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Serious efforts to protect this land began in 1882, when businessmen in New York began to be concerned about the effects of widespread logging. Without trees, the many steep slopes on the mountains in the region were likely to erode, and the silt from the slopes could conceivably have silted up the Erie Canal, choking off New York State’s economic backbone.

Moreover, the Dutch themselves began manufacturing their own wampum with superior tools in order to further dominate the trading network among themselves and the Natives (a practice undertaken by the settlers in New England as well). As a result of this increase, beavers were largely trapped out in the Five Boroughs within two decades, leaving the Lenape largely dependent on the Dutch completely. As a result, the Native population declined drastically throughout the 17th century through a combination of disease, starvation, and outward migration.

The city's development was again stopped by the Panic of 1837. But the city recovered and by mid-century established itself as the financial and mercantile capital of the western hemisphere.

The British conquest of Manhattan was completed with the fall of Fort Washington on November 16, 1776, and thereafter they held the city without challenge until 1783. 'Evacuation Day', in which the last British troops and many Tory supporters departed in September 1783, was long celebrated in New York.

Though there was opposition, and the canal was derisively called "Clinton's Ditch" or worse, "Clinton's Folly," the canal was finally completed in 1825. Officially the event was celebrated by cannon shots along the length, and by Governor Clinton ceremonially pouring Lake Erie water into the New York Harbor in the "Wedding of the Waters."

The modern city of New York — the five boroughs — was created in 1898, with the consolidation of the cities of New York (then Manhattan and the Bronx) and Brooklyn with the largely then-rural areas of Queens and Staten Island.

This region is the largest remnant of a forest thought to have once encompassed over a quarter million acres (1,000 km˛) on Long Island following the last glacial advance some 15,000 to 20,000 years ago. Much of the region's ecosystem is similar to the larger New Jersey Pinelands (also called "pine barrens") to the south and southwest of NY City, along with Cape Cod's pine barrens. All three areas share geologic and ecological characteristics common along the Atlantic Coastal Plain of the U.S.

In 1661, the first permanent Dutch settlement was established at Oude Dorp (Dutch for "Old Village"), just south of the Narrows near South Beach, by a small group of Dutch Walloon and Huguenot families.

The south shore of Lake Ontario provides the right mix of soils and microclimate for many apple, cherry, plum, pear and peach orchards. Apples are also grown in the Hudson Valley and near Lake Champlain. The south shore of Lake Erie and the southern Finger Lakes hillsides have many vineyards. New York State is the nation's third-largest wine-producing state, behind California and Washington State.

The city's strong entrepreneurial spirit discouraged family connections that would have stifled innovation and economic ambition. The city's cosmopolitan attitude and tolerance of many different cultures encouraged many different types of immigrant groups to settle in the city, especially German immigrants and Irish immigrants who began arriving in the late 1840s.

The blackout of 1977 struck the City of New York on July 13, 1977, lasting for 25 hours and resulting in heavy looting and other unrest.

The name Manhattan ("hilly island" or "place of intoxication") is from the Algonquian languages of the earliest known inhabitants of the area. Legend has it that the island was purchased from the natives for $24 in beads and other such trinkets. The island was settled by the Dutch in 1624.

Many of the merchants who lost their stores thought they would be covered by insurance, but the tremendous losses, and, in many cases, the destruction of the insurance company headquarters in the financial district, bankrupted the insurance firms and much of the loss was not covered.

In 1857 Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman physician, founded the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children.