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Fleet Week (Hampton Roads, Virginia)

October
The Hampton Roads area of southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina features one of the world's largest natural harbors. The cities of Norfolk, Virginia Beach, and Newport News are located here. The U.S. Navy, Marines, Air Force, and Army have facilities in the area, as does NASA.
The Hampton Roads community sponsors an annual Fleet Week to honor the military personnel who are stationed in the area for the work they perform on behalf of the nation. The event is also a celebration of the U.S. Navy's official birthday in October.
Among the Fleet Week activities are a 5K run, a golf tournament, free outdoor music concerts, a chili cook-off, a family day at Norfolk's Town Point Park, and a half marathon run. Military personnel attend the music concerts for free. The Virginia Zoo offers special programming at this time, also free to military personnel and their families.
Local motorcycle enthusiasts sponsor the "Rumble through the Tunnels," a fundraiser in which hundreds of motorcycles ride through several of Hampton Roads tunnels.
Fleet Week ends with a parade of ships and planes along the downtown Norfolk waterfront. Navy tugs spray water into the air, helicopters fly overhead, and frigates, submarines, and landing craft sail by.
CONTACTS:
Department of the Navy
1200 Navy Pentagon
Room 4B463
Washington, D.C. 20350-1200
www.navy.mil/swf/index.asp

Celebrated in: Virginia


Fleet Week (New York City)
May
To give citizens of New York City the chance to meet Navy, Coast Guard, and Marine personnel firsthand, the Navy has sponsored an annual Fleet Week since 1987.
During the week-long event the public is allowed to tour Navy and Coast Guard vessels, including amphibious assault vessels, destroyers, and cruisers. They can also view fighter jets, helicopters, aerial refueler tankers, anti-submarine trackers, bombers, and cargo planes.
As part of the event, personnel from the Marines, Coast Guard, and Navy learn from each other and from New York's police and firefighters. In 2007, Marines toured the Fire Academy at Randall's Island and learned about the training courses for New York City firefighters. Navy sailors toured the New York Police Department's Aviation unit at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. The police aviation unit handles air-sea rescues and provides aerial back-up for the city's police. Sailors, along with members of the New York Jets football team, also visited Project Hope, a nonprofit organization that provides inner-city families with food, resources, and counseling.
CONTACTS:
Fleet Week New York City
www.fleetweek.navy.mil
Official New York City Web site
www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/?front_door=true

Fleet Week (San Diego, California)
September
In 1997, community and business organizations in San Diego, Calif., organized the first Fleet Week to honor the sailors and marines who are stationed in that city. Service personnel are thanked for "Serving America Twice," as military personnel and as volunteer workers in the San Diego community. A large number of the sailors and marines use their free time to work as volunteer firefighters, scout leaders, coaches for youth teams, or in other community service positions. By 2001, the annual event was taken over by the newly formed San Diego Fleet Week Foundation. While called a "week," the San Diego Fleet Week lasts for more than a month, with various activities around the city.
San Diego Fleet Week begins with the Port of San Diego Sea and Air Parade featuring Navy aircraft carriers, destroyers, cruisers, submarines, amphibious craft, and frigates, as well as Coast Guard cutters. Military jets and helicopters fly overhead. Some 100,000 people turn out to watch the parade. Later, naval ships docked at Broadway Pier are open to visitors.
The Marine Corps sponsors a one-day boot camp for civilians interested in experiencing the obstacle course and drill fields used by real recruits. The Marine Corps Air Station Miramar Air Show features vintage airplanes as well as the latest in military aviation. Some 200 booths offer hands-on displays. An evening fireworks display ends the air show.
San Diego State University holds the Fleet Week Football Classic in which their football team plays the U.S. Air Force Academy team.
CONTACTS:
Fleet Week San Diego
5330 Napa St.
San Diego, CA 92110
800-353-3893
www.fleetweeksandiego.org

Celebrated in: California


Fleet Week (San Francisco, California)
October
To celebrate the men and women who serve in America's armed forces, San Francisco has held an annual Fleet Week since 1981.
The week-long event features members of the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, and Marines. After a parade of ships, the public is allowed to visit a number of Navy and Coast Guard vessels docked in San Francisco Bay. In 2007, the Coast Guard demonstrated their search and rescue capabilities. In 2008, aerial shows will feature the Navy's Blue Angels precision flight team, the Canadian Air Force's Snowbirds flight team, and Team Oracle. Other Air Force and Navy aircraft have also participated in Fleet Week, including fighter aircraft and historic planes. There have also been fireworks displays over San Francisco Bay.
CONTACTS:
San Francisco Fleet Week
650-599-5057
www.military.com/fleetweek
(c)

Celebrated in: California

Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations of the World Dictionary, Fourth Edition. © 2010 by Omnigraphics, Inc.

New York City

often thought of as a metropolis of cold, uncaring people. [Pop. Culture: Misc.]
Allusions—Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

New York City

 

one of the world’s most populous cities and the USA’s economic, financial, transportation, political, and cultural center. It is situated on the northern Atlantic coast of the USA, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The climate is temperate and humid, with an average January temperature of –1°C and an average July temperature of 23°C. The annual precipitation is 1,000 mm. New York City covers 816 sq km (768 sq km, excluding bodies of water), and in 1970 its population was 7.9 million, of whom 21 percent were Negroes. The standard metropolitan statistical area had a population of 11.6 million in 1970.

New York City is divided into five boroughs: Manhattan (population 1,539,000 in 1970), Brooklyn (2,602,000), Queens (1,986,000), the Bronx (1,472,000), and Staten Island (295,000). The heart of the city is the island of Manhattan. The other boroughs and suburbs are located on the mainland along both banks of the Hudson River, on the islands in New York Bay, and on Long Island. New York City and the contiguous autonomous cities and suburbs in New York and New Jersey together form a metropolitan area covering 10,000 sq km. In 1970 the metropolitan area had a population of 16 million, of whom 15 percent were Negroes. The metropolitan area includes (1970) the standard metropolitan statistical area of New York (comprising New York City and Rockland, Westchester, Nassau, and Suffolk counties in New York State); the standard metropolitan statistical areas of Jersey City, Newark, and Paterson-Clifton-Passaic; and the New Jersey counties of Middlesex and Somerset.

In 1969 New York City had a work force of 3.8 million people, of whom 21 percent were employed in industry, 13 percent in finance, 20 percent in commerce, 9 percent in transportation, 14 percent in civil service, and 21 percent in services. The New York metropolitan area had a gainfully employed population of 6.7 million in 1969, of whom 26 percent worked in industry, 9 percent in financial institutions and insurance companies, 20 percent in the wholesale and retail trade, 18 percent in services, 8 percent in transportation and utilities, 4 percent in construction, and 15 percent in civil service. Like other major American cities, New York has chronic unemployment; in 1971 the number of unemployed in the New York standard metropolitan statistical area totaled 5 percent of the work force.

Government. New York City is governed by a mayor, a city council, and a board of estimate. The mayor, elected for a four-year term, has extensive powers. He appoints and dismisses the heads of departments and other city agencies, supervises the preparation of the budget, carries out representative functions, heads his political party within the city, and has the right to veto resolutions of the city council. The mayor appoints two deputy mayors, one of whom is the city administrator.

The city council is composed of a president and 43 council-men, popularly elected for four-year terms. The president is elected by the city as a whole; two councilmen are elected from each of the five boroughs, and the other 33 are elected from council districts. The council issues ordinances relating to local administration, approves the annual budget for current and capital expenditures, and levies local taxes, with the consent of state authorities. Its functions, however, are circumscribed by the laws of New York State. The state legislature defines the scope of the council’s authority in the City Charter, which went into effect in 1963. The governor of the state can replace the mayor and council president, and a number of city agencies are directly administered by the state. The board of estimate, a policy-making body, is headed by the mayor and is composed of the council president, the presidents of the five boroughs (elected by the boroughs), and the comptroller (elected by the city as a whole), who is the city’s highest financial administrator.

G. V. BARABASHEV

History. In 1614, Dutch colonists built a fort on Manhattan Island, and New Amsterdam, which became the capital of the Dutch colonies in North America, was founded in 1626. In 1664, New Amsterdam was captured by the English and renamed New York. At this time it had a population of about 1,000. During the Anglo-Dutch War of 1672–74, the city was temporarily regained by the Dutch (1673). Together with the other Dutch settlements in North America, New York was ceded to Great Britain in 1674. Until the 18th century it was a settlement of fur traders and trappers. During the Revolutionary War (1775–83), it was occupied by the British (1776–83), and from 1785 to 1790 it was the first capital of the USA. In 1790 New York’s population exceeded 33,000, and by the end of the 18th century it was one of the USA’s chief ports. The building of the Erie Canal (1817–25), which became one of the country’s main transportation arteries, contributed to the city’s economic growth. In the course of the 19th century the city expanded and its population increased rapidly, chiefly owing to the influx of immigrants from Europe. The population rose from 515,000 in 1850, to 942,000 in 1870, to 1,441,000 in 1890, and to 3,473,000 in 1900. During the Civil War (1861–65), more than 100,000 New Yorkers fought in the Northern army against the slaveholding South. In the 1860’s New York became the country’s financial center, the home of the leading banking and financial institutions, as well as an important center of industry, learning, and culture. As early as the 1830’s the New York Stock Exchange was a barometer of the country’s economic condition. In 1870, New York handled 70 percent of the country’s imports and 50 percent of its exports. In the early 20th century it surpassed London as the world’s largest port.

New York has been one of the main centers of the workers’ movement in the USA. The first workers’ organizations were founded in the city in the late 18th century. The Communist Club, established in 1857, became a section of the First International in 1867, and in 1872 the headquarters of the general council of the First International were moved to New York. Meetings and demonstrations protesting foreign intervention in Soviet Russia were held in the city between 1918 and 1920. During the world economic crisis (1929–33), the strike movement and the movement of the unemployed grew stronger. In the 1950’s and 1960’s there were numerous strikes of dockers, printers, and other workers. New York is also a center of the Negro movement against racial discrimination and of the student and peace movements. The headquarters of the UN and a number of other international organizations are located in the city.

Economy. New York is the country’s chief seaport and one of the world’s largest ports, with a cargo turnover of more than 100 million tons in 1970. The port’s incoming cargo of oil, tropical products, raw materials, and industrial products is three times greater than its outgoing shipments of industrial goods and foodstuffs. Most transatlantic air routes pass through New York. The city has three airports, the largest of which is the John F. Kennedy (formerly Idlewild) International Airport.

New York is the capitalist world’s largest marketplace for grain, sugar, coffee, rubber, ferrous and nonferrous metals, and many other commodities. More than one-fourth of the USA’s foreign trade passes through the city, and it is a center for business transactions and accounting. The Stock Exchange and the central offices of most banks, insurance companies, and industrial and other corporations are in the city.

New York is the USA’s largest industrial center. The New York metropolitan area accounts for 8.5 percent of the country’s workers in manufacturing, 17 percent of all those employed in financial institutions, and 12 percent of the country’s transport workers. However, with the rapid development of other economic centers, New York’s share of the country’s industrial output has declined. The leading industries are garment-making (employing more than 20 percent of the labor force) and printing and publishing (about 10 percent), which together employ more than half of the industrial workers in New York City, particularly Manhattan. Other major industries include machine building and metalworking (the production of electrical and electronic equipment and the shipbuilding, automobile, aerospace, and optical industries), the chemical industry, the production of clothing accessories and jewelry, and the processing of furs. Also important are oil-refining, nonferrous metallurgy, and food processing. Medium-sized and small enterprises predominate in the city, particularly in the central parts, and most of the heavy industry is concentrated in the New Jersey suburbs.

The various parts of the city, separated by rivers, are linked by four automobile tunnels, 24 passenger ferryboats, and 60 bridges. The city’s extensive subway system totals 385 km and has 477 stations.

New York is a city of sharp social contrasts. Alongside neighborhoods with comfortable apartment buildings there are overcrowded districts with substandard housing, such as Negro Harlem. Adequate water supply is a major problem. Severe air pollution has resulted from automobile congestion, the presence of many enterprises emitting poisonous gases and other harmful substances, and poor refuse disposal.

V. M. GOKHMAN

Architecture. Since the early 19th century New York has essentially been built up according to a grid pattern. The original center was on the southern tip of Manhattan, in the Wall Street area, where artisans settled. From the mid-19th century New York was gradually transformed into a huge capitalist city. Port, industrial, and workers’ districts and crowded slums occupied large parts of southeastern Manhattan (Lower East Side, including the Bowery), northeastern Manhattan (Harlem), the western part of Long Island (Queens, Brooklyn), and part of Staten Island. On Manhattan there developed an unbroken network of longitudinal avenues and transverse streets forming small blocks of about 180 m × 200 m. The only diagonal street, Broadway, connected Wall Street with the new business center that had sprung up in the late 19th century. At the turn of the century the construction of skyscrapers increased. The concentration of ever higher towers on Manhattan gave the city its unique “super-urban” skyline.

By the mid-20th century New York had become a huge complex of towns and suburbs nearly 200 km long, with residential, industrial, and transport areas. A number of old districts were demolished and replaced by comfortable apartment complexes, such as Stuyvesant Town (1945–49), Washington Square Village (1960), and the Polo Grounds (1964–67). Cultural institutions and wealthy residential areas are clustered around Central Park, and modern highways with overpasses stretch along the Hudson and East rivers in Manhattan. However, such problems as traffic control, slums, noise, and pollution are far from being solved.

Among noteworthy 17th- and 18th-century buildings that have been preserved are City Hall, built in the classical “federal” style (1803–12, architects J. Mangin and J. McComb), the neoclassical Federal Hall (1833–42, principal architect W. Ross), and the neo-Gothic Trinity Church (1839–46, architect R. Upjohn). There are numerous buildings in the eclectic style, of which the best example is the Morgan Library (1902–05, architects C. F. McKim, W. Mead, and S. White). A major engineering feat was the building of Brooklyn Bridge between 1869 and 1883 by the engineers J. Roebling and W. Roebling.

Famous New York skyscrapers include the Tribune Building (1874, architect R. M. Hunt), the Woolworth Building (1911–13, architect C. Gilbert), the McGraw-Hill Building (1928–31, architects R. Hood, F. Godley, and J. A. Fouilhoux), the 102-story Empire State Building (1930–31, architectural firm of Shreve, Lamb, and Harmon), Rockefeller Center (group of buildings, 1931–1940, principal architect B. W. Morris), United Nations Headquarters (1947–52, principal architects W. K. Harrison and M. Abramovitz), Lever House (1950–52, architects L. Skidmore, N. A. Owings, J. O. Merrill, and G. Bun-shaft), the Seagram Building (1956–58, architects Mies van der Rohe and P. Johnson), Chase Manhattan Bank (1961, architects Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill), and the city’s tallest building, the World Trade Center, consisting of twin 110-story towers rising to 412 m (1971–73, principal architects M. Yamasaki and E. Roth).

Among important works of modern architecture are the Guggenheim Museum (1956–59, architect F. L. Wright), the Trans-World Airlines terminal at Kennedy Airport (1962, architect E. Saarinen), and the Whitney Museum of American Art (1966, architect M. L. Breuer). The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, another outstanding example of contemporary architecture, includes Avery Fisher (formerly Philharmonic) Hall (1962, architect M. Abramovitz), the New York State Theater (1964, architect P. Johnson), the Vivian Beaumont Theater (1965, architect E. Saarinen), and the Metropolitan Opera House (1966, architect W. K. Harrison). The city’s longest bridges are the George Washington Bridge, spanning the Hudson (1931, engineer O. H. Ammann, architect C. Gilbert; second tier, 1961), and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (length 4,820 m, length of central span 1,298 m; 1964, engineer Ammann), connecting Brooklyn with Staten Island. Notable monuments include the Statue of Liberty (1886, sculptor F. Bartholdi, architect R. M. Hunt) and the Washington Arch (1895, architects C. F. McKim, W. Mead, and S. White).

Educational, scientific, and cultural institutions. New York has six universities (Columbia, New York University, City University, Rockefeller, Fordham, and Yeshiva) and more than 40 colleges (Brooklyn College, City College, Manhattan College, Richmond College). Among the major scientific and scholarly institutions are the New York Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Political Science, the New York Academy of Medicine, the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, the American Institute of Physics, the American Institute of Chemists, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and the American Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Most of the country’s learned societies and associations for the study of the social sciences and humanities are affiliated with the American Council of Learned Societies, which has its headquarters in the city.

The city’s largest libraries are the New York Public Library, the Columbia University Library, the Business International Research Library, the Brooklyn Public Library, and the Queens Borough Public Library. Special libraries include the American Museum of Natural History Library, the New York Academy of Medicine Library, the New York Historical Society Library, and the Dag Hammarskjöld Library of the United Nations. The principal museums are the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, the Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Design, the Museum of Primitive Art, the Museum of the American Indian, and the Museum of the City of New York.

New York has about 40 Broadway and some 30 off-Broadway theaters, which are rented by producers. Among the best-known theaters are the Alvin Theater, the Broadway Theater, and the Provincetown Playhouse. The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, built in the early 1960’s, includes the Metropolitan Opera House, the Vivian Beaumont Theater (repertory theater), Avery Fisher Hall, the New York City Ballet, the Juilliard School (conservatory), and a theater library and museum. Concert facilities include Carnegie Hall, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music; Radio City Music Hall is the city’s best known music hall and movie theater.

REFERENCES

Wilson, J. G. The Memorial History of the City of New York, vols. 1–4. New York, 1892–93.
Brown, H. C. The Story of Old New York. New York, 1934.
Chanin, A. L. Art Guide to New York. New York, 1965. [18—463–1]
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.