New York City Facts

The World Trade Center towers used to have two zip codes, 10047-10048, one for each building.

New York's Central Park is nearly twice the size of the entire country of Monaco.

When the towers fell on September 11, the Coast Guard put out one call on marine radio: all available boats. Ferry captains turned mid-route. Tugboat operators dropped everything. Fishing boats, private yachts, dinner cruises - hundreds showed up. In nine hours, they evacuated nearly 500,000 people by water. The largest maritime evacuation in history. Larger than Dunkirk, which took nine days.

P.T. Barnum led 21 elephants - including the famous Jumbo - across the Brooklyn Bridge to prove it was safe. Six days after it opened in 1883, a stampede rumor sparked a panic that left 12 people dead and shattered public confidence. The elephant parade fixed it. It worked.

William Van Alen hid a 185-foot steel spire inside the Chrysler Building's own crown, assembled in secret. His rival H. Craig Severance had designed 40 Wall Street two feet taller - thinking he'd win. Van Alen raised the hidden spire through the roof in 90 minutes on October 23, 1929. The Chrysler Building jumped to 1,046 feet, the first skyscraper to top 1,000 feet. It held the record for 11 months.

The Statue of Liberty once had no body. For six years, just her arm and torch stood in Madison Square Park. France paid for the statue - Americans had to fund the pedestal. Visitors paid 50 cents to climb inside the arm. Wealthy New Yorkers living right beside it refused to donate. Pulitzer shamed them publicly, and the full statue arrived in 214 crates.

The Empire State Building's spire was designed as a boarding dock for airships. Passengers would cross an open gangplank 1,250 feet above the street, then ride an elevator down. In September 1931, a small airship docked there for three minutes in 40 mph winds. Two weeks later, a blimp lowered newspapers to the tower on a 100 foot rope. Updrafts made the mast unusable. No airship ever truly docked there.

Steve Buscemi was an FDNY firefighter with Engine 55 for four years before he became a movie star. When the World Trade Center fell on 9/11, he went back to his old firehouse. For five days he worked 12-hour shifts digging through the rubble. He declined every interview and photo request the whole time.