6 things you didn’t know about New York City.
New York is a place which is on most people’s bucket lists to visit, as it is home to so many famous attractions including the Statue of liberty, the Rockefeller Centre and Times Square. However, as much as you might think you know about the Big Apple, there are actually many little known facts about the city which make it even more appealing and mysterious. Find flights to New York online with Dialaflight.com and explore the wonders of New York!
- Buskers have to audition.
If you’re thinking of busking in New York City, you’re probably going to want to do so at one of the main subway stations. Around 150,000 people pass through each of these stations every day, so they are ideal places to earn a bit of extra cash and get your music heard. However, every other busker is going to want to lay there, too. How do you get around this problem? The subway stations now hold auditions for buskers to perform there. The best buskers get two-week permits to perform at the best spots in the stations before the auditions are held again. Some have even played at Carnegie Hall.
- New York is a safe place.
Believe it or not, despite its reputation, New York actually has the lowest crime rate out of all of the 25 largest American cities, and is one of the safest of all cities in the US. Crime rates in New York have dropped considerably in the last 15 years, and nowadays girls can walk home alone in the dead of night without feeling threatened. Any crimes which do occur usually take place in the poorer areas.
- The name “Big Apple” came from horseracing.
John J. Fitzgerald, a writer who reported on horse racing in the 1920s, heard the term “Big Apple” being used by the jockeys and stable workers in New Orleans. Those who dreamt of racing in New York referred to the city as the “Big Apple”, which meant that any horse who had raced in New York had reached the highest goal for any racehorse, and Fitzgerald therefore started using the term in his articles, which he wrote for the New York Morning Telegraph. The phrase gained popularity from there, and is now a phrase known by everyone in and out of New York.
- More than 1 in 5 people spoke a second language at home in 2000.
According to the 2000 census, around 49 million people over the age of five reported speaking a different language at home. This came to around 28% of everyone aged 5 years old and over. New York is a very diverse country and is home to many people who have immigrated there, with around 36% of its residents having been born outside of the US.
- There’s a bricked up bar in NYC with its owner entombed inside.
IN 1965, A man named Turk McDonald managed to win himself a high-class bar by the name of Francis’s in a game of poker. He renamed it Turk’s and attracted the city’s hard-core alcoholics. Between 1966 and 1976 Turk held an annual 72 hour drinking competition called Turk’s Folly, and it is said that at least 40 contestants died of alcohol poisoning and were secretly buried in the basement of the bar. In 1977, Turk himself suffered a brain tumour, and declared that until his death, drinks would be sold for 5 cents a glass. This led the toilets in the bar to give way, the stench of which caused residents of three neighbouring buildings to leave. Turk’s last wish was that he be entombed in his bar, and so on the day of his death, he was laid out on the bar and the doors and windows were bricked up.
- New York used to be the home of an eccentric dentist, and is still the home of his company.
Leonard Gray founded Dentorium in 1928 after being expelled from the British Society of Denturists due to his “experimental” and “unorthodox” methods. By day, the company made conventional, low-priced dentures, but by night, Gray conducted experiments with bizarre models, and promised liquor and liquid food to toothless alcoholics to attract them. They would emerge with multi coloured glass dentures, heated dentures, even dentures based on the mouth of a shark. When a dog arrived at the city pound with a mouthful of human dentures, authorities found Gray at his workshop. Or rather, they found his mauled corpse, after he had been devoured by a pair of “self-chewing” dentures. And you thought your dentist was scary!
