New York City

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New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2016 population of 8,537,673 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles (784 km2), New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. A global power city, New York City exerts a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment, its fast pace defining the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world.

Links To Peel[]

Peel doesn't appear to have spent much time in New York City during his years in the USA, and the city doesn't feature much in his writings or the anecdotes he told on-air. He spent 1966 living on the West Coast, and many of the American artists he championed during the early years of his BBC career came from Los Angeles and San Francisco. However, there were some exceptions, mainly artists who came out of the Greenwich Village coffee-house folk scene, like the Lovin' Spoonful, the Blues Project, Richie Havens and Tiny Tim. But the most notable New York band of that time were the Velvet Underground, whose music is said to evoke the violence and edginess of the city in the 1960s. In the 1970s New York became known as the birthplace of punk, followed by hip hop, and from then on more New York-based artists began to appear in Peel's playlists.

In summer 2000, Peel flew to America for the first time in 33 years to New York City with his wife Sheila, visiting amongst others the Chrysler Building, which John considered according to Margrave Of The Marshes, the most beautiful man-made object on earth. They also stood on an intersection a block off the East River watching the fireworks and spent an evening at Birdland celebrating the venue's importance in the history of jazz, before discovering that it was actually the third room to be called Birdland and jazz musician Charlie "Yardbird" Parker had never played there at all. Apart from the sightseeing, the couple paid a visit to Laura Cantrell in Greenwich Village, whom John proclaimed on his programme to be the best artist he had heard in ten years. After leaving New York, both went back to the UK on the QE2 cruise, sponsored by the Radio Times.

When 9/11 occurred in New York, Peel said on air that his first thought was for Laura Cantrell's safety, because she worked in the financial district worst affected by the attacks. Fortunately she was safe and after Peel's death, Laura Cantrell paid warm tributes to him on radio and in the press. She also dedicated her 2005 album Humming By The Flowered Vine to his memory.