The Five Boroughs of New York City
It is rather difficult to come up with a common definition of “borough” as it means different things to different peoples. In New Jersey, it means a self-governing incorporated town, while in Alaska it is a civil division of the state, much like a county in most other states. In New York City, a borough is one of its five administrative divisions. The five are Manhattan, The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island.
Modern New York City was formed in 1898 when Manhattan and the Bronx (which were cities within New York county at the time) were consolidated with the independent city of Brooklyn along with several municipalities in Kings County. Adjacent areas were incorporated as well. Areas in the western portion of Queens County became Queens Borough, while the whole of Richmond County was included in the consolidation as Staten Island Borough. Eventually, the Bronx County would be carved out of the County of New York. The area of Queens County left over from the formation of Queens Borough, would later be established as Nassau County. Owing to these developments, the five boroughs of New York City are now coextensive with their counties, as follows: Manhattan, New York County; the Bronx, Bronx County, Brooklyn, Kings County; Queens, Queens County, and Staten Island, Richmond County.
When these boroughs were formed, all county, city, and town governments within the geographical area were dissolved. Governance was centralized in a government headed by a mayor as the executive and a unicameral legislative council consisting of 51 members.
The boroughs, for their part, are represented by a borough president but there is no legislative body. They have their own borough hall, except that Manhattan does not call it a borough hall but the Manhattan Municipal Building.
The president, however, has minimal executive powers. Indeed, many observers see the office as largely ceremonial. However, they do have the opportunity to provide advice to the Mayor on matters relating to their respective boroughs particularly on land use and their budgets. They have a small discretionary fund for borough projects, and they can create and chair Community Boards.
Since the New York City boroughs are also counties, they elect their own district attorney. They also get to elect judges, but once elected, the judges can serve anywhere within the city.
The Big Apple. The City That Never Sleeps. The Capital of the World. Center of the Universe. With all these appellations given to New York City, it must be on the bucket list of many people, both Americans and non-Americans. Unfortunately, the price of a New York City vacation and tour can be as high as the new One World Trade Center. That is, if you do not know where to look.
Crime stories are in the news daily, if not by the hour. We, on the other hand, would like to have a safe neighborhood. We just want to make sure that the place or location that we are living in with our family is safe enough to have our own kids running outside or playing with the neighbors.
A lot of us have a bunch of jewelry. What we normally do is we just leave them anywhere – in our room, on the table everywhere, at the kitchen, or wherever we were when we took it off. And the next thing we know, we’ve lost a pair or lost it completely. Surely, that is something we wouldn’t want to happen again.