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New York Restaurant Group, Inc. Business Information, Profile, and History

1114 First Avenue
New York, New York 10021
U.S.A.

Company Perspectives:

We strive to provide a consistent, high-quality dining experience in order to foster customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. To achieve this goal, we focus on providing our customers with attentive and professional service by training and encouraging our employees to exceed guests' expectations.

History of New York Restaurant Group, Inc.

The New York Restaurant Group, Inc. (NYRG) owns and operates high-priced restaurants in New York City and several other cities. Founded by Alan Stillman, who originated the T.G.I. Friday's restaurant chain, NYRG is best known for its Smith & Wollensky steakhouse in Manhattan. Of NYRG's 12 restaurants in 1999, eight were owned and four were operated by the firm; six were located in Manhattan. The company was planning to make an initial public offering of stock, probably in 2000. It was then expected to change its name to that of its flagship Manhattan restaurant, Smith & Wollensky, which was said to be the most successful single à la carte restaurant in the nation.

Smith & Wollensky and Others: 1977-89

Alan Stillman was a salesman living on Manhattan's Upper East Side in the mid-1960s. Perceiving that the many affluent unattached young people in the neighborhood needed more places to meet and mix, he took a lease on a rundown bar on First Avenue and 63rd Street with $5,000 borrowed from his mother and opened one of the first singles bars, which he called T.G.I. Friday's. Stillman opened, with partners, about a dozen other Friday's in other cities as well as several Manhattan restaurants with names such as Tuesday's, Wednesday's, and Thursday's. In the mid-1970s he sold his share of the Friday's chain (an act he later described as his biggest mistake), reportedly for $1 million, to Carlson Companies, except for the original, which he kept until 1987 and then sold for a reported $3.8 million.

By this time Stillman had turned to serving a more mature--and more affluent--clientele. Backed by Ben Benson and other investors, in 1977 he purchased Manny Wolf's, a restaurant in a landmark 1897 building on Third Avenue at 49th Street, and converted it into a steakhouse named, for reasons still obscure, Smith & Wollensky. The restaurant was not an instant success, and in spite of gimmicks such as slices of roast beef offered to passersby, few people entered at first. 'We came very, very close to selling,' Stillman recalled to Pamela Kruger of the New York Times in 1993.

Instead, Stillman went back to the investors for money, added a 100-seat lower-priced grill next door, and launched an effective advertising campaign. Gael Greene, the restaurant critic for New York who rated Smith & Wollensky last among the ten steakhouses she reviewed in late 1978, conceded, 'The house is often crowded. The faces are young and seem happy.' By 1984 the restaurant, several times refurbished and enlarged since its opening, was worthy of inclusion in Gourmet, where Jay Jacobs noted, 'Typically, the place is about as serene as an ordinary day in a boiler factory.' He called the meats and fish 'top-quality stuff ... served in massive portions, and with very few exceptions ... prepared precisely as they should be.'

By 1990 Smith & Wollensky was a smashing success, perhaps 'not the best steakhouse in town,' wrote restaurant reviewer Bryan Miller of the New York Times, 'but it is probably the busiest. ... Smith & Wollensky is an efficient feeding machine ... that churns out more than 700 meals daily.' By this time the 380-seat restaurant was more than a steakhouse. Although steak and prime rib continued to be best-selling individual entrees, seafood now made up 40 percent of the menu. Sales volume, including the adjoining grill, came to $17 million in 1989, with the average check for the main room at $38 for lunch and $50 for dinner.

Stillman opened two more midtown Manhattan restaurants in the early 1980s. The Post House, launched in 1980, was a steak and chop house with an American theme. Restaurant reviewer Moira Hodgson of the New York Times wrote, 'This unpretentious yet elegant restaurant offers high quality, straightforward food in a thoroughly pleasant, relaxed atmosphere. ... This is not the fare of Puritan austerity. The proportions are enormous. ... The choices are the same at lunch and dinner, with prices identical, at expense-account level.' The Manhattan Ocean Club, opened in 1984, was a high-end seafood restaurant. Reviewing it some months later for the Times, Marian Burros wrote that the eatery 'is playing to large crowds, despite high prices and some inconsistencies.'

By 1984 these three restaurants formed the New York Restaurant Group, which in 1993 encompassed a complex series of partnerships, with Stillman as general partner and owner of 25-85 percent of each restaurant. (NYRG, for example, was the operator, not owner, of Smith & Wollensky. Its owner, in 1999, was St. James Associates, in which Smith & Wollensky Operating Corp., controlled by Stillman, was a general partner.) Each of the group's nine managers had been with the company for more than a decade in 1989, and 25 of the 450 employees had shares in the enterprise. Michael Byrne, who began as a bartender, had been director of operations since 1980 and had been supervising Smith & Wollensky on a daily basis for more than ten years.

Stillman, not a hands-on manager, spent at least two months of each year on combined business and pleasure travel abroad. A lover of fine wines and artwork as well as haute cuisine, he owned a vineyard near his Long Island oceanfront estate and had been featured on Robin Leach's television program 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.' The luxurious restaurants of the New York Restaurant Group reflected his epicurean tastes. Smith & Wollensky carried at least 45,000 bottles of wine. The Post House was decorated with American folk art, and the Manhattan Ocean Club displayed Stillman's collection of Pablo Picasso's pottery.

Expansion in the 1990s

La Cité, described by New York Restaurant Group as a Parisian cafe-style restaurant, opened in midtown Manhattan near the end of 1989. It was still struggling to make money in 1993, although Stillman had revised the menu, lowered prices, added a 70-seat grill, and shortened the name to simply Cité. Reviewing it late that year, Gael Greene approved the changes, noted a greater emphasis on meat and a longer wine list, and added, 'I find it the handsomest steakhouse in town.'

Park Avenue Cafe, characterized by the company as offering 'cutting-edge new American cuisine in a cafe atmosphere,' opened on the Upper East Side, but only a few blocks north of midtown, in 1992. It was under the direction of chef David Burke, who had been lured from River Cafe, his previous home, where he made a name for concoctions whimsical and even bizarre. Greene declared, 'Burke's tornado of creativity is delivering mostly remarkable food,' including a 'swordfish chop' carved from the seldom-used collarbone and neck, house-smoked salmon atop corn blini, scallops on braised oxtail, and duck-and-chicken pie rich with wild mushrooms, asparagus, and potato in a biscuit-like crust. New York Restaurant Group sold The Post House that year but continued to operate it under contract.

By 1993 Stillman was estimating that he was feeding one million people a year, with the dinner check at New York Restaurant Group's five operations averaging at least $47.50 and perhaps as much as $60. Described by Kruger as 'Using marketing savvy-street smarts and a Donald Trump-sized ego,' Stillman had built an organization that claimed to have annual sales of $42 million, including $19 million for Smith & Wollensky. More than $1 million a year was being spent on promotion, including full-page ads in the Times, Forbes, and Fortune and commercials on cable television. Stillman had employed at least four advertising agencies in the last five years and was fond of such publicity stunts as roasting an entire steer outside The Post House.

During twice-a-year Wine Week, beginning in 1986, his customers were offered a choice of free wines for sampling during lunch; at Cité unlimited free wine was offered beginning at 8 p.m. to fill a room typically vacated by diners moving on to nearby theaters.

Park Avenue Cafe introduced a Chicago locale in 1994, closely duplicating the original, on the second floor of the Guest Quarters Suites hotel (later the Doubletree Guest Suites hotel). New York Restaurant Group already had opened a more casual Mrs. Park's Tavern on the ground floor of the hotel. Both were later sold to Doubletree, but NYRG continued to operate them.

New York Restaurant Group, L.L.C. was formed in 1995 as a holding company for a series of partnerships and limited liability companies anchored by Stillman but involving as many as 40 investors. In early 1996 Stillman sold 23 percent of the company to the Thomas H. Lee Co., a Boston-based investment house, for as much as $15 million. This sale wiped out the company's debt, according to Stillman, reduced the number of NYRG's investors to about ten, and provided the means for financing Stillman's plans to expand the group's operations to other cities.

In 1996 New York Restaurant Group launched Maloney & Porcelli. Located close to Smith & Wollensky and named for two lawyers Stillman had hired to negotiate a liquor license, the new restaurant was essentially a steakhouse, although its piece de resistance was a 2-pound hunk of 'crackling' pork shank that Corby Kummer of New York wrote 'looks like a deflated soccer ball.' The influence of Burke, now corporate chef for all of the group's eateries, could be found in what Kummer called 'lots of little tricks that make dinner seem like a long McDonald's birthday party for grown-ups,' including 'a mile-high slab of chocolate cake ... topped by a dark-chocolate crossbar supporting a big white-chocolate cow.' This restaurant was operated, but not owned, by NYRG.

After what Stillman described as 16 or 17 years of trying, his Smith & Wollensky partners agreed to license the name to NYRG and allow expansion. The group then spent almost $8.5 million to convert a former seafood restaurant in Miami Beach into a replica of the original Smith & Wollensky. When it opened in late 1997, this branch had the largest seating capacity--670--of any NYRG restaurant at the time. Other versions of Smith & Wollensky opened in 1998 in Chicago (overlooking the Chicago River), Las Vegas (on the Strip, with 675 seats), and New Orleans (on the site of a registered national landmark) and in 1999 in Washington, D.C. All were owned by NYRG and were on leased property except for the New Orleans site. Appointed president of New York Restaurant Group in 1998, James Dunn was in charge of opening the new restaurants. Byrne remained director of New York operations and was a limited partner in St. James Associates.

New York Restaurant Group in 1999

New York Restaurant Group, Inc. was formed in 1997 by a merger with New York Restaurant Group, L.L.C. The cost of opening new restaurants threw this enterprise into the red, with a combined loss of almost $5.5 million during the years 1996-98, despite the rise in revenues (for group-owned restaurants) to $52.8 million in the latter year. The long term debt was $17.6 million. Counting restaurants operated but not owned by NYRG, sales came to $89 million. Sales of $24.7 million for the year ended June 28, 1999 made Smith & Wollensky's Manhattan site one of the highest grossing single restaurant locations in the country.

Second place in revenues for this period--$10.3 million--belonged to Maloney & Porcelli. In third place--and first among NYRG-owned restaurants--was the Chicago Smith & Wollensky, followed by Cité, Manhattan Ocean Club, and Park Avenue Cafe. The Las Vegas Smith & Wollensky, although open for only the last seven months of this period, had sales of $7.9 million, the same amount as the Miami Beach Smith & Wollensky, which was open for the entire period. The average check per person in this period ranged from $73.60 at The Post House to $24.30 at Chicago's Park Avenue Cafe (including Mrs. Park's Tavern). NYRG was stocking 92,000 bottles of wine. Stillman held 30 percent of the company's shares and Lee held 23 percent in mid-1999.

Stillman planned to make an initial public offering for the New York Restaurant Group--which he planned to rename Smith & Wollensky Restaurant Group--in the fall of 1999. The company issued a prospectus that, at 972 pages in length, reflected the complexity of its organization but postponed the offering because of lukewarm investor interest. While awaiting a new offering date, NYRG announced a joint venture with New York City's Plaza Hotel to create and run a new restaurant concept in the space previously taken by the Edwardian Room. It also was planning to open Smith & Wollensky units in Atlanta, Boston, and Philadelphia. A Maloney & Porcelli was scheduled to open in January 2000 in Washington, D.C.

Principal Competitors: Morton's Restaurant Group, Inc.; Ruth's Chris Steak House.

Related information about New York

pop (2000e) 18 976 500; area 127 185 km²/49 108 sq mi. State in NE USA, divided into 62 counties; the ‘Empire State’; second most populous state; one of the original states of the Union, 11th to ratify the Federal Constitution, 1788; explored by Hudson and Champlain, 1609; Dutch established posts near Albany, 1614, settled Manhattan, 1626; New Netherlands taken by the British, 1664; scene of several battles in the American Revolution (eg Saratoga); capital, Albany; other chief cities, New York City, Syracuse, Yonkers, Rochester, Buffalo; Hudson R flows S through the E state, St Lawrence R part of the N border, Delaware R part of the S border; Niagara Falls in W; Adirondack Mts rise in the N, Catskill Mts in the S; highest point in the Adirondacks at Mt Marcy (1629 m/5344 ft); state contains 11 334 km²/4375 sq mi of the Great Lakes, as well as L Oneida and the Finger Lakes in the C; extensive woodland and forest in the NE, elsewhere a mixture of cropland, pasture, and woodland; clothing, pharmaceuticals, publishing, electronics, automotive and aircraft components; dairy products, corn, beef; New York City the chief ethnically mixed centre of population in the USA.

text-align:center;">The Empire State

State animal	Beaver(Castor canadensis)
State bird	Eastern Bluebird(Sialia sialis)
State freshwater fish	Brook Trout
State saltwater fish	Striped Bass
State insect	Ladybug
State flower	Rose(Rosa)
State motto	"Excelsior!"
State song	"I Love New York"
State tree	Sugar Maple(Acer saccharum)
State fossil	Sea Scorpion(Eurypterus remipes)
State gem	Garnet
State beverage	Milk
State reptile	Snapping Turtle
State fruit	Apple
State shell	Bay Scallop
State muffin	Apple Muffin

New York is a state in the northeastern United States.

Geography

New York's borders touch (clockwise from the northwest) two Great Lakes (Erie and Ontario, which are connected by the Niagara River); the provinces of Ontario and Quebec in Canada; three New England states (Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut); the Atlantic Ocean, and two Mid-Atlantic states (New Jersey and Pennsylvania). In addition, Rhode Island shares a water border with New York.

New York is also the site of the only extra-territorial enclave within the boundaries of the U.S., the United Nations compound on Manhattan's East River.

The southern tip of New York State—New York City, its suburbs including Long Island, and the southern portion of the Hudson Valley—can be considered to form the central core of a "megalopolis," a super-city stretching from the northern suburbs of Boston to the southern suburbs of Jean Gottmann in 1961 as a new phenomenon in the history of world urbanization, the megalopolis is characterized by a coalescence of previous already-large cities of the Eastern Seaboard: a heavy specialization on tertiary activity related to government, trade, law, education, finance, publishing and control of economic activity; Several other groups of megalopolis-type super-cities exist in the world, but that centered around New York City was the first described and still is the best example.

While the state is best known for New York City's urban atmosphere, especially Manhattan's skyscrapers, most of the state is in fact dominated by farms, forests, rivers, mountains, and lakes. New York's Adirondack State Park is larger than any U.S. National Park outside of Alaska. The Hudson River begins with Lake Tear of the Clouds and flows south through the eastern part of the state without draining Lakes George or Champlain. Four of New York City's five boroughs are on the three islands at the mouth of the Hudson River: Manhattan Island, Staten Island, and Long Island.

"Upstate" is a common term for New York State counties north of suburban Westchester and Rockland counties. Upstate New York typically includes the Catskill and Adirondack Mountains, the Shawangunk Ridge, the Finger Lakes and the Great Lakes in the west; and Lake Champlain, Lake George, and Oneida Lake in the northeast; and rivers such as the Delaware, Genesee, Hudson, Mohawk, and Susquehanna. Lenape in canoes met Giovanni da Verrazzano, the first European explorer to enter New York Harbor, in 1524. Giovanni da Verrazzano named this place New Angouleme (Nouvelle Angoulême in french) in the honor of the French king Francis I ('François 1er' in french).
(Believed to be after this event) A French explorer and mapper, Samuel de Champlain, described his explorations through New York in 1608. A year later Henry Hudson, an Englishman working for the Dutch, claimed the area in the name of the Netherlands.

Early settlement

The first European settlers in the area now known as the State of New York were Dutch settlers in the colony known as New Amsterdam, beginning in 1613. The English traded the modern-day country of Suriname for New Amsterdam in 1664; The colony, then called the Province of New York, was divided into twelve counties, each of which was subdivided into towns. Two of New York's eastern coastal counties, Cornwall and Dukes, later became parts of Massachusetts and Maine.

Statehood

New York was one of the original thirteen colonies that became the United States. It was the 11th state to ratify the United States Constitution, on July 26, 1788.

Origin

The Dutch, who began to establish trading-posts on the Hudson River in 1613, claimed jurisdiction over the territory between the Connecticut and the Delaware Rivers, which they called New Netherlands. The government was vested in "The United New Netherland Company," chartered in 1614, and then in "The Dutch West India Company," chartered in 1622.

In 1649, a convention of the settlers petitioned the "Lords States-General of the United Netherlands" to grant them "suitable burgher government, such as their High Mightinesses shall consider adapted to this province, and resembling somewhat the government of our Fatherland," with certain permanent privileges and exemptions, that they might pursue "the trade of our country, as well along the coast from Terra Nova to Cape Florida as to the West Indies and Europe, whenever our Lord God shall be pleased to permit."

The directors of the West India Company resented this attempt to shake their rule and wrote their director and council at New Amsterdam: "We have already connived as much as possible at the many impertinences of some restless spirits, in the hope that they might be shamed by our discreetness and benevolence, but, perceiving that all kindnesses do not avail, we must, therefore, have recourse to God to Nature and the Law. We accordingly hereby charge and command your Honors whenever you shall certainly discover any Clandestine Meetings, Conventicles or machinations against our States government or that of our country that you proceed against such malignants in proportion to their crimes."

These grants embraced all the lands between the west bank of the Connecticut River and the east bank of the Delaware.

The Duke of York previously purchased in 1663 the grant of Long Island and other islands on the New England coast made in 1635 to the Earl of Stirling, and in 1664 he equipped an armed expedition which took possession of New Amsterdam, which was thenceforth called New York. This constitution was framed by a convention which assembled at White Plains, New York on July 10, 1776, and after repeated adjournments and changes of location, terminated its labors at Kingston, New York on Sunday evening, April 20, 1777, when the constitution was adopted with but one dissenting vote. This imbalance of power between the branches of state government kept the elite firmly in control, and disenfranchised most New Yorkers who would fight the Revolutionary War. Slavery was legal in New York until 1827.

Under this constitution, the Assembly had a provision for a maximum of 70 Members, with the following apportionment:

For the city (at the time, New York City included only what is today Manhattan) and county of New York, nine.
The city and county of Albany, ten
The county of Dutchess, seven.
The county of Westchester, six.
The county of Ulster, six.
The county of Suffolk (eastern Long Island), five.
The county of Queens (Now Queens and Nassau Counties), four.
The county of Orange (Now Orange and Rockland Counties), four.
The county of Kings (Brooklyn), two.
The county of Richmond (Staten Island), two.
Tryon County (Now Montgomery County), six.
Charlotte County (Now Washington County.), four.
Cumberland County (Partitioned January 15, 1777 for the creation of the State of Vermont.), three.
Gloucester County (Partitioned January 15, 1777 for the creation of the State of Vermont.), two.

This apportionment was to stand unchanged until a period of seven years from the end of the Revolution had expired, whereupon a census was held to correct the apportionment.

On the subject of Disenfranchisement, Article VII of the new constitution had the following to say:

VII. if, during the time aforesaid, he shall have been a freeholder, possessing a freehold of the value of twenty pounds, within the said county, or have rented a tenement therein of the yearly value of forty shillings, and been rated and actually paid taxes to this State: Provided always, That every person who now is a freeman of the city of Albany, or who was made a freeman of the city of New York on or before the fourteenth day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, and shall be actually and usually resident in the said cities, respectively, shall be entitled to vote for representatives in assembly within his said place of residence.

For more information on this constitution, see: New York State Constitutions

Westward expansion

The western part of New York had been settled by the six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy for at least 500 years before Europeans came. The Sullivan Expedition moved northward through the Finger Lakes and Genesee Country, burning all the Iroquois communities and destroying their crops and orchards. The Hudson and Mohawk Rivers could be navigated only as far as Central New York. While the St. Lawrence River could be navigated to Lake Ontario, the way westward to the other Great Lakes was blocked by Niagara Falls, and so the only route to western New York was over land. Governor DeWitt Clinton strongly advocated building a canal to connect the Hudson River with Lake Erie, and thus all the Great Lakes. The Welland Canal was completed in 1833, bypassing Niagara Falls to connect Lakes Ontario and Erie.

Sullivan's men returned from the campaign to Pennsylvania and New England to tell of the enormous wealth of this new territory.

Demographics

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2005, New York was the third largest state in population after California and Texas, with an estimated population of 19,254,630 factfinder.census.gov/servlet/SAFFPopulation?_event=Search&_name=&_state=04000US36&_county=&_cityTown=&_zip=&_sse=on&_lang=en&pctxt=fph, which is an increase of 27,542, or 0.1%, from the prior year and an increase of 277,809, or 1.5%, since the year 2000.

The top ancestry groups in New York are African American (15.8%), Italian (14.4%), Irish (12.9%), and German (11.1%),

New York contains the country's largest Dominican population (concentrated in Upper Manhattan) and largest Puerto Rican population (concentrated in the Bronx). Brooklyn and the Bronx are home to many African-Americans and Queens has a large population of Latin American origin, as well as the state's largest Asian-American population.

The 2000 Census revealed which ancestries were in which counties. Italian-Americans make up the largest ancestral group in Staten Island and Long Island, followed by Irish-Americans. According to the July 1, 2004 Census Bureau Estimatefactfinder.census.gov/servlet/GCTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=04000US36&-_box_head_nbr=GCT-T1&-ds_name=PEP_2004_EST&-_lang=en&-redoLog=false&-mt_name=PEP_2004_EST_GCTT1_ST2&-format=ST-2&-_sse=on, New York City and its six closest New York State satellite counties (Suffolk, Nassau, Westchester, Rockland, Putnam and Orange) have a combined population of 12,626,200 people, or 65.67% of the state's population.

New York State has a higher number of Italian-Americans than any other U.S. state.

Religion

As of 2006, the religious affiliations of New York citizens were:

40.0% Protestant,

38.9% Roman Catholic,

7.3% Baptist,

6.1% Methodist,

5.5% Episcopal,

3.2% Presbyterian,

17.9% Non-religious

3.4% Jewish,

2.0% Muslim,

The Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan contains the shrine and burial place of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini (Mother Cabrini), the patron saint of immigrants and the first American citizen to be canonized.

At Chautauqua Lake in the southwestern portion of the state is the Chautauqua Institution, co-founded by Methodist Reverend John Vincent and devoted to adult continuing education in an uplifting setting, as that ambiance was understood in the last half of the Nineteenth Century. While some aspects of this pedagogy may seem quaint today, the Institution helped assure that high intellectual achievement would be recognized as consistent with the value system of an emerging powerful Midwest, and was one of several ways that Upstate New York served between the Civil War and World War II as a transmitting intermediary between the standards of the East Coast and the interior agricultural regions of the central states.

Important cities and towns

New York City is both the largest city in the United States, and home to over two-fifths of the population of the entire state. It is the leading center of banking, finance and communication in the United States and is the location of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Wall Street, Manhattan. Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that in 2004, the total gross state product was $963.5 billionwww.bea.gov/bea/newsrel/gspnewsrelease.htm, ranking 3rd behind California and Texas. New York's agricultural outputs are dairy products, cattle and other livestock, vegetables, nursery stock, and apples. Its industrial outputs are printing and publishing, scientific instruments, electric equipment, machinery, chemical products, and tourism.

Many of the world's largest corporations locate their headquarter's home offices in Manhattan or in nearby Westchester County, New York. The Fulton Fish Market has been moved from Fulton Street in Manhattan to The Bronx.

New York's mining sector is concentrated in three areas.

Agriculture

New York State is an agricultural leader, ranking within the top five states for agricultural products including dairy, apples, cherries, cabbages, potatoes, onions, maple syrup and many others. The south shore of Lake Ontario provides the right mix of soils and microclimate for many apple, cherry, plum, pear and peach orchards. The state has 30,000 acres (120 km²) of vineyards, 212 wineries, and produced 200 million bottles of wine in 2004.

New York was heavily glaciated in the ice age leaving much of the state with deep, fertile, though somewhat rocky soils. Row crops, including hay, corn, wheat, oats, barley, and soybeans, are grown. Particularly in the western part of the state, sweet corn, peas, carrots, squash, cucumbers and other vegetables are grown. The glaciers also left numerous swampy areas, which have been drained for the rich humus soils called muckland which is mostly used for onions, potatoes, celery and other vegetables. Cheese is a major product, often produced by Amish or Mennonite farm cheeseries. The honeybees are also used for pollination of fruits and vegetables. Most commercial beekeepers are migratory, taking their hives to southern states for the winter. Buffalo also has a lightrailsystem, and Rochester had a subway system, although it is mostly destroyed. Only a small part exists under the old Erie Canal Aquaduct.

New York City

New York City is home to the most complex and extensive transportation network in the United States, with more than 12,000 iconic yellow cabs, 120,000 daily bicyclists, a massive subway system, bus and railroad systems, immense airports, landmark bridges and tunnels, ferry service and even an aerial commuter tramway. About one in every three users of mass transit in the United States and two-thirds of the nation's rail riders live in New York and its suburbs.

Many suburban commuter railroad lines enter and leave New York City, including the Long Island Rail Road, MTA Metro-North, the PATH system and many of NJTransit's rail services.

Law and government

As in all fifty states, the head of the executive branch of government is a Governor. The legislative branch is called the Legislature and consists of a Senate and an Assembly. Unlike most states, the New York electoral law permits electoral fusion, and New York ballots tend to have, in consequence, a larger number of parties on them, some being permanent minor parties that seek to influence the major parties and others being ephemeral parties formed to give major-party candidates an additional line on the ballot.

New York's legislature is notoriously dysfunctional. Other officially incorporated governmental units are towns, cities, and villages.

Many of New York's public services are carried out by public benefit corporations, frequently known as authorities or development corporations. The most famous examples are probably the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which oversees New York City's subway, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (actually a bi-state agency). New York State has its counties pay a higher percentage of welfare costs than any other state, and New York State is the only state which requires counties to pay a portion of Medicaid.

The court system in New York is often cited as assigning unintuitive names to its courts: the New York Supreme Court, which people often assume is "supreme" in the same sense as the Supreme Court of the United States, is not the highest court in the state (the New York Court of Appeals is). These courts are the starting point for all criminal cases outside cities, and handle a variety of other matters including small claims, traffic ticket cases and local zoning matters. Presidential candidate John Kerry won New York State by 18 percentage points in 2004, while Al Gore had an even bigger margin of a win in New York State in 2000. Many of the state's other urban areas, including Albany, Ithica, Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuseare also Democratic. Heavily populated suburban areas such as Westchester County and Long Island usually hold the power in determining state elections and have tended to favor Republicans at the state level and Democrats at the federal level but that trend seems to be changing since the past few elections, with Democrats picking up some more power statewide in both regions.

Because New York State consistently votes Democratic in national elections, many observers argue the state is insignificant in presidential contests.

Education

Primary, middle-level, and secondary education

The University of the State of New York (USNY), its policy-setting Board of Regents, and USNY's administrative arm, the New York State Education Department (NYSED), oversee all public primary, middle-level, and secondary education in the state. However, as is found in most other US states, individual school districts in New York have much latitude in exercising management and policy for such education within their district boundaries.

New York is one of seven states that mandates that Holocaust and genocide studies be taught at some point in elementary or secondary schools' curriculum. New York City operates the City University of New York (CUNY) in conjunction with the state.

New York's land-grant university is Cornell University, a private university.

New York is the nation?s largest importer of college students, according to statistics which show that among freshmen who leave their home states to attend college, more come to New York than any other state, including California.The New York Observer. www.observer.com/printpage.asp?iid=13093&ic=Editorials

See also Education in New York City, list of Colleges and Universities in the State of New York

Professional sports teams

Club	Sport	League
Buffalo Bills	Football	National Football League
New York Jets	Football	National Football League;(plays in East Rutherford, New Jersey)
New York Giants	Football	National Football League;(plays in East Rutherford, New Jersey)
New York Knicks	Basketball	National Basketball Association
New Jersey Nets	Basketball	National Basketball Association;(plays in East Rutherford, New Jersey - planning move to the Brooklyn Nets Arena at Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn)
New York Liberty	Basketball	Women's National Basketball Association
Rochester Raging Rhinos	Soccer	USL First Division
Red Bull New York	Soccer	Major League Soccer;(plays in East Rutherford, New Jersey)
Buffalo Sabres	Ice Hockey	National Hockey League
New York Islanders	Ice Hockey	National Hockey League
New York Rangers	Ice Hockey	National Hockey League
Adirondack Frostbite	Ice Hockey	United Hockey League
Albany River Rats	Ice Hockey	American Hockey League
Binghamton Senators	Ice Hockey	American Hockey League
Elmira Jackals	Ice Hockey	United Hockey League
Rochester Americans	Ice Hockey	American Hockey League
Syracuse Crunch	Ice Hockey	American Hockey League
New York Mets	Baseball	Major League Baseball

New York Yankees	Baseball	Major League Baseball
Brooklyn Cyclones	Baseball	Minor League Baseball
Staten Island Yankees	Baseball	Minor League Baseball
Binghamton Mets	Baseball	Minor League Baseball
Buffalo Bisons	Baseball	Minor League Baseball
Jamestown Jammers	Baseball	Minor League Baseball
Batavia Muckdogs	Baseball	Minor League Baseball
Rochester Red Wings	Baseball	Minor League Baseball
Auburn Doubledays	Baseball	Minor League Baseball
Syracuse SkyChiefs	Baseball	Minor League Baseball
Oneonta Tigers	Baseball	Minor League Baseball
Tri-City Valley Cats	Baseball	Minor League Baseball
Hudson Valley Renegades	Baseball	Minor League Baseball
Long Island Ducks	Baseball	Atlantic League of Professional Baseball
New York Dragons	Arena football	Arena Football League
Long Island Lizards	Lacrosse	Major League Lacrosse
Rochester Rattlers	Lacrosse	Major League Lacrosse
Buffalo Bandits	Lacrosse	National Lacrosse League
Rochester Knighthawks	Lacrosse	National Lacrosse League
New York Titans	Lacrosse	National Lacrosse League
Brooklyn Wonders	Basketball	American Basketball Association
Buffalo Silverbacks	Basketball	American Basketball Association
Rochester Razorsharks	Basketball	American Basketball Association
Strong Island Sound	Basketball	American Basketball Association
Albany Patroons	Basketball	Continental Basketball Association

Navy vessel namesakes

There have been at least five United States Navy ships named USS New York in honor of the state. USS New York (LPD-21) was laid down on September 10 2004 and will be the sixth Navy ship to be named for the state.

References

Chronology

Key Dates:
1977: Alan Stillman opens Smith & Wollensky.
1984: NYRG now includes The Post House and Manhattan Ocean Club.
1993: NYRG is feeding an estimated one million people per year.
1996: Stillman sells a 23 percent stake in NYRG to Thomas H. Lee.
1998: Four Smith & Wollenskys opened in other cities.
1999: NYRG postpones a plan to offer stock to the public.

Additional topics

Company HistoryRestaurants

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