11 Things You Didn't Know About MANHATTAN

in the land of skyscrapers yellow taxis hordes of people and all things pretentious you'll find the pulse of New York City this 13 my Long Island is also home to some of the most famous sites in the world such as Central Park Times Square the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center yep you guessed it folks Manhattan New York City's most popular destination as well as its smallest but most densely populated borrow a place where the Hustle is ongoing and dreams are made real and the sidewalks well they're gilded in gold this is the island almost everyone flocks to and I mean it they come from everywhere we've got the working-class scrambling here for work the billionaire's flying in for play and tourists expecting the experience of a lifetime and who could blame everyone this is where the money is at right it's also where the people's at and where the actions always taking place so much so that it's hard not to feel overwhelmed perhaps put off or maybe just overly excited about being here as a tourist Manhattan is really just one of those places that you have to keep coming back to in order to fully digest even as a local you too will probably never know all there is to know about this place because when it comes to Manhattan there are two things we can all agree on number one some things are very exclusive and number two everything is constantly changing so come along with me today as I take you on a journey throughout this corner of the Big Apple and share with you some unique facts about this unusual little island the world just can't seem to take their eyes off without further ado here are 11 things you didn't know about Manhattan number one there is a six and a half avenues most of us know that Manhattan has a series of numbered avenues that run from uptown to downtown and from the numbers one to twelve but not to many know about a six and a half Avenue which runs from West 51st Street through West 57th Street six and a half Avenue is a pedestrian only pathway built mid block between 6th and 7th avenues and was completed back in 2012 its main purpose is to ease pedestrian traffic between the two main avenues and connect privately owned public spaces that are unknown to most in a pedestrian corridor each block along the corridor is unique some of it being open access indoor lobbies the rest is outdoor canopy space there are even crosswalks and street signs installed just to make it official number two it's billionaire central remember back in the 90s when he was a big deal to be a millionaire well not anymore nowadays that's just a new middle class at least in New York it is in Manhattan alone is home to over 380,000 millionaires with 78 billionaires in tow that's the most in the world in fact 740 Park Avenue on the Upper East Side is a building that's known to have the highest concentration of billionaires on the planet in addition there's the new billionaire's row a name given to a set of super tall residential skyscrapers along 57th Street these ultra luxury skyscrapers overlooking Central Park are among the tallest buildings in the world and they come with some of the most expensive price tag in the country a few of these buildings have already been built but many more are still in the works I'm sure we can all read the writing on the wall slowly but surely Manhattan is turning into a luxurious playground for the rich number three I see hot dog permits those hot dog vendors we see all throughout Manhattan you wouldn't believe how much they have to pay the city every year just to keep their carts in operation in some parts of Manhattan a hot dog cart permit is only a few thousand dollars but in the high-traffic touristy areas costs can climb up into the six figures in fact every year cart owners will have to shell out more than $200,000 some up to three hundred thousand dollars to operate their carts in Central Park we're talking big business here with a lot of hot dogs that need to be sold number four buildings with their own zip code in Manhattan some buildings are so large it practically a small village within themselves and many will actually require their very own zip codes in fact there are 42 such buildings in Manhattan with this predicament with the Empire State Building the Met Life Building and the Chrysler Building making a list [Music] number five a dip in the skyline if you take an aerial view of Manhattan you'll notice how all of the skyscrapers are concentrated right here in midtown and in lower Manhattan with nothing but a low-lying patch of buildings in between creating a drastic dip in the skyline this is because lower Manhattan was the center of commerce back in the late 1800s and once it became overcrowded and too expensive developers began scouting out Midtown as a second business district Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station both in Midtown were the major transportation hubs so it made perfect sense as the next place for commerce yeah but they said it's the depth of the bedrock that keeps skyscrapers from being built in the area between Midtown and lower Manhattan skyscrapers can be built above some of the deepest bedrock nowadays today the only reason you have the shorter buildings in this area is strictly due to zoning and historic preservation number six recycled land Manhattan might be known for a decadent culture with money being thrown down the drain on some of the most frivolous things every day but when it comes to construction and their prized terrain their frivolous and nothing goes to waste for over a century they've ensure that all dirt and bedrock material excavated from the ground are recycled and put to good use a great example is Battery Park City which sits on an artificial landmass that was added to lower Manhattan using excavation material from the construction of the original World Trade Center another is the rock that was excavated from Manhattan's first subway tunnels it was later used to build a facade on the neo-gothic structures you see today at City College as for Central Park's Great Lawn it sits on an old New York reservoir that was drained and filled with excavation material from Rockefeller Center and the 8th Avenue subway line in addition the flat parts of Inwood Hill Park also got some of the rock from the 8th Avenue Line even the excavations from the most recent 2nd Avenue subway line was used to fill in parts of the new Brooklyn Bridge part and the Trump Golf Links up at ferry point when it comes to that pressure Manhattan real estate they don't waste the thing not even Iraq number seven the world's largest gold storage since the US government foreign governments other central banks and official international organizations own so much gold the Federal Reserve provides a special service of storing and guarding the gold for them the New York Federal Reserve Bank in the financial district was constructed in the early 1920s and in its basement is a special vault which houses approximately half a million gold bars this subterranean vaults is built deep into the bedrock of Manhattan Island it sits eight feet below street level and fifty feet below sea level thus making it possible to support over 6,000 tons of gold in weight yeah but how did these governments acquire so much gold in the first place and why does the Federal Reserve get to handle all this gold anyway the answer lies in a whole other video on a whole other Channel number eight it's home to Einstein's eyeballs when Albert Einstein died in Princeton New Jersey in 1955 he specifically asked to be cremated and that his ashes be secretly scattered this was so that no one could worship Him not even in deaths however the doctor present at the time secretly performed an autopsy to remove Einsteins brains and eyeballs the genius's brain was cut into 200 bits and pieces some of it eventually ending up in scientific institutions for research meanwhile his eyeballs were given to his former eye doctor who died in 2009 it is rumoured that Einsteins eyeballs are still being stored in a glass jar filled with formaldehyde in an undisclosed Manhattan safe-deposit box number nine Times Square is not a square Broadway is a diagonal Street famous for its public squares and circles at every major intersection with an avenue you know the ones this Union Square Madison Square and Herald Square which are all four-sided polygons occupied by miniature public parks even Columbus Circle who claims to be a circle is an actual circle and an open space for pedestrians to sit and hang out but when it comes to Times Square it's not a square at all in fact the intersection at Broadway and 7th Avenue was created at such a sharp angle that it didn't leave room for a square let alone a public park for decades Times Square was one of the most treacherous pedestrian spots in all of Manhattan due to the large crowds that would gather despite the lack of space finally in 2010 the city closed off vehicle traffic on Broadway from 42nd to 47th Street to alleviate the congestion they added tables chairs benches and planters and though it is still not an official square of Park Times Square is now the proper open pedestrian space that it needs to be number 10 MTA music those subway performers that you see throughout your commute many have actually auditioned for their role now I'm not talking about the ones who come through the train with their guitar in hand no not the ones climbing the poles to their beatbox either and definitely not the ones who stopped playing when the cops come through I'm talking about the ones regularly stationed in high-volume stations like Times Square 125th Street and 53rd and X not all but many of these performers have earned the rights to serenade you as you travel to your destination every year since 1985 the MTA holds the music under New York auditions in Grand Central Station to find the best acts to add to their roster of musicians they get everything from classically trained string quartets and Brazilian jazz duels to Kurdish one-man bands performers have only 5 minutes to impress the judges and out of the 300 applications that they receive every year the judges will usually pick only about 20 of them what's the big prize you asked location location location and the chance to see a much bigger payday than they normally would at a local venue and last but not least number 11 it's home to the world's first underground park and they're working on it right now as we speak scheduled to debut in 2021 on the Lower East Side the low line will be the world's first underground park the plan is to illuminate an underground space with an innovative type of solar energy so that plants and trees can still thrive in such an environment this new technology was tested in a warehouse open to the public from 2015 through 2017 and as expected it worked out beautifully the designated location for this awesome new green space will be the old decommissioned Williamsburg Bridge trolley terminal just below the Lancie Street a terminal which Satna collected since 1948 when New York City discontinued its trolley service since the west side of Manhattan already has an above-ground park called the High Line then it only makes sense that the Lower East Side gets the total opposite an underground park called the low line [Music] and that's about all I have for you today on the famous Manhattan Manhattan heights or anyone else out there with the scoop on Manhattan if there's anything you'd like to add to this list feel free to share it with us in the comments below and be sure to LIKE and subscribe if you'd like to see more on New York City our favorite city that never sleeps anyway thanks for watching and we'll see each other next time [Music]

Channel: ALL NYC

Views: 767,770

Keywords: new york city, nyc, new york travel, nyc travel, moving to new york city, moving to nyc, living in nyc, living in new york, manhattan, 6 1/2 avenue, billionaire's row, battery park city, New York Federal Reserve, Columbus Circle, Times Square, Broadway, Einstein's eyeballs, mta music, music under new york, the lowline, lowline nyc, nyc bedrock, nyc skyscrapers, lower manhattan, midtown, lower east side, allnyc33, williamsburg bridge trolley terminal, subway performers

Id: mQ906TztvaY

Length: 13min 20sec (800 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 19 2019