The name Manhattan originated from the
Lenapes language,
Munsee, manaháhtaan (where manah- means "gather", -aht- means "
bow", and -aan is an abstract element used to form
verbstems). The Lenape word has been translated as "the place where we get bows" or "place for gathering the (wood to make) bows".
According to a Munsee tradition recorded by
Albert Seqaqkind Anthony in the 19th century, the island was named so for a grove of
hickory trees at its southern end that was considered ideal for the making of bows.[5] It was first recorded in writing as Manna-hata, in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, an officer on
Henry Hudson's yacht Halve Maen (Half Moon).[6]
A 1610 map depicts the name Manna-hata twice, on both the east and west sides of the Mauritius River, later named the
North River and ultimately the
Hudson River. Alternative etymologies in
folklore include "island of many hills",[7] "the island where we all became intoxicated" and simply "island", as well as a phrase descriptive of the
whirlpool at
Hell Gate.[8] It is thought that the term Manhattoe may originally have referred only to a location at the southern tip of the island before eventually signifying the entire island to the Dutch through pars pro toto.
Lenape settlement
Manhattan was historically part of the
Lenapehoking territory inhabited by the
MunseeLenape[9] and
Wappingertribes.[10] There were several Lenape settlements in the area of Manhattan including
Sapohanikan,
Nechtanc, and
Konaande Kongh that were interconnected by a series of trails. The primary trail on the island ran from what is now
Inwood in the north to
Battery Park in the south. There were various sites for
fishing and planting established by the Lenape throughout Manhattan.[1] The 48-acre (19 ha)
Collect Pond, which fed the fresh water streams and marshes around it, was also an important meeting and trading location for the people in the area.[11][12]
In 1524,
Florentine explorer
Giovanni da Verrazzano, sailing in service of
King Francis I of
France, became the first documented
European to visit the area that would become New York City. Verrazzano entered the
tidal strait now known as
The Narrows and named the land around
Upper New York HarborNew Angoulême, in reference to the family name of King Francis I that was derived from
Angoulême in France; he sailed far enough into the harbor to sight the
Hudson River, which he referred to in his report to the French king as a "very big river"; and he named the Bay of Santa Margarita – what is now Upper New York Bay – after
Marguerite de Navarre, the elder sister of the king.[13][14]
Manhattan was first mapped during a 1609 voyage of
Henry Hudson, an Englishman who worked for the
Dutch East India Company.[15] Hudson came across Manhattan Island and the native people living there, and continued up the river that would later bear his name, the
Hudson River, until he arrived at the site of present-day
Albany.[16]
A permanent European presence in
New Netherland began in 1624, with the founding of a
Dutchfur trading settlement on
Governors Island. In 1625, construction was started on the
citadel of
Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, later called
New Amsterdam (Nieuw Amsterdam), in what is now Lower Manhattan.[17][18] The 1625 establishment of Fort Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan Island is recognized as the birth of New York City.[19]
According to a letter by Pieter Janszoon Schagen,
Peter Minuit and Walloon colonists of the
West India Company acquired the island of Manhattan on May 24, 1626, from unnamed native people, who are believed to have been
Canarsee Indians of the
Manhattoe, in exchange for traded goods worth 60
guilders,[20] often said to be worth US$24.[21] In actuality, 60 guilders in that time was worth 2,400 English
pennies.[21] According to the writer
Nathaniel Benchley, Minuit conducted the transaction with Seyseys, chief of the
Canarsee, who were willing to accept valuable merchandise in exchange for the island that was mostly controlled by the
Weckquaesgeeks, a band of the
Wappinger.[22]
In 1647,
Peter Stuyvesant was appointed as the last Dutch Director-General of the colony.[23] New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on February 2, 1653.[24] In 1674, the English bought New Netherland, after Holland lost rentable sugar business in Brazil, and renamed it "New York" after the English
Duke of York and Albany, the future King James II.[25] The Dutch, under Director General Stuyvesant, successfully negotiated with the English to produce 24 articles of provisional transfer, which sought to retain for the extant citizens of New Netherland their previously attained liberties (including
freedom of religion) under their new English rulers.[26][18]
The Dutch Republic re-captured the city in August 1673, renaming it "New Orange". New Netherland was ultimately ceded to the English in November 1674 through the
Treaty of Westminster.[27]
New York City played a complex role in the
American Civil War. The city's strong commercial ties to the
southern United States existed for many reasons, including the industrial power of the Hudson River, which allowed trade with stops such as the
West Point Foundry, one of the great manufacturing operations in the early United States; and the city's Atlantic Ocean ports, rendering New York City the American powerhouse in terms of industrial trade between the northern and southern United States. Anger arose about
conscription, with resentment at those who could afford to pay $300 to avoid service leading to resentment against Lincoln's war policies and fomenting paranoia about
free Blacks taking the poor immigrants' jobs,[42] culminating in the three-day-long
New York Draft Riots of July 1863. This was among the worst incidents of
civil disorder in American history, with over 100 people killed by the rioters or by the military units that stopped the riot..[43]
The rate of immigration from Europe grew steeply after the Civil War, and Manhattan became the first stop for millions seeking a new life in the United States, a role acknowledged by the dedication of the
Statue of Liberty on October 28, 1886, a gift from the people of France.[44][45] New York's growing immigrant population, which had earlier consisted mainly of German and Irish immigrants, began in the late 1800s to include waves of impoverished Italians and Central and Eastern European Jews flowing in en masse. This new European immigration brought further social upheaval. In a city of tenements packed with poorly paid laborers from dozens of nations, the city became a hotbed of
revolution (including
anarchists and
communists among others),
syndicalism,
racketeering, and
unionization.
In 1883, the opening of the
Brooklyn Bridge established a road connection to
Brooklyn, across the
East River. In 1874, the western portion of the present
Bronx County was transferred to New York County from
Westchester County, and in 1895 the remainder of the present Bronx County was annexed.[46] In 1898, when New York City consolidated with three neighboring counties to form "the
City of Greater New York", Manhattan and the Bronx, though still one county, were established as two separate
boroughs. On January 1, 1914, the
New York State Legislature created Bronx County and New York County was reduced to its present boundaries.[47]
The construction of the
New York City Subway, which opened in 1904, helped bind the new city together, as did additional bridges to Brooklyn. In the 1920s Manhattan experienced large arrivals of African-Americans as part of the
Great Migration from the southern United States, and the
Harlem Renaissance, part of a larger boom time in the
Prohibition era that included new
skyscrapers competing for the skyline. New York City became the most populous city in the world in 1925, overtaking London, which had reigned for a century.[48] Manhattan's majority
white ethnic group declined from 98.7% in 1900 to 58.3% by 1990.[49]
The period between the
World War I and
World War II saw the election of reformist mayor
Fiorello La Guardia and the fall of
Tammany Hall after 80 years of political dominance.[50] As the city's demographics stabilized,
labor unionization brought new protections and affluence to the working class, the city's government and infrastructure underwent a dramatic overhaul under La Guardia.
In the 1970s, job losses due to
industrial restructuring caused New York City, including Manhattan, to suffer from economic problems and rising crime rates.[59] While a resurgence in the financial industry greatly improved the city's economic health in the 1980s, New York's crime rate continued to increase through the decade and into the beginning of the 1990s.[60]
The 1980s saw a rebirth of
Wall Street, and Manhattan reclaimed its role at the center of the worldwide
financial industry. The 1980s also saw Manhattan at the heart of the AIDS crisis, with Greenwich Village at its epicenter. The organizations
Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) and
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) were founded to advocate on behalf of those stricken with the disease.
By the 1990s, crime rates started to drop dramatically due to revised police strategies, improving economic opportunities,
gentrification, and new residents, both American transplants and new immigrants from
Asia and
Latin America. Murder rates that had reached 2,245 in 1990 plummeted to 537 by 2008, and the
crack epidemic and its associated drug-related violence came under greater control.[61] The outflow of population turned around, as the city once again became the destination of immigrants from around the world, joining with low
interest rates and Wall Street bonuses to fuel the growth of the real estate market.[62] Important new sectors, such as
Silicon Alley, emerged in Manhattan's economy.
The newly completed
Singer Building towering above the city, 1909
On September 11, 2001, two of four hijacked planes were flown into the
Twin Towers of the original World Trade Center, and the towers subsequently collapsed in the
September 11 attacks launched by
al-Qaeda terrorists.
7 World Trade Center collapsed due to fires and structural damage caused by heavy debris falling from the
collapse of the Twin Towers. The other buildings within the World Trade Center complex were damaged beyond repair and soon after demolished. The collapse of the Twin Towers caused extensive damage to other surrounding buildings and skyscrapers in Lower Manhattan, and resulted in the
deaths of 2,606 people, in addition to those on the planes. Many
rescue workers and residents of the area
developed several life-threatening illnesses that have led to some of their subsequent deaths.[66]
Since 2001, most of
Lower Manhattan has been restored, although
there has been controversy surrounding the rebuilding.
A memorial at the site was opened to the public on September 11, 2011, and the museum opened in 2014. In 2014, the new
One World Trade Center, at 1,776 feet (541 m) and formerly known as the Freedom Tower, became the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere,[67] while other skyscrapers were under construction at the site.
On October 29 and 30, 2012,
Hurricane Sandy caused
extensive destruction in the borough, ravaging portions of Lower Manhattan with record-high
storm surge from New York Harbor,[69] severe flooding, and high winds, causing
power outages for hundreds of thousands of city residents[70] and leading to
gasoline shortages[71] and disruption of
mass transit systems.[72][73][74][75] The storm and its profound impacts have prompted the discussion of constructing
seawalls and other
coastal barriers around the shorelines of the borough and the metropolitan area to minimize the risk of destructive consequences from another such event in the future.[76] Around 15 percent of the borough is considered to be in
flood-risk zones.[77]
On
October 31, 2017, a terrorist took a rental pickup truck and deliberately drove down a bike path alongside the
West Side Highway in Lower Manhattan, killing eight people and injuring a dozen others before crashing into a school bus.[78]
^Holloway, Marguerite (May 16, 2004).
"Urban tactics; I'll Take Mannahatta". The New York Times.
Archived from the original on October 7, 2010. Retrieved June 30, 2009. "He could envision what Henry Hudson saw in 1609 as he sailed along Mannahatta, which in the Lenape dialect most likely meant island of many hills."
^"Henry Hudson and His Exploration"Archived January 18, 2012, at the
Wayback MachineScientific American, September 25, 1909. Accessed May 1, 2007. "This was a vain hope however, and the conviction must finally have come to the heart of the intrepid adventurer that once again he was foiled in his repeated quest for the northwest passage ... On the following day the Half Moon let go her anchor inside of
Sandy Hook. The week was spent in exploring the bay with a shallop, or small boat, and "they found a good entrance between two headlands" (the Narrows) "and thus entered on September 12 into as fine a river as can be found""
^Dutch ColoniesArchived May 19, 2010, at the
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National Park Service. Accessed May 19, 2007. "Sponsored by the West India Company, 30 families arrived in North America in 1624, establishing a settlement on present-day Manhattan."
^City Seal and FlagArchived April 28, 2015, at the
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^
abDavis, Kenneth C. (2003). Don't Know Much About History: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned (1st ed.). New York: HarperCollins. p. 37.
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^Scheltema, Gajus and Westerhuijs, Heleen (eds.),Exploring Historic Dutch New York. Museum of the City of New York/Dover Publications, New York (2011).
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^About MorristownArchived June 24, 2019, at the
Wayback Machine, Town of Morristown. Accessed April 3, 2013. "Morristown became characterized as 'the military capital of the American Revolution' because of its strategic role in the war for independence from Great Britain."
^Blair, Cynthia.
"1858: Central Park Opens", Newsday. Accessed May 29, 2007. "Between 1853 and 1856, city commissioners purchased more than 700 acres (280 ha) from 59th Street to 106th Street between Fifth and Eighth Avenues to create Central Park, the nation's first public park [sic] as well as its first landscaped park." In actuality,
Boston Common is the nation's first public park.
Boston CommonArchived December 26, 2014, at the
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^Rybczynski, Witold.
"Olmsted's Triumph"Archived December 26, 2015, at the
Wayback Machine, Smithsonian (magazine), July 2003. Accessed November 20, 2016. "By 1876, landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted and architect Calvert Vaux had transformed the swampy, treeless 50 blocks between Harlem and midtown Manhattan into the first landscaped park in the United States."
^Ward, Geoffrey C.
"Gangs of New York"Archived July 16, 2019, at the
Wayback Machine, a review of Paradise Alley by
Kevin Baker, The New York Times, October 6, 2002. Accessed June 30, 2009. "The New York draft riots remain the worst civil disturbance in American history: according to the historian Adrian Cook, 119 people are known to have been killed, mostly rioters or onlookers who got too close when federal troops, brought back from the battlefield to restore order, started shooting."
^"New Jerseyans' Claim To Liberty I. Rejected"Archived March 28, 2019, at the
Wayback Machine, The New York Times, October 6, 1987. Accessed June 30, 2009. "The Supreme Court today refused to strip the Statue of Liberty of its status as a New Yorker. The Court, without comment, turned away a move by a two New Jerseyans to claim jurisdiction over the landmark for their state."
^Christopher Effgen (September 11, 2001).
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Archived from the original on June 29, 2014. Retrieved July 20, 2014.
^Harris, Paul.
"How the mean streets of New York were tamed"Archived May 8, 2019, at the
Wayback Machine, The Guardian, January 15, 2006. Accessed June 29, 2009. "Alongside the changed tactics came a fall in the crack epidemic that had swept the city in the Eighties. By the Nineties police had driven dealers off the streets, thus reducing drug-related violence.... The figures speak for themselves. In 1990, 2,245 New Yorkers were murdered. Last year the number was 537, the lowest for 40 years."
^9/11 World Trade Center Health Program: Toxins and Health Impacts,
Centers for Disease Control. Accessed August 6, 2023. "These contaminants remained in Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn for an undetermined amount of time after 9/11. Responders, local workers, residents, students, and others had potential for acute exposures in the early days and continuing exposure from residual materials—indoors and outside—as well as exposure to toxic gases, smoke, vapors, and combustion by-products from continuing fires."
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