Manhattan,
Upper Manhattan,
Uptown Manhattan,
Midtown Manhattan,
Downtown Manhattan,
The Bronx,
Brooklyn,
Queens,
Staten Island,
New York State,
New Jersey.
New York City, NYC, Nueva York, Nova York, The Big Apple, La Gran Manzana; whatever you call it, New York is the world capital of culture, finance, media, diplomacy, and diversity.
It is also the world capital of Latin culture, and where we all mix together. As the global media capital, whatever happens in New York City goes around the world.
Manhattan is The City
Manhattan is ballet, opera, and all that jazz. The 1970s was the best of times, it was the worst of times. So New Yorkers created hip-hop, salsa, disco, and punk.
We ❤️ New York!
Manhattan is divided into sections:
Upper Manhattan neighborhoods include: East Harlem (El Barrio), Hamilton Heights, Harlem, Hudson Heights, Inwood, Manhattanville, Marble Hill, Morningside Heights, and Washington Heights.
Uptown Manhattan neighborhoods include: Columbus Circle, Central Park, Lincoln Square, Lincoln Center, Upper West Side, and the Upper East Side.
Midtown Manhattan neighborhoods include Chelsea, Flatiron District, Hell’s Kitchen, Hudson Yards, Kips Bay, Koreatown, Midtown, Midtown East, Murray Hill, Nomad, and the Times Square Theater District.
Downtown Manhattan neighborhoods include: Battery Park City, Chinatown, Civic Center, East Village, Financial District, Greenwich Village, Hudson Square, Little Italy, Lower East Side, Meatpacking District, NoHo, SoHo, Tribeca, Two Bridges, Union Square, and the West Village.
The Bronx is the Hip and the Hop
Hip-Hop and New York Salsa on2 are from here. Reggaeton passed through. This is The Get Down.
We ❤️ The Bronx!
Bronx neighborhoods include Bronx Park, Concourse, Concourse Village, Crotona Park East, Hunts Point, Jerome Park, Longwood, Melrose, Mott Haven.
Brooklyn is Cool. Ooh là là. Oy vey!
Creative New York moved to Brooklyn because The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. This is the house of the party people!
We ❤️ Brooklyn!
Brooklyn neighborhoods include: Bed-Stuy, Boerum Hill, Bushwick, Coney Island, Crown Heights, Fort Greene, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Prospect Park, Red Hook, and Williamsburg.
Queens is Hot ~ Siempre Caliente
Queens is the most diverse county in the world. Everyone is here. In some neighborhoods, you get the feeling that you are there.
We ❤️ Queens!
Queens neighborhoods include: Astoria, Elmhurst, Flushing, Jackson Heights, Long Island City, Sunnyside, and Woodside.
Staten Island is La Dolce Vita
Staten Island is pretty quiet, but has it’s own New York state of mind.
The Staten Island ferry is the only free thing in New York City. On the way back, you can see The City the way so many of our ancestors first saw it, once upon a time, back in the day.
We ❤️ Staten Island!
New York State is Peace and Love
Thirty minutes out of The City is another world. Welcome to Amérika the beautiful!
New Jersey is El Otro Lado del Rio
New Yorkers like to tease New Jersey ~ until they move here to raise their families.
The Bergenline is another, another world. Cuba and Colombia are in the house, in Union City and Englewood.
Lenape Manahatta
Our city is built on Native American Lenape land. The First Nations arrived around 13,000 years ago. “Manahatta” is now Manhattan. The Lenape village was up in Inwood. Naturally, it’s the most beautiful spot on the island. The trail to the trading post at the southern tip of Manhattan is now called Broadway. The trading post later became the U.S. Customs House. It is now the National Museum of the American Indian. The Lenape sacred council elm tree was where Bowling Green Park is now.
We are still here. We have always been here, and the Great Spirit will be here when all the people are gone. In the Indigenous way of thinking, land is not owned by anyone. It belongs to all the people. New York’s cultural community gets it.
The City of Immigrants
We are the immigrant city, the gateway to the United States, a land of immigrants. When new communities arrive, the “natives” complain we are low-class, unskilled, uneducated, oversexed, and basically inhuman. Of course, that’s nonsense. We get to work, start marrying each other, and enter politics. We become New Yorkers.
People from the entire world come here to work and reinvent themselves ~ to create a better future for their children. Diversity, work and density have been the defining characteristics of New York City since the first immigrant, Juan Rodríguez (from what is now the Dominican Republic) established the city’s first bodega (store) at the Lenape trading post on the southern tip of Manahatta in 1613.
Everyone is here, but the communities that define New York City are:
- Native American Lenape were the First Nations. (~10,000 years ago)
- Dominicans made Manahatta an immigrant outpost. (1613) 🇩🇴
- Dutch came just to make money. (1624) 🇳🇱
- African Americans built New York. (1626) 🇺🇸
- Jewish made New York an open city. (1654) 🇮🇱
- Irish came to escape famine. (after 1845) 🇮🇪
- Italians came to work. (1900-1910) 🇮🇹
- Puerto Ricans came when we were pushed off our homeland and New York had good jobs. (1950s) 🇵🇷
- Dominicans came to work. (since the 1970s) 🇩🇴
New communities keep arriving in waves. New immigrants start in the lowest jobs and then move up. Today we are becoming more Mexican and South American, South Asian and Chinese.
La Gran Manzana
La Gran Manzana (The Big Apple) is also the capital of the Latin world.
We acknowledge the Lenape First Nations on whose “Manahatta” New York City is built. The first settlers in the region arrived around 9,000 years ago. Archeologists think the area has been continuously settled for about the last 3,000 years.
The Lenape were farmers. After the First Nations, New York City has been Latin from its very first immigrant, Juan Rodríguez, arrived in 1613.
Rodríguez was a multilingual Portuguese African sailor on a Dutch ship from Santo Domingo, now the capital of the Dominican Republic. He decided to stay instead of shipping on to the Netherlands. 🇩🇴
Rodríguez set up NYC’s first bodega (corner store) where the National Museum of the American Indian is now.
The Dutch set up New Amsterdam in 1624. The English took it in 1664 and left in 1783.
New York has always been a city of immigrants. People come from all over the world to start their lives as Americans. Wherever you are from, when you are here, you’re a New Yorker.
This is New York
New York is a great diversity of interlocking purposes. We are not the biggest human city, but we are the world’s most diverse human city.
Everyone from everywhere is here. The best and worst of every good and bad idea are here.
If you look at how people live around the world, New York City shouldn’t function at all. Humanity’s investment in petty differences is too great. But on most days, New York does work, and it works surprisingly well.
Perhaps the hurry that is necessary to survive here forces us to drop our differences and let go of our baggage. When you do that, the only thing left is our common humanity.
This is my city. This is your city. This is New York.
We are glad you are here. ¡Bienvenidos!
