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

[UpstaterInBklyn]

Not it is not too much information -- I appreciate the history lesson.

However, do the current "counties" have any governmental functions in the five boroughs?

As far as I can tell there is no actual county government apparatus in the boroughs, like there is elsewhere in NYS, or am I wrong?

[WestburynLI to BronxnNYC]

Originally Posted by Fred314X

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?

Not enough LOL!

Alot of people dont know that the Brooklyn Bridge was built to connect the 2 cities. Also, alot of the water for NYC used to come out From Long Island. If you look along Sunrise highway you can still see the little Access huts that say something like "City of New york Water"

Also, i hated trying to explian to people that i didnt live in NYC, when visiting out of town. I dont know how to describe it, but someone from Long Island wasnt allowed to say they where from NYC. Out of Towners would never let me say otherwise.

[TANaples]

Originally Posted by rlrl

I double the bet by stating that very few people realize, or care, that the northern most neighborhood of Manhattan is connected to mainland USA.

YES! Heh I didn't realize this until I noticed it after staring reeeeeaally closely at a subway map some years ago. Thrilling!!

But it's only connected to the mainland by landfill



...neighborhood in Manhattan is Inwood, but how is it connected to the mainland(which is the bronx)?. Inwood manhattan and the entire island connects to the bronx mainland by the Broadway bridge and henry Hudson bridge as well as various other bridges spanning the harlem River further south

I don't mean to be corrective as it's not part of my nature to do so, but on a map I don't see manhattan attached to the bronx or any of the other areas across from it like Queens, brooklyn, NJ, it's all separated by water

surrounded on all 4 side by water, just as "geographical" Long Island (Brooklyn, Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk) is. Anyone who was educated the the NYC school system, public or private, would have been taught this.

The misconception that The Bronx is a separate city may come from the fact that BROOKLYN used to be it's own city apart from NYC. These people may just be mixing up the two.

As far as Brooklyn and Queens being on Long Island, some people must be very isolated to not know you can literally walk across a street and go from being in Brooklyn into Queens. You can walk across another street and go from being in Queens to being in Nassau County. If Long Island were only Nassau and Suffolk, you would have to cross WATER (definition of a island) to get into either Queens or Brooklyn.

[rlrl]

The bronx was actually part of Westchester County, but was annexed to NY City at that time. this might explain certain localities on a map such as Westchester, Eastchester

[K.O.N.Y]

As i understand the west bronx was apart of new york county and the east was westchester?

[Fred314X]

Originally Posted by UpstaterInBklyn

As far as I can tell there is no actual county government apparatus in the boroughs, like there is elsewhere in NYS, or am I wrong?

The government apparatus for each borough is there--it just doesn't go by the same names as you find in most other counties. For instance, instead of a County Executive, or some such title, there's a Borough President in each of the five boroughs.

And as long as I'm sitting here typing--for the question of landfill, a lot of this city was made that way. Not surprising for a town founded by the Dutch!

If you've ever seen a map of Manhattan from Colonial times, there was a half-moon shaped bay at the southeastern corner of the island. That coastline was straightened out through the use of landfill, which is why both Water and Front Streets do not actually front on the water any more.
In Brooklyn, Coney Island was connected to the mainland with landfill (it was actually the earth excavated during the IRT subway construction!) If you walk along Guider Avenue, which has a strangely curving route, you're following the course of the original strait that connected Coney Island Creek with Sheepshead Bay.

Canarsie was also originally located on a sharp triangular point of land along both sides of modern Rockaway Parkway. Everything else in the area today is landfill!

[UpstaterInBklyn]

"Coney Peninsula" just doesn't have the same cachet

Speaking of landfilling - In the 18th and 19th centuries, the city actually sold rights to tracts of underwater land to developers. Those tracts were promptly filled in, with no environmental regulations, of course. Can you imagine the firestorm of controversy this practice would ignite today?

[Viralmd]

Coney Island was originally named because of all the rabbits (coneys) in the area. Just a bit of trivia.

[TheJickler]

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?

No.What surprises me is how many people from these boroughs think that where they live is the be-all, end-all of the world. I've asked people what state they're from, only to be told "Queens" or "Brooklyn."

[Fred314X]

Just in passing, although this does not specifically relate to a borough...

There has been controversy (mostly emanating from the other side of the Hudson) about Liberty Island. If you check a map, you'll see that it happens to be located west of the river's midpoint. And according to New Jersey, that means it actually isn't New York City territory--and so all the tourism revenue from visitors to the Statue of Liberty shouldn't be coming here.

The history, for those people on the other side of the river who need to have it explained, is this...

Originally called Minissais ("Lesser Island") by the local Native Americans and Great Oyster Island by the colonizing Europeans, its first European owner was Isaac Bedlow--also sometimes spelled Bedloe. His widow sold it to James Carteret of New Jersey for 81 pounds in 1676. But the Corporation of the City of New York bought it for 1,000 pounds in 1758. Ownership was transferred from the City to the State in 1796 for purposes of fortification.

Which side of the river's midpoint the island happens to occupy is not relevant. Liberty Island (the name was changed from Bedloe's after the famous statue went up, of course) is New York City territory. Sorry, Garden Staters--you'll have to conduct your land grab elsewhere!