New York is a global center of finance[11] and commerce, culture, technology,[12] entertainment and media, academics and scientific output,[13] the arts and fashion, and, as home to the headquarters of the United Nations, international diplomacy.

[37] James's elder brother, King Charles II, appointed him proprietor of the former territory of New Netherland, including the city of New Amsterdam, when the Kingdom of England seized it from Dutch control.

The first non–Native American inhabitant of what became New York City was Juan Rodriguez, a merchant from Santo Domingo who arrived in Manhattan during the winter of 1613–14, trapping for pelts and trading with the local population as a representative of the Dutch.

[47][48] The colony of New Amsterdam extended from the southern tip of Manhattan to modern-day Wall Street, where a 12-foot (3.7 m) wooden stockade was built in 1653 to protect against Native American and English raids.

He instituted regulations on liquor sales, attempted to assert control over the Dutch Reformed Church, and blocked other religious groups from establishing houses of worship.

[74] The 1735 trial and acquittal in Manhattan of John Peter Zenger, who had been accused of seditious libel after criticizing colonial governor William Cosby, helped to establish freedom of the press in North America.

[76] The Stamp Act Congress met in New York in October 1765, as the Sons of Liberty organization emerged in the city and skirmished over the next ten years with British troops stationed there.

[84] The attempt at a peaceful solution to the war took place at the Conference House on Staten Island between American delegates, including Benjamin Franklin, and British general Lord Howe on September 11, 1776.

The 1825 completion of the Erie Canal through central New York connected the Atlantic port to the agricultural markets and commodities of the North American interior via the Hudson River and the Great Lakes.

[102] Several prominent American literary figures lived in New York during the 1830s and 1840s, including William Cullen Bryant, Washington Irving, Herman Melville, Rufus Wilmot Griswold, John Keese, Nathaniel Parker Willis, and Edgar Allan Poe.

[95] Anger at new military conscription laws during the American Civil War (1861–1865), which spared wealthier men who could afford to hire a substitute, led to the Draft Riots of 1863, whose most visible participants were ethnic Irish working class.

The statue welcomed 14 million immigrants as they arrived via Ellis Island by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and is a symbol of the United States and American ideals of liberty and peace.

[141] Two of the four hijacked airliners were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, resulting in the collapse of both buildings and the deaths of 2,753 people, including 343 first responders from the New York City Fire Department and 71 law enforcement officers.

[197] Nighttime temperatures are 9.5 °F (5.3 °C) degrees higher for the average city resident due to the urban heat island effect, caused by paved streets and tall buildings.

[208] The storm and its profound impacts have prompted the discussion of constructing seawalls and other coastal barriers around the shorelines of the city and the metropolitan area to minimize the risk of destructive consequences from another such event in the future.

Governors Island is planned to host a US$1 billion research and education center to make New York City the global leader in addressing the climate crisis.

New York's high rate of public transit use, more than 610,000 daily cycling trips as of 2022[update],[224] and many pedestrian commuters make it the most energy-efficient major city in the United States.

The New York region continues to be by far the leading metropolitan gateway for legal immigrants admitted into the United States, substantially exceeding the combined totals of Los Angeles and Miami.

[252] According to 2022 estimates from the American Community Survey, the largest self-reported ancestries in New York City were Dominican (8.7%), Chinese (7.5%), Puerto Rican (6.9%), Italian (5.5%), Mexican (4.4%), Irish (4.4%), Asian Indian (3.1%), German (2.9%), Jamaican (2.4%), Ecuadorian (2.3%), English (2.1%), Polish (1.9%), Russian (1.7%), Arab (1.4%), Haitian (1.4%), Guyanese (1.3%), Filipino (1.1%), and Korean (1.1%).

[379][380][381][382] The city is the birthplace of many cultural movements, including the Harlem Renaissance in literature and visual art;[383][384] abstract expressionism (known as the New York School) in painting; and hip-hop,[190][385] punk,[386] hardcore,[387] salsa, freestyle, Tin Pan Alley, certain forms of jazz,[388] and (along with Philadelphia) disco in music.

[409] The traditional New York area speech pattern is known for its rapid delivery, and its accent is characterized as non-rhotic so that the sound [ɹ] does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant, therefore the pronunciation of the city name as "New Yawk".

[415] The character of New York's large residential districts is often defined by the elegant brownstone rowhouses and townhouses and shabby tenements that were built during a period of rapid expansion from 1870 to 1930.

In neighborhoods such as Riverdale (in the Bronx), Ditmas Park (in Brooklyn), and Douglaston (in Queens), large single-family homes are common in various architectural styles such as Tudor Revival and Victorian.

Ticker-tape parades celebrating championships won by sports teams as well as other accomplishments march northward along the Canyon of Heroes on Broadway from Bowling Green to City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan.

[496] HHC operates eleven acute-care hospitals, four skilled nursing facilities, six diagnostic and treatment centers, and more than 70 community-based primary care sites, serving primarily the city's poor and working-class residents.

[512] The NYPD's stop-and-frisk program was declared unconstitutional in 2013 as a "policy of indirect racial profiling" of Black and Mixed residents,[513] although claims of disparate impact continued in subsequent years.

[569] New York City has mixed cycling conditions which include urban density, relatively flat terrain, congested roadways with stop-and-go traffic, and many pedestrians.

[570][571] Congestion pricing in New York City was activated in January 2025, applying to most motor vehicular traffic using the area of Manhattan south of 60th Street, in an effort to encourage commuters to use rapid transit instead.

[572] Unlike the rest of the country, New York State prohibits turns on red lights in cities with a population greater than one million, to reduce collisions and increase pedestrian safety.

[582] The tunnel was built instead of a bridge to allow unfettered passage of large passenger and cargo ships that sailed through New York Harbor and up the Hudson River to Manhattan's piers.