Talk:New York City/Archive 10

Template:WP1.0 Template:FAOL  It has been decided that New York City should remain at that name and not at New York, New York. For the discussion that led to this decision see archive 2 and the additional comments in a section of Archive 5.

Archives
Archive 1	Archive 2 (Title of article)
Archive 3	Archive 4
Archive 5	Archive 6
Archive 7	Archive 8

Semi Protect

Since the article is featured and of good quality; can we possibly semi-protect the article to registered users? While New York is a famous city, it is also one of the most hated! I see that the article on the greater New York State has already been protected.

Sourcing and other issues

• "New York City has the highest population density of any major North American city." Neither source says anything about density, let alone "highest". Union City, New Jersey across the Hudson is denser, but I agree it's not a "major" city. A source needs to be identified to support this fact, even if it is almost certainly true.
• "He [Hudson] discovered Manhattan Island on September 11, 1609, and continued up the river that bears his name, the Hudson River, until he arrived at the site where New York State's capital city, Albany, now stands. His aim to find a route to China had failed but what he had discovered was something even better, the largest natural harbor in the New World on the island of Manhattan and the third largest in the entire world." - sources are available in Manhattan article.
• "In 1664, the British conquered the city, and there by uniting their colonies in Massachusetts and Virginia and renamed the city, "New York" after the English Duke of York, the heir to the throne." I assume "thereby" is intended, but the sentence needs to be restructured to make grammatical sense.
• The 1754-1790 paragraph is unsourced, with the exception of a reference for Washington's first inaugural speech.
• "The Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which created a rational street grid to encompass most of Manhattan, helped guide expansion of the city." By what sense is "rational" meant?
• Sources needed for Central Park and Tammany Hall.
• That "Eleven black men were lynched over a five day period" in the draft riots is indeed noteworthy, but reliable sources claim over 100 more deaths. (see Ward, Geoffrey C. "Gangs of New York", a review of Paradise Alley by Kevin Baker, The New York Times, October 6, 2002.)
• Sources should be provided re 1898 consolidation and the event probably deserves a bit more detail.
• "most populous city in the world in 1925, overtaking London" needs a source. I have been unable to find one that matches the date and description in the article.
• The period from 1960-2000 is unsourced.
• The second paragraph cites "an area of 322 square miles (830 km²)" while geography says "The city's land area is 321 mi² (831.4 km²)."
• The lead sentence in the Environment section, "Environmental concerns in the city involve managing its extraordinary population density." requires elaboration.
• "Surrounded mostly by water, New York's residential density and high real estate values in commercial districts saw the city amass the largest collection of individual, free-standing office and residential towers in the world." is not supported by the Emporis source provided.
• "Wealthy industrialists in the 19th century built a network of major cultural institutions, such as the famed Carnegie Hall and Metropolitan Museum of Art, that would become internationally established." What does "internationally established" mean?
• Detail re history of Broadway and the Broadway musical needs to be sourced.
• "The city is also home to many of the finest haute cuisine restaurants in the United States." is not supported by the source provided.
• All four major sports headquarters are in NYC, but only two are mentioned.
• Jets and Giants are in New Jersey now, but fact that they previously played in New York City should be mentioned.
• Islanders would seem to have no connection to New York City.
• Stickball article cites "Italian, Jewish and Irish youths" as source, this article says "youths in working class Puerto Rican, Italian, and Irish neighborhoods". Neither has any source.
• "Three of the "Big Four" record labels are also based in the city." is unsourced. The World music market article linked from "Big Four"cites Universal Music Group (France based), Sony BMG Music Entertainment, inc. (Japan/Germany based), Warner Music Group (USA based) and EMI Group (UK based), which would seem 1 of 4.
• No source provided for "Public access television originated in the city in 1968." See comparable statement in Manhattan article for a source.
• "High-tech industries like bioscience, software development, game design, and Internet services are also growing due to its position at the terminus of the transatlantic fiber optic trunk line in New York City." has a dead link. It's not clear why the growth of all of these industries would be caused by the presence of this terminus".
• "The city has an extremely high population density of 26,403 people per square mile (10,194/km²), about 10,000 more people per square mile than the next densest American city, San Francisco." The source provided shows SF as fifth densest. And a definition needs to be selected that excludes Union City, New Jersey, which is a more densely-populated city.
• Members of the are New York City Council are described as both "councillors" and "councilors", neither of which seems to be in use here.
• "The city's public school system, managed by the New York City Department of Education, is the largest in the United States." requires a source, as does "Public postsecondary education is provided by the City University of New York, the nation's third-largest public university system"

I will do my best to address as many of these issues as I can. Alansohn 20:27, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

My apologies for not getting through all these yet. Can you please point out which still need to be addressed? --Aude (talk) 14:13, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

population density comparison in intro

The statement saying New York City has the highest population density outside California is misleading. The sentence starts out by stating the population and area of New York City proper then cites a source that compares population density rankings of urban areas. We shuld decide which statistical unit to use for population density comparisons and clarify that. For city proper, it is true that New York City has the highest population density for "major" cities. (There are many smaller places that have a higher density). --Polaron | Talk 13:34, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Please provide a source that ranks cities by population density. Or we can omit it entirely from the intro, which is plenty long enough. --Aude (talk) 13:55, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The raw census numbers for incorporated places are insufficient? All I'm saying is that if you want to use urban area rankings, make it clear that you are talking about urban areas and not the city proper by using the urban area population and surface area instead of the city proper data. If you want to use city proper rankings, this is a possible source. --Polaron | Talk 14:05, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Here's what I found from the Census Bureau... The comparison table United States -- Places and (in selected states) County Subdivisions with 50,000 or More Population; and for Puerto Rico lists all places with more than 50,000 people, in descending order by population (not density). This includes cities, but also many other places (including Townships and CDPs), as well as all five boroughs of New York City. Ignoring the boroughs, New York City's denisty of 26,402.9 per square mile ranks second on this list to Union City, New Jersey's density of 52,977.8 for its 67,088 residents. As long as we use this source, we can reliably and verifiably say "New York City has the highest population density of all municipalities in the United States with more than 100,000 people." To find this data set, go to American Fact Finder at the Census Bureau web site and:

• Select Data Sets from the left navigation menu on the AFF main page.
• Select Decennial Census.
• Choose a Census 2000 Summary File.
• Choose the table format--Geographic Comparison Tables
• Select United States--Places and (in selected states) County Subdivisions with 50,000 or more population and Puerto Rico.
• Select a GCT table from the list.
• Click Show Result.

This bypasses the whole issue of city vs. metro area, and creates a category where New York City does rank higher than Union City. For that matter, any cutoff above 100,000 would accomplish the same goal. Alansohn 14:24, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The American Fact Finder link works. It would be a more reliable source than Demographia. --Aude (talk) 14:34, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Lead text

Hi guys - I've been a long time editor of this article and after having taken a break for a bit I'm thrilled to come back and see that it's received FA status.

However, I have three complaints about the bloated intro: first, it repeats many details that are found elsewhere in the article and are not vital in providing a "concise overview" that "summarizes the most important points" as the WP manual of style calls for; second, it is too long (taking away valuable space for the article's other major sections); third, it contains vague assertions that aren't sourced and aren't particularly revealing.

Other FA city articles, such as San Francisco, have intros consisting of three concise paragraphs. There is no listing of who's mayor, what bridges are in the city, or vague assertions that the city has experienced "celebrations" and "tragic times" (what city hasn't?).

My proposal for the intro reads like this:

New York City (officially The City of New York) is the largest city in the United States, and one of the world’s leading business, financial and cultural centers. Located in southern New York State, the city is a major venue for international diplomacy and the home of the United Nations.

Five boroughs comprise the city: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. About 8.2 million people live within the city’s 322 square miles (830 km²), making New York City the most densely populated major city in North America. The New York metropolitan area, with a population of 18.8 million, is the third most populated urban region in the world.

New York City has been the birthplace of many American cultural movements, including the Harlem Renaissance in literature and visual art, abstract expressionism in painting, and hip hop in music. Since its founding by Dutch colonists in 1625 the city has been a major immigration gateway to North America. In 2005, nearly 170 languages were spoken in the city and 36 percent of its population was foreign born.

Momos 01:48, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree that a more concise intro is needed; however, this needs to be balanced with the fact that several FA votes switched to support because of my longer (and admittedly a bit cumbersome) intro, and to switch it back to the short one now after receiving FA status is a bit off. --Golbez 11:31, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Unorthodox?

It seems that every article on every American city I come across is followed by the name of the state including the cities that have the name of the state in them already (e.g. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Florida City, Florida, etc.). For some reason, there is an exception here. Any reason for this? Reginmund 01:15, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

See previous discussion in Archive 2 and Archive 5. --Aude (talk) 01:21, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Please, insert a new external link

Will you please insert the following external link. Is the New York Business Directory http://www.directoriodeempresas.net/nydirectory.html VictorFRodriguez 11:59, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Boroughs and Counties are coterminous

A recent edit claimed that Manhattan and New York County are not coterminous ("having matching boundaries"), as a portion of Manhattan is really part of the Bronx. Marble Hill, Manhattan, while now physically connected to the Bronx and seemingly disconnected from Manhattan, is indeed part of the Borough of Manhattan / New York County. All five borough/county pairs are fully coterminous. The status of Marble Hill as an integral part of Manhattan / New York County is covered in the neighborhood article, which includes a reliable source from The New York Times to document this. Alansohn 13:52, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Crime

By including this, "Among the 182 U.S. cities with populations of more than 100,000, New York City ranked 136th in overall crime (with about the same crime rate as Boise, Idaho)." along with reordering the crime section, I think NPOV is lost. The section now over emphasizes the low crime rate, saying it numerous times (lowest crime rate of the ten largest cities, same crime rates as Boise, crime has dropped over the past 12 years, crime is at the lowest level since 1963. I think readers get it without saying the same thing over and over again. This section needs to be a WP:SUMMARY, with details in the subarticle. I'm also not sure about the reorder of the section, but might accept it if we can tone down the section with fewer statistics. --Aude (talk) 03:28, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

-- I don't see how statistics can erode NPOV, since they are actually far more objective than the statements on the city's relation to organized crime and gangs which is mostly the product of the media. Comparative statistics should definitely be at the beginning of the section, with some historical background behind it. I did delete one sentence that merely repeated another, but otherwise I don't find the section repetitive at all. Relatively speaking, the presence of gangs and the mafia have been a very minor part of crime in the city's history. --Jleon 03:37, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Gangs and organized crime, a product of the media? actually it's referenced to a book by a criminologists and a police officer which talks about crime throughout NYC history. Gangs and organized crime during the 1800s and early 1900s were not a "very minor part of crime". It's important to bring a historic perspective and talk about crime through out NYC history. Not just recent years. On the other hand, sources like theinsider.com are not exactly reliable sources. If we are to include statistics, at least the sources could be more reliable. --Aude (talk) 04:11, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

--The vast majority of crimes do not have, and never had, anything to do with gangs. Therefore it is true that they are relatively minor. Their importance is mostly in the drama and excitement of the stories. Do you really think the book you mention would have sold as many copies if it was about mundane pick-pocketing or domestic violence? Also, a subsection titled "Crime" within the "Government" section should really focus on the modern day situtation, and leave the crime history to the appropriate "History" section. --Jleon 12:24, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

If gangs were "very minor", why does the NYPD currently devote 300 officers to its Gang Division. [1] And, that's with gang violence at lower levels today. And, the NYPD worked with the FBI in the late 1980s and early 1990s in the FBI-NYPD Joint Organized Crime Task. Why bother if organized crime was "very minor". These were important priorities of the NYPD because they were significant problems. They need mention and help give the crime section a broader picture of crime in New York City, which is discussed in more detail in the subarticle. (which will be expanded) Per WP:SUMMARY, we need to summarize the topic in the main article and not just talk about one aspect (current crime statistics). --Aude (talk) 14:10, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

--You just proved my point: 300 officers out of 37,000 is extremely minor indeed. I would appreciate some other viewpoints on this before you start cutting the material in question. It's really a mystery to me as to why you choose to make such a big deal over someone adding a few important statistics to the article. --Jleon 14:49, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Is it not true that "Organized crime has long been associated with New York City"? I'm simply looking for balance between current crime statistics and providing historical context and summary. And whatever crime statistics we do include must be cited to reliable sources. --Aude (talk) 15:21, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

My main objection during the FAC was "Yes, we know NYC is important, but think the lead section goes overboard on telling readers how important and great NYC is. I see this in other places in the article. The article needs to be neutral and be more modest in this respect, so that it reads less like something written by the NYC Visitors & Convention Bureau." I think the article has improved drastically in that regard. And, yes the low crime rate is true. But don't need to repeatedly say that with various statistics. The source you just provided is a good one, and maybe a better statistic than the first one "lowest crime rate of the ten largest cities" to make the point. --Aude (talk) 15:27, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

--I cut the "safest of the 10 largest" statement, I hope the issue can be put to rest now. --Jleon 15:37, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

That's much better. Details can certainly go in the sub-article. Thanks. --Aude (talk) 15:44, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Intro

I'm all for improving the intro, but per WP:LEAD, it needs to be a summary of what's in the article. History is part of the article and needs to be mentioned in the intro. It can be mentioned more concisely, but should go somewhere in the intro. --Aude (talk) 03:30, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

-As it is right now, history is still mentioned in the intro. I merely trimmed it down since it is explored in depth in the very first section of the article. --Jleon 03:47, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Please keep in mind the oppose by User:Jayron32 in the FAC, who had issue with the lead. A shorter lead is fine, but in chopping out two paragraphs, I'm not sure it summarizes the article as well, such as transportation not mentioned. --Aude (talk) 04:16, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Named after the Duke of York

Surely New York is named after the English city of York which the Duke of York was Duke of and not the Duke himself.

James, the Duke of York and Albany was the brother of King Charles II. The King granted the his brother the colony, which was named for the Duke. Here are some sources I found:

• New York, named for the Duke of York, the original grantee. - The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States by Henry Gannett [2]
• It was named in 1664 in honor of the Duke of York and Albany - [3] --Aude (talk)

9/11 Picture Captions

9/11 is very important to NYC, and it absolutely deserves a place in the article. But as momentous as 9/11 was, it's still just a part of the city's history -- an important and recent part, but I felt that the number of mentions in picture captions was awkward and disproportionate. I'll sum up my changes:

• I deleted the big picture of the Twin Towers. There was no clear reference to 9/11, but a large picture of the Twin Towers clearly evokes memory of it. This was in the Geography section.
• Moved the Manhattan view with the Twin Towers and Statute of Liberty. A better "geography" photo as it has two NYC landmarks, and also a better "history" picture as the caption explicitly mentions 9/11. As such, I placed it beside those two sections.
• Deleted the 9/11 reference from the photo of the Village Halloween Parade. I wouldn't be opposed to reverting this one, but it seemed out of place and awkward in the "culture" section. Other opinions welcome. SpiderMMB 08:23, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

--I'm OK with it, but I was wondering why you made the history and geography pics so much bigger than the rest of the article? --Jleon 12:45, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Adding pictures

Is it reasonable to just add a picture to this article? Here's one I made.

What do you think?Slofstra 21:46, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Gotham

Anyone know where the name "Gotham City" came from?

Read Gotham City; the name 'Gotham' has been associated with New York since the 19th century. --Golbez 00:12, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Read Gotham: A History of New York City until 1898. According to that, Washington Irving popularized the term. Gotham comes from a hamlet in England.

Conquered by the English

My understanding was that although the British occupied it illegally starting in 1664, they never actually succeeded in "conquoring" New Amsterdam. To me conquoring implies taking (and holding) by force. Officially, the island of Manhattan was granted to the British as part of the 1667 Treaty of Breda which ended the second Anglo-Dutch War. In return for Manhattan (which was considered to be virtually worthless at the time), the British granted the island of Run (one of the Banda Islands in Indonesia which were at the time the only source of Nutmeg in the world - an EXTREMELY valuable commodity in the mid-17th century - and solidified the Dutch monopoly on the spice). This is briefly outlined in the Nutmeg article. Other sources could probably be found (although I don't have them in front of me). Any objections to adding/modifying this info? Especially looking for feedback regarding the removal of the "conquored" label.--ZoQuo 03:51, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The English (they werent British at the time, that occured more than 50 years later, and if its British in the article that needs to change) sent warships to occupy the city and a fight would have occured if Stuyvesant had his way, but the local businessmen threatened him and forced a surrender. It was a war, warships involved, official surrender, peace treaty. Sounds like a conquering to me.Camelbinky 15:10, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Removed "alpha world cities" phrase

I just removed a phrase in the intro paragraph saying New York was at the top tier of "Alpha World cities". This odd phrase yields only 1,030 non-WP Google hits, presumably because it is a term that a university in the UK is trying to popularize, but hasn't yet. Since the phrase will yield only "What's that?" comments, because it had no utility, since its insertion was just an attempt to promote the phrase, and because New York needs no further superlatives, I removed the phrase, along with a citation to a PDF file that did not actually contain the phrase. Tempshill 00:09, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

The phrase "alpha world cities" only returns 2600 hits on google, but the phrase "world cities" gives over a million. The Alpha part is merely to distinguish it as the highest tier of world cities -- no offense, you can't put most of the other world cities (such as Beta cities Moscow and San Francisco and Gamma cities Jakarta and Minneapolis) on the same tier as NYC. There's a reason why a whopping 47% of americans think of NYC as "The City"! FYI, Chicago is second with a measly 4.5%. -- DragonAtma

I think the article can express this just find without using the term 'alpha world city'. --Golbez 16:23, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

cityscapes section

I think the 'cityscapes' section should be at the end of the article, thats where most galleries are located...for instance Tokyo.

Bug in the coordinates

On the very top of the page, I can read "Coordinates: York City ...".

The "New" is lost in the linked URL (http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/geo/geohack.php?params=40.71_N_-74.00_E_New)

Too Many Pictures

Does anyone else feel that this article suffers from an overabundance of pictures? The entire article is unusually crowded with them, and it also seems to me that the pictures on the page seem to change every time I come back.

A consensus should be reached as to which pictures should be used. I think the biggest problem in the "revolving pictures" is that people are worried about underrepresented boroughs. That's totally understandable -- but let's get rid of the pictures that are unnecssary. We don't need two pictures of midtown Manhattan right next to each other, or three panaromics of the NYC citiscape. SpiderMMB 22:36, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

--I agree, the quality of the pictures is also a major issue. It seems some people are insisting on their own photos regardless of them being grainy, poorly lighted, and poorly framed. I think there should be at least 1 picture of each boro, and an honest attempt to represent the major landmarks (Times Square, Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, etc) while not repeating similar images. --Jleon 13:17, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

The majority of images is oversized and needs cut down. Lear 21 10:06, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Sister Cities

Rome is listed as a sister city to New York, but on the Rome article and the Paris article it says:

Paris, France is Rome's only sister city (Seule Paris est digne de Rome; seule Rome est digne de Paris / Solo Parigi è degna di Roma; solo Roma è degna di Parigi / Only Paris is worthy of Rome; only Rome is worthy of Paris).

New York City clearly thinks it is a sister city of Rome. See the following from the official NYC web site:

http://home2.nyc.gov/html/unccp/scp/html/sc/main.shtml

The Rome article seems to make a distinction between "twin" or "sister" cities and "partner" cities. Perhaps NYC does not make such a distinction but Rome does? --Nomenclaturist 18:16, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Sister Cities section -- lockable?

Can the "sister cities" section of this article be locked, or at least restricted to allow edits only by registered users? Every few days, I find that a different (usually anonymous) user has changed the "sister cities" list. Generally speaking, it seems that people are adding cities to this list not out of any confusion as to what cities belong there -- it's accurately sourced and laid out in the header of the section -- but because they want to promote their favorite city. Considering that the information is basically static, and that changes to this section are overwhelmingly composed of these kinds of bad edits, locking or restricting this section would cut down on the constant reverting necessary to keep this section accurate. Best, -- Docether 16:36, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure if that is technically possible. I took down the flag icons from the section as they added nothing. If anyone wants to restore them, please cite an encyclopedic reason. Best wishes, --John 16:47, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Englisch conquest

New York was not conquered by the Englisch. It was traded with the Dutch for Suriname a.o.

Only FIT?

FIT isn't the only SUNY in NYC In addition to FIT, Downstate Medical, Optometry and Maritime are all within the 5 boroughs. dsemaya 06:16, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Boroughs map

An editor replaced the boroughs map with a new one. Unfortunately, while the old map was legible at a small size (since its labels were in a separate legend box), the new map (with floating in-graphic labels) was not. This meant that the new map had to be quite large to be correctly laid out, which tended to overpower the page. In any case, the new map was virtually identical to the previous one and offered no real new content, so I've reverted to the old map. Best, -- Docether 13:47, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Hispanic-White, Mixed Race, Etc

One way to make the article better is to have better racial classification systems in place. I would prefer the simply "white" be used in the chart, instead of white-non hispanic. Some Hispanic are from Spain in Europe, while others prefer to use the white classification. In addition, the black catagory includes black hispanics, and people who are mixed race, 80% of whom are partially white, are denied this part of their hertiage in the tabulation of city (and national) census data. Also missing are the people of two or more races, even though this is a census catagory. A good OP-ED piece appeared in the New York Times on May 8, 2001 on this matter, which serves to fan racial and ethnic tensions. It was written by Harvard University sociologist Orlando Paterson and was called "Race by the Numbers". Also, the ethnic group "carribean" is not an offically recognized census ethnic group, so unless there is another one, the Irish have to be moved into the top 5.

Wikipedia disambiguates West Indian to Caribbean. This doesn't mean that the "West Indian" group in the the cited reference doesn't exist; rather, it means that we should do a better job of making the disambiguation explicit on this page. I attempted to do this with my own edit, which reverted your changes. Please check the cited source; I've edited the link in the article to point directly to it, rather than to an index page.

Your comment about the use of "White (non-Hispanic)" in the census data table is interesting, because it shows just how many different categories of racial distinctions are available in the Census Bureau's data (spoiler : quite a lot, including both "White" and "White (non-Hispanic)"). Looking at the cited sources on this page (and on the Demographics of New York City page), I'm not sure why we're using one categorization over another -- what we need is an authoritative source that can tell us which racial divisions, per the Census Bureau, are appropriate for an overview such as this one. I suspect that a demographer would use "White" and "White (non-Hispanic)" preferentially in different contexts, and one is more useful for general overviews such as this. As I'm not a demographer, I can't say which one should be used here. However, personal preference isn't a good reason for changing this. Let's look for authoritative sources (Census Bureau outreach / publication guidelines, rather than op-ed pieces) and find out. A good place to start might be the Census Bureau's American Community Survey homepage.

Best, -- Docether 21:02, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The Post recently released an article on Cenus Demographics http://www.nypost.com/seven/08102007/news/regionalnews/the_white_lie_regionalnews_bill_sanderson.htm This is a news article--rock2003

The issue is the there are a lot of ways to crunch the census to bring about different results. There is no real authoritive way to do it, as far as I know. -rock