12. Major cities of the usa
Washington
Washington, the capital of the United States, is in the District of Columbia (D.C.). This special district is not in any state, because it is the home of the federal government. The District was named in honour of Columbus, the discoverer of America.
In 1790 the first President of the U.S.A., General George Washington, personally chose the site for the capital of a new nation. The General drew a circle at his well-worn map, where the Potomac River divided the Virginia and Maryland States, and wrote inside it, “District Columbia. Federal city”. Washington invited a famous French engineer Pierre Charles L’Enfant, a supporter of the new American Republic to design the new city.
The city was founded in 1791, became the capital of the United States in 1800, and was named after the first U.S. President, George Washington.
T
he
city is divided into four sections: northeast (NE), northwest (NW),
southeast (SE), and southwest (SW). In the center of the city is the
Capitol,
where Congress meets. Broad Pennsylvania
Avenue,
about a mile and a half in length, connects the Capitol with the
White House,
where the president lives and works. Starting from the Capitol, the
streets running north and south bear the numbers 1, 2, 3, etc.,
while the east and west streets are named А,
В,
С,
etc. All the diagonal avenues are named after States of the Union,
and the longest and straightest of them all is Massachusetts
Avenue, which virtually cuts the city in half.
Washington is not the largest city in the United States, but it is one of the most beautiful and unusual cities in the country, the first carefully planned capital in the world. Washington’s only big business has been the business of Government. International organizations such as the Organization of American States and the World Bank are also based in Washington.
In and around Washington, D.C., there are many memorials to honor important people in American history like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln, and soldiers who have died in wars. There are also many famous museums, including the National Air and Space Museum. Washington is a large scientific and cultural centre, where many research institutes are concentrated. The Smithsonian Institution, the National Academy of Science and the Congressional Library are among them.
New York
New York is one of the largest cities in the world and the leading financial, industrial, transport and trade centre of the USA.
An ex-mayor of New York, Ed Koch, called New York City “The Big Apple” in a speech, and the name stuck. The Big Apple has become a symbol for America’s largest city. New York has also been called “the city that never sleeps” because it is alive at all hours of the day and night. It has a dramatic skyline crowded with skyscrapers. New York is a city of islands connected by 60 bridges.
New York was founded in 1613 by Dutch settlers and was named New Amsterdam. When British troops occupied New Amsterdam they called it New York after the Duke of York who was commander of the English army.
Over eight million people live in the city’s five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island. During the day the population grows to over 20 million, аs workers commute to the city. They come from the metropolitan area that includes the suburbs of the city and other nearby cities in New York State, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania.
New York is a multinational city, called “modern Babylon”. The people of almost all nationalities and races speak 800 different languages, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world.
The city has been the gateway to the United States for many immigrants. Its most famous ethnic neighborhoods include Little Italy, Chinatown, and the Lower East Side, which was originally settled by Eastern European Jews.
The centre of New York is Manhattan Island, the heart of business and finance. The island stretches to 21 km. from north to south between the Hudson River and the East River and is only four kilometres in breadth. The longest and widest street in New York, Broadway, runs through the whole of Manhattan. Straight avenues follow the length of the island. The avenues are crossed by 200 streets numbered from south to north.
Theatres, museums, publishing houses, research institutes and famous universities, including the University of Columbia, New York University make New York one of the main centres of scientific and cultural life in the country. The Metropolitan Opera, Radio City Music Hall, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art attract many visitors.
Coming up to New York harbour you pass Liberty Island with the bronze Statue of Liberty, presented to the United States by France in 1886 to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of American independence. The statue is about 50 metres high and stands on a pedestal of almost the same height.
New York is a world city in both commerce and outlook, with the most famous skyline on earth. It also became a target for international terrorism — most notably the destruction in 2001 of the World Trade Center, which for three decades had been the most prominent symbol of the city. However, New York remains for its residents a conglomeration of local neighbourhoods that provide them with familiar cuisines, languages, and experiences. A city of stark contrasts and deep contradictions, New York is perhaps the most fitting representative of a diverse and powerful nation.
Chicago
One of the largest cities in the United States, Chicago, is on the shore of Lake Michigan. Two rivers, the Chicago and the Calumet, run through the city, and canals link them with the Mississippi River, which flows down to the Gulf of Mexico. Ships can also sail from Chicago through the Great Lakes and along the Saint Lawrence Seaway to the Atlantic Ocean. Chicago is called the Windy City because of the strong winds that blow through it.
Chicago is an industrial centre. The city has always has attracted a diverse population of Americans and new immigrants in search of jobs. Its steel mills are the most productive in the world. Cattle from all over America are transported to Chicago to be turned into hamburgers and steaks. Chicago is also a railroad and trucking hub. Its airport, O’Hare International, is the busiest in the world.
During the 19th century it was regarded as exceptional for the speed of its growth and the diversity of its population, yet its interior location supposedly made it a much more “typically American” city than New York. It was the city of the humble immigrant and the new millionaire, the home of brazen criminals such as Al Capone and of great humanitarians such as settlement-house pioneer Jane Addams and child-welfare crusader Lucy Flower. The world’s first skyscraper, the Home Insurance Company, was built in Chicago in 1885.
Today, with a population hovering near 3 million, Chicago is the country’s third most populous city.
Los Angeles
Los Angeles is America’s second largest city. Geographically, it extends more than 40 miles from the mountains to the sea. Its name comes from the Spanish for “the City of Angels,” because the land was originally claimed for Spain by missionaries in 1781. It became an American city in 1850 when California became part of the United States after the Mexican-American War.
Approximately 3.8 million people live in Los Angeles. It is a popular place because of its pleasant semi-tropical climate and beautiful Pacific coast. Almost everyone drives to work on the miles of freeways that connect the different areas of this sprawling city. There are about four million private cars in Los Angeles, often backed up in long traffic jams. The level of air pollution is one of the highest in the country.
Suburbs like Hollywood, the centre of the movie industry, and Beverly Hills, where famous actors and other celebrities live, have also made Los Angeles a tourist attraction.
In recent years the population of Los Angeles has changed, so that there are now more Latin American and African-American people in the city than white people. Some parts of Los Angeles are thought of as being violent and dangerous because there are a lot of gangs and problems with racism and drugs.
Boston
Boston is the state capital, and the largest city in Massachusetts. It is located in the eastern part of the state on Massachusetts Bay. No city in the U.S. is richer in historical associations than Boston, and no city has retained more of its original buildings as memorials to America’s past.
B
oston
was the centre of the struggle for independence during the American
Revolutionary War.
The Boston Tea Party in 1773 was a protest by some American colonists. They protested against the high taxes the British were charging for tea by taking the tea from three British ships and throwing it into Boston Harbor. In April 1775, Paul Revere, a silversmith who had taken part in the protest, made a famous midnight horseback ride to warn everyone of a British attack. Two months later, the colonists fought against the British in the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Boston is a major industrial and financial hub and has one of the finest ports in the world. The city’s banking and financial services, insurance, and real estate sectors continue to drive Boston’s economy. Boston’s other businesses are in high technology, biotechnology, software, and electronics. Boston is also a leading city in health care, with 25 inpatient hospitals and numerous community health centres.
There are many colleges and universities in the Boston area. Harvard, in the nearby city of Cambridge, is the most famous of several elite universities in the Northeast known as Ivy League schools. The name comes from the ivy that grows on some of their old buildings. Other Ivy League schools are: Yale (Connecticut), Princeton (New Jersey), and Columbia (New York City).
Other leading educational institutions are Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the largest purely scientific and technical school in the country, and Boston University.
There is the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. As a musical centre Boston rivals New York.
Philadelphia
Philadelphia is the largest city in Pennsylvania and the fifth largest city in the US. The city was founded in 1682. In the period before the American Revolution, the city outstripped all others in the colonies in education, arts, science, industry, and commerce. It is associated with the Declaration of Independence, which was signed and approved there on July 4, 1776. Today, visitors can see the Liberty Bell, which was rung for the first time on July 8, 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was read out in public. Later, the first Constitution of the United States was written in Philadelphia. The city was the first capital of the new United States and remained so until the seat of the federal government moved to Washington.
Within a half-century of the founding of the nation at Independence Hall, Philadelphia had emerged as a leader in America’s Industrial Revolution. Today the steam locomotives and hat factories of the 19th century have been replaced by diverse manufacturing specialties such as chemicals (including pharmaceuticals), medical devices, transportation equipment, and printing and publishing. The city’s harbor is one of the largest freshwater ports in the world.
The city abounds in landmarks of early American history, including Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed, and the Liberty Bell. Other significant tourist attractions are the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Franklin Institute Science Museum, and the Philadelphia Zoological Gardens.
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