Manhattan

Manhattan

We would like to begin our brief background from the formation of New York’s smallest city borough – Manhattan. Despite its size, Manhattan is the most densely populated borough of New York City, its economic and administrative center, its cultural identifier, and its historical birthplace. In no other part of the other boroughs are there such sharp contrast between rich and poor. The elegance of Park Avenue and the Upper East Side rapidly gives way to the abounding streets of Harlem to the north and to the crowded bohemian existence of the Lower East Side and Greenwich Village to the south. This cruel reality traces back to the 19-th century city, when industrial millionares lived in luxury in Fifth Avenue mansions far from the immigrant masses on the Lower East Side.  

         Manhattan is composed of neighbourhoods that offer peaceful havens to contented residents. Many areas of the island are world famous, among them such ethnic communities as Chinatown, Yorkville, Little Italy, and Spanish and Black Harlem. In the streets snaking north from the ancient Dutch Battery, twisting lanes remind walkers that Manhattan was a trade centre before Boston or Philadelphia existed. Wall Street, the financial centre of the globe, was originally a Dutch fortification (1653) against feared British or Native American attacks that never came. The jumble of pre-Revolutionary streets continues up to Houston Street, where the grid pattern becomes dominant and continues up the island. Soho covers much of the old immigrant East Side and now has been matched by a Noho neighbourhood. To the west is Henry James’s Washington Square and beyond that Greenwich Village, formerly a haven for artists but today home to the affluent and professional classes. The Upper West Side is filled with brownstone blocks and high-rise apartments and is home ground to the liberal, Democratic Party politics long identified with the modern city. East Harlem is Hispanic, as is Washington Heights, but the two are separated by Black Harlem and the academic bastion of Columbia University on Morningside Heights. At the far north of the island—where Manhattan actually spills into the Bronx—Irish influence predominates. Only in the few blocks of Marble Hill is Manhattan part of the mainland United States.
                   

Chinatown in the 20-th century.

Little Italy.

Spanish Harlem.

   No area of New York demonstrates change and dynamism as fully as Manhattan. Millions enter it daily to seek their fortunes, and additional millions come to marvel at their efforts.

Used resources: https://allthatsinteresting.com/new-york-immigrants-photos
http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21249
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City#Nineteenth_century