City Hall Rochester New York Sources of City Hall Rochester New York resources from the Web

After Jerome Kern's Show Boat, the Broadway musical developed into a characteristically American art, while Tin Pan Alley cranked out the tunes America danced to before rock and roll.

In 1610, Dutch navigator Adriaen Block spent the winter on lower Manhattan with his crew, then built a new ship in the following spring, which he sailed through up the East River and through Hell Gate, becoming the first European to recognize Long Island as an island. Block christened the coast as New Netherland and his company received exclusive trading rights in the area.

An electrical blackout rolled through the Northeastern United States and Southern Canada on August 14, 2003 at 4:11 PM, leaving many areas, including NYC, without electricity for over a day. There was no major looting or other crime, unlike in the blackout of 1977.

The island played a signficant role in the American Revolution. In the summer of 1776, the British forces under William Howe evacuated Boston and prepared to attack New York City. Howe used the strategic location of Staten Island as a staging ground for the attack. Howe established his headquarters in New Dorp at the Rose and Crown tavern near the junction of present New Dorp Lane and Amboy Road. It is here that the representatives of the British government reportedly received their first notification of the Declaration of Independence.

Within "downtown" is Lower Manhattan, a neighborhood defined as everything approximately south of Barclay Street and the Brooklyn Bridge; it is perhaps one of the most well-known parts of the city, home to City Hall, Wall Street, the South Street Seaport, the site of the World Trade Center, as well as a number of other significant landmarks.

For decades it has been the established practice for Albany to pass legislation for some meritorious project, but then mandate county and municipal government to actually pay for it. New York State has its counties pay a higher percentage of welfare costs than any other state and New York State is the only state which requires counties to pay a portion of Medicaid.

The existence of the borough dates from unification of New York City in 1898. Until 1975, however, the borough was known formally as Richmond.

The Hudson and its tributaries—notably the Mohawk River—drain a large area, and the river is navigable for a great distance. The Erie Canal, opened December 26, 1825, connected the Hudson River to Lake Erie, enabling shipping between cities on the Great Lakes and Europe via the Atlantic Ocean.