title: Manhattan content: Federal Office Building. Manhattan is the economic engine of New York City, with its 2.3 million workers in 2007 drawn from the entire New York metropolitan area accounting for almost two-thirds of all jobs in New York City. In the first quarter of 2014, the average weekly wage in Manhattan (New York County) was $2,749, representing the highest total among large counties in the United States. Manhattan's workforce is overwhelmingly focused on white collar professions, with manufacturing nearly extinct. Manhattan also has the highest per capita income of any county in the United States. In 2010, Manhattan's daytime population was


title: Manhattan content: swelling to 3.94 million, with commuters adding a net 1.48 million people to the population, along with visitors, tourists, and commuting students. The commuter influx of 1.61 million workers coming into Manhattan was the largest of any county or city in the country, and was more than triple the 480,000 commuters who headed into second-ranked Washington, D.C. Manhattan's most important economic sector lies in its role as the headquarters for the U.S. financial industry, metonymously known as Wall Street. The borough's securities industry, enumerating 163,400 jobs in August 2013, continues to form the largest segment of the city's financial sector


title: Manhattan content: and an important economic engine for Manhattan, accounting in 2012 for 5 percent of private sector jobs in New York City, 8.5 percent (US$3.8 billion) of the city's tax revenue, and 22 percent of the city's total wages, including an average salary of US$360,700. Wall Street investment banking fees in 2012 totaled approximately US$40 billion, while in 2013, senior New York City bank officers who manage risk and compliance functions earned as much as US$324,000 annually. Lower Manhattan is home to the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), on Wall Street, and the NASDAQ, at 165 Broadway, representing the world's largest


title: Manhattan content: and second largest stock exchanges, respectively, when measured both by overall share trading value and by total market capitalization of their listed companies in 2013. The NYSE MKT (formerly the American Stock Exchange, AMEX), New York Board of Trade, and the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) are also located downtown. In July 2013, NYSE Euronext, the operator of the New York Stock Exchange, took over the administration of the London interbank offered rate from the British Bankers Association. New York City is home to the most corporate headquarters of any city in the United States, the overwhelming majority based in


title: Manhattan content: Manhattan. Manhattan contained over 500 million square feet (46.5 million m) of office space in 2015, making it the largest office market in the United States, while Midtown Manhattan, with nearly 400 million square feet (37.2 million m) in 2015, is the largest central business district in the world. , the global advertising agencies of Omnicom Group and Interpublic Group, both based in Manhattan, had combined annual revenues of approximately US$21 billion, reflecting New York City's role as the top global center for the advertising industry, which is metonymously referred to as "Madison Avenue". Silicon Alley, centered in Manhattan, has


title: Manhattan content: evolved into a metonym for the sphere encompassing the New York City metropolitan region's high tech industries, including the Internet, new media, telecommunications, digital media, software development, biotechnology, game design, financial technology ("fintech"), and other fields within information technology that are supported by the area's entrepreneurship ecosystem and venture capital investments. , New York City hosted 300,000 employees in the tech sector. In 2015, Silicon Alley generated over US$7.3 billion in venture capital investment, most based in Manhattan, as well as in Brooklyn, Queens, and elsewhere in the region. High technology startup companies and employment are growing in Manhattan and


title: Manhattan content: across New York City, bolstered by the city's emergence as a global node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance, and environmental sustainability, as well as New York's position as the leading Internet hub and telecommunications center in North America, including its vicinity to several transatlantic fiber optic trunk lines, the city's intellectual capital, and its extensive outdoor wireless connectivity. Verizon Communications, headquartered at 140 West Street in Lower Manhattan, was at the final stages in 2014 of completing a US$3 billion fiberoptic telecommunications upgrade throughout New York City. As of October 2014, New York City hosted 300,000 employees in the


title: Manhattan content: tech sector, with a significant proportion in Manhattan. The biotechnology sector is also growing in Manhattan based upon the city's strength in academic scientific research and public and commercial financial support. By mid-2014, Accelerator, a biotech investment firm, had raised more than US$30 million from investors, including Eli Lilly and Company, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson, for initial funding to create biotechnology startups at the Alexandria Center for Life Science, which encompasses more than on East 29th Street and promotes collaboration among scientists and entrepreneurs at the center and with nearby academic, medical, and research institutions. The New York City


title: Manhattan content: Economic Development Corporation's Early Stage Life Sciences Funding Initiative and venture capital partners, including Celgene, General Electric Ventures, and Eli Lilly, committed a minimum of US$100 million to help launch 15 to 20 ventures in life sciences and biotechnology. In 2011, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had announced his choice of Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to build a US$2 billion graduate school of applied sciences on Roosevelt Island, Manhattan, with the goal of transforming New York City into the world's premier technology capital. Tourism is vital to Manhattan's economy, and the landmarks of Manhattan are the focus of


title: Manhattan content: New York City's tourists, enumerating an eighth consecutive annual record of approximately 62.8 million visitors in 2017. According to The Broadway League, shows on Broadway sold approximately US$1.27 billion worth of tickets in the 2013–2014 season, an increase of 11.4% from US$1.139 billion in the 2012–2013 season; attendance in 2013–2014 stood at 12.21 million, representing a 5.5% increase from the 2012–2013 season's 11.57 million. As of June 2016, Manhattan had nearly 91,500 hotel rooms, a 26% increase from 2010. Real estate is a major force in Manhattan's economy, and indeed the city's, as the total value of all New York


title: Manhattan content: City property was assessed at US$914.8 billion for the 2015 fiscal year. Manhattan has perennially been home to some of the nation's, as well as the world's, most valuable real estate, including the Time Warner Center, which had the highest-listed market value in the city in 2006 at US$1.1 billion, to be subsequently surpassed in October 2014 by the Waldorf Astoria New York, which became the most expensive hotel ever sold after being purchased by the Anbang Insurance Group, based in China, for . When 450 Park Avenue was sold on July 2, 2007, for US$510 million, about US$1,589 per


title: Manhattan content: square foot (US$17,104/m²), it broke the barely month-old record for an American office building of US$1,476 per square foot (US$15,887/m²) based on the sale of 660 Madison Avenue. In 2014, Manhattan was home to six of the top ten zip codes in the United States by median housing price. Manhattan had approximately 520 million square feet (48.1 million m²) of office space in 2013, making it the largest office market in the United States. Midtown Manhattan is the largest central business district in the nation based on office space, while Lower Manhattan is the third-largest (after Chicago's Loop). Manhattan is


title: Manhattan content: served by the major New York City daily news publications, including "The New York Times", "New York Daily News", and "New York Post", which are all headquartered in the borough. The nation's largest newspaper by circulation, "The Wall Street Journal", is also based there. Other daily newspapers include "AM New York" and "The Villager". "The New York Amsterdam News", based in Harlem, is one of the leading African American weekly newspapers in the United States. "The Village Voice", historically the largest alternative newspaper in the United States, announced in 2017 that it would cease publication of its print edition and


title: Manhattan content: convert to a fully digital venture. The television industry developed in Manhattan and is a significant employer in the borough's economy. The four major American broadcast networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox, as well as Univision, are all headquartered in Manhattan, as are many cable channels, including MSNBC, MTV, Fox News, HBO and Comedy Central. In 1971, WLIB became New York's first black-owned radio station and began broadcasts geared toward the African-American community in 1949. WQHT, also known as "Hot 97", claims to be the premier hip-hop station in the United States. WNYC, comprising an AM and FM signal, has


title: Manhattan content: the largest public radio audience in the nation and is the most-listened to commercial or non-commercial radio station in Manhattan. WBAI, with news and information programming, is one of the few socialist radio stations operating in the United States. The oldest public-access television cable TV channel in the United States is the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, founded in 1971, offers eclectic local programming that ranges from a jazz hour to discussion of labor issues to foreign language and religious programming. NY1, Time Warner Cable's local news channel, is known for its beat coverage of City Hall and state politics. Education in


title: Manhattan content: Manhattan is provided by a vast number of public and private institutions. Public schools in the borough are operated by the New York City Department of Education, the largest public school system in the United States. Charter schools include Success Academy Harlem 1 through 5, Success Academy Upper West, and Public Prep. Some notable New York City public high schools are located in Manhattan, including Beacon High School, Stuyvesant High School, Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, High School of Fashion Industries, Eleanor Roosevelt High School, NYC Lab School, Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics, Hunter College High School, and High


title: Manhattan content: School for Math, Science and Engineering at City College. Bard High School Early College, a hybrid school created by Bard College, serves students from around the city. Many private preparatory schools are also situated in Manhattan, including the Upper East Side's Brearley School, Dalton School, Browning School, Spence School, Chapin School, Nightingale-Bamford School, Convent of the Sacred Heart, Hewitt School, Saint David's School, Loyola School, and Regis High School. The Upper West Side is home to the Collegiate School and Trinity School. The borough is also home to Manhattan Country School and United Nations International School. Based on data from


title: Manhattan content: the 2011–2015 American Community Survey, 59.9% of Manhattan residents over age 25 have a bachelor's degree. As of 2005, about 60% of residents were college graduates and some 25% had earned advanced degrees, giving Manhattan one of the nation's densest concentrations of highly educated people. Manhattan has various colleges and universities, including Columbia University (and its affiliate Barnard College), Cooper Union, Marymount Manhattan College, New York Institute of Technology, New York University (NYU), The Juilliard School, Pace University, Berkeley College, The New School, Yeshiva University, and a campus of Fordham University. Other schools include Bank Street College of Education, Boricua


title: Manhattan content: College, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Manhattan School of Music, Metropolitan College of New York, Parsons School of Design, School of Visual Arts, Touro College, and Union Theological Seminary. Several other private institutions maintain a Manhattan presence, among them Mercy College, St. John's University, The College of New Rochelle, The King's College, and Pratt Institute. Cornell Tech is developing on Roosevelt Island. The City University of New York (CUNY), the municipal college system of New York City, is the largest urban university system in the United States, serving more than 226,000 degree students and a roughly equal number of adult,


title: Manhattan content: continuing and professional education students. A third of college graduates in New York City graduate from CUNY, with the institution enrolling about half of all college students in New York City. CUNY senior colleges located in Manhattan include: Baruch College, City College of New York, Hunter College, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and the CUNY Graduate Center (graduate studies and doctorate granting institution). The only CUNY community college located in Manhattan is the Borough of Manhattan Community College. The State University of New York is represented by the Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York State College


title: Manhattan content: of Optometry, and Stony Brook University – Manhattan. Manhattan is a world center for training and education in medicine and the life sciences. The city as a whole receives the second-highest amount of annual funding from the National Institutes of Health among all U.S. cities, the bulk of which goes to Manhattan's research institutions, including Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Rockefeller University, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, Weill Cornell Medical College, and New York University School of Medicine. Manhattan is served by the New York Public Library, which has the largest collection of any


title: Manhattan content: public library system in the country. The five units of the Central Library—Mid-Manhattan Library, Donnell Library Center, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library, and the Science, Industry and Business Library—are all located in Manhattan. More than 35 other branch libraries are located in the borough. Manhattan is the borough most closely associated with New York City by non-residents; regionally, residents within the New York City metropolitan area, including natives of New York City's boroughs outside Manhattan, will often describe a trip to Manhattan as "going to the City". Manhattan has


title: Manhattan content: been the scene of many important American cultural movements. In 1912, about 20,000 workers, a quarter of them women, marched upon Washington Square Park to commemorate the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which killed 146 workers on March 25, 1911. Many of the women wore fitted tucked-front blouses like those manufactured by the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, a clothing style that became the working woman's uniform and a symbol of women's liberation, reflecting the alliance of labor and suffrage movements. The Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s established the African-American literary canon in the United States and introduced writers Langston Hughes and Zora


title: Manhattan content: Neale Hurston. Manhattan's vibrant visual art scene in the 1950s and 1960s was a center of the American pop art movement, which gave birth to such giants as Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein. The downtown pop art movement of the late 1970s included artist Andy Warhol and clubs like Serendipity 3 and Studio 54, where he socialized. Broadway theatre is often considered the highest professional form of theatre in the United States. Plays and musicals are staged in one of the 39 larger professional theatres with at least 500 seats, almost all in and around Times Square. Off-Broadway theatres feature


title: Manhattan content: productions in venues with 100–500 seats. Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, anchoring Lincoln Square on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is home to 12 influential arts organizations, including the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, New York Philharmonic, and New York City Ballet, as well as the Vivian Beaumont Theater, the Juilliard School, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Alice Tully Hall. Performance artists displaying diverse skills are ubiquitous on the streets of Manhattan. Manhattan is also home to some of the most extensive art collections in the world, both contemporary and classical art, including the Metropolitan Museum of


title: Manhattan content: Art, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Frick Collection, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Guggenheim Museum. The Upper East Side has many art galleries, and the downtown neighborhood of Chelsea is known for its more than 200 art galleries that are home to modern art from both upcoming and established artists. Many of the world's most lucrative art auctions are held in Manhattan. Manhattan is the center of LGBT culture in New York City. The borough is widely acclaimed as the cradle of the modern LGBTQ rights movement, with its inception at the


title: Manhattan content: June 1969 Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village, Lower Manhattan – widely considered to constitute the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights in the United States. Multiple gay villages have developed, spanning the length of the borough from the Lower East Side, East Village, and Greenwich Village, through Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen, uptown to Morningside Heights. The annual New York City Pride March (or gay pride parade) traverses southward down Fifth Avenue and ends at Greenwich Village; the Manhattan parade rivals the Sao Paulo Gay Pride Parade as the largest


title: Manhattan content: pride parade in the world, attracting tens of thousands of participants and millions of sidewalk spectators each June. The borough has a place in several American idioms. The phrase "New York minute" is meant to convey an extremely short time such as an instant, sometimes in hyperbolic form, as in "perhaps faster than you would believe is possible," referring to the rapid pace of life in Manhattan. The expression "melting pot" was first popularly coined to describe the densely populated immigrant neighborhoods on the Lower East Side in Israel Zangwill's play "The Melting Pot", which was an adaptation of William


title: Manhattan content: Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" set by Zangwill in New York City in 1908. The iconic Flatiron Building is said to have been the source of the phrase "23 skidoo" or scram, from what cops would shout at men who tried to get glimpses of women's dresses being blown up by the winds created by the triangular building. The "Big Apple" dates back to the 1920s, when a reporter heard the term used by New Orleans stablehands to refer to New York City's horse racetracks and named his racing column "Around The Big Apple." Jazz musicians adopted the term to refer


title: Manhattan content: to the city as the world's jazz capital, and a 1970s ad campaign by the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau helped popularize the term. Manhattan is well known for its street parades, which celebrate a broad array of themes, including holidays, nationalities, human rights, and major league sports team championship victories. The majority of higher profile parades in New York City are held in Manhattan. The primary orientation of the annual street parades is typically from north to south, marching along major avenues. The annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is the world's largest parade, beginning alongside Central Park and


title: Manhattan content: processing southward to the flagship Macy's Herald Square store; the parade is viewed on telecasts worldwide and draws millions of spectators in person. Other notable parades including the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade in March, the New York City Pride Parade in June, the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade in October, and numerous parades commemorating the independence days of many nations. Ticker-tape parades celebrating championships won by sports teams as well as other heroic accomplishments march northward along the Canyon of Heroes on Broadway from Bowling Green to City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan. New York Fashion Week, held at various


title: Manhattan content: locations in Manhattan, is a high-profile semiannual event featuring models displaying the latest wardrobes created by prominent fashion designers worldwide in advance of these fashions proceeding to the retail marketplace. Manhattan is home to the NBA's New York Knicks and the NHL's New York Rangers, both of which play their home games at Madison Square Garden, the only major professional sports arena in the borough. The Garden was also home to the WNBA's New York Liberty through the 2017 season, but that team's primary home is now the Westchester County Center in White Plains, New York. The New York Jets


title: Manhattan content: proposed a West Side Stadium for their home field, but the proposal was eventually defeated in June 2005, and they now play at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Manhattan is the only borough in New York City that does not have a professional baseball franchise. The Bronx has the Yankees (American League) and Queens has the Mets (National League) of Major League Baseball. The Minor League Baseball Brooklyn Cyclones, affiliated with the Mets, play in Brooklyn, while the Staten Island Yankees, affiliated with the Yankees, play in Staten Island. However, three of the four major league baseball teams


title: Manhattan content: to play in New York City played in Manhattan. The original New York Giants baseball team played in the various incarnations of the Polo Grounds at 155th Street and Eighth Avenue from their inception in 1883—except for 1889, when they split their time between Jersey City and Staten Island, and when they played in Hilltop Park in 1911—until they headed to California with the Brooklyn Dodgers after the 1957 season. The New York Yankees began their franchise as the Highlanders, named for Hilltop Park, where they played from their creation in 1903 until 1912. The team moved to the Polo


title: Manhattan content: Grounds with the 1913 season, where they were officially christened the "New York Yankees", remaining there until they moved across the Harlem River in 1923 to Yankee Stadium. The New York Mets played in the Polo Grounds in 1962 and 1963, their first two seasons, before Shea Stadium was completed in 1964. After the Mets departed, the Polo Grounds was demolished in April 1964, replaced by public housing. The first national college-level basketball championship, the National Invitation Tournament, was held in New York in 1938 and remains in the city. The New York Knicks started play in 1946 as one


title: Manhattan content: of the National Basketball Association's original teams, playing their first home games at the 69th Regiment Armory, before making Madison Square Garden their permanent home. The New York Liberty of the WNBA shared the Garden with the Knicks from their creation in 1997 as one of the league's original eight teams through the 2017 season, after which the team moved nearly all of its home schedule to White Plains. Rucker Park in Harlem is a playground court, famed for its "streetball" style of play, where many NBA athletes have played in the summer league. Although both of New York City's


title: Manhattan content: football teams play today across the Hudson River in MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, both teams started out playing in the Polo Grounds. The New York Giants played side-by-side with their baseball namesakes from the time they entered the National Football League in 1925, until crossing over to Yankee Stadium in 1956. The New York Jets, originally known as the "Titans of New York", started out in 1960 at the Polo Grounds, staying there for four seasons before joining the Mets in Queens at Shea Stadium in 1964. The New York Rangers of the National Hockey League have


title: Manhattan content: played in the various locations of Madison Square Garden since the team's founding in the 1926–1927 season. The Rangers were predated by the New York Americans, who started play in the Garden the previous season, lasting until the team folded after the 1941–1942 NHL season, a season it played in the Garden as the "Brooklyn Americans". The New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League played their home games at Downing Stadium for two seasons, starting in 1974. The playing pitch and facilities at Downing Stadium were in unsatisfactory condition, however, and as the team's popularity grew they too


title: Manhattan content: left for Yankee Stadium, and then Giants Stadium. The stadium was demolished in 2002 to make way for the $45 million, 4,754-seat Icahn Stadium, which includes an Olympic-standard 400-meter running track and, as part of Pelé's and the Cosmos' legacy, includes a FIFA-approved floodlit soccer stadium that hosts matches between the 48 youth teams of a Manhattan soccer club. Since New York City's consolidation in 1898, Manhattan has been governed by the New York City Charter, which has provided for a strong mayor–council system since its revision in 1989. The centralized New York City government is responsible for public education,


title: Manhattan content: correctional institutions, libraries, public safety, recreational facilities, sanitation, water supply, and welfare services in Manhattan. The office of Borough President was created in the consolidation of 1898 to balance centralization with local authority. Each borough president had a powerful administrative role derived from having a vote on the New York City Board of Estimate, which was responsible for creating and approving the city's budget and proposals for land use. In 1989, the Supreme Court of the United States declared the Board of Estimate unconstitutional because Brooklyn, the most populous borough, had no greater effective representation on the Board than Staten


title: Manhattan content: Island, the least populous borough, a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause pursuant to the high court's 1964 "one man, one vote" decision. Since 1990, the largely powerless Borough President has acted as an advocate for the borough at the mayoral agencies, the City Council, the New York state government, and corporations. Manhattan's current Borough President is Gale Brewer, elected as a Democrat in November 2013 with 82.9% of the vote. Brewer replaced Scott Stringer, who went on to become New York City Comptroller. Cyrus Vance Jr., a Democrat, has been the District Attorney of New York County


title: Manhattan content: since 2010. Manhattan has ten City Council members, the third largest contingent among the five boroughs. It also has twelve administrative districts, each served by a local Community Board. Community Boards are representative bodies that field complaints and serve as advocates for local residents. As the host of the United Nations, the borough is home to the world's largest international consular corps, comprising 105 consulates, consulates general and honorary consulates. It is also the home of New York City Hall, the seat of New York City government housing the Mayor of New York City and the New York City Council.


title: Manhattan content: The mayor's staff and thirteen municipal agencies are located in the nearby Manhattan Municipal Building, completed in 1914, one of the largest governmental buildings in the world. The Democratic Party holds most public offices. Registered Republicans are a minority in the borough, constituting 9.88% of the electorate . Registered Republicans are more than 20% of the electorate only in the neighborhoods of the Upper East Side and the Financial District . Democrats accounted for 68.41% of those registered to vote, while 17.94% of voters were unaffiliated. Manhattan is divided between four U.S. congressional districts, all of which are represented by


title: Manhattan content: Democrats. The 7th district is based in Brooklyn and Queens, but includes a few heavily Puerto Rican sections of the Lower East Side, including Avenues C and D of Alphabet City; it is represented by Nydia Velázquez. The 10th district, based on the West Side, covers most of the Upper West Side, Hell's Kitchen, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, Chinatown, Tribeca, the Financial District, and Battery Park City, as well as some sections of Southwest Brooklyn; it is represented by Jerrold Nadler. The 12th district, the so-called "Silk Stocking" district that was the political base for Teddy Roosevelt and John Lindsay, covers


title: Manhattan content: most of the Upper East Side, Yorkville, Gramercy Park, Roosevelt Island, and most of the Lower East Side and the East Village, as well as portions of western Queens; it is represented by Carolyn Maloney. Finally, the 13th district comprises Upper Manhattan and a small portion of the western Bronx, including the neighborhoods of Harlem, Inwood, Marble Hill, Spanish Harlem, Washington Heights, and portions of Morningside Heights and the Upper West Side; it is represented by Adriano Espaillat. No Republican has won the presidential election in Manhattan since 1924, when Calvin Coolidge won a plurality of the New York County


title: Manhattan content: vote over Democrat John W. Davis, 41.20%–39.55%. Warren G. Harding was the most recent Republican presidential candidate to win a majority of the Manhattan vote, with 59.22% of the 1920 vote. In the 2004 presidential election, Democrat John Kerry received 82.1% of the vote in Manhattan and Republican George W. Bush received 16.7%. The borough is the most important source of funding for presidential campaigns in the United States; in 2004, it was home to six of the top seven ZIP codes in the nation for political contributions. The top ZIP code, 10021 on the Upper East Side, generated the


title: Manhattan content: most money for the United States presidential election for all presidential candidates, including both Kerry and Bush during the 2004 election. The United States Postal Service operates post offices in Manhattan. The James Farley Post Office at 421 Eighth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, between 31st Street and 33rd Street, is New York City's main post office. Both the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit are located in Lower Manhattan's Foley Square, and the U.S. Attorney and other federal offices and agencies maintain locations in that


title: Manhattan content: area. Starting in the mid-19th century, the United States became a magnet for immigrants seeking to escape poverty in their home countries. After arriving in New York, many new arrivals ended up living in squalor in the slums of the Five Points neighborhood, an area between Broadway and the Bowery, northeast of New York City Hall. By the 1820s, the area was home to many gambling dens and brothels, and was known as a dangerous place to go. In 1842, Charles Dickens visited the area and was appalled at the horrendous living conditions he had seen. The area was so


title: Manhattan content: notorious that it even caught the attention of Abraham Lincoln, who visited the area before his Cooper Union speech in 1860. The predominantly Irish Five Points Gang was one of the country's first major organized crime entities. As Italian immigration grew in the early 20th century many joined ethnic gangs, including Al Capone, who got his start in crime with the Five Points Gang. The Mafia (also known as "Cosa Nostra") first developed in the mid-19th century in Sicily and spread to the East Coast of the United States during the late 19th century following waves of Sicilian and Southern


title: Manhattan content: Italian emigration. Lucky Luciano established Cosa Nostra in Manhattan, forming alliances with other criminal enterprises, including the Jewish mob, led by Meyer Lansky, the leading Jewish gangster of that period. From 1920–1933, Prohibition helped create a thriving black market in liquor, upon which the Mafia was quick to capitalize. As in the whole of New York City, Manhattan experienced a sharp increase in crime during the 1960s and 1970s. Since 1990, crime in Manhattan has plummeted in all categories tracked by the CompStat profile. A borough that saw 503 murders in 1990 has seen a drop of nearly 88% to


title: Manhattan content: 62 in 2008 and has continued to decline since then. Robbery and burglary are down by more than 80% during the period, and auto theft has been reduced by more than 93%. In the seven major crime categories tracked by the system, overall crime has declined by more than 75% since 1990, and year-to-date statistics through May 2009 show continuing declines. Based on 2005 data, New York City has the lowest crime rate among the ten largest cities in the United States. During Manhattan's early history, wood construction and poor access to water supplies left the city vulnerable to fires.


title: Manhattan content: In 1776, shortly after the Continental Army evacuated Manhattan and left it to the British, a massive fire broke out destroying one-third of the city and some 500 houses. The rise of immigration near the turn of the 20th century left major portions of Manhattan, especially the Lower East Side, densely packed with recent arrivals, crammed into unhealthy and unsanitary housing. Tenements were usually five stories high, constructed on the then-typical lots, with "cockroach landlords" exploiting the new immigrants. By 1929, stricter fire codes and the increased use of elevators in residential buildings, were the impetus behind a new housing


title: Manhattan content: code that effectively ended the tenement as a form of new construction, though many tenement buildings survive today on the East Side of the borough. Manhattan offers a wide array of public and private housing options. There were 852,575 housing units in 2013 at an average density of 37,345 per square mile (14,419/km²). , only 20.3% of Manhattan residents lived in owner-occupied housing, the second-lowest rate of all counties in the nation, behind the Bronx. Although the city of New York has the highest average cost for rent in the United States, it simultaneously hosts a higher average of income


title: Manhattan content: per capita. Because of this, rent is a lower percentage of annual income than in several other American cities. Manhattan's real estate market for luxury housing continues to be among the most expensive in the world, and Manhattan residential property continues to have the highest sale price per square foot in the United States. Manhattan is unique in the U.S. for intense use of public transportation and lack of private car ownership. While 88% of Americans nationwide drive to their jobs, with only 5% using public transport, mass transit is the dominant form of travel for residents of Manhattan, with


title: Manhattan content: 72% of borough residents using public transport to get to work, while only 18% drove. According to the 2000 United States Census, 77.5% of Manhattan households do not own a car. In 2008, Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed a congestion pricing system to regulate entering Manhattan south of 60th Street. The state legislature rejected the proposal in June 2008. The New York City Subway, the largest subway system in the world by number of stations, is the primary means of travel within the city, linking every borough except Staten Island. There are 151 subway stations in Manhattan, out of the stations.


title: Manhattan content: A second subway, the PATH system, connects six stations in Manhattan to northern New Jersey. Passengers pay fares with pay-per-ride MetroCards, which are valid on all city buses and subways, as well as on PATH trains. There are 7-day and 30-day MetroCards that allow unlimited trips on all subways (except PATH) and MTA bus routes (except for express buses). The PATH QuickCard is being phased out, having been replaced by the SmartLink. The MTA is testing "smart card" payment systems to replace the MetroCard. Commuter rail services operating to and from Manhattan are the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), which


title: Manhattan content: connects Manhattan and other New York City boroughs to Long Island; the Metro-North Railroad, which connects Manhattan to Upstate New York and Southwestern Connecticut; and NJ Transit trains, which run to various points in New Jersey. The US$11.1 billion East Side Access project, which will bring LIRR trains to Grand Central Terminal, is under construction and is scheduled to open in 2022; this project will create a new train tunnel beneath the East River, connecting the East Side of Manhattan with Long Island City, Queens. Four multi-billion-dollar projects were completed in the mid-2010s: the $1.4 billion Fulton Center in November


title: Manhattan content: 2014, the $2.4 billion 7 Subway Extension in September 2015, the $4 billion World Trade Center Transportation Hub in March 2016, and Phase 1 of the $4.5 billion Second Avenue Subway in January 2017. MTA New York City Transit offers a wide variety of local buses within Manhattan under the brand New York City Bus. An extensive network of express bus routes serves commuters and other travelers heading into Manhattan. The bus system served 784 million passengers citywide in 2011, placing the bus system's ridership as the highest in the nation, and more than double the ridership of the second-place


title: Manhattan content: Los Angeles system. The Roosevelt Island Tramway, one of two commuter cable car systems in North America, whisks commuters between Roosevelt Island and Manhattan in less than five minutes, and has been serving the island since 1978. (The other system in North America is the Portland Aerial Tram.) The Staten Island Ferry, which runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, annually carries over 21 million passengers on the run between Manhattan and Staten Island. Each weekday, five vessels transport about 65,000 passengers on 109 boat trips. The ferry has been fare-free since 1997, when the then-50-cent fare was


title: Manhattan content: eliminated. In February 2015, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city government would begin NYC Ferry to extend ferry transportation to traditionally underserved communities in the city. The first routes of NYC Ferry opened in 2017. All of the system's routes have termini in Manhattan, and the Lower East Side and Soundview routes also have intermediate stops on the East River. The metro region's commuter rail lines converge at Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal, on the west and east sides of Midtown Manhattan, respectively. They are the two busiest rail stations in the United States. About one-third of


title: Manhattan content: users of mass transit and two-thirds of railway passengers in the country live in New York and its suburbs. Amtrak provides inter-city passenger rail service from Penn Station to Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.; Upstate New York and New England; cross-Canadian border service to Toronto and Montreal; and destinations in the Southern and Midwestern United States. New York's iconic yellow taxicabs, which number 13,087 city-wide and must have the requisite medallion authorizing the pick up of street hails, are ubiquitous in the borough. Various private transportation network companies provide significant competition for cab drivers in Manhattan. Manhattan also has


title: Manhattan content: tens of thousands of bicycle commuters. The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 called for twelve numbered avenues running north and south roughly parallel to the shore of the Hudson River, each wide, with First Avenue on the east side and Twelfth Avenue on the west side. There are several intermittent avenues east of First Avenue, including four additional lettered avenues running from Avenue A eastward to Avenue D in an area now known as Alphabet City in Manhattan's East Village. The numbered streets in Manhattan run east-west, and are generally wide, with about between each pair of streets. With each combined


title: Manhattan content: street and block adding up to about , there are almost exactly 20 blocks per mile. The typical block in Manhattan is . According to the original Commissioner's Plan, there were 155 numbered crosstown streets, but later the grid was extended up to the northernmost corner of Manhattan, where the last numbered street is 220th Street. Moreover, the numbering system continues even in The Bronx, north of Manhattan, despite the fact that the grid plan is not as regular in that borough, whose last numbered street is 263rd Street. Fifteen crosstown streets were designated as wide, including 34th, 42nd, 57th


title: Manhattan content: and 125th Streets, which became some of the borough's most significant transportation and shopping venues. Broadway is the most notable of many exceptions to the grid, starting at Bowling Green in Lower Manhattan and continuing north into the Bronx at Manhattan's northern tip. In much of Midtown Manhattan, Broadway runs at a diagonal to the grid, creating major named intersections at Union Square (Park Avenue South/Fourth Avenue and 14th Street), Madison Square (Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street), Herald Square (Sixth Avenue and 34th Street), Times Square (Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street), and Columbus Circle (Eighth Avenue/Central Park West and 59th


title: Manhattan content: Street). "Crosstown traffic" refers primarily to vehicular traffic between Manhattan's East Side and West Side. The trip is notoriously frustrating for drivers because of heavy congestion on narrow local streets laid out by the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, absence of express roads other than the Trans-Manhattan Expressway at the far north end of Manhattan Island; and restricted to very limited crosstown automobile travel within Central Park, further prohibited beginning in 2018 south of 72nd Street within the park, to augment pedestrian safety. Proposals in the mid-1900s to build express roads through the city's densest neighborhoods, namely the Mid-Manhattan Expressway and


title: Manhattan content: Lower Manhattan Expressway, did not go forward. Unlike the rest of the United States, New York State prohibits right or left turns on red in cities with a population greater than one million, to reduce traffic collisions and increase pedestrian safety. In New York City, therefore, all turns at red lights are illegal unless a sign permitting such maneuvers is present, significantly shaping traffic patterns in Manhattan. Another consequence of the strict grid plan of most of Manhattan, and the grid's skew of approximately 28.9 degrees, is a phenomenon sometimes referred to as Manhattanhenge (by analogy with Stonehenge). On separate


title: Manhattan content: occasions in late May and early July, the sunset is aligned with the street grid lines, with the result that the sun is visible at or near the western horizon from street level. A similar phenomenon occurs with the sunrise in January and December. The FDR Drive and Harlem River Drive, both designed by controversial New York master planner Robert Moses, comprise a single, long limited-access parkway skirting the east side of Manhattan along the East River and Harlem River south of Dyckman Street. The Henry Hudson Parkway is the corresponding parkway on the West Side north of 57th Street.


title: Manhattan content: Being primarily an island, Manhattan is linked to New York City's outer boroughs by numerous bridges, of various sizes. Manhattan has fixed highway connections with New Jersey to its west by way of the George Washington Bridge, the Holland Tunnel, and the Lincoln Tunnel, and to three of the four other New York City boroughs—the Bronx to the northeast, and Brooklyn and Queens (both on Long Island) to the east and south. Its only direct connection with the fifth New York City borough, Staten Island, is the Staten Island Ferry across New York Harbor, which is free of charge. The


title: Manhattan content: ferry terminal is located near Battery Park at Manhattan's southern tip. It is also possible to travel on land to Staten Island by way of Brooklyn, via the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. The George Washington Bridge, the world's busiest motor vehicle bridge, connects Washington Heights, in Upper Manhattan, to Bergen County, in New Jersey. There are numerous bridges to the Bronx across the Harlem River, and five (listed north to south)—the Triborough (known officially as the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge), Ed Koch Queensboro (also known as the 59th Street Bridge), Williamsburg, Manhattan, and Brooklyn Bridges—that cross the East River to connect Manhattan


title: Manhattan content: to Long Island. Several tunnels also link Manhattan Island to New York City's outer boroughs and New Jersey. The Lincoln Tunnel, which carries 120,000 vehicles a day under the Hudson River between New Jersey and Midtown Manhattan, is the busiest vehicular tunnel in the world. The tunnel was built instead of a bridge to allow unfettered passage of large passenger and cargo ships that sail through New York Harbor and up the Hudson River to Manhattan's piers. The Holland Tunnel, connecting Lower Manhattan to Jersey City, New Jersey, was the world's first mechanically ventilated vehicular tunnel. The Queens–Midtown Tunnel, built


title: Manhattan content: to relieve congestion on the bridges connecting Manhattan with Queens and Brooklyn, was the largest non-federal project in its time when it was completed in 1940; President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first person to drive through it. The Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel runs underneath Battery Park and connects the Financial District at the southern tip of Manhattan to Red Hook in Brooklyn. Manhattan has three public heliports: the East 34th Street Heliport (also known as the Atlantic Metroport) at East 34th Street, owned by New York City and run by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC); the Port Authority


title: Manhattan content: Downtown Manhattan/Wall Street Heliport, owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and run by the NYCEDC; and the West 30th Street Heliport, a privately owned heliport that is owned by the Hudson River Park Trust. US Helicopter offered regularly scheduled helicopter service connecting the Downtown Manhattan Heliport with John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, before going out of business in 2009. Gas and electric service is provided by Consolidated Edison to all of Manhattan. Con Edison's electric business traces its roots back to Thomas Edison's Edison Electric


title: Manhattan content: Illuminating Company, the first investor-owned electric utility. The company started service on September 4, 1882, using one generator to provide 110 volts direct current (DC) to 59 customers with 800 light bulbs, in a one-square-mile area of Lower Manhattan from his Pearl Street Station. Con Edison operates the world's largest district steam system, which consists of of steam pipes, providing steam for heating, hot water, and air conditioning by some 1,800 Manhattan customers. Cable service is provided by Time Warner Cable and telephone service is provided by Verizon Communications, although AT&T is available as well. Manhattan witnessed the doubling of


title: Manhattan content: the natural gas supply delivered to the borough when a new gas pipeline opened on November 1, 2013. The New York City Department of Sanitation is responsible for garbage removal. The bulk of the city's trash ultimately is disposed at mega-dumps in Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina and Ohio (via transfer stations in New Jersey, Brooklyn and Queens) since the 2001 closure of the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island. A small amount of trash processed at transfer sites in New Jersey is sometimes incinerated at waste-to-energy facilities. Like New York City, New Jersey and much of Greater New York relies


title: Manhattan content: on exporting its trash to far-flung areas. New York City has the largest clean-air diesel-hybrid and compressed natural gas bus fleet, which also operates in Manhattan, in the country. It also has some of the first hybrid taxis, most of which operate in Manhattan. There are many hospitals in Manhattan, including two of the 25 largest in the United States (as of 2017): New York City is supplied with drinking water by the protected Catskill Mountains watershed. As a result of the watershed's integrity and undisturbed natural water filtration system, New York is one of only four major cities in


title: Manhattan content: the United States the majority of whose drinking water is pure enough not to require purification by water treatment plants. The Croton Watershed north of the city is undergoing construction of a US$3.2 billion water purification plant to augment New York City's water supply by an estimated 290 million gallons daily, representing a greater than 20% addition to the city's current availability of water. Manhattan, surrounded by two brackish rivers, had a limited supply of fresh water. To satisfy its growing population, the City of New York acquired land in adjacent Westchester County and constructed the old Croton Aqueduct system


title: Manhattan content: there, which went into service in 1842 and was superseded by the new Croton Aqueduct, which opened in 1890. This, however, was interrupted in 2008 for the ongoing construction of a US$3.2 billion water purification plant that can supply an estimated 290 million gallons daily when completed, representing an almost 20% addition to the city's availability of water, with this addition going to Manhattan and the Bronx. Water comes to Manhattan through New York City Water Tunnel No. 1, Tunnel No. 2, and Tunnel No. 3, completed in 1917, 1936, and (Manhattan's supply) 2013, respectively. The address algorithm of Manhattan


title: Manhattan content: refers to the formulas used to estimate the closest east–west cross street for building numbers on north–south avenues. It is commonly noted in telephone directories, New York City travel guides, and MTA Manhattan bus maps. Local government and services: Maps: Manhattan Manhattan (), often referred to locally as the City, is the most densely populated borough of New York City, its economic and administrative center, cultural identifier, and historical birthplace. The borough is coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state of New York. The borough consists mostly of Manhattan Island, bounded by the


title: Eggplant content: Eggplant Eggplant (US), aubergine (UK), or brinjal (South Asia and South Africa ) is a plant species in the nightshade family Solanaceae, "Solanum melongena", grown for its often purple edible fruit. The spongy, absorbent fruit of the plant is widely used in cooking in many different cuisines, and is often considered a vegetable, even though it is a berry by botanical definition. As a member of the genus "Solanum", it is related to the tomato and the potato. Like the tomato, its skin and seeds can be eaten, but, like the potato, it is not advisable to eat it raw.


title: Eggplant content: Eggplant supplies low contents of macronutrients and micronutrients. The capability of the fruit to absorb oils and flavors into its flesh through cooking is well known in the culinary arts. It was originally domesticated from the wild nightshade species "thorn" or "bitter apple", "S. incanum", probably with two independent domestications: one in South Asia, and one in East Asia. The eggplant is a delicate, tropical perennial plant often cultivated as a tender or half-hardy annual in temperate climates. The stem is often spiny. The flowers are white to purple in color, with a five-lobed corolla and yellow stamens. Some common


title: Eggplant content: cultivars have fruit that is egg-shaped, glossy, and purple with white flesh and a spongy, "meaty" texture. Some other cultivars are white and longer in shape. The cut surface of the flesh rapidly turns brown when the fruit is cut open (oxidation). Eggplant grows tall, with large, coarsely lobed leaves that are long and broad. Semiwild types can grow much larger, to , with large leaves over long and broad. On wild plants, the fruit is less than in diameter; in cultivated forms: or more in length are possible for long, narrow types or the large fat purple ones common


title: Eggplant content: to the West. Botanically classified as a berry, the fruit contains numerous small, soft, edible seeds that taste bitter because they contain or are covered in nicotinoid alkaloids, like the related tobacco. The plant species is believed to have originated in India, where it continues to grow wild. It has been cultivated in southern and eastern Asia since prehistory. The first known written record of the plant is found in "Qimin Yaoshu", an ancient Chinese agricultural treatise completed in 544. The numerous Arabic and North African names for it, along with the lack of the ancient Greek and Roman names,


title: Eggplant content: indicate it was introduced throughout the Mediterranean area by the Arabs in the early Middle Ages. A book on agriculture by Ibn Al-Awwam in 12th-century Arabic Spain described how to grow aubergines. Records exist from later medieval Catalan and Spanish. The aubergine is unrecorded in England until the 16th century. An English botany book in 1597 described the madde or raging Apple: Because of the plant's relationship with various other nightshades, the fruit was at one time believed to be extremely poisonous. The flowers and leaves can be poisonous if consumed in large quantities due to the presence of solanine.


title: Eggplant content: The eggplant has a special place in folklore. In 13th-century Italian traditional folklore, the eggplant can cause insanity. In 19th-century Egypt, insanity was said to be "more common and more violent" when the eggplant is in season in the summer. The plant and fruit have a profusion of English names. The name "eggplant" is usual in North American English and Australian English. First recorded in 1763, the word "eggplant" was originally applied to white cultivars, which look very much like hen's eggs (see right image). Similar names are widespread in other languages, such as the Icelandic term "eggaldin" or the


title: Eggplant content: Welsh "planhigyn ŵy". The white, egg-shaped varieties of the egg-plant's fruits are also known as "garden eggs", a term first attested in 1811. The "Oxford English Dictionary" records that between 1797 and 1888, the name "vegetable egg" was also used. Whereas "eggplant" was coined in English, most of the diverse other European names for the plant derive from the Arabic word "bāḏinjān" (). "Bāḏinjān" is itself a loan-word in Arabic, whose earliest traceable origins lie in the Dravidian languages. The "Hobson-Jobson" dictionary comments that 'probably there is no word of the kind which has undergone such extraordinary variety of modifications,


title: Eggplant content: whilst retaining the same meaning, as this'. In English usage, these modern names include: All the "aubergine"-type names have the same origin, in the Dravidian languages. Modern descendants of this ancient Dravidian word include Malayalam "vaṟutina" and Tamil "vaṟutuṇai". The Dravidian word was borrowed into the Indic languages, giving ancient forms such as Sanskrit and Pali "vātiṅ-gaṇa" (alongside Sanskrit "vātigama") and Prakrit "vāiṃaṇa". According to the entry "brinjal" in the "Oxford English Dictionary", the Sanskrit word "vātin-gāna" denoted 'the class (that removes) the wind-disorder (windy humour)': that is, "vātin-gāna" came to be the name for egg-plants because they were thought


title: Eggplant content: to cure flatulence. The modern Hindustani words descending directly from the Sanskrit name are "baingan" and "began". The Indic word "vātiṅ-gaṇa" was then borrowed into Persian as "bādingān". Persian "bādingān" was borrowed in turn into Arabic as "bāḏinjān" (or, with the definite article, "al-bāḏinjān"). From Arabic, the word was borrowed into European languages. In al-Andalus, the Arabic word "(al-)bāḏinjān" was borrowed into the Romance languages in forms beginning with "b"- or, with the definite article included, "alb"-: The Spanish word "alberengena" was then borrowed into French, giving "aubergine" (along with French dialectal forms like "albergine", "albergaine", "albergame", and "belingèle"). The


title: Eggplant content: French name was then borrowed into British English, appearing there first in the late eighteenth century. Through the colonial expansion of Portugal, the Portuguese form "bringella" was borrowed into a variety of other languages: Thus although Indian English "brinjal" ultimately originates in languages of the Indian Subcontinent, it actually came into Indian English via Portuguese. The Arabic word "bāḏinjān" was borrowed into Greek by the eleventh century CE. The Greek loans took a variety of forms, but crucially they began with "m-", partly because Greek lacked the sound "b-" and partly through folk-etymological association with the Greek word "μέλας" ("melas"),


title: Eggplant content: 'black'. Attested Greek forms include "ματιζάνιον" ("matizanion", eleventh-century), "μελιντζάνα" ("melintzana", fourteenth-century), and "μελιντζάνιον" ("melintzanion", seventeenth-century). From Greek, the word was borrowed into Italian and medieval Latin, and onwards into French. Early forms include: From these forms came the botanical Latin "melongēna". This was used by Tournefort as a genus name in 1700, then by Linnaeus as a species name in 1753. It remains in scientific use. These forms also gave rise to the Caribbean English "melongene". The Italian "melanzana", through folk-etymology, was adapted to "mela insana" ('mad apple'): already by the thirteenth century, this name had given rise to a


title: Eggplant content: tradition that egg-plants could cause insanity. Translated into English as 'mad-apple', 'rage-apple', or 'raging apple', this name for eggplants is attested from 1578 and the form 'mad-apple' may still be found in Southern American English. The plant is also known as "guinea squash" in Southern American English. The term "guinea" in the name originally denoted the fact that the fruits were associated with West Africa. It has been known as 'Jew's apple', apparently in relation to a belief that the fruit was first imported to the West Indies by Jewish people. Different cultivars of the plant produce fruit of different


title: Eggplant content: size, shape, and color, though typically purple. The less common white varieties of eggplant are also known as Easter white eggplants, garden eggs, Casper or white eggplant. The most widely cultivated varieties—cultivars—in Europe and North America today are elongated ovoid, long and broad with a dark purple skin. A much wider range of shapes, sizes, and colors is grown in India and elsewhere in Asia. Larger cultivars weighing up to a kilogram (2.2 pounds) grow in the region between the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers, while smaller ones are found elsewhere. Colors vary from white to yellow or green, as well


title: Eggplant content: as reddish-purple and dark purple. Some cultivars have a color gradient—white at the stem, to bright pink, deep purple or even black. Green or purple cultivars with white striping also exist. Chinese cultivars are commonly shaped like a narrower, slightly pendulous cucumber. Also, Asian cultivars of Japanese breeding are grown. Bt brinjal is a transgenic aubergine that contains a gene from the soil bacterium "Bacillus thuringiensis". This variety was designed to give the plant resistance to lepidopteran insects such as the brinjal fruit and shoot borer ("Leucinodes orbonalis") and fruit borer ("Helicoverpa armigera"). On 9 February 2010, the Environment Ministry


title: Eggplant content: of India imposed a moratorium on the cultivation of Bt brinjal after protests against regulatory approval of cultivated Bt brinjal in 2009, stating the moratorium would last "for as long as it is needed to establish public trust and confidence". This decision was deemed controversial, as it deviated from previous practices with other genetically modified crops in India. Bt brinjal was approved for commercial cultivation in Bangaladesh in 2013. Raw eggplant can have a bitter taste, with an astringent quality, but it becomes tender when cooked and develops a rich, complex flavor. The fruit is capable of absorbing large amounts


title: Eggplant content: of cooking fats and sauces, which may enrich dishes. Many recipes advise salting, rinsing, and draining the sliced fruit (a process known as "degorging") to remove the bitterness inherent in earlier cultivars, and also to soften it and reduce the amount of fat absorbed. Modern cultivars, including the large purple ones common in the Western world, do not need this treatment to remove bitterness, although it still reduces the fat absorbed in frying. Eggplant is used in the cuisines of many countries. Due to its texture and bulk, it is sometimes used as a meat substitute in vegan and vegetarian


title: Eggplant content: cuisines. Eggplant flesh is smooth. Its numerous seeds are small, soft and edible, along with the rest of the fruit, and do not have to be removed. Its thin skin is also edible, and so it does not have to be peeled. However, the green part at the top, the calyx, does have to be removed when preparing an eggplant for cooking. Eggplant can be steamed, stir-fried, pan fried, deep fried, barbecued, roasted, stewed, curried, or pickled. Many eggplant dishes are sauces made by mashing the cooked fruit. It can be stuffed. It is frequently, but not always, cooked with


title: Eggplant content: fat. Korean and Japanese eggplant varieties are typically thin-skinned. In Chinese cuisine, eggplants are known as "qiézi" (). They are often deep fried and made into dishes such as "yúxiāng-qiézi" ("fish fragrance eggplant") or "di sān xiān" ("three earthen treasures"). Elsewhere in China, such as in Yunnan cuisine (in particular the cuisine of the Dai people) they are barbecued or roasted, then split and either eaten directly with garlic, chilli, oil and coriander, or the flesh is removed and pounded to a mash (typically with a wooden pestle and mortar) before being eaten with rice or other dishes. In Korean


title: Eggplant content: cuisine, eggplants are known as "gaji" (). They are steamed, stir-fried, or pan-fried and eaten as banchan (side dishes), such as "namul", "bokkeum", and "jeon". In the Philippines, eggplants are of the long and slender purple variety. They are known as "talong" and is widely used in many stew and soup dishes, like "pinakbet". However the most popular eggplant dish is "tortang talong", an omelette made from grilling an eggplant, dipping it into beaten eggs, and pan-frying the mixture. The dish is characteristically served with the stalk attached. The dish has several variants, including "rellenong talong" which is stuffed with


title: Eggplant content: meat and vegetables. Eggplant can also be grilled, skinned and eaten as a salad called "ensaladang talong". Another popular dish is "adobong talong", which is diced eggplant prepared with vinegar, soy sauce, and garlic as an "adobo". Eggplant is widely used in its native India, for example in "sambar" (a tamarind lentil stew), "dalma" (a "dal" preparation with vegetables, native to Odisha), chutney, curry, and "achaar" (a pickled dish). Owing to its versatile nature and wide use in both everyday and festive Indian food, it is often described as the "king of vegetables". Roasted, skinned, mashed, mixed with onions, tomatoes,


title: Eggplant content: and spices, and then slow cooked gives the South Asian dish "baingan bharta" or "gojju", similar to "salată de vinete" in Romania. Another version of the dish, "begun-pora" (eggplant charred or burnt), is very popular in Bangladesh and the east Indian states of Odisha and West Bengal where the pulp of the vegetable is mixed with raw chopped shallot, green chilies, salt, fresh coriander, and mustard oil. Sometimes fried tomatoes and deep-fried potatoes are also added, creating a dish called "begun bhorta". In a dish from Maharashtra called "bharli vangi", small brinjals are stuffed with ground coconut, peanuts, onions, tamarind,


title: Eggplant content: jaggery and masala spices, and then cooked in oil. Eggplant is often stewed, as in the French "ratatouille", or deep-fried as in the Italian "parmigiana di melanzane", the Turkish "karnıyarık", or Turkish, Greek, and Levantine "musakka/moussaka", and Middle Eastern and South Asian dishes. Eggplants can also be battered before deep-frying and served with a sauce made of tahini and tamarind. In Iranian cuisine, it is blended with whey as "kashk e bademjan", tomatoes as "mirza ghassemi", or made into stew as "khoresht-e-bademjan". It can be sliced and deep-fried, then served with plain yogurt (optionally topped with a tomato and garlic


title: Eggplant content: sauce), such as in the Turkish dish "patlıcan kızartması" (meaning fried aubergines), or without yogurt, as in "patlıcan şakşuka". Perhaps the best-known Turkish eggplant dishes are "imam bayıldı" (vegetarian) and "karnıyarık" (with minced meat). It may also be roasted in its skin until charred, so the pulp can be removed and blended with other ingredients, such as lemon, tahini, and garlic, as in the Arab "baba ghanoush" and the similar Greek "melitzanosalata". A mix of roasted eggplant, roasted red peppers, chopped onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, carrots, celery, and spices is called "zacuscă" in Romania, and "ajvar" or "pinjur" in the Balkans.


title: Eggplant content: A Spanish dish called "escalivada" in Catalonia calls for strips of roasted aubergine, sweet pepper, onion, and tomato. In Andalusia, eggplant is mostly cooked thinly sliced, deep-fried in olive oil and served hot with honey ("berenjenas a la Cordobesa"). In the La Mancha region of central Spain, a small eggplant is pickled in vinegar, paprika, olive oil, and red peppers. The result is berenjena of Almagro, Ciudad Real. A Levantine specialty is "makdous", another pickling of eggplants, stuffed with red peppers and walnuts in olive oil. Eggplant can be hollowed out and stuffed with meat, rice, or other fillings, and


title: Eggplant content: then baked. In Georgia, for example, it is fried and stuffed with walnut paste to make "nigvziani badrijani". In tropical and subtropical climates, eggplant can be sown in the garden. Eggplant grown in temperate climates fares better when transplanted into the garden after all danger of frost has passed. Eggplant prefers hot weather, and when grown in cold climates or in areas with low humidity, the plants languish or fail to set and produce mature fruit. Seeds are typically started eight to 10 weeks prior to the anticipated frost-free date. "S. melongena" is included on a list of low flammability


title: Eggplant content: plants, indicating that it is suitable for growing within a building protection zone. Spacing should be between plants, depending on cultivar, and between rows, depending on the type of cultivation equipment being used. Mulching helps conserve moisture and prevent weeds and fungal diseases and the plants benefit from some shade during the hottest part of the day. Hand pollination by shaking the flowers improves the set of the first blossoms. Growers typically cut fruits from the vine just above the calyx owing to the somewhat woody stems. Flowers are complete, containing both female and male structures, and may be self-


title: Eggplant content: or cross-pollinated. Many of the pests and diseases that afflict other solanaceous plants, such as tomato, capsicum, and potato, are also troublesome to eggplants. For this reason, it should generally not be planted in areas previously occupied by its close relatives. However, since eggplants can be particularly susceptible to pests such as whiteflies, they are sometimes grown with slightly less susceptible plants, such as chili pepper, as a sacrificial trap crop. Four years should separate successive crops of eggplants to reduce pest pressure. Common North American pests include the potato beetles, flea beetles, aphids, whiteflies, and spider mites. Good sanitation


title: Eggplant content: and crop rotation practices are extremely important for controlling fungal disease, the most serious of which is "Verticillium". In 2016, global production of eggplants was 51.3 million tonnes. That year, almost 1.8 million hectares (4.4 million acres) were devoted to the cultivation of eggplants in the world. Over 62% of that output came from China alone. India (24.5% of world total), Egypt, Turkey, and Iran were also major producers. Raw eggplant is composed of 92% water, 6% carbohydrates, 1% protein, and negligible fat (table). It provides low amounts of essential nutrients, with only manganese having a moderate percentage (11%) of


title: Eggplant content: the Daily Value. Minor changes in nutrient composition occur with season, environment of cultivation (open field or greenhouse), and genotype. The potato tuber moth ("Phthorimaea operculella") is an oligophagous insect that prefers to feed on plants of the family Solanaceae such as eggplants. Female "P. operculella" use the leaves to lay their eggs and the hatched larvae will eat away at the mesophyll of the leaf. The color of purple skin cultivars is due to the anthocyanin nasunin. The browning of eggplant flesh results from the oxidation of polyphenols, such as the most abundant phenolic compound in the fruit, chlorogenic


title: Eggplant content: acid. Case reports of itchy skin or mouth, mild headache, and stomach upset after handling or eating eggplant have been reported anecdotally and published in medical journals (see also oral allergy syndrome). A 2008 study of a sample of 741 people in India, where eggplant is commonly consumed, found nearly 10% reported some allergic symptoms after consuming eggplant, with 1.4% showing symptoms within two hours. Contact dermatitis from eggplant leaves and allergy to eggplant flower pollen have also been reported. Individuals who are atopic (genetically predisposed to developing certain allergic hypersensitivity reactions) are more likely to have a reaction to


title: Eggplant content: eggplant, which may be because eggplant is high in histamines. A few proteins and at least one secondary metabolite have been identified as potential allergens. Cooking eggplant thoroughly seems to preclude reactions in some individuals, but at least one of the allergenic proteins survives the cooking process. The eggplant is quite often featured in the older scientific literature under the junior synonyms "S. ovigerum" and "S. trongum". Several other now-invalid names have been uniquely applied to it: A number of subspecies and varieties have been named, mainly by Dikii, Dunal, and (invalidly) by Sweet. Names for various eggplant types, such


title: Eggplant content: as "agreste, album, divaricatum, esculentum, giganteum, globosi, inerme, insanum, leucoum, luteum, multifidum, oblongo-cylindricum, ovigera, racemiflorum, racemosum, ruber, rumphii, sinuatorepandum, stenoleucum, subrepandum, tongdongense, variegatum, violaceum", and "viride", are not considered to refer to anything more than cultivar groups at best. However, "Solanum incanum" and cockroach berry ("S. capsicoides"), other eggplant-like nightshades described by Linnaeus and Allioni, respectively, were occasionally considered eggplant varieties, but this is not correct. The eggplant has a long history of taxonomic confusion with the scarlet and Ethiopian eggplants ("Solanum aethiopicum)", known as "gilo" and "nakati", respectively, and described by Linnaeus as "S. aethiopicum". The eggplant was sometimes


title: Eggplant content: considered a variety "violaceum" of that species. "S. violaceum" of de Candolle applies to Linnaeus' "S. aethiopicum". An actual "S. violaceum", an unrelated plant described by Ortega, included Dunal's "S. amblymerum" and was often confused with the same author's "S. brownii". Like the potato and "S. lichtensteinii", but unlike the tomato, which then was generally put in a different genus, the eggplant was also described as "S. esculentum", in this case once more in the course of Dunal's work. He also recognized the varieties "aculeatum", "inerme", and "subinerme" at that time. Similarly, H.C.F. Schuhmacher and Peter Thonning named the eggplant


title: Eggplant content: as "S. edule", which is also a junior synonym of sticky nightshade ("S. sisymbriifolium"). Scopoli's "S. zeylanicum" refers to the eggplant, and that of Blanco to "S. lasiocarpum". Eggplant Eggplant (US), aubergine (UK), or brinjal (South Asia and South Africa ) is a plant species in the nightshade family Solanaceae, "Solanum melongena", grown for its often purple edible fruit. The spongy, absorbent fruit of the plant is widely used in cooking in many different cuisines, and is often considered a vegetable, even though it is a berry by botanical definition. As a member of the genus "Solanum", it is related


title: Arecaceae content: Arecaceae The Arecaceae are a botanical family of perennial plants. Their growth form can be climbers, shrubs, trees and stemless plants, all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree form are colloquially called palm trees. They are flowering plants, a family in the monocot order Arecales. Currently 181 genera with around 2600 species are known, most of them restricted to tropical and subtropical climates. Most palms are distinguished by their large, compound, evergreen leaves, known as fronds, arranged at the top of an unbranched stem. However, palms exhibit an enormous diversity in physical characteristics and inhabit nearly every type


title: Arecaceae content: of habitat within their range, from rainforests to deserts. Palms are among the best known and most extensively cultivated plant families. They have been important to humans throughout much of history. Many common products and foods are derived from palms. In contemporary times, palms are also widely used in landscaping, making them one of the most economically important plants. In many historical cultures, because of their importance as food, palms were symbols for such ideas as victory, peace, and fertility. For inhabitants of cooler climates today, palms symbolize the tropics and vacations. Whether as shrubs, trees, or vines, palms have


title: Arecaceae content: two methods of growth: solitary or clustered. The common representation is that of a solitary shoot ending in a crown of leaves. This monopodial character may be exhibited by prostrate, trunkless, and trunk-forming members. Some common palms restricted to solitary growth include "Washingtonia" and "Roystonea". Palms may instead grow in sparse though dense clusters. The trunk develops an axillary bud at a leaf node, usually near the base, from which a new shoot emerges. The new shoot, in turn, produces an axillary bud and a clustering habit results. Exclusively sympodial genera include many of the rattans, "Guihaia", and "Rhapis". Several


title: Arecaceae content: palm genera have both solitary and clustering members. Palms which are usually solitary may grow in clusters and vice versa. These aberrations suggest the habit operates on a single gene. Palms have large, evergreen leaves that are either palmately ('fan-leaved') or pinnately ('feather-leaved') compound and spirally arranged at the top of the stem. The leaves have a tubular sheath at the base that usually splits open on one side at maturity. The inflorescence is a spadix or spike surrounded by one or more bracts or spathes that become woody at maturity. This has been contested in the Flowering Leaf Theory


title: Arecaceae content: which demonstrates (for most monocots and dicots) that the inflorescence is a modified leaf which bears flowers. The flowers are generally small and white, radially symmetric, and can be either uni- or bisexual. The sepals and petals usually number three each, and may be distinct or joined at the base. The stamens generally number six, with filaments that may be separate, attached to each other, or attached to the pistil at the base. The fruit is usually a single-seeded drupe (sometimes berry-like) but some genera (e.g. "Salacca") may contain two or more seeds in each fruit. Like all monocots, palms


title: Arecaceae content: do not have the ability to increase the width of a stem (secondary growth) via the same kind of vascular cambium found in non-monocot woody plants. This explains the cylindrical shape of the trunk (almost constant diameter) that is often seen in palms, unlike in ring-forming trees. However, many palms, like some other monocots, do have secondary growth, although because it does not arise from a single vascular cambium producing xylem inwards and phloem outwards, it is often called "anomalous secondary growth". The Arecaceae are notable among monocots for their height and for the size of their seeds, leaves, and


title: Arecaceae content: inflorescences. "Ceroxylon quindiuense", Colombia's national tree, is the tallest monocot in the world, reaching up to 60 m tall. The "coco de mer" ("Lodoicea maldivica") has the largest seeds of any plant, 40–50 cm in diameter and weighing 15–30 kg each. Raffia palms ("Raphia" spp.) have the largest leaves of any plant, up to 25 m long and 3 m wide. The "Corypha" species have the largest inflorescence of any plant, up to 7.5 m tall and containing millions of small flowers. "Calamus" stems can reach 200 m in length. Most palms are native to tropical and subtropical climates. Palms


title: Arecaceae content: thrive in moist and hot climates but can be found in a variety of different habitats. Their diversity is highest in wet, lowland forests. South America, the Caribbean, and areas of the south Pacific and southern Asia are regions of concentration. Colombia may have the highest number of palm species in one country. There are some palms that are also native to desert areas such as the Arabian peninsula and parts of northwestern Mexico. Only about 130 palm species naturally grow entirely beyond the tropics, mostly in humid lowland subtropical climates, in highlands in southern Asia, and along the rim


title: Arecaceae content: lands of the Mediterranean Sea. The northernmost native palm is "Chamaerops humilis", which reaches 44°N latitude in along the coast of southern France. In the southern hemisphere, the southernmost palm is the "Rhopalostylis sapida", which reaches 44°S on the Chatham Islands where an oceanic climate prevails. Cultivation of palms is possible north of subtropical climates, and some higher latitude locals such as Ireland, Scotland, England, and the Pacific Northwest feature a few palms in protected locations. Palms inhabit a variety of ecosystems. More than two-thirds of palm species live in humid moist forests, where some species grow tall enough to


title: Arecaceae content: form part of the canopy and shorter ones form part of the understory. Some species form pure stands in areas with poor drainage or regular flooding, including "Raphia hookeri" which is common in coastal freshwater swamps in West Africa. Other palms live in tropical mountain habitats above 1000 m, such as those in the genus "Ceroxylon" native to the Andes. Palms may also live in grasslands and scrublands, usually associated with a water source, and in desert oases such as the date palm. A few palms are adapted to extremely basic lime soils, while others are similarly adapted to extreme


title: Arecaceae content: potassium deficiency and toxicity of heavy metals in serpentine soils. Palms are a monophyletic group of plants, meaning the group consists of a common ancestor and all its descendants. Extensive taxonomic research on palms began with botanist H.E. Moore, who organized palms into 15 major groups based mostly on general morphological characteristics. The following classification, proposed by N.W. Uhl and J. Dransfield in 1987, is a revision of Moore's classification that organizes palms into six subfamilies. A few general traits of each subfamily are listed below. The Coryphoideae are the most diverse subfamily, and are a paraphyletic group, meaning all


title: Arecaceae content: members of the group share a common ancestor, but the group does not include all the ancestor's descendants. Most palms in this subfamily have palmately lobed leaves and solitary flowers with three, or sometimes four carpels. The fruit normally develops from only one carpel. Subfamily Calamoideae includes the climbing palms, such as rattans. The leaves are usually pinnate; derived characters (synapomorphies) include spines on various organs, organs specialized for climbing, an extension of the main stem of the leaf-bearing reflexed spines, and overlapping scales covering the fruit and ovary. Subfamily Nypoideae contains only one species, "Nypa fruticans", which has large,


title: Arecaceae content: pinnate leaves. The fruit is unusual in that it floats, and the stem is dichotomously branched, also unusual in palms. Subfamily Ceroxyloideae has small to medium-sized flowers, spirally arranged, with a gynoecium of three joined carpels. The Arecoideae are the largest subfamily, with six diverse tribes (Areceae, Caryoteae, Cocoseae, Geonomeae, Iriarteeae, and Podococceae) containing over 100 genera. All tribes have pinnate or bipinnate leaves and flowers arranged in groups of three, with a central pistillate and two staminate flowers. The Phytelephantoideae are a monoecious subfamily. Members of this group have distinct monopodial flower clusters. Other distinct features include a gynoecium


title: Arecaceae content: with five to 10 joined carpels, and flowers with more than three parts per whorl. Fruits are multiple-seeded and have multiple parts. Currently, few extensive phylogenetic studies of the Arecaceae exist. In 1997, Baker" et al." explored subfamily and tribe relationships using chloroplast DNA from 60 genera from all subfamilies and tribes. The results strongly showed the Calamoideae are monophyletic, and Ceroxyloideae and Coryphoideae are paraphyletic. The relationships of Arecoideae are uncertain, but they are possibly related to the Ceroxyloideae and Phytelephantoideae. Studies have suggested the lack of a fully resolved hypothesis for the relationships within the family is due


title: Arecaceae content: to a variety of factors, including difficulties in selecting appropriate outgroups, homoplasy in morphological character states, slow rates of molecular evolution important for the use of standard DNA markers, and character polarization. However, hybridization has been observed among "Orbignya" and "Phoenix" species, and using chloroplast DNA in cladistic studies may produce inaccurate results due to maternal inheritance of the chloroplast DNA. Chemical and molecular data from non-organelle DNA, for example, could be more effective for studying palm phylogeny. The Arecaceae are the first modern family of monocots appearing in the fossil record around 80 million years ago (Mya), during the


title: Arecaceae content: late Cretaceous period. The first modern species, such as "Nypa fruticans" and "Acrocomia aculeata", appeared 94 Mya, confirmed by fossil "Nypa" pollen dated to 94 Mya. Palms appear to have undergone an early period of adaptive radiation. By 60 Mya, many of the modern, specialized genera of palms appeared and became widespread and common, much more widespread than their range today. Because palms separated from the monocots earlier than other families, they developed more intrafamilial specialization and diversity. By tracing back these diverse characteristics of palms to the basic structures of monocots, palms may be valuable in studying monocot evolution.


title: Arecaceae content: Several species of palms have been identified from flowers preserved in amber, including "Palaeoraphe dominicana" and "Roystonea palaea". Evidence can also be found in samples of petrified palmwood. Human use of palms is as old or older than human civilization itself, starting with the cultivation of the date palm by Mesopotamians and other Middle Eastern peoples 5000 years or more ago. Date wood, pits for storing dates, and other remains of the date palm have been found in Mesopotamian sites. The date palm had a tremendous effect on the history of the Middle East. W.H. Barreveld wrote: An indication of


title: Arecaceae content: the importance of palms in ancient times is that they are mentioned more than 30 times in the Bible, and at least 22 times in the Quran. Arecaceae have great economic importance, including coconut products, oils, dates, palm syrup, ivory nuts, carnauba wax, rattan cane, raffia, and palm wood. Along with dates mentioned above, members of the palm family with human uses are numerous. Like many other plants, palms have been threatened by human intervention and exploitation. The greatest risk to palms is destruction of habitat, especially in the tropical forests, due to urbanization, wood-chipping, mining, and conversion to farmland.


title: Arecaceae content: Palms rarely reproduce after such great changes in the habitat, and those with small habitat ranges are most vulnerable to them. The harvesting of heart of palm, a delicacy in salads, also poses a threat because it is derived from the palm's apical meristem, a vital part of the palm that cannot be regrown (except in domesticated varieties, e.g. of peach palm). The use of rattan palms in furniture has caused a major population decrease in these species that has negatively affected local and international markets, as well as biodiversity in the area. The sale of seeds to nurseries and


title: Arecaceae content: collectors is another threat, as the seeds of popular palms are sometimes harvested directly from the wild. At least 100 palm species are currently endangered, and nine species have reportedly recently become extinct. However, several factors make palm conservation more difficult. Palms live in almost every type of warm habitat and have tremendous morphological diversity. Most palm seeds lose viability quickly, and they cannot be preserved in low temperatures because the cold kills the embryo. Using botanical gardens for conservation also presents problems, since they can rarely house more than a few plants of any species or truly imitate the


title: Arecaceae content: natural setting. Also, the risk of cross-pollination can lead to hybrid species. The Palm Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) began in 1984, and has performed a series of three studies to find basic information on the status of palms in the wild, use of wild palms, and palms under cultivation. Two projects on palm conservation and use supported by the World Wildlife Fund took place from 1985 to 1990 and 1986–1991, in the American tropics and southeast Asia, respectively. Both studies produced copious new data and publications on palms. Preparation of a global action plan for palm


title: Arecaceae content: conservation began in 1991, supported by the IUCN, and was published in 1996. The rarest palm known is "Hyophorbe amaricaulis". The only living individual remains at the Botanic Gardens of Curepipe in Mauritius. Pests that attack a variety of species of palm trees include: The palm branch was a symbol of triumph and victory in pre-Christian times. The Romans rewarded champions of the games and celebrated military successes with palm branches. Early Christians used the palm branch to symbolize the victory of the faithful over enemies of the soul, as in the Palm Sunday festival celebrating the triumphal entry of


title: Arecaceae content: Jesus into Jerusalem. In Judaism, the palm represents peace and plenty, and is one of the Four Species of Sukkot; the palm may also symbolize the Tree of Life in Kabbalah. Panaiveriyamman was an ancient Tamil tree deity related to fertility. Named after "panai", the Tamil name for the Palmyra palm, she was also known as Taalavaasini, a name that further related her to all types of palms. Today, the palm, especially the coconut palm, remains a symbol of the tropical island paradise. Palms appear on the flags and seals of several places where they are native, including those of


title: Arecaceae content: Haiti, Guam, Saudi Arabia, Florida, and South Carolina. Some species commonly called palms, though they are not true palms, include: Arecaceae The Arecaceae are a botanical family of perennial plants. Their growth form can be climbers, shrubs, trees and stemless plants, all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree form are colloquially called palm trees. They are flowering plants, a family in the monocot order Arecales. Currently 181 genera with around 2600 species are known, most of them restricted to tropical and subtropical climates. Most palms are distinguished by their large, compound, evergreen leaves, known as fronds, arranged at


title: Hamburger content: Hamburger A hamburger, beefburger or burger is a sandwich consisting of one or more cooked patties of ground meat, usually beef, placed inside a sliced bread roll or bun. The patty may be pan fried, grilled, or flame broiled. Hamburgers are often served with cheese, lettuce, tomato, bacon, onion, pickles, or chiles; condiments such as mustard, mayonnaise, ketchup, relish, or "special sauce"; and are frequently placed on sesame seed buns. A hamburger topped with cheese is called a cheeseburger. The term "burger" can also be applied to the meat patty on its own, especially in the UK where the term


title: Hamburger content: "patty" is rarely used, or the term can even refer simply to ground beef. The term may be prefixed with the type of meat or meat substitute used, as in "turkey burger", "bison burger", or "veggie burger". Hamburgers are sold at fast-food restaurants, diners, and specialty and high-end restaurants (where burgers may sell for several times the cost of a fast-food burger, but may be one of the cheaper options on the menu). There are many international and regional variations of the hamburger. The term "hamburger" originally derives from Hamburg, Germany's second-largest city. In German, "Burg" means "castle", "fortified settlement"


title: Hamburger content: or "fortified refuge" and is a widespread component of place names. The first element of the name is perhaps from Old High German "hamma", referring to a bend in a river, or Middle High German "hamme", referring to an enclosed area of pastureland. "Hamburger" in German is the demonym of Hamburg, similar to "frankfurter" and "wiener", names for other meat-based foods and demonyms of the cities of Frankfurt and Vienna (Wien), respectively. The term "burger", a back-formation, is associated with many different types of sandwiches, similar to a (ground meat) hamburger, but made of different meats such as buffalo in


title: Hamburger content: the buffalo burger, venison, kangaroo, turkey, elk, lamb or fish like salmon in the salmon burger, but even with meatless sandwiches as is the case of the veggie burger. There have been many claims about the origin of the hamburger, but the origins remain unclear. The popular book "The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy" by Hannah Glasse included a recipe in 1758 as "Hamburgh sausage", which suggested to serve it "roasted with toasted bread under it". A similar snack was also popular in Hamburg by the name "Rundstück warm" ("bread roll warm") in 1869 or earlier, and supposedly


title: Hamburger content: eaten by many emigrants on their way to America, but may have contained roasted beefsteak rather than Frikadeller. Hamburg steak is reported to have been served between two pieces of bread on the Hamburg America Line, which began operations in 1847. Each of these may mark the invention of the Hamburger, and explain the name. There is a reference to a "Hamburg steak" as early as 1884 in the Boston Journal. On July 5, 1896, the "Chicago Daily Tribune" made a highly specific claim regarding a "hamburger sandwich" in an article about a "Sandwich Car": "A distinguished favorite, only five


title: Hamburger content: cents, is Hamburger steak sandwich, the meat for which is kept ready in small patties and 'cooked while you wait' on the gasoline range." According to Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, the hamburger, a ground meat patty between two slices of bread, was first created in America in 1900 by Louis Lassen, a Danish immigrant, owner of Louis' Lunch in New Haven, Connecticut. There have been rival claims by Charlie Nagreen, Frank and Charles Menches, Oscar Weber Bilby, and Fletcher Davis. White Castle traces the origin of the hamburger to Hamburg, Germany with its invention by Otto Kuase. However, it gained national


title: Hamburger content: recognition at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair when the "New York Tribune" referred to the hamburger as "the innovation of a food vendor on the pike". No conclusive argument has ever ended the dispute over invention. An article from ABC News sums up: "One problem is that there is little written history. Another issue is that the spread of the burger happened largely at the World's Fair, from tiny vendors that came and went in an instant. And it is entirely possible that more than one person came up with the idea at the same time in different parts


title: Hamburger content: of the country." Louis Lassen of Louis' Lunch, a small lunch wagon in New Haven, Connecticut, is said to have sold the first hamburger and steak sandwich in the U.S. in 1900. "New York" magazine states that "The dish actually had no name until some rowdy sailors from Hamburg named the meat on a bun after themselves years later", noting also that this claim is subject to dispute. A customer ordered a quick hot meal and Louis was out of steaks. Taking ground beef trimmings, Louis made a patty and grilled it, putting it between two slices of toast. Some


title: Hamburger content: critics like Josh Ozersky, a food editor for "New York Magazine", claim that this sandwich was not a hamburger because the bread was toasted. One of the earliest claims comes from Charlie Nagreen, who in 1885 sold a meatball between two slices of bread at the Seymour Fair now sometimes called the Outagamie County Fair. The Seymour Community Historical Society of Seymour, Wisconsin, credits Nagreen, now known as "Hamburger Charlie", with the invention. Nagreen was fifteen when he was reportedly selling pork sandwiches at the 1885 Seymour Fair, made so customers could eat while walking. The Historical Society explains that


title: Hamburger content: Nagreen named the hamburger after the Hamburg steak with which local German immigrants were familiar. According to White Castle, Otto Kuase was the inventor of the hamburger. In 1891 he created a beef patty cooked in butter and topped with a fried egg. German sailors would later omit the fried egg. The family of Oscar Weber Bilby claim the first-known hamburger on a bun was served on July 4, 1891 on Grandpa Oscar's farm. The bun was a yeast bun. In 1995, Governor Frank Keating proclaimed that the first true hamburger on a bun was created and consumed in Tulsa,


title: Hamburger content: Oklahoma in 1891, calling Tulsa, "The Real Birthplace of the Hamburger." Frank and Charles Menches claim to have sold a ground beef sandwich at the Erie County Fair in 1885 in Hamburg, New York. During the fair, they ran out of pork sausage for their sandwiches and substituted beef. Kunzog, who spoke to Frank Menches, says they exhausted their supply of sausage, so purchased chopped up beef from a butcher, Andrew Klein. Historian Joseph Streamer wrote that the meat was from Stein's market not Klein's, despite Stein's having sold the market in 1874. The story notes that the name of


title: Hamburger content: the hamburger comes from Hamburg, New York not Hamburg Germany. Frank Menches's obituary in "The New York Times" states that these events took place at the 1892 Summit County Fair in Akron, Ohio. Fletcher Davis of Athens, Texas claimed to have invented the hamburger. According to oral histories, in the 1880s he opened a lunch counter in Athens and served a 'burger' of fried ground beef patties with mustard and Bermuda onion between two slices of bread, with a pickle on the side. The story is that in 1904, Davis and his wife Ciddy ran a sandwich stand at the


title: Hamburger content: St. Louis World's Fair. Historian Frank X. Tolbert, noted that Athens resident Clint Murchison said his grandfather dated the hamburger to the 1880s with 'Old Dave' a.k.a. Fletcher Davis. A photo of "Old Dave's Hamburger Stand" from 1904 was sent to Tolbert as evidence of the claim. Various non-specific claims of invention relate to the term "hamburger steak" without mention of its being a sandwich. The first printed American menu which listed hamburger is said to be an 1834 menu from Delmonico's in New York. However, the printer of the original menu was not in business in 1834. In 1889,


title: Hamburger content: a menu from Walla Walla Union in Washington offered hamburger steak as a menu item. Between 1871 and 1884, "Hamburg Beefsteak" was on the "Breakfast and Supper Menu" of the Clipper Restaurant at 311/313 Pacific Street in San Fernando, California. It cost 10 cents—the same price as mutton chops, pig's feet in batter, and stewed veal. It was not, however, on the dinner menu. Only "Pig's Head," "Calf Tongue," and "Stewed Kidneys" were listed. Another claim ties the hamburger to Summit County, New York or Ohio. Summit County, Ohio exists, but Summit County, New York does not. Hamburgers are usually


title: Hamburger content: a feature of fast food restaurants. The hamburgers served in major fast food establishments are usually mass-produced in factories and frozen for delivery to the site. These hamburgers are thin and of uniform thickness, differing from the traditional American hamburger prepared in homes and conventional restaurants, which is thicker and prepared by hand from ground beef. Most American hamburgers are round, but some fast-food chains, such as Wendy's, sell square-cut hamburgers. Hamburgers in fast food restaurants are usually grilled on a flat-top, but some firms, such as Burger King, use a gas flame grilling process. At conventional American restaurants, hamburgers