Boroughs of New York City

  1. Manhattan
  2. Brooklyn
  3. Queens
  4. The Bronx
  5. Staten Island

New York City encompasses five different county-level administrative divisions called boroughs: Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. Each of the boroughs is coextensive with a respective county, the primary administrative subdivision within New York State.

Boroughs have existed since the consolidation of the city in 1898, when the city and each borough assumed their current boundaries. However, the boroughs have not always been coextensive with their respective counties. Before 1914, the borough of The Bronx had been earlier in the southern part of Westchester County which had then been annexed to New York County in two stages in 1874 and 1895 -- finally, in 1914 the county was created to match the borough. Before 1899, the County of Queens included a western part, which was split-off during the consolidation to become Nassau County.

Terminology

The term borough was adopted to describe a form of governmental administration for each of the five fundamental constituent parts of the newly consolidated city in 1898. Under the 1898 City Charter adopted by the New York State Legislature, a "borough" is a municipal corporation that is created when a county is merged with populated areas within it.[1] The limited powers of the borough governments are inferior to the authority of the Government of New York City, contrasting significantly with other borough administrations of government used in Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, where a borough is an independent level of government, as well as borough forms used in other states and in Greater London.[2]

Background

New York City's five boroughs
Jurisdiction Population Land area Density
BoroughCountyEstimate
(2016)[3]
square
miles
square
km
persons /
sq. mi
persons /
sq. km
New York
1,643,734 22.83 59.1 72,033 27,826
Bronx
1,455,720 42 110 34,653 13,231
Kings
2,629,150 71 180 37,137 14,649
Queens
2,333,054 109 280 21,460 8,354
Richmond
476,015 58.5 152 8,112 3,132
8,537,673303.33781.128,18810,947
19,745,28947,214122,284416.4159
Sources: see individual borough articles
The borough of Manhattan is the economic, cultural, and administrative center of New York City.

New York City is often referred to collectively as the five boroughs; the term is used to refer to New York City as a whole unambiguously, avoiding confusion with any particular borough or with the Greater New York metropolitan area. The term is also used by politicians to counter a frequent focus on Manhattan and thereby to place all five boroughs on equal footing. In the same vein, the term outer boroughs refers to all of the boroughs excluding Manhattan, even though the geographic center of the city is along the Brooklyn–Queens border.

All of the boroughs were created in 1898 during consolidation, when the city's current boundaries were established.

Changes after 1898

The Bronx originally included parts of New York County outside of Manhattan that had previously been ceded by neighboring Westchester County in two stages; in 1874 and then following a referendum in 1894. Ultimately in 1914, the present-day separate Bronx County became the last county to be created in the State of New York.

The borough of Queens consists of what formerly was only the western part of a then-larger Queens County. In 1899, the three eastern towns of Queens County that had not joined the city the year before—the towns of Hempstead, North Hempstead, and Oyster Bay—formally seceded from Queens County to form the new Nassau County.[4]

The borough of Staten Island, concurrent with Richmond County, was officially the borough of Richmond until the name was changed in 1975 to reflect its common appellation, while leaving the name of the county unchanged.[5]

Description of the boroughs

Chinatown in Manhattan, the most densely populated borough of New York City, with a higher density than any individual American city.
A view down a street with rowhouses in brown, white, and various shades of red.
Landmark 19th-century brownstones in the Greenpoint Historic District of Brooklyn, New York City's most populous borough.
The Unisphere in Queens, the most ethnically diverse urban area in the world.[6][7]
Borough Hall in the St. George neighborhood of Staten Island, the most suburban borough of New York City.
The Bronx, the northernmost borough of New York City and the only borough situated on the United States mainland.

There are hundreds of distinct neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs of New York City, many with a definable history and character to call their own.

Governance

The percentage of New York City population residing in each borough (from bottom to top): 1. Manhattan, 2. Brooklyn, 3. Queens, 4. The Bronx, and 5. Staten Island. (Populations before 1898 are for the areas now enclosed in the present boroughs.)

Since 1914, each of New York City's five boroughs has been coextensive with a county of New York State unlike most U.S. cities, which lie within a single county or extend partially into another county, constitute a county in themselves, or are completely separate and independent of any county.

Each borough is represented by a borough president. Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island each have a Borough Hall with limited administrative functions. The Manhattan Borough President's office is situated in the Manhattan Municipal Building. The Bronx Borough President's office used to be in its own Bronx Borough Hall but has been in the Bronx County Courthouse for decades. Since the abolition of the Board of Estimate in 1990 (due to a 1989 ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court[22]), the borough presidents have minimal executive powers, and there is no legislative function within a borough. Executive functions in New York City are the responsibility of the Mayor of New York City, while legislative functions reside with the New York City Council. The borough presidents primarily act as spokesmen, advocates, and ceremonial leaders for their boroughs, have budgets from which they can allocate relatively modest sums of money to community organizations and projects, and appoint the members of the 59 largely advisory community boards in the city's various neighborhoods. The Brooklyn and Queens borough presidents also appoint trustees to the local public library systems in those boroughs.

Being coextensive with an individual county, each borough also elects a district attorney, as does every other county of New York State. While the district attorneys of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Staten Island are popularly referred to as such by the media (e.g., "Manhattan D.A. Cyrus Vance, Jr.", or "Brooklyn D.A. Kenneth P. Thompson"), they are technically and legally the district attorneys of New York County, Kings County and Richmond County, respectively. There is no such distinction made for the district attorneys of the other two counties, Queens and the Bronx, since these boroughs share the respective counties' names. Because the five district attorneys are, technically speaking, state officials (since the counties are considered to be arms of the state government), rather than officials of the city government, they are not subject to the term limitations that govern other New York City officials such as the mayor, the New York City Public Advocate, members of the city council, or the borough presidents. Some civil court judges also are elected on a borough-wide basis, although they generally are eligible to serve throughout the city.

Sixth borough

The term sixth borough is used to describe any of a number of places that have been metaphorically called a part of New York City because of their geographic location, demographics (they include large numbers of former New Yorkers), special affiliation, or cosmopolitan character. They have included adjacent cities and counties in the New York metropolitan area as well as in other states, U.S. territories, and foreign countries.[23][24][25] In 2011, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg referred to the city's waterfront and waterways as a composite sixth borough during presentations of planned rehabilitation projects along the city's shoreline,[26][27][28][29][30][31] including Governor's Island in the Upper New York Bay.[32] The Hudson Waterfront in the U.S. state of New Jersey lies opposite Manhattan on the Hudson River, and during the Dutch colonial era, was under the jurisdiction of New Amsterdam and known as Bergen. Jersey City and Hoboken in Hudson County, New Jersey, are sometimes referred to as the sixth borough, given their proximity and connections by rapid transit PATH trains.[33][34][35][36] Fort Lee, New Jersey, in Bergen County, opposite Upper Manhattan and connected by the George Washington Bridge, has also been called the sixth borough.[37][38][39] Miami and nearby areas in Florida,[40][41] Philadelphia[42] and China[43] are locales entirely outside the city's metropolitan area which have been called New York City's sixth borough.

See also

References

  1. The Charter for the Greater New York, and Acts Supplementary Thereto, as Adopted by the State Legislature, p. 10. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1898. Accessed September 21, 2016.
  2. Bacharach, Jacqueline; and Barrales, Ruben. Growth Within Bounds, p. 197. California Commission on Local Governance for the 21st Century, DIANE Publishing, 2000. ISBN 9780756706319. Accessed September 21, 2016.
  3. "Current Population Estimates: NYC". NYC.gov. Retrieved June 10, 2017.
  4. Williams, Keith. "How Queens Became New York City's Largest Borough", Curbed , October 20, 2015. Accessed September 21, 2016. "Williams, Keith. "How Queens Became New York City's Largest Borough", Curbed , October 20, 2015. Accessed September 21, 2016. "On April 28, 1898, the state Legislature approved the creation of a new county, which some in the eastern half of the former Queens County had wanted for nearly 60 years."
  5. Kaufman, Michael T. "Council Weighs Making 'Staten Island' Official", The New York Times, August 28, 1974. Accessed September 21, 2016. "Yesterday a committee of the City Council sought to right matters with a resolution that, if adopted by the full Council and approved by the Mayor, would have the borough's name officially changed to Staten Island.... The resolution only affects the name of the borough. The county would remain Richmond, in the way that the borough of Manhattan is the county of New York, and Brooklyn is the county of Kings."
  6. 1 2 Christine Kim, Demand Media. "Queens, New York, Sightseeing". USA TODAY. Retrieved March 20, 2016.
  7. 1 2 Andrew Weber (April 30, 2013). "Queens". NewYork.com. Archived from the original on May 13, 2015. Retrieved March 20, 2016.
  8. Mann, Camille; Valera, Stephanie. "10 Most Crowded Islands in the World". The Weather Channel. Retrieved March 28, 2016.
  9. Purdum, Todd S. "Political memo; An Embattled City Hall Moves to Brooklyn", The New York Times, February 22, 1992. Accessed November 26, 2016. ""Leaders in all of them fear that recent changes in the City Charter that shifted power from the borough presidents to the City Council have diminished government's recognition of the sense of identity that leads people to say they live in the Bronx, and to describe visiting Manhattan as 'going to the city.'"
  10. Barry, Dan. "A Nation challenged: in New York; New York Carries On, but Test of Its Grit Has Just Begun", The New York Times, October 11, 2001. Accessed November 20, 2016. "A roaring void has been created in the financial center of the world."
  11. Sorrentino, Christopher (September 16, 2007). "When He Was Seventeen". The New York Times. Retrieved December 22, 2007. "In 1980 there were still the remains of the various downtown revolutions that had reinvigorated New York's music and art scenes and kept Manhattan in the position it had occupied since the 1940s as the cultural center of the world."
  12. Bumiller, Elisabeth (October 8, 1995). "The Pope's visit: the cardinal; As Pope's Important Ally, Cardinal Shines High in Hierarchy". The New York Times. Retrieved December 18, 2007. "As the Archbishop of the media and cultural center of the United States, Cardinal O'Connor has extraordinary power among Catholic prelates."
  13. Michael P. Ventura (April 6, 2010). "Manhattan May Be the Media Capital of the World, But Not For iPad Users". DNAinfo. Retrieved June 11, 2017.
  14. Dawn Ennis (May 24, 2017). "ABC will broadcast New York's pride parade live for the first time". LGBTQ Nation. Retrieved June 4, 2017.
  15. Immerso, Michael (2002). Coney Island: The People's Playground. Rutgers University Press. p. 3. ISBN 0-8135-3138-1.
  16. 1 2 Joe Dorish. "10 Largest Parks in New York City". ZipfWorks, Inc. Retrieved March 20, 2016.
  17. O'Donnell, Michelle (July 4, 2006). "In Queens, It's the Glorious 4th, and 6th, and 16th, and 25th ...". New York Times. Retrieved July 20, 2014.
  18. "Staten Island Greenbelt | New York-New Jersey Trail Conference". Nynjtc.org. Retrieved October 28, 2010.
  19. Frazier, Ian (June 26, 2006). "Utopia, the Bronx". The New Yorker. Retrieved September 1, 2008.
  20. "Bronx Zoo Animals & Exhibits". Wildlife Conservation Society. Archived from the original on January 14, 2015. Retrieved March 20, 2016.
  21. Ward, Candace (2000). New York City Museum Guide. Dover Publications. p. 72. ISBN 0-486-41000-5.
  22. Board of Estimate of City of New York v. Morris, 489 U.S. 688 (1989).
  23. Popik, Barry (January 24, 2006). "Sixth Borough (Yonkers, Scarsdale, Fort Lee, Jersey City, Hoboken, Nassau County, Rockland County)". Big Apple. Retrieved 2013-05-01.
  24. Walker, Ken (May 10, 2007). "That Mythical Sixth Borough". Daily Newarker. Archived from the original on October 5, 2013. Retrieved 2013-05-01.
  25. Carlsen, Jen (December 10, 2010). "Poll: Where is New York's 6th Borough?". Gothamist. Retrieved 2013-05-01.
  26. "Mayor Bloomberg and Speaker Quinn Unveil Comprehensive Plan for New York city's Waterfront and Waterways" (Press release). NYCEDC. March 14, 2011. Archived from the original on March 14, 2013. Retrieved May 1, 2013.
  27. Rovzar, Chris. "Mayor Bloomberg Attempts to Rebrand the 'Sixth Borough'". New York Magazine. Retrieved November 28, 2012.
  28. Mainland, Alex (February 18, 2011). "A Blog for the ‘Sixth Borough’". The New York Times. Retrieved 2013-05-01.
  29. Yeh, Richard (March 14, 2011). "City Reclaims Waterfront as 'Sixth Borough'". WNYC. Retrieved 2013-05-01.
  30. "Sixth Borough Stories from New York's Waterfront". Columbia School of Journalism. 2011. Retrieved 2013-05-01. The sixth borough. That's what Mayor Bloomberg calls the 578 miles of shore land that encircle the five boroughs of New York City.
  31. Cunningham, Ryan A. (January 22, 2012). "Will NYC have a 6th Borough?". Metropolis Magazine. Archived from the original on February 8, 2013. Retrieved 2013-05-01.
  32. "Studio Report The Speculation Studio: Governors Island, The Sixth Borough?". Urban Omnibus. January 11, 2012. Retrieved 2013-05-01.
  33. Strunsky, Steve (December 9, 2001). "CITIES; Bright Lights, Big Retail". The New York Times.
  34. Holusha, John. "Commercial Property / The Jersey Riverfront; On the Hudson's West Bank, Optimistic Developers", The New York Times, October 11, 1998. Accessed May 25, 2007. "'That simply is out of the question in midtown,' he said, adding that some formerly fringe areas in Midtown South that had previously been available were filled up as well. Given that the buildings on the New Jersey waterfront are new and equipped with the latest technology and just a few stops on the PATH trains from Manhattan, they become an attractive alternative. 'It's the sixth borough', he said."
  35. Belson, Ken (May 21, 2007). "In Stamford, a Plan to Rebuild an Area and Build an Advantage". The New York Times.
  36. Olear, Greg (December 2002). "The Sixth Borough A good look at Hoboken". The Copperator. Retrieved May 1, 2013.
  37. Lefkowitz, Melanie. "Bergen County's Fort Lee: Town With a View". The Wall Street Journal. April 30, 2011. Accessed September 16, 2012.
  38. Linh Tat (June 12, 2012). "Fort Lee grapples with questions on future development". North Jersey Media Group Inc. Retrieved September 16, 2012.
  39. Vera Haller (September 7, 2012). "Living In Fort Lee, N.J. Close to the City, but With a Life of Its Own". The New York Times. Retrieved September 16, 2012.
  40. http://www.miamibeach411.com/news/new-york-envy
  41. http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2013-08-31/news/fl-new-york-mayor-florida-20130831_1_south-florida-new-york-city-palm-beach-county
  42. "More New Yorkers relocating to Philly". The Morning Call. March 29, 2015. Retrieved August 27, 2016.
  43. Andrew J. Hawkins (April 30, 2015). "Brooklyn businesses head for the sixth borough: China". Crain's New York Business. Retrieved August 27, 2016.
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