History - In 1609, Samuel de Champlain, a Frenchman, explored southward along the valley of the lake later named for him, and Henry Hudson, an Englishman in Dutch employ, sailed northward up the river later named for him. These two expeditions, occurring within two months of each other...
  Ethnic Groups - The polyglot character of the population of New York State is not a recent development. When the Empire State was still New Netherland, the Colony already had representatives of a dozen European nationalities. The first settlers of Fort Orange, now Albany, were Walloons...
  New York City - The average New Yorker, conditioned to crowds, speed, Wall Street... takes his city for granted. The visitor approaching the city sees spread before him one of the most congested habitations of men on earth, the lofty towers of Manhattan marking the apex of a vast jungle...
  Long Island, thrusting 125 miles eastward from New York Bay to a point abreast of New London, Connecticut, faces the New England coast across Long Island Sound on the north and fronts the open Atlantic on the south. The long, narrow outline of the island resembles that of a whale...
  Niagara Falls stands in the corner formed by the river at the falls; and Niagara Falls, Ontario, stretches northward from the brink of the Horseshoe Falls. The world-wide reputation of the falls as a natural wonder attracts more than 1,500,000 visitors annually—particularly honeymooners...
  Albany - capital of New York State, inland seaport and port of entry on the west bank of the Hudson River, is built along the edge of a plateau that extends 18 miles northwest to the Mohawk Valley. Docks, railroad terminals, and factories occupy the narrow shelf at the water's edge...
  Lower Manhattan - The flat lower end of Manhattan is the oldest section of the city and the richest in historical associations. In the extreme south is the Battery and Whitehall district, in whose skyscrapers, overlooking the Goddess of Liberty and the ships that pass out to sea, are concentrated the...
  Wall Street - financial heart of the nation, is itself but little more than a third of a mile long from its head at Broadway to its foot at the East River, although its name is applied to a small district lying to the north and south. Functionally, Wall Street is a complex mechanism developed to provide...
  Fifth Avenue - At Thirty-fourth Street, Fifth Avenue abruptly emerges from a street of buildings housing wholesale clothing, textile, and bric-a-brac concerns to become the aristocrat of shopping thoroughfares. Some of New York's most exclusive hotels and clubs and fashionable churches as well as...
  Brooklyn Bridge - During more than half a century of continuous use, the bridge has retained its place as the most picturesque of the sixty-one spans that bind Greater New York into a world metropolis. It was designed in 1867 by John A. Roebling, who had built the bridge at Niagara Falls and the...
  Rockefeller Center - Covering twelve land acres in the fashionable mid-town shopping district, the project includes a vast skyscraper office center, a shopping center, an exhibition center, and an amusement center. The western front, along Sixth Avenue, is made up of buildings devoted...
  Times Square - A belt of white electric bulbs girds the Times Building at Forty-second Street and Broadway, spelling out spot news in moving letters that can be read several blocks away. And to the north a wall of light and color, urging the onlooker to attend the premiere of a Hollywood film...