BITE THE BIG APPLE, TASTE THE SWEET DELIGHTS OF LIFE

Written by YanniePascual-Sanguyo

“There isn’t another like it. No matter where you go. And nobody can compare it. Its win and place and show. New York is special. New York is different’ cause there’s no place else on earth quite like New York and that’s why I LOVE NEW YORK.”

This excerpt from the city’s state song says it all. No one will argue that New York is unique, special and spectacular. New York can be anything you imagine it to be. That is why countless people have pinned their dreams on the city and wish to taste the Big Apple.

THE BIRTH

New York is the home to some of the nation’s most remarkable history. It all started when Giovanni da Verrazano, an Italian-born navigator sailing for France, discovered New York Bay in 1524. Then, Englishman Henry Hudson, employed by the Dutch, reached the bay and sailed up the river now bearing his name in 1609. Coincidentally, it was the same year that northern New York was explored and claimed for France by Samuel de Champlain.
In 1624 the first permanent Dutch settlement was established at Fort Orange, now known as Albany. One year later Peter Minuit purchased Manhattan Island from the Indians for trinkets worth about 60 Dutch guilders, valued today at about $1000, and founded the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. The colony surrendered to the English in 1664. And so, history has been told and now we see New York City.

One might be curious how the Big Apple entered the scene. Well, in the early ‘30s, touring jazz musicians started calling New York City the “Big Apple.” But people thought the slang came from vaudeville. Vaudevillian Billy Tucker called New York the “Big Apple” in the Chicago Defender newspaper as early as 1922. New York City was the leading and best place to perform, so it fits the old show-business saying: “There are many apples on the tree, but only one Big Apple.”
A 1971 drive to increase tourism to New York City adopted the Big Apple as an officially acclaimed reference to New York City. The campaign featured red apples in an effort to lure visitors to New York City. It was anticipated that the red apples would serve as a vivid and jovial image of New York City, in contrast to the common belief that New York City was bleak and perilous. Since then, New York City has officially been The Big Apple.

THE GROWTH

“I LOVE NY” is the world-renowned trademark that symbolizes the progression and growth of New York tourism. Since the mid-1970s there have been continued efforts to publicize different tourist and historical spots around the city. It’s not that complex since New York has the precise packaging that enthralls and entices tourists around the world. The Big Apple has a perfect combination of historical merit and incomparable sights and experiences.

The following are just few of the eminent places around the city that you can’t afford to miss during your visit.

Washington Square Park

Washington Square Park has served various roles for its community throughout the years, adapting to meet its needs, from being a cemetery to now a playground. The park is found in the heart of Greenwich Village and it is best known for its bohemian and defiant character. At the center of the square are its two main attractions: a large fountain and the Washington arch. For the Centennial of Washington’s inauguration as President of the United States a wooden Memorial Arch was constructed on the Washington Square. The arch, designed by Stanford White was so successful at the celebrations that a marble version was commissioned. In May 1895 the final version of the 77 ft Washington Arch was inaugurated. The pier sculptures of Washington as general and president were added in 1916 and 1918 respectively.
In 2007 the New York City department of Parks started with the renovation of Washington Square Park, the rectangular park that occupies most of the square. The first phase of the extensive reconstruction, completed in May 2009, resulted in repaved paths, new benches and lighting as well as the relocation of the fountain to the center of the square. This move enabled the creation of more green space. In the process, the fountain was completely restored.

Statue of Liberty

A figure of the international comradeship forged during the American Revolution, the Statue of Liberty was a gift from the French government for the 100th birthday of America’s Independence.
A young French sculptor, Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, was determined to create a statue like the great Colossus that once stood at the Greek island Rhodes so he designed a masterpiece we see today. The face was said to be modeled after his mother’s and the story goes that the body was developed after a prostitute. With these, he produced the world’s most well-known statue which stands just less than 152 feet tall (from the base to the torch) and weighs an approximate 450,000 pounds. The crown of Lady Liberty, as the statue is often affectionately called, has seven spikes, symbolizing the Seven Seas across which liberty should be spread. In her left hand she holds a tablet with the Declaration of Independence and in her right hand a torch, symbolizing enlightenment. The statue’s steel framework was made by French engineer Gustave Eiffel, better known as the man behind the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The Statue of Liberty was constructed in Paris, France. It took nine years before it was fulfilled in 1884 after which it was sent to the USA in 214 crates. Even before the arrival of the statue, Bartholdi himself had traveled to the Unites States to discuss the location of the statue with president Ulysses S. Grant. Eventually it was decided to raise the statue at a small island in the harbor of New York City. Today the island is known as Liberty Island.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

It was founded in 1870 by a group of New York citizens including not only wealthy businessmen but also artists and philosophers who sought to share their love of art with the masses. A collection owned by railroad tycoon John Taylor Johnston seeded the museum, which quickly outgrew its original location on Fifth. Just a year after it opened, the museum found it necessary to move to the Douglas Mansion on 14th Street but also outgrew that location within just a short period of time. Despite the need to move its location twice, the museum has remained a favorite. Those responsible for the museum soon acquired a plot of land on the east side of Central Park, where the museum still stands today.

Currently, the two million works of art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art are divided into 22 curatorial departments spread out over about 250 rooms. They include American decorative arts; American painting and sculpture; Ancient Near Eastern art; arms and armor; arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas; Asian art; the Costume Institute; drawings and prints; Egyptian art; European paintings; European sculpture and decorative arts; Greek and Roman art; medieval art; modern art, musical instruments; and photographs. There’s also a rooftop sculpture garden and the amazing Robert Lehman Collection, often described as one of the most extensive and impressive private art collections in the world. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the most extensive and prolific art museums in the world.

Brooklyn Bridge

Built between 1869 and 1883, Brooklyn Bridge unites Manhattan with New York’s most populous borough at the time one of the country’s largest cities. The bridge is one of the most magnificent landmarks in New York.

The bridge came to be when a German immigrant had taken a ferry across the river and got ended up stuck in the ice. The immigrant who had worked for the Prussian government as a bridge and road builder became the driving force behind the whole project.

John Roebling would never get to see the bridge he had designed: he died after crushing his foot in an accident. He wasn’t the only one to lose his life during the construction: 20 of the in total 600 workers died while working on the bridge. The son of John Roebling, Washington Roebling, took over the leadership of the project but he suffered from the caisson-disease as a result of the works on the pillars of the bridge and was on his deathbed during the inauguration. That day, May 24, 1883, about 150,000 people crossed the bridge. Roebling had not just made a bridge that looked incredibly strong, but it also was just as strong in reality. A mesh of cables of which the four strongest have a diameter of 11 inches are anchored in the ground and keep the bridge from collapsing. But even if the four strongest cables would snap, the other cables would still be sufficient to support the bridge. Roebling even claimed that the bridge wouldn’t collapse without any cables, it would merely sag. But even after the inauguration, many New Yorkers were not convinced the bridge was safe. So as to prove the doubters wrong, P.T. Barnum led a caravan of circus animals – including a herd of 21 elephants – across the bridge in 1884. The Brooklyn Bridge ranks as one of the greatest engineering feats of the 19th century and remains one of New York’s most popular and well known landmarks. The impressive bridge spans the East river between Brooklyn and Manhattan and stretches for a length of 5989 ft, about 1.8 km. The length between the large towers is 1595.5 ft. This made the Brooklyn bridge the world’s largest suspension bridge. The most noticeable features of the Brooklyn Bridge are the two masonry towers to which the many cables are attached. The towers with large gothic arches are 276 ft. tall, at the time making them some of the tallest landmarks in New York. Roebling claimed that the monumental towers would make the bridge a historic monument. He was proven right when the bridge officially became a national monument in 1964.

World Trade Center / WTC Memorial

The World Trade Center was originally a complex of seven buildings in Lower Manhattan of which the Twin Towers were the best known. With the unforeseen misfortune of the Sept 11, 2001 attack, this marvel became a center for an overflowing emotion of sympathy and empathy for the victims of 9/11 bombing.

But after darkness there was light, so a plan was developed to bring back the memories of these two astonishing skyscrapers—The World Trade center was a project started up in 1960 by David Rockefeller. The towers were sometimes nicknamed David and Nelson, the Rockefeller brothers. The design came from Minoru Yamasak seen as great architecture, but it certainly was a great engineering feat. The One World Trade Center was the highest building in the world, built in 1972, standing 417 meters tall, and the second one, finished on year later measured 415 meters. Before the bombing the Twin Towers still ranked in the top 10 of the highest buildings in the world and dominated the skyline of lower Manhattan. September 11, 2001 shook the world when 2 hijacked planes crashed into the twin towers. Not much later, the towers imploded. More than 2800 people died in the cowardly terrorist attack. The site of the towers – a gaping wound – became known as ‘ground zero’. Plans to build a new WTC were launched shortly after the destruction of the original WTC Tower. Instead of rebuilding the twin towers, it was decided to create a memorial at the site and build five new towers around the memorial. Already in 2006 one of the towers – Seven WTC, a 52 story skyscraper – was completed. The whole complex, including the landmark WTC 1 tower with a symbolic height of 541 meters or 1,776 ft. (The US declared its independence from the British in 1776) is expected to be completed in 2013. The World Trade Center Memorial was unveiled September 11, 2011, at the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks. The 6 acre memorial plaza is built on top of a large transit hub to be completed in 2013. The hub is marked by a spectacular PATH entrance station created by the celebrated Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. The memorial, dubbed ‘Reflecting Absence’, has cascading waterfalls with illuminated reflecting pools at the exact site of the former towers. The names of the 2977 people who died during the attacks that day (including those who died in Pennsylvania and Washington, DC) as well as the victims of the 1993 bombing are inscribed around the edge of the waterfalls. The memorial design by architect Michael Arad and landscape architect Peter Walker was chosen during a competition which attracted more than 5200 submissions.

THE REAP

The Big Apple embraces the principle of progression; it captures the essence of history, while at the same time symbolizing a city never hesitates to adapt with the progress of today. Despite ill-fated events New York stood still and gives new hope, aspiration and faith. The fruit of this city in the near future will give variety of taste, from the bitterness of bereavement, to the sweetness of healing and acceptance. New York continues to fascinate travelers around the world and given a chance all over and over again, I’m not going to be afraid to take a bite and indulge with the enticing taste of the Big Apple.