History of New York City (1784–1854) as the financial and mercantile capital of the western hemisphere. The Great New York City Fire of 1845 destroyed 345 wooden buildings in the Financial District. The Hudson River Railroad (which grew into the New York Central) opened October 3, 1851; it extended the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, the first railroad built in the state, south to New York City. The city and its nearby suburbs grew rapidly for several reasons. The natural harbor at the base of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the New Jersey ports at Newark and Elizabeth provided almost unlimited capacity for trading ships and protection from storms.
Jersey City, New Jersey been headquartered in adjacent Secaucus, opened a new headquarters including a 600,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution center in Jersey City in April 2015. In 2014, Paul Fireman proposed a 95-story tower for Jersey City that would include a casino. The project, which endorsed by Mayor Steve Fulop, would cost an estimated $4.6 billion. In February 2014, New Jersey State Senate President Stephen Sweeney argued that Jersey City, among other distressed cities, could benefit from a casino—were construction of one outside of Atlantic City eventually permitted by New Jersey. The Jersey City Free Public Library has five regional branches, some of which