My plans for today include checking out some of the newer holiday happenings in the city. The Polar Rink, the Snowfall & Light Show at the Shops at Columbus Circle. Well, I say “newer” when the Snowfall & Light Show has been happening for a few years but next to the department store holiday windows, they are newer. In the meantime, here are:

10 Things You May or May Not Have Known About New York City

1. The first U.S. hotel was the City Hotel which opened on lower Broadway in Manhattan in 1797.
2. The Times Square New Year’s Ball – new this year – weighs 11,875 pounds and is twice the size of previous New Year’s Balls
3. The first capital of the United States was New York City (from 1789 to 1790. But hey, it counts)
4. The first pizzeria in the U.S. opened in 1890s in New York City And guess what? You can still go there! Lombardi’s is some of the best pizza around. Delicious!
5. The Bronx Zoo is the largest metropolitan zoo in the United States.
6. Rockefeller Center was only made a national landmark in 1987.
7. The lions outside the New York City Public Library are named are Patience and Fortitude .
8. Central Park is exactly 843 acres – or 6% of the landmass of Manhattan. 2.3 miles at it’s widest and 0.8 miles at it’s narrowest. And – bigger than Monaco.
9. The designers of Central Park – Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux – also designed Prospect Park in Brooklyn.
10. There have been a total of 176 ticker tape parades along the Canyon of Heroes. The first was a spontaneous event at the time of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty.