New York

The Pentagon

The National Gallery of Art

The National Gallery of Art houses one of the great art collections of the world. The pink Tennessee marble building was dedicated and opened to the public in 1941.

It measures 785 feet in length and has more than half a million feet of floor space.

The Rotunda with its interior walls of dark green marble imported from Italy and two garden courts are important features of the building.

Paintings, sculptures, tapestries and many other objects by the great masters from 14th to 19th centuries are exhibited in the Flemish, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, British and American galleries.

The Pentagon is a building where the headquarters of the Department of Defense, the Army, the Navy and the Air Force are located. It is the military centre of the USA.

The Pentagon was built between 1941-1943. It is a huge five-sided building and five-storeys high. It is the largest office building in the world. The Pentagon has more than 17 miles of corridors and a lot of people work here.

Inside the Pentagon yard there is a subway station and two helicopter pads.

New York is the largest city and port of the United States. Officially it is the city of New York, and popularly it is called New York City.

The City of New York is situated at the mouth of the Hudson River, sometimes called the North River. The five boroughs comprising the city are: Manhattan, on the Manhattan Island between the Hudson and East Rivers; the Bronx, on the southernmost part of the mainland; Queens and Brooklyn, on Long Island, separated from Manhattan by East River; and Richmond on Staten Island in New York Bay.

In 1607, the English navigator Captain Henry Hudson left Europe to search for the famous Northwest Passage. He didn’t find it - for the reason that it didn’t exist, but he reached a river to which he gave his name. Henry Hudson found Manhattan on September 11, 1609. Interested by the stories told then by the captain on his return, the Dutch sent other boats to take pos-session of the land discovered by Hudson, Manhattan Island. The first houses were built in lower Manhattan in 1613. On May 6, 1626, Peter Minuit, director general of New Netherlands, as the Dutch called the colony, paid the Indians 60 guilders for Manhattan, commonly translated as $24, actually $39. When the settlement had around 200 people, it was named New Amsterdam. In 1653 they erected a wall to protect their settlement from which Wall Street takes its name.

On September 8, 1664, British troops occupied New Amsterdam without resistance, overthrew the Dutch government, and called the place New York. Seven years later, the Dutch recaptured the city and called it New Orange, but in 1674 the city was in the hands of the British again who returned the name New York.

At the beginning of the 19th century Manhattan was mostly swamp - so unhealthy that there was an epidemic of yellow fever. While the fine residential streets of London and the grand Boulevards of Paris were being built, chickens were scratching around the muddy streets of New York. Rickety shacks housed people - and pigs. It wasn't until 1867 that a municipal decree was passed, forbidding people to let their pigs run freely through the streets. Although rich shipowners and financiers were building luxurious hotels and mansions, the newly arrived immigrants lived in disgusting slums. Buildings were divided and subdivided to accommodate as many people as possible. People lived in tenements, which were nothing more than rows of dark cages: no lighting, no running water or windows. Fires and desease were a part of normal life.

The City of New York has always been the center of political events. It witnessed the American Revolution; the Declaration of Independence was read to the American troops here on July 9, 1776, in the presence of George Washington. It was here on April 30, 1789, that Washington took the oath of office on the balcony of Federal Hall.

In 1875 the population of New York was one million. Twenty-five years later it was over three and a half million. New inventions were developed to deal with the population expansion. At breakneck speed, New York covered itself with trains, suspension bridges, elevated railways, steamboats, and then skyscrapers. The first skyscraper was put up in 1888. It had only 13 stories, but the next had 22, the Empire State Building - 102, and now the World Trade Centre has reached 110 (1,350 ft high).

New York is carefully planned and it is easy for a stranger to find his way there. The city has been built rectangularly. All the streets, except Broadway, run either north and south, or east and west. Twelve long avenues run north and south, and five hundred short streets east and west. The Fifth Avenue divides the city into the eastern and the western part. Only Broadway runs diagonally across the city.

The Americans have not given the New York streets names of their famous men but have called them by ordinal numbers or letters of the alphabet, e.g. Second Street, First Avenue, Avenue A, Avenue B, etc.

Thanks to its geographical position and historical past, New York has grown into a big financial, commercial, and industrial centre with the heart in the Borough of Manhattan. The Empire State Building, the World Trade Center, Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Central Park, Harlem, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Broadway - all these world famous sights are in Manhattan. What unites them is probably a small street, only a few blocks long, which is the financial centre of the whole United States - Wall Street. It provides the nation with centralized credit and banking facilities. It is a sales place for securities; it is also the biggest money capitals in the world. Economic and financial power of the USA is concentrated in the buildings of Wall Street; in the banks, among them is the oldest in the city, the Bank of New York, founded in 1784; and in the Stock Exchange, one of the world's greatest.

1. Найдите в тексте английские эквиваленты:

Устье, район, остров, быть названным, по возвращении, овладеть чем-либо, жилой (о районе города, улице), принять постановление, запрещать, роскошный особняк, отвратительные трущобы, освещение, водопровод, изобретение, с головокружительной скоростью, подвесной мост, небоскрёб, тщательно, найти дорогу, прямоугольный, либо... либо..., без сопротивления, быть свидетелем чего-либо, достопримечательности, Нидерланды, голландцы.

2. Составьте предложения из следующих слов:

1. The largest, is, New York, port, in, city, the USA, and.

2. The Hudson River, is, at, situated, of, the mouth, New York City.

3. Manhattan, found, Henry Hudson, 1609, on, September 11.

4. The name, the English, New York, into, changed, New Amsterdam, of.

5. Fires, in, a part, in, disease, and, were, normal, of, life, New York, the 19th century.

6. In, the first was, 1888, put up, skyscraper, in New York.

7. George Washington, on, took, office, the oath of, the balcony, on, Federal Hall, in, April 30, New York, of, 1789.

8. The, oldest, in, the Bank of New York, city, in, founded, the, is, 1784.

9. In, culture, are, Manhattan, business, and, America's.

10. Streets, are, ordinal, letters, or, New York, called, alphabet, by, of, numbers, the.

3. Ответьте на следующие вопросы:

1. What is the official name of New York?

2. Where is New York situated?

3. Who discovered the land where New York now stands?

4. What was the first name of the city?

5. Who renamed the city?

6. When were the first houses built in Manhattan?

7. Who bought Manhattan from the Indians? What did it cost?

8. What did New York look like at the beginning of the 19th century?

9. What inventions were developed in New York to deal with the population expansion?

10. When was the first skyscraper built in New York? How many storeys were there in it?

11. What is the highest building in New York now? What is its height?

12. Have the Americans given the New York streets names of their famous men?

13. What political events did the City of New York witness?

14. What is Wall Street? How did the street get its name?

15. What world famous sights are situated in Manhattan?

Дата добавления: 2014-12-07