New York City is made up of five boroughs and Manhattan is but one. It is, at least in its own mind, the biggest, richest and best of all. The superlatives are endless and Manhattan reserves most for its own. Manhattan is an amazing place and it certainly is the tallest.
While it is not the most populous borough in New York City, it is the most densely populated jurisdiction in the country. With an area of less than sixty square kilometres, Manhattan's population density is about 27,000 per square kilometre. In comparison, the City of Vancouver has an area of 115 square kilometres and a density of only 5,250 per square kilometre.
Manhattan is the wealthiest jurisdiction the the Excited States with a per capita income exceeding $100,000. In fact, it is the only area within the US that exceeds that $100,000 per capita average. Sherry and I lowered that average significantly during our brief stay.
Manhattan's population is about 1.6 million yet just as many people come into the city everyday, to do the work of the city. They come from Queens and Brooklyn, the Bronx and Jersey, and their numbers exceed 1.6 million every weekday. Four out of five of them travel by public transit and more than fifty percent of them travel by subway. At any given time about 800,000 additional tourists are wandering around the streets of Manhattan.
It is surprisingly clean. And friendly. And safe. It is a city in which one can walk all day, yet constantly distracted by the city itself; its people and its architecture.
And we are always looking up. We can't help but look up. It is the only place to look. At the new and the old, the shadows and the reflections. This is an amazing place.
Photos by Jim Murray. Copyright 2014.
