New York City certainly earns its reputation as the city that never sleeps. From its towering skyscrapers to its bustling streets and racing subways, life in New York is played out on a grand scale and at a brisk pace. Business centers like Wall Street and Midtown Manhattan, along with the city's 150 museums, myriad parks, and several shopping districts, are a focal point of daytime activity. By night, that same vibrant energy pulses through bars, clubs, theaters, and countless restaurants.

As modern as the city looks and feels, New York's history dates back nearly 400 years. Located at the mouth of the Hudson River, which was named after Henry Hudson who navigated the river 1609, New York was first settled by the Dutch. The epic transaction that put this valuable piece of land in Dutch hands involved Dutch governor Peter Minuit, who is said to have purchased Manhattan Island from the Indians for $24 worth of buttons, beads, and other trade items. The city was renamed when Great Britain's Duke of York sent a fleet in 1664 and usurped the land from the Dutch. While Manhattan has remained the city's core, in 1898 New York City expanded to include four additional boroughs: Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island. In the 20th century, Gotham welcomed generations of immigrants, providing a work force for its thriving industries and ethnically enriching its neighborhoods.

In recent years, New York has been working hard to shed its image as a dangerous destination. The Times Square cleanup, for instance, has led to the renovation of many of its century-old theaters and has introduced names like Disney to the once crime-infested 42nd Street. But no matter how much of the city is rebuilt, remodeled, and renewed, such renovation can never compromise the Old World character of neighborhoods like Greenwich Village, Little Italy, and the Lower East Side. Nor can it dilute the multicultural richness of its diverse populace, many of whose ancestors entered through historic Ellis Island.

New York is still widely considered a world leader in fashion, finance, the arts, communications, publishing, and cuisine. The Big Apple also harbors some of the world's most renowned attractions, including the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Carnegie Hall, Times Square, Broadway, Central Park, and the Brooklyn Bridge. It's no wonder that today New York is one of the most visited cities in the world, offering more in the way of music, dance, theater, art, shopping, dining, and sight-seeeing than most travelers can possibly tackle in just one visit.