for providing safety and deterring criminal activity at Port Authority facilities.

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The death of John Lennon occurred outside the entrance of the The Dakota, in New York City's Upper West Side on December 8, 1980. John Lennon was an English musician who gained worldwide fame as one of the founder members of The Beatles, for his subsequent solo career, and for his political activism and pacifism. He was shot by Mark David Chapman at the entrance of The Dakota, the apartment building where Lennon and Ono lived. Lennon had just returned from Record Plant Studio with his wife, Yoko Ono.

Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival at Roosevelt Hospital, where it was stated that nobody could have lived for more than a few minutes after sustaining such injuries. Shortly after local news stations reported Lennon's death, crowds gathered at Roosevelt Hospital and in front of the Dakota. Lennon was cremated on December 10, 1980 at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York; the ashes were given to Ono, who chose not to hold a funeral for him. The first media report of Lennon's death to a US national audience was announced by Howard Cosell, on ABC's Monday Night Football.

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"Empire State of Mind" is a song by American rapper Jay-Z, featuring vocals and a chorus from American singer Alicia Keys. It was released as the third single from Jay-Z's 11th studio album, The Blueprint 3 (2009), by his Roc Nation label in October 2009. The song is an anthemic ode to both artists' native hometown New York City, and features a music sample of "Love on a Two-Way Street" (1970). "Empire State of Mind" was originally written by Brooklyn natives Angela Hunte and Jane't "Jnay" Sewell-Ulepic who were feeling homesick while on an overseas trip in February 2009. They sent the song in for consideration at Roc Nation, although it received negative reviews. Initially discouraged, the duo sent the song to Jay-Z after a suggestion by an associate of EMI Music Publishing. After hearing the song, Jay-Z immediately recorded it, changing all of the verses but keeping the hook. Jay-Z chose Keys to perform the hook after he heard the song's piano loop. The song was viewed as being an "orchestral rap ballad" and has pop-rap musical styles. It contains references to various locations in New York and its famous residents, while describing the city's essence.

"Empire State of Mind" was included in multiple critics' top 10 list for the best songs of 2009; including Rolling Stone magazine and The New York Times. The song was also nominated for three Grammy Awards, winning Best Rap Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. "Empire State of Mind" achieved commercial success worldwide. The track peaked within the top 10 in countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Italy and Sweden. The single was commercially successful in the United States, peaking at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for five consecutive weeks, becoming Jay-Z's first number-one single on the chart as a lead artist. It appeared in 2009 year-end charts in Italy, Australia and the US. The song is also the last number one hit of the 2000s. Jay-Z performed the song at the ticker tape parade celebrating the 2009 World Series-champion New York Yankees.

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30 Rock is an American satirical television sitcom that ran on NBC from October 11, 2006, to January 31, 2013, and was created by Tina Fey. The series stars Fey with a supporting cast that includes Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan, Jane Krakowski, Jack McBrayer, Scott Adsit, Judah Friedlander, Katrina Bowden, Keith Powell, Lonny Ross, John Lutz, Kevin Brown, Grizz Chapman, and Maulik Pancholy. It is loosely based on Fey's experiences as head writer for Saturday Night Live, takes place behind the scenes of a fictional live sketch comedy series depicted as airing on NBC. The series' name refers to 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, the address of the GE Building, in which the NBC Studios are located.

30 Rock was a runaway critical success, winning several major awards (including Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Comedy Series in 2007, 2008, and 2009 and nominations for every other year it ran), and achieving the esteemed top ranking on a myriad critics' year-end best of 2006 and 2007 lists. In 2009, the series was nominated for 22 Primetime Emmy Awards, the most in a single year for a comedy series. Over the course of the series, it was nominated for 112 Emmy awards and won 16, in addition to numerous other nominations and wins from other awards shows. Despite the acclaim, the series struggled in the ratings throughout its run, something which Fey herself has made light of.

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The New York City draft riots (July 13–16, 1863; known at the time as Draft Week) were violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of working-class discontent with new laws passed by Congress that year to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots remain the largest civil insurrection in American history outside of the Civil War itself.

President Abraham Lincoln was forced to divert several regiments of militia and volunteer troops from following up after the Battle of Gettysburg to control the city. The rioters were overwhelmingly working-class men, primarily ethnic Irish, resenting particularly that wealthier men, who could afford to pay a $300 commutation fee to hire a substitute, were spared from the draft.

Initially intended to express anger at the draft, the protests turned into a race riot. Irish immigrants attacked blacks; at least 11 black people were estimated to have been killed. Major General John E. Wool, commander of the Department of the East, stated on July 16, "Martial law ought to be proclaimed, but I have not a sufficient force to enforce it." Mobs had already ransacked or destroyed numerous public buildings, two Protestant churches, the homes of various abolitionists or sympathizers, many black homes, and the Colored Orphan Asylum at 44th Street and Fifth Avenue, which was burned to the ground, before the military reached the city.

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The Battle of Harlem Heights was fought during the New York and New Jersey campaign of the American Revolutionary War. The action took place in what is now the Morningside Heights and west Harlem neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City on September 16, 1776.

The Continental Army, under Commander-in-Chief General George Washington, Major General Nathanael Greene, and Major General Israel Putnam, totaling around 1,800 men, held a series of high ground positions in upper Manhattan against an attacking British division totaling around 5,000 men under the command of Major General Alexander Leslie. British troops made a tactical error by having their light infantry buglers sound a fox hunting call, "gone away," while in pursuit, intending to insult Washington, himself a keen fox hunter. The Continentals, who were in orderly retreat, were infuriated by this and galvanized to hold their ground. After flanking the British attackers, the Americans slowly pushed the British back. The battle went a long way to restoring the confidence of the Continental Army after suffering several defeats. It was Washington's first battlefield victory of the war.

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The Prospect Park Zoo is a 12-acre (4.9 ha) zoo located off Flatbush Avenue on the eastern side of Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York City. Its precursor, the Menagerie, opened in 1890. The present facility first opened as a city zoo on July 3, 1935 and was part of a larger revitalization program of city parks, playgrounds and zoos initiated in 1934 by Parks Commissioner Robert Moses. It was built, in large part, through Civil Works Administration and Works Project Administration labor and funding.

After 53 years of operation as a city zoo run by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, Prospect Park Zoo closed on June 1988 for reconstruction. It was rededicated on October 5, 1993 as the Prospect Park Wildlife Conservation Center, joining an integrated system of four zoos and one aquarium managed by the Wildlife Conservation Society, all of which are accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. The Prospect Park Zoo offers children's educational programs, is engaged in restoration of endangered species populations, runs a Wildlife Theater and reaches out to the local community through volunteer programs. As of 2007, the zoo housed nearly 630 animals representing 141 species; it was visited by about 234,000 people in 2007.

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The Vernon C. Bain Correctional Center, also known as the Vernon C. Bain Maritime Facility, is an 800-bed jail barge used to hold inmates for the New York City Department of Corrections as part of the vast Rikers Island jail complex. It was built in New Orleans along the Mississippi River for $161 million in Avondale Shipyard, and brought to New York in 1992 to reduce overcrowding in the island's land-bound buildings for a lower price. Nicknamed "The Boat" by prison staff and inmates, it is designed to handle inmates from medium- to maximum-security in 16 dormitories and 100 cells.

Currently the only ship in use, the Vernon C. Bain Center is the third prison ship that the New York Department of Corrections has used. In its history, the prison has served traditional inmates, juvenile inmates and is currently used as a holding and temporary processing center. The added security of the prison being on water has not prevented at least four attempted escapes. The ship is named in memorial for warden Vernon C. Bain who died in an automobile accident. In 2014, the prison ship was named the world's largest operational prison ship by the Guinness World Records.

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The Great New York City Fire of 1845 broke out on July 19, 1845. The fire started in a whale-oil and candle manufacturing establishment and quickly spread to other wooden structures in the neighborhood. It reached a warehouse on Broad Street where combustible saltpeter was stored and caused a massive explosion that spread the fire even farther.

Before it was subdued, the fire destroyed 345 buildings in Lower Manhattan in New York City and caused $5 million to $10 million in damage, as well as killing 4 firefighters and 26 civilians. The 1845 fire was the last of three great fires that affected the heart of Manhattan, including fires in 1776 and 1835. The 1845 fire was very destructive, but it affected mostly older wood-frame construction in a confined section of the city. This proved the efficacy of the fire-resistant building practices that had come into play in surrounding areas of the city in previous decades.

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The Gowanus Canal, also known as the Gowanus Creek Canal, is a canal in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, geographically on the westernmost portion of Long Island. Connected to Gowanus Bay in Upper New York Bay, the canal borders the neighborhoods of Red Hook and South Brooklyn to the west, Park Slope to the east, and Sunset Park to the south. It is 1.8 miles (2.9 km) long. There are seven bridges over the canal, carrying Union Street, Carroll Street (a landmark), Third Street, Ninth Street, Hamilton Avenue, the Gowanus Expressway and the IND Culver Line of the New York City Subway.

Once a busy cargo transportation hub, the canal is now recognized as one of the most polluted bodies of water in the United States. The canal's history has paralleled the decline of domestic shipping via water. A legacy of serious environmental problems has beset the area from the time the canal arose from the local tidal wetlands and fresh water streams. In recent years, there has been a call once again for environmental cleanup. In addition, development pressures have brought speculation that the wetlands of the Gowanus should serve waterfront economic development needs which may not be compatible with environmental restoration.

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The Algonquin Round Table was a celebrated group of New York City writers, critics, actors and wits. Gathering initially as part of a practical joke, members of "The Vicious Circle", as they dubbed themselves, met for lunch each day at the Algonquin Hotel from 1919 until roughly 1929. At these luncheons they engaged in wisecracks, wordplay and witticisms that, through the newspaper columns of Round Table members, were disseminated across the country.

Daily association with each other, both at the luncheons and outside of them, inspired members of the Circle to collaborate creatively. The entire group worked together successfully only once, however, to create a revue called No Sirree! which helped launch a Hollywood career for Round Tabler Robert Benchley.

In its ten years of association, the Round Table and a number of its members acquired national reputations, both for their contributions to literature and for their sparkling wit. Although some of their contemporaries, and later in life even some of its members, disparaged the group, its reputation has endured long after its dissolution.

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The 11th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment of the Union Army in the early years of the American Civil War. The regiment was organized in New York City in May 1861 as a Zouave regiment, known for its unusual dress and drill style, by Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth, a personal friend of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. The unit was drawn from the ranks of the city's many volunteer fire companies.

The unit was among the first to occupy the territory of a Confederate state when it captured Alexandria, Virginia on May 24, 1861, less than 24 hours after the Commonwealth seceded from the Union. The regiment suffered extensive casualties during the First Battle of Bull Run during the fighting on Henry House Hill and while serving as the rear guard for the retreating Union Army.

The regiment was stationed near Hampton Roads during the Peninsula Campaign, but experienced little fighting. Sent back to New York City in May 1862, the regiment was mustered out of service on June 2, 1862. There were several attempts to reorganize as a light infantry regiment through the summer of 1863, and many new enlistees were involved in suppressing the New York Draft Riots, but those efforts failed and the enlistees were transferred to the 17th New York Veteran Volunteer Infantry Regiment.

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The Blackstone Group L.P. is an American multinational private equity, investment banking, alternative asset management and financial services corporation based in New York City. As the largest alternative investment firm in the world, Blackstone specializes in private equity, credit and hedge fund investment strategies, as well as financial advisory services, such as mergers and acquisitions (M&A), restructurings and reorganizations, and private placements.

Blackstone was founded in 1985 as a mergers and acquisitions boutique by Peter G. Peterson and Stephen A. Schwarzman, who had previously worked together at Lehman Brothers, Kuhn, Loeb Inc. Over the course of two decades, Blackstone has evolved into one of the world's largest private equity investment firms. In 2007, Blackstone completed a $4 billion initial public offering to become one of the first major private equity firms to list shares in its management company on a public exchange. Blackstone is headquartered at 345 Park Avenue in Manhattan, New York City, with eight additional offices in the United States, as well as offices abroad. Blackstone's private equity business has been one of the largest investors in leveraged buyout transactions over the last decade, while its real estate business has actively acquired commercial real estate. Since its inception, Blackstone has completed investments in such notable companies as Hilton Worldwide, Equity Office Properties, Republic Services, AlliedBarton, United Biscuits, Freescale Semiconductor, Vivint and Travelport.

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Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is an American private Ivy League research university located in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is the oldest institution of higher learning in the State of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution. Today the university operates Columbia Global Centers overseas in Amman, Beijing, Istanbul, Paris, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago and Nairobi.

The university was founded in 1754 as King's College by royal charter of George II of Great Britain. It briefly became a state entity, and was renamed Columbia College in 1784. A 1787 charter placed the institution under a private board of trustees. In 1896, the university was renamed Columbia University, and its campus was moved from Madison Avenue to its current location in Morningside Heights, where it occupies more than six city blocks, or 32 acres (13 ha). The university encompasses twenty schools and is affiliated with numerous institutions, including Teachers College, Barnard College, and the Union Theological Seminary, with joint undergraduate programs available through the Jewish Theological Seminary of America as well as the Juilliard School.

Columbia annually administers the Pulitzer Prize. 102 Nobel Prize laureates have been affiliated with the university as students, faculty, or staff. Columbia is second in the world only to Harvard in the number of Nobel Prize winner affiliates. Columbia is one of the fourteen founding members of the Association of American Universities, and was the first school in the United States to grant the M.D. degree. Notable alumni include five Founding Fathers of the United States; nine Justices of the United States Supreme Court; 20 living billionaires; 26 Academy Award winners; and 29 heads of state, including three United States Presidents.

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One World Trade Center (also 1 World Trade Center or 1 WTC, dubbed the Freedom Tower during initial basework) is the name of two buildings. It most commonly refers to the primary building of the new World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City, and the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere. The 104-story supertall structure, which shares a name with the northern Twin Tower in the original World Trade Center that was destroyed in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, stands on the northwest corner of the 16-acre (6.5 ha) World Trade Center site, on the site of the original 6 World Trade Center. The building is bordered to the west by West Street, to the north by Vesey Street, to the south by Fulton Street, and to the east by Washington Street. Construction on below-ground utility relocations, footings, and foundations for the building began on April 27, 2006. On March 30, 2009, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey confirmed that the building would be known by its legal name, One World Trade Center, rather than the colloquial name, Freedom Tower.

The tower's steel structure topped out on August 30, 2012. On May 10, 2013, the final component of the skyscraper's spire was installed, making One World Trade Center the fourth-tallest skyscraper in the world at the time by pinnacle height. Its spire allows the building to reach a symbolic height of 1,776 feet (541 m) in reference to the year of the United States Declaration of Independence. It has been the tallest structure in New York City since April 30, 2012, when it surpassed the height of the Empire State Building.< The new World Trade Center complex, in which One World Trade Center will open in 2014, will feature three other high-rise office buildings, located along Greenwich Street, and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, located just south of One World Trade Center, where the Twin Towers once stood. The construction is part of an effort to memorialize and rebuild following the destruction of the original World Trade Center complex during the attacks of September 11, 2001.

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The High Line (also known as the High Line Park) is a 1.45-mile-long (2.33 km) New York City linear park built on a section of a disused New York Central Railroad spur called the West Side Line. Inspired by the 3-mile (4.8-kilometer) Promenade plantée, a similar project in Paris completed in 1993, the High Line has been redesigned and planted as an aerial greenway and rails-to-trails park.

The High Line Park uses the disused southern portion of the West Side Line running to the Lower West Side of Manhattan. It runs from Gansevoort Street – three blocks below 14th Street – in the Meatpacking District, through Chelsea, to the northern edge of the West Side Yard on 34th Street near the Javits Convention Center. An unopened spur extends above 30th Street to Tenth Avenue. Formerly, the High Line went as far south as a railroad terminal to Spring Street just north of Canal Street. However, most of the lower section was demolished in 1960, with another small portion of the lower section being demolished in 1991.

Repurposing of the railway into an urban park began construction in 2006, with the first phase opening in 2000 and the second phase opening in 2011. The third and final phase officially opened to the public on September 21, 2014. A short stub above Tenth Avenue and 30th Street, is still closed as of September 2014, but will open by 2015. The project has spurred real estate development in the neighborhoods that lie along the line. As of September 2014, the park gets nearly 5 million visitors annually.

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The Waldorf Astoria New York is a luxury hotel in Manhattan, New York City. The hotel has been housed in two historic landmark buildings in New York, which accounts for its dual name. The first, bearing the same name, was built on Fifth Avenue in 1893 and designed by architect Henry J. Hardenbergh. It was demolished in 1929 to make way for the construction of the Empire State Building. The present building, at 301 Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, is a 47-story 190.5 m (625 ft) Art Deco landmark designed by architects Schultze and Weaver, which was completed in 1931. The current hotel was the world's tallest hotel from 1931 until 1963, when it was surpassed by Moscow's Hotel Ukraina by 7 metres (23 ft). An icon of glamour and luxury, the Waldorf Astoria is one of the world's most prestigious and best known hotels.

From its inception, the Waldorf Astoria gained international renown for its lavish dinner parties and galas, often at the center of political and business conferences and fundraising schemes involving the rich and famous. Particularly after World War II it played a significant role in world politics and the Cold War, culminating in the controversial World Peace Conference of March 1949 at the hotel, in which Stalinism was widely denounced. Conrad Hilton acquired management rights to the hotel on 12 October 1949, and the Hilton Hotels Corporation finally bought the hotel outright in 1972. It underwent a $150 million renovation by Lee Jablin in the 1980s and early 1990s, and in October 2014 it was announced that the Anbang Insurance Group of China had purchased the Waldorf Astoria New York for US$1.95 billion, making it the most expensive hotel ever sold.

The Waldorf Astoria and Towers has a total of 1413 hotel rooms as of 2014. In 2009, when it had 1416 rooms, the main hotel had 1235 single and double rooms and 208 mini suites, while the Waldorf Towers, from the 28th floor up to the 42nd, had 181 rooms, of which 115 were suites, with one to four bedrooms. Several of the luxury suites are named after luminaries who lived or stayed in them such as The Cole Porter Suite, The Royal Suite, named after the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, the MacArthur Suite and the Churchill Suite. The most expensive room, the Presidential Suite, is designed with Georgian-style furniture to emulate that of the White House. It was the residence of Herbert Hoover from his retirement for over 30 years, and Frank Sinatra kept a suite at the Waldorf from 1979 until 1988. The hotel has three main restaurants, Peacock Alley, The Bull and Bear Steak House, and Oscar's Brasserie, named after Oscar Tschirky (Oscar of the Waldorf), who invented the Waldorf salad, Eggs Benedict, Thousand Island dressing during his 50 year career at the hotel. Sir Harry's Bar, named after British explorer Sir Harry Johnston, is the home of the Rob Roy and the Bobbie Burns cocktails.

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The North Shore Towers and Country Club is a three-building residential cooperative located in the Floral Park neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens, near the city's border with Nassau County. The complex is located next to the Long Island Jewish Medical Center.

The three constituent residential buildings—Amherst, Beaumont, and Coleridge Towers—which sit on a 110-acre (45 ha) property, are some of the tallest structures in Queens with 34 floors each. The towers are constructed on the highest point of land in Queens, a hill located 258 feet (79 m) above sea level. This hill is part of the terminal moraine of the last glacial period. The North Shore Towers complex contains 1,844 apartments ranging from studios to three-bedroom apartments.

The North Shore Towers complex has an 18-hole golf course and its own power plant that produces electricity independent of local power companies. The community also has an indoor shopping concourse that connects the three residential buildings with 22 retail units, as well as fitness centers that include five swimming pools and five tennis courts. The North Shore Towers is the only gated residential community in New York with its own United States Postal Service zip code, 11005.

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One Times Square, also known as 1475 Broadway, the New York Times Building, the New York Times Tower, or simply as the Times Tower, is a 25 story, 395-foot (120-metre)-high skyscraper, designed by Cyrus L. W. Eidlitz (HLW International), located at 42nd Street and Broadway in New York City. The tower was originally built to serve as the headquarters of the local newspaper, The New York Times (which also gave its name to the area as a whole, known as Times Square); however, the Times only stayed in the building for less than 10 years before it moved to a new building on 229 West 43rd Street.

Despite the Times leaving the building, One Times Square remained a major focal point of Times Square due to its annual New Year's Eve "ball drop" festivities (the ball itself has remained atop the tower year-round since 2009), and the introduction of an electronic news ticker at street-level in 1928. Following its sale to Lehman Brothers in 1995, One Times Square was re-purposed as an advertising location to take advantage of its prime location within the square. Most of the building's interior remains vacant (aside from its only major tenant, a Walgreens pharmacy which occupies its lower levels), while its exterior features a large number of traditional and electronic billboards. Due to the large amount of revenue that its ads pull, One Times Square is considered one of the most valuable advertising locations in the world.

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32 Old Slip, also known as One Financial Square, is a skyscraper in the Financial District of New York City. Completed in 1987, the building has 36 floors and stands at 575 ft 0 in (175.26 m). It is home to Convene, AIG Global Real Estate, Goldman Sachs, the New York Regional Office of the United States Census Bureau, and the ground floor houses the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) Engine Company 4 and Ladder Company 15.

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The Great Fire of New York was a devastating fire that burned through the night of September 21, 1776, on the west side of what then constituted New York City at the southern end of the island of Manhattan. It broke out in the early days of the military occupation of the city by British forces during the American Revolutionary War.

The fire destroyed 10 to 25 percent of the city and some unburned parts of the city were plundered. Many people believed or assumed that one or more people deliberately started the fire, for a variety of different reasons. British leaders accused revolutionaries acting within the city, and many residents assumed that one side or the other had started it. The fire had long-term effects on the British occupation of the city, which did not end until 1783.

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