The Manhhatan immigration waves

Manhhatan immigration waves

From the 19-th century there were immigrants of Irish, Italian, Polish and Jewish backgrounds who came to Manhattan and lived in tenements in a part of the city called the Lower East Side. Most of them arrived after the Civil War and amounted over one million of the total population.

In the 1920s Manhattan experienced large arrivals of African-Americans as part of the Great Migration from the southern United States, and the Harlem Renaissance, part of a larger boom time in the Prohibition era that included new skyscrapers competing for the skyline. New York City became the most populous city in the world in 1925. Manhattan's majority white ethnic group declined from 98.7% in 1900 to 58.3% by 1990.

On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in Greenwich Village killed 146 garment workers. The disaster eventually led to overhauls of the city's fire department, building codes, and workplace regulations.

Population and industry began to decline in the 1960s. The Stonewall riots were a series of violent demonstrations by members of the gay community.

In the 1970s job losses due to industrial restructuring caused New York City, including Manhattan, to suffer from economic problems and rising crime rates. In 1975, the city government went bankrupt (ran out of money), and its pleas for financial help were rejected at first. On 30 October 1975, the New York Daily News reported the event with the headline as "Ford to City: Drop Dead". The city received a federal loan and debt restructuring. After the economic downfall and recovery, New York State kept a close watch on New York City's economy

 While a resurgence in the financial industry greatly improved the city's economic health in the 1980s, New York's crime rate continued to increase through the decade and into the beginning of the 1990s.

The 1980s saw a rebirth of Wall Street, and Manhattan reclaimed its role at the center of the worldwide financial industry. The 1980s also saw Manhattan at the heart of the AIDS crisis, with Greenwich Village at its epicenter.

Year	Manhattan
†1900	1,850,093
1910	2,331,542
1920	2,284,103
1930	1,867,312
1940	1,889,924
1950	1,960,101
1960	1,698,281
1970	1,539,233
1980	1,428,285
1990	1,487,536
2000	1,537,195

Source: NYC.gov

By the 1990s crime rates started to drop dramatically due to revised police strategies, improving economic opportunities, gentrification, and new residents, both American transplants and new immigrants from Asia and Latin America. Murder rates that had reached 2,245 in 1990 plummeted to 537 by 2008, and the crack epidemic and its associated drug-related violence came under greater control. The outflow of population turned around, as the city once again became the destination of immigrants from around the world, joining with low interest rates and Wall Street bonuses to fuel the growth of the real estate market. 

Useful links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan
nyc.gov
https://www.britannica.com