History UsefulNotes / NewYorkCity

* '''Staten Island''' (Richmond County): Known by other New Yorkers for the Ferry to Manhattan, high tolls, and relative suburbanity (in that order). Third-largest in geographic size but least populous by far with a population of 480,000, it is the least dense borough and the only one not connected to the subway (though it has its own local train that uses the same fare system). As a result, Staten Islanders are more likely to own cars than other New Yorkers. Combined with the fact that it stands at a bit of a remove from the rest of the city geographically but is only separated by a narrow channel from New Jersey (specifically Hudson, Union, and Middlesex Counties), this different character has led to occasional grumblings from New Jerseyans that the island should really be part of NJ, and frequent jokes from other New Yorkers that it basically already is. Its four road bridges are tolled at $14-16, rising from time to time.[[note]]Though discounts exist for residents. Take that, everyone else![[/note]] If this article was written two decades ago, Fresh Kills Landfill would've replaced "high tolls" in this entry's first sentence. It's now being turned into a park three times the size of Central Park. Incidentally, a ''third'' of Staten Island is protected parkland, including beaches, wildlife refuges, and dense woodlands. Two large hills straddle a ridge spanning most of the island; Todt Hill is the highest natural point along the Eastern Seaboard. Numerous historical sights, some [[UsefulNotes/TheThirteenAmericanColonies pre-Revolution]], dot the island. Richmondtown in particular is a preserved colonial village, a subject of many field trips for New York schoolkids. If you're into urban exploration, the island's brownfield areas have much to offer. The whole island competes with Manhattan's Washington Square for the title of "most reputably haunted place in New York State." According to census records and exit polls, Staten Island is the most consistently conservative of the five boroughs, usually voting Republican while the other four usually vote Democrat.\\
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While De Blasio managed to secure a second term as mayor in 2017, his image among NYC residents only continued to sour. His progressive base began to accuse him of not doing enough to help curb the growing quality of life disparity between the richest and poorest New Yorkers such as improve affordable housing. 2019 saw him launch a bid for the Democratic nomination for the US Presidency, only to be met with little to no support from the electorate. He quietly ended his bid after failing to quality for any of the late stage primary debates. Things came to a head during the UsefulNotes/CoronavirusDisease2019Pandemic when De Blasio, ignoring the warnings from health officials as well as his advisors, encouraged New Yorkers to continue going about their day to day business. This backfired horribly as the disease was rapidly spread by asymptomatic carriers. Despite New York Governor Andrew Cuomo immediately implementing a stay at home order across the state, it was too late and the NYC metropolitan area became the worst-affected area of the country. As a result, De Blasio's approval rating plummeted to new lows as the city adapted to the widespread health, economic, and social effects of the virus.

The other thing of note thus far during De Blasio's time in office has been a decidedly soured relationship between the Mayor's Office and the police. De Blasio was harshly criticized by the union after making public statements about how he has told his multiracial son Dante that Dante had to take special care in his interactions with the police. Simmering tensions exploded after a wave of racially charged shootings and deaths in the country during 2014, including when Staten Island resident [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Eric_Garner Eric Garner]] was choked to death by police officers on the suspicion that Garner was selling loose, untaxed cigarettes, and resisting arrest. When the officer who put Garner in a chokehold was not indicted, (despite chokeholds specifically being against NYPD policy) the response was widespread protests against the police that De Blasio took a hands off approach to handling, (which contrasts with the approach of Bloomberg and especially Giuliani, who had unequivocally backed the police during such occasions) again angering members of the police force and drawing condemnation from Patrick Lynch, the president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, one of the largest police unions in the city.[[note]]Although a city official or police chief drawing condemnation from Lynch is practically a job requirement, as Lynch had lobbed fierce criticism at Giuliani, former police commissioner Ray Kelly, and Michael Bloomberg at various points since becoming PBA president in 1999.[[/note]] A week after the protests, a deranged gunman from Baltimore, Maryland travelled to New York, where he ambushed and killed a pair of police officers before killing himself. Lynch responded by proclaiming the blood to be on De Blasio's hands, and when De Blasio attended the funeral of the slain officers the police force turned their backs on De Blasio in protest. The relationship between the mayor and the police union continued to be strained, at best, for years afterward.

-->--''Music/TheyMightBeGiants, "Istanbul (not Constantinople)"''

The most populous city in the United States by far[[note]]For reference, it's more than double the population of the second-largest city, UsefulNotes/LosAngeles, and if the five boroughs were individual cities, all but Staten Island would still be in the top 10 largest cities in the US[[/note][, the largest English-speaking city in the world, and home to a massive media industry outclassed in the U.S. only by Hollywood. It is undoubtedly one of the most cosmopolitan, ethnically diverse, and culturally influential cities in history (if not ''the'' most). Despite all of which, it's still not the capital of its state; that title goes to Albany.

The most populous city in the United States, the largest English-speaking city in the world, and home to a massive media industry outclassed in the U.S. only by Hollywood. It is undoubtedly one of the most cosmopolitan, ethnically diverse, and culturally influential cities in history (if not ''the'' most). Despite all of which, it's still not the capital of its state; that title goes to Albany.

** The first constructions date back to the Civil War, when it was a training base for US Colored Troops, and was later used as a Civil War POW camp for over 3,000 captured Confederates.
** In the late 1800s it shuffled between uses as a quarantine station for tuberculosis and yellow fever, and a psychiatric hospital, as well as a delinquent boys' workhouse. In the early 1900s the workhouse was used as overflow for prisoners from Rikers Island, though this was shut down after World War II.
** In the early 1950s it was repurposed yet again as a homeless shelter and alcoholics' sanitorium, with a population of over 1,200.
** In 1956, the military constructed Nike Ajax surface-to-air missile silos on Hart Island, but they were eventually shut down in 1974.
** By 1966 the homeless shelter and prison facilities were closed, but replaced the next year with a drug rehab facility that housed 350 people - but it closed ten years later, in 1977. After this point permanent settlement on the island was abandoned, but after a few years, city government found other uses for it:
** In the early 1980s, during the height of the AIDS epidemic, the idea came about to bury HIV victims on the isolated island - due to unsubstantiated fears that their ''graves'' were contagious. Thousands of AIDS victims were ultimately buried there. Hart Island always had cemetery facilities for its associated prisons and plague hospitals, so as something of a natural outgrowth, the city increasingly shifted to using it as overflow for not just AIDS deaths, but the prison system, and ultimately the homeless population in general. After a few years in the 1980s, Hart Island grew into New York City's largest "potter's field" - cheap burial ground for unclaimed remains. Burials are carried out by prisoners from Rikers Island, transported by ferry. Hart's Island returned to the public eye again during the COVID-19 pandemic, when - true to the island's historical use - large numbers of COVID-19 victims were buried in its cemetery. There were some lurid descriptions in the press that these were "mass graves", prompting the city government to point out that they're doing what they always did: not rolling multiple corpses into the same ditch, but stacking a lot of cheap plywood coffins in the same large burial (that's what a "potter's field" is).

* '''Queens''' (Queens County): The home of the two NYC airports, [=LaGuardia=] (named after the city's [[TheGreatDepression Depression]]-era mayor) and [[UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy JFK]] (originally Idlewild), two World's Fairs, underdog baseball team The Mets, the site of UsefulNotes/{{tennis}}' US Open, and lots and ''lots'' of graveyards (Manhattan hasn't had room for burials since the 1850s, so most New Yorkers who opt to be buried wind up resting in Queens). The second most populous borough, with a mix of working-class neighborhoods in the west and {{suburbia}} in the east. Fun trivia: it is the most ethnically and linguistically diverse area in the world, with native speakers of at least 140 different languages living within its 178 square miles. You can find a family-owned restaurant that represents virtually every ethnicity. It's home to nearly half the city's Asian population, and is also one of the few counties in the US where African-Americans (who make up one in five residents) make more money on average than whites. Fun fact: due to "New York City" only absorbing Brooklyn and Queens in the late 1800's, plus local political factors, the "New York Public Library system" covers the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island, but ''not'' Queens and Brooklyn, which have their own independent library systems. Queens is also home to Jamaica station, the main train hub for all east-west travel going into Manhattan - all of the rail lines heading west on Long Island converge at Jamaica, which is also on the subway grid. For travelers heading in to NYC via JFK airport (the bigger of the two airports), a direct train line lines from the airport to Jamaica station, where you then either take an LIRR train or the subway to continue west into Manhattan.

* The original World Trade Center, a complex of seven buildings with the 1,368 and 1,362 foot high Twin Towers as its centerpiece, was the most visible feature of the city skyline from the towers' completion in the early 1970s to the Trade Center's complete destruction in the terrorist attacks of [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror September 11, 2001]]. The towers were [[TooSoon/SeptemberEleventh edited out of post-9/11 prints of old movies and TV shows]] for a while; after an appropriate amount of healing time had passed, this practice was eventually discontinued. The National September 11 Memorial & Museum was constructed on-site for remembering, honoring, and paying respect to the innocent lives that were lost.

* The original World Trade Center, a complex of seven buildings with the 1,368 and 1,362 foot high Twin Towers as its centerpiece, was the most visible feature of the city skyline from the towers' completion in the early 1970s to the Trade Center's complete destruction in the terrorist attacks of [[TheWarOnTerror September 11, 2001]]. The towers were [[TooSoon/SeptemberEleventh edited out of post-9/11 prints of old movies and TV shows]] for a while; after an appropriate amount of healing time had passed, this practice was eventually discontinued. The National September 11 Memorial & Museum was constructed on-site for remembering, honoring, and paying respect to the innocent lives that were lost.

And then came [[TheWarOnTerror 9/11]].

TheEighties marks the beginning of the city's gentrification, albeit initially, it was not by much. Wall Street was booming, and unemployment was inching down, but crime was still out of control, AIDS was widespread (# 1 in descending order along with San Francisco's #2, now #3 and Los Angeles' [first reporting city for its symptoms in 1981] #3, now #2 in the three original high reporting U.S. cities for it), racial tensions were running high, and crack cocaine, gangs and homelessness were becoming epidemics. This all came to a climax in 1990, [[RockBottom when a record 2245 murders were recorded]]. The mayor during this time, Ed Koch, was far more conservative than many of his predecessors (he called himself a "liberal with sanity"), winning the endorsement of both the Democratic ''and'' Republican parties in 1981. He took a tough "law and order" stance in handling crime in the city, banning the playing of radios on the subways, and giving the police broader powers in dealing with homeless people, and he has since become famous for his hawkish pro-UsefulNotes/{{Israel}} views. He was also nationally famous for taking his love of New York City to [[PatrioticFervor levels that many would consider extreme]]; he tried to block the creation of a second area code for the city on the grounds that he felt it would divide New Yorkers, and when the [[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague New York Giants]] won UsefulNotes/SuperBowl XXI in 1987 he refused to grant them a permit to hold their victory parade in the city, saying that they should parade "in front of the oil drums in Moonachie" on the grounds of their stadium being based in UsefulNotes/NewJersey. While highly popular both during and after his three terms as mayor, he was brought down by his harsh criticism of Jesse Jackson in the 1988 Democratic primaries (which alienated black voters) and a series of corruption scandals during his third term that undermined his "clean" image.

* The original World Trade Center, a complex of seven buildings with the 1,368 and 1,362 foot high Twin Towers as its centerpiece, was the most visible feature of the city skyline from the towers' completion in the early '70s to the Trade Center's complete destruction in the terrorist attacks of [[TheWarOnTerror September 11, 2001]]. The towers were [[TooSoon/SeptemberEleventh edited out of post-9/11 prints of old movies and TV shows]] for a while; after an appropriate amount of healing time had passed, this practice was eventually discontinued. The National September 11 Memorial & Museum was constructed on-site for remembering, honoring, and paying respect to the innocent lives that were lost.

TheEighties marks the beginning of the city's gentrification, albeit initially, it was not by much. Wall Street was booming, and unemployment was inching down, but crime was still out of control, AIDS was widespread (# 1 in descending order along with San Francisco's #2, now #3 and Los Angeles' #3, now #2 [first reporting city for its symptoms] in the three original high reporting U.S. cities for it), racial tensions were running high, and crack cocaine, gangs and homelessness were becoming epidemics. This all came to a climax in 1990, [[RockBottom when a record 2245 murders were recorded]]. The mayor during this time, Ed Koch, was far more conservative than many of his predecessors (he called himself a "liberal with sanity"), winning the endorsement of both the Democratic ''and'' Republican parties in 1981. He took a tough "law and order" stance in handling crime in the city, banning the playing of radios on the subways, and giving the police broader powers in dealing with homeless people, and he has since become famous for his hawkish pro-UsefulNotes/{{Israel}} views. He was also nationally famous for taking his love of New York City to [[PatrioticFervor levels that many would consider extreme]]; he tried to block the creation of a second area code for the city on the grounds that he felt it would divide New Yorkers, and when the [[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague New York Giants]] won UsefulNotes/SuperBowl XXI in 1987 he refused to grant them a permit to hold their victory parade in the city, saying that they should parade "in front of the oil drums in Moonachie" on the grounds of their stadium being based in UsefulNotes/NewJersey. While highly popular both during and after his three terms as mayor, he was brought down by his harsh criticism of Jesse Jackson in the 1988 Democratic primaries (which alienated black voters) and a series of corruption scandals during his third term that undermined his "clean" image.

* '''Manhattan''' (New York County): Geographically smallest but third most populated and most densely urbanized of the five boroughs; its population density (66,940 people per square mile) is higher than any other county in the US. The home of most of the city's most famous landmarks, including Times Square, Wall Street, UsefulNotes/{{Broadway}}, arguably the world's most iconic skyline, and more museums, theaters, and restaurants than you can shake a stick at. The hub of the world's financial engine, and the site of some of the most expensive real estate on the planet; the few remaining working-class and middle-class neighborhoods are largely clustered at the north and south ends of the island, respectively.\\

Before 1874, this was all New York City was, and when you hear a local say "The City" (or an out-of-towner say "New York City"), they're referring to Manhattan. Even the U.S. Postal Service regards "New York, NY" as synonymous with the borough, and prefers that people who send letters to Manhattan addresses write "New York" as the destination instead of "Manhattan". Fun trivia: for all that it's thought of as "the Big City", Manhattan is a small sliver of land. At its widest it's just about 2.3 miles wide (and is less than a mile wide at some of its narrower points), and is about 13.4 miles long. Though it sure doesn't feel that way if you've ever been caught in gridlock...
* '''Queens''' (Queens County): The home of the two NYC airports, [=LaGuardia=] (named after the city's [[TheGreatDepression Depression]]-era mayor) and [[UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy JFK]] (originally Idlewild), two World's Fairs, underdog baseball team The Mets, the site of UsefulNotes/{{tennis}}' US Open, and lots and ''lots'' of graveyards (Manhattan hasn't had room for burials since the 1850s, so most New Yorkers who opt to be buried wind up resting in Queens). The second most populous borough, with a mix of working-class neighborhoods in the west and {{suburbia}} in the east. Fun trivia: it is the most ethnically and linguistically diverse area in the world, with native speakers of at least 140 different languages living within its 178 square miles. You can find a family-owned restaurant that represents virtually every ethnicity. It's home to nearly half the city's Asian population, and is also one of the few counties in the US where African-Americans (who make up one in five residents) make more money on average than whites. Fun fact: due to "New York City" only absorbing Brooklyn and Queens in the late 1800's, plus local political factors, the "New York Public Library system" covers the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island, but ''not'' Queens and Brooklyn, which have their own independent library systems. Queens is also home to Jamaica station, the main train hub for all east-west travel going into Manhattan - all of the rail lines heading west on Long Island converge at Jamaica, which is also on the subway grid. For travelers heading in to NYC via JFK airport (the bigger of the two airports), a direct train line lines from the airport to Jamaica station, where you then either take an LIRR train or the subway to continue west into Manhattan.
* '''Staten Island''' (Richmond County): Known by other New Yorkers for the Ferry to Manhattan, high tolls, and relative suburbanity (in that order). Third-largest in geographic size but least populous by far with a population of 480,000, it is the least dense borough and the only one not connected to the subway (though it has its own local train that uses the same fare system). As a result, Staten Islanders are more likely to own cars than other New Yorkers. Combined with the fact that it stands at a bit of a remove from the rest of the city geographically but is only separated by a narrow channel from New Jersey (specifically Hudson, Union, and Middlesex Counties), this different character has led to occasional grumblings from New Jerseyans that the island should really be part of NJ, and frequent jokes from other New Yorkers that it basically already is. Its four road bridges are tolled at $14-16, rising from time to time.[[note]]Though discounts exist for residents. Take that, everyone else![[/note]] If this article was written two decades ago, Fresh Kills Landfill would've replaced "high tolls" in this entry's first sentence. It's now being turned into a park three times the size of Central Park. Incidentally, a ''third'' of Staten Island is protected parkland, including beaches, wildlife refuges, and dense woodlands. Two large hills straddle a ridge spanning most of the island; Todt Hill is the highest natural point along the Eastern Seaboard. Numerous historical sights, some [[UsefulNotes/TheThirteenAmericanColonies pre-Revolution]], dot the island. Richmondtown in particular is a preserved colonial village, a subject of many field trips for New York schoolkids. If you're into urban exploration, the island's brownfield areas have much to offer. The whole island competes with Manhattan's Washington Square for the title of "most reputably haunted place in New York State." According to census records and exit polls, Staten Island is the most consistently conservative of the five boroughs, usually voting Republican while the other four usually vote Democrat.\\
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By TheSeventies, the only good thing one could say about New York was that it wasn't ''as'' [[WretchedHive wretched a hive]] as nearby Newark was. The city nearly went bankrupt in 1975 before it was bailed out by a federal loan. The "Son of Sam" SerialKiller was on the loose, terrorizing the city. The middle classes started pouring out into the suburbs, feeling that [[TheBigRottenApple the city was in an irreversible decline]]. The city's DarkestHour -- both figuratively and [[IncrediblyLamePun literally]] -- came at 8:37 PM on July 13, 1977, when a lightning strike at an electrical substation in Westchester County, combined with gross negligence on the part of the Con Edison power company, caused the entire city to lose power for 25 hours -- which meant no air conditioning in the middle of a brutal July HeatWave. The result was an outbreak of looting, vandalism and arson that made national headlines.

Several residents of New York, such as Fran Leibowitz, have stated that this emphasis on social decay and weak infrastructure emphasizes the worst points in favor of the good. New York's cosmopolitan spirit attracted immigrants and intellectuals from around the world, as well as several aspiring artists cheaply because the rent pre-80s used to be cheap. Greenwich Village, [=SoHo=] and several other parts of the city created an artistic revolution. New York's Anthology Archives was the centre for American experimental film, it was also the location of Martha Graham's dance academy, the home of Leonard Bernstein, Abstract Impressionism and of course the folk scene was so vital that a young Robert Zimmerman left Minnesota to the city to become Music/BobDylan.

TheEighties marks the beginning of the city's gentrification, albeit initially, it was not by much. Wall Street was booming, and unemployment was inching down, but crime was still out of control, racial tensions were running high, and homelessness was becoming an epidemic. This all came to a climax in 1990, [[RockBottom when a record 2245 murders were recorded]]. The mayor during this time, Ed Koch, was far more conservative than many of his predecessors (he called himself a "liberal with sanity"), winning the endorsement of both the Democratic ''and'' Republican parties in 1981. He took a tough "law and order" stance in handling crime in the city, banning the playing of radios on the subways, and giving the police broader powers in dealing with homeless people, and he has since become famous for his hawkish pro-UsefulNotes/{{Israel}} views. He was also nationally famous for taking his love of New York to [[PatrioticFervor levels that many would consider extreme]]; he tried to block the creation of a second area code for the city on the grounds that he felt it would divide New Yorkers, and when the [[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague New York Giants]] won UsefulNotes/SuperBowl XXI in 1987 he refused to grant them a permit to hold their victory parade in the city, saying that they should parade "in front of the oil drums in Moonachie" on the grounds of their stadium being based in UsefulNotes/NewJersey. While highly popular both during and after his three terms as mayor, he was brought down by his harsh criticism of Jesse Jackson in the 1988 Democratic primaries (which alienated black voters) and a series of corruption scandals during his third term that undermined his "clean" image.

Of unique note was Koch's stance towards LGBT rights. While he was fairly progressive for the time, enacting a landmark anti-discrimination act, he's also a controversial figure among gay people for his perceived lack of response to the AIDS crisis, opposing needle exchange programs and mandatory AIDS education in schools. His biggest move to contain the epidemic was to shut down New York's gay bathhouses, only later extending the ban to heterosexual "swingers' clubs" (such as the famous Plato's Retreat) to avoid [[DoubleStandard running afoul of the very law that he had enacted]]. It's long been speculated that Koch, a lifelong bachelor, was a closeted gay man[[note]]As early as his first Democratic mayoral primary (against Mario Cuomo) in 1977, placards showed up in New York telling people to "Vote for Cuomo, Not the Homo."[[/note]], and that his softening of his pro-gay rights views was done in order to [[ArmouredClosetGay shore up concerns about his sexuality]]. The fact that he had to make several statements over the course of his career [[HaveIMentionedIAmHeterosexualToday explicitly affirming his heterosexuality]] only added fuel to the rumors.

The destruction of the World Trade Center turned Giuliani into a national figure overnight, earning him a reputation as "America's Mayor."[[note]]Somewhat ironically, just as Guiliani became a national figure and reached the heights of his popularity with the rest of the country, he had become widely disliked by New Yorkers, who had become disenchanted with Rudy due to the multiple scandals dogging him, his tendency to approach political enemies like criminals to be prosecuted and public policy as crusades to be fought. And that's not even getting into the increasing [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Giuliani_during_the_September_11_attacks change of opinion]] regarding his handling of the 9/11 attacks.[[/note]] The city of New York, once thought of as a degenerate slum, likewise turned into a patriotic symbol. Perhaps the best illustration of how much things had improved would come in 2003, when the city was again blacked out in the middle of a summer heat wave (this time as part of a power outage that hit the entire Northeast). Partly due to the huge drop in crime, partly due to solidarity against what many immediately assumed was caused by terrorism, the looting and arson of the 70s were replaced by goodwill, particularly of "celebratory" block parties of ice cream and restaurant food that was going to spoil.

In 2012, the city was hit by Hurricane Sandy, which caused severe damage in Staten Island as well as widespread power outages, flooding in the subways and gas shortages. Mayor Bill De Blasio was elected in 2013, and has thus far taken a much more conciliatory tone towards the city's various public workers unions such as teachers, transportation, and sanitation, many of which had clashed with both Bloomberg and Giuliani and been working for years without a contract, which De Blasio has begun settling. In general De Blasio has struck something of a populist note, occasionally saying things such as that in recent years laws and policy have been in favor of the richest New Yorkers rather than all New Yorkers. Perhaps the most debated pledge of De Blasio's was his promise to end the NYPD's controversial "Stop and Frisk" policy, which gave the police the ability to stop and search anyone they suspected of criminal intent. The law had frequently been criticized for disproportionately targeting black and Latino citizens, had run into numerous 4th amendment challenges (the right against "unreasonable search and seizure"), and despite the fact that the law is intended to prevent violent crime, only a minuscule percentage of the searches ever turned up weapons or any other contraband. Many residents felt that the law worked as a deterrent and prevention method, however, and feared a return to the crime rates of the 1970s and 80s with it and other other police protections/policies being relaxed. As of November 2018, that has not happened, and in fact crime statistics indicate that crime has fallen further after the city stopped using the tactic. The matter was somewhat moot by the time that De Blasio actually assumed office, however, [[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/nyregion/stop-and-frisk-practice-violated-rights-judge-rules.html?_r=0 as a 2013 court ruling]] from the last months of the Bloomberg administration had sharply curtailed the powers police had assumed under "Stop and Frisk" and effectively defanged the practice. Even [[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CtZSLQdWYAAKwCN.jpg the NYPD took a moment to point out the continued fall in crime]] after the end of "Stop and Frisk" when that policy and New York City's crime rate became a subject of contention during the first Presidential debate of 2016.

* The UsefulNotes/NewYorkSubway. (Yep.)

Giuliani's immediate and chosen successor, billionaire businessman and engineer Mike Bloomberg, initially ran for mayor as a member of the Republican party, but after two terms where he was often swimming against the mainstream Republican current, officially changed his designation to Independent, and would run the city in ways that borrowed from and infuriated both Republicans and Democrats. Bloomberg continued to preside over an economic boom, and gentrification and real estate development quickly reached into neighborhoods that had been ghettoes just a few years before. Bloomberg wanted his main legacy to be fixing New York's schools, and to accomplish this he abolished the bureaucracy of the Board of Education and took direct control over the school system. The result was something of a mixed bag; high school graduation rates skyrocketed during his mayorship, but many other indicators of student achievement remained flat or worsened slightly, (leading critics to charge that Bloomberg was pushing students to graduate to make his policies look good, regardless of whether it was deserved or there was any actual improvement among students or not) and Bloomberg and the teacher's union were quite antagonistic towards each other in ways that turned the education system into a battleground between the mayor's office and the teachers union.

* '''Staten Island''' (Richmond County): Known by other New Yorkers for the Ferry to Manhattan, high tolls, and relative suburbanity (in that order). Third-largest in geographic size but least populous by far with a population 480,000, it is the least dense borough and the only one not connected to the subway (though it has its own local train that uses the same fare system). As a result, Staten Islanders are more likely to own cars than other New Yorkers. Combined with the fact that it stands at a bit of a remove from the rest of the city geographically but is only separated by a narrow channel from New Jersey (specifically Hudson, Union, and Middlesex Counties), this different character has led to occasional grumblings from New Jerseyans that the island should really be part of NJ, and frequent jokes from other New Yorkers that it basically already is. Its four road bridges are tolled at $14-16, rising from time to time.[[note]]Though discounts exist for residents. Take that, everyone else![[/note]] If this article was written two decades ago, Fresh Kills Landfill would've replaced "high tolls" in this entry's first sentence. It's now being turned into a park 3 times the size of Central Park. Incidentally, a ''third'' of Staten Island is protected parkland, including beaches, wildlife refuges, and dense woodlands. Two large hills straddle a ridge spanning most of the island; Todt Hill is the highest natural point along the Eastern Seaboard. Numerous historical sights, some [[UsefulNotes/TheThirteenAmericanColonies pre-Revolution]], dot the island. Richmondtown in particular is preserved colonial village, a subject of many field trips for New York schoolkids. If you're into urban exploration, the island's brownfield areas have much to offer. The whole island competes with Manhattan's Washington Square for the title of "most reputably haunted place in New York State." According to census records and exit polls, Staten Island is the most consistently conservative of the five boroughs, usually voting Republican while the other four usually vote Democrat.\\

* Central Park, [[CaptainObvious a large park in the center of Manhattan]].

New York, New York: the city so nice they named it twice.

* The original World Trade Center, a complex of seven buildings with the 1,368 and 1,362 foot high Twin Towers as its centerpiece, was the most visible feature of the city skyline from its completion in the early '70s to its complete destruction in the terrorist attacks of [[TheWarOnTerror September 11, 2001]]. The towers were [[TooSoon/SeptemberEleventh edited out of post-9/11 prints of old movies and TV shows]] for a while; after an appropriate amount of healing time had passed, this practice was eventually discontinued. The National September 11 Memorial & Museum was constructed on-site for remembering, honoring, and paying respect to the innocent lives that were lost.

* The original World Trade Center, a complex of seven buildings with the 1,350 foot high Twin Towers as its centerpiece, was the most visible feature of the city skyline from its completion in the early '70s to its complete destruction in the terrorist attacks of [[TheWarOnTerror September 11, 2001]]. The towers were [[TooSoon/SeptemberEleventh edited out of post-9/11 prints of old movies and TV shows]] for a while; after an appropriate amount of healing time had passed, this practice was eventually discontinued. The National September 11 Memorial & Museum was constructed on-site for remembering, honoring, and paying respect to the innocent lives that were lost.

Giuliani's immediate and chosen successor, billionaire businessman and mayor Mike Bloomberg, initially ran for mayor as a member of the Republican party, but after two terms where he was often swimming against the mainstream Republican current, officially changed his designation to independent, and would run the city in ways that borrowed from and infuriated both Republicans and Democrats. Bloomberg continued to preside over an economic boom, and gentrification and real estate development quickly reached into neighborhoods that had been ghettoes just a few years before. Bloomberg wanted his main legacy to be fixing New York's schools, and to accomplish this he abolished the bureaucracy of the Board of Education and took direct control over the school system. The result was something of a mixed bag; high school graduation rates skyrocketed during his mayorship, but many other indicators of student achievement remained flat or worsened slightly, and Bloomberg and the teacher's union were quite antagonistic towards each other in ways that turned the education system into a battleground between the mayor's office and the teachers union.

What might ''actually'' be Bloomberg's legacy is the unprecedented and forceful move he made to push New York towards becoming a modern tech hub. This included the donation of city land on Roosevelt Island to become a brand new campus dedicated to applied sciences and engineering. The result was that in the years since New York City has become an American tech hub second only to Silicon Valley itself, and this in turn has been a key reason why technological and internet based companies, including Amazon, have developed a far greater physical presence in New York City than in years past.

* The original World Trade Center (Twin Towers) was one too between April 4, 1973 and [[TheWarOnTerror September 11, 2001]]. The buildings were [[PoliticallyCorrectHistory edited out of post-9/11 prints of old movies and TV shows]] for a while; after an appropriate amount of healing time had passed, this practice was eventually discontinued. The National September 11 Memorial & Museum was constructed on-site for remembering, honoring, and paying respect to the loss of innocent lives.
** With the emergence of the current One World Trade Center surrounding the memorial and museum, the place has been shown on movies and TV shows as early as 2010.

Giuliani's immediate successor, billionaire businessman and mayor Mike Bloomberg, initially ran for mayor as a member of the Republican party, but after two terms where he was often swimming against the mainstream Republican current, officially changed his designation to independent, and would run the city in ways that borrowed from and infuriated both Republicans and Democrats. Bloomberg continued to preside over an economic boom, and gentrification and real estate development quickly reached into neighborhoods that had been ghettoes just a few years before. Bloomberg wants his main legacy to be fixing New York's schools, and to accomplish this he abolished the bureaucracy of the Board of Education and took direct control over the school system. The result was something of a mixed bag; high school graduation rates skyrocketed during his mayorship, but many other indicators of student achievement remained flat or worsened slightly, and Bloomberg and the teacher's union were quite antagonistic towards each other. The city's crime rate also continued to drop, eventually dipping to levels not seen since the 1950s, although evidence from [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft a police whistle blower]], (later backed by an [[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/08/nypd-report-confirms-adri_n_1331613.html internal]] [[http://www.villagevoice.com/2012-03-07/news/the-nypd-tapes-confirmed/ report]] the NYPD conducted) showed that at least some of that was due to manipulation of the statistics. Bloomberg also became known outside the city for policies seen as nanny-state paternalism, including, among other things, his legislation banning trans fats and large sodas and reducing salt in city restaurants, calling on a ban on styrofoam, his presenting a bill to put cigarettes out of sight in stores, and the sting operations that he carried out in other states to catch people who were [[UsefulNotes/AmericanGunPolitics smuggling guns into the city]]. Another controversial decision was to extend New York's term limits for its mayor from two to three terms, which was roundly criticized. It came surprisingly close to backfiring against Bloomberg, as the 2009 election against Bill Thompson, (a long time city official and former president of the Board of Education) which Bloomberg had been expected to win easily, wound up being decided by less than 5 percentage points. This was especially surprising given the relative lack of name recognition for Thompson and the '''HUGE''' disparity in the operating budgets for the two campaigns.

In 2012, the city was hit by Hurricane Sandy, which caused severe damage in Staten Island as well as widespread power outages, flooding in the subways and gas shortages. Mayor Bill De Blasio was elected in 2013, and has thus far taken a much more conciliatory tone towards the city's various public workers unions such as teachers, transportation, and sanitation, many of which had clashed with both Bloomberg and Giuliani and been working for years without a contract, which De Blasio has begun settling. In general De Blasio has struck something of a populist note, occasionally saying things such as that in recent years laws and policy have been in favor of the richest New Yorkers rather than all New Yorkers. Perhaps the most debated pledge of De Blasio's was his promise to end the NYPD's controversial "Stop and Frisk" policy, which gave the police the ability to stop and search anyone they suspected of criminal intent. The law had frequently been criticized for disproportionately targeting black and Latino citizens, had run into numerous 4th amendment challenges (the right against "unreasonable search and seizure"), and despite the fact that the law is intended to prevent violent crime, only a minuscule percentage of the searches ever turned up weapons or any other contraband. Many residents felt that the law worked as a deterrent and prevention method, however, and feared a return to the crime rates of the 1970s and 80s with it and other other police protections/policies being relaxed. As of September 2016, that has not happened, and in fact crime statistics indicate that crime has fallen further after the city stopped using the tactic. The matter was somewhat moot by the time that De Blasio assumed office, however, [[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/nyregion/stop-and-frisk-practice-violated-rights-judge-rules.html?_r=0 as a 2013 court ruling]] from the last months of the Bloomberg administration had sharply curtailed the powers police had assumed under "Stop and Frisk" and effectively defanged the practice. Even [[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CtZSLQdWYAAKwCN.jpg the NYPD took a moment to point out the continued fall in crime]] after the end of "Stop and Frisk" when that policy and New York City's crime rate became a subject of contention during the first Presidential debate of 2016.

The other thing of note thus far during De Blasio's time in office has been a decidedly soured relationship between the Mayor's Office and the police. De Blasio was harshly criticized by the union after making public statements about how he has told his multiracial son Dante that Dante had to take special care in his interactions with the police. Simmering tensions exploded after a wave of racially charged shootings and deaths in the country during 2014, including when Staten Island resident [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Eric_Garner Eric Garner]] was choked to death by police officers on the suspicion that Garner was selling loose, untaxed cigarettes, and resisting arrest. When the officer who put Garner in a chokehold was not indicted, (despite chokeholds specifically being against NYPD policy) the response was widespread protests against the police that De Blasio took a hands off approach to handling, (which contrasts with the approach of Bloomberg and especially Giuliani, who had unequivocally backed the police during such occasions) again angering members of the police force and drawing condemnation from Patrick Lynch, the head of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, one of the largest of the city's police unions. Several weeks later, a deranged gunman from Baltimore, Maryland travelled to New York, where he ambushed and killed a pair of police officers before killing himself. Lynch responded by proclaiming the blood to be on De Blasio's hands, and when De Blasio attended the funeral of the slain officers the police force turned their backs on De Blasio in protest. The relationship between the mayor and the police and police union has continued to be strained, at best, in the time since.

By TheSeventies, the only good thing one could say about New York was that it wasn't ''as'' [[WretchedHive wretched a hive]] as nearby Newark was. The city nearly went bankrupt in 1975 before it was bailed out by a federal loan. The "Son of Sam" SerialKiller was on the loose, terrorizing the city. The middle classes started pouring out into the suburbs, feeling that [[TheBigRottenApple the city was in an irreversible decline]]. The city's DarkestHour -- both figuratively and [[IncrediblyLamePun literally]] -- came at 8:37 PM on July 13, 1977, when a lightning strike at an electrical substation in Westchester County, combined with [[TooDumbToLive gross negligence]] on the part of the Con Edison power company, caused the entire city to lose power for 25 hours -- which meant no air conditioning in the middle of a brutal July HeatWave. The result was an outbreak of looting, vandalism and arson that made national headlines.

* '''Queens''' (Queens County): The home of the two NYC airports, [=LaGuardia=] (named after the city's [[TheGreatDepression Depression]]-era mayor) and [[UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy JFK]] (originally Idlewild), two World's Fairs, underdog baseball team The Mets, the site of UsefulNotes/{{tennis}}' US Open, and lots and ''lots'' of graveyards (Manhattan hasn't had room for burials since the 1850s, so most New Yorkers who opt to be buried wind up resting in Queens). The second most populous borough, with a mix of working-class neighborhoods in the west and {{suburbia}} in the east. Fun trivia: it is the most ethnically and linguistically diverse area in the world, with native speakers of at least 140 different languages living within its 178 square miles. You can find a family-owned restaurant that represents virtually every ethnicity. It's home to nearly half the city's Asian population, and is also one of the few counties in the US where African-Americans (who make up one in five residents) make more money on average than whites.

* '''Staten Island''' (Richmond County): Known by other New Yorkers for the Ferry to Manhattan, high tolls, and relative suburbanity (in that order). Third-largest in geographic size but least populous by far with a population 480,000, it is the least dense borough and the only one not connected to the subway (though it has its own local train that uses the same fare system). As a result, Staten Islanders are more likely to own cars than other New Yorkers. Combined with the fact that it stands at a bit of a remove from the rest of the city geographically but is only separated by a narrow channel from New Jersey (specifically Hudson, Union, and Middlesex Counties), this different character has led to occasional grumblings from New Jerseyans that the island should really be part of NJ, and frequent jokes from other New Yorkers that it basically already is. Its four road bridges are tolled at $14-16, rising from time to time.[[note]]Though discounts exist for residents. Take that, everyone else![[/note]] If this article was written two decades ago, Fresh Kills Landfill would've replaced "high tolls" in this entry's first sentence. It's now being turned into a park 3 times the size of Central Park. Incidentally, a ''third'' of Staten Island is protected parkland, including beaches, wildlife refuges, and dense woodlands. Two large hills straddle a ridge spanning most of the island; Todt Hill is the highest natural point along the Eastern Seaboard. Numerous historical sights, some [[UsefulNotes/TheThirteenAmericanColonies pre-Revolution]], dot the island. Richmondtown in particular is preserved colonial village, a subject of many field trips for New York schoolkids. If you're into urban exploration, the island's brownfield areas have much to offer. The whole island competes with Manhattan's Washington Square for the title of "most reputably haunted place in New York State."\\

The year 1898 marked the beginning of the modern City of New York, with the consolidation of New York (then composed of Manhattan and the Bronx), the city of Brooklyn, and outlying areas in what is now Queens and Staten Island. This was a fiercely debated decision at the time which barely acquired a majority to vote for it, and for nearly a century afterward there were [[TheRemnant a few diehard holdouts]] (mostly in Brooklyn) who insisted that the decision to merge with the rest of New York was wrong and [[InsistentTerminology continually referred to it as]] "The Great Mistake of '98". The cities of Yonkers and Mount Vernon were also given a vote to join NYC and become [[WhatCouldHaveBeen the sixth and seventh boroughs]], but this was rejected by voters. The NewYorkCitySubway would be established in 1904.