NEW
YORK.
New
York attract peopl from all over. Get on a subway in New York and
look at the newspapers that peopl around you are reading . One person
is reading a newspaper in Spanish , anouther in Chinese, yet others
in Arabic , Russian , Italian , Yiddish, and French . New York was
always a city of immigrants. It still is .
The
are 5 boroughs in New York - Manhaptan , Brooklyn , Queens , the
bronx , and Staten Island. Brooklyn alone has so many people that if
it were a separate city , it would be the fourth largest in the
United States.
Manhattan
Geography.
Manhattan
is an island just 13 miles long and 2 miles wide . It is the centre
of American finance, advertising , art theatre, publishing , fashion
- and much more. The borough of Manhatten is what most people think
of New York, one of the most exciting cities in the world.
Manhattan
is divided into the East Side and the West Side. The dividing line is
Fifth Avenue. So, for example , East 47th Street begins at Fifth
Avenue, as does West 47th Street.
Manhattan
is also divided , wuth less exactnes, into Lower (Downtown), Midtown
and Upper (Up-town) Manhattan. As you go North, or uptown, the street
numbers get higher. Lower Manhatta refers to street numbers below
14th Street and Central Park, and Upper Manhattan to the renaming,
northern, part of the island.
The
Financial District .
The
Dutch were the first Europeans to settle Manhattan. To protect
themselves from attacs, they built a sturdy wooden wall. Although
it`s now long gone, this wall gave it`s name to a street in Lower
Manhattan and the street, in turn, became synonymous with American
capitalism. The street, of course, is Wall Street. The New York Stock
Exchange and the American Stokc Exchange are both in the Wall Street
area. So are many stokc brokers, investment blanks and others bank,
and headquarters of many large corporations.
To
escape the commotion of Wall Street you can visit the nearby South
Street Seaport, an open area of low buildings on the East River. In
addition to many shops and restaraunts, the seaport has a museum.
Two
good ways to get the larger picture of New York are to circle it in a
bout and to hover over it in helicopter. In the financial district,
thogh, there`s anouther way to see New York. The twin towers of the
World Trade Centre rise 1,350 feet above the city. There`s an
observation deck on the 107th floor of one of the towers.
Appropriately,
the very first business deal in Manhattan was made in what became
the financial district. As every American schoolchild knows, the
Dutch bought Manhattan from the Indians, for the rediculously low
price of 24 dollars worth of beads and trinkets. There is, however,
another, less known side of this: evidently, the Indians who had sold
Manhattan did not themselves live there or in any sense own it. The
Dutch and the Indians alike walked away pleased.
The
Lower East Side.
The
lower East Side was originali an ellegant neighborhood. When New York
was the capital of the United States, Presedent George Washington
lived on the Lower East Side.
By
the mid-1880s the Lower East Side had changed greatly. It was
chracterized by crime and the poverty and hopes of it`s residents. By
the mid-1800s the Lower East Side had become an area in which
immigrants settled. First there were many Irish, then came many Jews
from Easten Europe.
Near the Lower East Side there are
two other neighborhoods that also attracted immigrants and that are
famous for their food.The Italian restaraurants of Little
Italy remain
popular to tourists and Italians alike. Today Chinatown
is the only immigrant community that`s still growing. Chinatown has
seven newspaper of it`s own. It also nearly 200 restaurants.
Greenwich
Village and the East Village.
Greenwich Village and the East Village have always been
at the centre of New york`s excitement. Both have been places for
people with different and creative ideas. Both have an active
nightlife with plenty of bars, restaraurants and clubs.
In
the early 1900s the charm Greenwich Village attracted bohemians -
writers and artists. By the 1920s, the streets of the Village were
filled with other peole, curious to see how these odd Villagers
lived. The artists and writers began moving out, some to the East
Village. Today, the Village has many elemets : students attending New
York University ; an active jazz scene; and in Washington Square -
it`s centre - street performers, police. Drug dealers, joggers,
roller skates, and just about everyone else.
When
bohemiams moved to the East Village 1920s, they found an area similar
to the Lower East Side. There were many immigrants, much dirt and
grime. The East Village has changed very little. Over the years it
has been a centre for many movements - for the beat poets of the
1950s, the hippies of the 1960s, and, more recently, for New York`s
punk scene.
The United States of America
The
Unites States of America are situated in the central part of the
North American continent. Its western
coast is washed by the Pacific
Ocean and its eastern coast - by the
Atlantic Ocean. The
total area of the USA is over nine million square kilometres
The population of the USA is more than
236 million people; most of
the population lives in towns and cities.
The USA is a very large country, so it
has several different climatic
regions.
The Goldest regions are in the north and north-east. The south
has a subtropical climate.
The United States is a land of rivers and
lakes..The northern state
of
Minnesota is the land of 10 000 lakes. The longest
rivers
in the USA are
the Mississippi, the Missouri and the Rio Grande. The highest
mountains are the Rocky Mountains, the
Cordillera and the Sierra
Nevada.
The
United States are riebiia natural and mineral resources. It
produces copper, oil, iron ore and coal.
It is a highly-developed
industrial Bad agricultural coubtry.
There are many big cities in the USA,
such as New York, Chicago,
Los Angeles, Philadelphia and others. The
national capital is
Washington, D.C. Its population is about
3,4 million. Washington was
built
in the late eighteenth century especially as the centre of
governmeat. It was named after George
Washington. The
USA became the world teading country at the beginning of the
twen*eth century.
US Congress
The
United States of America is a federal republic consisting of
50 states. Each of which has its own
goverment ("state
goverment"). In some ways the United
States is like 50 small
countries. Each state has its own
governor, its own police and
its own laws. The present constitution was
proclaimed in 1787 in
Philadelphia, the President is the head of
the whole country and the
goverment and "commandering chief" of the armed forces.
He makes
the most important decisions and chooses the ministers, the
members of his cabinet. But the President
cannot do just what he wants.
The Congress must agree first. Americans choose a new
president every four years. The residence
of the President is the White
House in Washington, the Capital city. The goverment of the
whole
country (the Federal goverment) works from Washington, this
is where the Congress is based. The
Capitol is the seat of the US
Congress. Congress is the American
parliament which consists of 2
chambers. The Senate and the House of
Representatives. The first
Congress met in 1789 in New York city.
The membership then
consisted of 22 senators and 59
representatives. Today the House
of Representatives has 435 members.
Elections to the house take
place every 2 years. There are 100
senators (2 from each state),
they are elected to serve for a period of
six years, but every two
years elections to the senate took place when one/third of
its members must be changed or re-elected.
Election day is always in
the month of November, on the first Tuesday, after the first
Monday.
Americans who aren't yet 25 years old have no right to be
elected to the House of Representatives.
Whose, who are under 30 can't
be elected in the Senate. The main political parties in the
United States of America are the
Democratic Party and the
Republlican Party.
Washington
The
city of Washington, the capital of the United States of
America is located in the District of
Columbia (DC for short)
Many people consider Washington DC to be
one of the most beatiful
cities in the world. It is filled with
many parks, wide streets and
impressive buildings. In the centre of the city, in Capitol
Park, visitors' eyes focus on the
Capitol, where Congress
convence to inect laws. Many visitors come
to Washington DC to see
the White House. It is the greatest attraction for many of
them. The White House, the official
residence of the President,
is situated at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,
N.W. The largest room in this
building of over the hundreds room is the East Room, scene
of
many state receptions, balls and musicals. Other famous rooms
are: the Green Room, the Blue Room, the
Red Room, which are used for
afternoon teas and for receptions held before state dinners.
The Blue Room, the most formal of these
"colors" room is an
oval-shaped room connecting the Green and
the Red Rooms. On the second
floor, the floor with the family quarters and quests
rooms, is the Lincoln Room, which one
served as an office for
president Lincoln but today serves as an
honor guest room. In this
room Lincoln signed the emansipation proclamation of 1863.
Other landmarks in Washington DC
include memorials to three
Presidents: The Washington Memorial, The
Lincoln Memorial and The
Jefferson Memorial; The Library of
Congress, The National Gallary
of Art, The John F. Kennedy center for the
Perfoming Arts. The Capitol
is in the very center of Washington. It is located on the
Capitol
Hill, the highest point in the city. The Capitol is the
highest building in Washington. There is a
law in Washington not to
build buildings higher than the Capitol. The conrer stone of
the Capitol was laid by George Washington
on Sep 18th, 1793. The
Capitol is the seat of the goverment of
the United States of
America.