South Street Seaport

Situated on Lower Manhattan’s waterfront with a breathtaking view, South Street Seaport is a must-see for anyone visiting New York City. It’s a combination maritime museum and mall, offering insight into New York’s rich maritime history and providing a great place for shopping and dining.

History

South Street Seaport is located on the site of what was once the busiest port in America. Fulton Street, at the neighborhood's center, was one of the most crowded streets in the city, 

Fulton Street

especially after a fish market opened here in 1821. A popular ferry service to Brooklyn also departed here.

MoMa

Affectionately known as MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City is often considered the most important museum of its kind in the world.

Background

New York’s famous Rockefeller family was 

Sculpture Garden

largely responsible for the creation of the Museum of Modern Art. The idea for the museum was proposed by Abby Aldrich Rockeller, wife of John D. Jr. She enlisted the help of two dear friends, Lillie Bliss and Mary Quinn Sullivan, and together the ladies succeeded in opening the first modern art museum just a few days after the stock market crash of 1929.

Fifth Avenue

New York's Fifth Avenue is best known as an unrivaled shopping street. Almost any upscale retailer has a prestigious store located at this street. However not all of Fifth Avenue is shopping-centric. Along Central Park Fifth Avenue becomes a more residential street with a large number of interesting museums.

Fifth Avenue starts just north of Washington Squareand goes all the way north up to 143rd street in Harlem. It is one of the world's most expensive streets, especially the area between 49th and 59th street where

Fifth Avenue

some of the most prestigious stores can be found.

Shop ‘Til you Drop

There are enough over-the-top shopping opportunities on Fifth Avenue to satisfy everyone’s taste. Women will love browsing and buying at stores like Bergdorf-Goodman, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Emanuel Ungaro, Gucci, Ferragamo, and Versace. Men can check out Bergdorf Men, Brooks Brothers, the NBA Store as well as the famous Apple Store.

Madison Square

Madison Square, located in the Flatiron district, is one of the historically most important squares in New York City. The attractive 19th century Madison Square Park is surrounded by historic landmarks from the Gilded Age, including the famous Flatiron building and the classical Metlife tower.

Madison Square

Manhattan's Shopping Paradise

The first decades after Madison Square Park was officially designed as a public space in 1847, Madison Square was mostly a residential area. From 1859 onwards, with the opening of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, the area started to become the center of New York's social life. Many major hotels moved into the area, followed by retailers and the entertainment industry.
At the turn of the 19th century, Madison square had become Manhattan's shopping paradise. Such was the concentration of shops that the section of Broadway between Union Square and Madison Square became known as the Ladies' Mile. Most of the retailers have long moved up town, but many of the buildings in the area have been preserved.

United Nations HQ

The headquarters of the U.N. in New York were developed by an international team of architects. The main building, the Secretariat, was one of the city's first towers in International Style.

The Plot

In 1946, the United Nations were looking for a location for their new headquarters in New York. The original plan was to use the grounds of the 1939 World Fair in 

UN Secretariat

Flushing Meadow Park in Queens. But when a project known as X-City on Manhattan's eastern border failed to materialize, John D. Rockefeller Jr. bought the 18 acre (7 ha) plot and donated it to United Nations. This site was then used to build the UN's headquarters. The whole area was converted into international territory and officially does not belong to the United States.

Woolworth Building

The Woolworth building, known as the 'Cathedral of Commerce', was the tallest tower in the world when built in 1913.

Frank Winfield Woolworth, the owner of the '5 and dime' Woolworth retail chain admired the gothic buildings in Europe, in particular the Houses of Parliament in London. 

When he needed a new office building for the headquarters of his company, he asked Cass Gilbert to build a gothic tower with plenty of windows. Gilbert, who had studied in Europe, designed a U-shaped skyscraper with a steel frame and gothic ornamentation.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

With more than two million works of art spanning thousands of years, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the most expansive and prolific art museums in the world and it should be on everyone’s New York to-do list.

Its Beginnings

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 by a group of New York citizens including not only wealthy businessmen but also artists and philosophers who wanted to share their love of art with the masses. A collection owned by railroad tycoon John Taylor Johnston seeded the museum, which quickly outgrew its original location on Fifth Avenue.

Rockefeller Center

Rockefeller Center, originally known as Radio City is a complex of buildings developed in the midst of the Great Depression. Initially the complex consisted of 14 buildings, the 70 story RCA building being the tallest.

Metropolitan Opera

The area where the Rockefeller Center is located was originally planned as the new location for the Metropolitan Opera. At the time the area, situated between 48th and 51st streets and Fifth and Sixth avenues was a red-light district owned by Columbia University. 

View from
Empire State Building

John D. Rockefeller Jr. leased the area on behalf of the Metropolitan Opera, also referred to as 'the Met'.

The design of the complex was created by the American architect Benjamin Wistar Morris. His plan, influenced by the Grand Central Terminal Complex included a landscaped garden and a monumental Opera House as well as tall office towers, shops and terraces. The buildings would be connected by an series of bridges and walkways.

Grand Central Terminal

Grand Central Terminal is one of two monumental gateways that were built in New York in the heyday of railway transportation.

Grand Central Terminal

The monumental railway station was constructed in 1903-1913 for the New York and Harlem Railroad company. It is a grand Beaux-Arts building which serves as a transportation hub connecting train, metro, car and pedestrian traffic in an efficient way. It has 67 train tracks on two different levels.

Chrysler Building

At the beginning of the 20th century, the race for the tallest building in the world started and the Chrysler Building was the first building to top the then tallest structure, the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Chrysler Building

New York would keep the tallest building in the world until 1974, when the Sears Tower was built in Chicago.

A race for the tallest building

For Walter P. Chrysler, from the car manufacturer, building the tallest building in the world was a status symbol. The Chrysler building was in a race with the Bank of Manhattan (now40 Wall Street) for obtaining the title of tallest building in the world. It looked like the Bank of Manhattan would win the race, with an expected height of 282 meter (927ft) against around 230 meter for the Chrysler building. But the spire of the Chrysler building was constructed in secret inside the tower.

Times Square

Times Square, the most bustling square of New York is known for its many Broadway theatres, cinemas and supersigns. It is one of those places that make New York a city that never sleeps.

History

Times Square

At the end of the 19th century, New York City had expanded up to 42nd street and the area was becoming the center of the city's social scene. In 1904, the New York Times built the Times Tower on 43rd street just off Broadway to replace the premises in Downtown. The square facing the building was called the Longacre square, but was soon renamed Times Square. The name is now used for the area between 40th and 53rd street and 6th and 9th avenue.

Central Park

Central Park is one of those places that make New York such a great place to live. The huge park, 843 acres large (341 ha), is located in the center of Manhattan. Its design is an example for city parks around the world.

The park boasts several lakes, theaters, ice rinks, fountains, tennis courts, baseball fields, many playgrounds and other facilities. It is also home to the Central Park Zoo and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Especially during the weekends, when cars are not allowed into the park, Central Park is a welcome oasis in this hectic city.

Empire State Building

More than any other building in the world, the Empire State Building represents the ambition of humans to build towers that reach for the skies. It probably is New York's best known building and is prominent on many postcards.

Empire State Building

The Empire State Building also features in many films, but the film that made it even more famous then it already was, was the classic King Kong in 1933. Even today, though the building has been stripped from its title of the world's tallest building, it is a symbol of New York itself visited by 2 million people each year.

Statue of Liberty

For the many immigrants that flocked from Europe to New York, the Statue of Liberty was the first image they saw of the USA. The statue was a gift from the French government for the 100th birthday of America's Independence.

Statue of Liberty

Design

The statue was designed by a young French sculptor, Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, who was striving to build a statue like the great Colossus that once stood at the Greek island Rhodes.

The statue's face was modeled after his mother's and the story goes that the body was modeled after a prostitute.
The crown of Lady Liberty, as the statue is often affectionately called, has seven spikes, symbolizing the Seven Seas across which liberty should be spread. In her left hand she holds a tablet with the Declaration of Independence and in her right hand a torch, symbolizing Enlightenment.

Brooklyn Bridge

The Brooklyn Bridge, built between 1869 and 1883, connects Manhattan with New York's most populous borough, Brooklyn, at the time one of the country's largest cities. The bridge is one of the most magnificent landmarks in New York.

Construction

The construction of the Brooklyn Bridge started in 1869 and took 14 years to complete. 

Brooklyn Bridge

At the time many saw the construction of such a large bridge as a folly.

The driving force behind the whole project, John Roebling, was a German immigrant who had worked for the Prussian government as a bridge and road builder. He launched the idea of building a bridge across the East River after he had taken a ferry across the river that ended up stuck in the ice.
John Roebling would never get to see the bridge he had designed: he died after crushing his foot in an accident. He wasn't the only one to lose his life during the construction: 20 of the in total 600 workers died while working on the bridge. The son of John Roebling, Washington Roebling, took over the leadership of the project but he suffered from the caisson-disease as a result of the works on the pillars of the bridge and was on his deathbed during the inauguration. 

Brooklyn Bridge Tower

That day, May 24, 1883, about 150,000 people crossed the bridge.