What are they called? They are not cities are they?
They’re called “boroughs”. Each borough is also a county of New York State: the borough of Manhattan is also New York County; the borough of Brooklyn is Kings County; the borough of Queens is Queens County; the borough of the Bronx is Bronx County; and the borough of Staten Island is Richmond County.
Boroughs. (sp)
But what about the opening shots in ‘Welcome Back Kotter’ which show a sign that says, Welcome to Brooklyn. The 4th Largest City in America
That sign was indeed there into the late 1970’s. (Ask Cecil if you want - but do ask about the Kosciusco Bridge). The story is, Philadelphia reckoned they were the fourth largest city and complained.
Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island combined would be (edjumucated guess) the 12th largest State.
Brooklyn was a seperate city until 1898, when the State consolidated New York County (Manhattan and part of the Bronx), Richmond County, Queens County and Kings County into Greater New York, which is now called New York City. The Bronx was made a seperate county a bit later, IIRC.
That’s the layman’s version - the actual history of the consolidation is rife with fascinating minutia.
[nitpick]
A small part of the geographic area of the Bronx is actually part of New York County, a.k.a. Manhattan. IIRC, when they dredged a clear channel in the marshy areas that separated the top of Manhattan from the Bronx, they made the river cut off part of what had once been considered part of Manhattan from the rest of the island. (Marshy regions tend to change pretty rapidly, and this had been more Manhattan-like than Bronx-like when counties were drawn, but the reverse when dredging happened.) The residents of that neighborhood (the name escapes me) reside in Manhattan for purposes like jury duty, and I think a jury was actually challenged once on the idea that these Bronx residents were not the peers of Manhattanites.
[/nitpick]
Let’s see about this.
Suffolk County 1,419,369
Queens County 2,229,379
Kings County 2,465,326
Nassau County 1,334,544
Long Island ca. 7,450,000
You are correct, sir! Long Island would bump Virginia out of 12th place if it were a separate state.
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Friedo, all of the present-day Bronx was already part of NYC in 1898 (part had joined in 1874, the rest in 1895).
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GilaB, you are thinking of Marble Hill. Read all about it – including the strange case of Wayne Boyd – in my post in this thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=76464&highlight=wayne+and+boyd
And New York State would drop down the list, minus Long Island, though that probably wouldn’t make a difference to Virginia.
[sort of hijack] Native New Yorkers can be the most provincial people around at times. I had a friend from Brooklyn who became just a tad irate when I mentioned that Brooklyn is on Long Island. [/sort of hijack]
Not exactly but pretty darn close. Marble Hill is one exception.