1. Time Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment center, and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York. It is formed by the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent Duffy Square, Times Square is a bowtie-shaped space five blocks long between 42nd and 47th Streets.
Brightly lit by numerous billboards and advertisements, it is sometimes referred to as "the Crossroads of the World", "the Center of the Universe", "the heart of the Great White Way", and "the heart of the world". One of the world's busiest pedestrian areas, it is also the hub of the Broadway Theater District and a major center of the world's entertainment industry. Times Square is one of the world's most visited tourist attractions, drawing an estimated 50 million visitors annually. Approximately 330,000 people pass through Times Square daily, many of them tourists while over 460,000 pedestrians walk through Times Square on its busiest days.
Formerly known as Longacre Square, Times Square was renamed in 1904 after The New York Times moved its headquarters to the then newly erected Times Building, now One Times Square. It is the site of the annual New Year's Eve ball drop, which began on December 31, 1907, and continues to attract over a million visitors to Times Square every year.
Times Square, specifically the intersection of Broadway and 42nd Street, is also the eastern terminus of the Lincoln Highway, the first road across the United States.
2. Central Park
Central Park is an urban park in New York City, between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, covering 843 acres (341 ha). It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated 42 million visitors annually as of 2016, and is the most filmed location in the world.
After proposals for a large park in Manhattan during the 1840s, it was approved in 1853 to cover 778 acres (315 ha). In 1857, landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition for the park with their "Greensward Plan". Construction began the same year; existing structures, including a majority-Black settlement named Seneca Village, were seized through eminent domain and razed. The park's first areas were opened to the public in late 1858. Additional land at the northern end of Central Park was purchased in 1859, and the park was completed in 1876. After a period of decline in the early 20th century, New York City parks commissioner Robert Moses started a program to clean up Central Park in the 1930s. The Central Park Conservancy, created in 1980 to combat further deterioration in the late 20th century, refurbished many parts of the park starting in the 1980s.
Main attractions include landscapes such as the Ramble and Lake, Hallett Nature Sanctuary, the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, and Sheep Meadow; amusement attractions such as Wollman Rink, Central Park Carousel, and the Central Park Zoo; formal spaces such as the Central Park Mall and Bethesda Terrace; and the Delacorte Theater. The biologically diverse ecosystem has several hundred species of flora and fauna. Recreational activities include carriage-horse and bicycle tours, bicycling, sports facilities, and concerts and events such as Shakespeare in the Park. Central Park is traversed by a system of roads and walkways and is served by public transportation.
Its size and cultural position make it a model for the world's urban parks. Its influence earned Central Park the designations of National Historic Landmark in 1963 and of New York City scenic landmark in 1974. Central Park is owned by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation but has been managed by the Central Park Conservancy since 1998, under a contract with the municipal government in a public-private partnership. The Conservancy, a non-profit organization, raises Central Park's annual operating budget and is responsible for all basic care of the park.
3. Gold Coast
The North Shore of Long Island is the area along the northern coast of New York's Long Island bordering Long Island Sound. Known for its extreme wealth and lavish estates, the North Shore exploded into affluence at the turn of the 20th century, earning it the nickname the Gold Coast. Historically, this term refers to the coastline communities in the towns of North Hempstead (such as Great Neck and Port Washington) and Oyster Bay in Nassau County and the Town of Huntington in Suffolk County, although the town of Smithtown east of here is also known for its affluence. The easternmost Gold Coast mansion is the Geissler Estate, located just west of Indian Hills Country Club in Fort Salonga, within the Town of Huntington.
Being a remnant of glacial moraine, the North Shore is somewhat hilly, and its beaches are more rocky than those on the flat, sandy outwash plain of the South Shore along the Atlantic Ocean. Large boulders known as glacial erratics are scattered across the area.
4. Brooklyn
Brooklyn is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, as well as the second-most densely populated county in the United States. It is also New York City's most populous borough with 2,736,074 residents in 2020. If each borough were ranked as a city, Brooklyn would rank as the third-most populous in the U.S., after Los Angeles and Chicago.
Named after the Dutch village of Breukelen, it is located on the western end of Long Island and shares a land border with the borough of Queens. Brooklyn has several bridge and tunnel connections to the borough of Manhattan across the East River and the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge connects it with Staten Island. With a land area of 70.82 square miles (183.4 km2) and a water area of 26 square miles (67 km2), Kings County is the state of New York's fourth-smallest county by land area and third-smallest by total area.
Brooklyn was an independent incorporated city, until January 1, 1898, when, after a long political campaign and public relations battle during the 1890s, according to the new Municipal Charter of "Greater New York", Brooklyn was consolidated with other cities, towns, and counties, to form the modern City of New York, surrounding the Upper New York Bay with five constituent boroughs. The borough continues, however, to maintain a distinct culture. Many Brooklyn neighborhoods are ethnic enclaves. Brooklyn's official motto, displayed on the Borough seal and flag, is Eendraght Maeckt Maght, which translates from early modern Dutch as "Unity makes strength."
In the first decades of the 21st century, Brooklyn has experienced a renaissance as a destination for hipsters,[7] with concomitant gentrification, dramatic house price increases, and a decrease in housing affordability.[8] Some new developments are required to include affordable housing units. Since the 2010s, Brooklyn has evolved into a thriving hub of entrepreneurship, high technology start-up firms postmodern art and design.
5. Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan, also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York, is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in New York City, which is the most populated city in the United States with over 8.8 million residents as of the 2020 census.
Lower Manhattan is defined most commonly as the area delineated on the north by 14th Street, on the west by the Hudson River, on the east by the East River, and on the south by New York Harbor (also known as Upper New York Bay). The Lower Manhattan business district, known as the Financial District, forms the main core of the area below Chambers Street.
The city had itself originated at the southern tip of Manhattan Island in 1624 at a point that now constitutes the present-day Financial District. The population of the Financial District alone has grown to an estimated 61,000 residents as of 2018 up from 43,000 as of 2014, which in turn was nearly double the 23,000 recorded at the 2000 Census.
OpenStreetMapLower Manhattan is defined most commonly as the area delineated on the north by 14th Street, on the west by the Hudson River, on the east by the East River, and on the south by New York Harbor (also known as Upper New York Bay). When referring specifically to the Lower Manhattan business district and its immediate environs, the northern border is commonly designated by thoroughfares about a mile-and-a-half south of 14th Street and a mile north of the island's southern tip: approximately around Chambers Street from near the Hudson east to the Brooklyn Bridge entrances and overpass.[10] Two other major arteries are also sometimes identified as the northern border of "Lower" or "Downtown Manhattan": Canal Street, roughly half a mile north of Chambers Street, and 23rd Street, roughly half a mile north of 14th Street.
The Lower Manhattan business district forms the core of the area below Chambers Street. It includes the Financial District (often referred to as Wall Street, after its primary artery) and the World Trade Center site. At the island's southern tip is Battery Park; City Hall is just to the north of the Financial District. Also south of Chambers Street are the planned community of Battery Park City and the South Street Seaport historic area. The neighborhood of TriBeCa straddles Chambers Street on the west side; at the street's east end is the giant Manhattan Municipal Building. North of Chambers Street and the Brooklyn Bridge and south of Canal Street lies most of New York's oldest Chinatown neighborhood. Many court buildings and other government offices are also located in this area. The Lower East Side neighborhood straddles Canal Street. North of Canal Street and south of 14th Street are the neighborhoods of SoHo, the Meatpacking District, the West Village, Greenwich Village, Little Italy, Nolita, and the East Village. Between 14th and 23rd streets are lower Chelsea, Union Square, the Flatiron District, as well as Gramercy, with the large residential development known as Peter Cooper Village—Stuyvesant Town situated on the eastern flank of this zone.
6. Midtown
Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan and serves as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the Hudson Yards Redevelopment Project, the headquarters of the United Nations, Grand Central Terminal, and Rockefeller Center, as well as tourist destinations such as Broadway and Times Square.
Midtown Manhattan is the largest central business district in the world and ranks among the most expensive pieces of real estate; Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan commands the world's highest retail rents, with average annual rents at US$3,000 per square foot ($32,000/m2) in 2017. However, due to the high price of retail spaces in Midtown, there are also many vacant storefronts in the neighborhood. Midtown is the country's largest commercial, entertainment, and media center, and also a growing financial center.
The majority of New York City's skyscrapers, including its tallest hotels and apartment towers, are in Midtown. The area hosts commuters and residents working in its offices, hotels, and retail establishments, tourists and students. Times Square, the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway Theater District, is a major center of the world's entertainment industry. Sixth Avenue also has the headquarters of three of the four major U.S. television networks.p>