New York City

Overview

New York City is the largest city in the United States and one of the world's defining metropolises — five boroughs of just over eight million people, 800+ languages, and the country's primary financial, media, fashion, theatre, contemporary-art and immigration capital. Manhattan's grid and skyline, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, Times Square, Broadway and the Met combine into a single cultural destination matched only by London, Paris and Tokyo in global recognition.

History

New York City was founded as the Dutch trading post New Amsterdam on the southern tip of Manhattan in 1624; the English captured it in 1664 and renamed it New York after the Duke of York. The city served as the first capital of the United States from 1785-1790 — Federal Hall on Wall Street is where George Washington was inaugurated as President in 1789. The 19th century brought explosive growth: the Erie Canal opened in 1825 connecting New York Harbor to the Great Lakes and making New York the dominant American port; Castle Garden and later Ellis Island processed millions of European immigrants; the 1811 Commissioners' Plan imposed the Manhattan grid above 14th Street; Central Park opened in 1857-1873; the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883; the consolidation of the five boroughs into the modern city took effect on 1 January 1898. The 20th century brought the skyscraper (the Flatiron in 1902, the Woolworth in 1913, the Chrysler and Empire State in 1930-1931), the subway (1904), the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Depression and the Stonewall Riots that began the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement on Christopher Street in 1969. The 9/11 attacks in 2001 destroyed the original Twin Towers; the rebuilt One World Trade Center opened in 2014. The post-pandemic recovery has reshaped Midtown office demand and accelerated outer-borough growth, but New York remains the country's principal financial, media, fashion, theatre and immigration capital.

Culture

New York's signature foods include the New York-style thin-crust pizza (Lombardi's, Joe's, Di Fara), the everything bagel with lox and cream cheese (Russ & Daughters on the Lower East Side, Ess-a-Bagel), the pastrami sandwich on rye at Katz's Delicatessen (in business since 1888), the New York-style cheesecake (Junior's), the cheap corner-slice tradition, and the halal-cart chicken-and-rice plate that feeds the city's night shift (the carts at 53rd and 6th the most famous). The diaspora cuisines are deep: Flushing Chinatown for Sichuan, Cantonese, Korean and Taiwanese; Jackson Heights for South Asian and Latin American; Arthur Avenue in the Bronx for Italian-American; Brighton Beach for Russian and Ukrainian. Smorgasburg's open-air food market in Williamsburg (Saturdays) and Prospect Park (Sundays) showcases independent food vendors. Eataly Flatiron and the Chelsea Market are upscale food halls; the city's Greenmarket farmers' markets (Union Square Wednesdays/Fridays/Saturdays the largest) anchor the local-food scene. Festivals: Tribeca Festival (June), US Open tennis (late August - early September), New York City Marathon (first Sunday of November), Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (fourth Thursday of November), New Year's Eve Times Square Ball Drop (31 December), Restaurant Week (winter and summer), Lunar New Year in Manhattan and Flushing Chinatown (January-February), Mermaid Parade at Coney Island (June). Museums: Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met), Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), American Museum of Natural History, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, Frick Collection, Brooklyn Museum, 9/11 Memorial and Museum, Tenement Museum.

Practical Info

Safety: New York is generally safe in tourist zones (Times Square, Central Park, Museum Mile, the Financial District, Brooklyn Heights/DUMBO, the High Line). The subway is patrolled and well-used; standard precautions on late-night trains and in less-trafficked stations. Property crime (pickpocketing, phone snatching) is the main concern in tourist density. Outer borough neighbourhoods vary; check the area for late-night travel. Emergency: 911. Subway emergencies: text 911 or use the in-train help points. Language: English. Spanish is the second-most-spoken language (Salvadoran, Dominican, Puerto Rican, Mexican and Colombian communities in particular); Mandarin and Cantonese in Manhattan and Flushing Chinatowns; Russian in Brighton Beach; Bengali, Hindi and Punjabi in Jackson Heights; Korean in Manhattan's K-Town (32nd Street) and Flushing; Arabic in Bay Ridge (Brooklyn) and Astoria. The city counts over 800 languages spoken at home — the most of any city anywhere. Currency: USD, with card and contactless payment accepted essentially everywhere — a visitor can go a whole trip without cash. Two local mechanics catch people out: sales tax is added at the register rather than included in the displayed price, and tipping is expected at table service, in bars and in taxis rather than optional. Both belong to the money guide's territory. On cash, the corner-store ATMs in bodegas charge noticeably more than bank-branch machines, so use a bank ATM if you need notes.

Travel

New York holds more world-class institutions than any trip can get through, so the only useful skill here is choosing. The city is five boroughs consolidated in 1898 — Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island — with something over eight million people inside the line and nearly twenty million across the wider region, and it rewards depth in one or two layers far more than a sprint across all of them. Two pieces of geography make it manageable. The first is the grid: the 1811 street plan above 14th Street means most of Manhattan can be navigated without a map, while the older tangle south of Houston Street — SoHo, the Village, the Financial District — is where the city looks its age. The second is the subway, which runs all night and reaches everywhere, and which is the single reason a visitor can treat the whole city as available rather than choosing a base and staying near it. What you choose between is unusually stark: a skyline with several of the best observation decks in the world; a museum concentration on one Fifth Avenue mile that would be a national collection anywhere else; the country's most prestigious commercial theatre; a harbour holding both the Statue of Liberty and the memorial at the World Trade Center; and four outer boroughs whose neighbourhoods and food are, for many returning visitors, the actual reason to come back. Four days covers the icons. A week starts to reach the city underneath them.

Frequently asked questions

Diplomatic missions in New York City

15 embassies based in this city, grouped by region.