Boston, city, capital of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, and seat of Suffolk county, in the northeastern United States. It lies on Massachusetts Bay, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean. The city proper has an unusually small area for a major city, and more than one-fourth of the total—including part of the Charles River, Boston Harbor, and a portion of the Atlantic—is water. Area city, 46 square miles (119 square km). Pop. (2000) 589,141; Boston-Quincy Metro Division, 1,812,937; Boston-Cambridge-Quincy Metro Area, 4,391,344; (2010) 617,594; Boston-Quincy Metro Division, 1,887,792; Boston-Cambridge-Quincy Metro Area, 4,552,402.
Character of the city
The area, the people, and the institutions within its political boundaries can only begin to define the essence of Boston. Its nickname “Beantown” has its origin in colonial times, when Boston, as a stop on a major trade route with the West Indies, had a steady supply of molasses from the Caribbean, thus leading to the creation of a popular dish that became known as Boston baked beans (beans baked in molasses). As a city and as a name, Boston is a symbol of much that has gone into the development of the American consciousness, and its presence reaches far beyond its immediate environs. As the spiritual capital of the New England states, as the progenitor of the American Revolution and the nation, and as the earliest centre of American culture, Boston has influenced the country for some three centuries. Though Boston, like New England in general, has played a lessening role in national life since the early 20th century, it has remained the focal point of what may be the most diversified and dynamic combination of educational, cultural, and medical and scientific activities in the United States.
Area of the colonial town
The hilly Shawmut Peninsula, upon which Boston was settled, originally was almost completely surrounded by water. It was connected with mainland Roxbury to the south by a narrow neck of land along the line of present-day Washington Street. To the west of the neck were great reaches of mudflats and salt marshes that were covered by water at high tide and known collectively as the Back Bay. The Charles River flowed through the Back Bay to Boston Harbor and separated the peninsula from the mainland to the north and west. To the east, Town Cove indented Boston’s harbour front and divided the city into the North End and the South End. The centre of the colonial town was at the present Old State House (1711–47).
Although this original centre and the colonial South End have long been given over to offices and retail stores, a few 18th-century buildings remain: Faneuil Hall (1742–1805), the Old Corner Book Store (1711), the Old South Meeting House (1729), and King’s Chapel (1750). The North End is the only part of the early town that has remained residential since the 1630 settlement. Colonial survivals such as the Paul Revere House (c. 1680) and Christ Church (1723)—the Old North Church from which lanterns revealed the route of the British march to Lexington in 1775—coexist with the busy life of a traditionally Italian American community.
The long shoreline, only a few minutes’ walk from any part of the peninsula, provided ample space for wharves and shipyards. From the first years of settlement, the shoreline constantly encroached on the harbour as wharves were built and marshy coves were filled. West of the original settlement lay Boston Common, a tract that has remained public open space since its purchase by the town in 1634.
Atlantic City, resort city, Atlantic county, southeastern New Jersey, U.S., on the Atlantic Ocean. It lies on low, narrow, sandy, 10-mile- (16-km-) long Absecon Island, which is separated from the mainland by a narrow strait and several miles of meadows partly covered with water at high tide. The area was inhabited by Delaware Indians before English settlers arrived in the late 1670s. Development of the island as a summer resort was first envisioned by physician Jonathan Pitney, who arrived about 1820 and wanted to establish a health resort. He later headed a group that persuaded the Camden and Atlantic Railroad to make the place its eastern terminus. Its success spurred construction of another line, the Narrow Gauge Railroad, in 1877.
Atlantic City’s mild winter climate, tempered by the Gulf Stream, made it a popular resort. Its famous Boardwalk, initially 8 feet (2 metres) wide and 1 mile (1.6 km) long, was built in 1870; it was later extended to a width of 60 feet (18 metres) and a length of 5 miles (8 km). Other innovations enhancing the resort’s reputation included the rolling chair (1884), in which guests were wheeled about, the introduction from Germany of the picture postcard (1895), and saltwater taffy. Amusement piers, jutting from the Boardwalk into the ocean, brought a carnival atmosphere with their vendors, shows, and exhibits. The largest, Steel Pier, is 2,300 feet (700 metres) long. The construction of Convention Hall (1929, new wing completed in 1972), with its 41,000-seat auditorium, made Atlantic City a popular convention site. The Miss America Pageant, held there annually in September, was established in 1921, discontinued in 1928, and revived in 1935.
Atlantic City’s resort trade declined in the decades following World War II. In hopes of reviving the city’s stagnating economy, a statewide referendum legalizing gambling in Atlantic City was passed in 1976. As a consequence, the first legal gambling casino in the United States located outside the state of Nevada opened on the Boardwalk in May 1978. The development of gambling resorts provided an influx of jobs and money, but much of Atlantic City beyond the Boardwalk remained blighted and impoverished.
Tourism remains the mainstay of the economy. The city also is a trade and shipping centre for agricultural products and seafood and has light manufacturing (textiles, candy, glassware, and china). Absecon Lighthouse State Historic Site is nearby; the 167-foot (51-metre) lighthouse was in service from 1857 to 1933. The Historic Towne of Smithville, 6 miles (10 km) north, has restored 18th- and 19th-century buildings including a general store, a gristmill, and an inn. Greater Atlantic City embraces the down-beach communities of Ventnor, Margate, and Longport and the mainland communities of Absecon, Pleasantville, Northfield, Linwood, and Somers Point. On October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy made landfall at the New Jersey shore, causing extensive damage; in Atlantic City, it destroyed large portions of the Boardwalk, severely eroded the beach, and inundated some four-fifths of the city. Inc. 1854. Pop. (2000) 40,517; Atlantic City–Hammonton Metro Area, 252,552; (2010) 39,558; Atlantic City–Hammonton Metro Area, 274,549.
Although it has major social, economic, and political force in its own right, New Jersey is sometimes looked upon as a stepchild among the heavily industrialized and populated states along the Eastern Seaboard. New Jersey is one of the smallest states in area, but it is highly urbanized and has one of the country’s highest population densities. Hundreds of thousands of its citizens commute to New York and Pennsylvania. New Jersey’s transportation system is one of the busiest and most extensive in the world, and it weaves the state into the fabric of the region by funneling goods and people to New York City and other points north and to Philadelphia and points south. For hundreds of thousands of visitors it offers long stretches of fine beaches along the Atlantic Ocean, and the resort town of Atlantic City may be better known than the state itself.
Above all, New Jersey is rife with contradiction and anomaly. Its people fiercely fight off attempts of state government to end home rule by powerful municipal administrations. While the state has produced some of the most able and respected U.S. governors, corruption has often played a part in its local politics, and it has achieved notoriety as a major locus of organized crime.
New Jersey is called the Garden State because it became famous in the 18th century for the fertility of its land. It is now also among the most urbanized and crowded of states. The urban density of its northeast contrasts sharply, however, with the rugged hills of the northwest, the enormous stretches of pine forest in the southeast (the Pine Barrens), and the rolling and lush horse country in the south-central part of the state. New Jersey is an important industrial centre, but it has paid the price in environmental pollution, in dirt and noise, and in congested roads and slums. In sum, New Jersey is a curious amalgam of urban and rural, poor and wealthy, progressive and conservative, parochial and cosmopolitan. Indeed, it is one of the most diverse states in the union. Area 7,812 square miles (20,233 square km). Population (2010) 8,791,894; (2012 est.) 8,864,590.
People
Population composition
New Jersey’s population reflects the immigration patterns of the 19th and 20th centuries, including Germans and Slavs, Russian and European Jews, Irish, and Italians. Those categorized as white (i.e., generally of European origin) constitute more than two-thirds of the population. New Jersey was a prime destination for the waves of African Americans who left the South during and after World War II; more than one-tenth of the state’s total population is made up of African Americans. There is also a sizable Hispanic population, the largest subgroups of which are Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, and Cubans. In the late 20th century, immigrant groups began to grow even more diverse and included South Asians, Portuguese, different Latin American groups, and others.
Italian Americans are the state’s largest ethnic group. They are the predominant white bloc in the cities, although the cities also contain sizable Polish, Hungarian, and other eastern European groups. Italian Americans and African Americans dominate the political and cultural life of the cities—a situation that at times has brought the two groups into competition and conflict.
Climate
The northwest experiences relatively cold winters, with average January temperatures below 28 °F (−2 °C). Relatively mild conditions prevail in the south, with average winter temperatures above freezing. Summers are relatively hot throughout the state, with averages for July ranging from about 70 °F (21 °C) in the northwest to above 76 °F (24 °C) in the southwest. Moist conditions prevail, with seasonally well-distributed precipitation averaging from 44 inches to more than 52 inches (1,120 to 1,320 mm).
Niagara Falls, cataract on the Niagara River in northeastern North America, one of the continent’s most famous spectacles. The falls lie on the border between Ontario, Canada, and New York state, U.S. For many decades the falls were an attraction for honeymooners and for such stunts as walking over the falls on a tightrope or going over them in a barrel. Increasingly, however, the appeal of the site has become its beauty and uniqueness as a physical phenomenon.
The falls are in two principal parts, separated by Goat Island. The larger division, adjoining the left, or Canadian, bank, is Horseshoe Falls; its height is 185 feet (56 metres), and the length of its curving crest line is about 2,200 feet (670 metres). The American Falls, adjoining the right bank, are 190 feet (58 metres) high and 1,060 feet (320 metres) across.
The formation of the Niagara gorge (downriver) and the maintenance of the falls as a cataract depend upon peculiar geologic conditions. The rock strata from the Silurian Period (about 445 to 415 million years ago) in the Niagara gorge are nearly horizontal, dipping southward only about 20 feet per mile (almost 4 metres per km). An upper layer of hard dolomite is underlain by softer layers of shale. Water exerts hydrostatic pressure and only slowly dissolves the dolomite after infiltrating its joints. Dolomite blocks fall away as water from above infiltrates and rapidly erodes the shale at the falls itself. The disposition of the rock strata provides the conditions for keeping the water constantly falling vertically from an overhanging ledge during a long period of recession (movement upstream) of the cataract. As blocks of dolomite are undercut they fall off and are rapidly destroyed by the falling water, further facilitating the retreat of the falls and the maintenance of a vertical cataract.
The water flowing over the falls is free of sediment, and its clearness contributes to the beauty of the cataract. In recognition of the importance of the waterfall as a great natural spectacle, the province of Ontario and the state of New York retained or acquired title to the adjacent lands and converted them into public parks.
In recent years the very large diversion of water above the falls for hydroelectric-power purposes has lessened the rate of erosion. Elaborate control works upstream from the falls have maintained an even distribution of flow across both the U.S. and Canadian cataracts, thereby preserving the curtains of the waterfalls. A large part of the great river above the falls is diverted and disappears into four great tunnels for use in the power plants downstream. Owing to concern over the possibility of major rockfalls, water was diverted from the American Falls in 1969, and some cementing of the bedrock was done; an extensive boring and sampling program was also carried out. River flow was returned to the American Falls in November of that year, and it was decided that safety measures for the viewing public should be implemented and that measures to stem natural processes were both too expensive and undesirable.
Excellent views of the falls are obtained from Queen Victoria Park on the Canadian side; from Prospect Point of the U.S. side at the edge of the American Falls; and from Rainbow Bridge, which spans the Niagara gorge about 1,000 feet (300 metres) downstream from Prospect Point. Visitors may cross from the U.S. shore to Goat Island by footbridge and may take an elevator to the foot of the falls and visit the Cave of the Winds behind the curtain of falling water. The Horseshoe Falls, which carry about 90 percent of the river’s discharge, receded upstream at an average rate of about 5.5 feet (1.7 metres) per year in 1842–1905. Thereafter, control works and the diversion of water decreased the erosion rate, which is presently so slow at the American Falls that large blocks of dolomite accumulate at the base of the falls, threatening to turn it into rapids.
The people
Ethnic and religious diversity
In a city that embraces change as its primary tradition, the shifting population base of New York remains its most dramatic story. At the end of the 20th century, representatives of some 200 national groups were counted among its people. While people of European ancestry still make up one-third of the population, Hispanics account for nearly one-third, and African Americans about one-fourth. The fastest-growing component of the population is Asian, soaring from a tiny proportion in 1970 to more than one-tenth in the late 1990s. Dominicans were the most numerous immigrants during the last decade of the 20th century, but they were closely followed by Russians and Chinese, people yearning to “make it.” The Statue of Liberty, more than a century after its dedication in the harbour (1886), continues to be the most powerful symbol of New York, as it welcomes newcomers into the city’s “golden door.”
People from each ethnic group have climbed the ladder of acculturation, achieved their goals to a greater or lesser extent, and then, in turn, found fault with the masses that followed them to the promised city. As early as 1643, Father (later Saint) Isaac Jogues catalogued 18 languages that were being used on the streets of New Amsterdam, and that cosmopolitan atmosphere was retained when Dutch control ended and Britain assumed power. Jews, Roman Catholics, and numerous ethnic groups lived in Manhattan before the end of the 17th century, but political control remained in the hands of the established merchant elite. When the American Revolution began, more prominent Dutch families—the Van Cortlandts, De Peysters, and Schuylers—supported the cause than did their English counterparts. One unanticipated result of the fighting was that many slaves, perhaps one-fifth of the city population in 1776, won freedom. One of the first “history” books of New York was a satiric look at the merchant elite and the city’s Dutch past written in 1809 by Diedrich Knickerbocker (Washington Irving). Spoken Dutch was heard on city streets until the late 19th century, when such families as the Roosevelts and the Vanderbilts were important members of Manhattan’s elite.
The dedication of the first St. Patrick’s Cathedral between Mott and Mulberry streets in 1815 signaled the rising prominence of the Irish. By 1844, 15 parishes served more than 80,000 Irish Roman Catholics, and it was clear even before the Great Famine immigration of 1845–49 that New York was becoming predominantly Irish. More than 24,000 Germans also lived in Manhattan, a number that vastly increased following the failed revolutions of the 1840s. Irish workers had to contend with signs warning “No Irish need apply,” and their poor circumstances soon created one of New York’s most notorious slums, the Five Points District. Germans, who were largely Protestant or Jewish, were more middle-class and perhaps had a slightly easier acclimation; they created the Kleindeutschland (“Little Germany”) neighbourhood east of the Bowery. So great was the pressure of immigration that Castle Garden, near the Battery, was converted into a reception centre, a role it fulfilled from 1855 to 1890. By the time of the American Civil War, Irish, Germans, and several other ethnic groups made the city’s population more than half foreign-born.
The arrival of “new” immigrants from eastern and southern Europe after 1880 again changed Manhattan. The Irish and Germans, who by then held a vast proportion of political and economic power, deeply resented the Italians, Greeks, Russians, Hungarians, and Poles crowding into their city. Ellis Island, a new immigrant reception station, was built in 1892 to deal with the unprecedented numbers of newcomers, and by 1900 the Lower East Side recorded one of the greatest population densities in world history. Ellis Island processed about 12,000 people per day, and in 1907 some 1.2 million entered the United States through the port. The austere New York Times wrote that “cleanliness is an unknown quality to these people. They cannot be lifted to a higher plane because they do not want to be.” Tuberculosis became the “Jewish” disease, and New York’s police commissioner played the demagogue in 1909 when he asserted that half of all city crime was committed by Russian Jews. Nevertheless, Jews were to transform labour and education in the city, while Italians would become the largest ethnic group. Yet so varied was the city that every large group remained only a minority, and toleration of “the other” became a New York virtue.
New York is the most ethnically diverse, religiously varied, commercially driven, famously congested, and, in the eyes of many, the most attractive urban centre in the country. No other city has contributed more images to the collective consciousness of Americans: Wall Street means finance, Broadway is synonymous with theatre, Fifth Avenue is automatically paired with shopping, Madison Avenue means the advertising industry, Greenwich Village connotes bohemian lifestyles, Seventh Avenue signifies fashion, Tammany Hall defines machine politics, and Harlem evokes images of the Jazz Age, African American aspirations, and slums. The word tenement brings to mind both the miseries of urban life and the upward mobility of striving immigrant masses. New York has more Jews than Tel Aviv, more Irish than Dublin, more Italians than Naples, and more Puerto Ricans than San Juan. Its symbol is the Statue of Liberty, but the metropolis is itself an icon, the arena in which Emma Lazarus’s “tempest-tost” people of every nation are transformed into Americans—and if they remain in the city, they become New Yorkers.
For the past two centuries, New York has been the largest and wealthiest American city. More than half the people and goods that ever entered the United States came through its port, and that stream of commerce has made change a constant presence in city life. New York always meant possibility, for it was an urban centre on its way to something better, a metropolis too busy to be solicitous of those who stood in the way of progress. New York—while the most American of all the country’s cities—thus also achieved a reputation as both foreign and fearsome, a place where turmoil, arrogance, incivility, and cruelty tested the stamina of everyone who entered it. The city was inhabited by strangers, but they were, as James Fenimore Cooper explained, “essentially national in interest, position, pursuits. No one thinks of the place as belonging to a particular state but to the United States.” Once the capital of both its state and the country, New York surpassed such status to become a world city in both commerce and outlook, with the most famous skyline on earth. It also became a target for international terrorism—most notably the destruction in 2001 of the World Trade Center, which for three decades had been the most prominent symbol of the city’s global prowess. However, New York remains for its residents a conglomeration of local neighbourhoods that provide them with familiar cuisines, languages, and experiences. A city of stark contrasts and deep contradictions, New York is perhaps the most fitting representative of a diverse and powerful nation.
