New York

New York is the epitome of the American city, its Empire State Building for years symbolizing the vigour of the entire nation. Other taller structures now dominate Manhattan - an awesome sight etched against blue sky on one of the few days with clear air, or glimpsed at night from an incoming airliner as a group of seemingly fragile illuminated boxes. In the inner residential areas massive apartment complexes compete with commercial buildings, highways and cemeteries for the limited land, as the outer suburbs spread yet further into the countryside. There is the social misery and physical decay of the harlem ghetto, and some of the finest museums and galleries in the world. To many visitors and newcomers New York is a hostile city, from the first encounter with a cab driver or porter; to others the "Big Apple" has a warmth, vitality and promise which draws, and keeps, people of varied talents and needs. New York is still racially and ethnically heterogenous, with a large Puerto Rican community added to the blacks and Europeans of diverse origins, and the largest Jewish population of any city in the world.

The United States. A Companion to American Studies; Second Edition; Methuen, London, 1987,  page 32