How Big Is the Big Apple?

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How Big Is the Big Apple?

We recently traveled to Portland, Maine for a short vacation.  To get there from San Francisco, we had to fly to New York.  The first time I visited New York City was in 1978, while still living in Israel.  When we were considering moving to the United States for my MBA studies in 1980, we were deciding between New York City, where my close childhood friend was living, and who would help us start our new lives in a new country, or San Francisco, where my wife’s childhood friend lived.  My wife Elfa turned New York down, thus we ended up in San Francisco.

Elfa used to be afraid to go to New York, and ironically both of our daughters ended up studying and living there for many years.  Our eldest daughter Alona received her Master’s degree from Columbia University, while her sister Tamar received her Bachelor’s degree from the Tisch School of the Performing Arts, at NYU.  As a result, we traveled to Manhattan many times to visit our daughters.

After the Dutch bought the island from the Native Americans in 1626, they named it New Amsterdam.  In 1664, the British seized the island from the Dutch and gave it a new name – New York City.  It served as the capital of the United States from 1785 to 1790.  One of the first groups of different people and nations, who today populate this area, were Jews.  In September 1654, twenty-three Jews from the Netherlands, who were originally from Recife, Brazil, then a Dutch colony, arrived in New Amsterdam.  Today some experts believe that as many as 800 languages are spoken in New York.  All five boroughs were incorporated into a single city in 1898, and a census estimated the population in 2015 was 8,550,000, distributed over the land area of just 305 square miles, thus making New York the most densely populated city in the United States.  In 1920 John J. Fitz Gerald, a sports writer for the New York Morning Telegraph, called New York the “Big Apple”.  The name caught on and is still popular today.  Enjoy and Share.

P.S. As any big city, New York offers many photo opportunities.  When I visit Manhattan, I like to go for a walk in Central Park, which was developed in 1857.  San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, which was modeled after Central Park in New York City, is actually 20% larger with a population in San Francisco of only 837,442 (as of 2013).

Many famous photographers have photographed New York City throughout the years.  I hope you’ll enjoy my humble contribution of four images of this great city.

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Cheers,

Manny<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />                                                               Signature