54 LinkNYC Fun Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About NYC

We recently took notice of all the NYC fun facts LinkNYC was sharing with all the passersby. While some were familiar to us from our NYC Fun Facts column, many were new and quiet fun for us here at Untapped. So, we’ve complied a master list of NYC fun facts shared to us by LinkNYC.

1. 14% of NYC is parkland.
2. 15,152 life forms have been identified on the NYC subway.
3. 80% of the items turned into Grand Central’s lost and found make it back to their owner.
4. 900 fashion companies are headquartered in NYC.
5. About 1 in every 38 people living in the US lives in NYC.
6. About 300,000 pedestrians pass through Times Square every day.
7. About half of all New Yorkers speak a language other than English at home.
8. Ancient Rome was 8 times more densely populated than modern NYC.
9. Approximately 800 languages are spoken in NYC.
10. Fashion Week events generate close to $900 million for New York’s economy.
11. Homeowners can request that a tree be planted outside their homes for free in NYC.
12. Hong Kong is the only city in the world with more completed skyscrapers than New York City.
13. If Manhattan had the same population density as Alaska, only 28 people would live there.
14. If NYC were its own state, it would rank 51st in energy consumption.
15. Laid end to end, NYC Transit train tracks would stretch from NYC to Chicago.
16. Lightning strikes the Empire State Building more than 100 times a year.
17. More than 250 feature films are shot in New York City each year.
18. Most NYC elevators top out at the 6th floor.
19. New York plans to get 50% of electricity from renewable sources by 2030.
20. New York reduced CO2 emissions by 18%+ between 2000 and 2014.
21. New Yorkers bite 10 times more people than sharks do worldwide.
22. New Yorkers drink almost 7 times more coffee than other cities in the US.
23. NYC aims to have the best air quality among all large US cities by 2030.
24. NYC aims to reduce building-based emissions by 30% by 2025.
25. NYC has approx. 4,000 street food vendors.
26. NYC has over 840 miles of subway track.
27. NYC is committed to sending zero waste to landfills by 2030.
28. NYC plans for greenhouse gas emissions to be 80% lower by 2050 than in 2005.
29. NYC plans to create the largest electric vehicle fleet of any US city.
30. NYC plans to save 54,844,732 kwh of energy per year through LED streetlight conversion.
31. On a clear day, you can see five states from the Empire State Building’s observatories.
32. On average, New Yorkers save $1,218 a month and $14,612 a year by relying on public transportation.
33. Over 600,000 dogs live in New York City.
34. Phantom of the Opera is the longest running show in Broadway history, with over 10,000 performances.
35. Since 1908, Central Park has appeared in over 240 films.
36. Solar power has quadrupled in NYC since 2014.
37. The average temperature of NYC pavement on a hot summer day is 150 degrees.
38. The basement in Grand Central is the deepest basement in New York City.
39. The Brooklyn Bridge was the first bridge to be lit using electricity.
40. The Brooklyn Children’s Museum was the world’s first museum exclusively for kids.
41. The entry fee for the first NYC Marathon in 1970 was only $1.00.
42. The first time Grand Central was shot in Technicolor was in 1953.
43. The locker rooms at Madison Square Garden are round so that it is easier for teammates to look into each other’s eyes.
44. The longest subway train route is the A, which runs for more than 31 miles.
45. The original Yankee Stadium was baseball’s first triple-decker structure.
46. The Statue of Liberty’s sandals are the equivalent of a size 879 shoe.
47. The world’s population could fit in the state of Texas if it were as densely populated as New York City.
48. There are about 25,000 restaurants in NYC.
49. There are more undergraduate and graduate students in NYC than there are people in Boston.
50. There is a birth in NYC every 4.4 minutes.
51. Traveling to every single stop of the NYC subway would take at least 21 hours.
52. Trees cover 24% of NYC land area.
53. Under 10% of Manhattan buildings with 13 or more stories actually label a floor with the number 13.
54. Until WWII, anyone moving apartments in New York City had to move on May 1.

Want more fun facts? Check out 9 of NYC’s Most Interesting Fun Facts.