New York City: The Most Significant City In The World

New York City is one of the most significant city in the world. It started out as a small Dutch city and grew to what it has become today. It didn’t “just happen” right away but instead, it took a long time to be called as “The Big Apple” or “The City that Never Sleeps.” The character of the place has gradually changed over time and really came to become a global power city during the early twentieth century. For example, 1783 to 1835 was also an important time period in the history of New York City that laid a strong foundation to become an industrialized city. However, considering the developments that happened from 1898 to 1945 to be more organized and effective, the most iconic and quintessential period was from 1898 to 1945 in the history of New York, which we haven’t reached it in our course so far.

New York city didn’t always have a core identity from the beginning but its character changed over time.

When Hudson explored the New World, he recognized that there was a commercial potential of the geography of New York City today. It was described that the “city’s natural setting was a blessing” (Atlas, 10), which tells us that New York City was a perfect place for trading and business. As a result, this could support that the place had its commercial advantages already from the first time when the city was discovered. However, as New York City was able to become the way it is after going through many different events and developments after 1609 until the twentieth century, the characteristic of the city of New York has kept

changing.
After the Dutch settlement in 1624, they established a trading post in the New Netherland, which is now the city of New York. As the Dutch West India Company started to exchange European metal tools for Beaver pelt with the natives and the fur trading business expanded across the region, the city became the center of the commerce. Then the New York City became the location of the political resistance from the Stamp Act during the British period. And after the British Revolution and the social upheaval that occurred “at the end of the war in 1783” (The Atlas, 60), the city became the land of opportunity when the “loyalists, including most of its property owners went into exile” (The Atlas, 60) and the city became more democratic. As the time passes, the city then grew as an economic center during the time period between 1784 to 1854 with an opening of Erie Canal and the construction of the railroad. The characteristics of New York City continued to change until it reached the most iconic period of the early twentieth century.
New York gradually became to look like the New York City that we see today slowly from the beginning of the late nineteenth century. Many things in the city started to change and get advanced during the Gilded Age during 1861 and 1898. The city not only started to see the prosperity for both rich and poor but also the public facilities started to grow, such as the opening of the Central Park, which is still famous in this century. The reconstruction of the department stores and buildings was also one of the event that transformed the physical appearance of the city to look like the city that we still see it. Many improvements that has been made during this period had several important aspects that shaped the city to become like the one today. However, considering all the advancements that has been made in this period to be less effective and less organized than in the early twentieth century, the time period that really allowed the New York City to become the city today was in 1898 t9 1945.
New York during the early twentieth period between from 1898 to 1945 “was a community with a large manufacturing base” (The Atlas, 115). It was also “a period in which the city grew rapidly, survived the depression, and projected a strong sense of its identity upon the nation” (The Atlas, 115). The cultural life of the city was so improved that “the critical mass of New York culture had no rivals” (The Atlas 117) and “the large brightly-lit windows of department stores provided a dramatic showcase for goods from all over the world” (Atlas, 120). The consolidation of the existing city as one into five different boroughs, development of subway system and the changing racial and ethnic makeup of the place became the major features to represent New York City. All developments that occurred in this period boosted up the city to become the capital of the national communications, trade, finance and of popular culture. It was the years of wealth and luxury that highlighted the city to resemble an idealized city of New York that is called, “The Big Apple,” “The city that never sleeps,” and “The Melting Pot” that we know today. Since the improvements that has been made in this period shaped the permanent core identity of New York City, the early twentieth century was the most iconic and quintessential period of all time in history of New York City.