1

A diverse city

Anyone who has ever set foot in New York City knows that it’s a highly diverse city, with ties to communities from all over the world. Around 35% of New Yorkers are foreign-born, and around 800 different languages are spoken every day in the city. This is not only the result of the millions of immigrants who have arrived there since the 19th century, but also the city’s status as a financial and cultural hub that attracts residents from around the globe.

2

The Big Apple’s name origins

Ever wondered why New York City is nicknamed the Big Apple? It has nothing to do with the fruit, but rather with horse racing. In the 1920s, John J. Fitz Gerald, a sports journalist, overheard a group of New Orleans stable hands call New York’s race tracks the "big apple", because they offered the biggest prizes . Fitz Gerald started a column in the New York Morning Telegraph titled "Around the Big Apple", and the nickname stuck.

3

An island city

Is New York City on an island or on the mainland? There is no straight answer to this question. New York comprises five boroughs —The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island— of which only one (The Bronx) is strictly part of the mainland. As for the rest, they are located across three different islands : Manhattan and Staten Island are islands of their own, while Brooklyn and Queens are located on Long Island, a much, much larger landmass which belongs only partially to New York City.

4

The building with its own zip code

Can a building have its own zip code? It sure can, if this building is a skyscraper in one of the most populous cities in the world. The Empire State Building, located at 350 Fifth Avenue (at 33rd and 34th Streets), is not only one of New York’s most famous landmarks, but it also houses dozens of businesses and offices. For this reason, the U.S. Postal Service has given the building a ZIP code of its own, NY 10118. While the Empire State Building is not the only New York building with its own code (there are 42 others), it is certainly the most famous.

5

The first pizzeria in America

It’s impossible to imagine New York City without its pizza scene, so it’s only fitting that t he first licensed pizza place in America was founded in this city. In 1897, Italian immigrant Gennaro Lombardi opened a small grocery store in Little Italy, Manhattan, where he sold "tomato pies" (a pizza with cheese first and tomato on top). In 1905, he acquired the first official permit for a pizza place in America, which opened under the name Lombardi's Pizza.

6

The "pizza principle"

The average New Yorker is used to riding the subway and buying pizza by the slice, but they might not have noticed the price similarities between these two things. First observed in the 1960s, the "pizza principle" states that the price of a plain slice of cheese pizza is roughly equal to the cost of a subway ride , and that these two prices will usually rise in tandem.

7

The "wall" in Wall Street

Most people know that the Wall Street financial district in New York City took its name from an actual street, but where did the street get its name? Well, from a wall. In 1653, when New York City was still New Amsterdam, the Dutch colonial authorities built a wooden wall along the northern border of the settlement , as protection against British and Native American attacks. After the British took control of the area in 1699, the deteriorated wall was taken down, and a road was built where the wall stood, aptly named "Wall Street".

8

Why yellow taxis?

To say "New York City" is synonymous with saying "yellow taxi", but taxis in the city used to be a different color. When motorized taxicabs replaced horse-drawn carriages in 1907, their official colors were red and green. In 1915, after a university study discovered that yellow was the easiest color to spot at a distance, taxi companies started painting their fleets in that color , but it wasn’t until 1967 that New York City officially required all licensed taxis to be "school bus yellow" or a similar shade. In 2013, green taxicabs (also known as "Boro taxis") were introduced to address the shortage of yellow taxis in the outer boroughs and in upper Manhattan.

9

No honking allowed

Traffic noise in a city as huge and populous as New York is unavoidable, and this includes honking. But did you know that honking, unless there’s a pressing emergency, is illegal? Rules concerning honking have existed in New York since the 1930s, but this doesn’t mean they are always followed or enforced . Per the city’s code, blowing your car horn is acceptable in emergencies, but not to rush traffic along, express anger, or as a greeting, all things that might carry a fine ranging from $350 to $2,500. However, despite traffic agents, noise cameras, and fines, honking is still prevalent in New York’s daily sounds.

10

Moving day

New York City’s housing market is cutthroat, but imagine how much worse it would be if you (and everyone else in the city) were only allowed to look for a new place to live three months out of the whole year? For a long time, this was the norm. Stemming from an old Dutch custom where all leases expired on May 1st, landlords would notify their tenants about rent increases or their lease ending on February 1st. For the next three months, tenants all across the city would look for a new place, and all moves would be done on May 1st, also known as "moving day". Down the line, an extra "moving day" was added in October to reduce the chaos caused by the tradition, which died out around WWII.

1

A renovation project saved thousands of lives on 9/11

On September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., killing 189 people. Few people know this part: the death toll could have been much higher. But there was a renovation project underway at the time of the attacks.

The Pentagon’s five-sided structure is divided into five "wedges," and workers had been renovating them one at a time. Flight 77 struck the wedge that had just been completed. Of the 4,500 people who normally worked in that section, only about 800 had moved back in. Without the reinforced construction and the incomplete occupancy, experts believe the casualties would have been catastrophically higher.

2

The Cold War and the hot dog stand

In the middle of the Pentagon’s five-acre center courtyard once stood a modest hot dog stand. According to a Cold War legend (one still retold by official Pentagon tour guides on every public tour), between the 60s and the 80s, Soviet satellite images tracked large groups of high-ranking military officials converging on that small building at the same time every day.

Soviet intelligence reportedly concluded the structure must be the entrance to some underground bunker in America. In reality, all it did was sell lunch. In 2006, the original stand was torn down, and a sandwich shop was built in its place.

3

Its construction began on September 11th, exactly 60 years before the attack

Builders broke ground on the Pentagon on September 11, 1941. That was exactly 60 years to the day before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that would strike the same building.

Construction had been ordered by Army Brigadier General Brehon Somervell, who wanted a permanent headquarters for the Defense Department to replace its then-17 scattered offices across Washington, D.C.

The project was extraordinarily ambitious: plans called for the world’s largest office building to be completed in just 16 months. In the end, the conception, design, and construction of the entire Pentagon building took a total of 15 months.

4

The same person oversaw its construction and the Manhattan Project

Colonel Leslie Groves of the Army Corps of Engineers took charge of Pentagon construction in August 1941. He worked six days a week and drove his team relentlessly, at one point employing more than 15,000 workers around the clock.

When the Pentagon was finished in January 1943, Groves was assigned to lead the Manhattan Project, America’s secret program to build the atomic bomb . His deputy, Captain Robert Furman, followed him into the Manhattan Project as chief of foreign intelligence. Together, the men who built the world’s largest office building went on to produce the weapon that ended World War II.

5

Why is it shaped like that?

The Pentagon’s iconic five-sided shape was the consequence of a geographic accident. The original site selected for the building, near Arlington Cemetery, **happened to be bordered on five sides by roads. **Architects designed the structure to fit those boundaries, producing a pentagonal floor plan. Then President Franklin D. Roosevelt intervened: worried the massive building would obstruct the view of Washington, D.C. from Arlington, he ordered the site moved to its current location along the Potomac River. But the five-sided design had already been drawn up, and nobody changed it.

6

It was the first desegregated building in Virginia

When the Pentagon was designed in 1941, segregation was the law in Virginia. Original plans called for doubled bathroom facilities: separate ones for Black and white employees, as required by Virginia statute. But President Roosevelt had signed Executive Order 8802 in June 1941, prohibiting racial discrimination in federal employment and government contracting.

As a federal building, the Pentagon was exempt from Virginia law. It became the only building in the state where segregation was not enforced. A fully desegregated federal workplace that opened in 1943. The doubled bathrooms were built anyway, as the plans were too far along to revise, but were never used as separately designated spaces.

7

Its construction was surprisingly frugal and incredibly fast

Ground broke on September 11, 1941, and construction finished on January 15, 1943, just 16 months later. More than 15,000 workers were on site around the clock. Wartime office shortages were so severe that employees moved into completed wings before the rest of the building was finished. Steel was too scarce to use extensively, so builders relied almost entirely on reinforced concrete. The 689,000 tons of sand and gravel required came directly from the nearby Potomac River, cutting transportation costs. The project was budgeted at $35 million, but the final bill was $63 million, which would translate to over $900 million in today’s dollars.

8

You can walk between its farthest points in only 7 minutes

The Pentagon is the world’s largest low-rise office building: 6.5 million square feet of space, which is three times the total floor area of the Empire State Building. Each of its five outer walls is 921 feet long. It has 7,754 windows and 17.5 miles of corridors. Approximately 26,000 military and civilian employees report for work there every day.

Despite that scale, the building’s concentric ring design is so efficient that it takes only about seven minutes to walk between its two farthest points.

9

The man who secretly lived inside its walls

During construction, Colonel Groves drove his deputy, Captain Robert Furman, so relentlessly that Furman rarely left the building. To cope, Furman had contractors build him a small, windowless apartment hidden inside the walls of the Army’s Ordnance Division. In this private room, he could sleep and shower without leaving the premises.

When construction ended and personnel dispersed, knowledge of the hidden room was never passed on to building management. Months later, when Furman returned to Washington on Manhattan Project intelligence business, he found the apartment undiscovered and exactly as he’d left it.

For over a year, he would slip back to the Pentagon, pop open a wall panel, spend the night, and emerge in the morning with his suitcase. He was finally caught in 1943 and forced to surrender the keys. It was never disclosed whether the secret apartment was maintained or eventually absorbed back into the official floor plans.

10

It houses over 30 restaurants, including everyone's favorite chains

The Pentagon feeds roughly 26,000 people a day, and its dining options read less like a military headquarters and more like a mall food court. The main Concourse Food Court, which opened in September 2009 and seats 875 people, is the largest of several dining areas.

Confirmed chains currently inside the building include McDonald’s, Five Guys, Subway, Popeyes, Starbucks (multiple locations), Dunkin’ (two locations), Panera Bread, Taco Bell, Panda Express, Baskin-Robbins, Potbelly, Jamba Juice, and Moe’s Southwest Grill, among others. The building also houses a CVS pharmacy, a florist, a jeweler, and a dry cleaner. In the summer of 2024, Potbelly became the first restaurant to open in the center courtyard. Yes, the very spot where the legendary Cold War hot dog stand once stood.

1

Measuring

This is a difference most Americans are aware of: most countries use the metric system rather than U.S. customary units, and most use Celsius instead of Fahrenheit. Countries such as the UK and Canada still use some imperial units in everyday life, but they mainly use the metric system. Another measure that confuses foreigners is the particular way ingredients are measured in American recipes, which often use cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons rather than measurements by weight.

Fun fact: The only other countries that use the Imperial system officially are Liberia and Myanmar.

2

Sales tax

Do you find having to calculate sales taxes annoying? That’s a unique American experience. In the majority of the world, the price you see is the price you pay , because it has the sales tax already added.

Why is it different in America? Sales taxes vary across states , so retailers find it easier to showcase the base price and then calculate the total at checkout.

3

Cutlery use

Many Americans abroad are surprised by the realization that not everyone uses a knife and fork in the same way they do . In fact, no one else does. While most Americans have learned the American style —also called the zig-zag or fork switching method— that involves using the fork in the left hand for cutting and then changing it to the right to pick up the food, European and Latin American countries don’t do this . It might seem like a small difference, but it completely changes the way you eat.

4

Iced drinks

Do other countries not have ice? They do, but they don’t necessarily assume everyone will want it. While serving water and other beverages with ice is customary in America, in many other countries, you need to request it —even during the hottest of summers.

But even if you get ice, many times you will need to specify the amount : the same drink that would be filled with ice cubes in America might come to you with just two or three cubes elsewhere.

5

Date formatting

The U.S. is not completely alone on this one, but there’s a difference big enough to be worth mentioning. The standardized way of recording the date in America is month-day-year , a convention also followed by some Caribbean and Asian countries. But in the rest of the Western world, the conventional format is day-month-year , which can lead to confusion for Americans. In most Asian countries , the most commonly used format is year-month-day .

6

The word ‘American’

In the English language, ‘American’ is the only way to refer to people with U.S. citizenship . Other words, such as ‘Usian’ or ‘Unitedstatian’ have been proposed, but never stuck. This is why many Americans are surprised when other countries —Latin American countries in particular— use ‘American’ for anyone in the American continent , or continents, another big difference. In most European and Latin American countries, there is a different word for U.S. citizens, such as the Spanish ‘estadounidense’ or the Portuguese ‘estadunidense’ .

7

Moving out at 18 years old

This one is not so black and white, but more like a general tendency. Compared with most of Europe, Latin America, and Asia, Americans give serious consideration to the possibility of moving out after high school. Not everyone does, and not everyone can afford it, but it's fairly common.

In other countries, young adults generally move out if their job or education requires it , but they tend to stay at home a few more years if they can.

8

Driving a car as a teenager

America is quite car-centric , especially if you live outside of the big cities. While not everyone can afford to have a personal car —even a second-hand one—, it is common for 16 and 17-year-olds to legally drive their parents’ car, or save for their own.

In the rest of the world, the chances of high schoolers driving themselves to school are much lower, as most countries don’t allow underage kids to get a driving license .

9

Solo cups

Do plastic cups exist outside of the U.S.? They do, but they are not as iconic or as widely used as Solo cups, introduced in the 1970s as a disposable but sturdy cup for parties and events. Many foreigners visiting America are surprised when they realize that solo cups are a real thing , and not something that just happens in movies.

10

Filing taxes

Taxes in the U.S. are not that different from taxes in other countries, except for how they are filed . During tax filing season, thousands of Americans direct their efforts to ensure they have properly reported their income and that their return will match the IRS’s data.

In other parts of the world, however, the one responsible for calculating and filing taxes is the government , while citizens merely corroborate that everything is in order.