II. Read, translate and reproduce the text: New York

New York is one of the largest cities in the world and the leading financial, industrial, transport and trade centre of the U.S.A. It is a city of islands connected by 60 bridges. In comparison with such ancient cities as Rome, Moscow, London or Paris, New York is quite young. It was founded in 1613 by Dutch settlers and was named New Amsterdam. When British troops occupied New Amsterdam they called it New York after the Duke of York who was commander of the English army.

Today New York City consists of five districts, enjoying a certain independence. They are Manhatten, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Richmond with a total population of over 8 million people (up to 18 million including its all suburbs). It is a multinational city, called “modern Babylon”, the people of almost all nationalities and races speak 75 different languages.

The centre of New York is Manhatten Island, the heart of business and finance. The island stretches to 21 km. from north to south between the Hudson River and the East River and is only four kilometers in breadth. The longest and widest street in New York, Broadway, runs through the whole of Manhatten. Straight avenues follow the length of the island. The avenues are crossed by 200 streets numbered from south to north. Numerous sky-scrapers house banks and offices of American business. The 102-storeyed Empire State Building, 381metres high is the tallest sky-scraper in the city. Rockfeller Centre, the largest business and entertainment centre in America, covers nearly four city blocks. United Nations Headquarters is here as well. The four buildings were erected in 1950.

Theatres, museums, publishing houses, research institutes and famous Universities, including the University of Columbia, make New York one of the main centres of scientific and cultural life in the country. More than 300 thousand students study at the New York institutions of higher education. The “Metropolitan” Opera House, the “Radio-City” concert halls, the “Metropolitan” and “Modern Arts” museums attract many visitors.

Coming up to New York harbor you pass Liberty Island with the bronze Statue of Liberty, presented to the United States by France in 1886 to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of American independence. The statue is about 50 metres high and stands on a pedestal of almost the same height.

The State is so large that as many as twelve people can stand inside the torch. Many more people can stand in other parts of the statue. The statue weighs 225 tons.

The length of its right arm is 12,8 m., its hand is 5 m, the width of its face is 3,5 m.

The visitors pass 354 steps to the observation deck in the crown of the Statue or 192 steps to the top of its pedestal. In the Statue’s crown there are 25 windows, that symbolize the earth pearls and the heavenly rays, enlightening the world.

In the early 1900’s many immigrants came by boats to the U.S. They saw the statue on an island, near New York City, it was their first sight of America.

There is a museum in the bottom part of the statue, which contains exhibits about the history of immigration in the U.S. There are many pictures, letters and objects from the native countries of the immigrants in it.

The French sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi offered to design the statue. The French people gave money for the statue. Americans designed and built the pedestal for the statue to stand on. The American people raised money to pay for the granit pedestal. The French engineer Alexendre Eiffel, who was famous for his Eiffel Tower in Paris, figured out how to make the heavy statue stand. The creation of the statue became the joint French-American project.

The Statue of Liberty is a woman who holds a torch up high.

She symbolizes a welcome to a land of freedom.