So I know a lot of people have been asking about this and wondering what New York City looks like ITTL. I apologise for the delay but I realised that the city would be due an election today (19 August) so I thought it would be good to wait and see the results of that election. On a side note I just want people to know what's coming up over the next week, hopefully I will finish the write up for Virginia and maybe Scotland, Puerto Rico is having an election on Thursday so you will get to see the outcome of that, and a few other bits and pieces including the first four Prime Ministers.
Also I hope you all understand that a lot of the time I tend to go with what interests me at any given moment, I don't have a set plan about what instalments are coming weeks in advance, so please bear with me and I'll eventually get round to as much of this world as possible
Democratic Victory in New York Election
MANHATTAN – The votes have been tallied and the results are in for today's legislative election held in the Empire's largest city. Unsurprisingly the race for Premier in the Second City of the Empire ended with incumbent Bill de Blasio (
Democratic) securing a 22 seat lead in the Legislative Council over opposition leader John Chun Liu (
Renew New York). Although once again falling short of an overall majority, a spokesman for the Premier said that preliminary discussions with Pieter van Echten (
People's Voice) and Christine Quinn (
Working Families) about the continuation of the confidence and supply agreements from the previous legislative session had been positive. Negotiations will continue over the comings days, but de Blasio is expected to be sworn in next week.
The
City of New York and Long Island, commonly referred to as simply
New York, is a province of the Commonwealth of Columbia bordered by Nassouwen to the north, New Jersey to the west, the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and the New England province of Connecticut to the east. New York is often described as a "city-province" consisting of 14 boroughs, each with its own elected Mayor, and is the largest city in the United Empire by population.
Modern day New York was inhabited by the Aboriginal Lenape people prior to the arrival of Europeans. Part of the Algonquian speaking peoples, the Lenape made use of the abundant waterways in the region for fishing, hunting, trade and war. The first European visitor was the Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano, in the employ of the French monarchy, in 1524 but the first permanent colonial settlements came nearly a century later when the Dutch established a fur trading post at the southern tip of Manhattan. The colony would grow quickly, and was granted self government in 1652 as the City of New Amsterdam, capital of the Dutch colony of New Netherland. In 1664 the English conquered the area and renamed it "New York" after the Duke of York, and although the Dutch briefly retook the city in 1673 they ceded it back to England in exchange for what is now Suriname. Despite the English colonial government not actively discriminating against existing Dutch settlers, many chose to resettle in what is now Nassouwen. The City of New York became the largest city and de facto capital of the Colony of New York, and in 1754 the foundations for the modern
University of New York were established when Frederick I chartered King's College.
New York was a bastion of Loyalist sentiment during the Colonial Unrest of the 1760s and 1770s, with the 1765 Colonial Congress meeting in the city to protest the Stamp Act and seek redress from the Crown and Parliament. During the 19th century, the city was transformed by immigration and the construction of the Erie Canal, although it escaped the devastation wrought across many parts of Britain-in-America during the Republican Rebellion. The Anglo-American Compromise was signed in the city in 1852, and four years later the Province of New York joined with New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and Allegheny to form the Commonwealth of Columbia. The rise of the Dutch People's Party in the communities of the Hudson River valley led to the partition of New York in 1866 into four provinces; Nassouwen, Genesee, Adirondack and
New York and Long Island; which encompassed the city, it's suburbs and Long Island itself. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries New York had seen a large influx of immigrants, with the city being the first stop for millions of migrants entering North America, and in 1886 the Statue of Britannia was dedicated in New York Harbour.
Throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, New York has become the largest city in the Empire, emerging as a global hub of the arts, business and environmental sustainability, as well as a symbol of social tolerance and cultural diversity and a hub of the British entertainment industry. However the city and surrounding suffered serious damage and loss of life in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks when terrorists aligned with Al-Qaeda piloted two planes into the Twin Towers, destroying the World Trade Centre. Despite the destruction caused by the attacks the World Trade Centre has since been rebuilt and New York has remained one of the financial hearts of the Empire, with Wall Street, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ residing in the city's Financial District, aswell as one of the most economically powerful cities in the world and a leading financial centre.
The
University of New York (informally
New York University and officially the
Imperial University in the City of New York) is a collegiate research university located in Manhattan, New York, Columbia. Established in 1754 as King's College (which remains the oldest of the colleges) today the university is made up of a variety of institutions, including 25 constituent colleges (such as King's, Columbia, Valcour, Queen's, Imperial, and Trinity) and a full range of academic departments. Being a city university, it does not have a main campus and instead buildings and facilities are scattered throughout the city. New York is considered one of the best universities in the Empire, often cited as one of the world's most prestigious universities, and is one of the ten colonial colleges chartered in British America during the Colonial period. New York and the University of Fredericksburg are the only collegiate universities in Britain-in-America.