Overview

I Heart New York!

Start spreading the news

I'm leaving today

I want to be a part of it, New York, New York

These vagabond shoes

Are longing to stray

And make a brand new start of it

New York, New York

I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps

To find I'm king of the hill, top of the heap

…thus sang Frank Sinatra in his ode to one of the biggest cities in the world. The lyrics still hold true for thousands of immigrants who make their way to the city from everywhere in the world because New York truly is the only place in the world where dreams can come true to life.

Everything about NY is dazzling, famous and coveted. Whether it is the city’s wildly famous boroughs of The Bronx, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island or the iconic Statue of Liberty, New York rings a bell for everybody. If the Wall Street keeps the ‘Suits’ in a tizzy, the city’s famed nightlife seduces the young and old by truck loads. The world gushes about the Empire State Building and saddens at the destruction of the WTC Towers. There is nothing that happens in New York and does not make the globe sit up and take notice.

Thousands of tourists make their way to the JFK Airport every year and each one has a separate agenda – monument and museum chase, the Tribeca Festival, The New York Fashion Week, shopping at Madison Avenue or a wish to make their dreams come true. Connected to nearly every capital in the world, New York is not just a place – it is a dynamic event that palpitates like the heart of the globe.

Get the skinny on the world’s top dream destination here before you start packing.

The story of the city that never sleeps

For nearly 11,000 years the area now known as New York City had been home to Native Americans. Then in 1524, Giovanni da Verrazano, a Florentine hired by the French to explore the northeastern coast, arrived at New York Bay and history took a big turn. Still, the area remained largely unchanged until 1609 when English explorer Henry Hudson happened on it by chance while searching for the Northwest Passage. Hudson claimed the place for the Dutch East India Company and in the 17th century the Dutch established trading posts for the purchase of pelts from the Iroquois and other tribes. This small settlement later expanded into the colony the Dutch nostalgically named New Netherlands. The new colony was essentially a collection of these trading posts, the first of which were Fort Nassau (1614); Fort Orange (1624), Fort Amsterdam (1625, that developed into the town of New Amsterdam which was the predecessor of present-day New York City); and Esopus (1653).

The colony passed into British control during the Second Anglo-Dutch War and was then governed as the Province of New York. Agitation for independence during the 1770s brought the American Revolution and New York endorsed the Declaration of Independence on July 9, 1776. The New York state constitution was framed by a convention which assembled at White Plains, New York on July 10, 1776, and after much deliberation and changes of location, finally announced its results at Kingston, New York on Sunday evening, April 20, 1777, when the new constitution was adopted with but one dissenting vote. A few months later, on 30 July 1777, George Clinton was inaugurated as the first Governor of New York at Kingston.

The Capture of Fort Ticonderoga provided the ammunition necessary to force the Brits out of the Siege of Boston in 1775. The first major battle of the American Revolutionary War after independence was fought in New York at the Battle of Long Island in 1776, and the first of two major British armies were captured by the Continental Army at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777, influencing France to ally with the revolutionaries. General George Washington had to withdraw from Manhattan Island and the British turned New York City into their military and political hub of operations in North America for the duration of the conflict.

The long standing conflict was marked by the erosion of more American soldiers at the hands of the notorious British prison ships of Wallabout Bay and the four of the Iroquois nations that fought for the British faced defeat at the hands of the Sullivan Expedition of 1779. For fear of persecution and all the ills that follow defeat, the Native American tribes moved to Canada; most lost their land after the war.

As per the Treaty of Paris, the last of the British troops in New York City that were the foundation of British authority in the former Thirteen Colonies - departed in 1783.New York State was one of the original thirteen colonies that became the United States. It was the 11th state to ratify the United States Constitution, on July 26, 1788.

In the 19th century New York City saw the construction of canals to improve navigation. Western NY was connected by the construction of Erie Canal in 1825 and the new route opened up vast areas of New York to commerce and settlement, and enabled port cities such as Buffalo to grow and prosper.

The Statue of Liberty was dedicated in New York Harbor on October 28, 1886. Ellis Island opened as the primary immigration depot in the U.S. in 1892.

New York City, since then has come a long way and today commands the unique position of having the largest immigrant population in the country, is the dynamic epicenter of fashion, culture and media and attracts millions of tourists every year.

The New York Season

Veteran travelers mark the period from mid-September to mid-November, along with all of May and early June as the best times to go to New York. Since everyone follows this migration chart, the city is wall to wall with tourists during these months and prices of everything from trinkets to hotels shoots up.

Not that it should deter you or the long wet November and April seasons should hold you back either. No matter when you go to NYC, you are going to love it! If you are going to New York during December, expect lots of rain and often snow till February.