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РОССИЙСКОЙ КОЛЛЕКЦИИ РЕФЕРАТОВ (с) 1996
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NEW YORK.
New York attracts people from all over. Get on a
subway in New York and look at the newspapers that people
around you are reading. One person is reading a newspaper
in Spanish, another in Chinese, yet others in Arabic,
Russian, Italian, Yiddish, and French. New York was
always a city of immigrants. It still is.
The are 5 boroughs in New York - Manhattan, Brooklyn,
Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island. Brooklyn alone has
so many people that if it were a separate city, it would
be the fourth largest in the United States.
Manhattan Geography.
Manhattan is an island just 13 miles long and 2
miles wide. It is the center of American finance,
advertising, art theatre, publishing, fashion - and much
more. The borough of Manhattan is what most people think
of New York, one of the most exciting cities in the
world.
Manhattan is divided into the East Side and the West
Side. The dividing line is Fifth Avenue. So, for example,
East 47th Street begins at Fifth Avenue, as does West
47th Street.
Manhattan is also divided, with less exactnes, into
Lower (Downtown), Midtown and Upper (Up-town) Manhattan.
As you go North, or uptown, the street numbers get
higher. Lower Manhatta refers to street numbers below
14th Street and Central Park, and Upper Manhattan to the
renaming, northern, part of the island.
The Financial District.
The Dutch were the first Europeans to settle
Manhattan. To protect themselves from attacs, they built
a sturdy wooden wall. Although it`s now long gone, this
wall gave it`s name to a street in Lower Manhattan and
the street, in turn, became synonymous with American
capitalism. The street, of course, is Wall Street. The
New York Stock Exchange and the American Stokc Exchange
are both in the Wall Street area. So are many stokc
brokers, investment blanks and others bank, and
headquarters of many large corporations.
To escape the commotion of Wall Street you can visit
the nearby South Street Seaport, an open area of low
buildings on the East River. In addition to many shops
and restaraunts, the seaport has a museum.
Two good ways to get the larger picture of New York
are to circle it in a bout and to hover over it in
helicopter. In the financial district, thogh, there`s
anouther way to see New York. The twin towers of the
World Trade Centre rise 1,350 feet above the city.
There`s an observation deck on the 107th floor of one of
the towers.
Appropriately, the very first business deal in
Manhattan was made in what became the financial district.
As every American schoolchild knows, the Dutch bought
Manhattan from the Indians, for the rediculously low
price of 24 dollars worth of beads and trinkets. There
is, however, another, less known side of this: evidently,
the Indians who had sold Manhattan don't themselves live
there or in any sense own it. The Dutch and the Indians
alike walked away pleased.
The Lower East Side.
The Lower East Side was originali an ellegant
neighborhood. When New York was the capital of the United
States, Presedent George Washington lived on the Lower
East Side.
By the mid-1880s the Lower East Side had changed
greatly. It was chracterized by crime and the poverty and
hopes of it`s residents. By the mid-1800s the Lower East
Side had become an area in which immigrants settled.
First there were many Irish, then came many Jews from
Easten Europe.
Near the Lower East Side there are two other
neighborhoods that also attracted immigrants and that are
famous for their food. The Italian restaurants of Little
Italy remain popular to tourists and Italians alike.
Today Chinatown is the only immigrant community that`s
still growing. Chinatown has seven newspaper of it`s own.
It also nearly 200 restaurants.
Greenwich Village and the East Village.
Greenwich Village and the East Village have always
been at the centre of New York`s excitement. Both have
been places for people with different and creative ideas.
Both have an active nightlife with plenty of bars,
restaraurants and clubs.
In the early 1900s the charm Greenwich Village
attracted bohemians - writers and artists. By the 1920s,
the streets of the Village were filled with other peole,
curious to see how these odd Villagers lived. The artists
and writers began moving out, some to the East Village.
Today, the Village has many elements: students attending
New York University; an active jazz scene; and in
Washington Square - it`s centre - street performers,
police. Drug dealers, joggers, roller skates, and just
about everyone else.
When bohemiams moved to the East Village 1920s, they
found an area similar to the Lower East Side. There were
many immigrants, much dirt and grime. The East Village
has changed very little. Over the years it has been a
centre for many movements - for the beat poets of the
1950s, the hippies of the 1960s, and, more recently, for
New York`s punk scene.