New York City –  world city

New York is the biggest city in the USA, and also the best-known.

For more than 100 years, New York was the main place where people entered the USA. Immigrants, business people, and tourists all arrived there. Because of this, New York became very important in American life and culture. People from all over the world made their home in  New York. Today, it is a city with many different cultures and traditions.

As well as being the biggest city in the USA, New York is the city with most museums, about 100 of them. But museums are only one part of what the city offers. Many visitors don’t even go to a museum. They come for the nightlife, the music, the theaters, and the tall buildings with great views. They enjoy walking in the streets and squares, eating in restaurants, and relaxing in bars.

One of the best-known monuments in New York is the Statue of Liberty. It's a symbol of American freedom, but it was actually made in Paris, France!

The oldest part of New York is Manhattan, which is an island. This is the part of the city with the great skyscrapers. Manhattan has some of the most famous streets in the world -  like Broadway, Wall Street, and Times Square.  

The modern city of New York was started by Dutch settlers in 1624. They called it New Amsterdam.. Forty years later, the name changed to New York. For four years, from 1785 to 1789, New York was actually the capital of the USA. Today the capital of the USA is Washington, and New York City is not even the capital of New York state; that is a much smaller city called Albany.

New York state is much bigger than the city. It has mountains and valleys, and reaches as far as the Canadian border.

People from New York often say that nobody can see everything in the city; there's too much to see and do. That may be true.  And if you only have one or two weeks in New York, you will only see a small part of it.

New York has several different nicknames, and the best-known of these is "the Big Apple"; but why "the Big Apple"? The name was made up by jockeys a hundred years ago. The prizes that they could win were bigger in New York, than anywhere else! For horses, the prizes were apples, for jockeys and owners they were lots of money... "the big apple."  

Difficult words:
main: principal - as well as: in addition to - views: panoramas -  enjoy: like -  freedom: liberty  -  reach: extend, go as far as - nickname: unofficial name, informal name. 





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