Manhattan
—  Borough of New York City  —
New York County
Midtown Manhattan as seen from the GE Building.
Location of Manhattan shown in yellow.
Coordinates: 40°43'42?N 73°59'39?W? / ?40.72833, -73.99417
Country	United States
State	New York
County	New York County
City	New York City
Settled	1624
Government
- Borough president	Scott Stringer
Area
- Total	33.77 sq mi (87.5 km²)
- Land	22.96 sq mi (59.5 km²)
- Water	10.81 sq mi (28 km²)
Population
- Total	1,620,867
- Density	70,595/sq mi (27,256.9/km²)
Website: Official Website of the Manhattan Borough President

Manhattan Island, in New York Harbor, is the largest part of the Borough of Manhattan, one of the Five Boroughs which form the City of New York. The Borough of Manhattan covers the same territory and the same people as the County of New York, a subdivision of the State of New York in the Northeastern United States. With a 2007 population of 1,620,867^[1] living in a land area of 22.96 square miles (59.47  km²), New York County is the most densely populated county in the United States at 70,595 residents per square mile (27,267/km²). It is also one of the wealthiest counties in the United States, with a 2005 personal per capita income above $100,000.^[2] The borough (and the county) consist of Manhattan Island, Roosevelt Island, Randall's Island, Governors Island, almost one-tenth of Ellis Island,^[3] the above-water portion of Liberty Island, several much smaller islands, and Marble Hill, 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 the world.^[4][5][6] 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).^[7] 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.^[8] 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").^[9]

[edit] History

[edit] Colonial

Lower Manhattan in 1660, when it was part of New Amsterdam. The large structure toward the tip of the island is Fort Amsterdam.

Main article: History of New York City

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.^[10] It was not until the voyage of Henry Hudson, an Englishman who worked for the Dutch East India Company, that the area was mapped.^[11] Hudson came across Manhattan Island and the native people living there on September 11, 1609, and continued up the river that would later bear his name, the Hudson River, until he arrived at the site of present day Albany.^[12]

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).^[13][14] 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.^[15] In 1626, Peter Minuit acquired Manhattan from native people in exchange for trade goods worth 60 guilders, often mistakenly said to be worth $24: 60 guilders back then had the approximate value of $1000 now.^[16] Additionally, the sale was transacted with the Canarsee tribe, who did not live on or have rights on the island; the Weckquaesgeeks who lived on the island itself were not contacted or consulted about the transfer.^[17]

In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed as the last Dutch Director General of the colony.^[18] New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on February 2, 1653.^[19] In 1664, the British conquered New Netherland and renamed it "New York" after the English Duke of York and Albany, the future King James II.^[20] 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.^[21][22]

[edit] American Revolution and the early United States

J.Q.A. Ward's statue of George Washington in front of Federal Hall, on the site where Washington was inaugurated as the first U.S. President.

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.^[23] 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.^[24]

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.^[25]

[edit] 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.^[26][27]

Thomas Nast denounces Tammany as a ferocious tiger killing democracy; the tiger image caught on.

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.^[28]

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.^[29][30] 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.^[31] 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.^[32]

[edit] The 20th century

The newly completed Singer Building towering above the city, 1909.

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.^[33]

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.^[34]

A construction worker on top of the under construction Empire State Building, Chrysler Building behind. 1930.

The period between the World Wars saw the election of reformist mayor Fiorello La Guardia and the fall of Tammany Hall after eighty years of political dominance.^[35] 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 La Guardia. 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.^[36] In 1951, the United Nations relocated from its first headquarters in Queens, to the East Side of Manhattan.^[37]

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.^[38] 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".^[39] 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.^[40]

The iconic view of Manhattan showing the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Ellis Island and the World Trade Center, July 2001.

The 1980s saw a rebirth of Wall Street, and the city reclaimed its role at the center of the worldwide 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, CSI: NY, Seinfeld, NYPD Blue, Law & Order, Will & Grace, Spin City, Gossip Girl and Sex and the City. Notable film examples include Miracle on 34th Street, Ghostbusters, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Cloverfield, which specifically takes place in Manhattan, and many of Woody Allen's films, such as Annie Hall, Bananas, and Manhattan.

[edit] Geography

See also: Geography and environment of New York City

Central Park is visible in the center of this satellite image. Manhattan is bounded by the Hudson River to the west, the Harlem River to the north, and East River to the east.

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.^[41] 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).^[42] 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.^[43]

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.^[44] 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.^[44]

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.^[8]

A modern redrawing of the 1807 version of the Commissioner's Grid plan for Manhattan, a few years before it was adopted in 1811. Note the absence of Central Park.

Early in the nineteenth century, landfill was used to expand Lower Manhattan from the natural Hudson shoreline at Greenwich Street to West Street.^[45] When building the World Trade Center, 1.2 million cubic yards (917,000 m³) of material was excavated from the site.^[46] 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.^[47] The result was a 700 foot (210 m) extension into the river, running six blocks or 1,484 feet (450 m), covering 92 acres (370,000 m²), providing a 1.2 mile (1.9 km) riverfront esplanade and over 30 acres (120,000 m²) of parks.^[48]

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

Manhattan has fixed vehicular connections with New Jersey to the west via the George Washington Bridge, Holland Tunnel and Lincoln Tunnel, and to three of the four other 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 adjacent to 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.^[49] 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), 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).^[50] 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.^[51][50] 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.^[8][8]

[edit] 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

[edit] National protected areas

• African Burial Ground National Monument
• Castle Clinton National Monument
• Federal Hall National Memorial
• General Grant National Memorial
• Governors Island National Monument
• Hamilton Grange National Memorial
• Lower East Side Tenement National Historic Site
• Statue of Liberty National Monument (part)
• Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site

[edit] Neighborhoods

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

Manhattan's many neighborhoods are not named according to any particular convention. Some are geographical (the Upper East Side), or ethnically descriptive (Chinatown). Others are acronyms, such as TriBeCa (for "TRIangle BElow CAnal Street") or SoHo ("SOuth of HOuston"), or the far more recent vintage NoLIta ("NOrth of Little ITaly").^[52][53] Harlem is a name from the Dutch colonial era after Haarlem, a city in the Netherlands.^[54]

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.^[55] Chelsea is a neighborhood with a large gay population, and also recently a center of New York's art industry and nightlife.^[56] Washington Heights is a vibrant neighborhood of immigrants from the Dominican Republic. Manhattan's Chinatown has a dense population of people of Chinese descent.^[57][58] 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.^[59][60][61]

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).^[62] 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)^[63] and downtown to the southern portion (typically below 14th Street),^[64] 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.^[65] 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.^[42]

[edit] Climate

Rain in Midtown Manhattan.

Although located at around 41°N, Manhattan has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen classification Cfa).^[66] The city's coastal position keeps temperatures relatively warmer than inland regions during winter, helping to moderate the amount of snow which averages 25 to 35 inches (63.5 to 88.9 cm) each year.^[66] New York City has a frost-free period lasting an average of 220 days between seasonal freezes.^[66] Spring and fall in New York City are mild, while summer is very warm and humid, with temperatures of 90 °F (32 °C) or higher recorded from 18 to 25 days on average during the season.^[66] The city's longterm climate patterns are affected by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, a 70-year-long warming and cooling cycle in the Atlantic that influences the frequency and severity of hurricanes and coastal storms in the region.^[67]

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.^[68]

[edit] Government

Main article: Government of New York City

The Manhattan Municipal Building.

Scott Stringer, 2006

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.^[70] 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.^[71]

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.^[72]

Robert M. Morgenthau, a Democrat, has been the District Attorney of New York County since 1974.^[73] 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.^[74] 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.^[75]

[edit] 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 12% of the electorate. Registered Republicans are more than 20% of the electorate only in the neighborhoods of Upper East Side and the Financial District. The Democrats hold 66.1% of those registered in a party. 21.9% of the voters were unaffiliated(independents).^[78]

Local party platforms center on affordable housing, education and economic development. Controversial political issues in Manhattan include development, noise, and the cost of housing.

Manhattan is divided between four congressional districts, all of which are represented by Democrats.

• Charles Rangel represents the 15th district in Upper Manhattan, which incorporates Harlem, Spanish Harlem, Washington Heights, Inwood and parts of the Upper West Side.
• Jerrold Nadler represents the 8th district, based on the West Side which covers most of the Upper West Side, Hell's Kitchen, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, Chinatown, Tribeca and Battery Park City, as well as some sections of Southwest Brooklyn.
• Carolyn Maloney represents the 14th district, the so-called "Silk Stocking" district which was the political base for Teddy Roosevelt and John Lindsay. It covers most of the Upper East Side, Yorkville, Gramercy Park, the East Village, Roosevelt Island and most of the Lower East Side, as well as portions of western Queens.
• Nydia Velazquez of the Brooklyn-Queens based 12th district, represents a few heavily Puerto Rican sections of the Lower East Side.

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.^[79] In the 2004 presidential election, Democrat John Kerry received 82.1% of the vote in Manhattan and Republican George W. Bush received 16.7%.^[80] 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.^[81] 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.^[82]

[edit] Crime

Main article: Crime in New York City

Policeman leads upper class people through the Five Points in an 1885 sketch

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.^[83] 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.^[84] The predominantly Irish Five Points Gang was one of the country's first major organized crime entities.

An NYPD boat patrols the New York Harbor.

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,^[85] as did Lucky Luciano.^[86] 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.^[87] from 1920–1933, Prohibition helped create a thriving black market in liquor, which the Mafia was quick to capitalize on.^[87]

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.^[88]

NYPD Crown Victoria police car

Based on 2005 data, New York City has the lowest crime rate among the ten largest cities in the United States.^[89] 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.^[90] 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.^[89] 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.^[91]

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.^[92][93]

[edit] 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.^[97] 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.^[98] 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 101,548/sq mi (39,222.9/km²). There were 798,144 housing units in 2000 at an average density of 34,756.7/sq mi (13,421.8/km²).^[43] Only 20.3% of Manhattan residents lived in owner-occupied housing, the second-lowest rate of all counties in the nation, behind The Bronx.^[99]

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.^[100]

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.^[101]