After being discovered by Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524, the New York region, populated by 5,000 Indians of the Lenape tribe, was explored in 1609 by the Englishman Henry Hudson, in the service of the Dutch. As early as 1624, barely four years after the arrival of the 120 English “pilgrims” of the Mayflower in Massachusetts, the West India Company landed Dutch families south of present-day Manhattan, and built Fort Amsterdam to protect themselves from the Indians. and the English.
Under the leadership of Peter Stuyvesant, appointed director of the Company in 1647, the town prospered thanks to the fur trade. In 1653, New Amsterdam obtained the title of city and appointed its first mayor. It then accommodated 1,500 Europeans and 300 African slaves. But in 1665, four English frigates threatened to attack it and lead Peter Stuyvesant to capitulate. The English renamed the city New York, named after the Duke of York, their grand admiral.
Between neighborhoods that look like villages and large bubbling arteries, New York is a city with many facets. Young-Ah Kim
At the end of the 17th century, it had 5,000 inhabitants, including wheat and corn farmers. Four out of ten households employ slaves. The Lenape Indians, for their part, are no more than 200. Under British rule, the city developed (12,500 inhabitants in 1740), to the point of opening Columbia University in 1754. During the war of independence , after two defeats in 1776, the army of George Washington leaves the region, and New York becomes the refuge of the English loyalists until the victory of the separatists.
Washington triumphantly entered the city in 1783. Six years later, New York very briefly became the capital of the United States. Its extraordinary growth was then stimulated by its role as the main port of arrival for immigrants and by the inauguration of the Erie Canal in 1825, which opened up markets in the Midwest and Canada. In 1835, New York supplanted Philadelphia as the first city in the United States. The Police Department and public schools are then created.
The terrace of the Ludlow Hotel offers spectacular views of the Manhattan skyscrapers. Young-Ah Kim
Then the great Irish famine generated a flood of immigrants and, in 1850, one in four New Yorkers was Irish. In 1873, Central Park, the first American public park, was inaugurated. In 1886, it was the turn of the Statue of Liberty, in front of a million people. At the turn of the 20th century, New York was the second city in the world (behind London), with 4.2 million inhabitants. It was then that the Flatiron Building, his first skyscraper, was erected in 1902. The prelude to a transformation that would give it its current face.
In New York, taxis… routed!
They too are part of the history of the city. Are the yellow taxis, symbol of New York just like the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty, doomed to disappear? While 13,500 cars display a taxi placard, 63,000 black vehicles carry passengers who have contacted them through Uber, Lyft, Via, Jet and Juno applications. Since 2015, due to this competition, the earnings of taxi drivers have fallen by 35%, and many of them only earn $ 20,000 to $ 30,000 per year … like most Uber drivers and consorts.
So it’s a job for immigrants who land. Less than 10% of New York taxi drivers were born in the United States, 40% are from the Indian subcontinent, the rest are from the West Indies or South America. Many of these immigrants who speak poor English were victims of the “license plate scandal”. Until 2005, this plaque, which allows you to own and drive a taxi, was worth $ 200,000. Then the prices started to rise, the $ 500,000 being crossed in 2009, the million dollars in 2014.
This speculation, organized by financial investors, taxi companies and banks, sparked a scam similar to the mortgage-era real estate loans. subprime. Bankers have offered Bangladeshi or Guatemalan drivers to buy a plate without contribution, repaying over forty or fifty years, the first 30 being spent paying only huge interest.
Symbol of the city, yellow taxis are hit hard by competition from Uber and other companies on mobile applications. Young-Ah Kim
Four thousand drivers have blamed themselves for staggering reimbursements (up to $ 1.7 million, including interest, for plates worth 1 million), when Uber invaded the market, causing their income to decline and the price to go downhill. de la plaque, which since 2018 has returned to its original price of $ 200,000. Already, a thousand taxis have gone bankrupt, and suicides are increasing. Justice is looking to see if the bankers who encouraged the drivers to get into debt have violated the law.
But the Taxi and Limousine Commission, which regulates the activity of taxis, is also on the grill. She knew the drivers were taking an inordinate risk, but she took advantage: since 2005, she has pocketed $ 855 million by selling plates herself and collecting taxes on other sales. There too, justice will decide. In the meantime, if you take a taxi, you should know that thousands of drivers are currently fighting to survive and not go bankrupt. Tipping (20%) is therefore required, even an act of assistance to a person in danger.
Slack in real estate
After the 2008 financial crisis, the New York real estate market was the first to recover. Prices have increased by 30% in six years, or even by 50% in the new fashionable districts, propelled by the purchases of luxury apartments of the Russians and the Chinese, and by those of New Yorkers in the buildings “co -op ”, more numerous and older – in co-ops, you must be accepted by the board of directors of the building before you can buy shares in the company that owns it, for an amount corresponding to the size of the appartment.
« But a slowdown was felt in 2015 and, since 2016, the number of transactions has decreased and prices have fallen, from 10% to 25% depending on the neighborhood, Queens and Brooklyn being less affected than Manhattan. Says Frederick Peters, president of Warburg Realty in New York. Indeed, the Russians and the Chinese disappeared after the election of Trump, which also opened a more uncertain period for New Yorkers, overwhelmingly Democrats. Above all, buildings whose construction has started continue to increase the offer in the high-end, which represents six years of sales.
The One World Trade Center, a daring construction that replaces the Twin Towers destroyed on September 11, 2001. Young-Ah Kim
Finally, the 1% mansion tax that applied to purchases of goods of $ 1 million – the price of a small two-room apartment in many Manhattan neighborhoods – increased last April: 1.5% for a purchase over $ 3M, 2.25% over $ 6M… and up to 3.9% over $ 25M. However, New York’s “buyer’s market” remains very expensive. For $ 1.4 million, you can acquire an 81 m² two-room apartment on the 24th floor of a 54th Street skyscraper in Manhattan and, for $ 1.5 million, a 92-m2 with 2 bedrooms and 1 terrace in the Fort Greene neighborhood in Brooklyn.
The monthly charges are high ($ 1,200 in the first case, $ 1,000 in the second) and the property tax reaches for this type of accommodation from $ 10,000 to $ 15,000 per year. In the high end, thousands of apartments or houses worth more than $ 6 million are available. As for the rental market, it remains expensive (despite a slight drop in rents in Manhattan), because the property tax is transferred by the owner to the tenant. It costs $ 3,000 per month for a decent studio in Manhattan, and $ 4,000 to $ 5,000 for a 2-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn.
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