Jack Cole (choreographer)

Jack Cole (April 27, 1911 – February 17, 1974) was an American dancer, choreographer, and theatre director known as "the Father of Theatrical Jazz Dance".
Early life.
Jack Cole, born John Ewing Richter, made his professional dance debut with Denishawn at Lewisohn Stadium in New York City in August 1930. Only months earlier, he had begun his training as a modern dancer, studying with Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. Cole was entranced by the Asian influences Denishawn utilized in its choreography and costuming. Cole also performed briefly with Humphrey-Weidman, and was influenced by the pioneering modernists, Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman. Eager to make a living as a dancer during the Depression, Cole soon left the modern dance world and opted for opportunities in nightclubs, where he partnered, first, Alice Dudley, and then for years danced as part of a trio with Anna Austin and Florence Lessing.
Cole's career trajectory was a unique one for an American dance artist. He started at the very roots of modern dance, then segued into a blazing commercial career in nightclubs across the nation, first at Manhattan's Embassy Club, then opening the Rainbow Room on its inaugural evening in October 1934. His career spanned three major arenas: nightclub, Broadway stage, and Hollywood film. He ended his career as a desired coach to Hollywood stars and a highly innovative choreographer for the camera.
Career.
Cole was a performer in Broadway musicals, starting with "The Dream of Sganarelle" in 1933. His first Broadway credit as a choreographer was "Something for the Boys" in 1943. Cole is credited with choreographing and/or directing the stage musicals "Alive and Kicking", "Magdalena", "Carnival in Flanders", "Zenda", "Foxy", "Kismet", "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", "Kean", "Donnybrook!", "Jamaica", and "Man of La Mancha".
He studied the Indian dance form Bharata Natyam and used other ethnic material in his dances. The Jack Cole Dancers performed in nightclubs in the late 1930s, including the Rainbow Room.
His film work includes "Moon Over Miami", "Cover Girl", "Tonight and Every Night", "Gilda", "Down to Earth", "The Merry Widow", "Meet Me After the Show", "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", "On the Riviera", "There's No Business Like Show Business", "The I Don't Care Girl", "The Thrill of Brazil", "Kismet", "Les Girls", "Let's Make Love", "Some Like it Hot", "Designing Woman", "Three for the Show", "Lydia Bailey", "Eadie Was a Lady" and many others. He was famous in Hollywood for his work with Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable, Jane Russell, Mitzi Gaynor and Marilyn Monroe. Cole worked closely with Monroe in particular, influencing her iconic performance in "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" from "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", and in five other films. Although Howard Hawks is credited as the sole director of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", both the film's co-star Jane Russell and assistant choreographer Gwen Verdon contend that Monroe's iconic musical number, "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend", was actually directed by choreographer Cole. Russell said, "Howard Hawks had nothing to do with the musical numbers. He was not even there."
Legacy.
Cole virtually invented the idiom of American show dancing known as "theatrical jazz dance." He developed a mode of jazz-ethnic-ballet that prevails as the dominant dancing style in today's musicals, films, nightclub revues, television commercials and music videos. According to Martin Gottfried, Cole "won a place in choreographic history for developing the basic vocabulary of jazz dancing—the kind of dancing done in nightclubs and Broadway musicals."
Cole-style dancing is acrobatic and angular, using small groups of dancers rather than a large company; it is closer to the glittering nightclub floor show than to the ballet stage.
Cole is remembered as the prime innovator of the theatrical jazz dance heritage.
Cole's unmistakable style endures in the work of Gwen Verdon, Bob Fosse, Jerome Robbins, Gower Champion, Peter Gennaro, Michael Bennett, Tommy Tune, Patsy Swayze, Alvin Ailey (who was a dancer in the musical "Jamaica"), and countless other dancers and choreographers including Wayne Lamb. Verdon said that "Jack influenced all the choreographers in the theater from Jerome Robbins, Michael Kidd, Bob Fosse down to Michael Bennett and Ron Field today. When you see dancing on television, that's Jack Cole." Verdon was Cole's assistant for seven years.
If not for Cole, it is unlikely Gwen Verdon would have gone on to achieve fame as a dancer; without his instruction, many now-immortal stage and screen actresses probably would not be remembered as dancers today.
Cole's choreography in the "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" sequence in the film "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" was reinterpreted by Madonna for her music video of "Material Girl".
Cole and his subjects dance. Choreographer Chet Walker titled "Heat Wave: The Jack Cole Project", given its world premiere in May 2012 at Queens Theatre in New York's Flushing Meadows Corona Park.


New York metropolitan area

The New York metropolitan area is the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass, at , and one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. The metropolitan area includes New York City (the most populous city in the United States), Long Island, and the Mid and Lower Hudson Valley in New York State; the five largest cities in New Jersey: Newark, Jersey City, Paterson, Elizabeth, and Edison, and their vicinities; and six of the seven largest cities in Connecticut: Bridgeport, New Haven, Stamford, Waterbury, Norwalk, and Danbury, and their vicinities. The New York metropolitan area sits within the larger Northeast Megalopolis.
The New York metropolitan area is the most populous in the United States, as defined by both the Metropolitan Statistical Area (20.3 million residents in 2017) and the Combined Statistical Area (23.7 million residents in 2016). The metropolitan area is home to approximately 6% of the United States' population. It is the tenth largest urban agglomeration in the world. The New York metropolitan area continues to be the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States, with the largest foreign-born population of any metropolitan region in the world. The MSA covers , while the CSA area is , encompassing an ethnically and geographically diverse region. The New York metropolitan area's population is larger than that of the state of New York, and the metropolitan airspace accommodated over 130 million passengers in 2016.
As a center of many industries, including finance, fintech, international trade, news and traditional media, real estate, education, fashion, entertainment, tourism, biotechnology, law, and manufacturing, the New York metropolitan region is one of the most important economic regions in the world. , the New York metropolitan area is estimated to produce a gross metropolitan product (GMP) of $1.7 trillion. If the New York metropolitan area were a sovereign state, it would have the eighth largest economy in the world. Metropolitan New York is home to the highest number of billionaires of any metropolis in the world. According to "Forbes", in 2014, the New York metropolitan area was home to eight of the top ten ZIP codes in the United States by median housing price, with six in Manhattan alone. The New York metropolitan area also houses five of the top ten richest places in America, according to Bloomberg. These are Scarsdale, NY; Short Hills, NJ; Old Greenwich, CT; Bronxville, NY; and Darien, CT.
The New York metropolitan region's higher education network comprises hundreds of colleges and universities, including three Ivy League universities: Columbia, Yale, and Princeton.
Definitions.
Metropolitan statistical area.
The U.S. Office of Management and Budget utilizes two definitions of the area: the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) and the combined statistical area (CSA). The MSA definition is titled the "New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Metropolitan Statistical Area", and includes a population of 20.3 million people by 2017 Census estimates, roughly 1 in 16 Americans and nearly 7 million more than the second-place Los Angeles metropolitan area in the United States. The MSA is further subdivided into four metropolitan divisions. The 23-county MSA includes 10 counties in New York State (coextensive with the five boroughs of New York, the two remaining counties of Long Island, and three counties in the Lower Hudson Valley); 12 counties in Northern and Central New Jersey; and one county in northeastern Pennsylvania. The largest urbanized area in the United States is at the heart of the metropolitan area, the "New York–Newark, NY–NJ–CT Urbanized Area" (which had a land are of 3,450 square miles in 2010 according to the 2010 census, and will not be reported again until the 2020 census). Among the urbanized areas of more than 1,000,000 residents, the 2010 census reported New York to rank fourth in density (5,319 per square mile), following Los Angeles (6,999), San Francisco (6,266) and San Jose (5,820).
The counties and county groupings constituting the New York metropolitan area are listed below, with 2010 census figures:
New York–Newark–Jersey City, NY–NJ–PA Metropolitan Statistical Area (19,043,386)
Combined statistical area.
Combined statistical areas (CSAs) group together adjacent core-based statistical areas with a high degree of economic interconnection. The New York–Newark, NY–NJ–CT–PA Combined Statistical Area had an estimated population of 23.7 million as of 2014. About one out of every fifteen Americans resides in this region, which includes eight additional counties in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. This area, less the Pennsylvania portion, is often referred to as the "tri-state area" and less commonly the "tri-state region". The New York City television designated market area (DMA) includes Pike County, Pennsylvania, which is also included in the CSA.
In addition to the New York–Newark–Jersey City, NY–NJ–PA metropolitan statistical areas (MSA), the following core-based statistical areas are also included in the New York–Newark, NY–NJ–CT–PA CSA:
Geography.
The area is frequently divided into the following subregions:
All eight subregions are often further divided. For instance, Long Island can be divided into its South and North Shores (usually when speaking about Nassau County and western Suffolk County) and the East End. The Hudson Valley and Connecticut are sometimes grouped together and referred to as the Northern Suburbs, largely because of the shared usage of the Metro-North Railroad system.
Subregions.
New York City.
The geographical, cultural, and economic center of the metropolitan area is New York City, which consists of five boroughs, each of which is also a county of New York State. The five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. With a Census-estimated population of 8,550,405 in 2015 (8,491,079 in 2014), distributed over a land area of just , New York is the most densely populated major city in the United States. A global power city, New York City exerts a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment, its fast pace defining the term "New York minute". Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy. New York is a global city and has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, as well as the world's most economically powerful city.
Long Island.
Long Island is an island located just off the northeast coast of the United States and a region wholly within both the U.S. state of New York and the New York metropolitan area. Stretching east-northeast from New York Harbor into the Atlantic Ocean, the island comprises four counties: Kings and Queens (these form the New York boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, respectively) to the west; then Nassau and Suffolk to the east. However, most people in the New York metropolitan area (even those living in Queens and Brooklyn) colloquially use the term "Long Island" (or "The Island") exclusively to refer to the Nassau-Suffolk county area collectively, which is mainly suburban in character. North of the island is Long Island Sound, across which are the U.S. states of Connecticut and Rhode Island.
With a Census-estimated population of 7,838,722 in 2015, constituting nearly 40% of New York State's population, the majority of New York City residents, 58% as of 2015, now live on Long Island, namely the estimated 4,896,398 residents living in the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. Long Island is the most populated island in any U.S. state or territory, and the 17th-most populous island in the world (ahead of Ireland, Jamaica, and Hokkaidō). Its population density is . If Long Island geographically constituted an independent metropolitan statistical area, it would rank fourth most populous in the United States; while if it were a U.S. state, Long Island would rank 13th in population and first in population density. Queens is the most ethnically diverse urban area in the world. The Town of Hempstead in Nassau County, with an estimated population of 770,367 in 2016, is the most populous municipality in the New York metropolitan area outside of New York City.
Long Island is the most populated island in the United States and the 17th most populous island in the world, but is more prominently known for recreation, boating, and miles of public beaches, including numerous town, county, and state parks, as well as Fire Island National Seashore and wealthy and expensive coastal residential enclaves. Along the north shore, the Gold Coast of Long Island, featured in the film "The Great Gatsby", is an upscale section of Nassau and western Suffolk counties that once featured many lavish mansions built and inhabited by wealthy business tycoons in the earlier years of the 20th century, of which only a few remain preserved as historic sites. The East End of Long Island (known as the "Twin Forks" because of its physical shape) boasts open spaces for farmland and wineries. The South Fork, in particular, comprises numerous towns and villages known collectively as "The Hamptons" and has an international reputation as a "playground for the rich and famous", with some of the wealthiest communities in the United States. In 2015, according to "Business Insider", the 11962 zip code encompassing Sagaponack, within Southampton, was listed as the most expensive in the U.S. by real estate-listings site Property Shark, with a median home sale price of $5,125,000.
During the summer season, many celebrities and the wealthy visit or reside in mansions and waterfront homes, while others spend weekends enjoying the beaches, gardens, bars, restaurants, and nightclubs.
Long Island is served by a network of parkways and expressways, with the Long Island Expressway, Northern State Parkway, and Southern State Parkway being major east–west routes across significant portions of the island. Passenger rail access is provided by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Long Island Rail Road, one of the largest commuter railroads in the United States. Air travel needs are served by several airports. Within Queens, the island is home to John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport, two of the three major airline hubs serving the New York area (with Newark Liberty International Airport being the third; all three major airports are operated by The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey). Long Island MacArthur Airport (serving commercial airlines) and Farmingdale/Republic Airport (private and commuter flights) are both located in Suffolk County.
Lower Hudson Valley.
Known for its hilly terrain, picturesque settings, and quaint small towns and villages, the Lower Hudson Valley is centered around the Hudson River north of New York City and lies within New York State. Westchester and Putnam counties are located on the eastern side of the river, and Rockland and Orange counties are located on the western side of the river. Westchester and Rockland counties are connected by the heavily trafficked New Tappan Zee Bridge, as well as by the Bear Mountain Bridge near their northern ends. Several branches of the MTA Metro-North Railroad serve the region's rail commuters. Southern Westchester County contains more densely populated areas and includes the cities of Yonkers, Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, and White Plains. Although many of the suburban communities of Westchester are known for their affluence and expense (some examples: Bronxville, Scarsdale, Chappaqua, Armonk, Katonah, and Briarcliff Manor), the Lower Hudson Valley as a whole is one of the fastest-growing areas in the metropolitan area because of high housing costs in New York and the inner suburbs.
Historically, the valley was home to many factories, including paper mills, but a significant number have closed. After years of lingering pollution, cleanup efforts to improve the Hudson River water quality are currently planned and will be supervised by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Mid-Hudson Valley.
The Mid-Hudson Valley region of the State of New York is midway between New York City and the state capital of Albany. The area includes the counties of Dutchess, Ulster, and Sullivan, as well as the northern portions of Orange County, with the region's main cities being Poughkeepsie, Newburgh, Kingston, and Beacon. The Walkway over the Hudson, is the second longest pedestrian footbridge in the world. It crosses the Hudson River connecting Poughkeepsie and Highland. The 13 mile-long Dutchess Rail Trail stretches from Hopewell Junction to the beginning of the Walkway over the Hudson in Poughkeepsie. The area is home to the Wappingers Central School District, which the second largest school district in the state of New York. The Newburgh Waterfront in the City of Newburgh is home to many high-end restaurants.
U.S. Route 9, I-84, and the Taconic State Parkway all run through Dutchess County. Metro-North Railroad train station, New Hamburg, is located in the Town of Poughkeepsie and runs from Poughkeepsie to Grand Central Terminal in New York City.
Northern New Jersey.
Northern New Jersey, also known colloquially as "North Jersey", is typically defined as comprising the following counties:
The New Jersey State Department of Tourism splits North Jersey into the urban Gateway Region and the more rural Skylands Region. Northern New Jersey is home to four of the largest cities of that state: Newark, Jersey City, Paterson, and Elizabeth.
The region is geographically diverse with wetlands, mountains, and valleys throughout the area. It has a large network of expressways and public transportation rail services, mostly operated by New Jersey Transit. Northern New Jersey also contains the second busiest airport in the New York metropolitan area, Newark Liberty International Airport.
Although it is a suburban and rural region of New York, much of the Gateway Region is highly urbanized. The entirety of Hudson County, eastern Essex County, southern Passaic County as well as Elizabeth in Union County are all densely populated areas.
Central New Jersey.
Central Jersey is the middle portion of the state of New Jersey. Municipalities including Trenton (the state capital of New Jersey and the only U.S. state capital within the New York metropolitan area) and Princeton (home to Princeton University) are located in this subregion, as is a significant portion of the Jersey Shore.
Western Connecticut.
Fairfield, New Haven, and Litchfield counties in western Connecticut (like the state in general) are known for affluence. Large businesses are scattered throughout the area, mostly in Fairfield County. The land is flat along the coast with low hills eventually giving way to larger hills such as The Berkshires further inland, to the Massachusetts border. Most of the largest cities in the state are in New Haven County (home to Yale University) and Fairfield County.
Pike County, Pennsylvania.
Pike County is located in northeastern Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 Census, the population was 57,369. Its county seat is Milford. Part of the Pocono Mountains region lies within Pike County, which has ranked among the fastest-growing counties of Pennsylvania.
Urban areas of the region.
The combined statistical area is a multicore metropolitan region containing several urban areas.
Main cities and towns.
The following is a list of "principal cities" and their respective population estimates from the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau publication. Principal cities are generally those where there is a greater number of jobs than employed residents.
Climate.
Under the Köppen climate classification, New York City, western (and parts of eastern) Long Island, and the Jersey Shore experience a humid subtropical climate ("Cfa"), and New York is thus the northernmost major city on the North American continent with this climate type.
Much of the remainder of the metropolitan area lies in the transition zone from a humid subtropical ("Cfa") to a humid continental climate ("Dfa"), and it is only the inland, more exurban areas far to the north and west such as Sussex County, New Jersey, that have a January daily average of or below and are fully humid continental; the "Dfb" (warm summer subtype) regime is only found inland at a higher elevation, and receives greater snowfall than the "Dfa" region. Carbon, Monroe, and Pike Counties in Pennsylvania also have a fully humid continental climate, as do colder areas of Lehigh and Northampton Counties.
The oceanic climate zone ("Cfb") only exists on the North Fork, islands in Peconic Bay, and Fishers Island. It is rare in eastern North America.
Summers in the area are typically hot and humid. Nighttime conditions in and around the five boroughs of New York are often exacerbated by the urban heat island phenomenon, and temperatures exceed on average of 7–8 days (on the immediate Long Island Sound and Atlantic coasts), up to in excess of 27 days (inland suburbs in New Jersey) each summer and may exceed .. Normally, warm to hot temperatures begin in mid May, and last through early October. Summers also feature passing thundershowers which build in the heat of the day, then drop brief, but intense rainfall.
Winters are cold with a mix of rain and snow. Although prevailing winds in winter are offshore, and temper the moderating effects of the Atlantic Ocean, the Atlantic and the partial shielding by the Appalachians from colder air keep the New York area warmer in the winter than inland North American metropolitan areas located at similar or lesser latitudes including Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis. Warm periods with + temperatures may occasionally occur during winter as well. The hardiness zone in the New York metropolitan area varies over a wide range from 5a in the highest areas of Dutchess, Monroe, and Ulster Counties to 7b in most of NYC as well as Hudson County from Bayonne up the east side of the Palisades to Route 495, the majority of Nassau County, the north coast of Monmouth County, and Copiague Harbor, Lindenhurst, and Montauk in Suffolk County.
Almost all of the metropolitan area receives at least of precipitation annually, which is relatively evenly spread throughout the year, and many areas receive upwards of . Average winter snowfall for 1981 to 2010 ranges from just under along the coast of Long Island to more than in some inland areas, but this usually varies considerably from year to year. Hurricanes and tropical storms have impacted the Tri-State area in the past, though a direct hit is rare. Several areas on Long Island, New Jersey, and the Connecticut coast have been impacted by serious storm surges in the past. Inland areas have been impacted by heavy rain and flooding from tropical cyclones.
The New York metropolitan area averages 234 days with at least some sunshine and 59% of possible sunlight annually, accumulating 2,400 to 2,800 hours of sunshine per annum.
History.
During the Wisconsinan glaciation, the region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the geologic foundation for much of the New York metropolitan region today. Later on, the ice sheet would help split apart what are now Long Island and Staten Island.
At the time of European contact the region was inhabited by Native Americans, predominantly the Lenape, and others. The Native Americans used the abundant waterways in the area for many purposes, such as fishing and trade routes. Sailing for France in 1524, Giovanni da Verrazzano was the first European to enter the local waters and encounter the residents, but he did not make landfall. Henry Hudson, sailing for the Dutch in 1609, visited the area and built a settlement on Lower Manhattan Island that was eventually renamed New Amsterdam by Dutch colonists in 1626. In 1664, the area went under English control, and was later renamed "New York" after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York.
As the fur trade expanded further north, New York became a trading hub, which brought in a diverse set of ethnic groups including Africans, Jews, and Portuguese. The island of Manhattan had an extraordinary natural harbor formed by New York Bay (actually the drowned lower river valley of the Hudson River, enclosed by glacial moraines), the East River (actually a tidal strait), and the Hudson River, all of which merge at the southern tip, from which all later development spread. During the American Revolution, the strategic waterways made New York vitally important as a wartime base for the British navy. Many battles such as the Battle of Long Island and the Battle of New York were fought in the region to secure it. New York was captured by the British early in the war, becoming a haven for Loyalist refugees from other parts of the country, and remained in the hands of the British until the war ended in 1783. New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790, after which the capital moved to Philadelphia. New York has been the country's largest city since 1790. In 1792, the Buttonwood Agreement, made by a group of merchants, created what is now the New York Stock Exchange in Lower Manhattan. Today, many people in the metropolitan area work in this important stock exchange.
The Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor greeted millions of immigrants as they came to America by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a globally recognized symbol of the United States and its democracy. Large-scale immigration into New York was a result of a large demand for manpower. A cosmopolitan attitude in the city created tolerance for various cultures and ethnic groups. German, Irish, and Italian immigrants were among the largest ethnic groups. Today, many of their descendants continue to live in the region. Cultural buildings such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Opera, and the American Museum of Natural History were built. New York newspapers were read around the country as media moguls James Gordon Bennett, Sr., Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst battled for readership. In 1884, over 70% of exports passed through ports in New York or in one of the surrounding towns. The five boroughs of New York — The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island — were consolidated into a single city in 1898.
The newly unified New York City encouraged both more physical connections between the boroughs and the growth of bedroom communities. The New York City Subway began operating in 1904 as the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, one of three systems (the other two being the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation and the Independent Subway System) that were later taken over by the city. Railroad stations such as Grand Central Terminal and Pennsylvania Station helped fuel suburban growth. During the era of the Prohibition, when alcohol was banned nationwide, organized crime grew to supply the high demand for bootleg alcohol. The Broadway Theater District developed with the showing of the musical, "Show Boat".
The Great Depression suspended the region's fortunes as a period of widespread unemployment and poverty began. City planner Robert Moses began his automobile-centered career of building bridges, parkways, and later expressways. During World War II, the city economy was hurt by blockades of German U-boats, which limited shipping with Europe.
After its population peaked in 1950, much of the city's population left for the suburbs of New York over the following decades. The effects were a result of white flight. Industry and commerce also declined in this era, with businesses leaving for the suburbs and other cities. The city, particularly Brooklyn, was dealt a psychological as well as an economic blow with the loss of the iconic Brooklyn Dodgers major-league baseball team, which moved to Los Angeles after the 1957 season. Crime affected the city severely. Urban renewal projects alleviated the decay in Midtown Manhattan to a certain extent, but later failed. There was little reported social disruption during the Northeast Blackout of 1965, but the New York City Blackout of 1977 caused massive rioting in some parts of the city. A rare highlight was the completion of the former World Trade Center, which once stood as the tallest buildings in the world.
In the 1980s, the city economy was booming. Wall Street was fueling an economic surge in the real estate market. Despite this, crime was still an issue. Beginning in the 1990s, however, crime dropped substantially. Crime in New York City has continued to decline through the 21st century.
A major event in the region's and the nation's history was the September 11th attacks in 2001, which killed nearly 3,000 people as two planes crashed into the former World Trade Center and caused the towers to collapse. Businesses led an exodus from Lower Manhattan because of this but were replaced by an increased number of high-rise residences. In 2003, another blackout occurred, the 2003 North America blackout, but the city suffered no looting and a building boom in New York continues to this day.
On October 29 and 30, 2012, Hurricane Sandy caused extensive destruction in the metropolitan area, ravaging portions of the Atlantic coastline with record-high storm surge, severe flooding, and high winds, causing power outages for millions of residents via downed trees and power lines and malfunctions at electrical substations, leading to gasoline shortages and snarling mass transit systems. Damage to New York and New Jersey in terms of physical infrastructure and private property as well as including interrupted commerce was estimated at several tens of billions of dollars. The storm and its profound impacts have prompted the discussion of constructing seawalls and other coastal barriers around the shorelines of the metropolitan area to minimize the risk of destructive consequences from another such event in the future.
Statistical history.
The U.S. Census Bureau first designated metropolitan areas in 1950 as standard metropolitan areas (SMAs). The "New York–Northeastern NJ SMA" was defined to include 17 counties: 9 in New York (the five boroughs of New York City, Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, and Rockland) and 8 in New Jersey (Bergen, Hudson, Passaic, Essex, Union, Morris, Somerset, and Middlesex). In 1960, the metropolitan area standards were modified and renamed standard metropolitan statistical areas (SMSAs). The new standards resulted in the splitting of the former SMA into several pieces: the nine New York counties became the "New York SMSA"; three of the New Jersey counties (Essex, Union, and Morris) became the "Newark SMSA"; two other New Jersey counties (Bergen and Passaic) became the "Paterson–Passaic–Clifton SMSA"; Hudson County was designated the "Jersey City SMSA"; and Middlesex and Somerset counties lost their metropolitan status. In 1973, a new set of metropolitan area standards resulted in further changes: Nassau and Suffolk counties were split off as their own SMSA ("Nassau–Suffolk SMSA"); Bergen County (originally part of the Paterson–Clifton–Passaic SMSA) was transferred to the New York SMSA; the New York SMSA also received Putnam County (previously non-metropolitan); Somerset County was added to the Newark SMSA; and two new SMSAs, the "New Brunswick–Perth Amboy–Sayreville SMSA" (Middlesex County) and "Long Branch–Asbury Park SMSA" (Monmouth County), were established. In 1983, the concept of a consolidated metropolitan statistical area (CMSA) was first implemented. A CMSA consisted of several primary metropolitan statistical areas (PMSAs), which were individual employment centers within a wider labor market area. The "New York–Northern New Jersey–Long Island CMSA" consisted of 12 PMSAs.
Seven PMSAs were based on the original 1950 New York SMA that were split up: New York, Bergen–Passaic, Jersey City, Middlesex–Somerset–Hunterdon (Hunterdon added for the first time), Monmouth–Ocean (Ocean added for the first time), Nassau–Suffolk, and Newark (Sussex added for the first time). One additional PMSA was the Orange County PMSA (previously the Newburgh–Middletown SMSA). The other four PMSAs were former SMSAs in Connecticut: Bridgeport, Stamford, Norwalk, and Danbury. In 1993, four PMSAs were added to the New York–Northern New Jersey–Long Island CMSA: Trenton PMSA (Mercer County), Dutchess County PMSA, Waterbury PMSA, and New Haven PMSA. Several new counties were also added to the CMSA: Sussex, Warren, and Pike. The CMSA model was originally utilized for tabulating data from the 2000 census. In 2003, a new set of standards was established using the Core Based Statistical Area (CBSA) model was adopted and remains in use as of 2010. The CBSA model resulted in the splitting up of the old CMSA into several metropolitan statistical areas: New York–Northern New Jersey–Long Island, Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown, Trenton–Princeton, Bridgeport–Stamford–Norwalk (includes Danbury), and New Haven–Milford (includes Waterbury). In 2013, the Census Bureau added Carbon, Lehigh, Northampton, and Monroe counties in Pennsylvania, and Warren County, New Jersey (encompassing collectively the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ MSA and the East Stroudsburg, PA MSA), to the Combined Statistical Area, and assimilated Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown into the larger New York–Northern New Jersey–Long Island–NY–NJ–PA MSA. In 2018, the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ MSA was removed from the Combined Statistical Area.
Proposals for the region.
The metropolitan region has never had separate political representation from the rest of their original states. This has to do with disagreements in the desired model and the constitutional complexity of the metropolitan region being cross-state. Within the State of New York over the last 30 years, discussions have emerged of splitting the states into different regions with separate governors and legislators whilst remaining part of the same state — as opposed to seeing New York and its metropolitan area being split into a separate state. The idea has been seen by Republicans in the state as an opportunity to dislocate the Democratic party's hold in the state legislature.
The discussion surrounding the re-organisation of New York State has commonly been in two models: The two-region model creates a "downstate" New York region which would consist of all five New York City boroughs, Long Island's Nassau and Suffolk counties, and Westchester and Rockland counties, then Upstate would be the remaining 53; and the three-region model is New York having five counties; Montauk would consist of Nassau, Suffolk, Rockland, and Westchester counties and; New Amsterdam would be the remaining portion of New York State. This debate was reported as recent as February 2019, when Republican state Senator Daphne Jordan supported the state being split into two states, however it was believed that the proposal would require an act of congress for it to be passed.
Demographics.
2010 Census.
As of the 2010 Census, the metropolitan area had a population of 22,085,649. The population density was 1,865 per square mile. The racial markup was 51.7% White (non-Latino), 21.7% Latino, 15.3% African-American, 9.0% Asian-American, 0.16% Native American and Alaskan Native, 0.03% Pacific Islands American, 0.5% Other, and 1.6% Multiracial.
The median age was 37.9. 25.5% were under 18, 9.5% were 18 to 24 years, 28% were 25 to 44 years of age, 26.6% were 45 to 64 years old, and 13.2% were over the age of 65. Males composed 48.3% of the population while females were 51.7% of the population.
97.7% of the population were in households, 2.3% were in group quarters, and 1% were institutionalized. There were 8,103,731 households, of which 30.2% or 2,449,343 had children. 46.1% or 3,736,165 were composed of opposite sex and married couples. Male households with no wife composed 4.9% or 400,534. 15.0% or 1,212,436 were female households with no husbands. 34% or 2,754,596 were non-family households. The household density was 684 per square mile. 91.9% of housing units were occupied with a 3.8% vacancy rate. The average household size was 2.65 per household. The average income for non-family households was $90,335, and the average income for families was $104,715. 13.3% or 2,888,493 of the population were below the poverty line.
26.7% or 5,911,993 of the population were born outside the United States. Out of this, most (50.6% or 2,992,639) were born in Latin America, 27.0% or 1,595,523 were born in Asia, 17.4% or 1,028,506 were born in Europe, 3.8% or 224,109 were born in Africa, and 0.2% or 11,957 were born in Oceania.
Population estimates.
As of July 1, 2015, the United States Census Bureau estimated the population of the New York metropolitan area at 23,723,696, an increase of 647,032 from 2010.
The New York metropolitan region is ethnically diverse. Asian Americans in New York City, according to the 2010 Census, number more than one million, greater than the combined totals of San Francisco and Los Angeles. New York contains the highest total Asian population of any U.S. city proper. The New York borough of Queens is home to the state's largest Asian American population and the largest Andean (Colombian, Ecuadorian, Peruvian, Chilean and Bolivian) populations in the United States, and is also the most ethnically diverse urban area in the world. The Han Chinese population constitutes the fastest-growing ethnicity in New York State; multiple satellites of the original Manhattan Chinatown (), in Brooklyn (), and around Flushing, Queens (), are thriving as traditionally urban enclaves, while also expanding rapidly eastward into suburban Nassau County. on Long Island, as the New York metropolitan region and New York State have become the top destinations for new Chinese immigrants, respectively, and large-scale Chinese immigration continues into New York City and surrounding areas. In 2012, 6.3% of New York was of Chinese ethnicity, with nearly three-fourths living in either Queens or Brooklyn, geographically on Long Island. In particular, the New York area has over 100,000 Fuzhounese people. A community numbering 20,000 Korean-Chinese ("Chaoxianzu" () or "Joseonjok" ()) is centered in Flushing, Queens, while New York is also home to the largest Tibetan population outside China, India, and Nepal, also centered in Queens. Koreans made up 1.2% of the city's population, and Japanese 0.3%. Filipinos were the largest Southeast Asian ethnic group at 0.8%, followed by Vietnamese, who made up 0.2% of New York's population in 2010. Indians are the largest South Asian group, comprising 2.4% of the city's population, with Bangladeshis and Pakistanis at 0.7% and 0.5%, respectively. Queens is the preferred borough of settlement for Asian Indians, Koreans, and Filipinos, as well as Malaysians and other Southeast Asians; while Brooklyn is receiving large numbers of both West Indian as well as Asian Indian immigrants.
New York has the largest European and non-Hispanic white population of any American city. At 2.7 million in 2012, New York's non-Hispanic white population is larger than the non-Hispanic white populations of Los Angeles (1.1 million), Chicago (865,000), and Houston (550,000) combined. The European diaspora residing in the city is very diverse. According to 2012 Census estimates, there were roughly 560,000 Italian Americans, 385,000 Irish Americans, 253,000 German Americans, 223,000 Russian Americans, 201,000 Polish Americans, and 137,000 English Americans. Additionally, Greek and French Americans numbered 65,000 each, with those of Hungarian descent estimated at 60,000 people. Ukrainian and Scottish Americans numbered 55,000 and 35,000, respectively. People identifying ancestry from Spain numbered 30,838 total in 2010. People of Norwegian and Swedish descent both stood at about 20,000 each, while people of Czech, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Scotch-Irish, and Welsh descent all numbered between 12,000 and 14,000 people. Arab Americans number over 160,000 in New York City, with the highest concentration in Brooklyn. Central Asians, primarily Uzbek Americans, are a rapidly growing segment of the city's non-Hispanic white population, enumerating over 30,000, and including over half of all Central Asian immigrants to the United States, most settling in Queens or Brooklyn. Albanian Americans are most highly concentrated in the Bronx.
The wider New York metropolitan area is also ethnically diverse. The New York region continues to be by far the leading metropolitan gateway for legal immigrants admitted into the United States, substantially exceeding the combined totals of Los Angeles and Miami, the next most popular gateway regions. It is home to the largest Jewish as well as Israeli communities outside Israel, with the Jewish population in the region numbering over 1.5 million in 2012 and including many diverse Jewish sects from around the Middle East and Eastern Europe. The metropolitan area is also home to 20% of the nation's Indian Americans and at least 20 Little India enclaves, as well as 15% of all Korean Americans and four Koreatowns; the largest Asian Indian population in the Western Hemisphere; the largest Russian American, Italian American, and African American populations; the largest Dominican American, Puerto Rican American, and South American and second-largest overall Hispanic population in the United States, numbering 4.8 million; and includes at least 6 established Chinatowns within New York City alone, with the urban agglomeration comprising a population of 819,527 uniracial overseas Chinese as of 2014 Census estimates, the largest outside of Asia.
Ecuador, Colombia, Guyana, Peru, and Brazil were the top source countries from South America for legal immigrants to the New York region in 2013; the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Haiti, and Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean; Egypt, Ghana, and Nigeria from Africa; and El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala in Central America. Amidst a resurgence of Puerto Rican migration to New York City, this population had increased to approximately 1.3 million in the metropolitan area as of 2013.
The New York metropolitan area is home to a self-identifying gay and bisexual community estimated at 568,903 individuals, the largest in the United States and one of the world's largest. Same-sex marriages in New York were legalized on June 24, 2011 and were authorized to take place beginning 30 days thereafter. The annual New York City Pride March (or gay pride parade) traverses southward down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, ending at Greenwich Village, and rivals the Sao Paulo Gay Pride Parade as the largest pride parade in the world, attracting tens of thousands of participants and millions of sidewalk spectators each June.
Religion.
The 2014 Pew Religious Landscape Survey showed that the religious makeup of the New York metro area was as follows:
Economy.
The New York City regional economy is the largest in the United States and the second-largest in the world, behind the Greater Tokyo Area. In 2015, the CSA had a GDP of $1.83 trillion, which would rank 8th among countries. Many Fortune 500 corporations are headquartered in New York, as are a large number of foreign corporations. One out of ten private sector jobs in the city is with a foreign company. In 2012 and 2015, New York topped the first and second "Global Economic Power Index" lists, respectively, as published by "The Atlantic", with cities ranked according to criteria reflecting their presence on five different lists as published by five separate entities. Finance, international trade, new and traditional media, real estate, education, fashion and entertainment, tourism, biotechnology, and manufacturing are the leading industries in the area.
Along with its wealth, the area has a cost of living that is among the highest in the United States.
Wall Street.
New York's most important economic sector lies in its role as the headquarters for the U.S. financial industry, metonymously known as "Wall Street". Anchored by Wall Street, in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York has been called both the most economically powerful city and the leading financial center of the world, and the city is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. The city's securities industry, enumerating 163,400 jobs in August 2013, continues to form the largest segment of the city's financial sector and an important economic engine, accounting in 2012 for 5 percent of the city's private sector jobs, 8.5 percent (US$3.8 billion) of its tax revenue, and 22 percent of the city's total wages, including an average salary of US$360,700.
Manhattan had approximately 520 million square feet (48.1 million m2) of office space in 2013, making it the largest office market in the United States, while Midtown Manhattan is the largest central business district in the nation.
Lower Manhattan is the third largest central business district in the United States and is home to both the New York Stock Exchange, on Wall Street, and the NASDAQ, at 165 Broadway, representing the world's largest and second largest stock exchanges, respectively, when measured both by overall average daily trading volume and by total market capitalization of their listed companies in 2013. Wall Street investment banking fees in 2012 totaled approximately US$40 billion, while in 2013, senior New York bank officers who manage risk and compliance functions earned as much as US$324,000 annually.
In July 2013, NYSE Euronext, the operator of the New York Stock Exchange, took over the administration of the London interbank offered rate from the British Bankers Association.
Many Wall Street firms have added or moved auxiliary financial or technical operations into Jersey City, to take advantage of New Jersey's relatively lower commercial real estate and rental prices, while offering continued geographic proximity to Manhattan's financial industry ecosystem.
Silicon Alley.
Silicon Alley, centered in New York, has evolved into a metonym for the sphere encompassing the metropolitan region's high technology industries involving the Internet, new media, financial technology ("fintech"), telecommunications, digital media, software development, biotechnology, game design, and other fields within information technology that are supported by its entrepreneurship ecosystem and venture capital investments. In 2015, Silicon Alley generated over US$7.3 billion in venture capital investment, most based in Manhattan, as well as in Brooklyn, Queens, and elsewhere in the region. High technology startup companies and employment are growing in New York and across the metropolitan region, bolstered by the city's emergence as a global node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance, and environmental sustainability, as well as New York's position as the leading Internet hub and telecommunications center in North America, including its vicinity to several transatlantic fiber optic trunk lines, the city's intellectual capital, and its extensive outdoor wireless connectivity. Verizon Communications, headquartered at 140 West Street in Lower Manhattan, was at the final stages in 2014 of completing a US$3 billion fiberoptic telecommunications upgrade throughout New York City.
The biotechnology sector is also growing in the New York metropolitan region, based upon its strength in academic scientific research and public and commercial financial support. On December 19, 2011, then-New York mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his choice of Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to build Cornell Tech, a US$2 billion graduate school of applied sciences on Roosevelt Island, Manhattan with the goal of transforming New York into the world's premier technology capital. By mid-2014, Accelerator, a biotech investment firm, had raised more than US$30 million from investors, including Eli Lilly and Company, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson, for initial funding to create biotechnology startups at the Alexandria Center for Life Science, which encompasses more than on East 29th Street and promotes collaboration among scientists and entrepreneurs at the center and with nearby academic, medical, and research institutions. The New York City Economic Development Corporation's Early Stage Life Sciences Funding Initiative and venture capital partners, including Celgene, General Electric Ventures, and Eli Lilly, committed a minimum of US$100 million to help launch 15 to 20 ventures in life sciences and biotechnology. Westchester County has also developed a burgeoning biotechnology sector in the 21st century, with over US$1 billion in planned private investment as of 2016, earning the county the nickname "Biochester".
Port of New York and New Jersey.
The Port of New York and New Jersey is the port district of the New York metropolitan area, encompassing the region within approximately a radius of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. A major economic engine for the New York metropolitan area, the port includes the system of navigable waterways in the estuary along of shoreline in the vicinity of New York and the Gateway Region of northeastern New Jersey, as well as the region's airports and supporting rail and roadway distribution networks. In 2010, 4,811 ships entered the harbor carrying over 32.2 million metric tons of cargo valued at over $175 billion. The port handled $208 billion in shipping cargo in 2011. Approximately 3,200,000 TEUs of containers and 700,000 automobiles are handled per year. In the first half of 2014, the port handled 1,583,449 containers, a 35,000-container increase above the six-month record set in 2012, while the port handled a monthly record of 306,805 containers in October 2014.
Water purity and availability.
Water purity and availability are a lifeline for the New York metropolitan region. New York City is supplied with drinking water by the protected Catskill Mountains watershed. As a result of the watershed's integrity and undisturbed natural water filtration system, New York is one of only four major cities in the United States the majority of whose drinking water is pure enough not to require purification by water treatment plants. The Croton Watershed north of the city is undergoing construction of a US$3.2 billion water purification plant to augment New York's water supply by an estimated 290 million gallons daily, representing a greater than 20% addition to the city's current availability of water. The ongoing expansion of New York City Water Tunnel No. 3, an integral part of the New York City water supply system, is the largest capital construction project in the city's history, with segments serving Manhattan and The Bronx completed, and with segments serving Brooklyn and Queens planned for construction in 2020. Much of the fresh water for northern and central New Jersey is provided by reservoirs, but numerous municipal water wells exist which accomplish the same purpose.
Education.
The New York metropolitan area is home to many prestigious institutions of higher education. Three Ivy League universities: Columbia University in Manhattan, New York City; Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey; Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut – all ranked amongst the top 3 U.S. national universities as per "U.S. News & World Report" as of 2018 – reside in the region, as well as New York University and The Rockefeller University, both located in Manhattan; all of the above have been ranked amongst the top 35 universities in the world. Rutgers University, a global university located southwest of Manhattan in New Brunswick, New Jersey, is by far the largest university in the region. New York Institute of Technology is located on two campuses, one in Old Westbury, Long Island and one near Columbus Circle in Manhattan. Hofstra University is Long Island's largest private university. Fordham University, also a Tier-1 university, is the oldest Catholic institution of higher education in the northeastern United States, and the third-oldest university in New York. The New York City Department of Education is the largest school district in the United States serving over 1.2 million students. The overall region also hosts many public high schools, some of which have been described as among the most prestigious in the country.
Attainment.
According to the 2010 American Community Survey, of the 14,973,063 persons in this area over 25 years of age, 14.8% (2,216,578) had a graduate or professional degree, 21.1% (3,166,037) had a bachelor's degree, 6.4% (962,007) had an associate degree, 16.0% (2,393,990) had some college education but no degree, 26.8% (4,009,901) had a high school diploma or equivalent, 14.8% (2,224,557) had less than a high school education. In 2010, CNN Money ranked the area as one of the top 10 smartest regions in the United States.
Transportation.
The depth and intricacy of the transportation network in the New York region parallel the size and complexity of the metropolis itself.
In 2013, the New York-Newark-Jersey City metropolitan statistical area (New York MSA) had the lowest percentage of workers who commuted by private automobile (56.9 percent), with 18.9 percent of area workers traveling via rail transit. During the period starting in 2006 and ending in 2013, the New York MSA had a 2.2 percent decline of workers commuting by automobile.
Rail.
About one in every three users of mass transit in the United States and two-thirds of the nation's rail riders live in the New York metropolitan area.
New York City Subway.
The New York City Subway is the largest rapid transit system in the world when measured by stations in operation, with , and by length of routes. In 2006 it was the third largest when measured by annual ridership (1.5 billion passenger trips in 2006), However, in 2013, the subway delivered over 1.71 billion rides, but slipped to being the seventh busiest rapid transit rail system in the world. New York's subway is also notable because nearly the entire system remains open 24 hours a day, in contrast to the overnight shutdown common to systems in most cities, including Hong Kong, London, Seoul, Tokyo, and Toronto.
PATH.
PATH is a rapid transit system connecting the cities of Newark, Harrison, Hoboken, and Jersey City, in metropolitan northern New Jersey, with the lower and midtown sections of Manhattan in New York City. The PATH is operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. PATH trains run 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. The system has a total route length of , not double-counting route overlaps.
Commuter rail.
The metropolitan area is also fundamentally defined by the areas from which people commute into New York. The city is served by three primary commuter rail systems plus Amtrak.
The Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), the busiest commuter railroad in the United States as of 2015, is operated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), an agency of the State Government of New York that focuses on New York City-area transit). It has two major terminals at Pennsylvania Station in Midtown Manhattan and Atlantic Terminal in Downtown Brooklyn, with a minor terminal at the Long Island City station and a major transfer point at the Jamaica station in Queens.
New Jersey Transit (NJT), the second busiest commuter railroad in the United States as of 2015, is operated by the New Jersey Transit Corporation, an agency of the state of New Jersey, in conjunction with Metro-North Railroad and Amtrak. It has major terminals at Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan, Hoboken Terminal, and Newark Pennsylvania Station, with a major transfer point at Secaucus Junction in Hudson County, New Jersey. New Jersey Transit also operates the Hudson–Bergen Light Rail through Hudson County, the Newark City Subway, and the River Line that runs along tracks shared with Conrail Shared Assets Operations from Trenton to Camden in southern New Jersey. NJ Transit also has commuter buses operating in and out of Manhattan.
Metro-North Railroad (MNRR), the third busiest commuter railroad in the United States as of 2015, is also operated by the MTA, in conjunction with the Connecticut Department of Transportation and New Jersey Transit. Its major terminal is Grand Central Terminal. Trains on the Port Jervis Line and Pascack Valley Line terminate at Hoboken Terminal in Hoboken, New Jersey; commuters may transfer at either Secaucus Junction for New Jersey Transit trains to New York Pennsylvania Station or at Hoboken Terminal for PATH trains into Manhattan.
Amtrak's Northeast Corridor offers service to Philadelphia, New Haven, and other points between and including Boston and Washington, D.C.
Major stations in the metropolitan area include:
The following table shows all train lines operated by these commuter railroads in the New York metropolitan area. New Jersey Transit operates an additional train line in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. (Shown counterclockwise from the Atlantic Ocean):
Major highways.
The following highways serve the region:
Other limited-access roads.
Some of these roads have a numerical designation assigned to it:
Commuter bus.
New Jersey Transit, Academy Bus, Coach USA, Spanish Transportation, Trailways of New York, and several other companies operate commuter coaches into the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan, and many other bus services in New Jersey. Bus services also operate in other nearby counties in the states of New York and Connecticut, but most terminate at a subway terminal or other rail station.
Major airports.
The three busiest airports in the New York metropolitan area include John F. Kennedy International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport, and LaGuardia Airport; 130.5 million travelers used these three airports in 2016, and the metropolitan area's airspace is the busiest in the nation.
The following smaller airports are also in the metro area and provide daily commercial service:
Commuter usage.
According to the 2010 American Community Survey, 54.3% (5,476,169) of commuters used a car or other private vehicle alone, 7.0% (708,788) used a carpool, 27.0% (2,721,372) used public transportation, 5.5% (558,434) walked to work, 2.0% (200,448) used some other means of transportation such as a bicycle to get to work.
Culture and contemporary life.
New York has been described as the cultural capital of the world by the diplomatic consulates of Iceland and Latvia and by New York's own Baruch College. A book containing a series of essays titled "New York, culture capital of the world, 1940–1965" has also been published as showcased by the National Library of Australia. Tom Wolfe has quoted regarding New York's culture that "Culture just seems to be in the air, like part of the weather."
Although Manhattan remains the epicenter of cultural life in the metropolitan area, the entire region is replete with prominent cultural institutions, with artistic performances and ethnically oriented events receiving international attention throughout the year.
Sports teams.
New York is home to the headquarters of the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, and Major League Soccer. Four of the ten most expensive stadiums ever built worldwide (MetLife Stadium, the new Yankee Stadium, Madison Square Garden, and Citi Field) are located in the New York metropolitan area. The New York metropolitan area has the highest total number of professional sports teams in these five leagues.
Listing of the professional sports teams in the New York metropolitan area:
Media.
The New York metropolitan area is home to the headquarters of several well-known media companies, subsidiaries, and publications, including Thomson Reuters, The New York Times Company, the Associated Press, WarnerMedia, NBCUniversal, the Hearst Corporation, ViacomCBS, News Corporation, The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, ABC, CBS, and NBC. Local television channels broadcasting to the New York market include WCBS-TV 2 (CBS), WNBC 4 (NBC), WNYW 5 (FOX), WABC-TV 7 (ABC), WWOR-TV 9 (MyNetworkTV), WPIX 11 (CW), WNET 13 (PBS), WNYE-TV 25 (NYC Media) and WPXN-TV 31 (Ion). NY1 is a 24/7 local news provider available only to cable television subscribers. Radio stations serving the area include: WNYC, WKCR, WFMU, WABC-AM, and WFAN. Many television and radio stations use the top of the Empire State Building to broadcast their terrestrial television signals, while some media entities broadcast from studios in Times Square.
The New York metropolitan area is extensive enough so that its own channels must compete with channels from neighboring television markets (including Philadelphia, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, and Hartford) within its outlying counties. Cable companies offer such competition in the Pennsylvania portion, Connecticut, and a few counties in central New Jersey.
Theme parks.
In New York State.
Coney Island, in Brooklyn, is considered one of America's first amusement parks.
Playland, Rye, Westchester County
Plans were unveiled by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on September 27, 2012 for the New York Wheel, a giant Ferris wheel, to be built at the northern shore of Staten Island, overlooking the Statue of Liberty, New York Harbor, and the Lower Manhattan skyline.
Area codes.
The area is served by at least 26 area codes:


Rod Blackmore

Rodney ("Rod") David Blackmore OAM (born 7 August 1935), is a former senior magistrate in the Australian state of New South Wales. He is perhaps best known for his work with children and adolescents. Blackmore's last judicial posting was as the Senior Magistrate at the Children's Court of New South Wales, serving from 1978 to 1995.
Biography.
Youth and Early Legal Career.
Blackmore was born in Deniliquin where his father Cecil was clerk of the court at the time of Rodney's birth. His parents deliberately named him "Rodney David" to achieve identification (via his initials) with the author of Lorna Doone. He came from a legal family; both his father, Cecil Hargreaves Blackmore, and paternal grandfather, Hugh Moffitt Blackmore, had served as New South Wales magistrates (Cecil was a Stipendiary Magistrate 1946-1960). Rodney's mother was Lydia Mabel Norris. Cecil Blackmore was appointed as clerk of the court in Grafton from 1937-1943, after which the family moved to Haberfield in Sydney.
After being educated at Grafton, New South Wales Public School (1940) and Haberfield Demonstration School, Rodney Blackmore was selected to attend Summer Hill School Summer Hill in opportunity class and then at Fort Street Boys' High (1947-1951). On 12 April 1958 Blackmore married Elizabeth Anne James at Summer Hill Methodist Church, Sydney, where they had met due to Blackmore's playing organ for a number of local Sydney churches. Their children Leigh Blackmore, Kent and Melinda were born respectively in 1959, 1960 and 1962.
Rodney Blackmore gained a Diploma in Law through the Solicitors Admission Board in 1967 and worked in courts administration from 1951. He was Clerk of Petty Sessions in Camden, Clerk of Petty Sessions and Coroner in Armidale, instructing officer at Central Criminal Court, Clerk of Petty Sessions and chamber magistrate at Campsie, Clerk of Petty Sessions and assistant chamber magistrate at the Central Court of Petty Sessions in Darlinghurst Sydney and then chamber magistrate in Sydney.
Magisterial career.
He was commissioned as a Stipendiary Magistrate in 1970. Blackmore was the Parramatta coroner in 1971 and then the traffic magistrate in Kogarah in 1971-72.
From 1972 to 1977 Blackmore and his family lived in Newcastle while he served for five years as the circuit magistrate for the Hunter Region, based in Maitland.
In 1977 he became Special Magistrate at Metropolitan Children's Court at Albion Street, Sydney, also known as (Albion Street, Surry Hills) Children's Court.The office of Senior Special Magistrate was created and Senior Children’s Magistrate Blackmore (as he later was known) took up that position on 8 August 1978. Metropolitan Children's Court at Albion Street closed in 1983 after Bidura Children's Court opened in Glebe. The court still operates today. However, due to frequent escapes from the Bidura Remand and Assessment Centre, it is now used only to hold juveniles appearing in court that day.
Blackmore was a founding member of the Homeless Children's Association in 1980 and its President from 1984-1991.
In 1988, Blackmore became the first Senior Children's Court Magistrate of NSW, a position he filled with distinction until his 1995 retirement thirteen years later. In 1989 he wrote the only standard text on the Children's Court in NSW and on the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998. He later performed his duties at Bidura Children's Court in Glebe. He was featured presiding on the bench at Bidura in the Film Australia documentary "Kids in Trouble" directed by Sue Cornwell.
In 1995 he became Chairman of the Trustees for the Mangrove Mountain, New South Wales Homeless Persons' Reserve Trust (formerly the Homeless Children's Association); this trust was for some time managed by Wesley Mission in conjunction with its Mangrove Mountain retreat for disadvantaged children. An accommodation lodge at the trust's property near Gosford site was named 'Blackmore Lodge' in his honour.
Awards.
Blackmore was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in 1997 for his service to the welfare of children through the judicial system and to the community.
Personal life.
He is the longest continuous member of the Theatre Organ Society of Australia (TOSA), having joined its NSW Division in March 1960 (within 2 months of the society’s inauguration). . He edited its journal "The Diaphone" from 1963 until its cessation in 1969.
He is also a former President and Activities Director of the Probus Club of Hornsby, New South Wales. He lives with his wife Beth in Sydney.


Is this real life


Portmanteau

A portmanteau (, ) or portmanteau word (from "portmanteau") is a blend of words in which parts of multiple words are combined into a new word, as in "smog", coined by blending "smoke" and "fog", or "motel", from "motor" and "hotel". In linguistics, a portmanteau is a single morph that is analyzed as representing two (or more) underlying morphemes.
A portmanteau word is similar to a "contraction", but contractions are formed from words that would otherwise appear together in sequence, such as "do" and "not" to make "don't", whereas a portmanteau is formed by combining two or more existing words that all relate to a single concept. A portmanteau also differs from a compound, which does not involve the truncation of parts of the stems of the blended words. For instance, "starfish" is a compound, not a portmanteau, of "star" and "fish", as it includes both words in full.
Origin.
The word "portmanteau" was introduced in this sense by Lewis Carroll in the book "Through the Looking-Glass" (1871), where Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice the coinage of unusual words used in "Jabberwocky". "Slithy" means "slimy and lithe" and "mimsy" means "miserable and flimsy". Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice the practice of combining words in various ways:
In his introduction to "The Hunting of the Snark", Carroll again uses "portmanteau" when discussing lexical selection:
In then-contemporary English, a portmanteau was a suitcase that opened into two equal sections. According to the OED Online, a portmanteau is a "case or bag for carrying clothing and other belongings when travelling; (originally) one of a form suitable for carrying on horseback; (now esp.) one in the form of a stiff leather case hinged at the back to open into two equal parts". According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (AHD), the etymology of the word is the French , from , "to carry", and , "cloak" (from Old French , from Latin ). According to the OED Online, the etymology of the word is the "officer who carries the mantle of a person in a high position (1507 in Middle French), case or bag for carrying clothing (1547), clothes rack (1640)". In modern French, a is a clothes valet, a coat-tree or similar article of furniture for hanging up jackets, hats, umbrellas and the like.
An occasional synonym for "portmanteau word" is "frankenword", an autological word exemplifying the phenomenon it describes, blending "Frankenstein" and "word".
Examples in English.
Many neologisms are examples of blends, but many blends have become part of the lexicon. In "Punch" in 1896, the word brunch (breakfast + lunch) was introduced as a "portmanteau word". In 1964, the newly independent African republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar chose the portmanteau word Tanzania as its name. Similarly Eurasia is a portmanteau of Europe and Asia.
Some city names are portmanteaus of the border regions they straddle: Texarkana spreads across the Texas-Arkansas-Louisiana border, while Calexico and Mexicali are respectively the American and Mexican sides of a single conurbation. A scientific example is a "liger," which is a cross between a male lion and a female tiger (a "tigon" is a similar cross in which the male is a tiger).
Many company or brand names are portmanteaus, including Microsoft, a portmanteau of "microcomputer" and "software"; the cheese "Cambozola" combines a similar rind to "Camembert" with the same mould used to make "Gorgonzola"; passenger rail company "Amtrak", a portmanteau of "America" and "track"; "Velcro", a portmanteau of the French (velvet) and (hook); "Verizon", a portmanteau of (Latin for truth) and "horizon"; and ComEd (a Chicago-area electric utility company), a portmanteau of "Commonwealth" and "Edison".
"Jeoportmanteau!" is a recurring category on the American television quiz show "Jeopardy!" The category's name is itself a portmanteau of the words "Jeopardy" and "portmanteau." Responses in the category are portmanteaus constructed by fitting two words together.
Portmanteau words may be produced by joining together proper nouns with common nouns, such as "gerrymandering", which refers to the scheme of Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry for politically contrived redistricting; the perimeter of one of the districts thereby created resembled a very curvy salamander in outline. The term gerrymander has itself contributed to portmanteau terms bjelkemander and playmander.
Oxbridge is a common portmanteau for the UK's two oldest universities, those of Oxford and Cambridge. In 2016, Britain's planned exit from the European Union became known as "Brexit".
Many portmanteau words receive some use but do not appear in all dictionaries. For example, a "spork" is an eating utensil that is a combination of a spoon and a fork, and a "skort" is an item of clothing that is part skirt, part shorts. On the other hand, "turducken", a dish made by inserting a chicken into a duck, and the duck into a turkey, was added to the "Oxford English Dictionary" in 2010.
Similarly, the word "refudiate" was first used by Sarah Palin when she misspoke, conflating the words "refute" and "repudiate". Though initially the word was a gaffe, it was recognized as the "New Oxford American Dictionary"s "Word of the Year" in 2010.
The business lexicon is replete with newly formed portmanteau words like "permalance" (permanent freelance), "advertainment" (advertising as entertainment), "advertorial" (a blurred distinction between advertising and editorial), "infotainment" (information about entertainment or itself intended to entertain by its manner of presentation), and "infomercial" (informational commercial).
Company and product names may also use portmanteau words: examples include "Timex" (a portmanteau of "Time" [referring to Time magazine] and Kleenex), Renault's "Twingo" (a combination of "twist", "swing" and "tango"), and Garmin (portmanteau of company founders' first names Gary Burrell and Min Kao).
Name-meshing.
Two proper names can also be used in creating a portmanteau word in reference to the partnership between people, especially in cases where both persons are well-known, or sometimes to produce epithets such as "Billary" (referring to former United States president Bill Clinton and his wife, former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton). In this example of recent American political history, the purpose for blending is not so much to combine the meanings of the source words but "to suggest a resemblance of one named person to the other"; the effect is often derogatory, as linguist Benjamin Zimmer states. By contrast, the public, including the media, use portmanteaus to refer to their favorite pairings as a way to "...giv[e] people an essence of who they are within the same name." This is particularly seen in cases of fictional and real-life "supercouples". An early known example, Bennifer, referred to film stars Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. Other examples include Brangelina (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie) and TomKat (Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes). "Desilu Productions" was a Los Angeles, California-based company jointly owned by couple and actors Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. Miramax is the combination of the first names of the parents of the Weinstein brothers. On Wednesday, 28 June 2017, The New York Times crossword included the quip, "How I wish Natalie Portman dated Jacques Cousteau, so I could call them 'Portmanteau'".
Holidays are another example, as in Thanksgivukkah, a portmanteau neologism given to the convergence of the American holiday of Thanksgiving and the first day of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah on Thursday, 28 November 2013. Chrismukkah is another pop-culture portmanteau neologism popularized by the TV drama "The O.C.", merging of the holidays of Christianity's Christmas and Judaism's Hanukkah.
In the Disney film "Big Hero 6", the film is situated in a fictitious city called "San Fransokyo", which is a portmanteau of two real locations, San Francisco and Tokyo.
Other languages.
Modern Hebrew.
Modern Hebrew abounds with European mechanisms such as blending: Along with CD, or simply ("Disk"), Hebrew has the blend ("taklitor"), which consists of ("taklít", Phonograph record) and ("or", light). Modern Hebrew is full of portmanteau blends, such as the following:
Other blends include the following:
Sometimes the root of the second word is truncated, giving rise to a blend that resembles an acrostic:
Irish.
A few portmanteaus are in use in modern Irish, for example:
Icelandic.
There is a tradition of linguistic purism in Icelandic, and neologisms are frequently created from pre-existing words. For example, "Tölva" ("computer") is a "portmanteau" of "tala" ("digit; number") and "völva" ("oracle or seeress").
Indonesian.
In Indonesian, portmanteaus and acronyms are very common in both formal and informal usage.
Japanese.
A very common type of portmanteau in Japanese forms one word from the beginnings of two others (that is, from two back-clippings). The portion of each input word retained is usually two morae, which is tantamount to one kanji in most words written in kanji.
The inputs to the process can be native words, Sino-Japanese words, gairaigo (later borrowings), or combinations thereof. A Sino-Japanese example is the name for the University of Tokyo, in full . With borrowings, typical results are words such as , meaning personal computer (PC), which despite being formed of English elements does not exist in English; it is a uniquely Japanese contraction of the English . Another example, , is a contracted form of the English words and . A famous example of a blend with mixed sources is , blending the Japanese word for and the Greek word . The Japanese fad of egg-shaped keychain pet toys from the 1990s, Tamagotchi, is a portmanteau combining the two Japanese words tamago (たまご), which means "egg", and uotchi (ウオッチ) "watch". The portmanteau can also be seen as a combination of tamago (たまご), "egg", and tomodachi (友だち), which means "friend".
Some Anime titles also are portmanteaus, such as "Hetalia" (ヘタリア). It came from He"tare (ヘタレ), which means "idiot", and Ita"ria (イタリア) which means Italy. Another example is "Servamp",
which came from the English words Ser"vant (サーヴァント) and Va"mpire (ヴァンパイア).
Portuguese.
In Brazilian Portuguese, portmanteaus are usually slang, including:
In European Portuguese, portmanteaus are also used. Some of them include:
Spanish.
Although not very common in Spanish, portmanteaus are finding their way into the language mainly through marketing and media efforts, such as in Mexican Spanish 'cafebrería' from 'cafetería' (coffee shop) and 'librería' (bookstore), or Teletón from 'televisión' and 'maratón'. However, it is very frequent in commercial brands of any type (for instance, "chocolleta", from "chocolate" + "galleta", (cookie), and above all family-owned business (of small size, for instance: Rocar, from "Roberto" + "Carlos", and Mafer, from "Maria" + "Fernanda"). Such usages are prompted by the registering of a distinguishable trademark, but with time, commonly, a specific trademark became the name of the all similar products, like in Cola Cao, a name which is very common to use to refer any similar product.
Other examples:
A somewhat popular example in Spain is the word Gallifante, a portmanteau of Gallo y Elefante (Cockerel and Elephant). It was the prize on the Spanish version of the children TV show Child's Play (Juego de niños) that ran on the public television channel La 1 of Televisión Española (TVE) from 1988 to 1992.
Portmanteau morph.
In linguistics, a blend is an amalgamation or fusion of independent lexemes, while a "portmanteau" or "portmanteau morph" is a single morph that is analyzed as representing two (or more) underlying morphemes. For example, in the Latin word "animalis" the ending "-is" is a portmanteau morph because it is used for two morphemes: the singular number and the genitive case. In English two separate morphs are used ("of an animal"). Other examples include French "à le" → "au" /o/, and "de le" → "du" /dy/.


Nikonians

Nikonians is an online community website dedicated to providing and sharing information among digital and film photographers, focusing but not limiting itself on those using Nikon digital and film cameras plus accessories.
Nikonians.org was founded by J. Ramón Palacios and Bo Stahlbrandt in late 1999 and opened to the public on 30 April 2000, with 30 members. Early after the site launch, it was awarded with Professional photography.com Impact Award and on July 14, 2002 won the Pro Site Award at Profotos.com.
The Nikonians community provides regular podcasts through three different English podcasts shows and one in German on various photography and imaging themes since 2005. The most popular program is "The Image Doctors" by Rick Walker and Jason Odell. The show has been broadcast since 2006.
The community is active around the world, participating on exhibitions such as the bi-annual photo and imaging exhibition photokina in Cologne, Germany in 2006, 2008 and in 2010
The site is independently maintained and is not affiliated with Nikon Corporation.


ROFLOL


Glass harp

A glass harp (also called musical glasses, singing glasses, angelic organ, verrillon or ghost fiddle) is a musical instrument made of upright wine glasses.
It is played by running moistened or chalked fingers around the rim of the glasses. Each glass is tuned to a different pitch, either by grinding each goblet to the specified pitch, in which case the tuning is invariable, or by filling the glass with water until the desired pitch is achieved.
History.
Musical glasses were documented in Persia in the 14th century. The glass harp was created in 1741 by Irishman Richard Pockrich, who is known as the first virtuoso of the musical glasses. Pockrich called his instrument the "angelic organ" and it was played with sticks, rather than by rubbing the glasses with a moistened finger. It was reported in 1760 that, "Pockrich played Handel's "Water Music" on the glasses." His successful concert career was brought to a premature end by a fire in which both the inventor and instrument perished in 1759.
The composer Christoph Willibald Gluck played the musical glasses. He performed in London in 1746, and Copenhagen. His instrument consisted of 26 goblets, "filled with spring water."
The instrument was popular in the 18th century. Pockrich's contemporary, Ford, published "Instructions for the Playing of the Musical Glasses" while Bartl published a German version. In 1929 Bruno Hoffmann invented a glass harp consisting, "of 46 individually tuned glasses fixed on a resonant table."
Contemporary uses.
On March 9, 1938, Bruno Hoffmann performed on the glass harp at the London Museum in a program including Mozart's Adagio (K. 356) and Quintet for harmonica, flute, viola, oboe, and cello (K. 617), accompanied by Geoffrey Gilbert, Leon Goossens, Frederick Riddle, and James Whitehead. It was an "exquisite performance, in which the flute and viola in their upper registers were almost indistinguishable from the glasses, [which] held spell-bound a large audience, crowded over the floor, stairs and galleries".
On February 18, 1979, Gloria Parker performed as a musical glasses soloist with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra at the Jai Alai Fronton in Hartford, Connecticut, USA. Richard Hayman, noted for his arrangements for Boston Pops conductor Arthur Fiedler, was the guest conductor for the 90-piece orchestra that accompanied the musical glasses which included songs such as "Lara's Theme" from the movie "Dr. Zhivago", "Lover" and "Amor".
There are several current musicians who professionally play the glass harp. Among them are the Glass Duo from Poland, Philipp Marguerre and Clemens Hofinger in Germany, France's Jean Chatillion and Thomas Bloch, Brien Engel, and Dennis James in the United States and Canada's Real Berthiaume.
Glasses have been also used by famous rock band Pink Floyd during the recording of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" on their "Wish You Were Here" album, recorded and released in 1975. Igor Sklyarov played the glass harp on the same song during two 2006 concerts recorded in Venice, Italy by former guitarist David Gilmour. Gilmour also used the effect during his August 26, 2006, concert in Gdańsk, Poland, with the help of Guy Pratt, Phil Manzanera and Dick Parry. Both recordings are available on Gilmour's "Live in Gdańsk" CD, although the Venice recording is only available on the five-disc version of the album or as an internet download with the three- and four-disc versions.
A colorful set of water tuned glasses is depicted as being played with a pair of metal sticks in several key scenes of the extremely successful 2009 Korean TV drama "Queen Seon Deok", showing the series' main anti-heroine Mishil (Go Hyun-jung) playing her own haunting theme melody "Yurijan (Glasses)" on that instrument.
Recently, there have been new advancements in the popular use of the glass harp. The increasingly famous musician and composer Jacob Collier has developed a similar instrument for his own productions in 2016.


The Painter of Signs

The Painter of Signs is a 1976 novel by R. K. Narayan.
Plot.
One of Narayan's later works, the Painter of Signs is a bittersweet novel that looks at the lives of Raman, a painter of sign boards, and Daisy, a social worker interested in curtailing India's population growth. The story is set in Malgudi, like many of Narayan's works with the Sarayu, Ellaman street and The Boardless Hotel being significant landmarks in the novel. At its very core, The Painter of Signs is Raman and Daisy's progressive love story in a conservative town in South India.
Raman is a sign-painter who takes the art of calligraphy very seriously. He devotedly creates the perfect signboard for all his customers, taking great care in the styling of words on the board. Made using the "best rosewood" from the Mempi mountains, Raman believes that his signboards are a notch above his rival Jayaraj's. Living with his aunt, a conservative old woman who likes to ramble about mythological stories and old family gossip, on Ellaman Street, Raman goes through periods of frustration at his aunt's interest in his going abouts and feelings of guilt for ignoring her affection and presence. Not orthodox himself, Raman neither sports a tuft like others from his caste nor has inhibitions in eating meat if necessary. He looks down on superstitions and old-fashioned notions of religion and caste and spends his time reading ancient copies of books on science and history. He does have a tendency to quote from the scriptures and make associations with events in the scriptures and those in his life.
Daisy, an intense young woman involved in family planning campaigns, hires Raman to make a signboard for her office. For no reason whatsoever, Raman finds himself bewitched by her beauty, and more so by her precision, authority and her devotion to her career. It so happens that he has to accompany Daisy on a three-week campaign in the villages around Malgudi to identify potential sites where he can paint signs and messages on population control and finds himself further attracted to her firmness, simplicity, and her tendency to shun luxuries and comforts of all sorts. He finds that his resolve to remain unmarried, seeing marriage as commonplace and unnecessary, is weakening.
The story goes on to outline Daisy's complicated past and her eventual admission of a mutual attraction for Raman. The two start spending the nights together, and decide to get married in the ("Gandharva" style),the simplest form of marital union. Daisy seems to be unaffected by the relationship though, and tells Raman that she will not change her last name, or house-keep for him. Raman mulls over the eventualities of such a wedlock, but is steadfast in his affection and love for Daisy and constantly tells himself that her needs and wishes will always be more important than his. His aunt, upset over her nephew's unorthodox afflictions - especially at his decision to marry out of caste - asks him to arrange a one way trip to Benaras for her. His repeated beseechings to her to stay and bless him and Daisy have no effect. On the morning that Daisy is to move into Raman's house on Ellaman Street, she changes her mind about Raman, feeling that her sense of purpose and her independent existence may be affected by married life. She decides to leave Malgudi for a three-year family planning initiative in villages all over India. Confused and befuddled, Raman tries his best to convince her, telling her that his house on Ellaman street will be open for her "whenever' she decides to return.
The Painter of Signs is preoccupied with the complications of human characters and human relationships. As Raman finds himself being torn between his Aunt and Daisy, the traditional way and the modern way, we see the protagonist as being "in-between" in the town of Malgudi. At the end of the novel, Raman's aunt left for Benares on a pilgrimage and Daisy left the town of Malgudi to pursue her career which means that Raman is left alone in Malgudi. This depicts the fact that it seems as though Raman cannot facilitate either women or what they represent (traditionality and modernity respectively), thus presenting the problematic themes of human character and their relationships with one another.


Yax Lizard

The Yax lizard or Jacques lizard is a Chinese internet phenomenon related to the Baidu 10 Mythical Creatures. It mocks a musical dance program that excessively praised the Chinese government.
The creature was supposedly a Komodo dragon. The name is derived from "yakexi" (), which is the Chinese transliteration of an Uyghur term "yaxshi" (), which means "good" or "great"; "xi" also means "lizard" in Chinese.
Origin.
It is named after the Xinjiang musical dance program "Happy life Yaxshi" (, formerly "The Party's Policy Yaxshi") in the CCTV Spring Festival's Gala 2010. In the program, singers and dancers sing praises of how happy their life is, with the chorus line of, "What is yakexi? What is yakexi? The Chinese Communist Party's policies are yakexi."
Description.
Blogger Han Han said that Yax lizards live in the area between Gurbantünggüt Desert and Irtysh River, north to Dzungaria, Xinjiang. They eat snails and even mice. They also arrive the riverine area of Irtysh River to eat dead fishes, river crabs, frogs and so on every year from April to June.
Response.
Han Han held a contest on his blog asking for submissions of alternative lyrics to the song, keeping the original chorus line of "What is yakexi? What is yakexi? The Chinese Communist Party's policies are yakexi." Submissions included lyrics mocking the original song by describing things such as bad housing situations and high tuition prices.
To demonstrate their dissatisfaction towards Chinese government's propaganda, some netizens name the species as "Yakshit" by the Chinese character's pronunciation.
External links.
South China Morning Post article
Douban full party song lyrics translated in English
Global Voices brief report
article LA times mention


Cuts (album)

Cuts is collaborative studio album by the Japanese noise musician Merzbow, Hungarian drummer Balázs Pándi, and Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson. It was recorded during a stop on the trio's East European tour in April 2012. The album was followed up in January 2015 by "Live in Tabačka 13/04/12", which was recorded live the day before "Cuts" in Slovakia. "Cuts of Guilt, Cuts Deeper", a studio album recorded with the addition of Thurston Moore, was released in March 2015.
The album was recorded in several improvised sessions at Metropolis Studio in Budapest, Hungary. Masami Akita then edited and mixed it at his Munemihouse studio in Tokyo, he didn't change the structure much except for moving a sax part. Pándi mixed his drums in Budapest. The track titles come from Leif Elggren's book "Something like seeing in the dark".
Personnel.
All personnel credits adapted from the album notes.


Michael Clark (dancer)

Michael Duncan Clark CBE (born 29 May 1962) is a Scottish dancer and choreographer.
Early life.
Clark was born in Aberdeen and began traditional Scottish dancing at the age of four. In 1975 he left home to study at the Royal Ballet School in London, and on his final day at the school he was presented with the Ursula Moreton Choreographic Award. In 1979 Clark joined Ballet Rambert, working primarily with Richard Alston, who created roles for him in "Bell High" (1979), "Landscape" (1980), "Rainbow Ripples" (1981) and, subsequently, two solos: "Soda Lake" (1981) and "Dutiful Ducks" (1982). Later, attending a summer school with Merce Cunningham and John Cage led him to work with Karole Armitage, through whom he met Charles Atlas.
Michael Clark has collaborated with fashion designers BodyMap, artists Sarah Lucas and Peter Doig, performance artist Leigh Bowery, and musicians Wire, Laibach, The Fall, Jarvis Cocker and Scritti Politti.
Career.
Clark's commissions for major dance companies include the G.R.C.O.P. (Groupe de Recherche Chorégraphique de l'Opéra de Paris), The Paris Opera, Scottish Ballet, London Festival Ballet, Ballet Rambert, Phoenix Dance Company and the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Clark has also produced considerable work for film and video, including "Hail the New Puritan" (1984) and "Because We Must" (1989) with Charles Atlas. He also choreographed and danced the role of Caliban in Peter Greenaway's "Prospero’s Books" (1991).
In 1998 he presented a new full-length work, "current/SEE", in collaboration with Susan Stenger, Simon Pearson, Big Bottom, and Hussein Chalayan which became the subject of a BBC documentary directed by Sophie Fiennes, "The Late Michael Clark". "Before and After: The Fall" (2001) was Clark's first major collaboration with the visual artist Sarah Lucas, followed by an evening entitled "Would, Should, Can, Did" (2003), for the Barbican, London. In the same year Clark created the first "Satie Stud" for William Trevitt of George Piper Dances, choreographed a solo for Mikhail Baryshnikov, and "OH MY GODDESS" opened London Dance Umbrella's 25th anniversary season. In 2004 Rambert Dance Company revived "SWAMP" (1986), which received the Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production in 2005.
In 2005 Clark embarked on the Stravinsky Project, a three-year project to produce a trilogy of works to seminal dance scores by Igor Stravinsky. He radically reworked "Mmm..." (1992) and "0" (1994), for this project, and in 2007 he premiered the final part of the trilogy, "I Do". In 2009 he debuted "come, been and gone" at the Venice Biennale. Subsequent productions include "New Work (2012)" (later "animal / vegetable / mineral") and his most recent work "to a simple, rock 'n' roll . . . song." which premiered at the Barbican in London in October 2016. He has created major site-specific commissions for the Tate Modern, Whitney Biennial, the 2012 Cultural Olympiad at Glasgow's Barrowland Ballroom, and The Institute of Contemporary Art (Miami).
Clark was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2014 Birthday Honours for services to dance.


Mallsoft


Kamilla Carvalho

Kamilla Carvalho is a Brazilian samba dancer who in 2018 became the first transgender woman to dance as a "muse" in Rio de Janeiro's Carnival.
She began parading in carnival at age 14, originally with samba school Vizinha Faladeira. In 2008, she paraded with the samba school Acadêmicos do Salgueiro for the first time, and in 2017 the head of the school, Regina Celi, invited her to dance as muse in the 2018 parade. Celi was a client of Carvalho's in her profession as a hairdresser. The following year, Carvalho was invited to dance as muse for carnival block Cordão da Bola Preta.
Carvalho underwent four surgeries as part of her transition, beginning at age 22. She legally changed her name after she felt humiliated at being misgendered at an airport.