New York City history

This area of the continent was originally inhabited by the Lenape tribe of Native Americans, specifically the Unami subgroup. Though European settlement began around 1609, the story of modern New York really began with the formal creation of the five boroughs in 1898. The early 20th century bought mass immigration, particularly an African-American population that migrated from the south.

Despite the Great Depression of the 1920s and 30s, development continued, and skyscrapers began to shape the city’s aesthetic. Art deco buildings went up, as well as bridges and parkways, and this continued right through to World War II.

A post-war economic boom saw a real expansion of the residential parts of the boroughs, with Wall Street and the United Nations leading the way in world economics and political affairs. Shipbuilding and fabric production declined while hotels, restaurants and bars opened up on an astonishing scale, transforming the city into a service economy.

Mass immigration saw the city under pressure in the 1960s, with race riots, gang wars and activism on a proactive scale. Even through to the late 1970s, much of the city had a slightly edgy atmosphere. As Wall Street took centre stage during the materialism of the 1980s, crime and unemployment were still high, but as the 1990s approached, reform and social recovery were in the air.

2001 saw the globally-defining moment of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, when 3,000 people died. The trauma, witnessed on live TV by the entire world, eventually fortified the city, and New York set about rebuilding itself, both in a psychological sense as well as in a physical one. It remains a world capital, a centre of culture, finance, gastronomy and fashion.