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Picture Descriptions
1: View south from Empire State Building - Lower Manhattan with the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in the middle.
© B. Hennig, 2000 [back to picture]
2: The Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island with the skyline of Manhattan in the background.
© B. Hennig, 2000 [back to picture]
3: New York City - Lower Manhattan (April 1997): The dense high-rise construction since the end of the nineteenth century has led to shadowy road canyons, especially in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan. To stop a decline in real estate value because of narrow streets and bad lighting conditions, construction regulations and height restrictions were for the first time implemented in 1916.
© W. Gamerith, 1997 [back to picture]
4: New York City - Work at the underground infrastructure (June 2000): The maintenance of a complicated pipe and cable system underground for the supply of the city is a big technical and financial challenge to the city. Most of the underground networks, including the subway system, was installed in the 19th century. It is often malfunctioning today and in bad need for renovation. Moreover, the repair of facilities above ground like bridges or docks will put a lot of strain on the city's financial capacities within the next decades.
© W. Gamerith, 2000 [back to picture]
5: The Brooklyn Bridge links the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn which were once two separate cities. When it was completed in 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the largest suspension bridge in the world. It was the first bridge to be constructed using steel.
© B. Hennig, 2000 [back to picture] [more]
6: Central Park is located in the centre of Manhattan and covers 843 acres. The Park spans two and a half miles from 59th Street to 110th Street and half a mile from Fifth Avenue to Eighth Avenue. In the 1850s it was the first urban landscaped park in the United States. Today it is the major site of most New Yorkers' recreation.
© B. Hennig, 2000 [back to picture] [more]
7: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum was architected by Frank Lloyd Wright. It is one of the youngest landmarks in New York City.
© B. Hennig, 2000 [back to picture] [more]
8: View from the Empire State Building into Midtown Manhattan.
© B. Hennig, 2000 [back to picture] [more]
9: No Description
10: Strawberry Fields in Central Park is a memorial for the Beatles´ musician John Lennon who was assasinated at his house close to Central Park in 1980.
© B. Hennig, 2000 [back to picture] [more]
11: Churches are inconspicuous buildings between the skyscrapers of Manhattan: St. Patrick´s Cathedral rises 101m.
© B. Hennig, 2000 [back to picture] [more]
12: "Join us" - The New York Police Department is trying to recruit young people.
© B. Hennig, 2000 [back to picture]
13: No Description
14: Street preacher in Harlem.
© B. Hennig, 2000 [back to picture] [more]
15: View from Empire State Building into Midtown Manhattan with the Central Park in the background.
© B. Hennig, 2000 [back to picture] [more]
16: View over the steel structure of the Brooklyn Bridge in northwest direction to Midtown Manhattan with the Empire State Building on the left an the Chrysler Building right of the middle.
© B. Hennig, 2000 [back to picture] [more]
17: Times Square is the heart of New York City with a high density of shops and performing arts.
© B. Hennig, 2000 [back to picture] [more]
18: The Trump Tower - Donald Trump has become the most flamboyant and famous real estate developer in the city’s history.
© B. Hennig, 2000 [back to picture] [more]
19: Skyscraper by Donald Trump - located at the Columbus Place.
© B. Hennig, 2000 [back to picture] [more]
20: Building of the United Nations. Located on the banks of the scenic East River, this international zone is the only section of land in Manhattan that is not part of the United States.
© B. Hennig, 2000 [back to picture] [more]
21: New York City - Backyard in East Bushwick, Brooklyn (September 2000): Poverty and derelict buildings shape the image of New York City especially in the older suburbs that were erected in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Several areas in Northern Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens show very poor housing conditions and comparatively low real estate value. These neighborhoods are home to the majority of the latest immigrants from Central and Latin America, the Caribbean, and East Asia.
© W. Gamerith, 2000 [back to picture]
22: New York City - Midtown Manhattan (courtesy of Johannes Smolka, September 2000): View north from Empire State Building: The photo shows Midtown Manhattan with the greatest concentration of high-rises and office space in the world. On the right hand side is the Chrysler Building, one of New York City's most famous skyscrapers, built in art-deco style.
© W. Gamerith, 2000 [back to picture]
23: New York City - Lower Manhattan (June 2001, a few months before 9/11): Brooklyn Bridge offers a good perspective on the initial process of settling the southern tip of the island of Manhattan. Beside London and Tokyo, Lower Manhattan is thought to be the most important center of finance with a high concentration of banks, stock exchanges, and financial services of any kind. The right hand side of the photo is topped by the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the highest buildings in New York City.
© W. Gamerith, 2001 [back to picture]
24: New York City, Bertelsmann Building, Times Square (June 2000): New York City is one of the world centers of entertainment industry. Highly diversified media enterprises like Time Warner are active in many branches and shape the employment market and the visual image of the city, especially in Midtown Manhattan. In the last two or three decades, Times Square, like no other area in New York, has undergone dramatic change. The former focal point of criminal, semi-legal, and stigmatized activities, especially in terms of adult industries, has become the prototype of an urban entertainment center. This was achieved after rigorous "cleaning" activities and economic planning initiatives which introduced theatres, cinemas, entertainment attractions and TV events.
© W. Gamerith, 2000 [back to picture]
25: New York City - Upper Bay (aerial photograph, September 2000): The photo shows the particular topography of New York City at the mouth of the Hudson River (Upper Bay). The very strategic location at the estuary with its many bays, islands and peninsulas has favored the rapid development of the settlement since the beginning of the 17th century. The borough of Brooklyn (with Coney Island) encompasses all of the foreground of the photo. The Verrazano Narrows Bridge connects Brooklyn with Staten Island. In the background, on the right hand side, one can see the central borough of Manhattan, dotted with a lot of skyscrapers.
© W. Gamerith, 2000 [back to picture]
26: Trinity Church in the Financial District in Manhattan with the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in the background.
© B. Hennig, 2000 [back to picture]
27: View from Staten Island Ferry towards Lower Manhattan and its historical skyline with the then dominating World Trade Center. Based in Battery Park, the ferries connect Staten Island, the fifth borough, with the administrative and financial core of lower Manhattan. The trip is part of the daily commuting routines of thousands of New Yorkers.
© J. Hamhaber [back to picture]
28: Crossroads of 2nd Avenue with 11th Street, view towards midtown with the Empire State Building.
© J. Hamhaber [back to picture]
29: Crossroads of 2nd Avenue with 11th Street, view taken in 1997 towards lower Manhattan with the WTC dominating the skyline at that time.
© J. Hamhaber [back to picture]
30: North of the historical core (that is north of Houston and Greenwich Streets) the streets of Manhattan follow a strict rectangular grid. The avenues traverse the island in a north-south direction, and the streets cut across. Most of them are one-way streets, where the even numbered are east bound, the odd numbered west bound.
© J. Hamhaber [back to picture]
31: Besides the well known landmarks, Manhattan is covered with thousands of apartment buildings, less prominent business locations and service buildings (hotels etc). Chelsea and Gramercy, south of the Empire State Building comprise some of these typical areas, which do not catch the eye readily while hosting many of the less spectacular activities with mostly mixed commercial and residential landuse. Here, the clock tower of the ConEdison building is a local point of reference.
© J. Hamhaber [back to picture]
32: Midtown Manhattan has witnessed the construction of skyscrapers over most of the 20th century. Besides the well known Empire State and Chrysler buildings, both dating back to 1930/31, there have risen some remarkable new buildings - the Trump Tower stands out in terms of height and size (see picture 18). Others however, like the postmodern Sony Center have caught the imagination of the New Yorkers. The comparably small, but tasteful high rise in the center of the picture has sympathetically been dubbed 'the lipstick'.
© J. Hamhaber [back to picture]
33: Different generations of high rise buildings share the air in Midtown Manhattan. Starting mostly in the 1930s, there has been construction throughout the 20th century.
© J. Hamhaber [back to picture]
34: The Staten Island Ferry is a valid alternative for tourists for a seaview of the sights of New York. For a few quarters, it takes off the southern tip of Manhattan and crosses over to Staten Island, opening a superb view of the downtown skyline and passing by Liberty Island (with the Statue of Liberty, see picture 2) and Ellis Island (the place where all immigrants landed and were being checked) in the distance.
© J. Hamhaber [back to picture]
35: World Trade Center Plaza: the two monolithic blocks of World Trade Center dwarfed the people crossing the plaza in between. On close range, the sheer size of those two skyscrapers outdid not only the capability of camera lenses, but also the imagination of most people. In the year of their construction the twin towers were the highest office buildings on the globe, a remarkable symbol for the importance and position of New York as the leading financial trading market in the world.
© J. Hamhaber [back to picture]
36: World Trade Center, see 35
© J. Hamhaber [back to picture]
37: World Trade Center, see 35
© J. Hamhaber [back to picture]
38: At night, the lights of NYC touch he horizon, thus indicating the sheer size of the megacity. They also represent the city's need for reliable energy supply. The energy use of North American cities is considerably higher than in any cities in other parts of the world. Besides the public transportation system, a remarkable share in NYC's electricity bill is due to air conditioning and, more recently, to computing.
© J. Hamhaber [back to picture]
39: View from the Empire State Building into the streets of midtown. Cutting diagonally through the rectangular grid is Broadway, which stretches from downtown across the island to Upper West Side. Being established under Dutch rule - when Manhattan was a mainly rural area and New York was named New Amsterdam - the course of broadway shows remarkable persistence.
© J. Hamhaber [back to picture]
40: View from the Empire State Building (see 39).
© J. Hamhaber [back to picture]
