Is it shocking how few people know about the boroughs of NYC? (New York: transfer, construction)

[rlrl]

I'm at the Starbucks in Marble Hill (perfect location to watch the water and boats)every other day and I still get confused as to which is bronx and which is manhattan!

[rlrl]

I suspected that's what limeresh was referring to, marble hill

[Irish Eyes]

If you’re talking about people who grew up in NYC, then I would be surprised. If you’re talking about people living in Kansas, or any other state, I would be surprised if you think they SHOULD know anything about how NYC is carved up.

[SOON2BNSURPRISE]

I would love to gain some understanding of your Borough system of geographic locations. After reading all the post's I noticed that no one had included information on how to determine where in the city each is or if they are their own cities all together. Would love to be directed to information on that. Can someone supply information on a map or does CDF include a map in the City Data site? I would love to be educated about the surrounding area before I visit.

[Dark of the Moon]

Wikipedia -- scroll down to the section on "Boroughs."

I can't imagine not knowing where you are in the city, unless you're literally on the border between, for example, Brooklyn & Queens -- everything is fairly well delineated.

[portyhead24]

Well, as an outsider here's my uninformed previous take on NYC. I had the idea that Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens were completely separate cities. I thought Manhattan was only a neighborhood or area in the city. Staten Island just seemed like a random place way disconnected from the city. Also, I never really made the connection that Staten Island and Long Island are ACTUALLY ISLANDS on which the city is located. Also regarding Long Island, I didn't realize it is as big as it is. I figured it was a small island completely developed and encompassed by NYC. After watching the movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" I was intrigued by Montauk. Looked it up and came to find it is on Long Island too. Did further research and learned about all the different boroughs. I know I sound really ignorant but I know better now. Also, this is an outsiders point of view so I'm sure many have thought the way I did. BTW, I'm visiting next June with my friend who's originally from the Bronx. CAN'T WAIT!!!

[Fred314X]

...And then, after you familiarize yourself with the city through maps, take an aerial tour! There's a fantastic website, http://newyorkbirds.free.fr where you can visit each borough from the air. (OK, as the "fr" indicates, it's French in origin, and sometimes they tend to get neighborhood names wrong. But the photos are phenomenal).

[Americanboy]

Originally Posted by FTLkid754

The majority of people I incountered don't know what a borough is. And if they know what a borough is they think Long Island is part of NYC and that Harlem is its own borough or its own city and that Brookyln is also seperate city I hear little about Queens and nothing about Staten Island which leads me to believe a lot of people outside the New York part of the NYC metro don't know they existand know next to nothing about the way NYC is set up. Most of these misconseptions about NYC are from people I lived with in suburban NJ inside the NYC metro area so imagine what people in Kansas think. Does this suprise you or do you think its not a big deal at all?

Not surprising.

I've met a NYer who didn't know what month and year the 9/11 attacks happened on.

Strange.

[UpstaterInBklyn]

As I understand it -- the only reason each borough is a county is to run separate court systems, correct?

Do the county entities do anything else in each borough?

Other NYS county governments generally handle a lot more: social services administration, sheriff patrols, crime labs, coroners, 911, DMV offices, parks, highways, and jails, among other things. I think in NYC these are handled by the City government.

[Fred314X]

Originally Posted by UpstaterInBklyn

As I understand it -- the only reason each borough is a county is to run separate court systems, correct?

Do the county entities do anything else in each borough?

Other NYS county governments generally handle a lot more: social services administration, sheriff patrols, crime labs, coroners, 911, DMV offices, parks, highways, and jails, among other things. I think in NYC these are handled by the City government.

No...the reason each borough is a separate county is that it shows how the city evolved. Originally, Manhattan Island (a.k.a. New York County) comprised the whole city. Brooklyn was an independent city--charter issued 1834--that joined NYC in 1898. The municipal election making consolidation, as they called it, a fact of life was rigged. But we can discuss that some other time, if you like.

What we now know as The Bronx was originally a part of Weschester County. New York City annexed it in the 1880s, and in fact it was called the "Annexed District" pretty much until it obtained borough status in 1914.

Queens was originally the three westernmost towns in what eventually became Nassau County--Newtown, Flushing and Jamaica. In a referendum, these three towns voted to join New York City. You can still identify those towns by their zip code prefixes: Newtown 111, Flushing 113 and Jamaica 114. (The Rockaway Peninsula, zip code prefix 116, was joined to the new borough).

Too much information?