A close up look at the history and culture of the State of New York and it s fascinating five New York City Boroughs
In the late nineteenth century, New York City had a street-cleaning problem so severe that reformers described entire thoroughfares as coated with mud, ashes, garbage, paper, manure, and decomposing organic matter. The city already had a Department of Street Cleaning, but political patronage, weak supervision, and poor waste-disposal practices left the agency unable to keep pace with a rapidly…
When a garbage bag disappears from a New York City curb, it does not go to a landfill somewhere inside the five boroughs. New York City has no active municipal solid waste landfill or incinerator. Ordinary residential and institutional refuse collected by the New York City Department of Sanitation is ultimately exported for disposal to landfills and waste-to-energy facilities outside the city.…
New York s minimum wage in 2026 isn t a single number. The general minimum wage is $17.00 per hour in New York City and in Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester counties, while it is $16.00 per hour in the rest of New York State. For executive and administrative employees who are classified as exempt from overtime under New York s wage orders, the 2026 state salary threshold is also regional. It is…
Hudson Yards is located on the Far West Side of Midtown Manhattan, with the main 28-acre development running between 10th and 12th Avenues from West 30th to West 34th Streets. It sits west of Penn Station and Moynihan Train Hall, just north of Chelsea, beside the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, and at the northern end of the High Line. The name can be confusing because Hudson Yards can refer to…
New York City has some of the world s greatest museums, but visiting them doesn t always mean paying full admission. Several museums are free every day, others let visitors pay what they can, and many of the city s most famous institutions offer free hours on specific days. The important part is knowing the difference. Some free programs are open to everyone. Others are limited to New York City or…
If you have ever shopped for designer handbags, browsed an outlet mall, or spotted one of the brand s colorful bags on a New York City subway, you may have wondered whether Kate Spade and Kate Spade New York are actually the same thing. The short answer is yes. Kate Spade and Kate Spade New York refer to the same fashion brand. The full consumer-facing brand name is kate spade new york, while…
New York City has two very different places where extraordinary concentrations of portable wealth can be found within a few miles of each other. In Midtown Manhattan, the Diamond District fills a single block of West 47th Street with jewelers, diamond dealers, cutters, wholesalers, appraisers, and exchanges. Downtown, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York stores the world s largest known depository…
Opening your monthly utility bill in New York can come with a dose of sticker shock. I have multiple air conditioners in my house, the kind you put in the window. Unlike many other people, I do not have central air. Probably because I am still a renter. I have always been a renter and will probably always be a renter. But I do pay the electric bill every month, and it has to be a sweltering heat…
I had a good friend who used to work at Waldbaum s in the 1970s. He worked in the deli department. I would go in there and see him every once in a while, and he always seemed to be having a lot of fun. There were a lot of young people working in the department and throughout the store, and it almost seemed like a high school. I mean, I was pretty young at the time; it seemed like a fun place to…
If you are looking for the New York City skyscraper where visitors can step into transparent glass boxes suspended high above Midtown Manhattan, the answer is SUMMIT One Vanderbilt. Located near the top of the 1,401-foot One Vanderbilt tower beside Grand Central Terminal, SUMMIT includes an attraction called Levitation. Two transparent glass ledges extend beyond the building on the 92nd floor,…
Greenwich Village is famous because so many different versions of New York history overlap within a relatively small part of Manhattan. Its irregular streets preserve an older city that developed before Manhattan s numbered grid. Its rowhouses and townhouses recall the 19th century. Its clubs, coffeehouses, theaters, studios, and bars became gathering places for writers, artists, musicians,…