New York City Skyline - Best of Scenic USA

     Possessing one of the most famous skylines in the world, the New York City metropolitan area sets the record of being the most populous city in America. Known by a handful of nicknames, including Big Apple, Gotham and The City That Never Sleeps, New York City is made up of five boroughs. Easy to imagine, the city spills way beyond its borders of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island, covering 5 area codes, dozens of zip codes and 6700 square miles.
     First discovered in 1524 by the Florentine explorer, Giovanni da Verrazano, the first European settlers arrived in Manhattan with the Dutch colonial leader, Peter Minuit. New Amsterdam was surrendered to the English in 1664, taking on the name New York.
     Today’s New York City, iconified as the Capital of The World, greets it visitors with the most famous island landmark, the Statue of Liberty. A gift to the United States from France in 1886, the Statue of Liberty welcomed millions of immigrants as they arrived from Europe during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Other famous landmarks included the most famous skyscraper, named after the state's nickname, the Empire State Building. Other top vote getting landmarks include the Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park, Times Square, the Chrysler Building (one of NYC’s tallest skyscrapers) and Rockefeller Center - from which this twilight view was captured. It's unfortunate that since September 11, 2001, the city is well remembered for a brutal terrorist attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. The World Trade Center Ground Zero Memorial honors those 2979 people that died in this attack.
     Despite this cowardly incident, the city's 22 million residents were able to carry on. Saddled with crippling losses in the billions over Lower Manhattan’s financial district, today new office towers are restoring its place as one of the leading business districts. Wall Street still serves the world with the largest stock exchange. And city residents, speaking more than 800 languages, continue to join the bustle of The Big Apple 24 hours a day.

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