title: James Caan

text: After early roles in Howard Hawks's "El Dorado" (1966), Robert Altman's "Countdown" (1967) and Francis Ford Coppola's "The Rain People" (1969), Caan gained acclaim for his portrayal of Brian Piccolo in the 1971 television movie "Brian's Song" for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie nomination. Caan received Golden Globe Award nominations for his performances in the drama "The Gambler" (1974), and the musical "Funny Lady" (1975). He continued to receive significant roles in feature films such as "Cinderella Liberty" (1973), "Rollerball" (1975), "A Bridge Too Far" (1977), "Comes a Horseman" (1978), "Chapter Two" (1979) and "Thief" (1981).


title: James Caan

text: After a five-year break from acting, he returned with roles in "Gardens of Stone" (1987), "Misery" (1990), "Honeymoon in Vegas" (1992), "Eraser" (1996), "Mickey Blue Eyes" (1999), "The Yards" (2000), "City of Ghosts" (2002), "Elf" (2003), and "Get Smart" (2008).


title: James Caan

text: Caan was born on March 26, 1940, in The Bronx, New York City, to Sophie ("née" Falkenstein; 1915–2016) and Arthur Caan (1909–1986), Jewish immigrants from Germany. His father was a kosher meat dealer. One of three siblings, Caan grew up in Sunnyside, Queens. He was educated in New York City, and later attended Michigan State University (MSU). He was a member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity during his two years at Michigan State. During his time at MSU he wanted to play football but was unable to make the team. He later transferred to Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, but did not graduate. His classmates at Hofstra included Francis Ford Coppola and Lainie Kazan.


title: James Caan

text: While studying at Hofstra University he became intrigued by acting and was interviewed for, accepted to, and enrolled in New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, where he studied for five years. One of his instructors was Sanford Meisner. "I just fell in love with acting", he later recalled. "Of course all my improvs ended in violence."


title: James Caan

text: Caan began appearing off-Broadway in plays such as Arthur Schnitzler's "La Ronde" before making his 1961 Broadway debut in "Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole", his first significant acting role. In 1969, he starred in Coppola's "The Rain People".


title: James Caan

text: He was also seen in episodes of "Play of the Week", "Route 66", "Alcoa Premiere", "Dr. Kildare", "The Untouchables" (in an episode guest starring Lee Marvin), "The Doctors and the Nurses", “Wagon Train” "Death Valley Days" (twice), "Wide Country", and "Combat!" as a clever German sergeant. He guest starred on "Ben Casey" and "Kraft Suspense Theatre". His first film was "Irma la Douce" (1963), in which he had an uncredited bit part as a US soldier with a transistor radio more interested in a baseball game than the girl.


title: James Caan

text: Caan's first substantial film role was as a punk hoodlum who gets his eyes poked out in the 1964 thriller "Lady in a Cage", which starred Olivia de Havilland, who praised Caan's performance. He had roles in "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" and "Wagon Train". He was fourth-billed in a Western feature, "The Glory Guys" (1965). He turned down the starring role in a TV series around this time, saying "I want to be an actor not a millionaire."


title: James Caan

text: In 1965, Caan landed his first starring role, in Howard Hawks' auto-racing drama "Red Line 7000". It was not a financial success. However Hawks liked Caan and cast him in his next film, "El Dorado", playing Alan Bourdillion Traherne, a.k.a. Mississippi, in support of John Wayne and Robert Mitchum. He then had the starring role in Robert Altman's second feature film, "Countdown" (1967) and was second billed in the Curtis Harrington thriller "Games" (1967). Caan went to Britain to star in a war film, "Submarine X-1" (1968), then played the lead in a Western, "Journey to Shiloh" (1968). He returned to television with a guest role in "The F.B.I.", then had an uncredited spot on the spy sitcom "Get Smart" as a favor to star Don Adams, playing Rupert of Rathskeller in the episode "To Sire with Love". Caan won praise for his role as a brain-damaged football player in "The Rain People" (1969), directed by Francis Ford Coppola. He starred with Stefanie Powers in a Western called "Gone with the West" filmed in 1969 that was not released until 1975.


title: James Caan

text: None of these films, apart from "El Dorado", were particularly successful at the box office, including "Rabbit, Run" (1970), based on the John Updike novel, in which Caan had the lead. He said it "was a film I really wanted to do, really wanted to be involved with." "No one would put me in a movie", he later recalled. "They all said, 'His pictures never make money'."


title: James Caan

text: Caan returned to the small screen with the TV movie "Brian's Song" (1971), playing dying football player Brian Piccolo, opposite Billy Dee Williams. Caan did not want to return to television and turned down the role several times, but changed his mind after reading the script. The film was a huge critical success and Caan's performance earned him an Emmy nomination. He got a deal to make a film and agreed to be in "T.R. Baskin".


title: James Caan

text: The following year, Coppola cast him as the short-tempered Sonny Corleone in "The Godfather". Originally, Caan was cast as Michael Corleone (Sonny's youngest brother); both Coppola and Caan demanded that this role be played by Al Pacino, so Caan could play Sonny instead. Robert De Niro was also considered to play Sonny. Although another actor, Carmine Caridi, was already signed to play Sonny, the studio eventually insisted on having Caan, so he remained in the production. During production of "The Godfather" in 1971, Caan was known to hang out with Carmine Persico, also known as "The Snake", a notorious mafioso and later head of the Colombo crime family. Government agents briefly mistook Caan, who was relatively unknown at the time, as an aspiring mobster. Caan was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the film, along with co-stars Robert Duvall and Pacino. Caan was closely identified with the role for years afterward: "They called me a wiseguy. I won Italian of the Year twice in New York, and I'm Jewish, not Italian... I was denied in a country club once. Oh yeah, the guy sat in front of the board, and he says, 'No, no, he's a wiseguy, been downtown. He's a made guy.' I thought, What? Are you out of your mind?"


title: James Caan

text: Caan was now established as a leading movie star. He was in a road movie, "Slither" (1973), based on a script by W. D. Richter, and a romantic comedy with Marsha Mason, "Cinderella Liberty" (1973), directed by Mark Rydell. He received good reviews for playing the title role in "The Gambler" (1974), based on a script by James Toback originally written for Robert De Niro, and directed by Karel Reisz. More popular at the box office was the action comedy "Freebie and the Bean" (1974) with Alan Arkin.


title: James Caan

text: Caan reprised his role as Sonny Corleone for a flashback scene in "The Godfather Part II" (1974). He had a hit with "Funny Lady" (1975) playing Billy Rose opposite Barbra Streisand's Fanny Brice.″ Caan starred in two action feature action films, Norman Jewison's "Rollerball" (1975) as a star athlete of a deadly extreme sport, and Sam Peckinpah's "The Killer Elite" (1975). Both were popular, though Caan hated "Elite". He made a cameo in Mel Brooks' "Silent Movie" (1976), and tried comedy with Rydell's "Harry and Walter Go to New York" (1976). Caan was so unhappy with the latter he sacked his management. He said he did not want to make "Elite" or "Harry" but "people kept telling me I had to be commercial."


title: James Caan

text: Caan was one of many stars in the war film "A Bridge Too Far" (1977). He had a change of pace when he went to France to make "Another Man, Another Chance" (1977) for director Claude Lelouch alongside Geneviève Bujold, which Caan did for "peanuts" and "loved" the experience. Back in the United States, Caan made a modern-day Western, "Comes a Horseman" (1978), with Jane Fonda for director Alan J. Pakula. He was reunited with Marsha Mason in the film adaptation of Neil Simon's autobiographical "Chapter Two" (1979). Caan later said he only did the film for the money as he was trying to raise money for his directorial debut, but it was a success at the box office.


title: James Caan

text: In 1978, Caan directed "Hide in Plain Sight", a film about a father searching for his children, who were lost in the Witness Protection Program. Despite critical praise, the film was only moderately successful with the public.


title: James Caan

text: During Caan's peak years of stardom, he rejected a series of starring roles that proved to be successes for other actors, in films including "M*A*S*H", "The French Connection", "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", "Kramer vs. Kramer" ("it was such middle class bourgeois baloney"), "Apocalypse Now" (because Coppola "mentioned something about 16 weeks in the Philippine jungles"), "Blade Runner", "Love Story", and "Superman" ("I didn't want to wear the cape"). In 1977, Caan rated several of his movies out of ten – "The Godfather" (10), "Freebie and the Bean" (4), "Cinderella Liberty" (8), "The Gambler" (8), "Funny Lady" (9), "Rollerball" (8), "The Killer Elite" (5), "Harry and Walter Go to New York" (0), "Slither" (4), "A Bridge Too Far" (7), and "Another Man Another Chance" (10). He also liked his performances in "The Rain People" and "Thief".


title: James Caan

text: Caan had a role in Claude Lelouch's "Les Uns et les Autres" (1981), which was popular in France, and won the Technical Grand Prize at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival. In Hollywood, Caan appeared in the neo-noir film "Thief" (1981), directed by Michael Mann, in which he played a professional safe cracker. Although the film was not successful at the time, Caan's performance was widely lauded and the movie has acquired something of a cult following. Caan always praised Mann's script and direction and often said that, next to "The Godfather", "Thief" was the movie of which he was proudest.


title: James Caan

text: From 1982 to 1987, Caan suffered from depression over his sister's death from leukemia, a growing problem with cocaine, and what he described as "Hollywood burnout" and did not act in any films.


title: James Caan

text: In a 1992 interview, Caan said that this was a time when "a lot of mediocrity was produced. Because I think that directors got to the point where they made themselves too important. They didn't want anything or anybody to distract from their directorial prowess. There were actors who were good and capable, but they would distract from the special effects. It was a period of time when I said, 'I'm not going to work again.'"


title: James Caan

text: He walked off the set of "The Holcroft Covenant" and was replaced by Michael Caine. Caan devoted much of his time during these years to coaching children's sports. In 1985 he was in a car crash. Caan considered retiring for good but instead of being "set for life", as he believed, he found out one day that "I was flat-ass broke... I didn't want to work. But then when the dogs got hungry and I saw their ribs, I decided that maybe now it's a good idea."


title: James Caan

text: Caan returned to acting in 1987, when Coppola cast him as an army platoon sergeant for the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) in "Gardens of Stone", a movie that dealt with the effect of the Vietnam War on the United States homefront. He only received a quarter of his pre-hiatus salary, and then had to kick in tens of thousands more to the completion bond company because of "Holcroft". "I don't know what it is, but, boy, when you're down, they like to stomp on you", he said. The movie was not a popular success but "Alien Nation" (1988), where Caan played a cop who partnered with an alien, did well. The film received a television spinoff. He had a support role as Spaldoni, under much make up, in Warren Beatty's "Dick Tracy".


title: James Caan

text: Caan was planning to make an action film in Italy, but then heard Rob Reiner was looking for a leading man in his adaptation of Stephen King's "Misery" (1990). Since the script for "Misery" called for the male lead, Paul Sheldon, to spend most of his time lying in bed tormented by his nurse, the role was turned down by many of Hollywood's leading actors before Caan accepted. Caan had a small role in "The Dark Backward" (1991) and co-starred with Bette Midler in the expensive "For the Boys" (1991), directed by Rydell who called Caan "one of the four or five best actors in America".


title: James Caan

text: Caan was a gangster in the comedy "Honeymoon in Vegas" (1992) and played Coach Winters in "The Program" (1993). He had supporting roles in "Flesh and Bone" (1993) and "A Boy Called Hate" (1995), the latter starring his son Scott Caan. In 1996, he appeared in "North Star", a Western; "Bottle Rocket", the directorial debut of Wes Anderson; "Eraser", with Arnold Schwarzenegger; and "Bulletproof" with Adam Sandler and Damon Wayans. In 1998, Caan portrayed Philip Marlowe in the HBO film "Poodle Springs". He was also in "This Is My Father" (1998). Caan was a gangster for comedy in "Mickey Blue Eyes" (1999), with Hugh Grant.


title: James Caan

text: Caan was in "The Yards" (2000) with Mark Wahlberg and director James Gray, "Luckytown" (2000) with Kirsten Dunst, and "The Way of the Gun" (2000) for Christopher McQuarrie. Caan starred in TV movies like "Warden of Red Rock" (2001) and "A Glimpse of Hell" (2001), and was in some thrillers: "Viva Las Nowhere" (2001), "In the Shadows" (2001), and "Night at the Golden Eagle" (2002). He was in "Lathe of Heaven" with Lukas Haas (2002), "City of Ghosts" (2002) with Matt Dillon, "Blood Crime" (2002), "The Incredible Mrs. Ritchie" (2003), and "Jericho Mansions" (2003). Most of these films were not widely seen, but "Dogville" (2003) and "Elf" (2003), in which Caan had key supporting roles, were big successes on the art house and commercial circuit respectively.


title: James Caan

text: In 2003, Caan portrayed Jimmy the Con in the film "This Thing of Ours", whose associate producer was Sonny Franzese, longtime mobster and underboss of the Colombo crime family. The same year, Caan played Will Ferrell's estranged book publisher father in the enormously successful family Christmas comedy "Elf", and auditioned for, and won, the role of Montecito Hotel/Casino president "Big Ed" Deline in "Las Vegas". On February 27, 2007, 27 days before his 67th birthday, Caan announced that he would not return to the show for its fifth season to return to film work; he was replaced by Tom Selleck.


title: James Caan

text: Caan had a role in the TV movie "Wisegal" (2008), played the President of the United States in the 2008 film "Get Smart", and had a part in the movie "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" (2009). He was one of many stars in "New York, I Love You" (2008) and had a support role in "Middle Men" (2009). He did "Mercy" (2009), starring and written by his son Scott.


title: James Caan

text: Caan appeared in "Henry's Crime" (2010), "Detachment" (2011), "Small Apartments" (2012), "That's My Boy" (2012) with Adam Sandler, "For the Love of Money" (2012), and "Blood Ties" (2013). In 2012, Caan was a guest star on the re-imagined "Hawaii Five-0" TV series, playing opposite his son, Scott Caan who played Danny "Danno" Williams. Caan was the chairman of an Internet company, Openfilm, intended to help up-and-coming filmmakers. In 2013, Caan portrayed Chicago mob kingpin Sy Berman in the Starz TV drama "Magic City". He tried another regular series, the sitcom "Back in the Game" (2013) with Maggie Lawson.


title: James Caan

text: Caan returned to film work with "A Fighting Man" (2013) and "The Outsider" (2014). In 2014, Caan appeared in the dramatic comedy "Preggoland", playing a father who is disappointed with his daughter's lack of ambition, but who becomes overjoyed when she (falsely) announces that she is pregnant. The film premiered in the Special Presentations section at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival The film had its U.S. premiere on January 28, 2015, at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Crackle premiered "The Throwaways" on January 30, 2015. Caan plays Lt. Col. Christopher Holden, who leads a team fighting a cyberterrorist.


title: James Caan

text: Caan's later films include "The Wrong Boyfriend" (2015), "Sicilian Vampire" (2015), "JL Ranch" (2016), and "Good Enough" (2016). He had the lead in "The Good Neighbor" (2016), "The Red Maple Leaf" (2016), and "Undercover Grandpa" (2017). In 2019, he starred in Carol Morley's crime drama "Out of Blue".


title: James Caan

text: Caan married four times. In 1961, he married Dee Jay Mathis; they divorced in 1966. They had a daughter, Tara (born 1964). Caan's second marriage to Sheila Marie Ryan (a former girlfriend of Elvis Presley) in 1976 was short-lived; they divorced the following year. Their son, Scott Caan, also an actor, was born August 23, 1976.


title: James Caan

text: Caan was married to Ingrid Hajek from September 1990 to March 1994; they had a son, Alexander James Caan, born 1991. In a 1994 interview with "Vanity Fair", Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss claimed to be in a relationship with Caan during his marriage to Hajek in 1992, visiting him on the set of "Flesh and Bone" in Texas. Caan said his relationship with Fleiss was platonic.


title: James Caan

text: Caan married Linda Stokes on October 7, 1995, they had two sons, James Arthur Caan (born 1995) and Jacob Nicholas Caan (born 1998). Caan filed for divorce in 2017, citing irreconcilable differences.


title: James Caan

text: In 1994, Caan was arrested and released after being accused by a Los Angeles rap artist of pulling a gun on him.


title: James Caan

text: Caan was a practising martial artist. He trained with Takayuki Kubota for nearly 30 years, earning various ranks. He was a Master (6 Dan) of Gosoku-ryu Karate and was granted the title of Soke Dai by the International Karate Association.


title: James Caan

text: He also took part in steer roping at rodeos and referred to himself as the "only Jewish cowboy from New York on the professional rodeo cowboy circuit."


title: James Caan

text: On July 6, 2022, Caan died at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles from a heart attack caused by coronary artery disease; he was 82. At the time of his death, he also had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and congestive heart failure. He was buried at Eden Memorial Park Cemetery.


title: James Caan

text: Tributes to Caan were paid by Rob Reiner, Francis Ford Coppola, Barbra Streisand, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Talia Shire, Robert Duvall, and Will Ferrell among others.


title: Thor (film)

text: Thor is a 2011 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Paramount Pictures, it is the fourth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). It was directed by Kenneth Branagh, written by the writing team of Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz along with Don Payne, and stars Chris Hemsworth as the title character alongside Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Stellan Skarsgård, Kat Dennings, Clark Gregg, Colm Feore, Ray Stevenson, Idris Elba, Jaimie Alexander, Rene Russo, and Anthony Hopkins. After reigniting a dormant war, Thor is banished from Asgard to Earth, stripped of his powers and his hammer Mjölnir. As his brother Loki (Hiddleston) plots to take the Asgardian throne, Thor must prove himself worthy.


title: Thor (film)

text: Sam Raimi first developed the concept of a film adaptation based on "Thor" in 1991, but soon abandoned the project, leaving it in "development hell" for several years. During this time, the rights were picked up by various film studios until Marvel signed Mark Protosevich to develop the project in 2006, and planned to finance and release it through Paramount. Matthew Vaughn was assigned to direct the film for a tentative 2010 release. However, after Vaughn was released from his holding deal in 2008, Branagh was approached and the film's release was rescheduled to 2011. The main characters were cast in 2009, and principal photography took place in California and New Mexico from January to May 2010. The film was converted to 3D in post-production.


title: Thor (film)

text: "Thor" premiered in Sydney on April 17, 2011, and was released in the United States on May 6, as part of of the MCU. It received generally positive reviews from critics and was a financial success, earning $449.3 million worldwide. Three sequels have been released: "" (2013), "" (2017), and "" (2022).


title: Thor (film)

text: In 965 AD, Odin, king of Asgard, wages war against the Frost Giants of Jotunheim and their leader Laufey, to prevent them from conquering the Nine Realms, starting with Earth. The Asgardian warriors defeat the Frost Giants in Tønsberg, Norway, and seize the source of their power, the Casket of Ancient Winters.


title: Thor (film)

text: In the present, Odin's son Thor prepares to ascend to the throne of Asgard, but is interrupted when Frost Giants, secretly allowed in by his brother Loki, attempt to retrieve the Casket. Against Odin's order, Thor travels to Jotunheim to confront Laufey, accompanied by Loki, childhood friend Sif and the Warriors Three: Volstagg, Fandral, and Hogun. A battle ensues until Odin intervenes to save the Asgardians, destroying the fragile truce between the two races. For Thor's arrogance, Odin strips his son of his godly power and exiles him to Earth as a mortal, accompanied by his hammer Mjölnir, now protected by an enchantment that allows only the worthy to wield it.


title: Thor (film)

text: Thor lands in New Mexico, where astrophysicist Dr. Jane Foster, her assistant Darcy Lewis, and mentor Dr. Erik Selvig find him. The local populace finds Mjolnir, which S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Phil Coulson soon commandeers before forcibly acquiring Foster's data about the wormhole that delivered Thor to Earth. Thor, having discovered Mjölnir's nearby location, seeks to retrieve it from the facility that S.H.I.E.L.D. has constructed, but he finds himself unable to lift it and is captured. With Selvig's help, he is freed and resigns himself to exile on Earth as he develops a romance with Foster.


title: Thor (film)

text: Loki discovers that he is Laufey's biological son, adopted by Odin after the war ended. Loki confronts Odin, who wearily falls into the deep "Odinsleep" to recover his strength. Loki takes the throne in Odin's stead and offers Laufey the chance to kill Odin and retrieve the Casket. Sif and the Warriors Three, unhappy with Loki's rule, attempt to return Thor from exile, convincing Heimdall, gatekeeper of the Bifröst—the means of traveling between worlds—to allow them passage to Earth. Aware of their plan, Loki sends the Destroyer, a seemingly indestructible automaton, to pursue them and kill Thor. The warriors find Thor, but the Destroyer attacks and defeats them, prompting Thor to offer himself instead. Struck by the Destroyer and near death, Thor proves himself worthy by his sacrifice to wield Mjölnir. The hammer returns to him, restoring his powers and enabling him to defeat the Destroyer. Kissing Foster goodbye and vowing to return, he leaves with his fellow Asgardians to confront Loki.


title: Thor (film)

text: In Asgard, Loki betrays and kills Laufey, revealing his true plan to use Laufey's attempt on Odin's life as an excuse to destroy Jotunheim with the Bifröst Bridge, thus proving himself worthy to his adoptive father. Thor arrives and fights Loki before destroying the Bifröst Bridge to stop Loki's plan, stranding himself in Asgard. Odin awakens and prevents the brothers from falling into the abyss created in the wake of the bridge's destruction, but Loki allows himself to fall when Odin rejects his pleas for approval. Thor makes amends with Odin, admitting he is not ready to be king; meanwhile, on Earth, Foster and her team search for a way to open a portal to Asgard.


title: Thor (film)

text: In a post-credits scene, Selvig is taken to a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, where Nick Fury opens a briefcase and asks him to study a mysterious cube-shaped object, which Fury says may hold untold power. An invisible Loki prompts Selvig to agree.


title: Thor (film)

text: Additionally, Tadanobu Asano portrays Hogun, a member of the Warriors Three primarily identified by his grim demeanor and as the only member who is not an Æsir. Ray Stevenson said of Asano's character, "He doesn't speak much but when he does, everybody shuts up. But also in the healing room where everyone licks their wounds, he's the guy who just goes about his business". Josh Dallas portrays Fandral, an irrepressible swashbuckler and romantic member of the Warriors Three. Stuart Townsend was initially cast after Zachary Levi was forced to vacate the role due to a scheduling conflict. However, days before filming began, Townsend was replaced by Dallas citing "creative differences". Dallas said he believed that Fandral "would like to think of himself a philanderer. He would like to think of himself, I was saying, as the R. Kelly of Asgard. He's a lover, not a fighter". Dallas mentioned that Errol Flynn was an inspiration for the character stating, "He was a big inspiration for the character and for me. I watched a lot of his movies and kind of got that into my bones. I tried to bring out that little bit of Flynn-ness in it. Flynn had a lot of that boyish charm that Fandral's got..."


title: Thor (film)

text: Maximiliano Hernández appears as S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jasper Sitwell, Adriana Barraza plays diner owner Isabella Alvarez and Isaac Kappy plays a pet store clerk. Joseph Gatt, Josh Coxx, and Douglas Tait portray Frost Giants. Stan Lee and J. Michael Straczynski have cameo appearances as pick-up truck drivers, Walter Simonson has a cameo appearance as one of the guests at a large Asgardian banquet, and Samuel L. Jackson and Jeremy Renner have uncredited cameos as Nick Fury and Clint Barton / Hawkeye, respectively.


title: Thor (film)

text: Sam Raimi originally envisioned the idea for "Thor" after making "Darkman" (1990); he met Thor co-creator Stan Lee and pitched the concept to 20th Century Fox, but they did not understand it. "Thor" was abandoned until April 1997, when Marvel Studios was beginning to expand rapidly. The film gained momentum after the success of "X-Men" (2000). The plan was for "Thor" to be made for television. UPN was in talks for airing it; excited by the prospect, they pushed for a script and approached Tyler Mane to play Thor. In May 2000, Marvel Studios brought Artisan Entertainment to help finance it as a film, but by June 2004 the project still had yet to be patronized by a studio. Sony Pictures Entertainment finally purchased the film rights, and in December 2004 David S. Goyer was in negotiations to write and direct. By 2005, though there were talks between Goyer and Marvel, Goyer was no longer interested, though at this point the film was still set to be distributed through Sony Pictures.


title: Thor (film)

text: Mark Protosevich, a fan of the "Thor" comic book, agreed to write the script in April 2006, and the project moved to Paramount Pictures, after it acquired the rights from Sony. That year the film was announced to be a Marvel Studios production. In December 2007, Protosevich described his plans for it "to be like a superhero origin story, but not one about a human gaining super powers, but of a god realizing his true potential. It's the story of an Old Testament god who becomes a New Testament god". In August 2007 Marvel Studios signed Matthew Vaughn to direct the film. Vaughn then rewrote Protosevich's script in order to bring down the budget to $150 million, as Protosevich's first draft would have cost $300 million to produce. After the success of "Iron Man", Marvel Studios announced that they intended to release "Thor" on June 4, 2010, with "Iron Man 2" being used to introduce the character of Thor.


title: Thor (film)

text: Vaughn was released when his holding deal expired in May 2008, at which point Marvel set Protosevich to work on a new draft and began searching for a new director. Guillermo del Toro entered talks to direct the film. Del Toro was a fan of Jack Kirby's work on the comics, and said that he loved the character of Loki, but wished to incorporate more of the original Norse mythology into the film, including a "really dingy Valhalla, [with] Vikings and mud". However, del Toro ultimately turned down "Thor" to direct "The Hobbit". By September 2008 D. J. Caruso had been discussing taking on the project, though he did not read the script. Later that month, Kenneth Branagh entered into negotiations to direct, and by December 2008, Branagh confirmed that he had been hired. He described it as "a human story right in the center of a big epic scenario." Branagh stated that he hoped to begin filming in January 2010, and Marvel Studios set back the release date of the film from its scheduled July 16, 2010 date to June 17, 2011, almost a full year later. They later moved the release date to May 20, 2011, to distance the film's release from that of "", another Marvel Studios film that was scheduled to be released on July 22, 2011. In October 2008, Daniel Craig was offered the role, but ultimately turned it down, citing his commitments to the "James Bond" franchise.


title: Thor (film)

text: In February 2009, Samuel L. Jackson, who had briefly portrayed Nick Fury at the end of the film "Iron Man", signed on to reprise the role in "Thor" as part of an unprecedented nine-picture deal with Marvel Studios. In the same month, a casting call went out looking for actors with certain physical attributes to audition for the role of Thor. However, in an April 2010 interview, Jackson stated that he would not be appearing in "Thor". When asked why not Jackson explained, "I have no idea. I'm not in charge of making those kinds of decisions. I thought I was; they said I was in the trades, and I was like, 'Ooh! I got a job!' I called my agent he said, 'Naw, you're not in it.' I was like, 'Well shit, they need to pay me if they're gonna put my name in it. Later in the month, Jackson revealed that he would be filming a scene for "Thor" to serve as "connective tissue" for "The Avengers".


title: Thor (film)

text: In May 2009, Chris Hemsworth was in negotiations to portray the title role after a back-and-forth process in which the 25-year-old actor was refused early on, then given a second chance to read for the part. Hemsworth's brother, Liam also auditioned for the role, but was passed on by Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige. Kevin McKidd had also been considered for the role. The next day, Marvel announced that Tom Hiddleston, who had worked with Branagh before and had initially been considered to portray the lead role, had been cast as Loki. In June 2009, Feige confirmed that both Hemsworth and Hiddleston had signed on. Feige mentioned that the film would take place on both modern day Earth and Asgard but Thor's human host, Dr. Donald Blake, would not be included. In July 2009, Marvel announced that Natalie Portman would portray Jane Foster. Jaimie Alexander and Colm Feore were reported to have joined the cast in September, with Alexander portraying Sif and Feore's role unrevealed, though it was thought to be a villain. In an interview with Swedish news site "Ystads Allehanda", Stellan Skarsgård stated that he had joined the cast, though he did not specify his role. By late October Anthony Hopkins had been cast as Odin in the film. The following month, Marvel announced that they had cast the Warriors Three; Fandral was to be played by Stuart Townsend, Hogun was to be played by Tadanobu Asano and Volstagg was to be played by Ray Stevenson. Idris Elba was announced to have joined the cast, portraying Heimdall. Natalie Portman revealed that Kat Dennings would be involved in the project, portraying Darcy, a coworker of Portman's Jane Foster.


title: Thor (film)

text: In December 2009, Rene Russo was cast as Frigga, Thor's mother and Odin's wife. Later that month, actors Joseph Gatt, Troy Brenna, and Josh Coxx had been cast in the film, though none of their roles were revealed. In January 2010, Adriana Barraza had joined the film's cast, in a supporting capacity. Only days before filming began, Stuart Townsend was replaced by Joshua Dallas as Fandral, citing "creative differences". When "Spider-Man 4"s production stalled, Paramount and Marvel Entertainment pushed up the release of "Thor" by two weeks to May 6, 2011.


title: Thor (film)

text: The Science & Entertainment Exchange introduced Marvel Entertainment, Kenneth Branagh, "the screenwriter, and a few people on the design and production side of things" to three physicists (Sean Carroll, Kevin Hand, and Jim Hartle), as well as physics student Kevin Hickerson, to provide a realistic science background for the Thor universe. The consultation resulted in a change in Jane Foster's profession, from nurse to particle physicist, and the terminology (Einstein-Rosen bridge) to describe the Bifrost Bridge.


title: Thor (film)

text: In October 2008, Marvel Studios signed a long-term lease agreement with Raleigh Studios to photograph their next four films—"Iron Man 2", "Thor", "Captain America: The First Avenger" and "The Avengers"—at Raleigh's Manhattan Beach, California facility. "Production Weekly" reported that filming on Marvel's "Thor" was scheduled to begin in Los Angeles mid-January, then move to Santa Fe, New Mexico from March until late-April. Principal photography began on January 11, 2010. A few days after filming began, Clark Gregg signed on to reprise his role from "Iron Man" and "Iron Man 2" as Agent Coulson. In February, Paramount Pictures entered negotiations with Del Mar, California to use a 300-yard stretch of beach to film a scene for "Thor" involving six horses running down the terrain. Paramount said this coastline was ideal because its gradual slope of sand down to the waterline creates excellent reflective opportunities on film. On March 15, 2010, production of "Thor" moved to Galisteo, New Mexico where Cerro Pelon Ranch, an old-fashioned Western film town, was extensively modified for the shoot.


title: Thor (film)

text: Branagh, a fan of the comic book since childhood, commented on the challenge of bridging Asgard and the modern world: "Inspired by the comic book world both pictorially and compositionally at once, we've tried to find a way to make a virtue and a celebration of the distinction between the worlds that exist in the film but absolutely make them live in the same world. It's about finding the framing style, the color palette, finding the texture and the amount of camera movement that helps celebrate and express the differences and the distinctions in those worlds. If it succeeds, it will mark this film as different... The combination of the primitive and the sophisticated, the ancient and the modern, I think that potentially is the exciting fusion, the exciting tension in the film".


title: Thor (film)

text: By April, the prospect for filming parts of "Thor" in Del Mar, California had fallen through. Paramount Pictures sent a letter informing the city that it has instead chosen an undisclosed Northern California location to film a beachfront scene for the film. The letter cited cost concerns with moving production too far away from its headquarters. Filming wrapped on May 6, 2010.


title: Thor (film)

text: In October 2010, casting calls revealed the film would be undergoing an undisclosed number of reshoots. In March 2011, scenes involving Adriana Barraza were removed from the theatrical cut of the film during the editing process. Branagh sent a letter of apology explaining the reasons for the cut and desire to work with Barraza again in the future. In response Barraza stated, "It saddens me because the movie is great and because I was acting alongside some tremendous actors that I admire very much, but I understand the nature of films, and it's not the first or last time that scenes will be cut". Barraza appears in only one scene in the film's theatrical cut. In that same month, Douglas Tait revealed that he performed for motion capture of the Frost Giants. On his hiring, Tait said "I am 6'5" and have a lean, athletic build, and they hired guys who were 6'7" and taller, and weighed over . When the film was being edited, they wanted to make them even bigger and move faster. They auditioned people again and Kenneth Branagh chose me to perform the motion capture movements of the Frost Giants". In April 2011, the IMAX Corporation, Paramount Pictures and Marvel Entertainment announced that they have finalized an agreement to release the film in IMAX 3D, continuing the partnership which began on "Iron Man 2". Branagh stated that the 3-D process initially made him cringe but said "We came to feel that in our case 3-D could be the very good friend of story and character for a different kind of experience". Although the film was shot in 2D, Feige stated that the "special effects for the film were conceived and executed from the beginning in 3D". The post-credits scene that sees Nick Fury approach Erik Selvig to ask him to study the Tesseract, was directed by "The Avengers"s director, Joss Whedon.


title: Thor (film)

text: BUF Compagnie served as the lead visual effects vendor working on the film, with Digital Domain also providing work on the film. some of the software used for the visual effects were Autodesk Softimage. Branagh stated that BUF, who developed the effects for the race through space, were inspired by Hubble photography and other images of deep space. Branagh stated he sent paintings from classic studies by J. M. W. Turner to Digital Domain when creating Jotunheim. Peter Butterworth, VFX supervisor and co-founder of Fuel VFX, said the most challenging task was interpreting what the Bifröst would look like, "You can't Google what these things look like—they are totally imagined and within the heads of the stakeholders. So to extract that and interpret it for the big screen was an interesting challenge creatively. Technically, probably creating fluid simulations that could be art-directed and used for both the Bifröst and Odin's chamber shots. Part of the difficulty with solving these is that we had to ensure they would work in stereo. In the film, Odin enters what is known as the "Odinsleep" in his chamber to regenerate. Butterworth stated, "For Odin's Chamber, we developed a dome and curtain of light rays that hover over Odin's bed. This dome of light suggests harnessed power and energy that revitalizes him as he sleeps. We took a lot of reference from the natural world such as the corona of the sun and gave the sleep effect plenty of volume and space".


title: Thor (film)

text: The film's score was written by composer Patrick Doyle, a frequent collaborator of Branagh. Doyle described "Thor" as "the most commercially high profile film I have done since "Frankenstein"", adding that the composing process had the challenge of trying to find a tone that fit the duality of Asgard and Earth. Thus Doyle and Branagh had frequent discussions on the musical direction, with the director suggesting a contemporary feel and having a balance between the music and "grand images [that] were not in any way hyperbolized", and the composer in turn implementing "a strong sense of melody, which he responds to in my work". As Doyle declared that his own Celtic background made him familiar with Norse mythology, an old Celtic folk song also provided the inspiration for Thor's leitmotif. A soundtrack album was released by Buena Vista Records in April 2011.


title: Thor (film)

text: The film also features a song by the Foo Fighters, "Walk", in both a scene where a powerless Thor shares some boilermakers with Selvig in a roadhouse, and the film's closing credits. Marvel president Kevin Feige stated that "Walk" was a last minute addition, that the crew felt had "these eerie appropriate lyrics and themes" upon hearing it. Branagh in particular thought that "these lyrics about learning to walk again" were appropriate "of [a] movie about redemption, learning to be a hero."


title: Thor (film)

text: In July 2010 Marvel Studios held a "Thor" panel at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International during which Kenneth Branagh, Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Kat Dennings, Tom Hiddleston, and Clark Gregg discussed the film and showed some clips from it. A few days later, this footage was leaked on the internet. The first television advertisement was broadcast during Super Bowl XLV on the Fox network in the United States. The rate for advertising during the game was approximately $3 million per 30-second spot. Marvel Studios and Acura launched a joint viral marketing promotion at the 2011 Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo. Other official promotional partners included Burger King, Dr. Pepper, 7 Eleven, and Visa. In May 2011 Marvel Entertainment's President of Print, Animation and Digital, Dan Buckley, and Marvel Comics Editor-In-Chief, Axel Alonso, rang the NYSE closing bell in celebration of the theatrical release of "Thor".


title: Thor (film)

text: A post-credits scene in the film "Iron Man 2" showed Coulson reporting the discovery of a large hammer in the desert. Rick Marshall of MTV News believed it to be the weapon Mjöllnir belonging to Thor, writing, "It continues the grand tradition of connecting the film to another property in development around the Marvel movie universe." In the commentary track of "Iron Man 2" home media, "Iron Man 2"s director, Jon Favreau, stated that "this is a scene from [the set of] "Thor" ".


title: Thor (film)

text: Marvel Animation announced a 26-episode animated series in November 2008, to air in late 2010 before the release of Marvel Studios' film. The company released an animated direct-to-video film, "", to coincide with the live-action film.


title: Thor (film)

text: A video game titled "" based on the film was developed by Sega using the voices and likenesses of actors Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston and Jaimie Alexander, and was released on May 3, 2011.


title: Thor (film)

text: "Thor" held its world premiere at the Event Cinemas theatre in George Street, Sydney on April 17, 2011, with the film opening on April 21, 2011 in Australia. The following weekend it opened in 56 markets, while the premiere at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles, California took place on May 2, 2011. "Thor" opened on May 6, 2011 in the United States, in 3,955 theaters (of which 214 were IMAX 3D and 2,737 in 3D, a record amount). The film is part of of the MCU.


title: Thor (film)

text: In July 2011, Marvel Studios and Paramount Pictures announced the release of "Thor" on Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray Disc and DVD. The discs were released by Paramount Home Media Distribution on September 13, 2011 in three editions: a single-disc DVD, a 2-disc Blu-ray-DVD combo pack, and a 3-disc Blu-ray/DVD/3D combo pack. All sets come with deleted scenes and a "Road to "The Avengers"" featurette. The 2-disc and 3-disc packs includes a digital copy, the first in a series of Marvel One-Shots, "The Consultant", and 7 behind-the-scenes featurettes.


title: Thor (film)

text: Branagh said that the DVD includes at least 20 minutes of deleted scenes. Branagh stated the footage contains "things like the Asgardian parents, Odin and Frigga, played by the beautiful Rene Russo, there's some beautiful scenes in there that I think people will enjoy. And certainly Thor and Loki interacting in different ways that just fill in a little bit of a back story, that was part of our rehearsal and research." In its first week of release, "Thor" took the number one spot on Blu-ray/DVD sales chart and topped "Home Media Magazine"'s rental chart for the week.


title: Thor (film)

text: The film was also collected in a 10-disc box set titled "" which includes all of the Phase One films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was released by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on April 2, 2013.


title: Thor (film)

text: "Thor" grossed $181 million in the United States and Canada, and $268.3 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $449.3 million. It was the 15th highest-grossing film of 2011.


title: Thor (film)

text: "Thor" earned $25.5 million on its opening day in the United States and Canada, including $3.3 million from Thursday previews, for a total weekend gross of $65.7 million. $6.2 million of the gross came from IMAX 3D, while 60% of the gross was from 3D screenings. It became the tenth highest-grossing film of 2011 in the United States and Canada, and the highest-grossing comic-book film from May–August 2011.


title: Thor (film)

text: "Thor"s opening in Australia generated $5.8 million and placing second behind Universal Pictures' "Fast Five". The film's box office was just 1% more than "Iron Man" opening in Australia in 2008, Marvel's most popular release at the time. The following week, "Thor" opened in 56 markets and took in $89.2 million through the weekend. The film's highest grossing markets were the United Kingdom ($22.5 million), Australia ($20.1 million) and Mexico ($19.5 million).


title: Thor (film)

text: The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of , with an average score of , based on reviews. The website's consensus reads, "A dazzling blockbuster that tempers its sweeping scope with wit, humor, and human drama, "Thor" is mighty Marvel entertainment." Metacritic assigned a weighted average score of 57 out of 100, based on 40 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Thor (film)

text: Richard Kuipers of "Variety" stated, ""Thor" delivers the goods so long as butt is being kicked and family conflict is playing out in celestial dimensions, but is less thrilling during the Norse warrior god's rather brief banishment on Earth". Megan Lehmann of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote, "The hammer-hurling god of thunder kicks off this superhero summer with a bang". In the "Chicago Sun-Times", Richard Roeper liked the film "Thanks in large part to a charming, funny and winning performance from Australian actor Chris Hemsworth in the title role, "Thor" is the most entertaining superhero debut since the original "Spider-Man"".


title: Thor (film)

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave it a negative review stating, ""Thor" is a failure as a movie, but a success as marketing, an illustration of the ancient carnival tactic of telling the rubes anything to get them into the tent". A.O. Scott of "The New York Times" disliked the film, calling it "an example of the programmed triumph of commercial calculation over imagination". Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" had mixed feelings, describing the film as "an aesthetic stand-off between predictable elements and unexpected ones". Turan praised the performances of Hemsworth, Hopkins, and Elba, but found the special effects inconsistent and the Earth storyline derivative.


title: Thor (film)

text: A sequel, "Thor: The Dark World", directed by Alan Taylor, was released on November 8, 2013. Hemsworth, Hiddleston, and Portman reprised their roles, along with others from the first film. Zachary Levi replaced Dallas as Fandral, while Christopher Eccleston joined the cast as the Dark Elf Malekith.


title: Thor (film)

text: "Thor: Ragnarok" was released on November 3, 2017, directed by Taika Waititi. Eric Pearson and Craig Kyle & Christopher Yost wrote the screenplay, with Kevin Feige again producing. Hemsworth, Hiddleston, Hopkins, Elba, Asano, Levi, and Stevenson reprised their roles as Thor, Loki, Odin, Heimdall, Hogun, Fandral, and Volstagg, respectively, while Mark Ruffalo and Benedict Cumberbatch appeared as Bruce Banner / Hulk and Stephen Strange respectively, reprising their roles from previous MCU films. Cate Blanchett, Tessa Thompson, Jeff Goldblum and Karl Urban joined the cast as Hela, Valkyrie, Grandmaster, and Skurge, respectively.


title: Thor (film)

text: A fourth film titled "Thor: Love and Thunder" was released on July 8, 2022. Hemsworth, Thompson, and Elba reprised their roles, with Portman, Alexander, Dennings, and Skarsgård returning after not appearing in "Ragnarok". Portman portrayed her character taking on the mantle of Thor, similar to the comics. Additionally, Chris Pratt, Pom Klementieff, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, and Sean Gunn reprise their roles as Guardians of the Galaxy members Peter Quill / Star-Lord, Mantis, Drax the Destroyer, Nebula, Groot, Rocket, and Kraglin Obfonteri. Christian Bale joined the cast as the villain Gorr the God Butcher.


title: Manhattan

text: Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state of New York. Located near the southern tip of New York State, Manhattan is based in the Eastern Time Zone and constitutes both the geographical and demographic center of the Northeast megalopolis and the urban core of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass. Over 58 million people live within 250 miles of Manhattan, which serves as New York City’s economic and administrative center, cultural identifier, and the city’s historical birthplace. Manhattan has been described as the cultural, financial, media, and entertainment capital of the world, is considered a safe haven for global real estate investors, and hosts the United Nations headquarters. New York City is the headquarters of the global art market, centered in Manhattan.


title: Manhattan

text: Situated on one of the world's largest natural harbors, the borough consists mostly of Manhattan Island, bounded by the Hudson, East, and Harlem rivers along with several small adjacent islands, including Roosevelt, U Thant, and Randalls and Wards Islands. Manhattan additionally contains the small neighborhood of Marble Hill on the U.S. mainland, which is separated from Manhattan Island by the Harlem Ship Canal and was later connected using landfill to the Bronx. Manhattan Island is divided into three informally bounded components, each cutting across the borough's long axis: Lower, Midtown, and Upper Manhattan.


title: Manhattan

text: Anchored by Wall Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City has been called both the most economically powerful city and the leading financial center of the world, and Manhattan is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization, the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. Many multinational media conglomerates are based in Manhattan, and the borough has been the for numerous books, films, and television shows. Manhattan real estate is among the most expensive in the world, with the value of Manhattan Island, including real estate, estimated to exceed US$3 trillion in 2013; median residential property sale prices in Manhattan approximated US as of 2018, with Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan commanding the highest retail rents in the world, at US per year in 2017. In 2022, the average monthly apartment rent in Manhattan climbed over US$5,000.00 for the first time.


title: Manhattan

text: The area of Manhattan was originally part of Lenape territory. European settlement began with the establishment of a trading post founded by colonists from the Dutch Republic in 1624 on Lower Manhattan; the post was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The territory and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York. New York, based in present-day Manhattan, served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. The Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor greeted millions of immigrants as they came to America by ship in the late 19th century and is a world symbol of the United States and its ideals of liberty and peace. Manhattan became a borough during the consolidation of New York City in 1898.


title: Manhattan

text: New York County is the smallest county by land area in the contiguous United States, as well as the most densely populated U.S. county. Manhattan is one of the most densely populated locations in the world, with a 2020 census population of 1,694,251 living in a land area of , or 72,918 residents per square mile (28,154/km), higher than the density of any individual U.S. city. On business days, the influx of commuters increases this number to over 3.9 million, or more than 170,000 people per square mile (65,600/km). Manhattan has the third-largest population of New York City's five boroughs, after Brooklyn and Queens, and is the smallest borough in terms of land area. If each borough were ranked as a city, Manhattan would rank as the sixth-most populous in the U.S.


title: Manhattan

text: Many districts and landmarks in Manhattan are well known, as New York City received a record 62.8 million tourists in 2017, and Manhattan hosts three of the world's 10 most-visited tourist attractions in 2013: Times Square, Central Park, and Grand Central Terminal. The Empire State Building has become the global standard of reference to describe the height and length of other structures. Penn Station in Midtown Manhattan is the busiest transportation hub in the Western Hemisphere. The borough hosts many prominent bridges, including the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg, Queensboro, Triborough, and George Washington Bridges; tunnels such as the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels; skyscrapers including the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, and One World Trade Center; and parks, such as Central Park. Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, and Koreatown is replete with 24/7 karaoke bars. The Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, part of the Stonewall National Monument, is considered the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement. The City of New York was founded at the southern tip of Manhattan, and the borough houses New York City Hall, the seat of the city's government. Numerous colleges and universities are located in Manhattan, including Columbia University, New York University, Cornell Tech, Weill Cornell Medical College, and Rockefeller University, which have been ranked among the top 40 in the world. Governors Island in New York Harbor is planned to host a US$1 billion research and education center poised to make New York City the global leader in addressing the climate crisis.


title: Manhattan

text: The name "Manhattan" derives from the Munsee Lenape language term "manaháhtaan" (where "manah-" means "gather", "-aht-" means "bow", and "-aan" is an abstract element used to form verb stems). The Lenape word has been translated as "the place where we get bows" or "place for gathering the (wood to make) bows".


title: Manhattan

text: According to a Munsee tradition recorded by Albert Seqaqkind Anthony in the 19th century, the island was named so for a grove of hickory trees at its southern end that was considered ideal for the making of bows. It was first recorded in writing as "Manna-hata", in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, an officer on Henry Hudson's yacht "Halve Maen" ("Half Moon").


title: Manhattan

text: A 1610 map depicts the name Manna-hata twice, on both the east and west sides of the "Mauritius River", later named the North River and ultimately the Hudson River. Alternative etymologies in folklore include "island of many hills", "the island where we all became intoxicated" and simply "island", as well as a phrase descriptive of the whirlpool at Hell Gate. It is thought that the term "Manhattoe" may originally have referred only to a location at the southern tip of the island before eventually signifying the entire island to the Dutch through "pars pro toto".


title: Manhattan

text: Manhattan was historically part of the Lenapehoking territory inhabited by the Munsee Lenape and Wappinger tribes. There were several Lenape settlements in the area of Manhattan including Sapohanikan, Nechtanc, and Konaande Kongh that were interconnected by a series of trails. The primary trail on the island ran from what is now Inwood in the north to Battery Park in the south. There were various sites for fishing and planting established by the Lenape throughout Manhattan. The Collect Pond was also an important meeting and trading location for the people in the area, which fed the fresh water streams and marshes of the island.


title: Manhattan

text: In 1524, Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano – sailing in service of King Francis I of France – became the first documented European to visit the area that would become New York City. Verrazzano entered the tidal strait now known as The Narrows and named the land around Upper New York Harbor "New Angoulême", in reference to the family name of King Francis I that was derived from Angoulême in France; he sailed far enough into the harbor to sight the Hudson River, which he referred to in his report to the French king as a "very big river"; and he named the "Bay of Santa Margarita" – what is now Upper New York Bay – after Marguerite de Navarre, the elder sister of the king.


title: Manhattan

text: It was not until the voyage of Henry Hudson, an Englishman who worked for the Dutch East India Company, that the area was mapped. Hudson came across Manhattan Island and the native people living there in 1609, and continued up the river that would later bear his name, the Hudson River, until he arrived at the site of present-day Albany.


title: Manhattan

text: A permanent European presence in New Netherland began in 1624, with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island. In 1625, construction was started on the citadel of Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, later called New Amsterdam ("Nieuw Amsterdam"), in what is now Lower Manhattan. The 1625 establishment of Fort Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan Island is recognized as the birth of New York City.


title: Manhattan

text: According to a letter by Pieter Janszoon Schagen, Peter Minuit and Walloon colonists of the West India Company acquired the island of Manhattan on May 24, 1626, from unnamed native people, who are believed to have been Canarsee Indians of the Manhattoe, in exchange for traded goods worth 60 guilders, often said to be worth US$24. The figure of 60 guilders comes from a letter by a representative of the Dutch Estates General and member of the board of the Dutch West India Company, Pieter Janszoon Schagen, to the Estates General in November 1626. In 1846, New York historian John Romeyn Brodhead converted the figure of Fl 60 (or 60 guilders) to US$24 (he arrived at $24 = Fl 60/2.5, because the US dollar was erroneously equated with the Dutch rijksdaalder having a standard value of 2.5 guilders). "[A] variable-rate myth being a contradiction in terms, the purchase price remains forever frozen at twenty-four dollars," as authors Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace remarked in their history of New York. Sixty guilders in 1626 was valued at approximately $1,000 in 2006 and $963 in 2020, according to the Institute for Social History of Amsterdam. Based on the price of silver, "The Straight Dope" newspaper column calculated an equivalent of $72 in 1992. Historians James and Michelle Nevius revisited the issue in 2014, suggesting that using the prices of beer and brandy as monetary equivalencies, the price Minuit paid would have the purchasing power of somewhere between $2,600 and $15,600 in current dollars. According to the writer Nathaniel Benchley, Minuit conducted the transaction with Seyseys, chief of the Canarsee, who were willing to accept valuable merchandise in exchange for the island that was mostly controlled by the Weckquaesgeeks, a band of the Wappinger.


title: Manhattan

text: In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed as the last Dutch Director-General of the colony. New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on February 2, 1653. In 1674, the English bought New Netherland, after Holland lost rentable sugar business in Brazil, and renamed it "New York" after the English Duke of York and Albany, the future King James II. The Dutch, under Director General Stuyvesant, successfully negotiated with the English to produce 24 articles of provisional transfer, which sought to retain for the extant citizens of New Netherland their previously attained liberties (including freedom of religion) under their new English rulers.


title: Manhattan

text: The Dutch Republic re-captured the city in August 1673, renaming it "New Orange". New Netherland was ultimately ceded to the English in November 1674 through the Treaty of Westminster.


title: Manhattan

text: Manhattan was at the heart of the New York Campaign, a series of major battles in the early stages of the American Revolutionary War. The Continental Army was forced to abandon Manhattan after the Battle of Fort Washington on November 16, 1776. The city, greatly damaged by the Great Fire of New York during the campaign, became the British military and political center of operations in North America for the remainder of the war. The military center for the colonists was established in neighboring New Jersey. British occupation lasted until November 25, 1783, when George Washington returned to Manhattan, as the last British forces left the city.


title: Manhattan

text: From January 11, 1785, to the fall of 1788, New York City was the fifth of five capitals of the United States under the Articles of Confederation, with the Continental Congress meeting at New York City Hall (then at Fraunces Tavern). New York was the first capital under the newly enacted Constitution of the United States, from March 4, 1789, to August 12, 1790, at Federal Hall. Federal Hall was also the site where the United States Supreme Court met for the first time, the United States Bill of Rights were drafted and ratified, and where the Northwest Ordinance was adopted, establishing measures for adding new states to the Union.


title: Manhattan

text: New York grew as an economic center, first as a result of Alexander Hamilton's policies and practices as the first Secretary of the Treasury and, later, with the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, which connected the Atlantic port to the vast agricultural markets of the Midwestern United States and Canada. By 1810, New York City, then confined to Manhattan, had surpassed Philadelphia as the largest city in the United States. The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 laid out the island of Manhattan in its familiar grid plan.


title: Manhattan

text: Tammany Hall, a Democratic Party political machine, began to grow in influence with the support of many of the immigrant Irish, culminating in the election of the first Tammany mayor, Fernando Wood, in 1854. Tammany Hall dominated local politics for decades. Central Park, which opened to the public in 1858, became the first landscaped public park in an American city.


title: Manhattan

text: New York City played a complex role in the American Civil War. The city's strong commercial ties to the southern United States existed for many reasons, including the industrial power of the Hudson River, which allowed trade with stops such as the West Point Foundry, one of the great manufacturing operations in the early United States; and the city's Atlantic Ocean ports, rendering New York City the American powerhouse in terms of industrial trade between the northern and southern United States. Anger arose about conscription, with resentment at those who could afford to pay $300 to avoid service leading to resentment against Lincoln's war policies and fomenting paranoia about free Blacks taking the poor immigrants' jobs, culminating in the three-day-long New York Draft Riots of July 1863. These intense war-time riots are counted among the worst incidents of civil disorder in American history, with an estimated 119 participants and passersby massacred.


title: Manhattan

text: The rate of immigration from Europe grew steeply after the Civil War, and Manhattan became the first stop for millions seeking a new life in the United States, a role acknowledged by the dedication of the Statue of Liberty on October 28, 1886, a gift from the people of France. New York's growing immigrant population, which had earlier consisted mainly of German and Irish immigrants, began in the late 1800s to include waves of impoverished Italians and Central and Eastern European Jews flowing in en masse. This new European immigration brought further social upheaval. In a city of tenements packed with poorly paid laborers from dozens of nations, the city became a hotbed of revolution (including anarchists and communists among others), syndicalism, racketeering, and unionization.


title: Manhattan

text: In 1883, the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge established a road connection to Brooklyn, across the East River. In 1874, the western portion of the present Bronx County was transferred to New York County from Westchester County, and in 1895 the remainder of the present Bronx County was annexed. In 1898, when New York City consolidated with three neighboring counties to form "the City of Greater New York", Manhattan and the Bronx, though still one county, were established as two separate boroughs. On January 1, 1914, the New York State Legislature created Bronx County and New York County was reduced to its present boundaries.


title: Manhattan

text: The construction of the New York City Subway, which opened in 1904, helped bind the new city together, as did additional bridges to Brooklyn. In the 1920s Manhattan experienced large arrivals of African-Americans as part of the Great Migration from the southern United States, and the Harlem Renaissance, part of a larger boom time in the Prohibition era that included new skyscrapers competing for the skyline. New York City became the most populous city in the world in 1925, overtaking London, which had reigned for a century. Manhattan's majority white ethnic group declined from 98.7% in 1900 to 58.3% by 1990.


title: Manhattan

text: On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in Greenwich Village killed 146 garment workers. The disaster eventually led to overhauls of the city's fire department, building codes, and workplace regulations.


title: Manhattan

text: The period between the World Wars saw the election of reformist mayor Fiorello La Guardia and the fall of Tammany Hall after 80 years of political dominance. As the city's demographics stabilized, labor unionization brought new protections and affluence to the working class, the city's government and infrastructure underwent a dramatic overhaul under La Guardia. Despite the Great Depression, some of the world's tallest skyscrapers were completed in Manhattan during the 1930s, including numerous Art Deco masterpieces that are still part of the city's skyline, most notably the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, and the 30 Rockefeller Plaza.


title: Manhattan

text: Returning World War II veterans created a postwar economic boom, which led to the development of huge housing developments targeted at returning veterans, the largest being Peter Cooper Village-Stuyvesant Town, which opened in 1947. In 1951–1952, the United Nations relocated to a new headquarters the East Side of Manhattan.


title: Manhattan

text: The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent protests by members of the gay community against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. They are widely considered to constitute the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights.


title: Manhattan

text: In the 1970s, job losses due to industrial restructuring caused New York City, including Manhattan, to suffer from economic problems and rising crime rates. While a resurgence in the financial industry greatly improved the city's economic health in the 1980s, New York's crime rate continued to increase through the decade and into the beginning of the 1990s.


title: Manhattan

text: The 1980s saw a rebirth of Wall Street, and Manhattan reclaimed its role at the center of the worldwide financial industry. The 1980s also saw Manhattan at the heart of the AIDS crisis, with Greenwich Village at its epicenter. The organizations Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) and AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) were founded to advocate on behalf of those stricken with the disease.


title: Manhattan

text: By the 1990s, crime rates started to drop dramatically due to revised police strategies, improving economic opportunities, gentrification, and new residents, both American transplants and new immigrants from Asia and Latin America. Murder rates that had reached 2,245 in 1990 plummeted to 537 by 2008, and the crack epidemic and its associated drug-related violence came under greater control. The outflow of population turned around, as the city once again became the destination of immigrants from around the world, joining with low interest rates and Wall Street bonuses to fuel the growth of the real estate market. Important new sectors, such as Silicon Alley, emerged in Manhattan's economy.


title: Manhattan

text: On September 11, 2001, two of four hijacked planes were flown into the Twin Towers of the original World Trade Center, and the towers subsequently collapsed. 7 World Trade Center collapsed due to fires and structural damage caused by heavy debris falling from the collapse of the Twin Towers. The other buildings within the World Trade Center complex were damaged beyond repair and soon after demolished. The collapse of the Twin Towers caused extensive damage to other surrounding buildings and skyscrapers in Lower Manhattan, and resulted in the deaths of 2,606 people, in addition to those on the planes. Many rescue workers and residents of the area developed several life-threatening illnesses that have led to some of their subsequent deaths.


title: Manhattan

text: Since 2001, most of Lower Manhattan has been restored, although there has been controversy surrounding the rebuilding. A memorial at the site was opened to the public on September 11, 2011, and the museum opened in 2014. In 2014, the new One World Trade Center, at and formerly known as the Freedom Tower, became the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, while other skyscrapers were under construction at the site.


title: Manhattan

text: The Occupy Wall Street protests in Zuccotti Park in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan began on September 17, 2011, receiving global attention and spawning the Occupy movement against social and economic inequality worldwide.


title: Manhattan

text: On October 29 and 30, 2012, Hurricane Sandy caused extensive destruction in the borough, ravaging portions of Lower Manhattan with record-high storm surge from New York Harbor, severe flooding, and high winds, causing power outages for hundreds of thousands of city residents and leading to gasoline shortages and disruption of mass transit systems. The storm and its profound impacts have prompted the discussion of constructing seawalls and other coastal barriers around the shorelines of the borough and the metropolitan area to minimize the risk of destructive consequences from another such event in the future. Around 15 percent of the borough is considered to be in flood-risk zones.


title: Manhattan

text: On October 31, 2017, a terrorist took a rental pickup truck and deliberately drove down a bike path alongside the West Side Highway in Lower Manhattan, killing eight people and injuring a dozen others before crashing into a school bus.


title: Manhattan

text: The borough consists of Manhattan Island, Marble Hill, and several small islands, including Randalls Island and Wards Island, and Roosevelt Island in the East River, and Governors Island and Liberty Island to the south in New York Harbor.


title: Manhattan

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, New York County has a total area of , of which is land and (32%) is water. The northern segment of Upper Manhattan represents a geographic panhandle. Manhattan Island is in area, long and wide, at its widest (near 14th Street). Icebergs are often compared in size to the area of Manhattan.


title: Manhattan

text: Manhattan Island is loosely divided into Downtown (Lower Manhattan), Midtown (Midtown Manhattan), and Uptown (Upper Manhattan), with Fifth Avenue dividing Manhattan lengthwise into its East Side and West Side. Manhattan Island is bounded by the Hudson River to the west and the East River to the east. To the north, the Harlem River divides Manhattan Island from the Bronx and the mainland United States.


title: Manhattan

text: Early in the 19th century, landfill was used to expand Lower Manhattan from the natural Hudson shoreline at Greenwich Street to West Street. When building the World Trade Center in 1968, 1.2 million cubic yards (917,000 m) of material was excavated from the site. Rather than dumping the spoil at sea or in landfills, the fill material was used to expand the Manhattan shoreline across West Street, creating Battery Park City. The result was a 700-foot (210-m) extension into the river, running six blocks or , covering , providing a riverfront esplanade and over of parks; Hudson River Park was subsequently opened in stages beginning in 1998. Little Island opened on the Hudson River in May 2021, connected to the western termini of 13th and 14th Streets by footbridges.


title: Manhattan

text: One neighborhood of New York County, Marble Hill, is contiguous with the U.S. mainland. Marble Hill at one time was part of Manhattan Island, but the Harlem River Ship Canal, dug in 1895 to improve navigation on the Harlem River, separated it from the remainder of Manhattan as an island between the Bronx and the remainder of Manhattan. Before World War I, the section of the original Harlem River channel separating Marble Hill from the Bronx was filled in, and Marble Hill became part of the mainland.


title: Manhattan

text: Marble Hill is one example of how Manhattan's land has been considerably altered by human intervention. The borough has seen substantial land reclamation along its waterfronts since Dutch colonial times, and much of the natural variation in its topography has been evened out.


title: Manhattan

text: The bedrock underlying much of Manhattan is a mica schist known as "Manhattan schist" of the Manhattan Prong physiographic region. It is a strong, competent metamorphic rock that was created when Pangaea formed. It is well suited for the foundations of tall buildings. In Central Park, outcrops of Manhattan schist occur and Rat Rock is one rather large example.


title: Manhattan

text: Geologically, a predominant feature of the substrata of Manhattan is that the underlying bedrock base of the island rises considerably closer to the surface near Midtown Manhattan, dips down lower between 29th Street and Canal Street, then rises toward the surface again in Lower Manhattan. It has been widely believed that the depth to bedrock was the primary underlying reason for the clustering of skyscrapers in the Midtown and Financial District areas, and their absence over the intervening territory between these two areas. However, research has shown that economic factors played a bigger part in the locations of these skyscrapers.


title: Manhattan

text: According to the United States Geological Survey, an updated analysis of seismic hazard in July 2014 revealed a "slightly lower hazard for tall buildings" in Manhattan than previously assessed. Scientists estimated this lessened risk based upon a lower likelihood than previously thought of slow shaking near New York City, which would be more likely to cause damage to taller structures from an earthquake in the vicinity of the city.


title: Manhattan

text: Manhattan's many neighborhoods are not named according to any particular convention, nor do they have official boundaries. Some are geographical (the Upper East Side), or ethnically descriptive (Little Italy). Others are acronyms, such as TriBeCa (for "TRIangle BElow CAnal Street") or SoHo ("SOuth of HOuston"), or the far more recent vintages NoLIta ("NOrth of Little ITAly"). and NoMad ("NOrth of MADison Square Park"). Harlem is a name from the Dutch colonial era after Haarlem, a city in the Netherlands. Alphabet City comprises Avenues A, B, C, and D, to which its name refers. Some have simple folkloric names, such as Hell's Kitchen, alongside their more official but lesser used title (in this case, Clinton).


title: Manhattan

text: Some neighborhoods, such as SoHo, which is mixed use, are known for upscale shopping as well as residential use. Others, such as Greenwich Village, the Lower East Side, Alphabet City and the East Village, have long been associated with the Bohemian subculture. Chelsea is one of several Manhattan neighborhoods with large gay populations and has become a center of both the international art industry and New York's nightlife. Chinatown has the highest concentration of people of Chinese descent outside of Asia. Koreatown is roughly bounded by 6th and Madison Avenues, between 31st and 33rd Streets, where Hangul signage is ubiquitous. Rose Hill features a growing number of Indian restaurants and spice shops along a stretch of Lexington Avenue between 25th and 30th Streets which has become known as "Curry Hill". Washington Heights in Uptown Manhattan is home to the largest Dominican immigrant community in the United States. Harlem, also in Upper Manhattan, is the historical epicenter of African American culture. Since 2010, a "Little Australia" has emerged and is growing in Nolita, Lower Manhattan.


title: Manhattan

text: In Manhattan, "uptown" means north (more precisely north-northeast, which is the direction the island and its street grid system are oriented) and "downtown" means south (south-southwest). This usage differs from that of most American cities, where "downtown" refers to the central business district. Manhattan has two central business districts, the Financial District at the southern tip of the island, and Midtown Manhattan. The term "uptown" also refers to the northern part of Manhattan above 72nd Street and "downtown" to the southern portion below 14th Street, with "Midtown" covering the area in between, though definitions can be rather fluid depending on the situation.


title: Manhattan

text: Fifth Avenue roughly bisects Manhattan Island and acts as the demarcation line for east/west designations (e.g., East 27th Street, West 42nd Street); street addresses start at Fifth Avenue and increase heading away from Fifth Avenue, at a rate of 100 per block on most streets. South of Waverly Place, Fifth Avenue terminates and Broadway becomes the east/west demarcation line. Although the grid does start with 1st Street, just north of Houston Street (the southernmost street divided in west and east portions; pronounced HOW-stin), the grid does not fully take hold until north of 14th Street, where nearly all east–west streets are numerically identified, which increase from south to north to 220th Street, the highest numbered street on the island. Streets in Midtown are usually one-way, with the few exceptions generally being the busiest cross-town thoroughfares (14th, 23rd, 34th, and 42nd Streets, for example), which are bidirectional across the width of Manhattan Island. The rule of thumb is that odd-numbered streets run west, while even-numbered streets run east.


title: Manhattan

text: Under the Köppen climate classification, using the isotherm, New York City features both a humid subtropical climate (Cfa) and a humid continental climate (Dfa); it is the northernmost major city on the North American continent with a humid subtropical climate.


title: Manhattan

text: The city averages 234 days with at least some sunshine annually. The city lies in the USDA 7b plant hardiness zone.


title: Manhattan

text: Winters are cold and damp, and prevailing wind patterns that blow offshore temper the moderating effects of the Atlantic Ocean; yet the Atlantic and the partial shielding from colder air by the Appalachians keep the city warmer in the winter than inland North American cities at similar or lesser latitudes such as Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis. The daily mean temperature in January, the area's coldest month, is ; temperatures usually drop to several times per winter, and reach several days in the coldest winter month. Spring and autumn are unpredictable and can range from chilly to warm, although they are usually mild with low humidity. Summers are typically warm to hot and humid, with a daily mean temperature of in July. Nighttime conditions are often exacerbated by the urban heat island phenomenon, while daytime temperatures exceed on average of 17 days each summer and in some years exceed . Extreme temperatures have ranged from , recorded on February 9, 1934, up to on July 9, 1936.


title: Manhattan

text: Summer evening temperatures are elevated by the urban heat island effect, which causes heat absorbed during the day to be radiated back at night, raising temperatures by as much as when winds are slow. Manhattan receives of precipitation annually, which is relatively evenly spread throughout the year. Average winter snowfall between 1981 and 2010 has been ; this varies considerably from year to year. Governors Island in New York Harbor is planned to host a US$1 billion research and education center with the intention of making New York City the global leader in addressing the climate crisis.


title: Manhattan

text: In 2020, 1,694,251 people lived in Manhattan. At the 2010 U.S. census, there were 1,585,873 people living in Manhattan, an increase of 3.2% since 2000. Since 2010, Manhattan's population was estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau to have increased 2.7% to 1,628,706 , representing 19.5% of New York City's population of 8,336,817 and 8.4% of New York State's population of 19,745,289.


title: Manhattan

text: As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the population density of New York County was , the highest population density of any county in the United States. In 1910, at the height of European immigration to New York, Manhattan's population density reached a peak of 101,548 people per square mile (39,208/km²).


title: Manhattan

text: Manhattan is one of the highest-income places in the United States with a population greater than one million. , Manhattan's cost of living was the highest in the United States. Manhattan is also the United States county with the highest per capita income, being the sole county whose per capita income exceeded $100,000 in 2010. However, from 2011–2015 Census data of New York County, the per capita income was recorded in 2015 dollars as $64,993, with the median household income at $72,871, and poverty at 17.6%. In 2012, "The New York Times" reported that inequality was higher than in most developing countries, stating, "The wealthiest fifth of Manhattanites made more than 40 times what the lowest fifth reported, a widening gap (it was 38 times, the year before) surpassed by only a few developing countries".


title: Manhattan

text: In 2010 statistics, the largest religious group in Manhattan was the Archdiocese of New York, with 323,325 Catholics worshipping at 109 parishes, followed by 64,000 Orthodox Jews with 77 congregations, an estimated 42,545 Muslims with 21 congregations, 42,502 non-denominational adherents with 54 congregations, 26,178 TEC Episcopalians with 46 congregations, 25,048 ABC-USA Baptists with 41 congregations, 24,536 Reform Jews with 10 congregations, 23,982 Mahayana Buddhists with 35 congregations, 10,503 PC-USA Presbyterians with 30 congregations, and 10,268 RCA Presbyterians with 10 congregations. Altogether, 44.0% of the population was claimed as members by religious congregations, although members of historically African-American denominations were underrepresented due to incomplete information. In 2014, Manhattan had 703 religious organizations, the seventeenth most out of all US counties.


title: Manhattan

text: , 59.98% (902,267) of Manhattan residents, aged five and older, spoke only English at home, while 23.07% (347,033) spoke Spanish, 5.33% (80,240) Chinese, 2.03% (30,567) French, 0.78% (11,776) Japanese, 0.77% (11,517) Russian, 0.72% (10,788) Korean, 0.70% (10,496) German, 0.66% (9,868) Italian, 0.64% (9,555) Hebrew, and 0.48% (7,158) spoke African languages at home. In total, 40.02% (602,058) of Manhattan's population, aged five and older, spoke a language other than English at home.


title: Manhattan

text: As of 2015, 60.0% (927,650) of Manhattan residents, aged five and older, spoke only English at home, while 22.63% (350,112) spoke Spanish, 5.37% (83,013) Chinese, 2.21% (34,246) French, 0.85% (13,138) Korean, 0.72% (11,135) Russian, and 0.70% (10,766) Japanese. In total, 40.0% of Manhattan's population, aged five and older, spoke a language other than English at home.


title: Manhattan

text: Points of interest on Manhattan Island include the American Museum of Natural History; the Battery; Broadway and the Theater District; Bryant Park; Central Park, Chinatown; the Chrysler Building; The Cloisters; Columbia University; Curry Hill; the Empire State Building; Flatiron Building; the Financial District (including the New York Stock Exchange Building; Wall Street; and the South Street Seaport); Grand Central Terminal; Greenwich Village (including New York University; Washington Square Arch; and Stonewall Inn); Harlem and Spanish Harlem; the High Line; Koreatown; Lincoln Center; Little Australia; Little Italy; Madison Square Garden; Museum Mile on Fifth Avenue (including the Metropolitan Museum of Art); Penn Station, Port Authority Bus Terminal; Rockefeller Center (including Radio City Music Hall); Times Square; and the World Trade Center (including the National September 11 Museum and One World Trade Center).


title: Manhattan

text: There are also numerous iconic bridges across rivers that connect to Manhattan Island, as well as an emerging number of supertall skyscrapers. The Statue of Liberty rests on a pedestal on Liberty Island, an exclave of Manhattan, and part of Ellis Island is also an exclave of Manhattan. The borough has many energy-efficient, environmentally friendly office buildings, such as the Hearst Tower, the rebuilt 7 World Trade Center, and the Bank of America Tower—the first skyscraper designed to attain a Platinum LEED Certification.


title: Manhattan

text: The skyscraper, which has shaped Manhattan's distinctive skyline, has been closely associated with New York City's identity since the end of the 19th century. From 1890 to 1973, the title of world's tallest building resided continually in Manhattan (with a gap between 1894 and 1908, when the title was held by Philadelphia City Hall), with eight different buildings holding the title. The New York World Building on Park Row, was the first to take the title in 1890, standing until 1955, when it was demolished to construct a new ramp to the Brooklyn Bridge. The nearby Park Row Building, with its 29 stories standing high, became the world's tallest office building when it opened in 1899. The 41-story Singer Building, constructed in 1908 as the headquarters of the eponymous sewing machine manufacturer, stood high until 1967, when it became the tallest building ever demolished. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower, standing at the foot of Madison Avenue, wrested the title in 1909, with a tower reminiscent of St Mark's Campanile in Venice. The Woolworth Building, and its distinctive Gothic architecture, took the title in 1913, topping off at . Structures such as the Equitable Building of 1915, which rises vertically forty stories from the sidewalk, prompted the passage of the 1916 Zoning Resolution, requiring new buildings to contain setbacks withdrawing progressively at a defined angle from the street as they rose, in order to preserve a view of the sky at street level.


title: Manhattan

text: The Roaring Twenties saw a race to the sky, with three separate buildings pursuing the world's tallest title in the span of a year. As the stock market soared in the days before the Wall Street Crash of 1929, two developers publicly competed for the crown. At , 40 Wall Street, completed in May 1930 in only eleven months as the headquarters of the Bank of Manhattan, seemed to have secured the title. At Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street, auto executive Walter Chrysler and his architect William Van Alen developed plans to build the structure's trademark spire in secret, pushing the Chrysler Building to and making it the tallest in the world when it was completed in 1929. Both buildings were soon surpassed with the May 1931 completion of the 102-story Empire State Building with its Art Deco tower reaching at the top of the building. The high pinnacle was later added bringing the total height of the building to .


title: Manhattan

text: The former Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were located in Lower Manhattan. At , the 110-story buildings were the world's tallest from 1972 until they were surpassed by the construction of the Willis Tower in 1974 (formerly known as the Sears Tower, located in Chicago). One World Trade Center, a replacement for the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, is currently the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.


title: Manhattan

text: In 1961, the Pennsylvania Railroad unveiled plans to tear down the old Penn Station and replace it with a new Madison Square Garden and office building complex. Organized protests were aimed at preserving the McKim, Mead & White-designed structure completed in 1910, widely considered a masterpiece of the Beaux-Arts style and one of the architectural jewels of New York City. Despite these efforts, demolition of the structure began in October 1963. The loss of Penn Station—called "an act of irresponsible public vandalism" by historian Lewis Mumford—led directly to the enactment in 1965 of a local law establishing the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, which is responsible for preserving the "city's historic, aesthetic, and cultural heritage". The historic preservation movement triggered by Penn Station's demise has been credited with the retention of some one million structures nationwide, including over 1,000 in New York City. In 2017, a multibillion-dollar rebuilding plan was unveiled to restore the historic grandeur of Penn Station, in the process of upgrading the landmark's status as a critical transportation hub.


title: Manhattan

text: Parkland composes 17.8% of the borough, covering a total of . The Central Park, the largest park comprising 30% of Manhattan's parkland, is bordered on the north by West 110th Street (Central Park North), on the west by Eighth Avenue (Central Park West), on the south by West 59th Street (Central Park South), and on the east by Fifth Avenue. Central Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, offers extensive walking tracks, two ice-skating rinks, a wildlife sanctuary, and several lawns and sporting areas, as well as 21 playgrounds and a road from which automobile traffic is banned. While much of the park looks natural, it is almost entirely landscaped, and the construction of Central Park in the 1850s was one of the era's most massive public works projects, with some 20,000 workers crafting the topography to create the English-style pastoral landscape Olmsted and Vaux sought to create.


title: Manhattan

text: The remaining 70% of Manhattan's parkland includes 204 playgrounds, 251 Greenstreets, 371 basketball courts, and many other amenities. The next-largest park in Manhattan is the Hudson River Park, stretches on the Hudson River and comprises . Other major parks include:


title: Manhattan

text: Manhattan is the economic engine of New York City, with its 2.3 million workers in 2007 drawn from the entire New York metropolitan area accounting for almost two-thirds of all jobs in New York City. In the first quarter of 2014, the average weekly wage in Manhattan (New York County) was $2,749, representing the highest total among large counties in the United States. Manhattan's workforce is overwhelmingly focused on white collar professions, with manufacturing nearly extinct. Manhattan also has the highest per capita income of any county in the United States.


title: Manhattan

text: In 2010, Manhattan's daytime population was swelling to 3.94 million, with commuters adding a net 1.48 million people to the population, along with visitors, tourists, and commuting students. The commuter influx of 1.61 million workers coming into Manhattan was the largest of any county or city in the country, and was more than triple the 480,000 commuters who headed into second-ranked Washington, D.C.


title: Manhattan

text: Manhattan's most important economic sector lies in its role as the headquarters for the U.S. financial industry, metonymously known as Wall Street. Lower Manhattan is home to the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), at 11 Wall Street, and the Nasdaq, at 165 Broadway, representing the world's largest and second largest stock exchanges, respectively, when measured both by overall share trading value and by total market capitalization of their listed companies in 2013. The NYSE American (formerly the American Stock Exchange, AMEX), New York Board of Trade, and the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) are also located downtown. Financial technology ("fintech") and cryptocurrency have emerged as more recent constituents of the financial sector as well as the tech sector.


title: Manhattan

text: New York City is home to the most corporate headquarters of any city in the United States, the overwhelming majority based in Manhattan. Manhattan contained over 500 million square feet (46.5 million m) of office space in 2018, making it the largest office market in the United States, while Midtown Manhattan, with 400 million square feet (37.2 million m) in 2018, is the largest central business district in the world. New York City's role as the top global center for the advertising industry is metonymously reflected as "Madison Avenue".


title: Manhattan

text: Silicon Alley, centered in Manhattan, has evolved into a metonym for the sphere encompassing the New York City metropolitan region's high tech industries, including the Internet, new media, telecommunications, digital media, software development, biotechnology, game design, financial technology ("fintech") and cryptocurrency blockchain technology, and other fields within information technology that are supported by the area's entrepreneurship ecosystem and venture capital investments. , New York City hosted 300,000 employees in the tech sector. 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 Manhattan and across New York City, 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. As of October 2014, New York City hosted 300,000 employees in the tech sector, with a significant proportion in Manhattan. The technology sector has been expanding across Manhattan since 2010.


title: Manhattan

text: The biotechnology sector is also growing in Manhattan based upon the city's strength in academic scientific research and public and commercial financial support. 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. In 2011, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had announced his choice of Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to build a US$2 billion graduate school of applied sciences on Roosevelt Island, Manhattan, with the goal of transforming New York City into the world's premier technology capital.


title: Manhattan

text: Tourism is vital to Manhattan's economy, and the landmarks of Manhattan are the focus of New York City's tourists, enumerating an eighth consecutive annual record of approximately 62.8 million visitors in 2017. According to The Broadway League, for the 2018–2019 season (which ended May 26, 2019) total attendance was 14,768,254 and Broadway shows had US$1,829,312,140 in grosses, with attendance up 9.5%, grosses up 10.3%, and playing weeks up 9.3%.


title: Manhattan

text: Real estate is a major force in Manhattan's economy. Manhattan has perennially been home to some of the nation's, as well as the world's, most valuable real estate, including the Time Warner Center, which had the highest-listed market value in the city in 2006 at US$1.1 billion, to be subsequently surpassed in October 2014 by the Waldorf Astoria New York, which became the most expensive hotel ever sold after being purchased by the Anbang Insurance Group, based in China, for . When 450 Park Avenue was sold on July 2, 2007, for US$510 million, about US$1,589 per square foot (US$17,104/m²), it broke the barely month-old record for an American office building of US$1,476 per square foot (US$15,887/m²) based on the sale of 660 Madison Avenue. In 2014, Manhattan was home to six of the top ten zip codes in the United States by median housing price. In 2019, the most expensive home sale ever in the United States occurred in Manhattan, at a selling price of US$238 million, for a penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park, while Central Park Tower, topped out at in 2019, is the world's tallest residential building, followed globally in height by 111 West 57th Street and 432 Park Avenue, both also located in Midtown Manhattan.