Facts About New York City
Facts About New York City
Interesting facts about New York City. All you have to do is whip out your map of New York, put on your hiking shoes, have some money in your wallet, and move on into discovery.
Well, one of the really exciting facts about NYC involves visiting Wall Street. Yes, get out that map of New York and take a trip to the world's most famous place of wheeling and dealing. Wall Street's had some dark clouds hanging over it of late, but in fact it used to be the city limits of the entire city, back when the Dutch still controlled it.
And, why is it named Wall Street? Why, there used to be a wall there, demarcating the border. Speaking of Wall Street, there are vaults situated 80 feet underneath the Federal Reserve Bank on Wall Street--and more than one-quarter of the world's gold bullion is stored there.
If you hail a cab to take you around to the sights and sounds of the city, you'll come up against another one of the most interesting facts about New York City. Have you ever wondered about why Yellow Cabs are yellow? It seems that the company's founder, Mr. John Hertz, had read that yellow is the easiest color for the eye to pick out of a crowd of moving objects.
Now, when you're looking at that map of New York, let it lead your eye to where the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is depicted on the map. This bridge is 4260 feet long. This bridge is so long that the end-towers were deliberately built a few inches off parallel to allow for the curvature of the Earth.
Have you ever heard of the “Manhattanhenge”? Well, on approximately May 28th and July 12th every year, the sunset is directly aligned with the Manhattan street grid pattern, so that the sun will be viewed as setting precisely over the center line of each and every Manhattan street. The same thing happens every year on two days out of the Winter as well, although few people pay attention then (it's too cold to care!).
New York City has certainly changed dramatically since the 17th century when windmills dominated the skyline, and not a single black American lived in Harlem.
If you follow your map of New York and let it lead you all around the city, these and many more interesting, fascinating facts about New York City will come alive for you. There's no reason why you can't set off on your grand adventure to the city that never sleeps, the largest city in North America, today.
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