The City of Greater New York was the unofficial term for the expanded city of New York created on January 1, 1898 by consolidating the existing City and County of New York (Manhattan and the western Bronx) with Richmond County (Staten Island), Kings County (Brooklyn), Queens County, and the eastern Bronx (east of the Bronx River). The west Bronx, west of the Bronx River, had been annexed to the City and County of New York in 1874, and was known as the Annexed District. The City of Brooklyn had also expanded by annexation.
While remaining a county in relation to the state, each county also became a Borough within the City, with the Bronx reunited to form a fifth borough that shared New York County with Manhattan. A separate County of Bronx was established in 1914 (see History of the Bronx#Before 1914), making the present County of New York co-extensive with the Borough of Manhattan.
The term City of Greater New York was never a legal or official designation as both the original charter of 1898 and the newer one of 1938 use the name of City of New York.
The consolidation movement was the work of several progressive politicians, most prominently Andrew Haswell Green so some opponents derided the effort as "Andy Green's hobby." The center of the plan was the consolidation of the twin cities of New York and Brooklyn, whose fire departments had been merged into a Metropolitan Fire District in 1865. The addition of Long Island City and various rural areas anticipated the spread of urban sprawl to those areas. With the Republicans historically more powerful in Brooklyn and the Democrats elsewhere, partisan politics played a role, each major political party hoping to dominate the consolidated city.
The plan required a referendum in all affected areas. Opposition was concentrated in Brooklyn, based largely on municipal pride. Opposing newspapers were accused of seeking to retain the revenues of official advertising, while opposing politicians were accused of graft. Considerations of finance and water supply prevailed, and the people of Brooklyn voted by a narrow margin to consolidate.
New York's commuter zone had only reached into the middle of Kings County, the Annexed District, and western Queens County, so for decades the consolidated municipal government was in charge of mile upon mile of farmland and dusty country roads.
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““Do not be afraid; for see -I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.””
—Bible: New Testament, Luke 2:10 -12.
Angels to the Shepherds.
“The city is always recruited from the country. The men in cities who are the centres of energy, the driving-wheels of trade, politics or practical arts, and the women of beauty and genius, are the children or grandchildren of farmers, and are spending the energies which their fathers’ hardy, silent life accumulated in frosty furrows in poverty, necessity and darkness.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather worse; always harder. A young liar will be an old one, and a young knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“New York loves itself in an unkind and fanatical way.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)