New york city

New York is the biggest and most important city of the United States. New York is situated on the Atlantic coast, in the North-East of the country, in the state of New York at the mouth of the Hudson River. It is the financial and media capital of the world, the center of the American cultural life. The “Big Apple” is nickname of the city. New York, with the population of 16 mln people, is the second largest city and the biggest sea port in the world. It was founded in 1613 by Dutch settlers and then seized by the English. It consists of 5 large boroughs: Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Richmond. Manhattan is an island. It is 13 miles long and 2 miles wide. It is the center of American finance, advertising, art, theatre, publishing, fashion.

There are a lot of places of interest in New York. The most famous of them is the Statue of Liberty, given to the USA by France in 1886. It is the largest statue in the world. New York is a city of contrasts. There are many skyscrapers and low buildings. The Empire State Building used to be the first, but now it is only the third tallest building in the world. It is a 102- storied building. Avenues and streets are numbered. Avenues run north and south but streets run east and west. Broadway is the longest street in the world. It is 12 miles long. Broadway is the center of theatres, entertainments and night life. The Metropolitan Opera is the world famous opera house. There are a lot of museums and art galleries in New York. The Metropolitan Museum in Times Square is the richest art museum in the world. The Central Park is the largest park in the world. Wall Street is the center of finance, banks and stock exchanges. New York is a city of immigrants, an ethnic melting pot. There are many Italians, Irish, Chinese as well as the largest Jewish population of any city in the world. The most famous ethnic districts are Harlem, Little Italy, Chinatown and Brighton Beach. Brooklyn Bridge over the East River joins Manhattan and Brooklyn. The United Nations Building is also on the bank of East River. New York is the center of education and science. It can boast of Columbia University, New York Public Library and many other institutions. There is a subway in New York.

My favourite english writer (dickens)

Charles Dickens is one of the greatest English writers.

Charles Dickens was born at Portsea on the 7th of February in 1812. Charles’s father was a clerk. The boy showed the imagination and dramatic talent from his early childhood. His parents loved to hear him recite poetry and act scenes from plays and novels. When Dickens was ten, his family moved to London. Very soon Charles had to go to work as his father was put in prison for debt. Charles was paid very little money and for two years he never had enough to eat. The experience of his poverty and starvation was reflected in his novels when he became a writer.

When Dickens’s father left prison he sent his son to a private school. After that Charles became a clerk in a lawyer’s office and in his spare time studied shorthand. At the age of 19 Charles became a reporter for a newspaper. When Dickens turned 25 he wrote a sketch and signed it Boz which was accepted by a magazine. Later he wrote more sketches and readers were charmed with their humour. Thus was born his famous Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club and from that time on Dickens devoted himself to literature.

Among the most famous of his books are Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Dombey and Son, Little Dorrit, Hard Times and The Old Curiosity Shop. Despite the sparkling humour of his novels Dickens never succeeded in being completely happy. Family troubles, worry over his children and overwork exhausted the great writer and in 1870 Dickens died. He was only 58. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.