Talk:New York City/Archive 1

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Initial text

Nice start on this entry.  :-)

Government, politics

I have moved the politics and courts section to a seperate Government of New York City page, which I am working on cleaning and greatly expanding. I've substituted a shorter Government section which points to the main government page.

Friedo 23:35, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Tourism, sports

In an effort to further de-clutter this article, I would like to move the sections on musuems, sports and tourist sites to a separate Tourist and Recreational Attractions in New York City page. (Or if someone can think of a better name, let me know. I'm also going to move the List of famous buildings, sites, and monuments in New York City there, unless anyone objects.

Friedo 04:51, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Places and Buildings to add

I want to add to list of places but my knowledge of New York sites is very shakey:

• RCA Building/Center
• Radio City Music Hall

History Notes

I need to do a lot more on the history, at a minimum, including Tammany Hall, Fiorello LaGuardia, the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, immigration and Ellis Island, and the subway system. Vicki Rosenzweig

I've always thought that the baby boom 9 months after the blackout was an urban legend; though it was reported in the mass media at the time, no statisticians were consulted. Though, it could be an urban legend that the misreporting was an urban legend. Bugmuncher

It is[1]. And as I recall, in August it was too hot to do anything that might contribute to that sort of thing, at least in our apartment.

Questions

How do New York City boroughs differ from New York State counties? Are they just different names for the one entity, or do the county and borough have different administrative structures? What administrative structures does each borough have? Is the mayor of NYC mayor of all five boroughs? If so, what are the leaders of each individual boroughs called? Mayors also? -- SJK

I've added a brief explanation of boroughs as counties. Let me know what you think. -- Vicki Rosenzweig----

I have added a history of the borough/county situation in the History section. (There was some very erroneous information about the 1898 consolodation there.) Let me know what you think. -- Friedo 13:05, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Misc. comments

I would say there are well over 100 "places to visit" in NYC, for example, other museums, places of worship, landmark neighborhoods, etc. I wouldn't even know where to start??? RoseParks

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Added links under "Famous buildings, sites, and monuments" to Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Central Park|Strawberry Fields, Grand Army Plaza, Prospect Park. Added link under "Museums" to Brooklyn Museum of Art. Added link under "Events" to September 11, 2001. Mainly I was trying to flesh out the article with some links to Brooklyn information. I hope this is appropriate, but it seemed to be since the article as a whole is covering all 5 boroughs. Qwirty

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Changed the population category back to Asian rather than Asian American. Usually a good idea to not change census information, without good reason. See: http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/dcp/html/census/popdiv.html - Fuzheado

See User talk:Ram-Man; the issue is still unresolved. I would prefer that it not be a link at all, than to have it linked to a continent, which is irrelevant to the ethnic group. If the need is to conform perfectly with the census, "Black" must be added before "African American" and "Nonhispanic" should be added to white. --Jiang

Yeah, don't get me started -- I'm on your side. Lived in NYC for 15 years and had Black [sic] friends that didn't like the PC African American label -- they were from the Dominican Republic and didn't identify with African or American. However, in this case where we're citing the official US census, so we gotta stick with it, for better or worse. I read the Ram-man dialogue and find it interesting, but at the end of the day, changing Asian to Asian American would simply be inaccurate, period. Fight the other real battles worth fighting, like why 100 Asian American women will be picked for MTV Real World before a single Asian guy would be considered. As an AA male, I think that's the real crime of the century. (I'm only half joking about that one). - Fuzheado 09:31 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Name of Article

Could this be moved to New York City? I spent 5 minutes thinking someone had cheekily moved the page on the city to the song title... :-) More pages link to New York City than here... Evercat 01:25 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

All US cities are in the [City, State] format - I see no need to make an exception here. But New York City, New York is still a better title - I'll make the change. --mav 02:13 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I would offer to help fix the redirects but I'm about off to bed, sorry. :-) Evercat 02:16 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Done. Hopefully all the redirects were listed in "what links here" --mav

I propose moving the page back to New York, New York. The official name is the City of New York, not the City of New York City. (Contrast this with, for example, The City of Jersey City.) Of course, the informal name New York City is very common as a way of a distinguishing the City of New York from the State of New York. But nobody says or writes New York City, New York, which is the new title of this page. For example, mail is addressed as New York, New York, not as New York City, New York. --Cjmnyc 13:56, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC); added example 16:00, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I agrre with you. And besides now the redirect for the song at the bottom makes no sense at all. Rmhermen 14:13, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Then change it to City of New York, New York. I was just responding to a complaint about "New York, New York" sounding like a musical title. --mav

One of the reasons that the song is called New York, New York is that the city is called New York, New York. It's not just a matter of catchy repetition, though I'm sure that's part of it too. I hate to propagate a ridiculous slogan like this, but it's also the reason why New York is sometimes called "the city so nice (or so great, or so big) they had to name it twice". -- Cjmnyc 20:47, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

To put it a different way, New York City, New York and City of New York, New York are redundant. "New York City", "New York, New York", and "City of New York" are all ways of distinguishing the city called New York from the state called New York. Once you've named the page anything but "New York, New York", you've already departed form the standard (City, State) format. Attaching "New York" on the end of "New York City" or "City of New York" neither maintains consistency nor disambiguates anything. -- Cjmnyc 05:31, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I think in the case of New York the city should be at plain New York, while the state should be at New York State. While this violates custom, New York is a special case, most people in the world when they hear New York think of the city rather than the state. SimonP 14:26, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)

It is not at all incorrect to say that something happened in "New York" when you mean to say that something happened in the city by that name and not the state because the city is in the state. If somebody wants to be unambiguous about the city they will say more than just "New York." But the opposite is not true; "The capital of New York is Albany, New York". Common usage is fine but should not be taken to an extreme. --mav

Will rambot have a problem with this page if it is anywhere other than New York, New York? --Cjmnyc 16:01, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Just leave a message and RamMan will fix the bot. --mav

OK. Thanks. -- Cjmnyc 20:47, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I moved this sucker back to its home, New York, New York. A case can be made that the article should reside at New York City or City of New York, and redirects certainly belong there, but no one calls this place New York City, New York. Discuss among yourselves... -- Someone else 05:38, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I just have to point out that many people think, New York, New York refers to New York County, New York. If I say to someone, "I live in New York," they say, "Oh, you live in Manhattan?" I respond, "No, Brooklyn." Their rejoinder is: "Oh, you live in Brooklyn, New York." If I say, "I live in New York City." The question comes back, "Oh, where in New York City do you live?" My response is: "Brooklyn". Their rejoinder is: "You live in the borough of Brooklyn, is that New York? I thought that was the fourth largest city in America!" I hear people refer to New York City a lot. Also Greater New York City refers to NYC and the suburbs in the parlance I am familar with, generally a diameter of about fifty miles or so... Alex756 18:13, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)

This is true of all very large cities. I grew up in Anaheim, California (which is 40 miles outside of Los Angeles) and later moved to Northern California and found it infuriating when people said that Disneyland was in Los Angeles! --mav

I have never heard anyone say "New York, New York" to refer to New York County. Manhattan, sure, but the two are not coextensive, and my part of Manhattan isn't "the city" in that vernacular sense either. And "fourth largest city in America" is a cute line on the bridge into Brooklyn, it's not what many people think of or say when they hear "Brooklyn".

If I say "the city" I might mean part of Manhattan; if I say "New York City" I expect people to either just say "oh" or offer some stereotype (if they have the same hazy idea of New York geography that I have about neighborhoods in Chicago), talk about a time when they were here, or ask where and be prepared for an answer like "downtown", "Brooklyn", or "Coney Island" if they actually know a bit about the city.

The New York area is a larger and more amorphous thing, of course--and part of that is that people say they're from New York because they don't expect non-locals to know where Hoboken, Yonkers, or Massapequa are, and saying you're from Amityville or Hicksville is just asking for stupid remarks.Vicki Rosenzweig 01:57, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

No one I know says New York, Kings County, New York when speaking about Brooklyn, they say Brooklyn, New York is Kings County. Likewise New York, New York is New York County (maybe this is only prevalent with police, firepersons, lawyers, judges, county officials and people who are in NYC government, i.e. only about 1,000,000 New Yorkers and Brooklynites). Even here in Brooklyn they say, "I'm going into the City." What is that all about? New York is Manhattan to many people in Brooklyn who rarely go there. No one in Manhattan will say, I'm going to New York City, Kings County. No, they say, "I'm going to Brooklyn." I know many New Yorkers who have never been to Brooklyn or Queens. "Cross the East River, why that's not New York, that's Long Island" (which is true, but it is also New York). It's just not a very neat nomenclature. Alex756 02:28, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Brooklyn is part of New York. It's also a separate entity for some purposes (mostly postal). When I moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan, I didn't go from one city to another, although I now but something different than formerly in the "city" blank when I fill out forms. On the other hand, Disneyland isn't in LA -- it's in Anaheim. People who say Anaheim is LA are wrong; people who say Brooklyn isn't NYC are -- well, also wrong, but not necessarily as confused. Granted, when people hear "New York City" they think Manhattan, but when people hear "Boston" I suspect they think of the North End (if not Cambridge) so that clearly doesn't count for much.

That said, I'd always told people I lived in Brooklyn. That said, none of them appeared to conclude from that statement that I did not live in NYC --Charles A. L. 18:26, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)

Comment

As a neophyte, I hesitate to edit the article, but as a New Yorker I wanted to comment that I don't think the 2nd paragraph of this page should be about the WTC tragedy. NYC is about so much more. The incident is also in the history section, which I think is more appropriate.

True, and you should feel free to move things about. As time goes by past the Davis shooting, the section can be made smaller (I think it wound up here because those adding thought it would be more exposure here than in the James E. Davis article), and it could be counterbalanced with other New York City assassinations (John Lennon, Stanford White, some political ones. Go for it -- Someone else 05:46, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)~

Also, the focus on recent events (i.e. Councilman Davis' death) seems to outweigh possibly more important past happenings and other hisotrical events not mentioned at all.

I'll take a stab at some edits soon...

Rocstar, I look forward to reading your contributions. By the way, please sign your posts to the talk pages. An automatic way to do this is to add 4 tildes like this: ~~~~ . See Wikipedia:Talk page. -- Cjmnyc 05:53, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Chinese Traditional and Simplified

Should the Chinese articles be the same or should they split based on Traditional and Simplified? WhisperToMe 03:16, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)

New Pics

I like the new pics, but what happened to the Statue of Liberty? That was a great pic. Also, that's certainly not a very impressive skyline pic. Lower Manhattan from the south, now that the WTC is gone (God it hurts every time to say it), isn't all that stunning. I think the best view is from the Jersey side and panoramic enough to include Midtown and Downtown. JDG 23:07, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Someone disagreed with putting the Liberty pic in the article. Check the edits list to see who removed it. WhisperToMe 01:06, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Makes sense, since the Statue of Liberty is in New Jersey :). anthony (see warning)

Events timeline

Is the Davis assassination worth including? Obviously the Davis family would say so. I don't see the stabbing of Mayor Gaynor up there. --Charles A. L. 18:11, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)

Placement of Manhattan Picture

I believe that the picture of Manhattan should be oriented towards the right, as some users have larger monitors. User:Timwi believes that the pic should be oriented to the center, as it seems that on his monitor, the pic cannot float to the right as it is too small.

I'm discussing about whether or not the picture should be to the right or to the center. I personally like the idea of putting the Statue of Liberty pic back in the article and putting that on top. WhisperToMe 01:06, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I am puzzled how "some users have larger monitors" is supposed to be an argument. That's like saying "we don't need to practice safer sex because some people don't have AIDS." -- Timwi 01:14, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I find that both versions look fine in IE on my 17" monitor, but WhisperToMe's version is screwed up when I use Opera 6.0. -- Cyan 01:24, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Yea, the challenge here is to find an arrangement that works universally. Timwi, please realize that the monitor size affects how the page is spaced out on Wikipedia, making placements drastically different.

So, maybe we should restore the statue of liberty pic as its slender and should work universally. WhisperToMe 01:27, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

A photo of a statue in the middle of a bay is not a good photo to have at the start of an article about a city famous for its skyscrappers. Best to have a skyline. I have fixed the first three images in this article so that it should work for both people with large monitors set at high resolution and the rest of the known universe who have normal-sized monitors with standard resolution. Now we need period photos for the first part of the history section. --mav 05:05, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Okay... How about someone takes a picture of the statue IN FRONT of the skyline. While its a statue in the bay, its Iconic of new york, but at the same time, it shows a skyline. WhisperToMe 23:09, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It's a good thought, but it really can't be done the way you're probably imagining. There is no way to get a picture of the statue and the NYC skyline at the same time that features both prominently except to show the statue directly from the rear, which is fairly featureless. The statue could be featured at a side view in front of tall buildings, but it would be the skyline of downtown Jersey City.Decumanus 01:23, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Sectioning off history and etc

I think Cunc needs to announce his major changes (splitting off the history and the timeline) about a day or so ahead of time so that others can contribute their input on the matter. WhisperToMe 00:33, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I agree. Simply ripping out the history of a city is not acceptable. A summary should always be in a top-level article like this. That way people who only want an overview can read the summary here and the people who want to explore the history of this city in more detail can visit the daughter article. However, IMO, the crime section is not as important to have in the top-level article. --mav 06:33, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I apologize for the last revert or two; the summary is good. --The Cunctator 06:54, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Standardization

I will standardize the naming of the boroughs by placing them under their borough names (which are more common than their county names). --Jiang 05:22, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

History

I rewrote the opening sentence of the summary. The 1624 date refers to the Walloon families' arrival into the colony of New Netherlands (which ranged from Connecticut to Delaware and up the Hudson). New Amsterdam, which was not a colony but more accurately the first settlement within the colony of New Netherlands, was not founded until two years later. The statement about the land having been bought from the Lenape (of whom the Canarsie were but one group) is something that has been widely discredited as a misinterpretation. Decumanus 08:03, 19 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I added a few sentences in the History section about the Nineteenth Century. Although most of the history should go in the spin-off article, the brief outline that remains is still, in my opinion, a bit choppy, and I thought it needed the info I put in to give the "history in brief" a more coherent flow. Decumanus 04:50, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I rewrote the sentences of the history summary about the American Revolution. The part about being "the Tory capital of the world" is deceptively out of context, since most of the patriots were driven out after the Battle of Brooklyn (I used this version of the term here, since it makes more sense in the context of an article about New York City history). There were plenty of patriots in NY, but it was a dangerous place to be open about it. -- Decumanus 03:21, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I've added yet more info the history summary. I wanted to give at least one sentence to the major eras in the city's history, to give it a coherent flow without going into too much detail, and hopefully without sounding too much like Ric Burns. I did take out the sentence about the 1977 blackout. It didn't seem like an event of great importance for the summary, which should tell the story of the city in a nutshell, but rather something that should be in History of New York City. -- Decumanus 09:58, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Movies and Television

Well someone had to do it. It was bugging me to see the tv shows and movies mixed together, so I went ahead and separated them. I think the movie list in particular could grow very large and should probably eventually be spun off into a separate list page in the near future.

Also, I removed The Sopranos from the television listing, since it's really set in New Jersey. -- Decumanus 23:48, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

OK, I added a lot of television shows in an obsessive bid to think of them all. The page is now > 36 kb, so I'm spinning the tv shows and movies off into separate pages. -- Decumanus 07:03, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'm adding it back, as 1. The part of NJ the Sopranos are in is suburban NYC, and 2. I believe they venture into the city several times in the show. WhisperToMe 15:38, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

OK. Shows in the metro area. I was thinking of it as a list only of shows set within the five boroughs per se. I have no problem if the list is going to include the whole metro area. It would bring a few more shows that aren't really NYC shows, like Everybody Loves Raymond and Maude (which had NY in its opening credits (like the The Sopranos does) but was definitely set in Westchester County. The Dick Van Dyke Show was a hybrid "commuter" show, with home scenes in Westchester and workplace scenes in NYC, so it definitely is on the list. But neither Raymond or Maude is really about life in NYC in the same way as, say, King of Queens and The Jeffersons, which are/were fellow spin-offs of the same line of shows, but are true NYC shows.-- Decumanus 20:31, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

A little bit of nuance required. Have now changed the format of the tv show listing to include a category for shows set primarily in the greater metro area, and included previously mentioned shows there, including The Sopranos. My impression is that people in most of the country probably think of it as a "New York City show", but in the New York area, the show is considered definitely a New Jersey show. -- Decumanus 21:29, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)