Text 8. New York.

New York attracts people from all over the world. If you look at the newspapers that people around you are reading, you will see that one person is reading a newspaper in Spanish, another in Arabic, still others in Chinese, French, Russian, Italian, and so on. New York was always a city of immigrants. It still is.

New York, one of the largest and most exciting cities in the world, is situated in the mouth of the Hudson River, where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean, and consists of five parts, called boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx and Staten Island. But it is of course its central part, the borough of Manhattan, that most people think of when they think of New York.

Manhattan is an island 13 miles long and 2 miles wide. It is the centre of American finance, advertising, art, theatre, publishing, fashion – everything else.

Manhattan is divided into the East Side and the West Side. The dividing line is Fifth Avenue. All streets that cross Fifth Avenue are also divided into two parts, that is they have, for example, West 5^th Street and East 5^th Street, West 11^th Street and East 11^th Street, and so on. The part of, say, 26^th Street that goes west of Fifth Avenue is called West 26^th Street, the part going east of Fifth Avenue – East 26^th Street.

Manhattan is also divided into Lower (Downtown) Manhattan, Midtown, and Upper (Uptown) Manhattan. The numbers of the streets begin in Lower (Downtown) Manhattan and get higher as you go north. Lower (Downtown) Manhattan is the southern part of the island, nearest the Atlantic Ocean, up to 14^th Street. Midtown is the area between 14^th Street and Central Park. Upper (Uptown) Manhattan is the remaining, northern part of the island.

Lower (Downtown) Manhattan.

The first Europeans to settle in Manhattan were the Dutch. To protect themselves from possible attacks, they built a strong wooden wall. This wall, which is now destroyed, gave its name to a street in Lower Manhattan, and the street, in its turn, became a synonym of American capitalism. Of course, this street is Wall Street.

It is easy to see why Wall Street is a synonym of capitalism. Both the New York Stock Exchange and the American Stock Exchange are located in the Wall Street area, as well as many banks and offices of many large corporations. The twin towers of the World Trade Centre, which rose up to 1,350 feet above the city, were also here. They were destroyed by two airplanes piloted by terrorists on the 11^th of September 2001.

Originally, the Lower east Side was an elegant district. When New York was the capital of the United States, President George Washington lived in the Lower East Side.

By the mid-1800s the Lower East Side had greatly changed. It had become an area in which immigrants settled. First there were many Irish, then came many Jews from Eastern Europe. In recent years many Jews have moved to other places, and a new immigrant group has settled here – Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics.

Near the Lower East Side there is another area that also attracted immigrants. It is Little Italy, which is famous for its food. Italians settled Little Italy at the same time that Jews settled the Lower East Side. Like the Jews, many Italians have now moved to other places. Little Italy has become smaller. But the Italian restaurants and cafes remain popular with tourists and Italians alike.

Close to Little Italy yet another immigrant area is situated – Chinatown. Today Chinatown is the only immigrant community in Manhattan that is still growing. Chinatown has seven newspapers of its own. Its 200 restaurants serve traditional Chinese food.

Greenwich Village, an area situated in Lower West Side, is mostly a residential area. Its elegant-looking houses in narrow tree-lined streets look very picturesque and charming. In the early 1900s this charm attracted bohemians – writers and artists. The rents were cheap, and for many years Greenwich Village was a place for people with different and creative ideas. It had an active nightlife with plenty of bars, restaurants and clubs. The artists, writers and political radicals spent hours and hours in the cafes.

Today rents in Greenwich Village are far from cheap, and not many artists can afford them. Greenwich Village is visited by many tourists, and some New Yorkers complain that Greenwich Village is no longer “authentic”. But in fact, the Village has preserved many of its authentic elements: in Washington Square, its centre, you can see street performers, jazz bands, police, drug dealers, joggers, and roller skaters.