New York Metropolitan Area - History

History

During the Wisconsinan glaciation, the region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving bedrock. Later on, the ice sheet would help split apart what are now Long Island and Staten Island.

The region was inhabited by Native American tribes such as the Lenape and others. The tribes used the abundant waterways in the area for many purposes such as fishing and trade routes. Later, when Henry Hudson visited the area, he built a settlement on Lower Manhattan Island which was eventually renamed New Amsterdam by Dutch colonists in 1626. The area came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York.

As the fur trade expanded north, New York became a trading hub, which brought in a diverse set of ethnic groups including Africans, Jews, and Portuguese. The island of Manhattan had an extraordinary natural harbor formed by New York Bay (actually the drowned lower river valley of the Hudson River, enclosed by glacial moraines), the East River (actually a tidal strait), and the Hudson River, all of which are confluent at the southern tip, from which all later development spread. During the American Revolution, New York was an important region for battle. Many battles such as the Battle of Long Island and the Battle of New York were fought here. However, New York City remained in the hands of the British until the war ended in 1783. New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790, after which the capital moved to Philadelphia. New York City has been the country's largest city since 1790. In 1792, the Buttonwood Agreement, made by a group of merchants, created what is now the New York Stock Exchange in Lower Manhattan. Today, many people in the metropolitan area work in this important stock exchange.

The Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor greeted millions of immigrants as they came to America by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a globally recognized symbol of the United States and its democracy. Large-scale immigration into New York was a result of a large demand for manpower. A cosmopolitan attitude in the city created tolerance for various cultures and ethnic groups. German, Irish, and Italian immigrants were among the largest ethnic groups. Today, many of their descendents continue to live in the region. Cultural buildings such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Opera, the American Museum of Natural History were built. New York newspapers were read around the country as media moguls James Gordon Bennett, Sr., Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst battled for readership. In 1884, over 70% of exports passed through ports in New York or in one of the surrounding towns. The five boroughs of New York City — The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island — were consolidated into a single city in 1898.

The now-unified New York City encouraged both more physical connections between the boroughs and the growth of bedroom communities. The New York City Subway began operating in 1905 as different private systems that were later taken over by the city. Railroad stations such as Grand Central Terminal and Pennsylvania Station helped fuel suburban growth. During the era of the Prohibition, when alcohol was banned nationwide, organized crime grew to supply the high demand for bootleg alcohol. The iconic Broadway Theater District developed with the showing of the musical, Show Boat.

The Great Depression suspended the region's fortunes as a period of widespread unemployment and poverty began. City planner Robert Moses began his automobile-centered career of building bridges, parkways, and later expressways. During World War II, the city economy was hurt by blockades of German U-Boats, which limited of shipping with Europe.

After its population peaked in 1950, much of the city's population began leaving for the suburbs. The effects were a result of white flight. Industry and commerce also declined in this era, with businesses leaving for the suburbs and other cities. Crime affected the city severely. Urban renewal projects alleviated the decay in Midtown Manhattan to a certain extent, but later failed. Blackouts such as the Northeast Blackout of 1965 and the New York City Blackout of 1977 caused massive rioting. A rare highlight was the completion of the former World Trade Center, which once stood as the tallest buildings in the world.

In the 1980s, the city economy was booming. Wall Street was fueling an economic surge in the real estate market. Despite this, crime was still an issue. Beginning in the 1990s, however, crime dropped substantially.

A major event in the region's history was the September 11th attacks in 2001, that killed nearly 3,000 people as two planes crashed into the former World Trade Center and caused the towers to collapse. Businesses led an exodus from Lower Manhattan because of this. In 2003, another blackout occurred, the 2003 North America blackout, but the city suffered no looting and a building boom in New York City continues to this day.

On October 29 and 30, 2012, Hurricane Sandy caused extensive destruction in the metropolitan area, ravaging portions of the Atlantic coastline with record-high storm surge, severe flooding, and high winds, causing power outages for millions of residents via downed trees and power lines and malfunctions at electrical substations, leading to gasoline shortages and snarling mass transit systems. Damage to New York and New Jersey in terms of physical infrastructure and private property as well as including interrupted commerce was estimated at several tens of billions of dollars. The storm and its profound impacts have prompted the discussion of constructing seawalls and other coastal barriers around the shorelines of the metropolitan area to minimize the risk of destructive consequences from another such event in the future.