Talk:City of Greater New York

Latest comment: 3 years ago by Delirium in topic Supreme Court decision

1998 edit

The corporate history of the "Great Mistake of '98" as some conservatives called it, isn't a huge topic of New York City history, but it has its appropriate place in this little article. Whether the Dinkins/Giuliani election should be covered here or in articles about the protagonists or about Staten Island, that's another question. Anyway I'll add a little material about the State constitutional implications of amalgamation, and a link to a corporate governance issue. Jim.henderson 15:19, 18 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

An awful lot on Staten Island... edit

This article is only five paragraphs long, and about half of it is about the attempt on the part of Staten Island to secceed. Shouldn't that be in its own article? --Jfruh (talk) 22:03, 6 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Reliable Source? edit

This sentence:

The phrase 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 (link).

Links to a message board post for support. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.178.92.119 (talk) 21:53, 30 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Redirect? edit

Related to the above post, as "The phrase City of Greater New York was never a legal or official designation" shouldn't this redirect to City of New York? 122.167.94.164 (talk) 08:31, 28 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Yes, but it was a commonly-used name at the time to distinguish the consolidated (5-borough) City of New York from the pre-1898 City of New York (covering all or part of Manhattan & the Bronx, but none of Queens, Brooklyn or Staten Island). "Greater New York" is still used at times to distinguish the consolidated and unconsolidated cities (which is why I redirected Greater New York and Greater New York City away from New York metropolitan area and towards disambiguation pages.) New York City (where City of New York will redirect) is already long enough; this, among other things, is a useful place to concentrate information about the consolidation movement and its results. —— Shakescene (talk) 09:02, 28 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Why did Yonkers opt out? edit

The article on Yonkers says that that city declined to take part in the consolidation. Is there a reason? Were there other municipalities, villages, or townships that were asked to be part of Greater New York, but declined?

--Wechselstrom (talk) 18:27, 3 September 2010 (UTC)Reply


On November 6, 1894, the citizens of the proposed metropolis voted to voice their opinion on consolidation.

District For Against

New York County 96,938 59, 959

Kings County 64, 744 64, 467** **Numbers include towns annexed at the end of 1894 - without these towns Brooklyn proper voted against consolidation by 1,034 votes.

portion of Queens County 7,712 4,741

Richmond County 5,531 1,505

Town of Westchester 374 206

portion of Town of Eastchester 620 621

portion of Town of Pelham 251 153

Total 176,170 131,706

NOTES: The only places where a majority was anti-consolidation was in Flushing and the Town of Eastchester.

The Town of Mount Vernon also participated in the referendum at the request of its citizens. However, neither Green nor the Greater New York Commission ever sought to include it. The town voted against the measure -873 to 1603 --JimWae (talk) 19:29, 3 September 2010 (UTC)Reply

Split Staten Island edit

I propose that the Staten Island secession section be split to the Secession in New York article, as that article already covers the proposed creation of a new county, and this is just the creation of a new city, a similar state of affairs. 64.229.103.105 (talk) 12:56, 21 January 2011 (UTC)Reply

I think that's a good idea, but since the topic is relevant to both articles, maybe summarize it here in two sentences with a link to the Secession in New York article (yet another example, by the way, of why I'm such a diehard proponent of making all such articles about the state say they're about New York State and not just "New York"; the topics covered are not at all obvious even to a deeply-involved editor, yet alone to some interested random outside reader). Just as we mention the forces for consolidation, we should discuss those for secession, but in proper proportion to the rest of the Greater New York article, whereas SI secession deserves full treatment at the Secession article. —— Shakescene (talk) 19:35, 21 January 2011 (UTC)Reply

Fire departments merged before 1898? edit

The article says that the New York City and Brooklyn FDs were merged prior to 1898-01-01. I can't seem to find anything that corroborates that, e.g. http://nyfd.com/brooklyn_bfd/bfd_history.html. Anyone have anything? --plaws (talk) 22:27, 17 February 2012 (UTC)Reply

1865 Metropolitan Fire district here. I lack the time to insert it properly today. Jim.henderson (talk) 13:30, 19 February 2012 (UTC)Reply
Also see a rather indirect reference ("by the time of consolidation in 1898 the area of the FDNY had doubled, after the fire departments of the City of Brooklyn and several communities in Queens had been absorbed") in the "firefighting" article in The Encyclopedia of New York City. —— Shakescene (talk) 21:12, 19 February 2012 (UTC)Reply

Supreme Court decision edit

It would be nice to get details and a citation for this. When was the constitution amended, and what is the caption and year of the U.S. Supreme Court case referred to?

the State Constitution was amended to provide that no city could elect the majority of the State Assembly, a provision later struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court as violating the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Delirium (talk) 05:21, 12 September 2020 (UTC)Reply