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Hudson Metropolitan Area (state)

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The Hudson Metropolitan Area, often simply called Hudson or HMA, is the most populous state in the Unitary American State. The state comprises nineteen counties, namely Brooklyn, Westchester, Manhattan, Bronx, Richmond, Rockland, Hagenot, Nassau, Suffolk, Sussex, Passaic, Bergen, Hudson, Essex, Union, Uppersex, Somerest, Newark and Hunferdon.
The largest city is New York, which itself has a population of 8.4 million. New York consists of five 'boroughs', which are extensions of their respective counties, these being Brooklyn, Hagenot, Manhattan, Bronx, Richmond, and Newark - Newark being annexed into New York in 1998.

It is a globally significant city which is a political, economic, business, media, tech, and entertainment hub and center, with a significant amount of companies such as Pan Am and Amazon having their headquarters situated within the city. The most prominent structures within New York are the Atlantic Trade Center, Wall Street, the Manhattan Pact Building, the Empire Tower, and the Statue of Liberty.

History

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17th to 19th centuries

New York was initially called New Amsterdam when it was founded by the Dutch in 1625. In 1664 the Dutch handed the city over to the British after overwhelming British forces demanded the city to surrender to them, which was done without bloodshed. The Colony of Hudsonia was then established in what is present-day HMA. It was later expanded and reformed into the Colony of New York in 1667, and would encompass the modern day territories of New York state and the HMA combined. After the American Revolution, the former colony would retain its name but become a state of the American Republic.

During the 19th century, New York would undergo many federally-mandated changes, evolving it into a residential and commercial center, aswell as a hub for European immigrants. In 1886, the Statue of Liberty was placed on Liberty Island in New York's harbor, as a gift from France. Earlier between 1869 and 1871, the Grand Central Depot was built in central Manhattan.

Early 20th century

In 1903, the Grand Central Depot was partially torn down, and renovated and rebuilt into the Grand Central Terminal, which at the time would serve as an intercity hub for New York and neighboring cities, such as Boston and Philadelphia. Construction was slowed down as the station was changed bit-by-bit, as to not detrimentally interrupt rail service. After a decade in 1913, Grand Central Terminal was opened.

In 1910, the City of Hagenot (until then a seperate city) was annexed into New York, by a referendum which ended in favor of the annexation with a 2% margin. Manhattan's government had supposedly paid companies with a lot of Hagenotian employees to encourage their employees to vote in favor of the referendum in return for a bonus. After the annexation, the Manhattan city government (which it had been called until then) renamed to the City of New York officially, as 'New York' until then was simply slang for the city governments in the general area.

Later in 1916, New York had attempted to annex Brooklyn with the same trick, but it failed just barely as 56% of Brooklynites voted against the annexation. The city government of New York then offered to cooperate with the city government of Brooklyn to dig up to 6 subway lines between the two, only four of which were actually completed as the last two were planned to have been dug during the early 1920s, which were put off and eventually cancelled altogether due to the consequences of the Depression of 1920-21.

The extra connectivity between the two cities would later prove to be sufficient to change Brooklynite minds, as New York again attempted to annex Brooklyn in 1923 via referendum, and once more paid companies into convincing their employees to voting in favor of the annexation. The referendum would result in 63% in favor of the annexation, and it was finalised by the end of the year. The annexed city governments would persist as much less autonomous 'boroughs' inside of the New York city government.

During the Great Depression, the Bronx county saw a great decline in it's local commerce, almost bankrupting the city government. New York offered to 'temporarily' annex the Bronx county to save it from said fate, which the Bronx city government did without referendum. In 1937, New York held a referendum to release the Bronx as it's own city government again, but the referendum was not held as a Bronxite-exclusive one, instead being held across the whole of New York. At that time, the Bronx area was the least populated out of all four areas in New York. 87% of Bronx residents voted to seperate, but overall, the results came in as 23% in favor of seperation due to the fact that the referendum was held in other areas such as Hagenot and Brooklyn too, meaning that the referendum never passed.

The Bronx Marches

The Bronx Marches were a series of protests between 1937 and 1944, defining a period when Bronxites protested and to an extent fought to seperate from the New York city government. The first Bronx March was on September 10th, 1937, only a few days after the results of the failed 1937 referendum. An estimated 500 people went onto Willis Avenue in Bronx blocking motor traffic and holding up signs, some of them reading NEW YORK IS THE IMPERIALIST SERPENT OF AMERICA and BRONX IS NOT NEW YORK. After roughly half an hour, mounted police units arrived at Willis Avenue and reportedly used an unacceptable degree of violence to put down the protest, some of the afflicted protesters requiring immediate medical attention shortly after being put down by police. New York's city government supposedly paid news companies such as the New York Times to not cover the stories of the protesters themselves.

The second Bronx March occured four months later on January 8th, 1938. This time, an estimate of 1.700 people went onto Willis Avenue once more, which was put down within two hours. Similar procedures were executed by the New York city government, as media regarding those who were in the protest is scarce.

On the third Bronx March, roughly 4.000 gathered on Courtlandt Avenue on October 8th, 1938. Roughly at 1:30 PM, they all began marching south on the Third Avenue, across the Third Avenue Bridge, then marched down Park Avenue, towards the New York City Hall. During this, a famous picture of a now imfamous protest sign was taken, widely associated with Bronx speratism, reading NYC GOVT WILL OPRESS BRONX IF IT MEANS OUR TAX. The reason for the sign was that New York taxes were higher than the Bronx takes prior to the annexation. After about an hour of marching, they reached the New York City Hall and demanded the seperation of Bronx from New York. The then-mayor of New York, Hebert H. Kehman, stepped out and addressed the protesting crowd. The addressal was not taken well by the Bronxites, and tried to enter the city hall itself, but were held back and restrained by the New York police.

The fourth Bronx March was the largest of the marches, amassing roughly 22.500 participants. On May 17th, 1941, 12.000 of them went on strike and the remaining 10.500 went out to protest once more. The amount of participants was particularly high this time as many European immigrants during the Second World War that came into New York would often be deposited into the Bronx area, which many of the local Bronxites did not take well to. Around this time, the New York Times had cointed the term 'Bronx seperatism', which in later decades would be simplified to 'Bronxism'. The police were much more fierce in putting down the protest, to the point that a reported 657 of the protesters were hauled off to Bronx Lincoln Hospital. Again, the New York city government paid news agencies to refrain from reporting on the protesters' experiences.

Various smaller protests and marches would continue and persist until 1944, after that no more protests were held.

Late 20th century

In 1969, the Stonewall Riots were a series of unpredictable, violent protests and/or riots by the gay community against a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a pro-gay bar in Lower Manhattan. These protests would be, quote 'brutally put down' as the New York Times put it, and is credited for sparking the gay liberation movement in America.

During the 1970s, New York began to hold more legislative power in its area. During that same period, it started a period of deindustrialisation, leading to an increase in homelessness in nearby urban areas. New York would begin mass urban development in the Bronx area, and had plans to expand into Nassau county too. In 1975, a referendum was held in Nassau to be annexed by the New York city government. The referendum failed, with only 32% of residents voting in favor. The annexation would proceed regardless, being finalised by the end of the year, and any demonstrations or protests would be immediately put down. After the annexation, the urbanisation plans for the region started.

On 1962, on September 10th, what was then the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey - now simply called the Port Authority of Hudsonia - assigned Minoru Yamasaki to design a new financial center in Lower Manhattan which would host ten million square feet of office space. It would be named the Atlantic Trade Center.

Minoru came up with the 'twin towers' design, as one tower would simply be too tall, and anything smaller would not have enough area to fit the quota. This would mean two towers that were each 110 floors tall. A major issue was elevator space. Due to how taller towers need more elevators, this would mean all the elevators would take up too much space and reduce the office space significantly. In order to fix this, Minoru Yamasaki came up with the concept of skylobbies. A set of high-capacity express-elevators would bring the building's traffic to the two skylobbies each, one on floor 44 and another on floor 78. From those skylobbies, sets of lower capacity local elevators would bring traffic up through to the next segment. Therefore, there were three groups of local elevators, one for floors 0-43, one for floors 44-77, and one for floors 78-110.

The twin towers design was accepted, and in March of 1965, the Port Authority started acquiring property in Lower Manhattan, funded by the New York city government. The demolition began on March 21st, clearing various low-rise buildings for the financial hub. Construction on ATC1 - the North Tower - began in August of 1968, and ATC2 - the South Tower - started being constructed in January of next year. Their topping out ceremonies were held on December 23, 1970, and July 19, 1971 respectively. Finally, the ribbon-cutting ceremony took place on April 4th, 1973. In 1971 a new subway terminal was built across the street from the two towers, named the Altantic Trade Terminal.

In 1993, the Atlantic Trade Center was bombed at the ATC3 Vista Hotel by unknown perpretrators, coloquially known as the 1993 Atlantic Trade Center Bombing. The interior of the hotel was damaged to the extent where the Vista Hotel Company was no longer interested in repairing the hotel, and sold it off to the Host Marriot Corporation, who also covered the costs of the repairs. Later in 1995, the Atlantic Trade Center was found to be a target of Operation Sundown, but was never hit as the would-be hijackers were apprehended at Boston Intl. Airport due to racial profiling instated 30 minutes after the crash of Northwest Airlines 34.