New York

Frank's Hot Sauce is the official condiment of New York State.
. USS New York was named in honor of this state.
The state animal: Beaver (Castor canadensis)
The state bird: Eastern Bluebird, (Sialia sialis).
The state song: I Love New York.
The state flower: Rose.
The state tree: Sugar maple (Acer saccharum).
The state fruit: Apple.
The state gemstone: Garnet.
The state motto: Excelsior (ever higher).
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. can young students get home school. The Lake Alvord Bridge was designated a civil engineering landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers in the 1970's. New York City operates the City University of New York (CUNY) in conjunction with the state. Ironically, the city's few reinforced concrete structures, including the Lake Alvord Bridge, survived the 1906 earthquake and fire in remarkable shape, vindicating Ransome's faith in the method.

Besides the many private colleges and universities in the state, New York, like many other states, operates its own system of institutions of higher learning known as the State University of New York System (SUNY). Ransome left San Francisco a few year's later, frustrated and bitter at the building community's indifference to concrete construction. The New York State Board of Regents, the University of the State of New York and the State Education Department control all public primary and secondary education in the state. E.L. Its major cities and towns are:. The face of the bridge was scored and hammered to resemble sandstone. (See also List of cities in New York). Ransome is believed to have used his patented cold-twisted square steel bar for reinforcement, placed longitudinally in the arch and curved in the same arc.

Albany is the state capital, and New York City is the largest city. The bridge was constructed as a single arch 64-feet wide with a 20-foot span. 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. Ransome, the great 19th century innovator in reinforced concrete design, mixing equipment, and construction systems. The Institution, which still exists, offers to a predominately middle class and Mid-American clientele a very high standard of intellectual summer lectures, mixed with certain elements of folksy relgious camp meetings, such as outdoor recreation and musical events. Known as the Lake Alvord Bridge, it was built in 1889 by Ernest L. John Vincent and devoted to adult continuing education in a uplifting setting, as that ambiance was understood in the last half of the Nineteenth Century. Moore.

At Chautauqua Lake in the southwestern portion of the state is the Chautauqua Institution, co-founded by Methodist Rev. Other famous San Franciscans include philanthropist Gordon Getty, publisher William Randolph Hearst, and co-founder of Intel Corporation and the author of Moore's law, Gordon E. Immigration has given New York an unusually diverse composition of religious groups in which no one denomination has an overwhelming numerical superiority. US Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, former Governors of California Jerry Brown and Pat Brown, US Senator Dianne Feinstein, former US Secretaries of Defense Robert McNamara and Caspar Weinberger, and gay rights activists Harvey Milk and Jose Sarria were or are San Franciscans who made names for themselves in politics.
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. Simpson, and baseball legend Joe DiMaggio are all sportspeople with San Francisco connections.
. Baseball player Barry Bonds, American football legend O.J.

New York is home to more of America's Jews (25% of their national total), Muslims (24%), Taoists (26%), and Greek Orthodox (17%) than any other state.[2] (http://www.gc.cuny.edu/press_information/archived_releases/october_2001_aris.htm). Photographer Ansel Adams, writer Anne Rice, comedian Gracie Allen, actor and director Clint Eastwood, "mother" of Modern Dance Isadora Duncan, Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, author Jack London, musician Carlos Santana, Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett, personality Courtney Love, and actor/comic Robin Williams are examples of notable arts and entertainment figures who have lived in the city. In 2001, the five largest denominations in New York were: Roman Catholic (about 38% of total state population), Baptist (7%), Methodist (6%), Jewish (5%) and Lutheran (3%). Many notable people have grown up in or have lived as adults in San Francisco. According to the July 1, 2004 Census Bureau Estimate [1] (http://factfinder.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. There are now plans in the works to build a major cruise ship terminal/mall similar to Pier 39. The bulk of New York's population lives within two hours of the city. Most of the port's activities are now mostly for commuter ferries that leave from the Ferry Building, cruise ship docking, and tourism.

Females made up approximately 51.8% of the population. Many of the piers remained derelict for years until recently, when the port converted many of the piers to office space and sold them. 6.5% of New York's population were reported as under 5, 24.7% under 18, and 12.9% were 65 or older. The advent of container shipping made San Francisco's pier based port obsolete, as much of the city's container traffic is now limited to a small port in the south-east corner of the city, or sent across the bay to the Port of Oakland. The top 5 ancestry groups in New York are African American (15.9%), Italian (14.4%), Irish (12.9%), German (11.2%), English (6%). The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the west coast. The racial makeup of the state was:. Other large airports in the region include Oakland International Airport, 32.2 km (20 miles) from San Francisco and San Jose International Airport, 70.8 km (44 miles) from San Francisco.

According to 2003 estimate, 20.4% of the population was foreign-born. Rail extensions there include BART. According to the US Census Bureau, as of 2004, New York was the third largest state in population after California and Texas, with a population of 19,227,088, a 0.2% increase over the 2003 population (19,190,115). It is the only major international hub airport in California other than LAX in Los Angeles. During the late 1990s economic boom, SFO was the sixth busiest international airport in the world, but has since fallen off of the top ten during the economic depression of 2000-2001. Most cities have Farmers' markets which are well supplied by local truck farmers. San Francisco International Airport dubbed SFO, is located 12.9 km (8 miles) south of the city in San Mateo County on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. Most commercial beekeepers are migratory, taking their hives to southern states for the winter. The Phoenix symbolizes the city's emergence from the ashes of several devastating fires in the early 1850's.

The honeybees are also used for pollination of fruits and vegetables. Above is a rising phoenix and behind is the bay with sailing ships. New York is rich in nectar-producing plants and is a major honey-producing state. The seal, which was adopted in the 1850's, depicts two working men, on one side a miner and on the other a sailor with a sextant. Cheese is a major product, often produced by Amish or Mennonite farm cheeseries. Underneath the phoenix it has a motto written in Spanish: "Oro en Paz, Fierro en Guerra," which translates into: "Gold in Peace, Iron in War.". Dairy farms are present throughout much of the state. The flag depicts an arising Phoenix, symbolic of the City's recovery from the 1906 fire.

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. Other fictional works set in San Francisco include The Joy Luck Club, The Maltese Falcon, and Tales of the City. The Hudson and Mohawk valleys are known for pumpkins and blueberries. Landmarks from the city in that game include the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, City Hall, the Transamerica Pyramid, cable cars, and Chinatown. Particularly in the western part of the state, sweet corn, peas, carrots, squash, cucumbers and other vegetables are grown. The city is featured in the popular video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas as the fictional city San Fierro. Row crops, including hay, maize, wheat, oats, barley, and soybeans, are grown. Doubtfire, The Game, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Pacific Heights, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, The Presidio, Dirty Harry, Bullitt, Twisted, and Vertigo.

New York was heavily glaciated in the ice age leaving much of the state with deep, fertile, though somewhat rocky soils. Movies set in the city include Basic Instinct, The Conversation Edtv, Mrs. New York State is the nation's third-largest wine-producing state, behind California and Washington State. San Francisco has been the setting for numerous television programs, such as Dharma & Greg, Full House, The Streets of San Francisco, Charmed, The Midnight Caller and, more recently, Monk. The south shore of Lake Erie and the southern Finger Lakes hillsides have many vineyards. It is the world's most popular destination for Gay Tourists and hosts the world's largest Gay pride parade and festival in June. Apples are also grown in the Hudson Valley and near Lake Champlain. Due to the high number of Gay people in the Castro District and Noe Valley and the city's history with Gay Rights, San Francisco is known as the "Gay Mecca".

The south shore of Lake Ontario provides the right mix of soils and microclimate for many apple, cherry, plum, pear and peach orchards. The Bohemian Grove an exculsive retreat for the rich and powerful, is located north of the city in Sonoma County while it maintains a club within city limits. The state has about a quarter of its land in farms and produced 3.4 billion dollars in agricultural products in 2001. The Sierra Club is headquarted in the city. New York State is an agricultural leader, ranking within the top five states for a number of products including dairy, apples, cherries, cabbage, potatoes, onions, maple syrup and many other products. Ironically, the Republican Party have also held 2 conventions in the city while San Francisco's liberalism was budding in the late 1950s and the early 1960s. The only major liquid output at present is salt in the form of brine; however, there are also small to moderate petroleum reserves in this area. This started with the beat generation or beatniks in the North Beach area and the San Francisco Renaissance in the 1950s to the hippie culture and the Summer of Love in the Haight Ashbury in the 1960s and early 1970s, to rave culture in the 1990s.

Finally in the inland southwestern part of the state in the Allegheny Plateau is a region of drilled wells. It is also the primary support base for the Green Party. It should be noted that the Adirondacks are not part of the Appalachian system, despite their location, but are structurally part of the mineral-rich Canadian Shield. It is the unofficial center and capitial of left-wing activity in the United States. It is a loyal stronghold for the Democratic Party as it held a convention here in 1920 and again in 1984. This is an area of very specialized products, including talc, industrial garnets, and zinc. Following World War II, San Francisco became a nerve center of alternative culture and lifestyle in the United States that is still dominant in the city's culture today. The second area is the Adirondack Mountains. The American Indian Film Institute which organizes the annual American Indian Film Festival is based in San Francisco.

Primarily, this area specializes in construction materials for the many projects in the city, but its also contains the emery mines of Westchester County, one of two locations in the USA where that mineral is extracted. San Francisco's Ballet and Opera are the some of the oldest continuning performing arts companies in the United States. The first is near New York City. In terms of performing arts, San Francisco boasts the San Francisco Symphony, the San Francisco Opera and the San Francisco Ballet. New York's mining sector, which is larger than most people think, is concentrated in three areas. Between Portola and Glenview streets lies San Francisco's high school SOTA (School of the Arts), dedicated to the performing arts. The famous Fulton Fish Market has been moved to the Bronx. Museums include San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor and the Cable Car Museum, along with offbeat museums such as Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum and the Tattoo Art Museum.

Perhaps the best known aspect of the fishing sector is the famous Fulton Fish Market in New York City, which distributes not only the New York catch, but imported seafood from all over the world. Some of the most notable landmarks are the Transamerica Pyramid and Golden Gate Bridge. There used to be a large oyster fishery in New York waters as well, but at present, oysters comprise only a small portion of the total value of seafood harvested. A large fresh-water lake, Lake Merced, is located in the south west corner of the city near San Francisco State University and Fort Funston. The principal catches by value are clams, lobsters, squid, and flounder. Buena Vista Park located in the Haight-Ashbury, is the city's oldest, established in 1867. There is a moderately large saltwater commercial fishery located along the Atlantic side of Long Island. Another notable park is The Presidio, which is just one part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which also includes Alcatraz.

Some industries are concentrated in outstate locations also, such as ceramics (the southern tier of counties) and photographic equipment (Rochester). The best-known, as well as biggest, park is Golden Gate Park which is 174 acres larger than New York's Central Park. The state also has a large manufacturing sector which includes printing, garments, furs, railroad rolling stock, and bus line vehicles. Related topics: Maps of San Francisco, California. In addition, many of the world's largest corporations locate their headquarters home offices in Manhattan or in nearby Westchester County, New York. The cornerstone of this development is the new SBC Park baseball stadium and an extension of the University of California, San Francisco medical school. New York is best known for its tertiary sector specializing in foreign trade, together with banking, port facilities, advertising, warehousing, and other activities needed to support large-scale commerce. A new neighborhood is being developed at the far eastern end of South of Market that is being called Mission Bay.

Its industrial outputs are printing and publishing, scientific instruments, electric equipment, machinery, chemical products, and tourism. The South of Market neighborhood was one of the epicenters of the dot-com boom of the 1990s thus being a showcase of contemporary urban development. New York's agricultural outputs are dairy products, cattle and other livestock, vegetables, nursery stock, and apples. Arguably, the point of gravity in terms of demographic and land use change is moving east & south. Its 2003 Per Capita Personal Income was $36,112, placing it 6^th in the nation. The Castro neigborhood has the world's highest concentration of Gays. The Bureau of Economic Analysis (http://www.bea.gov/) estimates that in 2003, the total gross state product was $822 billion, second only to California. Haight-Ashbury gained prominence during the 1960s as one of the prominent concentrations of hippies.

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. Russian Hill is probably most noted for the top end of that portion of Lombard Street that is sometimes referred to as "the crookedest (most winding) street in the world". New York City dominates the economy of the state. The predominantly latino Mission District is one of the oldest neighborhoods, as it was the site of one of the twenty one missions in California. Very large trees can even grow in the New York metropolitan area (for example, the Queens Giant is the tallest tree in the NY metro area and the oldest living thing in the NY metro area.). It also boasts a budding Vietnamese community in the Tenderloin neighborhood, an Italian community in North Beach, a French Quarter and a Russian community in the Richmond district. Trees have played a major role in the surrounding areas of New York. Like many large cities in the US, San Francisco has a Japantown and Chinatown; both are among the largest and oldest in the US.

All three areas share geologic and ecological characteristics common along the Atlantic Coastal Plain of the U.S. There are also a number of private art schools that operate across the city. Much of the region's ecosystem is similar to the larger New Jersey Pinelands (also called "pine barrens") to the south and southwest of NY City, along with Cape Cod's pine barrens. Private schools include:. This region is the largest remnant of a forest thought to have once encompassed over a quarter million acres (1,000 km˛) on Long Island following the last glacial advance some 15,000 to 20,000 years ago. Public Universities include:. This remarkably undeveloped region overlies part of Long Island's federally designated Sole Source Aquifer which provides drinking water to nearly three million residents, and it contains terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems of statewide and national significance, interconnected surface and ground waters, recreational areas, historic locales, farmlands, and residential communities. Despite its limited geographical space, San Francisco is home to a multitude of Universities and Colleges.

Three of Suffolk County's ten townships - Brookhaven, Riverhead, and Southampton - are host to the 102,500 acre (415 km˛) State designated and protected Central Pine Barrens region. San Francisco also boasts of legendary venues such as The Fillmore and The Warfield. The two counties that you encounter as you travel east from NY City are Nassau and Suffolk. Major areas of nightlife in San Francisco are: in North Beach, the Mission District, and South of Market. East of New York City extends the appropriately named "Long Island", stretching approximately 120 miles (190 km) from Brooklyn and Queens Counties (part of NY City) on the western end to Orient and Montauk Points in the rural "East End" of the Island. San Francisco also has great nightlife ranging from bars to lounges to clubs. The highest elevation in New York is Mount Marcy in the Adirondacks. Records aside, the race is best known for its colorful costumes and celebratory community spirit (it was initiated after the disastrous 1906 earthquake as a way to boost the city's spirits).

Upstate New York includes the Catskill and Adirondack Mountains, the Shawangunk Ridge, the Finger and 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. The city is also the home of the annual Bay to Breakers footrace, which holds the world records for greatest number of participants in a footrace (110K in 1986) as well as longest consecutively running footrace (annually since 1912). Which of the suburban counties north of The Bronx along the Hudson River (Rockland, Westchester, and Putnam) count as "Upstate" depends on who is making the list. College sports include the University of San Francisco Dons. "Upstate" is a common term for New York State north of the New York City metropolitan area; but many of those outside of the NYC metropolitan area find the term demeaning because it is emblematic of the cultural and demographic divide which separates the two areas, one rural and conservative, the other urban and liberal. The basketball and ice hockey teams were once based out of San Francisco and played out of the Cow Palace located at the southern border with Daly City.
. The regional National Hockey League team, the San Jose Sharks play in San Jose.

The eastern end of Long Island includes suburban Nassau and Suffolk Counties. The regional National Basketball Association team, the Golden State Warriors play across the bay in Oakland. Brooklyn (Kings) and Queens (Queens) are across the East River from Manhattan on the western end of Long Island and Staten Island (Richmond) is south of Manhattan. San Francisco is the home of the San Francisco 49ers National Football League team and the San Francisco Giants Major League Baseball team. The five New York City boroughs (and their counties) are: The Bronx (Bronx) on the mainland north of Manhattan (New York) on Manhattan Island; the Hudson River is their western boundary. A small fleet of commuter ferries operate from the Embarcadero to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County. 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. In addition, a commuter rail service, Caltrain, operates between San Francisco, San Jose, California and Gilroy, California.

Lake George empties at its north end into Lake Champlain, whose northern end extends into Canada, where it drains into the Richelieu and then the St Lawrence Rivers. BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) is the regional transit system, which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through an underwater tunnel, and the San Mateo County, California communities on the San Francisco Peninsula. The Hudson River flows south through the eastern part of the state without draining Lakes George or Champlain. Muni is the city-owned public transit system which operates the Muni Metro light rail system, the F Market heritage streetcar line and the famous San Francisco cable car system (see above), together with buses and electric trolleybuses. Niagara Falls, on the Niagara River as it flows from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario is a popular attraction; the best view is from the Canadian side. San Francisco has the most extensive and best connected public transit system on the west coast and one of the most diverse in the country. Few people know that New York's Adirondack State Park is larger than any National Park in the US. Going northbound, 101 uses arterial streets, Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge across to Marin County. Interstate 280 which also begins and ends in the city and goes southbound towards Silicon Valley and Highway 1 which bisects the westside of the city as a arterial thoroughfare.

While best known for New York City's urban atmosphere, especially Manhattan's skyscrapers, by contrast the rest of the state is dominated by farms, forests, rivers, mountains, and lakes. The major highways in San Francisco are Interstate 80 which begins at the Bay Bridge and goes eastbound; US 101 which begins where 80 ends/begins off and goes southbound towards the Silicon Valley. The megalopolis, however, is not the only aspect of New York State. Similarly, the Golden Gate Bridge is the only direct road access to Marin County from San Francisco. 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. The Bay Bridge is the only link that provides road direct access to the east bay from San Francisco. First described by 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, plus a growth pattern not so much of more population and more area as more intensive use of already existing urbanized area and ever more sophisticated links from one specialty to another. Because of its unique geography, and the "Freeway Revolt", San Francisco is one of the few major cities in the US next to Boston and New York City that has opted for European style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of major highways.

The southern tip of New York State – New York City, its suburbs, 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 Washington and therefore occasionally called BosWash. Related topics: Maps of San Francisco, California. New York is also the site of the only extra-territorial enclave within the boundaries of the USA, the United Nations compound on Manhattan's East River. Out of the total population, 13.5% of those under the age of 18 and 10.5% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line. In addition, Rhode Island shares a water border with New York. 11.3% of the population and 7.8% of families are below the poverty line. New York State'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). The per capita income for the city is $34,556.

The court system in New York is notable for its "backwards" naming: the state's trial court is called the New York Supreme Court, while the highest court in the state is the New York Court of Appeals. Males have a median income of $46,260 versus $40,049 for females. 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 median income for a household in the city is $55,221, and the median income for a family is $63,545. For decades it has been the established practice for Albany to pass legislation for some meritorious project, but then mandate county and municipal government to actually pay for it. For every 100 females there are 103.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 103.1 males. Other officially incorporated governmental units are towns, cities, and villages. The median age is 36 years.

New York's subordinate political units are its 62 counties. In the city the population is spread out with 14.5% under the age of 18, 9.1% from 18 to 24, 40.5% from 25 to 44, 22.3% from 45 to 64, and 13.7% who are 65 years of age or older. New York's legislature also has more committees than any other legislature in the nation. The average household size is 2.30 and the average family size is 3.22. Pennsylvania, whose staff is the second largest, only had 2,947, and California only 2,359. 38.6% of all households are made up of individuals and 9.8% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. New York's legislature also has more paid staff, 3,428 than any other legislature in the nation. There are 329,700 households out of which 16.6% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 31.6% are married couples living together, 8.9% have a female householder with no husband present, and 56.0% are non-families.

Of those bills, only 4 percent, 693, actually became law, the lowest passing percentage in the country. The ethnic makeup is 19.6% Chinese, 8.8% Irish, 7.7% German, and 6.1% English. In 2002, 16,892 bills were introduced in the New York legislature, more than twice as many as in the Illinois General Assembly, whose members are the second most prolific. 14.10% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. From 1984 until 2005, no budget had been passed on time, and for many years the legislature was unable to pass legislation for which there was supposed to be a consensus, such as reforming the so-called Rockefeller drug laws. The racial makeup of the city is 49.66% White, 7.79% African American, 0.45% Native American, 30.84% Asian, 0.49% Pacific Islander, 6.48% from other races, and 4.28% from two or more races. The Assembly has long been controlled by the Democrats, the Senate has long been controlled by the Republicans. There are 346,527 housing units at an average density of 2,865.6/km˛ (7,421.2/mi˛).

New York's legislature is notoriously dysfunctional. The population density is 6,423.2/km˛ (16,634.4/mi˛), making it the second densest city (and fifth densest county) in the country [3] (http://gislounge.com/features/aa041101c.shtml). 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. As of the census² of 2000, there are 776,733 people, 329,700 households, and 145,068 families residing in the city. As in all fifty states, the head of the executive branch of government is a Governor. See also: List of Mayors of San Francisco, California. New York was one of the thirteen colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution. The headquarters of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the Supreme Court of California, and the First Appelate District of the California Courts of Appeal are in San Francisco.

See: History of New York. The current President of the Board of Supervisors is Aaron Peskin. It is sometimes called New York State when there is need to distinguish it from New York City. The current mayor is Gavin Newsom. postal abbreviation is NY. One good place to read about San Francisco politics is at The Usual Suspects, at [2] (http://www.SFUsualSuspects.com). New York is a state in the northeastern United States whose U.S. Due to its implementation, there was no December runoff election. (Although the city offices are, by state law, non-partisan, there are still considerable political differences among candidates that may generally be identified as being aligned with various parties.).

For a complete list, see Colleges and Universities in the State of New York. In the Board of Supervisors race in November 2004, Instant Runoff Voting worked well, with many winners known on election night and all winners within a couple of days. New York's public land grant (agriculture) and forestry colleges are at private schools: Cornell and Syracuse Universities, respectively. A recent electoral innovation that was to be implemented for the November 2003 elections, but was not prepared in time, is the use of ranked preference voting, also known as instant runoff voting. 3.1% mixed race. While most cities in California are General Law Cities, San Francisco is one of a few Charter Cities, theoretically giving the city's voters additional control over governmental structures and allowing the city to exercise considerable control over some lands not located in the city such as those associated with San Francisco International Airport and the Hetch Hetchy water and power system. 0.4% American Indian. The eleven members of the Board are elected to represent eleven districts in the city; current elected members are listed in the table on the right.

5.5% Asian. It is governed by a mayor, who runs the executive branch of the city, and a Board of Supervisors, which comprises the legislative branch. 15.1% Hispanic. San Francisco is both a city and a county, and is the only one of California's 58 counties to possess that distinction. 15.9% Black. LucasArts is located in Marin County, though the company plans to relocate to the Presidio in the next few years. 62.0% White, not of Hispanic origin. ChevronTexaco (fomerly of San Francisco) and IPIX are based in San Ramon, Safeway is based in Pleasanton, and C & H Sugar Company is based in Crockett.

See: Politics of New York. Outside of Silicon Valley, in the East Bay, Pixar Animation is located in Emeryville. See: List of political parties in New York. Hewlett Packard is in Palo Alto near Stanford University. See: List of census-designated places in New York. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale. Google is headquartered (at the "Googleplex") in Mountain View. Cisco Systems and Adobe Systems are headquartered in San Jose. See: List of villages in New York. Sun Microsystems, Intel, Applied Materials, and McAfee are headquartered in Santa Clara.

See: List of towns in New York. Electronic Arts and Oracle Corporation are based in Redwood City. See: List of cities in New York. Apple Computer and Symantec are based in Cupertino. See: List of New York counties. Some 65 km (~ 40 miles) south of San Francisco is the Silicon Valley, which holds much of the computing business in the world. See: Political subdivisions of New York State. Many major American and international banks and venture capital firms have all set up their regional headquarters in the city.

See: List of New York Governors. The Pacific Exchange, a regional stock exchange, is located in the financial district. Mint. Federal Reserve as well as major production facilities for the U.S. It is the home of the twelfth district of the U.S.

West Coast. Because of the California gold rush, San Francisco became and remains the banking and financial center of the U.S. The geographical center of the city is on the east side of Grandview Avenue between Alvarado and Twenty-third Streets. The city itself is often reputed to be roughly a seven mile by seven mile square, but in fact it is slightly smaller, 46.7 mi˛, of which .33 mi˛ are the Farallon Islands.

The total area is 79.86% water. 120.9 km˛ (46.7 mi˛) of it is land and 479.7 km˛ (185.2 mi˛) of it is water. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city and county has a total area of 600.7 km˛ (231.9 mi˛). The fog is less pronounced during the month of September, which is generally the warmest, most summer-like month of the year.

Thus, the summer temperatures are significantly lower in San Francisco than in other parts of inland California. The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland mean that San Francisco's western half is often shrouded in fog during the months of July and August. The Pacific Ocean off the west coast of the city is particularly cold year round. Snow is virtually unheard of.

Rain in the summer is extremely rare, but winters can often be very rainy. The weather is remarkably mild all year round, with a so-called Mediterranean climate characterized by cool, foggy summers and relatively warm winters; average daily high temperatures in the summer typically range from 15 -20 degrees Celsius (the upper 60s to low 70s Fahrenheit), while in the winter it virtually never reaches freezing. Surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's climate is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean. Coit Tower, a notable landmark dedicated to San Francisco's firefighters, is located at the top of Telegraph Hill.

Along with New Orleans' streetcars, San Francisco's cable cars are one of only two mobile United States National Monuments. It is still possible to take a cable car ride up and down Nob and Russian Hills. San Francisco is also famous for its Cable cars (narrow gauge, 1067 mm (3'6")), which were designed to carry residents up those steep hills. Not to be missed are the beautiful homes and area of the city known as Pacific Heights as well as victorians in the Haight-Ashbury and the "painted ladies" of Alamo Square and the Castro.

On top of Mount Davidson is a 31.4 meter (103 foot) tall cross built in 1934. About 1.2km (1 mile) south of Mount Sutro is San Francisco's highest mountain, Mount Davidson, which is over 282 meters (over 925 feet) high. Nearby are the equally well known Twin Peaks, which are a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points. Dominating this area is Mount Sutro, which is the site of Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio transmission tower, that is a well known landmark to city residents.

Near the geographic center of the city and away from the downtown area are a series of less populated hills. Three of San Francisco's notable hill neighborhoods are Nob Hill, Russian Hill, and Telegraph Hill, all located near Downtown. San Francisco is famous for its hills and the streets which run straight up and down them. Such land is extremely unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction during earthquakes causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake.

Entire neighborhoods of the city such as the Marina and Hunters Point were created and sit on man made landfill (made up of mud, sand, and rubble from past earthquakes) and other reclaimation projects over the San Francisco Bay when flatland became scarce. New buildings must be built to very high structural standards, while many dollars must be spent to retrofit the city's older buildings and bridges. The threat of another major earthquake like the 1906 one plays a major role in the city's infrastructure development. The Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989, which also did significant damage to parts of the city, is also famous for having interrupted a World Series baseball game between the Bay Area's two Major League Baseball teams, the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics.

The Daly City Earthquake of 1957 caused some damage. Earlier significant quakes rocked the city in 1851, 1858, 1865, and 1868. The most serious earthquake, in 1906, is mentioned above. San Francisco lies near the San Andreas Fault; a major source of earthquake activity in California.

On June 5th, the mayors of 100 cities, including the mayor of San Francisco, signed an accord that made their cities more compliant with the Kyoto Protocol. In 2005, San Francisco hosted the United Nations annual World Enivronment Day, the first time it has been held in the US. While somewhat controversial, the law will go into effect on July 1, 2005. Other California cities have enacted similar outdoor smoking bans (though not as far-reaching), but San Francisco's new anti-smoking policy is significant considering the city's size and cultural influence on the rest of the state and the nation.

California's statewide smoking bans already being some of the toughest in the nation, the new policy in San Francisco represents an even stricter stance on public smoking. San Francisco's history of innovative ordinances was seen again with the 2004 decision to ban outdoor smoking in all city-owned parks, plazas and public sports venues, amongst other outdoor areas. Newsom also helped enact a strong new homeless policy, "Care Not Cash," in which the checks that homeless people previously received were replaced with vouchers for housing. The California Supreme Court later invalidated these licenses.

to issue same-sex marriage licenses in February, 2004. The newly elected Mayor Newsom, who won by a close margin, burst onto the national political scene when, in defiance of state law, he led San Francisco to become the first city in the U.S. The 2003 mayoral election of Matt Gonzalez versus Gavin Newsom was notable in that it was between a candidate of the progressive left and a moderate liberal, conservative candidates having had a hard time in the city. Though top officials were formally indicted, they were soon exonerated, but with considerable damage to their reputations, and having brought the city nationwide ridicule.

The resulting scandal was dubbed "Fajitagate" after it was alleged that high-ranking officers within the Police Department had tried to cover up the incident. In November of 2002, three off-duty police officers (one the son of the assistant chief) allegedly assaulted two civilians over a bag of steak fajitas. The success of Craigslist stands as a testament to the over-production of the dot-com era. Craig Newmark founded the website Craigslist based in his San Francisco home.

South of Market, where many dot com companies were located, had been bustling and crowded with few vacancies, but by 2002 was a virtual wasteland of empty offices and for-rent signs. By 2001, the boom was over, and many people left San Francisco. The resulting backlash resulted in a progressive majority winning control of the Board of Supervisors in the 2000 election. The rising rents forced many people and businesses to leave, and this caused considerable tension in the city's politics.

During the dot-com boom of the 1990s, large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer software professionals moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, and changed the social landscape as once poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. Known in most of the United States as the "World Series Quake," but in California and by seismologists as the Loma Prieta earthquake, it caused significant destruction and loss of life throughout the greater bay area. The quake also caused extensive damage in the Marina District and the South of Market. The damage to these freeways was so extensive, that they were eventually demolished.

The quake severely damaged many of the city's freeway's including the Embarcadero Freeway and the Central Freeway. On October 17, 1989, an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter magnitude scale struck on the San Andreas Fault near Loma Prieta Peak in the Santa Cruz mountains, approximately 70 miles south of San Francisco, during game 3 of the 1989 World Series. Present mayor Gavin Newsom's policy on the homeless is the controversial "Care Not Cash" program where he plans to end the city's generous welfare policies towards the homeless and instead wants the homeless to be put in affordable housing and attend city funded drug rehabilitation and job training programs. His successor, Willie Brown, was able to largely ignore the problem, riding on the strong economy into a second term.

And it did displace them - to the rest of the city. Jordan launched the "MATRIX" program the next year, which aimed to displace the homeless through aggressive police action. Mayor Art Agnos (1988-92) was the first to attack the problem, and not the last; it is a top issue for San Franciscans even today. Agnos allowed the homeless to camp in the Civic Center park, which led to its title of "Camp Agnos." The failure of this lenient policy led to his being replaced by Frank Jordan in 1992. During the 1980s, homeless people began appearing in large numbers in the city, the result of factors that were affecting the country at large, combined with San Francisco's attractive environment and generous welfare policies, economic and social changes, and the availability of addictive drugs are often cited as reasons for the growth of the problem.

This law has become a standard in many of the world's cities today, and pushed skyscraper construction to the South of Market district where it is still ongoing. Similar to the freeway revolt in the city decades earlier, a "skyscraper revolt" forced the city to enact height restriction limits on tall buildings. This was met with widespread opposition with the city's residents who felt that the skyscrapers ruined views and destroyed San Francisco's unique character. Under former Mayor, and now US senator, Diane Feinstein, San Francisco underwent "Manhattanization" when many of the large skyscrapers present in the Financial District and residential condominiums were built across the city in the late 1970s through the 1980s.

San Francisco has more gays and lesbians than any other US city. Today, the gay population of the city is estimated to be at about 15%, and gays remain an important force in the city's politics. In the 1980s, the AIDS virus wreaked havoc on the gay community there. Because of the rise of this new population, as well as the overall change in ethnic and cultural demographics, tensions arose in the city, and these tensions led to tragedy in 1978 when a conservative member of the Board of Supervisors and a former cop, Dan White, murdered San Francisco's first openly gay elected official, Supervisor Harvey Milk and the city's mayor George Moscone on November 27 (see "Twinkie Defense").

In the 1970s, large numbers of gay people moved to San Francisco's Castro district, which previous to their arrival, had been abandoned by Irish-Americans who moved en masse to the more affluent and culturally homogenous suburbs. When drugs and violence began to become a serious problem in the Haight, many lesbians and gays simply moved "over the hill", to the Castro. These lesbians and gays were the prime movers of Gay Liberation and often lived communally, buying (like their straight counterparts) decrepit Victorians in the Haight and fixing them up. The late 1960s also brought in a new wave of lesbians and gays who were more radical and less mainstream and who had flocked to San Francisco not only for its gay-friendly reputation, but for its reputation as a radical, left-wing epicenter.

On the rave scene, the city was the first to host the Love Parade outside its birthplace of Berlin, Germany in 2004. During the 1980s and 1990s San Francisco became a major focal point in the North American--and international-- punk and rave scene. Another peculiar development is that the Church Of Satan was founded and made its headquarters in San Francisco in 1966. At this time, the "San Francisco sound" emerged as an influential force in rock music, with such acts as the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead achieving international prominence, blurring the boundaries between folk, rock and jazz traditions and further developing the lyrical content of rock.

Thousands of young people poured into the Haight-Ashbury district of the city during 1967, which was known as the Summer of Love. During the latter half of the following decade, the 1960s, San Francisco was the center of hippie culture. Some of the story of the evolving arts scene of the 1950s is told in the article San Francisco Renaissance. San Francisco has often been a magnet for America's counterculture. During the 1950s, City Lights Bookstore in the North Beach neighborhood was an important publisher of Beat Generation literature.

His planning led to the creation of Embarcadero Center, the Embarcadero Freeway, Japantown, the Geary Street superblocks, and Yerba Buena Gardens. He began levelling entire areas in San Francisco's Western Addition and Japantown neighborhoods. Enacting eminent domain whenever necessary, he set upon a plan to tear down huge areas of the city and replace them with modern construction. Critics accused Herman of racism for what was perceived as attempts to create segregation and displacement of African-Americans. Many African-Americans were forced to move from their homes near the Fillmore jazz district to newly constructed projects such as the near the naval base Hunter's Point or even to cities such as Oakland. Justin Herman began an aggressive campaign to renew blighted areas of the city.

In the 1950s San Francisco hired Harvard graduate Justin Herman to head the redevelopment agency for the city and county. The neighborhoods once covered by these freeways have been rebuilt, and the restoration of the Embarcadero, San Francisco's historic bay waterfront, as a public space has been especially successful. Over the course of several referenda, San Francisco's residents elected not to rebuild either structure. In 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake destroyed the Embarcadero Freeway and portions of the so-called Central Freeway.

Although some minor modifications have been allowed to the ends of existing freeways, the city's anti-freeway policy has remained in place ever since. In 1959, the Board of Supervisors voted to halt construction of any more freeways in the city, an event known as the Freeway Revolt. Caltrans tried to minimize displacement (and its land acquisition costs) by building double-decker freeways, but the crude state of civil engineering at that time resulted in construction of some embarrassingly ugly freeways which ultimately turned out to be seismically unsafe. However, Caltrans soon encountered strong resistance in San Francisco, for the city's high population density meant that virtually any right-of-way would displace a large number of people.

During the early 1950s, Caltrans commenced an aggressive freeway construction program in the Bay Area. The Treaty of San Francisco which established peaceful relations with Japan, was drafted and signed there six years later in 1951. The United Nations Charter was also drafted in San Francisco in 1945. During World War II, San Francisco was the major mainland supply point and port of embarkation for the war in the Pacific.

The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was opened in 1936 and the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937. On July 22, 1916 a bomb exploded on Market Street during a Preparedness Day parade, killing 10 and injuring 40. In 1915, the city hosted the Panama-Pacific Exposition, officially to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal, but also as a showcase of the vibrant completely rebuilt city less than a decade after the Earthquake. Unwilling to evict the remains of San Francisco's most prominent founding citizens, however, the above-ground Columbarium of San Francisco was allowed to remain, whose 30,000 deceased residents are the only permitted within the city to this day.

In 1912, this time with no excuse other than the rising value of real estate, all remaining cemeteries in the city were evicted to south of the city limit, where in the modern-day town of Colma the dead now outnumber the living more than ten-thousand to one. [1] (http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/10737701.htm) See also: 1906 San Francisco earthquake. With the centennial of the disaster approaching, a city supervisor sponsored a resolution to amend the death toll, noting "there is evidence to show the number was suppressed for political reasons" (namely that the city's reputation would have suffered). Many residents were trapped between the water on three sides and the approaching fire, and a mass evacuation similar to that of the later Battle of Dunkirk to safety across the Bay saved thousands.

The official reported death toll was 478, but most historians agree the true tally was much higher, probably over 3,000. Water mains ruptured throughout San Francisco, and the fires that followed burned out of control for days, destroying the vast majority of buildings in the city. The quake is estimated by modern scientists to have reached 8.25 on the Richter scale. On April 18, 1906, a devastating earthquake resulted from the rupture of over 270 miles of the San Andreas Fault, from San Juan Bautista to Eureka, centered immediately offshore of San Francisco.

A fifteen-block section of Chinatown was quarantined while city leaders squabbled over the proper course to take, but the outbreak was finally eradicated by 1905. Burials moved to the undeveloped area just south of the city limit, now the town of Colma, California. Mistakenly believing that interred corpses contributed to the transmission of plague, and possibly also motivated by the opportunity for profitable land speculation, city leaders banned all cemeteries within the city. In 1900, a ship from China brought with it rats infected with bubonic plague.

Norton. One of most colorful figures of late 19th century San Francisco was "Emperor" Joshua A. The Sisters of Mercy were contracted to run San Francisco's first county hospital at the height of the cholera epidemic, and in 1857, the order opened its own charity hospital, Mercy Hospital of San Francisco, which is still in operation today at its original location on Stanyan Street. The responsibility for caring for the indigent sick had previously rested on the state, but faced with the San Francisco cholera epidemic, the state legislature devolved this responsibility to the counties, setting the precedent for California's system of county hospitals for the poor still in effect today.

As the city's rapid gold-rush area population growth had significantly outstripped the development of infrastructure, including sanitation, a serious cholera epidemic quickly broke out. Carolina) docked in San Francisco. Sam or the S.S. In autumn of 1855, a ship bearing refugees from an ongoing cholera epidemic in the far east (authorities disagree as to whether this was the S.S.