Manhattan is an island borough of New York City, New York, USA, coterminous with New York County. With a 2006 population of 1,611,581 living in a land area of 22.96 square miles (59.47  km²), it is the most densely populated county in the United States at 66,940 residents per square mile (25,846/km²). It is also the second wealthiest county in the United States. The borough consists of Manhattan Island, Roosevelt Island, Randalls Island, almost 1/10th of Ellis Island, the above-water portion of Liberty Island, several much smaller islands, and a small section on the mainland of New York State adjacent to the Bronx.

Manhattan is a major commercial, financial, and cultural center of the United States and, to some extent, the world. Most major radio, television, and telecommunications companies in the United States are based here, as well as many news, magazine, book, and other media publishers. Manhattan has many famous landmarks, tourist attractions, museums, and universities. It is also home to the headquarters of the United Nations. Manhattan has the largest central business district in the United States, is the site of both the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, and is the home to the largest number of corporate headquarters in the nation. It is indisputably the center of New York City and the New York metropolitan region, holding the seat of city government, and the largest fraction of employment, business, and recreational activities.

The name Manhattan derives from the word Manna-hata, as written in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, an officer on Henry Hudson's yacht Halve Maen (Half Moon). A 1610 map depicts the name Manahata twice, on both the west and east sides of the Mauritius River (later named the Hudson River). The word "Manhattan" has been translated as "island of many hills" from the Lenape language. The Encyclopedia of New York City offers other derivations, including from the Munsee dialect of Lenape: manahachtanienk ("place of general inebriation"), manahatouh ("place where timber is procured for bows and arrows"), or menatay ("island").

History

Colonial

The area that is now Manhattan was long inhabited by the Lenape. In 1524, Lenape in canoes met Giovanni da Verrazzano, the first European explorer to pass New York Harbor, although he did not enter the harbor past the Narrows. It was not until the voyage of Henry Hudson, an Englishman who worked for the Dutch East India Company, that the area was mapped. Hudson came across Manhattan Island and the native people living there on September 11, 1609, and continued up the river that bears his name, the Hudson River, until he arrived at the site of present day Albany.

A permanent European presence in New Netherland began in 1624 with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island. In 1625 construction was started on a citadel and a Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, later called New Amsterdam (Nieuw Amsterdam). Manhattan Island was chosen as the site of Fort Amsterdam, a citadel for the protection of the new arrivals; its 1625 establishment is recognized as the birth date of New York City. In 1626, Peter Minuit acquired Manhattan from native people in exchange for trade goods, often said to be worth $24.

In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed as the last Dutch Director General of the colony. New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on February 2, 1653. In 1664, the British conquered New Netherland and renamed it "New York" after the English Duke of York and Albany. Stuyvesant and his council negotiated 24 articles of provisional transfer with the British which sought to guarantee New Netherlanders liberties, including freedom of religion, under British rule.

American Revolution and the early United States

Manhattan was at the heart of the New York Campaign, a series of major battles in the early American Revolutionary War. The Continental Army was forced to abandon Manhattan after the disastrous Battle of Fort Washington on November 16, 1776. The city became the British political and military center of operations in North America for the remainder of the war. Manhattan was greatly damaged by the Great Fire of New York during the British military rule that followed. British occupation lasted until November 25, 1783, when George Washington returned to Manhattan, as the last British forces left the city.

From January 11, 1785 to Autumn 1788, New York City was the fifth of five capitals under the Articles of Confederation, with the Continental Congress residing at New York City Hall then at Fraunces Tavern. New York was the first capital under the newly enacted Constitution of the United States, from March 4, 1789 to August 12, 1790 at Federal Hall.

19th century growth

New York grew as an economic center, first as a result of Alexander Hamilton's policies and practices as the first Secretary of the Treasury and, later, with the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, which connected the Atlantic port to the vast agricultural markets of the Midwestern United States and Canada. By 1810, New York City had surpassed Philadelphia as the largest city in the United States.

Tammany Hall, a Democratic Party political machine, began to grow in influence with the support of many of the immigrant Irish, culminating in the election of the first Tammany mayor, Fernando Wood, in 1854. Tammany Hall dominated local politics for decades. Central Park, which opened to the public in 1858, became the first landscaped park in an American city and the nation's first public park.

During the American Civil War, the city's strong commercial ties to the South, its growing immigrant population (prior to then largely from Germany and Ireland), anger about conscription and resentment at those who could afford to pay $300 to avoid service, led to resentment against Lincoln's war policies, culminating in the three-day long New York Draft Riots of July 1863, one of the worst incidents of civil disorder in American history, with an estimated 119 participants and passersby massacred.

After the Civil War, the rate of immigration from Europe grew steeply, and New York became the first stop for millions seeking a new and better life in the United States, a role acknowledged by the dedication of the Statue of Liberty on October 28, 1886, a gift from the people of France. The new European immigration brought further social upheaval. In a city of tenements packed with poorly paid laborers from dozens of nations, the city was a hotbed of revolution, syndicalism, racketeering, and unionization.

In 1883, the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge established a surface connection across the East River. In 1874, the western portion of the present Bronx County was transferred to New York County, and in 1895 the remainder of the present Bronx County was annexed. The City of Greater New York was formed in 1898, with Manhattan and the Bronx, though still one county, established as two separate boroughs. On January 1, 1914, the New York State Legislature created Bronx County, and New York County was reduced to its present boundaries.

The 20th century

The construction of the New York City Subway, first opened in 1904, helped bind the new city together, as did additional bridges to Brooklyn. In the 1920s, Manhattan saw the increasing influx of Blacks as part of the Great Migration from the American South, and the Harlem Renaissance, part of a larger boom time in the Prohibition era that saw dueling skyscrapers in the skyline. New York City became the most populous city in the world in 1925, overtaking London, which had reigned for a century.

On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in Greenwich Village took the lives of 146 garment workers, which would eventually lead to great improvements in the city's fire department, building codes, and workplace regulations.

The period between the World Wars saw the election of reformist mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and the fall of Tammany Hall after eighty years of political dominance. As the city's demographics stabilized, labor unionization brought new protections and affluence to the working class, the city's government and infrastructure underwent a dramatic overhaul under LaGuardia. Despite the effects of the Great Depression, the 1930s saw the building of some of the world's tallest skyscrapers, including numerous Art Deco masterpieces that are still part of the city's skyline today.

Returning World War II veterans and immigrants from Europe created a postwar economic boom and led to the development of huge housing developments, targeted at returning veterans, including Peter Cooper Village—Stuyvesant Town which opened in 1947. In 1951, the United Nations relocated from its first headquarters in Queens, to the East Side of Manhattan.

Like many major U.S. cities, New York suffered race riots and population and industrial decline in the 1960s. By the 1970s, the city had gained a reputation as a graffiti-covered, crime-ridden relic of history. In 1975, the city government faced imminent bankruptcy, and its appeals for assistance were initially rejected, summarized by the classic October 30, 1975 New York Daily News headline as "Ford to City: Drop Dead". The fate was avoided through a federal loan and debt restructuring, and the city was forced to accept increased financial scrutiny by New York State.

The 1980s saw a rebirth of Wall Street, and the city reclaimed its role at the center of the world-wide financial industry. The 1980s also saw Manhattan at the heart of the AIDS crisis, with Greenwich Village at its epicenter. Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) and AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) were founded to advocate on behalf of those stricken with the disease.

Starting in the 1990s, crime rates dropped drastically and the outflow of population turned around, as the city once again became the destination not only of immigrants from around the world, but of many U.S. citizens seeking a cosmopolitan lifestyle.

Modern New York City is familiar to many people around the globe thanks to its popularity as a setting for films and television series. Notable television examples include such award-winning shows as Friends, 30 Rock, Seinfeld, NYPD Blue, Law & Order, Will & Grace, Gossip Girl and Sex and the City. Notable film examples include Miracle on 34th Street, Ghostbusters, Cloverfield, which specifically takes place in Manhattan, and many of Woody Allen's films, such as Annie Hall, Bananas, and Manhattan.

Geography

See also: Geography and environment of New York City

Manhattan Island is bounded by the Hudson River to the west and the East River to the east. To the north, the Harlem River divides Manhattan from The Bronx and the mainland United States. Several small islands are also part of the borough of Manhattan, including Randall's Island, Ward's Island, and Roosevelt Island in the East River, and Governors Island and Liberty Island to the south in New York Harbor.^[40] Manhattan Island is 22.7 square miles (58.8 km²) in area, 13.4 miles (21.6 km) long and 2.3 miles (3.7 km) wide, at its widest (near 14th Street). New York County as a whole covers a total area of 33.77 square miles (87.46 km²), of which 22.96 square miles (59.47 km²) are land and 10.81 square miles (28.00 km²) are water.

One Manhattan neighborhood is actually contiguous with The Bronx. Marble Hill at one time was part of Manhattan Island, but the Harlem River Ship Canal, dug in 1895 to improve navigation on the Harlem River, separated it from the remainder of Manhattan as an island between the Bronx and the remainder of Manhattan. Before World War I, the section of the original Harlem River channel separating Marble Hill from The Bronx was filled in, and Marble Hill became part of the mainland.

Marble Hill is one example of how Manhattan's land has been considerably altered by human intervention. The borough has seen substantial land reclamation along its waterfronts since Dutch colonial times, and much of the natural variation in topography has been evened out.

Early in the nineteenth century, landfill was used to expand Lower Manhattan from the natural Hudson shoreline at Greenwich Street to West Street. When building the World Trade Center, 1.2 million cubic yards (917,000 m³) of material was excavated from the site. Rather than dumping the spoil at sea or in landfills, the fill material was used to expand the Manhattan shoreline across West Street, creating Battery Park City. The result was a 700 foot (210 m) extension into the river, running six blocks or 1,484 feet (450 m), covering 92 acres (37 ha), providing a 1.2 mile (1.9 km) riverfront esplanade and over 30 acres (12 ha) of parks.

Manhattan is loosely divided into downtown, midtown, and uptown, with Fifth Avenue dividing Manhattan's east and west sides.

Manhattan is connected by the George Washington Bridge, Holland Tunnel and Lincoln Tunnel to New Jersey to the west, and to three New York City boroughs—the Bronx to the northeast and Brooklyn and Queens on Long Island to the east and south. Its only direct connection with the fifth New York City borough is the Staten Island Ferry across New York Harbor, which is free of charge. The ferry terminal is located at Battery Park at its southern tip. It is possible to travel to Staten Island via Brooklyn, using the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

The Commissioners' Plan of 1811, called for twelve numbered avenues running north and south roughly parallel to the shore of the Hudson River, each 100 feet (30 m) wide, with First Avenue on the east side and Twelfth Avenue in the west. There are several intermittent avenues east of First Avenue, including four additional lettered avenues running from Avenue A eastward to Avenue D in an area now known as Alphabet City in Manhattan's East Village. The numbered streets in Manhattan run east-west, and are 60 feet (18 m) wide, with about 200 feet (61 m) between each pair of streets. With each combined street and block adding up to about 260 feet (79 m), there are almost exactly 20 blocks per mile. Fifteen crosstown streets were designated as 100 feet (30 m) wide, including 34th, 42nd, 57th and 125th Streets, some of the borough's most significant transportation and shopping venues.^[47] Broadway is the most notable of many exceptions to the grid, starting at Bowling Green in Lower Manhattan and continuing north into the Bronx at Manhattan's northern tip. In much of Midtown Manhattan, Broadway runs at a diagonal to the grid, creating major named intersections at Union Square, Herald Square (Sixth Avenue and 34th Street), Times Square (Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street) and Columbus Circle (Eighth Avenue/Central Park West and 59th Street)

A consequence of the strict grid plan of most of Manhattan, and the grid's skew of approximately 28.9 degrees, is a phenomenon sometimes referred to as Manhattanhenge (by analogy with Stonehenge). On separate occasions in late May and early July, the sunset is aligned with the street grid lines, with the result that the sun is visible at or near the western horizon from street level. A similar phenomenon occurs with the sunrise in January and December.

The Wildlife Conservation Society, which operates the zoos and aquariums in the city, is currently undertaking The Mannahatta Project, a computer simulation to visually reconstruct the ecology and geography of Manhattan when Henry Hudson first sailed by in 1609, and compare it to what we know of the island today.

Adjacent counties

• Bergen County, New Jersey—west/northwest
• Hudson County, New Jersey—west/southwest
• Bronx County, New York (the Bronx)—northeast
• Queens County, New York (Queens)—east/southeast
• Kings County, New York (Brooklyn)—southeast
• Richmond County, New York (Staten Island)—southwest

Neighborhoods

Main articles: Neighborhoods of New York City and List of Manhattan neighborhoods

Some neighborhoods, such as SoHo, are commercial in nature and known for upscale shopping. Others, such as Greenwich Village, the Lower East Side and the East Village, have long been associated with the "Bohemian" subculture. Chelsea is a neighborhood with a large gay population, and also recently a center of New York's art industry and nightlife. Washington Heights is a vibrant neighborhood of immigrants from the Dominican Republic. Manhattan's Chinatown has a dense population of people of Chinese descent.^[55][56] The Upper West Side is often characterized as more intellectual and creative, in contrast to the old money and conservative values of the Upper East Side, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the United States.

In Manhattan, uptown means north (more precisely north-northeast, which is the direction in which the island and its street grid system is oriented) and downtown means south (south-southwest). This usage differs from that of most American cities, where downtown refers to the central business district. Manhattan has two central business districts, the Financial District at the southern tip of the island, and Midtown Manhattan. The term uptown also refers to the northern part of Manhattan (generally speaking, above 59th Street) and downtown to the southern portion (typically below 14th Street), with Midtown covering the area in between, though definitions can be rather fluid depending on the situation.

Fifth Avenue roughly bisects Manhattan Island and acts as the demarcation line for east/west designations (e.g., East 27th Street, West 42nd Street); street addresses start at Fifth Avenue and increase heading away from Fifth Avenue, at a rate of 100 per block in most places. South of Waverly Place in Manhattan, Fifth Avenue terminates and Broadway becomes the east/west demarcation line. Though the grid does start with 1st Street, just north of Houston Street (pronounced HOW-stin), the grid does not fully take hold until north of 14th Street, where nearly all east-west streets use numeric designations, which increase from south to north to 220th Street, the highest numbered street on the island.

Climate

Temperature records have been set as high as 106 °F (41 °C) on July 9, 1936 and as low as -15 °F (-26 °C) on February 9, 1934. These temperatures are not common and have not been matched or surpassed in more than seven decades. Most recently, temperatures have hit 100 degrees as recently as July 2005 and 103 degrees in August 2006, and dropped to just 1 above zero as recently as January 2004. New York can have excessive days of rain or long stretches of dry weather.

Summer evening temperatures are exacerbated by the urban heat island effect which causes heat absorbed during the day to be radiated back at night, raising temperatures by as much as 7 °F (4 °C) when winds are slow.

Government

Main article: Government of New York City

Since New York City's consolidation in 1898, Manhattan has been governed by the New York City Charter, which has provided for a "strong" mayor-council system since its revision in 1989. The centralized New York City government is responsible for public education, correctional institutions, libraries, public safety, recreational facilities, sanitation, water supply, and welfare services in Manhattan.

The office of Borough President was created in the consolidation of 1898 to balance centralization with local authority. Each borough president had a powerful administrative role derived from having a vote on the New York City Board of Estimate, which was responsible for creating and approving the city's budget and proposals for land use. In 1989 the Supreme Court of the United States declared the Board of Estimate unconstitutional on the grounds that Brooklyn, the most populous borough, had no greater effective representation on the Board than Staten Island, the least populous borough, a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause pursuant to the high court's 1964 "one man, one vote" decision.

Since 1990, the largely-powerless Borough President has acted as an advocate for the borough at the mayoral agencies, the City Council, the New York state government, and corporations. Manhattan's Borough President is Scott Stringer, elected as a Democrat in 2005.

Robert M. Morgenthau, a Democrat, has been the District Attorney of New York County since 1974. Manhattan has ten City Council members, the third largest contingent among the five boroughs. It also has 12 administrative districts, each served by a local Community Board. Community Boards are representative bodies that field complaints and serve as advocates for local residents. As the host of the United Nations, the borough is home to the world's largest international consular corps, comprising 105 consulates, consulates general and honorary consulates.^[72] It is also the home of New York City Hall, the seat of New York City government housing the Mayor of New York City and the New York City Council. The mayor's staff and thirteen municipal agencies are located in the nearby Manhattan Municipal Building, completed in 1916, one of the largest governmental buildings in the world.

Politics

See also: Community Boards of Manhattan

The Democratic Party holds the majority of public offices. Registered Republicans are a small minority in the borough, only constituting approximately 20% of the electorate. The Democrats hold nearly 80% of those registered in a party, especially those on the Upper East Side and Financial District. Local party platforms center on affordable housing, education and economic development. Controversial political issues in Manhattan include development, noise, and the cost of housing.

No Republican has won the presidential election in Manhattan since 1924, when Calvin Coolidge won a plurality of the New York County vote over Democrat John W. Davis, 41.20%–39.55%. Warren G. Harding was the most recent Republican presidential candidate to win a majority of the Manhattan vote, with 59.22% of the 1920 vote. In the 2004 presidential election, Democrat John Kerry received 82.1% of the vote in Manhattan and Republican George W. Bush received 16.7%. The borough is the most important source of funding for presidential campaigns in the United States; in 2004, it was home to six of the top seven zip codes in the nation for political contributions. The top ZIP code, 10021 on the Upper East Side, generated the most money for the United States presidential election for all presidential candidates, including both Kerry and Bush during the 2004 election.

Crime

Main article: Crime in New York City

Starting in the mid-19th century, the United States became a magnet for immigrants seeking to escape poverty in their home countries. After arriving in New York, many new arrivals ended up living in squalor in the slums of the Five Points neighborhood, an area between Broadway and the Bowery, northeast of New York City Hall. By the 1820s, the area was home to many gambling dens and "houses of ill repute", and was known as a dangerous place to go. In 1842, Charles Dickens visited the area and was appalled at the horrendous living conditions he had seen. The area was so notorious at the time that it even caught the attention of Abraham Lincoln, who visited the area before his Cooper Union Address in 1860. The predominantly Irish Five Points Gang was one of the country's first major organized crime entities.

As Italian immigration grew in the early 1900s, many joined the Irish gangs. Al Capone got his start in crime with the Five Points Gang, as did Lucky Luciano. The Mafia (also known as Cosa Nostra) first developed in the mid-19th century in Sicily and spread to the East Coast of the United States during the late 19th century following waves of Sicilian and Southern Italian emigration. Lucky Luciano established La Cosa Nostra in Manhattan, forming alliances with other criminal enterprises, including the Jewish mob, led by Meyer Lansky, the leading Jewish gangster of that period. from 1920–1933, Prohibition helped create a thriving black market in liquor, which the Mafia was quick to capitalize on.

New York City experienced a sharp increase in crime during the 1960s and 1970s, with a near fivefold jump in the total number of police-recorded crimes, from 21.09 per thousand in 1960 to a peak of 102.66 in 1981. Homicides continued to increase in the city as a whole for another decade, with murders recorded by the NYPD jumping from 390 in 1960, to 1,117 in 1970, 1,812 in 1980 and reaching its peak of 2,262 in 1990. Starting circa 1990, New York City saw record declines in homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, violent crime, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and property crime, a trend that has continued to today.

Based on 2005 data, New York City has the lowest crime rate among the ten largest cities in the United States. The city as a whole ranked fourth nationwide in the 13th annual Morgan Quitno survey of the 32 cities surveyed with a population above 500,000. The New York Police Department, with 36,400 officers, is larger than the next four largest U.S. departments combined. The NYPD's counter-terrorism division, with 1,000 officers assigned, is larger than the FBI's. The NYPD's CompStat system of crime tracking, reporting and monitoring has been credited with a drop in crime in New York City that has far surpassed the drop elsewhere in the United States.

Since 1990, crime in Manhattan has plummeted in all categories tracked by the CompStat profile. A borough that saw 503 murders in 1990 has seen a drop of nearly 78% to 111 in 2006. Robbery and burglary are down by more than 80% during the period, and auto theft has been reduced by more than 90%. Overall crime has declined by more than 75% since 1990 in the seven major crime categories tracked by the system, and year-to-date statistics through May 2007 show continuing declines.

Demographics

Main article: Demographics of Manhattan

See also: Demographics of New York City

According to 2007 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, there were 1,620,867 people residing in Manhattan on July 1, 2007. As of the 2000 Census, the population density of New York County was 66,940.1/sq mi (25,849.9/km²), the highest population density of any county in the United States. If the 2007 census estimates are accurate, then the population density now exceeds 70,595 people per square mile. In 1910, at the height of European immigration to New York, Manhattan's population density reached a peak of 120,250.299/sq mi (46,428.9/km²). There were 798,144 housing units in 2000 at an average density of 34,756.7/sq mi (13,421.8/km²). Only 20.3% of Manhattan residents lived in owner-occupied housing, the second-lowest rate of all counties in the nation, behind The Bronx.

The New York City Department of City Planning projects that Manhattan's population will grow by 289,000 people between 2000 and 2030, an increase of 18.8% over the period, second only to Staten Island., while the rest of the city is projected to grow by 12.7% over the same period. The school-age population is expected to grow 4.4% by 2030, in contrast to a small decline in the city as a whole. The elderly population is forecast to grow by 57.9%, with the borough adding 108,000 persons ages 65 and over, compared to 44.2% growth citywide.

In 2000, 56.4% of people living in Manhattan were White, 27.18% were Hispanic of any race, 17.39% were Black, 14.14% were from other races, 9.40% were Asian, 0.5% were Native American, and 0.07% were Pacific Islander. 4.14% were from two or more races. 24.93% reported speaking Spanish at home, 4.12% Chinese, and 2.19% French.

There were 738,644 households. 25.2% were married couples living together, 12.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 59.1% were non-families. 17.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them. 48% of all households were made up of individuals and 10.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2 and the average family size was 2.99.

Manhattan's population was spread out with 16.8% under the age of 18, 10.2% from 18 to 24, 38.3% from 25 to 44, 22.6% from 45 to 64, and 12.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 90.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.9 males.

Manhattan is one of the highest-income places in the United States with a population greater than 1 million. Based on IRS data for the 2004 tax year, New York County (Manhattan) had the highest average federal income tax liability per return in the country. Average tax liability was $25,875, representing 20.0% of Adjusted Gross Income. As of 2002, Manhattan had the highest per capita income of any county in the country.

The Manhattan ZIP Code 10021, on the Upper East Side, is home to more than 100,000 people and has a per capita income of over $90,000. It is one of the largest concentrations of extreme wealth in the United States. Most Manhattan neighborhoods are not as wealthy. The median income for a household in the county was $47,030, and the median income for a family was $50,229. Males had a median income of $51,856 versus $45,712 for females. The per capita income for the county was $42,922. About 17.6% of families and 20% of the population were below the poverty line, including 31.8% of those under age 18 and 18.9% of those age 65 or over.

Lower Manhattan (Manhattan south of Houston Street) has a sharply different population than the rest of the borough. According to the 2000 census, the neighborhood was 41% Asian, 32% non-Hispanic white, 19% Hispanic and 6% black. 43% of residents were immigrants. These figures are affected by the demographic weight of Chinatown, which accounts for 55% of the population of Lower Manhattan. While the Financial District had few non-commercial residents after the 1950s, the area has seen a significant surge in its residential population, with estimates showing over 30,000 residents living in the area as of 2005, a jump from the 15,000 to 20,000 before the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Manhattan is religiously diverse. The largest religious affiliation is the Roman Catholic Church, whose adherents constitute 564,505 persons (more than 36% of the population) and maintain 110 congregations. Jews comprise the second largest religious group, with 314,500 persons (20.5%) in 102 congregations. The next largest religious groups are Protestants, with 139,732 adherents (9.1%) and Muslims, with 37,078 (2.4%).

The borough is also experiencing a baby boom. Since 2000, the number of children under age 5 living in Manhattan grew by more than 32%.

Landmarks and architecture

Main article: Architecture in New York City

The skyscraper, which has shaped Manhattan's distinctive skyline, has been closely associated with New York City's identity since the end of the 19th century. From 1890–1973, the world's tallest building was in Manhattan, with nine different buildings holding the title.^[108] The New York World Building on Park Row, was the first to take the title, standing 309 feet (91 m) until 1955, when it was demolished to construct a new ramp to the Brooklyn Bridge. The nearby Park Row Building, with its 29 stories standing 391 feet (119 m) high took the title in 1899. The 41-story Singer Building, constructed in 1908 as the headquarters of the eponymous sewing machine manufacturer, stood 612 feet (187 m) high until 1967, when it became the tallest building ever demolished. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower, standing 700 feet (213 m) at the foot of Madison Avenue, wrested the title in 1909, with a tower reminiscent of St Mark's Campanile in Venice. The Woolworth Building, and its distinctive Gothic architecture, took the title in 1913, topping off at 792 feet (241 m).

The Roaring Twenties saw a race to the sky, with three separate buildings pursuing the world's tallest title in the span of a year. As the stock market soared in the days before the Wall Street Crash of 1929, two developers publicly competed for the crown. At 927 feet (282 m), 40 Wall Street, completed in May 1930 in an astonishing 11 months as the headquarters of the Bank of Manhattan, seemed to have secured the title.^[115] At Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street, auto executive Walter Chrysler and his architect William Van Alen developed plans to build the structure's trademark 185-foot (56 m)-high spire in secret, pushing the Chrysler Building to 1,046 feet (319 m) and making it the tallest in the world when it was completed in 1929. Both buildings were soon surpassed, with the May 1931 completion of the 102-story Empire State Building with its Art Deco tower soaring 1,250 feet (381 m) to the top of the building. The 203ft high pinnacle was later added bringing the total height of the building to 443 m (1,453 ft).

In 1961, Penn Central unveiled plans to tear down the old Penn Station and replace it with a new Madison Square Garden and office building complex. Organized protests were aimed at preserving the McKim, Mead, and White-designed structure completed in 1910, widely considered a masterpiece of the Beaux-Arts style and one of the architectural jewels of New York City. Despite these efforts, demolition of the structure began in October 1963. The loss of Penn Station—called “an act of irresponsible public vandalism” by historian Lewis Mumford—led directly to the enactment in 1965 of a local law establishing the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, which is responsible to preserve the "city's historic, aesthetic, and cultural heritage". The historic preservation movement triggered by Penn Station's demise has been credited with the retention of some one million structures nationwide, including nearly 1,000 in New York City.

The theatre district around Broadway at Times Square, New York University, Columbia University, Flatiron Building, the Financial District around Wall Street, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Little Italy, Harlem, the American Museum of Natural History, Chinatown, and Central Park are all located on this densely populated island.

The city is a leader in energy-efficient "green" office buildings, such as Hearst Tower, owned by Englishman Samuel Fox, and the rebuilt 7 World Trade Center. Central Park is bordered on the north by West 110th Street, on the west by Eighth Avenue, on the south by West 59th Street, and on the east by Fifth Avenue.

Along the park's borders, these streets are usually referred to as Central Park North, Central Park West, and Central Park South, respectively. (Fifth Avenue retains its name along the eastern border.) The park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. The 843 acre (3.4 km²) park offers extensive walking tracks, two ice-skating rinks, a wildlife sanctuary, and grassy areas used for various sporting pursuits, as well as playgrounds for children. The park is a popular oasis for migrating birds, and thus is popular with bird watchers. The 6 mile (10 km) road circling the park is popular with joggers, bicyclists and inline skaters, especially on weekends and in the evenings after 7:00 p.m., when automobile traffic is banned.^[125]

While much of the park looks natural, it is almost entirely landscaped and contains several artificial lakes. The construction of Central Park in the 1850s was one of the era's most massive public works projects. Some 20,000 workers crafted the topography to create the English-style pastoral landscape Olmsted and Vaux sought to create. Workers moved nearly 3,000,000 cubic yards (2,300,000 m³) of soil and planted more than 270,000 trees and shrubs.

17.8% of the borough, a total of 2,686 acres (10.9 km²), are devoted to parkland. Almost 70% of Manhattan's space devoted to parks is located outside of Central Park, including 204 playgrounds, 251 Greenstreets, 371 basketball courts and many other amenities.

The African Burial Ground National Monument at Duane Street preserves a site containing the remains of over 400 Africans buried during the 17th and 18th centuries. The remains were found in 1991 during the construction of the Foley Square Federal Office Building.

Cityscape

Economy

Manhattan is home to some of the nation's most valuable real estate. 450 Park Avenue was sold on July 2, 2007 for $510 million, about $1,589 per square foot ($17,224/m²), breaking the barely month-old record for an American office building of $1,476 per square foot ($15,888/m²) set in the June 2007 sale of 660 Madison Avenue

Manhattan is the economic engine of New York City, with its 2.3 million workers drawn from the entire New York metropolitan area accounting for almost two-thirds of all jobs in New York City.^[129] Manhattan's daytime population swells to 2.874 million, with commuters adding a net 1.337 million people to the population. This commuter influx of 1.459 million workers coming into Manhattan was the largest of any other county or city in the country, and was more than triple the 481,000 commuters who headed into second-ranked Washington, D.C.^[130][131]

Its most important economic sector is the finance industry, whose 280,000 workers earned more than half of all the wages paid in the borough. Wall Street is frequently used to represent the entire financial industry. In 2006, those in the Manhattan financial industry earned an average weekly pay about $8,300 (including bonuses), while the average weekly pay was about $2,500. The health care sector represented 11.3% of the borough's jobs and 4% of total compensation, with workers taking home about $900 per week.^[132]

New York City is home to the most corporate headquarters of any city in the nation, the overwhelming majority based in Manhattan.^[133] Midtown Manhattan is the largest central business district in the United States.^[134] Lower Manhattan is home to both the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, and is the nation's third-largest central business district (after Chicago's Loop).^[135]

Seven of the world's top eight global advertising agency networks are headquartered in Manhattan.^[136] "Madison Avenue" is often used metonymously to refer to the entire advertising field, after Madison Avenue became identified with the advertising industry after the explosive growth in the area in the 1920s.

2006 statistics showed that the average weekly wages paid to Manhattan workers is $1,453 (excluding bonuses), the highest in the country's 325 largest counties, and the salary growth of 7.8% was the highest among the ten largest counties. Pay in the borough was 85% higher than the $784 pay earned weekly nationwide and nearly double the amount earned by workers in the outer boroughs. Manhattan's workforce is overwhelmingly focused on white collar professions, with manufacturing (39,800 workers) and construction (31,600) accounting for a small fraction of the borough's employment.^[129][137]

Historically, this corporate presence has been complemented by many independent retailers, though a recent influx of national chain stores has caused many to lament the creeping homogenization of Manhattan.^[138]

[edit] Culture

See also: Culture of New York City

Times Square is the center of the city's theater district.

Manhattan has been the scene of many important American cultural movements. In 1912, about 20,000 workers, a quarter of them women, marched on Washington Square Park to commemorate the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which killed 146 workers on March 25, 1911. Many of the women wore fitted tucked-front blouses like those manufactured by the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, a clothing style that became the working woman's uniform and a symbol of female independence, reflecting the alliance of labor and suffrage movements.^[139] The Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s established the African-American literary canon in the United States. Manhattan's vibrant visual art scene in the 1950s and 1960s was a center of the American pop art movement, which gave birth to such giants as Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein. Perhaps no other artist is as associated with the downtown pop art movement of the late 1970s as Andy Warhol, who socialized at clubs like Serendipity 3 and Studio 54.

The exterior of Frank Lloyd Wright's Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

A popular haven for art, the downtown neighborhood of Chelsea is widely known for its galleries and cultural events, with more than 200 art galleries that are home to modern art from upcoming artists and respected artists as well.^[140][141]

Broadway theatre is often considered the highest professional form of theatre in the United States. Plays and musicals are staged in one of the 39 larger professional theatres with at least 500 seats, almost all in and around Times Square.^[142] Off-Broadway theatres feature productions in venues with 100-500 seats.^[143] A little more than a mile from Times Square is the Lincoln Center, home to one of the world's most prestigious opera houses, that of the Metropolitan Opera.^[144]

Manhattan is also home to some of the most extensive art collections, both contemporary and historical, in the world including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Guggenheim Museum.

The exterior of Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Manhattan is the borough most closely associated with New York City by non-residents; even some natives of New York City's outer boroughs will describe a trip to Manhattan as "going to the city".^[145]

The borough has a place in several American idioms. The phrase "a New York minute" is meant to convey a very short period of time, sometimes in hyperbolic form, as in "perhaps faster than you would believe is possible". It refers to the rapid pace of life in Manhattan.^[146] The term "melting pot" was first popularly coined to describe the densely populated immigrant neighborhoods on the Lower East Side in Israel Zangwill's play The Melting Pot, which was an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet set by Zangwill in New York City in 1908.^[147] The iconic Flatiron Building is said to have been the source of the phrase "23 skidoo" or scram, from what cops would shout at men who tried to get glimpses of women's dresses being blown up by the winds created by the triangular building.^[148] The "Big Apple" dates back to the 1920s, when a reporter heard the term used by New Orleans stablehands to refer to New York City's racetracks and named his racing column "Around The Big Apple." Jazz musicians adopted the term to refer to the city as the world's jazz capital, and a 1970s ad campaign by the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau helped popularize the term.^[149]

[edit] Sports

Madison Square Garden is home to the Knicks, Rangers and Liberty.

Today, Manhattan is home of the NBA's New York Knicks and NHL's New York Rangers, who play their home games at Madison Square Garden, the only major professional sports arena in the borough. The New York Jets proposed a West Side Stadium for their home field, but the proposal was eventually defeated in June 2005, leaving them at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Today, Manhattan is the only borough in New York City that does not have a pro baseball franchise. The Bronx has the Yankees and Queens has the Mets of the Major League Baseball. The Minor League Baseball Brooklyn Cyclones play in Brooklyn, while the Staten Island Yankees play in Staten Island. Yet three of the four major league teams to play in New York City played in Manhattan. The New York Giants played in the various incarnations of the Polo Grounds at 155th Street and Eighth Avenue from their inception in 1883 — except for 1889, when they split their time between Jersey City and Staten Island, and when they played in Hilltop Park in 1911 — until they headed west with the Brooklyn Dodgers after the 1957 season.^[150] The New York Yankees began their franchise as the Hilltoppers, named for Hilltop Park, where they played from their creation in 1903 until 1912. The team moved to the Polo Grounds with the 1913 season, where they were officially christened the New York Yankees, remaining there until they moved across the Harlem River in 1923 to Yankee Stadium.^[151] The New York Mets played in the Polo Grounds in 1962 and 1963, their first two seasons, before Shea Stadium was completed in 1964.^[152] After the Mets departed, the Polo Grounds was demolished in April 1964, replaced by public housing.^[153][154]

The first national college-level basketball championship, the National Invitation Tournament, was held in New York in 1938 and remains in the city.^[155] The New York Knicks started play in 1946 as one of the National Basketball Association's original teams, playing their first home games at the 69th Regiment Armory, before making Madison Square Garden their permanent home.^[156] The New York Liberty of the WNBA have shared the Garden with the Knicks since their creation in 1997 as one of the league's original eight teams.^[157] Rucker Park in Harlem is a playground court, famed for its street ball style of play, where many NBA athletes have played in the summer league.^[158]

Though both of New York City's football teams play today across the Hudson River in Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, both teams started out playing in the Polo Grounds. The New York Giants played side-by-side with their baseball namesakes from the time they entered the National Football League in 1925, until crossing over to Yankee Stadium in 1956.^[159] The New York Jets, originally known as the Titans, started out in 1960 at the Polo Grounds, staying there for four seasons before joining the Mets in Queens in 1964.^[160]

The New York Rangers of the National Hockey League have played in the various locations of Madison Square Garden since their founding in the 1926–1927 season. The Rangers were predated by the New York Americans, who started play in the Garden the previous season, lasting until the team folded after the 1941–1942 NHL season, a season in which it played in the Garden as the Brooklyn Americans.^[161]

The New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League played their home games at Downing Stadium for two seasons, starting in 1974. In 1975, the team signed Pelé, officially recorded by FIFA as the world's greatest soccer player, to a $4.5 million contract, drawing a capacity crowd of 22,500 to watch him lead the team to a 2-0 victory.^[162] The playing pitch and facilities at Downing Stadium were in dreadful condition though and as the team's popularity grew they too left for Yankee Stadium, and then Giants Stadium. The stadium was demolished in 2002 to make way for the $45 million, 4,754-seat Icahn Stadium which includes an Olympic-standard 400-meter running track and, as part of Pele's and the Cosmos' legacy, includes a FIFA-approved floodlit soccer stadium which hosts matches involving some 48 youth teams who are members of a Manhattan soccer club.^[163][164]

[edit] Media

Manhattan is served by the major New York City dailies, including The New York Times, New York Daily News, and New York Post, which are all headquartered in the borough. The nation's largest financial newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, is also based here. Other daily newspapers include AM New York and The Villager. The New York Amsterdam News, based in Harlem, is one of the leading African American weekly newspapers in the United States. The Village Voice is a leading alternative weekly based in the borough.^[165]

The television industry developed in New York and is a significant employer in the city's economy. The four major American broadcast networks, ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC are all headquartered in Manhattan, as are many cable channels, including MSNBC, MTV, Fox News, HBO and Comedy Central. In 1971, WLIB became New York's first black-owned radio station and the crown jewel of Inner City Broadcasting Corporation. A co-founder of Inner City was Percy Sutton, a former Manhattan borough president and long one of the city’s most powerful black leaders.^[166] WLIB began broadcasts for the African-American community in 1949 and regularly interviewed civil rights leaders like Malcolm X and aired live broadcasts from conferences of the NAACP. Influential WQHT, also known as Hot 97, claims to be the premier hip-hop station in the United States. WNYC, comprising an AM and FM signal, has the largest public radio audience in the nation and is the most-listened to commercial or non-commercial radio station in Manhattan.^[167] WBAI, with news and information programming, is one of the few socialist radio stations operating in the United States.

The oldest public-access television channel in the United States is the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, founded in 1971, offers eclectic local programming that ranges from a jazz hour to discussion of labor issues to foreign language and religious programming.^[168] NY1, Time Warner Cable's local news channel, is known for its beat coverage of City Hall and state politics.

[edit] Housing

In the early days of Manhattan, wood construction and poor access to water supplies left the city vulnerable to fires. In 1776, shortly after the Continental Army evacuated Manhattan and left it to the British, a massive fire broke out destroying one-third of the city and some 500 houses.^[169]

Loft apartments in TriBeCa.

The rise of immigration near the turn of the century left major portions of Manhattan, especially the Lower East Side, densely packed with recent arrivals, crammed into unhealthy and unsanitary housing. Tenements were usually five-stories high, constructed on the then-typical 25x100 lots, with "cockroach landlords" exploiting the new immigrants.^[170][171] By 1929, stricter fire codes and the increased use of elevators in residential buildings, were the impetus behind a new housing code that effectively ended the tenement as a form of new construction, though many tenement buildings survive today on the East Side of the borough.^[171]

Peter Cooper Village—Stuyvesant Town is a sprawling private residential development on the East Side of Manhattan. One of the most successful of postwar private housing communities, Stuyvesant Town was planned in 1943.^[172] Its first tenants, two World War II veterans and their families, moved into the first completed building on August 1, 1947.^[173] Stuyvesant Town is a collection of red brick apartment buildings with typical housing project-style architecture, stretching from First Avenue to Avenue C, between 14th and 20th Streets. It covers about 80 acres of land. Stuyvesant Town has 8,757 apartments and with its sister development Peter Cooper Village they have a combined 110 buildings, 11,250 apartments, and over 25,000 residents.

Today, Manhattan offers a wide array of public and private housing options. There were 798,144 housing units in Manhattan as of the 2000 Census, at an average density of 34,756.7/sq mi (13,421.8/km²).^[1] Only 20.3% of Manhattan residents lived in owner-occupied housing, the second-lowest rate of all counties in the nation, behind The Bronx.^[96]

[edit] Infrastructure

[edit] Transportation

Grand Central Terminal, a terminal rail station, and a major city landmark.

See also: Transportation in New York City

Manhattan is unique in the United States for its intense use of public transportation and lack of private car ownership. While 88% of Americans nationwide drive to their jobs and only 5% use public transportation, mass transit is the dominant form of travel for residents of Manhattan, with 72% of borough residents using public transportation and only 18% driving to work.^[174][175] According to the 2000 U.S. Census, more than 75% of Manhattan households do not own a car.^[174]

In 2007, Mayor Bloomberg proposed a congestion pricing system that would charge drivers entering Manhattan below 60th Street between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. weekdays a fee of $8 per car or $21 per truck, with lower fees for travel within the pricing zone. The plan would be modeled on a similar system in London, and is intended to improve air quality and traffic flow, with funds raised used for mass transit improvements throughout the city.^[176]

The New York City Subway, the largest subway system in the world by track mileage and the largest by number of stations, is the primary means of travel within the city, connecting to every borough except Staten Island. A second subway, the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) system, connects Manhattan to northern New Jersey. Transit passengers tender their fares with pay-per-ride MetroCards, which are valid on all city buses and subways, as well as on PATH trains. A one-way fare on the bus or subway is $2.00,^[177] and PATH costs $1.75.^[178] There are daily, 7-day, 14-day, and 30-day MetroCards that allow unlimited trips on all subways (except PATH) and MTA bus routes (except for express buses).^[179] The PATH QuickCard is being phased out, and both PATH and the MTA are testing "smart card" payment systems to replace the MetroCard.^[180] Commuter rail services operating to and from Manhattan are the Long Island Rail Road (which connects Manhattan and other New York City boroughs to Long Island), the Metro-North Railroad (which connects Manhattan to Westchester County and Southwestern Connecticut) and New Jersey Transit trains to various points in New Jersey.

The MTA New York City Bus offers a wide variety of local buses within Manhattan. An extensive network of express bus routes serves commuters and other travelers heading into Manhattan. The bus system served 740 million riders in 2004, ranking first in the nation, more than double the ridership in second-ranked Los Angeles.^[181]

New York's iconic yellow cabs, which number 13,087 city-wide and must have the requisite medallion authorizing the pick up of street hails, are ubiquitous in the borough.^[182] Manhattan also sees tens of thousands of bicycle commuters. The Roosevelt Island Tramway, one of two commuter cable car systems in North America, whisks commuters between Roosevelt Island and Manhattan in less than five minutes, and has been servicing the island since 1978. (The other system in North America is the Portland Aerial Tram.) ^[183][184] The Staten Island Ferry, which runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, annually carries over 19 million passengers on the 5.2 mile (8.4 km) run between Manhattan and Staten Island. Each weekday five vessels are used to transport almost 65,000 passengers on 110 boat trips.^[185][186] The ferry has been fare-free since 1997, when the then-50-cent fare was eliminated.^[187]

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Penn Station, a major commuter rail hub in New York City, is directly under Madison Square Garden.

The metro region's commuter rail lines converge at Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal, on the west and east sides of Midtown Manhattan, respectively. They are the two busiest rail stations in the United States. About one in every three users of mass transit in the country and two-thirds of the nation's rail riders live in New York and its suburbs.^[188] Amtrak provides inter-city passenger rail service from Penn Station to Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.; Upstate New York, New England; cross-border service to Toronto and Montreal; and destinations in the South and Midwest.

The Lincoln Tunnel, which carries 120,000 vehicles per day under the Hudson River between New Jersey and Manhattan, is the world's busiest vehicular tunnel.^[189] It was built instead of a bridge to allow for unfettered passage of large passenger and cargo ships that sailed through New York Harbor and up the Hudson to Manhattan's piers. The Queens Midtown Tunnel, built to relieve congestion on the bridges connecting Manhattan with Queens and Brooklyn, was the largest non-Federal project of its time when it was completed in 1940.^[190] President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first person to drive through it.^[191]

The FDR Drive and Harlem River Drive are two limited-access routes that skirt the East Side of Manhattan along the East River, designed by controversial New York master planner Robert Moses.^[192]

Manhattan has three public heliports. US Helicopter offers regularly scheduled helicopter service connecting the Downtown Manhattan Heliport with John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey.^[193]

New York has the largest clean-air diesel-hybrid and compressed natural gas bus fleet in the country, and some of the first hybrid taxis, most of which operate in Manhattan.^[194]

[edit] Utilities

Gas and electric service is provided by Consolidated Edison to all of Manhattan. Con Edison's electric business traces its roots back to Thomas Edison's Edison Electric Illuminating Company, the first investor-owned electric utility. The company started service on September 4, 1882, using one generator to provide 110 volts direct current (DC) to 59 customers with 800 light bulbs, in a one-square-mile area of Lower Manhattan from his Pearl Street Station.^[195] Con Edison operates the world's largest district steam system, which consists of 105 miles (169 km) of steam pipes, providing steam for heating, hot water, and air conditioning^[196] by some 1,800 Manhattan customers.^[197]

Manhattan, surrounded by two brackish rivers, had a limited supply of fresh water available on the island, which dwindled as the city grew rapidly after the American Revolutionary War. To supply the needs of the growing population, the city acquired land in Westchester County and constructed the Croton Aqueduct system, which went into service in 1842. The system took water from a dam at the Croton River, and sent it down through the Bronx, over the Harlem River via the High Bridge, to storage reservoirs in Central Park and at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, and through a network of cast iron pipes on to consumer's faucets.^[198]

Today, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection provides water to residents fed by a 2,000 square mile (5,180 km²) watershed in the Catskill Mountains. Because the watershed is in one of the largest protected wilderness areas in the United States, the natural water filtration process remains intact. As a result, New York is one of only five major cities in the United States with drinking water pure enough to require only chlorination to ensure its purity at the tap under normal conditions.^[199][200] Water comes to Manhattan through New York City Water Tunnel No. 1 and Tunnel No. 2, completed in 1917 and 1936, respectively. Construction started in 1970 continues on New York City Water Tunnel No. 3, which will double the system's existing 1.2 billion gallon-a-day capacity while and provide a much-needed backup to the two other tunnels.^[201]

The New York City Department of Sanitation is responsible for garbage removal.^[202] The bulk of the city's trash ultimately is disposed at mega-dumps in Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina and Ohio (via transfer stations in New Jersey, Brooklyn and Queens) since the 2001 closure of the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island.^[203] A small amount of trash processed at transfer sites in New Jersey is sometimes incinerated at waste-to-energy facilities. Like New York City, New Jersey and much of Greater New York relies on exporting its trash to far-flung places.

[edit] Education

See also: Education in New York City and List of colleges and universities in New York City

New York Public Library, central block, built 1897–1911, Carrère and Hastings, architects (June 2003). This is the flagship library building; there are other buildings also used by the NY Public Library, elsewhere in the city.

Education in Manhattan is provided by a vast number of public and private institutions. Public schools in the borough are operated by the New York City Department of Education, the largest public school system in the United States,^[204] serving 1.1 million students.^[205]

Some of the best-known New York City public high schools, such as Stuyvesant High School, Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, High School of Fashion Industries, Murry Bergtraum High School, Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics and Hunter College High School, are located in Manhattan. The city also hosts a new hybrid school, Bard High School Early College, which serves students from around the city.

Manhattan is home to many of the most prestigious private prep schools in the nation including the Upper East Side's Brearley School, Dalton School, Spence School, Chapin School, Nightingale-Bamford School, and Convent of the Sacred Heart, and the Upper West Side's Colligaite School and Trinity School. The borough is also home to two private schools that are known for being the most diverse in the nation, Manhattan Country School and United Nations International School.

As of 2003, 52.3% of Manhattan residents over age 25 have a bachelor's degree, the fifth highest of all counties in the country.^[206] By 2005, about 60% of residents were college graduates and some 25% had earned advanced degrees, giving Manhattan one of the nation's densest concentrations of highly educated people.^[207]

Manhattan has various colleges and universities including Columbia University, New York University (NYU), St. John's University, and Fordham University. Other schools include Marymount Manhattan College, Manhattan School of Music, The Juilliard School, New York Institute of Technology, Pace University, Yeshiva University, Cooper Union, The New School, and the Fashion Institute of Technology, part of the State University of New York.

The City University of New York (CUNY), the municipal college system of New York City, is the largest urban university system in the United States, serving more than 226,000 degree students and a roughly equal number of adult, continuing and professional education students.^[208] A third of college graduates in New York City graduate from CUNY, with the institution enrolling about half of all college students in New York City. CUNY senior colleges located in Manhattan include: Baruch College, City College of New York, Hunter College, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and the CUNY Graduate Center (graduate studies and doctoral granting institution). The only CUNY community college located in Manhattan is the Borough of Manhattan Community College.

Manhattan is a world center for training and education in medicine and the life sciences.^[209] The city as a whole receives the second-highest amount of annual funding from the National Institutes of Health among all U.S. cities,^[210] the bulk of which goes to Manhattan's research institutions, including Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Rockefeller University, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and Weill Cornell Medical College.

Manhattan is served by the New York Public Library, which has the largest collection of any public library system in the country.^[211] The five units of the Central Library—Mid-Manhattan Library, Donnell Library Center, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library and the Science, Industry and Business Library—are all located in Manhattan.^[212] More than 35 other branch libraries are located in the borough.^[213]

[edit] See also

ortal.svg">

New York Portal

• Lower Manhattan
• Midtown Manhattan
• Sawing off of Manhattan Island

[edit] References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Manhattan

Manhattan local government and services

• Manhattan Borough President official site
• New York City Government with links to Manhattan specific agencies

Maps, streets, and neighborhoods

• Interactive 3D map of Manhattan
• Maps of Building Heights and Land Value, plus theoretical and zoning-based maps of underdevelopment, all from www.radicalcartography.net
• Detailed Map of Manhattan

Historical references

• Map of Mannados or Manhattan in 1661 (PD)
• 1729 map of Manhattan

Times Square is a major intersection in Manhattan, New York City at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets. The Times Square area consists of the blocks between Sixth and Eighth Avenues from east to west, and West 40th and West 53rd Streets from south to north, making up the western part of the commercial area of Midtown Manhattan.

Like the Red Square in Moscow, Trafalgar Square in London, and Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Times Square has achieved the status of an iconic world landmark and has become a symbol of its city. Times Square is principally defined by its animated, digital advertisements.

Formerly Longacre Square, Times Square was named after the Times Building (now One Times Square) the former offices of The New York Times.

The intersection of Broadway and 42nd Street, at the southeast corner of Times Square, is the Eastern Terminus of the Lincoln Highway, the first road across America.

History

Before and after the American Revolution, the area belonged to John Morin Scott, a general of the New York militia where he served under George Washington - the man who became the first President of the United States. Scott's manor house was at what is now 43rd Street, surrounded by countryside used for farming and breeding horses. In the first half of the nineteenth century it became one of the prize possessions of John Jacob Astor, who made a second fortune selling off lots to hotels and other real estate concerns as the city rapidly spread uptown.

In the early 1900s, New York Times publisher Adolph S. Ochs moved the newspaper's operations to a new skyscraper on 42nd Street in Longacre Square. Ochs persuaded Mayor George B. McClellan, Jr. to construct a subway station there, and the area was renamed "Times Square" on April 8, 1904. Just three weeks later, the first electrified advertisement appeared on the side of a bank at the corner of 46th Street and Broadway.

The New York Times moved to more spacious offices across Broadway in 1913. The old Times Building was later named the Allied Chemical Building. Now known simply as One Times Square, it is famed for the "ball" which "drops" from a tower on its roof every New Year's Eve.

As New York City's growth continued, Times Square quickly grew as a cultural hub full of theaters, music halls, and upscale hotels.

Times Square quickly became New York's agora, a place to gather both to await great tidings and to celebrate them, whether a World Series or a presidential election

—James Traub, The Devil's Playground: A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square

Celebrities such as Irving Berlin, Fred Astaire, and Charlie Chaplin were closely associated with Times Square in the 1910s and 1920s. During this period, the area was nicknamed The Tenderloin because it was supposedly the most desirable location in Manhattan. However, it was during this period that the area was besieged by crime and corruption, in the form of gambling and prostitution; one case that garnered huge attention was the arrest and subsequent execution of police officer Charles Becker.

The general atmosphere changed with the onset of the Great Depression during the 1930s. In the decades afterward, it was considered a dangerous neighborhood. The seediness of Times Square, especially its adult businesses, was an infamous symbol of New York City's decline and corruption from the 1960s until the early 1990s.

In the 1980s, a commercial building boom began in the West 40s and 50s as part of a long-term development plan conceived under Mayors Ed Koch and David Dinkins. In the mid-1990s, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (1994–2002) led an intense effort to "clean up" the area, increasing security, driving out pornographic theaters, drug dealers and "squeegee men" and opening more tourist-friendly attractions and upscale establishments. Advocates of the remodeling claim that the neighborhood is safer and cleaner. Detractors, on the other hand, argue that the changes have diluted or "Disneyfied" the character of Times Square and have unfairly targeted lower income New Yorkers from nearby neighborhoods such as Hell's Kitchen.

In 1990, the State of New York took possession of six of the nine historic theaters on 42nd Street. The New 42nd Street nonprofit organization was appointed to oversee their restoration and care. The theaters were variously renovated for Broadway shows, converted for commercial purposes, or demolished.

In November 2006, the traffic pattern through Times square was modified significantly in what is nicknamed by the New York City Department of Transportation as the "Times Square Shuffle." Cars traveling south on Seventh Ave can no longer stay on Seventh Ave when they reach Times Square. The road turns into Broadway, and to stay on Seventh Avenue drivers are now required to make a series of turns before reaching Times Square.


New Year's Eve

Times Square is the site of the annual New Year's Eve ball drop. On December 31, 1907, a ball signifying New Year's Day was first dropped at Times Square, and the Square has held the main New Year's celebration in New York City ever since. On this night hundreds of thousands of people congregate to watch the Waterford crystal ball being lowered on a pole atop the building (though not to the street, as is a common misconception), marking the new year. It replaced a lavish fireworks display from the top of the building that was held from 1904 to 1906, only to be outlawed by city officials. Beginning in 1908, and for more than eighty years thereafter, Times Square sign maker Artkraft Strauss was responsible for the ball-lowering. During World War II, a minute of silence, followed by a recording of church bells pealing, replaced the ball drop because of wartime blackout restrictions. Today, Countdown Entertainment and One Times Square handle the New Years' Eve event in conjunction with the Times Square Alliance. A new energy-efficient LED ball, celebrating the centennial of the ball drop, debuted for the arrival of 2008.

On average, about 750,000 revelers crowd Times Square for the New Year's Eve celebrations. However, for the millennium celebration on December 31, 1999, published reports stated approximately 2 million people overflowed Times Square, flowing from 6th Avenue to 8th Avenue and all the way back on Broadway and Seventh Avenues to 59th Street, making it the largest gathering in Times Square since August 1945 during celebrations marking the end of World War II.

In 1972, entertainer Dick Clark began hosting a live half-hour ABC special detailing the event entitled Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, which not only aired the descent of the ball, but also performances from popular bands and commentary from various hosts in other cities, notably Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Orlando. During the millennium celebrations in 1999, Peter Jennings based ABC's operations in Times Square, hosting ABC 2000 Today.


Times Square today

The Theaters of Broadway and the huge number of animated neon and LED signs have long made it one of New York's iconic images, and a symbol of the intensely urban aspects of Manhattan. Times Square is the only neighborhood with zoning ordinances requiring building owners to display illuminated signs.^{[citation needed]} The density of illuminated signs in Times Square now rivals that of Las Vegas. Officially, signs in Times Square are called "spectaculars", and the largest of them are called "jumbotrons."

In 1992, the Times Square Alliance (formerly the Times Square Business Improvement District, or "BID" for short), a coalition of city government and local businesses dedicated to improving the quality of commerce and cleanliness in the district, started operations in the area. Times Square now boasts attractions such as ABC's Times Square Studios, where Good Morning America is broadcast live, elaborate Toys "R" Us, Virgin Records, and Hershey's stores, as well as restaurants such as Ruby Foo's (Chinese food), the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company (seafood), Planet Hollywood Restaurant and Bar (Theme Restaurant) and Carmine's (Italian) along with a number of multiplex movie theaters. It has also attracted a number of large financial, publishing, and media firms to set up their headquarters in the area. A larger police presence in Times Square has improved the safety of the area.

A notable example of the signage is the curved seven-story NASDAQ sign at the NASDAQ MarketSite at 4 Times Square on 43rd Street. Unveiled in January 2000, it cost $37 million to build. The sign is 120 feet (36.6m) high. NASDAQ pays more than $2 million a year to lease the space for this sign. This is actually considered a good deal in advertising as the number of "impressions" the sign makes far exceeds those generated by other ad forms.

General Electric leased, through its NBC Universal division, the famous Panasonic Astro Vision screen plate in the middle of Times Square until October 13, 2006 when News Corp. took over and started showing Fox News Channel.

In 2002, New York City's outgoing mayor, Rudy Giuliani, gave the oath of office to the city's next mayor, Michael Bloomberg, in Times Square after midnight on January 1 as part of the 2001–2002 New Year's celebration. Approximately 500,000 revelers attended the fete. Security was high following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, with more than 7,000 New York City police on duty in the Square (twice the number for an ordinary year).

On the morning of March 6, 2008 a small bomb went off in the area by the military recruiting station, causing minor damage but no injures.

Notable landmarks

Times Square is a busy intersection of art and commerce, where the chaos of hundreds of advertisements (signs and "newscrawlers") live for viewers' attention. A few famous examples:

• TKTS booth
• Coca-Cola Sign
• Panasonic Astrovision
• Budweiser
• Pontiac Signs
• Times Square Studios
• One Astor Plaza (home of MTV's New York studios)
• McDonald's
• Chevrolet clock (an analog clock displayed on a digital screen)
• Virgin Megastore
• The Hard Rock Cafe

Corporate presence

The following corporations are headquartered at Times Square with many others having corporate presences in the area:

• Six Flags Inc.
• Condé Nast Publications
• Diamond Management & Technology Consultants
• Ernst and Young
• Instinet
• Lehman Brothers
• Morgan Stanley
• Bain & Company
• MTV Networks
• The New York Times Company
• Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
• Reuters
• Pillsbury, Winthrop, Shaw, Pittman, LLC
• Elizabeth Taylor
• Viacom
• EQW Radio Station

Major buildings on and near Times Square

Times Square culture

The Times Square neighborhood, notably its busiest intersection, has been featured countless times in literature, on television, in films, in music videos and recently in video games.

Times Square currently serves as the primary shooting location for ABC's Good Morning America, MTV's Total Request Live which have studios facing the square. The annual Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve along with other New Years Eve celebrations is filmed at multiple locations around the square.

In the early 2000s Howard Johnson's closed one of its last urban restaurants.

References

• The Devil's Playground: A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square by James Traub (ISBN 0-375-50788-4)

See also

• Duffy Square, the northern section of Times Square.
• Naked Cowboy, New York City street performer and prominent fixture of Times Square
• Times Square-42nd Street subway station

Naked Cowboy

Most New Yorkers and visitors to Times Square know of  The Naked Cowboy.

Burck began his street performance career in 1998 after a shoot at Playgirl and first appeared on Venice Beach. After some disappointing starts, a friend had suggested to him that he dress only in his underwear.

In 2000, Burck was in the short-lived Moral Court starring conservative/libertarian talk show host, Larry Elder. His girlfriend brought him to the show because she thought the Naked Cowboy persona was immoral. Elder ruled that Burck's persona was not immoral and not a danger to public safety. Burck replied, "Actually, I think I am an inspiration to public safety."

Burck auditioned for American Idol during its first season, but he was not admitted to the next round. He also auditioned for the talent show Star Search, but was again turned down. As of 2006, the Naked Cowboy is part of USA Network's "Characters Welcome" campaign. The Naked Cowboy appeared briefly in the PBS documentary Origins to give his opinion on the possibility of extraterrestrial life. The Naked Cowboy is also featured singing in the 2005 video game True Crime: New York City at Times Square.

In addition to his New York City appearances, Burck is a regular in the streets of the French Quarter during the New Orleans Mardi Gras season, the Memorial Day weekend Taste of Cincinnati festival and the Riverfest Labor Day Festival in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has also made appearance in Austin, Texas, during the South by Southwest Music Conference.

Burck has been loosely associated with The Rick and Bubba Show over the years. The relationship began when Burck appeared as one of the featured acts at Rick and Bubba's First Annual FatFest.

Burck was also in an episode of the game show Street Smarts, and featured in the music video for Cake's 2001 song "Short Skirt/Long Jacket". He was also in Nickelback's music video for the song "Rockstar". In addition, he is known to have discussed possible television show concepts with several production houses, including one in the Greater Cincinnati area, though nothing is known to have come of these talks yet.

Burck has started to release mobile phone ringtones.

The Naked Cowboy had a cameo appearance in a Chevrolet commercial, based on a winning contest submission, which aired during Super Bowl XLI. He also had a cameo appearance in a Guinness advertisement only shown in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Also, the Naked Cowboy is featured in Nickelback's newest music video, "Rockstar". On July 13, 2007, the Naked Cowboy went live on Justin.tv and at www.NakedCowboy.tv.

On January 2, 2008, the Naked Cowboy appeared as the plaintiff in an episode of Cristina's Court.

Naked Cowboy has agreed to be a cameo in the first consumer generated Super bowl Commercial, MySuperAd.

There is a short animated feature of Blue M&M as the Naked Cowboy on the electronic animation display that hangs outside the M&M's store at Times Square. The Naked Cowboy is now suing the Mars company for using his identity on the Blue M&M.

The Naked Cowboy filed a $6 million trademark-infringement lawsuit against M&M’s manufacturer Mars Incorporated on February 15, 2008. The company, alleges Burck, used his likeness — cowboy boots, briefs and a cowboy hat — to design a blue M&M for an advertising video broadcast in Times Square, territory the Naked Cowboy claims is his turf.

The Naked cowboy’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, included a request for an injunction stopping Mars from using the Naked Cowboy’s likeness to advertise M&M’s.

http://www.NakedCowboy.com/

A call girl or escort is a sex worker who (unlike a street walker) is not visible to the general public. Nor does she usually belong to an institution like a brothel. One must summon her, usually by calling a telephone number — hence the term "call girl". Often, call girls advertise their services in small ads in magazines and through the Internet, although an intermediary advertiser such as an escort agency may be involved in promoting higher class escorts. The lower-class side of escorts may be handled by a pimp. There are two different types of Escorts: Independents Escorts and Escorts that work for an Escort Agency. Call girls can work either incall, where the client comes to them, or outcall, where they come to the client.

Call girls are commonly perceived to be elite amongst prostitutes, far more skilled, able to pick and choose amongst their potential clients and therefore demand higher prices for their services, and are more attractive, educated, well-groomed and youthful than street prostitutes. Escort services generally do not take on any woman who is unattractive, has a visible drug problem (such as needle marks from injecting drugs), or who presents an overly negative personality. Also, many escort agencies do criminal background checks on applicants to weed out those that have been arrested for street prostitution or other types of crimes.

Non-sex work

Not all clients hire call girls for physical reasons. Some simply do so for companionship either for social reasons (i.e. attending a party) or for companionship (i.e. someone who feels lonely may hire a girl to provide companionship missing in his or her life). Other call girls may specialize in domination or other fetishes which do not require intimate sexual activity.

Companionship

This is most common in elderly and or widowed men that simply enjoy the company of an attractive or intelligent woman. Escort agencies try to determine if this is what a client wants and if it is, the agency will try to send their most educated and polite women to this type of customer. It is not unusual for these "chat" call girls to receive big tips or even bequests from clients.

In the movie Klute, Bree Daniels performs this service for an elderly garment manufacturer.

Social Settings

Instead of sex, some clients may simply desire to impress his peers by having an attractive woman as his date, if not as pretend girlfriend or wife. This can be known as "Girlfriend Experience" (GFE). Such a client may be attending a high school or college class reunion or an office social event. Clients seeking this service will tell the escort service what their intention is. They may specify what kind of woman they seek to play this role. The client may meet with the woman beforehand to evaluate her level of intelligence, education, manners, speech, and ability to execute the pretense, as well as to judge her appearance. They would go over his past, her (pretend) past and their feigned relationship, in order to successfully carry out the pretense.

Call girls and celebrities

Male celebrities and rich men commonly hire call girls for sex to avoid the problem of unreasonable infatuation, where their partner is unreasonably attracted to them (and won't let go of the relationship or accept refusal) because of their status. It also avoids the problem of "kiss and tell" stories, where the girl would sell the story to the press. Both parties understand their respective positions and do not go beyond them. Some of these men are even open about what their date is to those they're partying with, though call girls request they not be. These "dates" can include flying by private jet to Las Vegas, staying in a luxury hotel suite, dining at the finest restaurants, dancing at the hottest nightclubs, and gambling at the casinos. Usually, the man will first hire the woman for a short date to determine if he wants to do longer ones (such as the one just mentioned) with her. Here again, the woman's appearance, intelligence, manners, sociability and education come into consideration.

Some opt for this profession because it is an easy way of making money while enjoying the pleasure of sex with different partners. Recently men have also jumped into these businesses and provide sexual services to ladies. Higher class ladies, those that live far away from their husbands or who like to have sex but don't have partners hire men for sex.

Internet

Most call girl agencies and independent call girls are now online, and the Internet has become the main venue for a customer to find his match. Generally, a picture of the girl is provided, and sometimes, the type of sexual services she is willing to offer. Some agencies also propose for a higher fee people of special interest, such as twins, former porn stars, B-List models, prodommes or even submissives.

The Internet includes many directories or listings of call girls or escorts. These may cover a specific area or a wider region (even worldwide). Usually the call girl or the agency is responsible for submitting their information to the appropriate directory.

Websites are also used by clients/hobbyists to provide a review of the call girls they have met and rate them, on their aesthetics, behavior or sexual performances. For the readers of evaluation web sites the rating of the call girls is often a determining factor in their selection.

Call girl internet slang

Because offering sexual services in exchange for money is illegal in many areas, certain code words in the subculture of sex work have emerged to communicate in lieu of description of explicit acts. For instance the words incall and outcall describe the location of the encounter. Incall means that the session takes place at the call girl's place (her apartment or hotel room in the case of a city tour). Outcall means that the session is at a place selected by the customer, personal home or hotel room.

Oral activity codes

Sex workers vary greatly in their willingness to kiss or engage in oral sex. Terms such as DFK (Deep French Kissing - i.e. open mouth kissing with tongues) and LFK (Light French Kissing - open mouth but without tongue) are commonly used to describe kissing activities. Providing oral sex can be described as BBBJ (Bare Back Blow Job - no condom) and CIM (Cum In Mouth) while DATY (Dining At The Y) indicates a provider is willing to allow a client to perform oral sex on her.

GFE, the "Girl Friend Experience"

Another familiar word of the call girl slang is GFE, an acronym for "girlfriend experience". It usually implies that an escort will have a warm personality, be willing to kiss the client, hold hands and be generally affectionate. This also includes an assumption that the girl will perform oral sex without a condom barrier. Another codical term is "Greek." A call girl who is "Greek welcome" is willing to have anal sex with the client. This term is more commonly used in the USA. In the UK, the common term for those who are willing to have anal sex is A-Levels or A-Class, signifying the A in anal. For example if the girl does anal she may state on her online profile "educated to A Level".

PSE, the "Porn Star Experience"

Another related term is PSE (Porn Star Experience). This suggests that the escort has a very aggressively sexual demeanor, or is very accommodating of unusual requests and complex requests. This may include a willingness to perform all acts, including anal sex, without a condom barrier.

Here is a typical example of girl description, taken randomly from a city tour web site:

Deep French kiss (DFK), oral without to completion (CIM/CIF/CO, 69, sex in different poses.

This means that the call girl will perform oral kiss with the tongue, fellatio without condom up to the customer's ejaculation, in mouth (CIM), on the face (CIF), or over the body (CO, will partake mutual simultaneous oral sex, and practice various poses or positions during intercourse.

See also

• Delivery health

Male prostitution

Male prostitution is becoming more and more common in the developed countries, although it is still not as popular as the female prostitution. Common slang terms for males involved in prostitution in the Anglosphere include "escorts", "man-whore", "rentboys", "hustlers", "working boys", "trade", "call-boys". Slang terms from other regions include:

• taxi boys (Argentina and to a lesser extent in Chile)
• flete, gigolo or gigolón (Peru)
• jigolo (pl. jigololar) (Turkey)
• callboys (Germany and in the Philippines)
• 鸭子 → yāzǐ, meaning "duck" (Mainland China)
• ホスト → hosuto, meaning "host" (Japan)
• gigolò, puttano (Italy)
• garoto de programa, meaning "program boy" (Brazil)
• tapins (France)
• ζιγκολό - zigkolo (Greece)

The rentboy name is derived either from the fact that the boys were renting themselves out, or that they paid their rent with their earnings. An escort who does not identify as gay, but who has sex with male clients, is sometimes called "gay for pay" or "rough trade". Male prostitutes offering services to female customers are sometimes known as "gigolos".

Clients, especially ones who pick up escorts on the street or in bars, are sometimes called "johns" or "tricks". Those working in prostitution sometimes refer to their trade as "turning tricks".

People who prostitute themselves with others while in an amorous/sexual relationship are sometimes said to hustle "on the side".

Male prostitution in other cultures and periods

See also: rostitution by country" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categoryrostitution_by_country">Categoryrostitution by country

Male prostitution for female clients has been found in all advanced cultures. It is also becoming popular in the third world countries and developing countries like India, China, Thailand, etc. The practice in the ancient world of the selling of sexual favors by men or women in sacred shrines, or "sacred prostitution", is attested to in the Old Testament. Prostitutes in ancient Greece were generally slaves, as prostitutes could lose their civic rights. Ancient Greece and ancient Rome both saw the existence of male brothels. Work as a same-sex male prostitute in the Medieval Islamic world was similarly restricted to social "inferiors" such as boys and slaves, and while frequenting prostitutes was considered a sin, the practice was nevertheless tolerated.

Historical evidence from court records and vice investigations shows male prostitution in the United States as early as the late 1600s. With the expansion of urban areas and aggregation of gay communities toward the end of the nineteenth century male/male prostitution became more apparent, and included baths, brothels such as the Paresis Hall in the Bowery district of New York, and prostitution bars in which so-called "fairies" solicited other men for sex and received a commission for selling drinks.

• Bacchá - in northern Turkic-speaking areas of Central Asia, an adolescent of twelve to sixteen who was a performer practiced in erotic songs and suggestive dancing and was available as a sex worker.
• Hijra - in the Indian subcontinent, a physically male or intersex person who may enter into prostitution.
• Jineterismo - literally "horse jockey" (i.e. someone who "rides" tourists), this is a term used to describe Cuban male prostitutes (female prostitutes are called "jinetera") who play a large role in Cuba's booming tourist industry.
• Kagema - young male prostitutes in Edo period of Japan whose clients were largely adult men.
• Sanky-panky - a male sex worker in the Caribbean who solicits on beaches and has clients of both sexes.
• Hosuto - a male sex worker in Japan who solicits female clients.

Present-day male prostitution

Overview

Some young men come to hustling only once; some engage briefly while others work as hustlers for an extended length of time. Financial incentives may be the primary reason that prostitutes engage in this work, but they are by no means the only reasons. Hustling may also confer on the hustler a sense of self-worth (when he feels desired by the client), or of social status (when treated to expensive restaurants, high-end designer clothes, or travel destinations), or in some cases erotic gratification, or of societal rebellion (breaking social conventions) or mystery. Conversely, some prostitutes may also experience a sense of self-destructiveness or exploitation, or difficulty in distancing private sex from commercial sex, or suffer from the social stigma (see below) of hustling. The reasons for hustling are thus extremely personal and may involve a mixture of positive and negative justifications.

Few prostitutes in the West rely exclusively on sex for their income. Some prostitutes supplement their income by work as a pornographic actor or model (and vice-versa), nude model, massage therapist, burlesque dancer (a "go-go boy", "erotic dancer" or, in the Philippines, "macho dancer"), by performing in sex shows or by running a personal website (with, for example, pictures and erotic webcam shows available for subscribers). Other prostitutes have jobs entirely unrelated to the sex industry.

The same complexity of motives may underlie the justifications of the prostitutes's client: although sexual gratification is often a primary motive, the client may also be moved by many emotional concerns (including issues related to sexual orientation, power and emotional attachment, their own age and attractiveness), as well as needs for special treatment (i.e. fetishes, sadism, humiliation, etc.). The clients in male prostitution are not exclusively older gay men. Typical clients include married men, business men, inexperienced gay men, gay men looking for sex, and gay and straightcouples.

Male prostitution with female clients is common in Western and non-Western countries. This kind of sexual relationship may be a transitory practice with financial benefits for a young man on the road to adulthood which he will subsequently abandon once he is married. This can be especially true in societies in which a young man's access to women is strictly prohibited before marriage. The tolerance, reduced price and exoticism of male prostitution in other countries leads some clients to engage in sexual tourism.

Male prostitution in urban centers is also an outlet for economically and socially disadvantaged individuals, including immigrants. In recent years, Western Europe has seen an increase in prostitution by young men from Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East.

Venues

Clients and male sex workers match up in several ways. Male sex workers are often referred to by different names based on where they find their clients. Men working on the street, in bathhouses, or parks are typically known as "hustlers"; men working in bars are called "bar hustlers" if they are not dancing, or "go-go boys" or "exotic dancers" if they are dancing or stripping at a club. Men advertising for clients in print media or via the Internet are typically known as "escorts," "massage/masseurs," or "rent boys." There are two kinds of escorts: independent and agency-based. The number of street workers (hustlers) has been declining with the advent of Internet-based resources, but the need for quick cash by homeless or poor men guarantees the continued availability of street hustlers.

The following categorization of the male prostitute is not exhaustive:

Online

Professional escorts tend to advertise independently on male escorting websites, or else through an escorting agency. On the former business model, escorts usually pay a monthly fee to list themselves with pictures, text, and contact information on a website listing male escorts. These fees range from around US$30 to upwards of US$300 monthly. Clients contact the escorts directly, and the escorts keep all their earnings. On the agency business model, the agency runs a website listing the escorts, clients contact the agency, and then the escort and client meet at a determined time and place. Escorts turn over a percentage (usually 25-33%) of their earnings to the agency, and keep any gratuity for themselves. In most cases an escort agency will examine, interview a potential male escort, offer him photo session and will include the details it receives in the profile of the escort. It is not rare that one and the same male escort works for multiple agencies to secure full time employment and maximum income.

Craigslist Frequent, or one-time escorts tend to find clients through "m4f" (male for female) message boards or online chat rooms. Not knowing the market or because of an immediate need for cash, they tend to charge below the market price. They also tend to be less willing to show pictures of themselves online, and tend to be more restrictive in the services offered (many will not kiss, or not engage in anal sex). They will frequently use barely concealed code phrases like "looking for generous" or "$eeks help".

Streets, bars, and clubs

The male hustler may solicit clients on the street (such as pre-1990s Times Square in New York, Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles, "the Wall" in Sydney's Darlinghurst, the Porte Dauphine in Paris, Polk Street Gulch in San Francisco or Taksim Square in Istanbul) or in another public space (like a bus terminal, park or rest stop), in a bar (Numbers in Los Angeles, or go-go bars in Thailand and the Philippines) or a dance club.

Most big cities have an area where hustlers regularly make themselves available to potential clients cruising by in cars. The informal name of such an area varies by the city, but it can be known as "the block" or "the hill." These areas are dangerous for both the client and the hustler, since local residents quickly figure out what is happening and report it to the police. Homophobic gangs can prey on individuals in these areas. However, the element of danger may be part of the appeal of a cruisy area.

The line between escort services and other services can sometimes be complicated: although the men working at a Host club (initially found in Japan, but expanding worldwide), are paid to offer conversation and companionship to female clients, the encounters may also involve prostitution.

Bathhouses and sex clubs

Hustlers may attempt to work in sex clubs, but prostitution is usually prohibited in such places, and known prostitutes are often banned.

Male brothels

A hustler may also work in a male brothel or "stable." This is common in South-East Asia (Thailand, Manila) and may also be found in some larger U.S. cities. The pimp is relatively rare in male prostitution in the West, where most hustlers generally work independently or, less frequently, through an agency.^[1]

Price

Price is determined by many factors including: age, attractiveness, endowment, sexual position, race, personality, skill in bed, length of time spent with the client, ability to maintain an erection, charm, willingness to engage in different fetishes, fame and reputation, and the factors of supply and demand. Further, an escort will sometime charge over or under his perceived market value in order to affect the number of bookings he gets.

It should be pointed out that "high end" escorts or prostitutes are not the norm or the bulk of male prostitutes, even in the United States. Many more are "rentboys", young men who have varying degrees of financial stability and use prostitution as a method of supplementing their income. In these situations, charging US$100 or more an hour, even charging by the hour, is rare.

Full-time or professional escorts tend to charge more than newcomers or people who only occasionally work. This may be because they know better where to advertise and what the market price is.^{[citation needed]}

As a benchmark, a young, very attractive, full-service professional escort in a major U.S. city typically charges between US$200 and US$250 per hour, although the bulk of less high-end escorts in the same cities charge a maximum of US$150 per hour. Similar high-end escorts in major cities in the United Kingdom typically charge between GB£80 and GB£120 per hour. The highest average prices for top-tier escorts are in Manhattan, Los Angeles and London. High-end male escorts typically charge less than high-end female escorts, who can bill over US$2,000 per hour, often with a multi-hour minimum.

Risks

As in all forms of prostitution, the male prostitute and his client can face a number of risks and problems: health-related including sexually transmitted diseases, drug-use, physical abuse; legal/criminal including solicitation, drug and age of consent laws; societal/familial social stigma, rejection by family and friends, gay-bashing, loss of job; and emotional including sense of exploitation or of leading a "double-life", loss of affect, self-destructiveness. Teenagers and runaways engaging in sex work are particularly at risk. For clients, risk may come from being robbed, or, much more rarely, being blackmailed or physically injured.^[1]

Men working on the street (hustlers) and younger escorts (especially teens) by female clients appear to be at greatest risk of being victimized by clients. Conversely, the risk posed to clients of male sex workers (in terms of being "rolled") seems to be less than many imagine. This is especially true when clients hire male sex workers from an established agency or when they hire men who have been consistently well reviewed by previous clients.

Legal issues

In a number of countries, such as Australia, brothels (with male or female staff) are legal (except in the states of Western Australia and Tasmania), while street prostitution is most often still illegal. In other countries such as the United States, brothels are still technically illegal (except in Nevada), but many cities do not rigorously enforce the law in this area by policy or unspoken agreement, allowing a large class of working prostitutes to avoid arrest as long as their activities do not involve "street walking". Often in such situations, "escort services" is the euphemism for prostitution, and "escorts" who work with such services insist that the exchange of money is for time and not for sex, and any sexual activities that take place between them and their clients are spontaneous and consensual.^{[citation needed]}

Stigma

The difference in age, in social status and in economic status between the hustler and his client is also a major source of social criticism. This same social stigma may also be attached to amorous relationships that do not involve prostitution, but which may be seen by society as a form of "quasi" prostitution. The older member of the relationship may be qualified as a "sugar daddy" or "sugar momma"; the young lover may be a "kept boy" or "boy toy". In the gay community, the members of this kind of couple are sometimes called "dad" and "son" (without implying incest). This social disdain for age/status disparity has been less pronounced in certain cultures at certain historical times (see "Male prostitution in other cultures and periods", above).

With regards to the age difference between a hustler and his client, there appears to be a societal double standard concerning gender: whereas the age difference between a gigolo and a female client may be a mark of the hustler's sexual prowess, a similar age difference between a young male hustler and an older male client (frequently denigrated as a "troll" in the gay community) is seen as exploitative.^{[citation needed]} See also: Age disparity in sexual relationships.

For more on the topics of age, exploitation, health risks and the legality of prostitution, see the article prostitution.

Popular culture

Main article: Male prostitution in the arts

The male prostitute or hustler is a frequent literary and cinematic stereotype in the West from the 1960s onwards, and especially in movies and books with a gay perspective, in which he may be a stock character, often portrayed either as a tragic figure (as in the film Mysterious Skin in which a male prostitute has a history of molestation) or as an impossible object of love or an idealized rebel. Though less frequent in the cinema and in novels, the male prostitute with an exclusively female clientele (the "gigolo" or "escort") is generally depicted as less tragic than the gay hustler; films such as American Gigolo have done much to portray the character as a sophisticated lover and seducer (a portrayal also satirised cinematically in the Deuce Bigalow films).^{[citation needed]}. Yet the film My Own Private Idaho, starring Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix, focuses upon the friendship between two male hustlers. Currently, the male prostitute also appears occasionally in popular music (i.e. the photographic spread for The Bravery, and Fall Out Boy), and contemporary fashion advertising and visual art.

See also

• Prostitution
• Age disparity in sexual relationships
• Age of consent
• Sexual tourism
• Female sex tourism
• John (prostitution)

Bibliography

For novels about male prostitution, see Male prostitution in the arts.

• Understanding the Male Hustler (Phil Andros, 1991)
• Hustling: A Gentleman's Guide to the Fine Art of Homosexual Prostitution (John Preston, 1994) ISBN 1-56333-517-4
• A Consumer's Guide to Male Hustlers (Joseph Itiel, 1998)
• Prostitution: On Whores, Hustlers, and Johns (James Elias, Vern L. Bullough, Veronica Elias and Gwen Brewer, eds.; introduction by Joycelyn Elders; 1998)
• Sex for Sale: Prostitution, Pornography, and the Sex Industry (Ronald Weitzer, 1999)
• Tricks and Treats: Sex Workers Write About Their Clients (Matt Bernstein Sycamore, ed., 1999)
• The Male Escort's Handbook: Your Guide to Getting Rich the Hard Way (Aaron Lawrence, 2000)
• Sex Workers As Virtual Boyfriends (Joseph Itiel, 2002)
• Strapped for Cash : A History of American Hustler Culture (Mack Friedman, 2003)
• Aggleton, Peter. Men Who Sell Sex: International Perspectives on Male Prostitution and AIDS. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ISBN 1-56639-669-7. 

References

External links

• A Day in the Life of a Male Street Prostitute
• Male Youth Prostitution: Internet Resources
• Reaching Out to Men Involved in Prostitution
• Mary Magdalene Project
• 15mm: Pop-Culture and the Male Escort.
• Marching Orders for Sex Workers.
• Sexual Secrets of a Gigolo
• "Prostitution, Hustling, and Sex Work" by Heather Lee Miller on 25-Oct-2005

Escort is a British men's adult magazine, or softcore magazine, which falls under the description of pornography, or erotica.

By 2008, Escort was in its 28th year, or volume. The content is a combination of photographs and text, with the photographs almost entirely being those of partially or completely nude females. They are photographed in an "American" style, in that their entire body is exposed, genitalia included.

In contrast to the glamorous professional look portrayed by American titles like Playboy and Penthouse, and fellow British titles like Mayfair, Escort specialises in pictures of amateur (i.e. non-professional) models, some of which are sent to the magazine by readers - these are affectionately known as "readers' wives". It often features photo-shoots taken in an "ordinary" location like a pub, or outdoors at a place familiar to British readers. Its readership (and the "readers' wives") tend to be drawn from the British working class^{[citation needed]}, making it an interesting expression of working class culture.

Escort is published by the Paul Raymond Publications company, which also releases six other similar titles each month, Club International, Just Girls, Mayfair, Men Only, Men's World, and Razzle.

Escort agencies are companies that book and dispatch female or male prostitutes to a customer's house or hotel room. Some agencies also provide escorts for longer durations, who may stay with the client or travel along on a holiday or business trip.

While the escort agency is paid a fee for this booking and dispatch service, the customer must usually negotiate an additional fee for any sex work services.
Business model

From a legal perspective, escort agencies claim that they are dispatching these individuals to provide a social or conversational service, since prostitution laws often forbid taking payment for sex or communicating for the purpose of arranging a contract for sexual services. Advertisements for escort agencies often carefully skirt the legal line, and avoid specifically offering prostitution or sexual services. This fact in turn is well-known to police and the political powers, who, where prostitution is illegal, usually prefer to act against more visible and problematic street prostitution. This has been criticized as hypocrisy, especially where governments license and tax the escort agencies.

Some countries have used a two-pronged attempt of criminalizing street prostitution but permitting or licensing prostitution in brothels or via escort agencies.

Escort agencies often recruit individuals to work as escorts by placing employment advertisements in a magazine or newspaper. Escort agencies typically maintain a list of escorts of different ages and appearances to cater to the varying interests of clients. Some agencies may specifically deal in a certain type of escort. There are male-for-male, female-for-male, and female-for-female escort agencies, as well as a few male-for-female agencies. Agencies commonly specialize in only one sex. Transsexuals are available from some escort agencies.

Escort agencies typically advertise in regional publications and telephone listings such as the Yellow Pages. Some larger escort agencies maintain websites with photo galleries of their escorts. Clients contact agencies by telephone and offer a description of what kind of escorts are sought. The agency will then suggest an escort who might fit that client's need.

The agency collects the client's contact information and calls the escort. Usually, to protect the identity of the escort and ensure effective communication with the client, the agency arranges the appointment. Sometimes it may be up to the escort to contact the client directly to make arrangements for location and time of an appointment. Generally the escort is also expected to call the agency upon arrival at the location and upon leaving, which improves the safety of the escort.

The arm's length relationship between the escort and the escort agency is designed to protect the escort agency (to some degree) from prosecution for breaking laws against prostitution. If the employee is solely responsible for arranging any illegal prostitution-oriented activities, the agency can maintain plausible deniability should an arrest be made.

Escort services aim to provide an experience that allows the operators to claim that whatever happens between the escort and the client is consensual. Operators tend to avoid discussing specifics to avoid complications. However, in the Eliot Spitzer scandal, the phone persona nd the escort discussed some specifics of the encounter that contributed to Spitzer's downfall.

Income and commission

The amount of money that is made by an escort varies with many factors, such as sexual attractiveness, competition from legal and illegal sources, and the commissions to be paid to the agency. Typically, an agency will charge their escorts either a flat fee for each client connection or a percentage of the pre-arranged rate. According to police in Calgary, Canada, the high fees charged by escort agencies may make escorting less lucrative than street prostitution, especially as agencies often also deduct the license fees directly from the earnings.^[4]

Independent escorts may have differing fees depending on the season, or whether the client is a regular or semi-regular customer. Independent escorts may tend to see clients for extended meetings involving dinner or social activities whereas escorts who work through agencies generally provide only sexual services.

Buyouts

Some escort services offer a buyout provision if a customer wishes to date an escort privately. The Emperors Club VIP, for example, allowed its member to pay a mutually agreed upon lump sum “to compensate the company for its role in and allocation of valuable resources which make it possible for this relationship to occur between the client and model.”

Other agencies, such as PortfolioElite, provide a service much like a matchmaker for clients interested in long-term relationships. The cost varies for each case.

Statistics

A 2005 government survey in New Zealand (where prostitution was regulated and for most part legalized in 2003), estimated that of the 6,000 prostitutes surveyed, around 20% worked for escort agencies, while 70% were in massage parlours (Brothels) and 10% worked privately. The study apparently did not cover street prostitution.

A 2007 EscortPages.Net UK directory survey revealed some figures in regards to escorts in Great Britain: out of 8000 escorts 84% belonged to escort agencies, and only 16% worked independently.


See also

• Call girl
• Prostitution
• Regulated prostitution
• Street prostitution
• Emperors Club VIP