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Sorry, but the phrasing on the Sicilian Mafia is a little inaccurate. Please refer to the article, Arnold Rothstein. The Mafia was created when Rothstein died, and then the major initial figures "inherited" many of Rothstein's various nefarious enterprises. THAT was how the Mafia originated and gained its power. A common urban myth, but one that is not accurate. allie 14:19, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to add The Encyclopedia of New York, considered THE reference book on the city, with permission. It was published by Yale Univ. Press & New York Historical Society with funding from the NEA and just about every foundation in Manhattan. It's a great reference book. Also: If anyone has any questions about a particular subject...feel free to ask me & I'll be happy to look it up in the reference, as well. allie 14:38, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I would like to discuss a couple of points regarding your recent edits. Please remember Hinduism is a religion, India is a country. Many Indians are not Hindus, and a considerable number of Hindus are not Indians. New York has many residents of Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi origin, all countries in South Asia. I suppose we could list all countries where New Yorkers have roots, but that list would look suspiciouslly like List of countries. It's arbitrary on how many to list, but please don't confuse religions with countries or ethnic groups. Judaism is also a religion, while Jews (at least for the purposes of Wikipedia) are an ethnic group.
More imprortant, please do not say that the silly stereotype that all New Yorkers are jerks is true without evidence, whatever that would be. And if you want to discuss racism in the city, please treat it seriously, and not as something New Yorkers are supposedly 'proud' of along with pollution etc.-- Pharos 04:35, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
After rolling back an edit, the "Diff" page does not reflect the reality of how the page was changed. It looks from the "Diff" between the versions that somehow I deleted much of the article, when in fact it's all there. If someone sees that the rollback has deleted anything important, please note that - but I don't think it's the case. Still, I can't figure out why the "Diff" page looks like it does, with so much yellow (when all of it is still in the article). Moncrief 10:53, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)
I've been thinking we should delete the section titled 'Sister Cities," since I'm not even sure what the purpose of that list is supposed to be. Exactly how is Budapest a sister city to New York? I think we can all agree that the list is entirely subjective and arbitrary. And if no one objects, I think I'll delete that section in a few weeks. johnleonard-- Johnleonard 14:48, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
-Oh ok. Well I still don't really see the ultimate point of it, but I guess it should be left there for anyone who's interested.-- Jleon 17:25, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
This [1] supports my recent rollback. Niteowlneils 18:12, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Hello all. I think the list of museums here is in a very sorry state of affairs, as most of the listings just lead to dead links. Over the next few weeks I'll be working on improving things a bit, and I was hoping some of you could help me out with this effort. Namely, I think it would be a good idea to have at least a provisional article set up for each of the museums listed. -- Jleon 14:17, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Why is this located at New York City and not New York, New York? Every other city and town in the United States list the state, both in other cases where the state name is implicit ( Oregon City, Oregon, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, etc.) and in other major cities where one might expect people to know its location ( Washington, D.C., Seattle, Washington). Is there a reason this city is exempt from the rule? Sarge Baldy 20:22, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)
I've changed that line to "the unrivaled cultural and entertainment capital of the Western Hemisphere". London and Paris are part of the western world, and certainly rival NYC for the title "cultural and entertainment capital". -- Angr 07:22, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
It would be unfair to call NY the "unrivalled" cultural capital of the Western Hemisphere. London, Edinburgh and Los Angeles could all lay claim to that rather overly prestigious (is arrogant the right word?) title, and all of them have both the cultural quantity (numbers of art galleries, film studios, theatres and museums) and the unique and cohesive cultural character, style and identity to be called cultural capitals in their own right. As culture itself is a subjectively perceived concept, it is unfair to assert one city's supremacy over at least four others (within the Western Hemisphere) that, while not as large in population, certainly have cultural "scenes" just as lively as New York's. And I haven't even been to Chicago, San Fransisco, New Orleans, Rio De Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, or Havana, all of which are reputed to possess a distinctive and thriving cultural scene. Whilst it is perhaps unwise to be drawn into a debate over the merits of individual cities, it might be better to at least temporarily suspend the accolade. 82.32.83.19 20:45, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
-- Excuse me, 82.32.83.19, but London and Edinburgh are not in the Western Hemisphere (note the hotlink for your own perusal). Los Angeles and Chicago are certainly important cities, but they don't even come close to having NYC's collection of "museums, galleries, and performance venues" sited in the intro. Of course other cities can be called "cultural capitals" in a general sense, but none of them rival NYC by any conceivable measure. -- Jleon 21:28, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Point taken about "western hemisphere", but...
You still assume that the only valid criterion for being a "cultural capital" is quantity of cultural attractions. As you can't quantify exactly what constitutes "culture" outside of that found in a petri dish (note the hotlink for your own perusal), it is not really in the neutral spirit of Wikipedia to call NYC the cultural/entertainment capital of the Western Hemisphere, and it is certainly not unrivaled. Don't forget Rio or San Fransisco, not to mention Montreal or Philadelphia. You are excused. 82.32.83.19 18:14, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I couldn't help but notice the recent back and forth over two figures stated in the intro. Between using 8 million or 8.1 million people for the population, and between 309 and 322 square miles for the city limits. Personally I think either set of numbers is within an acceptable level of accuracy. For the population, the figure of 8 million is a good even number that reflects the 2000 census. On the other hand, the 8.1 million reflects the 2003 census estimates (according to the census website it was 8,085,742 in 2003). Of course the population of NYC is usually considered to be vastly undercounted by the census, it would probably be inappropriate for us to put in unofficial counts such as 8.2 or 8.3 million on sheer conjecture. As for the square mileage of the five boroughs, 309 or 311 are usually used as the official number, however I have seen the 322 number in some other sources. I believe the discrepency is due to the question of how much of the marshland in Jamaica Bay should you consider to be actual land? Either way, I think both numbers can be considered reasonable estimates. -- Jleon 14:24, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
--Well, I think we should refrain from making the first section too confusing. The term "over 8 million" is perfectly adequate for whatever the exact population might be at the moment. Thats interesting about the square mileage though. I suppose 309 is a happy medium between 322 and 303? Perhaps we could go more into length about the population numbers in the Demographic section.-- Jleon 16:55, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I think a Statue of Liberty pic should be the 1st pic in the article. The pic is more colorful than the midtown pic, and the Statue of Liberty is an international symbol of NYC. WhisperToMe 01:27, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
-- I happen to dislike that picture because it was taken on an unusually hazy day and makes it look like Lower Manhattan is perpetually shrouded in smog. Also, there is another picture of Lower Manhattan just a few paragraphs below it, so there is some redundancy there. Thirdly, a skyline shot from the harbor is something any coastal city can replicate, while the midtown picture shows the uniqueness of development and land-use in NYC. Anyway, maybe we should open this up to others to chime in and see if theres a common consensus that can be reached. Maybe the solution is to find some new pictures altogether. -- Jleon 14:07, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Not every city has the Statue of Liberty.
The reason that picture was used is because Mav wanted a pic of the skyline in front, while I wanted a pic of the most famous symbol of the city in front. Both of us decided to use a picture that has both of them. Maybe what I could do is simply a full picture of the statue of liberty. WhisperToMe 18:12, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Ok, Why don't we try a full picture of the statue of liberty above the picture of midtown?
-- Well, I came up with one possible compromise. Don't forget that in the midtown picture, you can also see a good portion of Queens and even parts of the Bronx, so I think its even less Manhattan-centric than the other. I just feel the brown cloud hanging over the other picture is very unsightly and inaccurate, but if its what everybody else wants, I could go with it.-- Jleon 19:13, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
According to History..............
Giovanni da Verrazzano was the first European man to find Manhattan Island when he visited......................
http://www.win.tue.nl/~engels/discovery/verrazzano.html
The French Speaking Belgians called Hugenots were the very first Europeans to settle on Manhattan Island and the area.
The Dutch followed later.............
Falsehoods like this is why I am writing an article all about Wikipedia's distorted truths....................
SD
Point of information: SD surely stands for User:Supercool Dude, who was active for a short while but grew upset when some of his contributions were not appreciated by some fellow users. I'm sure he wasn't trying to be anonymous, but just isn't signing in anymore.-- Pharos 01:09, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I think the section on Communications and Media arguably should be refiled under the preceding section about Tourism, Recreation, and the Arts. Maybe not the TV News and Newspapers section, but the Film section probably should be moved. I didn't want to make a major change without some Talk first. I'm also planning on a section about the Music Industry. Kaisershatner 16:19, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
-- Kaisershatner, I think the additions you made today are great, and I could definitely go for the idea of consolidating those sections. If we did, though, I think we should probably put the list of Newspapers & Magazines onto a separate page. Right now this list only features Papers and Mags specifically about NY; but if it were a separate list, we could also include all of the magazines published in the city that are distributed nationally. The Times Square picture would also work very nicely if the section on TV studios was placed directly above the entry on the Theater distrcit.-- Jleon 16:45, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
UN has always met in NYC - though Security Council also was in Nassau
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/F/FlushingU1S1.asp http://www.queenscourier.com/spclissue/israel/united.htm http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2004/webArticles/060304_RalphBunche.asp http://www.qgazette.com/news/2003/0625/Feature_Stories/003.html http://www.newsday.com/community/guide/lihistory/ny-history-hs741a,0,7354306.story?coll=ny-lihistory-navigation http://www.what-where.info/usny_queens_museum_of_art.htm
Please edit accordingly-- JimWae 05:06, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)
--Edit what accordingly? The UN may have met in different places, but those places never had the "headquaters" of the UN. I appreciate your research on this, but by your standards we should also mention San Francisco in the intro. The current HQ is the only complex of buildings that has ever served as the permanent HQ of the UN. -- Jleon 05:37, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Permanent being the key word. SF was the founding convention, never the HQ. Flushing was the temporary HQ for the first meeting until the move to Manhattan (city does not refer only to Manhattan, right?) It is silly to say the city became the HQ in 1951 when the city has ALWAYS been the HQ.-- JimWae 05:41, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)
I see what you're saying, though it's mostly an argument over semantics: "HQ" as a base of operations, as opposed to a physical "HQ" as a complex of buildings. Maybe we should do away with a mention of the year to avoid the misunderstanding? -- Jleon 05:52, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
--Ok JimWae, I added the word "permenent" to distinguish it from the "temporary" HQ in Flushing, although I think the whole thing was a bit unnecessary. -- Jleon 06:07, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
---I think it is more important to NYers (& a matter of some pride) that the HQ has always been in the city - and that way the year is not needed at all. The way it is we are dangling about where it was the first few years -hardly any NYers even know -- JimWae 06:16, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)
-- Dangling about? You have a very interesting way of looking at this. Why don't we leave it the way it is in the intro, and mention this distinction in the 'History' section? That way we're both happy. -- Jleon 06:26, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
-- There you go JimWae, I added a mention of the Flushing temp HQ in the "history" section, and the intro has the word "permanent" for the current HQ to distinguish the two even further. I hope this resolves the issue, it was very interesting point you made though. -- Jleon 06:36, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The article says, "New York City is also home to the nation's largest community of American Jews...." I'm sure that's true, but at one point I thought I read that it wasn't just limited to Americans; New York was described as "the world's largest Jewish city", meaning that more Jews live in NYC than in any other city in the world. Does anyone know whether that's true? JamesMLane 09:37, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
-- I think you're almost certainly right. NYC must have more Jews than any other city in the world, as opposed to simply more than any other in the U.S. If you look at the table titled "Geographic population of Jews" in the article " Jews", (assuming its accurate, altough the count for Russia seems rather bizarre) you'll see that this really must be the case. -- Jleon 14:10, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Tweaked this a little; I think we can make a bolder statement of what makes NYC an incomparable city. I also think the UN reference might need to be dropped down. Compared to all of the rest of that stuff, it's the weakest link (in my opinion). Hope my changes aren't thought to be horrible. Kaisershatner 01:59, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
OK, so here is my time to discuss the large reorganisation I made. I have protected this page for the moment to prevent User:Jleon and I from starting a revert war, which would serve no purpose, plus would put us well above the 3RR. I re-organised this page because frankly, there are large sections that consist mostly of lists of other lists. There should be a centralised location for all of these, which is why I created at Template:NYC topics. Also, this page is 62k at the moment, after I trimmed it down from 69k. This is double the preferred size, but granted New York City is a large topic. However, the images in this article needed serious re-organisation. They bled itno other sections, and were not always germane to where they were. The skyscraper images are frankly huge, while other images are small. I'm willing to look for a compromise, but a large and general revert is not such a compromise. For reference, this is the article before I began to edit it, and [3] this is the article after. Páll 06:48, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
--Does it make any sense for
Páll (aka PZFUN), with no previous presence on the article OR discussion page, to go and delete viturally the entire section on NYC Gov't, resize a dozen pictures to an enormous 300 pixels, and reorganize vast sections of the article with no discussion, and then block the page from editing as soon as someone tries to undo any of the thoughtless changes he made? This is the worst action I've ever seen anyone take to a major article like this. --
Jleon 07:03, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
--If you look at wiki's statistics page you'll see the NYC article is among the most heavily viewed articles, and it is also extremely active in terms of the number of editors. If everyone did what Páll did there would just be absolute chaos. Many of the changes he made have a long history throughout this discussion page which he paid no heed to at all. The bottom line is that this article was evolving very nicely through compromise and debate until all of this happened. -- Jleon 16:05, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
--I'm NOT being protective of my own contributions, in fact, I had absolutely nothing to do with writing the section on NYC Gov't. This was one section that everyone else just left alone because it was very well done. I HAVE stated that some of your edits were wrong, primarily in your use of the photos. The photos look rediculous now.-- Jleon 23:43, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
All I care about is that the Statue of Liberty must be up at the top of the article in some shape or form in the end. WhisperToMe 16:13, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
-I think we can all agree on a few things: (1) while not strictly required, a little warning or discussion of a major reorg. via the Talk page goes a long way to preventing conflict (I learned this the hard way when I shredded and rebuilt Lebanese Civil War without warning the main contributors). I can therefore sympathize with User:Jleon being surprised at the sudden changes, and even though bold editing is good, there's no harm in some discussion either (note my own comment under the opening para, I changed the opening para dramatically but I noted this on the talk page in case it became hugely controversial). (2) With or without warning, Páll made some changes that are probably appropriate (we don't need a partial list of all the newspapers, or a partial list of all the companies, or a partial list of the airports...etc.) and if the content is basically preserved in the subarticles then reverting may not be necessary. A list of lists is not a good article. (3) The Statue of Liberty should be more prominent; it is a major symbol of the USA and of New York City.
Finally, although not all of the cityscape images were section-specific, in my opinion it was nice to see so many different views of the city from different time periods and angles. I happen to think it was visually interesting. I look forward to the un-freezing of this article as it was really making a lot of positive progress. Kaisershatner 19:34, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I would really love to hear which recent changes I ignored. Páll 21:55, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
--Also Páll, why on earth did you put the paragraph about the city's portrayal on film and television under the heading "Printed Media"? I think this is just one more example of how carried away you got. I mean we're talking about an article that was being actively edited by dozens of people, with dozens of edits often happening in a single day, but somehow you just know better than rest of us. Also, I don't know what your fear is of left-justified pictures, but please don't impose that on the rest of us. It had already been discussed that the best way to have the intro set up is with a photo of Midtown AND a photo of the Statue of Liberty. The left-justified pics are a great way to make an article more visually interesting. The article looks really terrible right now, and its a real shame we can't go in to make improvements to it. -- Jleon 00:51, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
--I think I was perfectly specific in my remarks above as to what I object to, and you didn't even address the issues I brought up. -- Jleon 13:36, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
All right. It's clearly a conflict of interests here with both sides arguing what the other did is either wrong or unethical. So I'd like to know what Jleon is going to do when this article gets unprotected. Are you just going to revert all the changes, with Páll reverting you again? That serves no purpose whatsoever, so we need to find a compromise. Disregarding my own opinion about the changes Páll did, what do you guys think should be actually done about it? Will Jleon reinstate the partial lists into the article? As you can see, the picture I am paiting will get us absolutely nowhere.
Chip in with other suggestions you may have to reach a compromise. I have only asked a few questions which everyone should answer and discuss in a civil manner. Proceed. Inter\ Echo 12:19, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
--Very nice points Inter, I definetly have no plans of engaging in any wholesale reverting of Páll's work, however there are a few changes I would like to make immediately, such as scaling down a few of the pictures from 300 pixels and restoring the Statue of Liberty to the intro alongside the pic of Midtown. Most of Páll's structural changes I have no problem with, however, some of the lists he deleted were not recreated on separate pages, so I'd like to create those (i.e.- a page for the TV Studios list). As for the rule about left and right justified pics being evenly distributed through any given section, I think its a great idea. So that's basically it, I think these are compromises that Páll can certainly agree to.-- Jleon 13:32, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
-- Inter, thanks for your summary and redirect of this debate. As a wikipedia who is primarily a copyeditor, I will address your point about length. There are plenty of paragraphs, including ones that I contributed, that can be more concise. (Do we need data on median family AND median household income? Immigration is addressed under history, demographics, and culture. I will do my best to condense where possible. Kaisershatner 13:55, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Inter, thanks so much for you help with this argument. I'm really not dead-set against left/right images, I think it looks more professional to have them on the right, but if there are instances where they fit on the left, then I am all for it. However, the one caveat with that is that if there are many images, they start to clutter the text if they alternate so often that the text gets squeezed between them, so it is something to really think about to maintain the images on one side. The one thing that I am dubious about is putting the Statue of Liberty in the introparagraph. I think it looks unprofessional to have the introparagraph squeezed to the right between two images, and I can say from experience that it will not pass FAC with that, because there was a huge argument over having just one image in the introparagraph on South Africa, which I eventually lost and the image was moved. One other think about the removal of lists: I am attemping to gather them all together on a template under See also. The template can be edited here: Template:NYC topics because I think having this very very very long list of lists at the bottom is just as bad as having them in the centre of the article.
I also agree that article size isn't technically an issue anymore, but I also could not get South Africa to be a FA when it was 44k, I can only imagine how many peopple will object to 69k. The thing that I have always thought to be true about large articles like this is that they need to summarise content that is explained in greater detail on sub articles, or else they will baloon to 140k monstrosities. I hope we can come to an agreement. Páll 18:40, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
--I'm actually open to not including the Statue of Liberty in the intro, so long as the pic of Midtown is not replaced with that brown-hued pic of NY Harbor. However, the stand alone picture of the statue should be included as close to the top of the article as possible. Also there is a redundancy between the satellite pic of NYC and satellite pic of NY at night. We should replace the night picture with a picture of City Hall since it is on the Gov't section. I actually have one that's ready to be uploaded. So when does the block get lifted? -- Jleon 19:56, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)