POPULATION. Greater New York has about twice the population of any other American city, and is exceeded only by London among the cities of the world. This has come about almost wholly in the nineteenth eentnry. during which time the city grew at a rate never equaled. In the colonial period New York ranked below lloAton and Philadelphia. In 1790 there was a.
population of 33,1:31; in 1500, 60.515; 1810, 96.373; 15211, 123.706; 1830, 2o2.589; 1840, 312, 710; 1850. 515.477; 1860, 805,658; 1870, 942, 1880, 1.206.299: 1590, 1,515.301; and in 1900 (after the creation of a Greater New York), :3,437.202, including 1,850,093 in the Borough of 200,507 in the Borough of the Bronx. 1.166.582 in the Borough of Brooklyn, 152,999 in the Borough of Queens, and 67,021 in the Bor ough of Richmond. The suburbs on the New Jersey shore of the Hudson (Jersey City, Ho boken. etc.) contain about 300.000 inhabitants. Beyond these immediate suburbs we conic to a section of New Jersey embracing, Elizabeth, the Granges. :Montclair. Alorristown. Plainfield. and many other places are Mainly suburbs of Nev York. in addition to the two great manu facturing centres of Newark and Paterson, also the homes of great number, of New York business men. These places ha VC' a total_ population of about half a million. Gn the northeast the cluster of towns largely inhabited by persons doing business in New York extends beyond the boundary line of Connecticut. Among these may be mentioned New Rochelle. Rye, Portehester. Greenwich, and Stamford. The total population embraced within a radius of 25 miles from the New York City Hall is not far from live millions. As the city grew, the population of New York naturally tended to centre about the lower end of :Manhattan, the business district. Ineonveniences. too, incident to transportation across the river have aided in confining the population with in the narrow limits of Manhattan Island, where the density of population is greater than in any other city whatsoever. The dis tribution of the population in Brooklyn is more normal. In 1900, 66.70 per cent. of the population of 'Manhattan and the Bronx Iked in dwellings containing twenty-one or more persons, while in Brooklyn the corresponding percentage was only 25.711 per cent. In Chi cago it was 16.63. Tice density per acre in the Borough of Alanhattan was 129.2. The region of greatest density is the lower East Side, where in the Eighth Assembly District. covering 95 acres of area. there was in 1900 a population of 735.9 to the acrd. In the densely populated section, tenement houses having an average height of live six stories, inadequately lighted and ventilated. and otherwise lacking in sanitary facilities. are the rule. Several large model tenement houses have recently been built. nota
bly those of the City and Suburban !tomes Company. The lionising problem. therefore, is one of the most difficult with which the city has to deal, and presents phases almost unknown in other centres of population. A radical tene ment house law, ywb7etn went into effect in 1902, is etfeeting a great improvement. The problem of congestion is closely related to that arising from the presence in the city of large classes of mostly poor foreigners. Thv various foreign elements told to form distinet colonies. In the Eighth District, above mentioned, 67.2 per cent. of the population in 1900 were foreign born. and the greater part of the remainder were children of foreign.born parents. In 1900 the foreign born numbered 1.270,050, or 37 per cent. of the total population of the city. In Manhattan alone. 41.5 per cent_ of the total population was ft reign born. New York hes been always a striking].) cosmopolitan city. During the middle of the nineteenth century there was a very heavy German and Irish immigration to the city, but before the end of the century the immigration of these nationalities had greatly declined, and there had begun a heavy immigration from the south and east of Europe. According to the census of 1900, the principal foreign countries represented in the immigration to New York City in order of prominence were Germany, Ireland, Italy, IIussia, Boheinia, Hungary and Austria, Poland, England. Scotland, and Wales. Few of the many Scandinavian immigrants to the United States have settled in New 'Cork. The large immigration from Austria-lhingary. Russia. and Poland consists almost wholly or Jews. Nearly one-fourth of the population of Manhattan are Jews. A large proportion of New York im migrants represent a class of unskilled laborers. The German immigrants, however, have always contained a large class of skilled artisans. who have participated in the more advanced industrial life of the city. and have contributed greatly to its social and artistic life. A much larger percentage of the Irish have been unskilled laborers. The Italian, have come mainly from the poorer districts of southern Italy, and al most all are laborer-. Alost of the coarser labor of the metropolis is done by them. The Jewish immigrants, like the Italians, are extremely poor and mostly unskilled. The majority are employed in the manufacture of clothing; many, however, are small merchant, Both of these elements keep to themselves. It is in the parts of the city occupied by them that the density of population is greatest. The negro population in 1900 numbered 60,666, of whom nearly two thirds were horn outside of New York State. )_)f the total population of the city, 1,705.705 were males and 1,731.497 females.