The newfound cities at the turn of the 20th century provided a setting for and urban culture unlike anything seen before in the United States. The city itself became an arena to the nation's vibrant economic life. Here is where the factories went up, and here is where the new immigrants settled, making up about a third of the residents of major American cities in 1900. In the new bundle of joy also lived the millionaires and the growing white-collar middle class.

The migration from the farms to the city seem inevitable to the nineteenth-century Americans. Josiah Strong declared, "The greater part of our population must live in cities. In due time we shall be a nation of cities." Urbanization was directly linke

For the young and unmarried, the new amusements of the city created a new arena for social gathering. It done away with the constrains of morals and made way for an easier laid back out going life.

All these new innovations were not able to keep the cities from becoming over congested. In some cities such as New York, public transportation had to be removed, in some areas, because of all the congestion. In hopes of solving this problem, the first elevated lines were created. At first they were powered by steam engines. They were called "els." Shortly after, the "els" converted to electricity as the trolley cars were. Bostan opened the fist underground line in 1897. In 1904 a subway running the length of Manhattan was completed. The subway demonstrated the full potential of the high-speed underground train.

The theater also attracted huge crowds. Chicago alone had six vaudeville houses in 1896 and twenty-two in 1910. Vaudeville would later clean up their shows making them suitable for adults and children as well. The first movie appeared in 1896 in penny arcade and as a filler in vaudeville shows. With in a decade, millions of city people were watching narrative films of increasing length and artistry at nickelodeons (named after the five cents admission charge) across the country.

To be entertained meant that you had to buy a ticket. Amusement parks went up at the end of the trolley lines in cities across the country. The brightest theme park was Luna Park at New York's Coney Island. Luna Park provided, for all its visitors, a great escape from the day-to day work life. It was like a storybook come to life. All was bizarre and fantastic. Luna Park resembled reality in the least ways possible.

The downtown area of the city was usually what was the original city before it spilled out. Downtown then broke down into shopping, warehousing, financial, manufacturing, entrainment, hotels, and red-light districts. All these different districts were well defined unto themselves. Surrounding downtown would usually be industrial development. On the outskirts of town would be heavy concentration of industry.

The most dramatic evidence that the times have changed was the electrical lights that done away with the gloom of the city at night. Gaslight was mainly used in the early nineteenth century but it was to dim to brighten downtown streets and the city's public spaces. The fist use of electricity, when generating technology made it commercially feasible in the 1870s, was for arc lights that illuminated the city streets and public buildings. Electric lighting then entered the American home thanks to Thomas Edison's invention of the serviceable light bulb in 1879.

Now that they had this overwhelming population of persons and the means to transport them, where would they locate them? With the invention of the steel girders, durable plate glass, and the passenger elevator available by the 1880's, a totally new way of construction opened up. Instead of a wood frame as before, now a steel skeleton would support the walls making the possibility of going higher and higher possible. If you can't expand outward, expand up.

The first skyscraper was the ten-story Home Insurance Building built in 1885 in Chicago. Although it was Chicago that pioneered skyscraper technology, it was New York that desperately needed it. It was New York that lacked the space for outward expansion. Only way to go was up and now they had

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Approximate Word count = 2317
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)