The Basics:

Why is New York called 'The Big Apple'?
From Gersh Kuntzman's article in the New York Post we have learned the final decision is that John FitzGerald, a boozy racing writer, coined the term on Feb 18, 1924. In his debut column for the New York Morning Telegraph FitzGerald wrote, "...the dream of every lad that ever threw a leg over a thoroughbred. There's only one Big Apple. That's New York."

New York City is a town in the state of New York which lies in the north east of the United States. NYC is separated into five boroughs: The Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island and Manhattan. Most people mean Manhattan when they talk about NYC :-) Manhattan lies on an island - on the west side there's the Hudson river and on the east side there's the East river ;-)
Manhattan itself is also separated into several parts. The main part of Manhattan is divided by Streets (horizontal) and Avenues (vertical), except Downtown and the Broadway.
In the very South you can find the Financial District or Downtown with Wall Street, World Trade Center, etc.
A little bit north there's TriBeCa ('Triangle Below Canal Street') and SoHo ('South Of Houston Street') on the west side of Broadway, and Chinatown, Little Italy and Lower East Side on the other side.
1st to 14th Street contains the general "Village" area. The area west of Broadway is Greenwich Village, and to the east is East Village.
14th to 34th Street west of Broadway is Chelsea, known for its large loft apartments and studios.
34th to 59th Street is generally regarded as "Midtown". Here you can find the Thater District with Times Square, Public Library, Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Radio City Music Hall, Grand Central Station, Empire State Building, Macy's, Carnegie Hall, Chrysler Building and much more.
59th to 110th Street contains the Upper West Side and Upper East Side. Between the two lies the Central Park. The apartments along the park are the most expensive ones in Manhattan. On the Upper East Side there are most of the famous musuems like Metropolitan Museum Of Art, Guggenheim Musem, Whitney Art Museum and the Frick Collection. On the other side of the park there's the American Museum Of National History as well as the Lincoln Center.
110th to 145th Street lies the village of Harlem with Columbia University and other colleges.

For an excellent map of Manhattan, please click here.



Some Facts:

New York has...
... 7,3 million residents
... 31,2 million tourists
... 3 airports - JFK, La Guardia, Newark
... 65 bridges
... 12 000 caps
... 200 skyscrapers
... 60 000 hotel rooms
... 14 000 bus stops
... 17 000 restaurants
... 250 theaters
... 150 musems

- it is not allowed to drink alcohol in public
- in most public buildings it is not allowed to smoke
- Manhattan is 13.4 miles (21.5 km) long, 2.3 miles (3.7 km) wide at widest point and 0.8 miles (1.3 km) wide at narrowest point.
- the Bronx is the only borough which is on the mainland
- The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world.
- the forefinger of the Statue Of Liberty is 2,4 metres long
- about 7000 weapons are confiscated at New York's highschools ina year
- the drivers of the 12 000 caps are from 85 different countries and speak about 60 languages. Nevertheless it may be that your driver doesn't understand you ;-)
- the founder of the Yellow Cap Company, John Hertz, chose the colour 'yellow' for his caps, 'cause he read that this colour would jump into someone's eyes faster than any other colour.
- Macy's, the world's largest store, covers 2.1 million square feet of space and stocks over 500,000 different items. - Broadway, originating from Lower Manhattan at Bowling Green and ending in Albany, is one of the world's longest streets at 150 mi (241 km). The official name of this street is Highway 9.