, who purchased
Manhattan in 1626|alt=A pen drawing of two men in 16th-century Dutch clothing presenting an open box of items to a group of Native Americans in feather headdresses stereotypical of plains tribes. During the
Wisconsinan glaciation, the region was situated at the edge of a large
ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the
bedrock that serves as the geologic
foundation for much of the New York metropolitan region today. Later on, the ice sheet would help split apart what are now Long Island and Staten Island. , including present-day
Lower Manhattan, in 1664, the year
England took control and renamed it New York|alt=A painting of a coastline dotted with red roof houses and a windmill, with several masted ships sailing close to shore under blue sky At the time of European contact the region was inhabited by
Native Americans, predominantly the
Lenape, and others. The Native Americans used the abundant waterways in the area for many purposes, such as fishing and trade routes. Sailing for France in 1524,
Giovanni da Verrazzano was the first European to enter the local waters and encounter the residents, but he did not make landfall.
Henry Hudson, sailing for the Dutch in 1609, visited the area and built a settlement on Lower Manhattan Island that was eventually renamed
New Amsterdam by
Dutch colonists in 1626. In 1664, the area went under English control, and was later renamed
New York after King
Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the
Duke of York. As the fur trade expanded further 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, which is a
tidal strait, and the
Hudson River, all of which merge at the southern tip, from which all later development spread. During the
American Revolution, the strategic waterways made New York vitally important as a wartime base for the British navy. Many battles such as the
Battle of Long Island and the
Battle of New York were fought in the region to secure it. New York was captured by the British early in the war, becoming a haven for
Loyalist refugees from other parts of the country, and 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 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. , on
Liberty Island in
New York Harbor, a globally recognized symbol of both the
United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. 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 descendants continue to live in the region. Cultural buildings such as the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, the
Metropolitan Opera, and 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 —
The Bronx,
Brooklyn,
Manhattan,
Queens, and
Staten Island — were consolidated into a single city in 1898. in
Manhattan, which opened in 1913 The newly 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 1904 as the
Interborough Rapid Transit Company, one of three systems (the other two being the
Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation and the
Independent Subway System) 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 Broadway
Theater District began to develop with the opening of the
New York Subway in 1904 and, by the early part of the twentieth century, had been made world-famous as New York's theatrical and entertainment center through popular musical productions like
Ziegfeld Follies and
Show Boat and the opening of multiple large, extravagantly decorated theatres in the area spanning
Broadway from 47th to 42nd Streets. 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 across the tri-state area. During World War II, the city economy was hurt by blockades of German
U-boats, which limited shipping with Europe. , established in
Midtown Manhattan in 1952 After its population peaked in 1950, a significant portion of the city's population left for the
suburbs of New York over the following decades. The effects were a result of
white flight. Industry and commerce also declined in this era, with businesses relocating to the suburbs or other regions. The era also saw an increase in the construction of
housing projects for the city's low-income population under the
New York City Housing Authority, coinciding with the destruction of communities to construct
interstate highways to link the city with its suburbs. The city, particularly Brooklyn, was dealt a psychological as well as an economic blow with the loss of the iconic
Brooklyn Dodgers major-league
baseball team, which moved to
Los Angeles after the 1957 season. Crime affected the city severely. Urban renewal projects alleviated decay in poorer neighborhoods to a certain extent, but many of these later proved to be failures and caused unanticipated consequences like ghettoization, informal racial segregation in housing, and disruption of the organic urban fabric that made the city's neighborhoods cohesive and healthy places to live. There was little reported social unrest during the
Northeast Blackout of 1965, but the
New York City Blackout of 1977 led to massive rioting, looting, and arson in some parts of the city. In addition, the
1970s recession crippled traditional industries such as manufacturing in the New York City region. A rare positive highlight of the period was the completion of the original
World Trade Center, a massive office complex in New York's
Financial District whose iconic, 110-story
Twin Towers for a short time stood as the world's tallest buildings. In the 1980s, the city's economy was booming, particularly in the financial sector.
Wall Street was fueling an economic surge in the real estate market, and later the
dot-com bubble. Despite this, crime was still an issue. This was exacerbated by the
crack epidemic, with the New York City area being one of the major ports of entry for narcotics entering the United States. Neighborhoods such as the
South Bronx became prime examples of late 20th century
urban decay. Beginning in the 1990s, however, crime dropped substantially due to
tough-on-crime policies.
Crime in New York City has continued to decline through the 21st century. The
September 11th attacks in 2001 were pivotal in the region and nation's history. The attacks 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 but were replaced by an increased number of
high-rise residences and a building boom in New York continues to this day. In 2003, another blackout occurred, the
2003 North America blackout, but the city suffered no looting. in Manhattan just moments before the explosion at an
electrical substation 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.
One World Trade Center, also known as Freedom Tower, was completed in 2014 to replace the fallen Twin Towers. The
2017–2021 New York City transit crisis, which began with what media outlets referred to as the 2017 "summer of hell," led New York Governor
Andrew Cuomo to declare a state of emergency. The crisis was due to the interaction of multiple severe problems in the
New York City Subway system and in
New York City bus lines, as well as at
Penn Station, the final stop on several of the commuter lines connecting New York City with other parts of the metropolitan area. Its root causes included long-term neglect of critical infrastructure and lack of adequate funding for ongoing operations, among others. The state of emergency was formally ended on June 30, 2021.
Statistical history on the
Lower East Side of
Manhattan, The
U.S. Census Bureau first designated metropolitan areas in 1950 as
standard metropolitan areas (SMAs). The "New York–Northeastern NJ SMA" was defined to include 17 counties: 9 in New York (the five boroughs of New York City, Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, and Rockland) and 8 in New Jersey (Bergen, Hudson, Passaic, Essex, Union, Morris, Somerset, and Middlesex). In 1960, the metropolitan area standards were modified and renamed standard metropolitan statistical areas (SMSAs). The new standards resulted in the splitting of the former SMA into several pieces: the nine New York counties became the "New York SMSA"; three of the New Jersey counties (Essex, Union, and Morris) became the "Newark SMSA"; two other New Jersey counties (Bergen and Passaic) became the "Paterson–Passaic–Clifton SMSA"; Hudson County was designated the "Jersey City SMSA"; and Middlesex and Somerset counties lost their metropolitan status. In 1973, a new set of metropolitan area standards resulted in further changes: Nassau and Suffolk counties were split off as their own SMSA ("Nassau–Suffolk SMSA"); Bergen County (originally part of the Paterson–Clifton–Passaic SMSA) was transferred to the New York SMSA; the New York SMSA also received Putnam County (previously non-metropolitan); Somerset County was added to the Newark SMSA; and two new SMSAs, the "New Brunswick–Perth Amboy–Sayreville SMSA" (Middlesex County) and "Long Branch–Asbury Park SMSA" (Monmouth County), were established. In 1983, the concept of a consolidated metropolitan statistical area (CMSA) was first implemented. A CMSA consisted of several primary metropolitan statistical areas (PMSAs), which were individual employment centers within a wider
labor market area. The "New York–Northern New Jersey–Long Island CMSA" consisted of 12 PMSAs. in
Flushing Meadows – Corona Park, iconic of
Queens, the most
ethnically diverse U.S. county and a
borough of New York Seven PMSAs were based on the original 1950 New York SMA that were split up: New York, Bergen–Passaic, Jersey City, Middlesex–Somerset–Hunterdon (Hunterdon added for the first time), Monmouth–Ocean (Ocean added for the first time), Nassau–Suffolk, and Newark (Sussex added for the first time). One additional PMSA was the Orange County PMSA (previously the Newburgh–Middletown SMSA). The other four PMSAs were former SMSAs in Connecticut: Bridgeport, Stamford, Norwalk, and Danbury. In 1993, four PMSAs were added to the New York–Northern New Jersey–Long Island CMSA: Trenton PMSA (Mercer County), Dutchess County PMSA, Waterbury PMSA, and New Haven PMSA. Several new counties were also added to the CMSA: Sussex, Warren, and Pike. The CMSA model was originally utilized for tabulating data from the 2000 census. In 2003, a new set of standards was established using the
Core Based Statistical Area (CBSA) model was adopted and remains in use as of 2010. The CBSA model resulted in the splitting up of the old CMSA into several metropolitan statistical areas: New York–Northern New Jersey–Long Island, Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown, Trenton–Princeton, Bridgeport–Stamford–Norwalk (includes Danbury), and New Haven–Milford (includes Waterbury). In 2013, the Census Bureau added Carbon, Lehigh, Northampton, and Monroe counties in Pennsylvania, and Warren County, New Jersey (encompassing collectively the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ MSA and the East Stroudsburg, PA MSA), to the Combined Statistical Area, and assimilated Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown into the larger New York–Northern New Jersey–Long Island–NY–NJ–PA MSA. In 2018, the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ MSA was removed from the Combined Statistical Area. The July 2023 revision of the New York–Newark, NY–NJ–CT–PA CSA had the following municipality changes from the March 2020 definitions: Additions to the CSA: •
Sullivan County, NY (Monticello, NY μSA) Removals from the CSA: •
City of Shelton, CT (from the erstwhile Bridgeport–Stamford–Norwalk, CT MSA) •
Monroe County, PA (from the erstwhile East Stroudsburg, PA MSA) •
New Haven County, CT (from the erstwhile New Haven–Milford, CT MSA) •
Litchfield County, CT (from the Torrington, CT μSA), except for the Towns of
Bridgewater and
New Milford Proposals for the region The metropolitan region has never had separate political representation from the rest of their original states. This has to do with disagreements in the desired model and the constitutional complexity of the metropolitan region being cross-state. Within the State of New York over the last 30 years, discussions have emerged of splitting the states into different regions with separate governors and legislators whilst remaining part of the same state — as opposed to seeing New York and its metropolitan area being split into a separate state. and the three-region model is New York having five counties; Montauk would consist of Nassau, Suffolk, Rockland, and Westchester counties and; New Amsterdam would be the remaining portion of New York State. This debate was reported as recent as February 2019, when Republican
state Senator Daphne Jordan supported the state being split into two states; ==Demographics==