New York. Perhaps you've heard of it. The people in it and a lot of the people around it consider it the capital of the world. 5 boros, 3 rivers, 2 baseball teams, 8 million people and a buck and a half will get you anywhere, unless you want to go to Staten Island. That's free and you get an often-nauseating boat ride to boot.
But the New York metro area doesn't stop at the 5 boros. The fun stops. The excitement stops. The convenient transportation stops. But the metropolis that is New York is a bigger story than the city itself. Take a step back on your handy dandy "New York and Vicinity" map, and you'll find another 6 million people in a close range of New York proper. If NWCW gets its way, then, the fun and the excitement won't stop at the 5 boros. We can't do much about the mass transit, but if we get big enough we might have some weight to throw around.
So then, let's talk a little about just what this "greater New York area" is. To do that, let's start with a little geography of the city itself...
New York, as most people in other parts of the world know it, is the little island of Manhattan (This is NEVER called "the Island" because that would refer to Long Island.) Manhattan is also known formally as New York County, and it's where most of the tourist traps, in addition to most of everything except population, is found.
To the east of Manhattan, across the East River, are the boros of Brooklyn, or Kings County, and to the north of that, Queens, which is conveniently called Queens County. Brooklyn is home to lots of great stuff, and if it were its own city it would be the third most populous city in the US, behind what would remain of New York and also Los Angeles. Queens is home to both LaGuardia (named after former mayor Fiorello LaGuardia) and JFK airports, the US Open tennis tourney, and William A. Shea Municipal Stadium, where the Mets display their lacking baseball abilities 81 days a year. Queens is the city's biggest boro in land area. Both Brooklyn and Queens are located, geographically speaking, on Long Island, but the phrase "Lawn Guyland" refers only to Nassau and Suffolk counties, to the east of Queens.
Across the Harlem River from Manhattan and across Flushing Bay from Queens lies the only boro on the mainland, the Bronx. Except in the phrase "Bronx County," "Bronx" is always preceeded by "the." Once rolling hills and farmalnd, and still somewhat pastoral in some spots, the Bronx is mainly residential. It is home to Yankee Stadium, in turn home to the New York Yankees. Other highlights include Fordham University, the Bronx Botanical Garden, the Bronx Zoo, and an abundance of bridges, parkways, and expressways that will get you out of the Bronx when you've had enough.
Finally, last and least of the boros is Staten Island. It was basically just the Fresh Kills landfill until the Verazzano Bridge opened in 1964, allowing a good part of Brooklyn to spill over. It also caused people in New Jersey, already connected to Staten Island by the Bayonne Bridge, Goetheals Bridge, and Outerbridge Crossing, to decide to use the island also known as Richmond County as a shortcut to Brooklyn. When they got stuck in traffic waiting to pay the toll at the Verazzano, they decided to move in so they would be closer to the bridge when the traffic eased up. That never happened, and so Staten Island is forever left the home of New Jerseyans trying to get to Brooklyn and Brooklynites trying to get to New Jersey, all stuck on the Staten Island Expressway with nowhere to go. An interesting stalemate, but an uninteresting boro. Since Staten Island more closely resembles New Jersey than it does the other four boros, NWCW will occasionally hold events there.
So now you have some idea of how the city is laid out. Time to move on to NWCW's territory. East of Queens you will find Nassau County and to the east of that is Suffolk County. Those two counties are collectively known as Long Island, even though Brooklyn and Queens are on the Island geographically speaking. The correct pronunciation of the words "Long Island" by the way, is "lawn GUYland."
North of the Bronx, you will find Westchester County, which includes such cities as Yonkers and the place where most NWCW shows are held, White Plains.
Rockland County is across the Hudson River from Westchester County. They are connected by the Tappan Zee Bridge, rust and peeling lead paint from which make a festive, confetti-like pattern on the surface of the river below, making the constant attempts to clean up the river even harder, yet brightening the spirits of thwarted environmentalists nonetheless.
South of Rockland, west of the city, and even a little bit of it north of Staten Island, is beutiful, scenic, soulless New Jersey. I can complain about it as much as I want because it's my state and I paid for it. The thrid state to join the union, the Garden State boasts the densest population of any state (I mean that both ways...there are lots of people per square mile, and each one is pretty dense). The portion of the state served by NWCW is toward the north and east, and is an interesting combination of crumbling cities, overpriced condos, inadequate mass transit, incredibly tacky shopping, corporate greed, and toxic-waste-spewing industry. The state's motto is "Liberty and Prosperity," and if you are a wealthy white male age 13-49 with no sense of decency and no desire or ambition to find a greater purpose in life than the white bread world of cookie-cutter houses that surround you, liberty and prosperity will indeed seek you out. Otherwise, as they say here in Jersey, FUGGEDABOWDIT! "Jersey" is properly pronounced "Juhzee" or "Joisy," and the "New" is optional.
To the north and east you will find Connecticut. Connecticut is not my state. I did not pay for it. So I will not complain about it. Only the southwestern part of Connecticut, primarily Fairfield County, is really in the greater New York area, and so that's the only part NWCW will visit regularly.
Here's a nice map for your viewing pleasure. The area outlined in green with black lines through it is the city of New York. The area outside is NWCWW's territory. Note that the lines through Staten Island are dashed, since it is both part of the city and part of NWCW land.
