Most of the people who live in this cluster of cities, and many others besides, go each day to work in Manhattan. Every means of transportation is taxed by big crowds. Long trains of cars roar through the New York sub ways every two minutes during the morning and afternoon hours when travel is greatest. Every seat of the long train is filled, and people stand packed in the aisles. Some times the guards crowd the people into the cars until the doors can scarcely be shut.
(2) A great port.—First, we need to con sider the water front, of which Manhattan Island and Brooklyn have many miles.
Wharves and docks line much of this water front; this makes a very fine place for ships to come. Just as the people of Brook lyn, the Bronx, and the neighboring cities and suburbs rush to Manhattan Island every day, so the ships from almost every land steam past Sandy Hook lighthouse and into the splendid harbor. Here the ocean steamer meets coastwise vessel, river boat, barge, freight car, express car, truck, and wagon.
Is it any wonder that on the wharves and docks and in the warehouses of the city you will find assembled great stores of wheat, meat, corn, flour, and other com modities brought there from the rich interior of our continent? The goods came by many railroads and by way of the Great Lakes, the Hudson River, and the Barge Canal. The Mohawk River cuts through the wall of the highlands to the northwest of New York, and furnishes an open highway for trade by boat and by rail. This water route from the interior to New York City can carry freight more cheaply than the railroads can. By water and by rail great masses of goods arrive at the port of New York for export.
Ships from everywhere arrive at the docks to take goods away, and these ships bring with them the things that we import. Be cause shiploads of cloth, machinery, and the fine manufactures of Europe arrive in New York, it is the right place at which to build wholesale stores, where goods such as these can be bought and sold.
(3) A great manufacturing makes manufacture. Since New York be came the greatest wholesale market in the country, it was naturally a good place for manufacturers to sell goods. This fact encouraged men to build factories there.
The ships, railroads, and canals made it easy for manufacturers to get raw materials and for workers to get food. Thus New York has become the greatest manufacturing city in North America.
It is easy, too, to get coal for manufac turing, because the Pennsylvania coal fields are so near. Other advantages of location are healthful climate and near-by recrea tion, which help to keep people strong and vigorous. New York City is so close to the sea that it is cooler than many places farther inland. Seashore resorts on Long Island are within the city limits. People can go to Coney Island (Fig. 278) and to other shore places on trolley cars. Bathing beaches in New Jersey are also near by. Beautiful spots in the Adirondack and Appalachian plateaus and the many resorts of New Eng land attract people for vacation trips.
341. Industries.—The chief industry of the City of New York is the clothing industry. The method of making a suit of clothes has been greatly changed since the time when a tailor made the whole suit. Now the work is so divided that forty people may do some thing to a suit before it is finished. A single worker runs an electric cutter that may cut out a hundred suits at once; another worker makes a part of a sleeve; another finishes the sleeve; another makes buttonholes; another sews on buttons; another finishes the collar. Thousands and tens of thousands of men and women are busy in New York City clothing factories, some of which are on upper floors on famous Broadway itself.
So many magazines, newspapers, and books are published in New York that the city is one of the greatest publishing centers in this country. So varied are the manufactures near New York, ranging from lead-pencils to steamships, that it would be hard to name something that is not manufactured near the mouth of the Hudson. All these indus tries help to make New York the huge city it is.
342. Skyscrapers.—To accommodate the great masses of workers, office buildings are often built to a height of twenty or thirty stories. The Woolworth Building has fifty-one floors of offices. It is so high that passengers must use two elevators to reach the top, changing cars at the fortieth floor.