NEW YORK

The city that everybody would like to visit

Progetto CLIL a.s. 20016/17 S.S. 1 grado «E. Fermi»

Here are some famous sentences of people who have visited New York

Money is like fever in this

town.

A car is unnecessary in

New York.

There is Europe in New York: you can hear it, you can see

it. New York couldn’t exist without Europe

(Corrado Augias)

The Newyorkers walk faster, talk

faster, think faster.

In New York my look meet only space.

It’s a big metropolis

that beats at the rhythm of a very big

heart.

The true glamour of New York is power.

I want to wake up in a town which never

sleeps. (Frank Sinatra, New York,

New York)

THE BIG APPLE

New York is called the BIG APPLE since 1909 when the writer Edward Saint Martin compared New York state with an apple tree, with its roots in the Mississipi Valley and its fruit in New York.

In the Thirties and Forties, the jazz musician said they were playing in the BIG APPLE when they had a concert in N.Y. C. and on the «branches» when they had a concert far from New York.

New York city history. It is on a bay discovered in 1524 by the Italian

navigator Giovanni Verrazzano .

Its first inhabitans were the American natives, who lived on Manhatin Island hunting and

fishing

The area was rich in small fields of Indian corn and tabacco, strawberries cherries and some other wild fruits of its fo

In the Bay fish, whales, small daulphins, turtles and loabster lived

The indians called the place «reed» because of the marshel covered by reedy thickets

In 1609 the land was explored by Herry Hudson, an English

navigator who was looking for the famous North-West Passage: he went up the river and gave it his

name.

The small island was in a strategical postion on the Hudson River mouth, where the indians hunter bartered beaver furs without using money with the Europen merchants with

things coming from Europe.

In 1600 Dutch merchants of West India Company founded here a colony and they called it New Amsterdam. In 1626 the colony governor had from Indians Manhattan Island (in exchange for knick-knacks and small worthless pearls –as the legend tells). On the island a fort was built.

It became a commercial town very soon where Dutchmen, refugee Hebrews, English colonists and black slaves settled: they were the first immigrants in New York.

New Amsterdam became a very rich colony very soon.

But Charles II, king of England, gave his brother, duke of York, the English

colony that included NEY AMSTERDAM too: the colonists preferred maintaining

their propertiesTheir religion and exchange freedom to war

So New Amsterdam became New York in honour of duke of York

In 1700 it had only 6.000 inhabitants. Since then the number of his inhabitants has grown

because of the strong immigration from all over the world

The big growth of the city happened especially in the second half of the 19 th century and 20 th century because of its big economic development ad a lot of work opportunities.

NEW YORK GEOGRAPHY New york city is on East coast of the United States of America, in the North, not far from the Canadian border. So it's a very big door

open to trades with Europe.

● It's quite on the same latitude of Naples,

Madrid and Peking.

● It doesn't face directly on the Atlantic

Ocean, but it's very near to the open sea.

● It stands in new york Bay, at the

confluence of Hudson River and East

River.

● New York city belongs to New York: it's

capital city is Albany.

● In New York bay, opposite Manhattan, there are two small islands: Liberty Island with the enormous Statue of Liberty, and Ellis Island, that was the point of reception and check of the immigrants; here they were stopped in quarantine.

● The Statue of Liberty is the monument symbol of New York.

● It's 93 metres high and has a very big base.

● It represents a woman who is wearing a long toga and she holds a torch on her right hand and a book with the date of the American Independence Day, 4th July 1776 on her left hand.

On the island there is a museum about

immigration in this country.

● The city extends on the dryland and on some

islands for about more than one thousand

square kilometres, the climate is temperate,

wet and rainy because it's near the Ocean.

4 millions of them have European origin (English, Irish, Italian, Polish, Russian, German and Scandinavian), 2 millions of Afroamericans, 1 million of

Hispano-americans, 1million of Asiatics. Then there is a very large Jewish community, too.

The density is about 10 thousand inhabitants for square kilometre,

25 thousand in Manhattan

New York is a highly cosmopolitan City because of the immigration.

Melting Pot is one of its nicknames: the word means cauldron (the big pot

to fuse different metals). In fact, in New York people of different origins, cultures and religions live together.

New York is devided in 5 administrative boroughs: • Manhattan (an island) • The Bronx ( the only one on the dryland) • Staten Island ( an island) • Brooklyn and Queens (on Long Island) Every borough is as big as a city: it’s a city in the city!

There are etnic areas, too, where the immigrants

communities live as their traditions.

Most of them are in Manhattan

Manhattan is the economic and financial heart of the City.

In Harlem a lot of Afro-Americans live and you can meet African culture there. In the churches, during the Mass, people sing gospel (gospel means Vangelo)

Chinatown is inhabited by Chinese and asian people, who don’t often speak any English word. On Chinese New Year’s Eve, there is a parade with floats, musicians and dancers in the streets full of colours.

Little Italy is inhabited by a lot of Italian people and it’s full of

places, restaurants, coffees and night-clubs where you can buy,

drink and eat Italian products and meals.

In September there is the San Gennaro Festival in honour of the saint of Naples: the

main street fills with stalls that sell Italian typical products and sacred objects.

The Festival ends carrying in procession San Gennaro’s statue.

On the 12 th October there is a big celebration, the Colombus Day, to remind the discovery of

America.

In New York there are some very poor and violent areas (slums) with a lot of criminality, especially in Bronx and Harlem, where black people and Latin-

Americans live; there is the deterioration off the environment: noise, smog and dirtiness.

New York develops in vertical way (direction) and its landscape made of

skyscrapers is its feature: now the highest is the Empire State Building

(new York State is called Empire State): it was built in 1931, it’s 386 meters high

and it has 102 floors.

It has a wonderful terrace with a panoramic view at the 86 th floor: a lot of tourists visit it every day.

The Flatiron Building is one of the historical

skyscrapers of New York. It has this nicknames

because its shape reminds to a flatiron.

The Twin Towers were 2 famous skyscrapers (The World Trade Center) destroyed in 2001 the 11 th September by a terrorist attack of Al Quaeda.

Today a new skyscraper, the One World Trade Center, well known as Freedom Tower stands in this area.

It is 1776 feet high, so it is the symbol of the American Constitution because it reminds the year of the American Indipendence. The wind that blows on its fronts

produces Aeolian energy.

On the side there is the National September 11 Memorial Museum,

the monument in honour of the victims.

It is composed of two pools with artificial falls that are located on the

old bases of collapsed towers. On the pools borders, on bronze plaques,

the names of 3000 victims have been graved.

New York is an economic and financial center of world importance.

It has got one of the most important harbours in the world for trade.

It has got a lot of industries, but the tertiary sector is the most developed: here firms, financial societies, banks and insurance companies have their

offices.

Here Wall Street has its office: its symbolis a bull and on the building a big American flag is waving.

The building has this name because the olonists built here a wall to defend themselves against the tribe

attacks.

New York is a very important cultural centre: it houses prestigious Universities (Columbia

University, New York University…), the most famous museums of modern art (MOMA), lirical

thetres, big television companies, newspaper editings.

40 millions tourists visit New York every year.

The transport system is very various in New York. There is a dense road and freeways network very crowded in the rush hours.

The roads in Manhattan in vertical and horizontal way and they cross: those in North-South direction are the AVENUES and ordinal numbers are their marks, those in East-

West direction are the STREETS.

The Fifth Avenue is very famous: it’s the world shopping street, with the most important chains of shops and the big names.

The APPLE has an underground shop and you can go there crossing a glass tube.

Broadway crosses Manhattan and then it becomes a national way that arrives to

ALBANY. It’s the centre of the show world, it’s the street of theatres that offers a big

variety of successful musicals with the best professional dancers and singers.

Time Squares is the most famous square, full of adverstising posters and displays as big as

buildings. Here, every 31 December a gigantic sphere goes down a staff on the One

Times Square building during the last 10 seconds of the year and a lot of Americans

and tourists celebrate the New Year.

There are some ferries and bridges who connect the island. The most famous one is Brooklyn Bridge, that link Brooklyn to Manhattan passing on the East

River. It has 6 lanes and was the first steel bridge in the world. It inspired the famous chewing gums Brooklyn, that are rectangular, long and flat.

The biggest is Da Verrazzano Bridge in honour of the famous navigator. It links Staten Island to Brooklyn. From here every year the famous marathon starts and a lot of Italian people take part.

Tolls and parkings are Very expensive, so people prefer avoiding private means and travelling by public means:

underground, buses, trains… A lot of Newyorkers travel by

bike(there are 700km of cycle-tracks!) or with the tipical taxis

of New York, the medallion cabs. They are yellow and often

old, and they have an adverstising poster on their

roof. New York has three airports:

the John Fridgerald Kennedy, in the Queens, is the most

important, the international one.

New York has had 4 Italo-American mayors: Fiorello La Guardia, Vincent Impellitteri, Rudolf Giuliani and now Bill De Blasio.

The United Nations Organisation has its office in New York in GLASS BUILDING, built in 1950.

We end our journey in New York talking about its PARKS.

Even if it is an «urban jungle», it is rich in green areas: about 30% of its surface is occupied by public parks, playgrounds, natural reserves, beaches, golf courses, stadiums, amusement parks. The most famous and visited is CENTRAL PARK (the green lung of the city), where, besides green areas, there are: a zoo, a sham castle, baseball and basket pitches, artificial lakes, an anphitheatre. In New York parks tourits have a rest, play sports and enjoy themselves: parks are the ideal places to break the frenetic rhythm of New York life.