Top 5 Law Firms in New York and London

Here are the 5 largest law firms in London and New York based on revenue. Information was compiled by The Lawyer and The American Lawyer and is based on 2007 revenues.

1. Clifford Chance, London - $2,660.5m / £1,727.2m

2. Linklaters, London - $2,588.5m / £1,680.5m

3. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, London - $2,358.5m / £1,531.1m

4. Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, New York City - $2,170m / £1,408.8m

5. Allen & Overy, London - $2,034m / £1,320.5m


2010 revenues as compiled by The American Lawyer

1. Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, New York City - $2,100m / £1,354m

2. Clifford Chance, London - $1,874.5m / £1,209m

3. Linklaters, London - $1,852.5m / £1,195m

4. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, London - $1,787m / £1,152m

5. Allen & Overy, London - $1,644m / £1,060m

The Top 5 Museums in London and New York

The Louvre in Paris is the envy of every major city in the world containing more than 380,000 objects and displaying 35,000 works of art which attract 8.5 million visitors every year, more than any other museum in the world. London and New York City also boast some very impressive museums with vast collections of art and artefacts. Here is a list of what are considered to be the best 5 of the bunch.

1. The British Museum, London

The British Museum sees around 6 million visitors pass through it's doors each year to see an impressive 13 million different objects from representing the rich history of human culture around the world reflecting London's global presence. The British Museum houses relics from virtually every civilization in the world including Chines, Asian, Aztec and Classical Art. The must see artefacts at the BM are the Egyptian Mummies, the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles. The building is impressive too. The central quadrangle was redeveloped to a design by Foster & Partners to become the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court and is the largest covered square in Europe. Architects Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners are the designers behind a £100million new World Conservation and Exhibition Centre to house many of the temporary displays. Incredible since admission to the British Museum is free.

2. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

The main building at "the Met" is one of the largest art galleries in the world attracting around 5 million visitors every year. The Museum Highlights tour is the best way of seeing the Met as it covers roughly 1.6 million square feet. Highlights include the Temple of Dendur in the Egyptian collection in a purpose built glass walled gallery with views over Central Park as well as Adam & Eve, a well known engraving by Albrecht Durer. The Met houses everything from Islamic art and European paitings to collections of arms and armour. The entrance fee is $20 for adults, $15 for seniors and $10 for students with children and members free.

3. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City

At the moment, the Museum of Modern Art has a wonderful Matisse exhibition concentrating on four years of the painters life: Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917. The exhibition impressively sets some of the work of Matisse amongst other works of the time which helped inspire and engineer the style of Matisse. The show also uses x-rays and computer enhanced technology to demonstrate how much work went into some of the pieces. It is this kind of delivery that has given MoMA the reputation of being one of the foremost galleries for modern art in the world. From an initial gift of eight prints and one drawing, the museum now has a collection of over 150,000 paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, architectural models and more. It also has a massive archive of over 22,000 films and 4,000,000 stills, 300,000 books on art and files on more than 70,000 artists which contribute to MoMA's mission to be one of the principle primary sources of information on modern art in the world today.

4. Tate Modern, London

London's Tate modern used to be a power station which is built on the bank of the River Thames and has been magficently transformed into one of the best art galleries in the world. The huge turbine room provides an impressive entrance to the gallery which links up with The City via the Norman Foster designed Millenium Bridge over The Thames. The gallery is large, bright and airy with room upon room of cartoon, pop, sculpture as well as more iconic twentieth century artists such as Matisse, Moore, Dali and Picasso. The Tate Modern only opened in 2000 yet last year saw 4,700,000 visitors pass through it's doors.

5. The National Gallery, London

The National Gallery in London stands very grandly on the north side of Trafalgar Square, a busy square incorporating Nelson's Column, the statues of lions and the water fountains. Similar to the MoMA it was founded to house a collection of just 36 paintings. Today it houses works from almost every major school of art with over 2,300 paintings. The collection includes Rembrandt, Monet and Van Gogh and similar to the Metroploitan Museum of Art in New York. The best way to navigate the National Gallery is with one of the guided tours which is free of charge as is entry to the gallery although donations are appreciated. The National Gallery saw about 4,700,000 visitors in 2009.

Top 6 Investment Banks in London and New York

Here is a list of the 6 largest financial services companies with investment banking operations headquartered in London and New York by market capitalisation.

1. HSBC, London - $173.5bn / £111.325bn

2. JP Morgan Chase - New York City - $147.27bn / £94.5bn

3. Citigroup, New York City - $108.65bn / $69.7bn

4. Goldman Sachs, New York City - $76.434bn / £49.044bn

5. Barclays, London - $59.6bn / £38.23bn

6. Morgan Stanley, New York City - $36.21bn / £23.23bn

Top Architectural Practices: Kohn Pedersen Fox

I am starting a small series of posts on architectural practices that are responsible for the wonderful design of the built environment around us in London and New York with the same format as all my other blog posts , simple, informative and bitesize, starting with New York based architects Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF).

There are not many large scale projects around the world that have not had KPF at least run for the design commission, needless to say the New York headquartered firm are one the best known architects within the arena of large office projects and renovation. The firm was started in July 1976 and is a great example of a business which has grown from the seed of doing the first project well and receiving commissions of the back of that first 'good job done well'. Shortly after A Eugene Kohn, William Pedersen and Sheldon Fox founded the company, the American Broadcasting Corporation chose the partners to redevelop and old armoury building in Manhattan to house offices and a TV studio which led to 11 further commissions in the years following. The expansion to a global service offering was inevitable when New York based investment bank Goldman Sachs had a requirement for it's European headquarters in London which coincided with the time that London's Canary Wharf started to commission large scale office projects.

Nowadays, KPF's portfolio of properties spans the globe in more than 35 countries and London and New York form a very small part of the arena in which the firm operates. Perhaps the best known project in New York is the Museum of Modern Art and in London there are two projects which stand out that are currently under construction - the Bishopsgate Tower which is just appearing at street level and Heron Tower which is closer to completion.

London's Heron Tower courted controversy in 2009 when five project architects broke away from KPF to form their own outfit, PLP Architecture after the refusal of KPF to allow a buyout of their London operation. Despite clauses in contracts which would not normally allow employees of KPF to communicate with clients after their departure from the company, KPF and the new firm have hammered out a formal relationship. KPF are now faced with a seasoned competitor in London which has grown to more than 65 employees and has already been successful in bagging the second phase of Herons Development, Heron Plaza.

Top 5 Interdealer Brokers in London and New York

Interdealer Brokers (IDBs) are the middlemen for investment

banks dealing in billions of dollars worth of transactions everyday in currency, bonds, derivatives, stocks and credit markets. As they compete against one another their offerings are expanding, from property derivatives to Islamic products. IDBs do not take positions but collect commission for expediting orders and distributing market data which is where they make their money.

Here is a list of the 5 largest interdealer brokers headquartered in London and New York, by market capitalization.

1. ICAP, London - £2.62bn / $4.07bn

2. Tullett Prebon, London - £801.61m / $1.244bn

3. BGC Partners, New York - £772m / $1.2bn

4. GFI Group, New York - £585.39m / $909m

5. Collins Stewart, London - £199.5m / $310m

The top 4 brokers above account for nearly 70% of market activity and Collins Stewart operation is part of a wider range of offerings which includes Wealth Management.

On June 25th 2008, ICAP supported the Red Arrows as they performed their first ever aerial display above New York City as part of a larger North American goodwill tour.

Top 5 Foreign Exchange Institutions in London and New York

Euromoney reports that London and New York account for a massive $2.018 trillion (£1.306 trillion) worth of trading in foreign exchange which accounts for 50.7% of global turnover. Of the total amount of foreign exchange traded in London and New York, more than 67% is traded in London which makes The City the world capital for foreign exchange trading. Most FOREX trading is undertaken by the global institutions. Here is a list of the top 5 London and New York headquartered participants in foreign exchange trading and their percentage of overall activity (source Euromoney FX survey FX poll 2010)

1. Barclays Capital, London - 11.08%

2. Citi, New York City - 7.69%

3. JP Morgan, New York City - 6.35%

4. HSBC, London - 4.55%

5. Goldman Sachs, New York City - 4.28%

10 Largest Stadia in London and New York

London and New York City boast some of the best and most modern sporting venues in the world having four stadiums with capacities of over 80,000. Wembley Stadium and the New Meadowlands stadium are the two most expensive stadiums in the world costing around $1.6 billion dollars each to build.

1. Wembley Stadium, London - 90,000 capacity

Home of the England National Football Team but also a multi use venue.

2. New Meadowlands Stadium, New York City - 82,566 capacity

Joint venture between the New York Jets and New York Giants (American football)

3. Twickenham Stadium, London - 82,000 capacity

Home of the England National Rugby Team

4. Olympic Stadium, London - 80,000 capacity

Venue for 2012 olympic games - completion 2011

5. Emirates Stadium, London - 60,355 capacity

Home of Arsenal FC (soccer)

6. Yankees Stadium, New York City - 52,325 capacity, includes standing

Home of the New York Yankees (baseball)

7. Stamford Bridge, London - 41,841 capacity

Home of Chelsea FC (soccer)

8. Citi Field, New York City - 41,800 capacity

Home of the New York Mets (baseball)

9. White Hart Lane, London - 36,310

Home of Tottenham Hotspur FC (soccer)

10. The Boleyn Ground, London - 35,303

Home of West Ham United FC (soccer)

London and New York Stock Exchanges/NASDAQ

Trading volumes on the London Stock Exchange, NYSE and the NASDAQ fell away by 53.9%, 36.6% and 42.9% respectively in 2009. Despite this, and despite the fact that emerging exchanges such as Shenzhen in China grew by more than 123%, the NYSE easily remains the worlds largest stock exchange in terms of trading volumes and by market capitalization the NYSE, NASDAQ and LSE populate three out of the five largest exchanges in the world. Here are some facts on three of the world's best known stock exchanges (year to date December 2009, data from International Federation of Stock Exchanges)

New York Stock Exchange

• Founded in 1817
• market capitalization $11,670bn (£7,537bn)
• 2,326 listed companies
• Value of share trading $17,521,119bn (£11,374,415bn)
• World's largest stock exchange

London Stock Exchange

• Founded in 1801
• market capitalization $2,681bn (£1,732bn)
• 2,713 listed companies
• value of share trading $1,771,811bn (£1,150,408bn)
• Largest stock exchange in Europe

NASDAQ

• Founded 1971
• market capitalization $3,295bn (£2,128bn)
• 2,807 listed companies
• value of share trading $13,608,077bn (£8,835,773bn)
• Largest electronic screen based equity securities trading market in the United States

Photo of the day: New York Stock Exchange

The Chrysler Building, New York City, Art Deco Masterpiece

Statistics

• Constructed 1928-1930
• Height to spire - 318.9m (1,046ft)
• 77 floors
• Floor area 1,1950,000 sq ft (111,000 sq m)
• 32 elevators
• Designed by architect William Van Alen

The Chrysler Building is arguably the most endearing and distinctive buildings in New York City and after 80 years remains a favourite of many New Yorkers and skyscraper enthusiasts. It's original design drew inspiration from machine technology for the ornamental detail and architect William Van Alen incorporated abstract images of cars whilst dramatically drawing the observer to eight streamlined eagle head gargoyles which point out in four opposing directions across the city. The original design for the crown, which was supposed to be a sparkling glass crown, was said to be too costly. This boggles the mind when you consider that instead the Chrysler is capped with the most instantly recognisable and adored art deco crown in the world today which, along with the gargoyles, is able to send the observer off into the sci -fi world of Gotham City and superheroes.

The Chrysler Building was the tallest building in the world when it was completed until it was surpassed by the Empire State Building. It does however remain the world's tallest steel supported brick building and was built on the site of the city's largest beer brewery, the Bloomingdale Brewery. Initially it was intended to be an office development by real estate developer and former New York State Senator William H.Reynolds who sold the building to Chrysler as a result of the economic downturn before the building was redesigned. In other words, the Chrysler as we know it is a relic of the Great Depression, perhaps that is why the gargoyles were incorporated - historically they were used to scare off harmful spirits.

The Chrysler building's design pushed boundaries when it was designed and for many it is a building which has style that has still not been surpassed even in today's skyscraper abundant world. This is summed up wonderfully by the cheek of Chrysler, who it was reported instructed his builders to make sure they built the highest toilet in Manhattan so that he was "able to sit on his porcelain throne and shit on Henry Ford and the rest of the world. "

The 10 best restaurants in London and New York City

The S.Pellegrino World's Best Restaurants for 2010 list has a number of entries from London and New York. Extracted into this list are the top 10 best restaurants in London and New York with the S.Pellegrino ranking in brackets.

1. Daniel, New York City(8)

www.danielnyc.com

2. Per Se, New York City(10)

www.perseny.com

3. Le Bernardin, New York City(15)

www.le-bernardin.com

4. Momofoku Ssam Bar, New York City(26)

www.momofuku.com

5. St.John, London(43)

www.stjohnrestaurant.co.uk

6. Hibiscus, London(49)

www.hibiscusrestaurant.co.uk

7. Eleven Madison Park, New York City(50)

www.elevenmadisonpark.com

8. Jean Georges, New York City(52)

www.jean-georges.com

9. Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley, London(58)

www.the-berkeley.co.uk

10. Zuma, London(66)

www.zumarestaurant.com

A look at the cabs of New York and London

The cabs of New York City, with their distinctive yellow paint, are a widely recognized icon of the city. There are more than 13,000 taxis operating in the city, with a number of taxicabs operated by private companies and licensed by the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC), a New York City government agency. In comparison, there are currently around 21,000 black cabs in London, licensed by the Public Carriage Office. The average cost of hailing a black cab in London will increase to £10.39 this year during the day and £14.15 at night, according to Transport for London (TFL). The fare rise, the lowest annual increase since 2004, aims to take into account the rise in average national earnings and will also help drivers cover rising operating costs, which include increases to insurance and fuel costs, it said.

In London, however, price increases are unlikely to deter people from taking the capitals black cabs. Last year the vehicles were voted the best cabs in the world in a survey for the website Hotels.com, despite also being voted the most expensive. London cabbies, who can spend up to four years studying the Knowledge, the infamous in-depth study of a number of pre-set London street routes, were voted the world's friendliest and knowledgeable taxi drivers. The Knowledge equips London cabbies with an in depth knowledge of London streets before they can drive a licensed cab.

Whilst LTI, which manufactures the traditional London cab is currently marketing the latest incarnation of it's famous taxi, the TX4 (below), New York has plans of it's own. Ford, Nissan and GM are all vying to be hailed as the builder of the "Taxi of Tomorrow." The auto giants were among the companies that submitted proposals to the City's Taxi and Limousine Commission to become the exclusive manufacturer of New York's 13,000 yellow cabs starting in 2014. When City officials met with the manufacturers in January, officials said they wanted the new cab to be not only low emission, if not entirely electric, but to possess an iconic New York design, according to Crains New York business. The new cab should appear "small on the outside but large on the inside," one official said at the meeting. The current fleet is a mish mash of 16 different vehicle models, most notably the soon to be discontinued Ford Crown Victoria which makes up two thirds of New York cabs.

"Small on the outside but large on the inside", I could swear I have seen taxis like that somewhere else which makes me think that New York officials are following London's long established tradition with plans to introduce purpose built uniformly manufactured taxis that will be as iconic for New York as the black cabs are for London.

London and New York top world's best department stores

The Global Department Store Summit(GDSS) was held in New York this year from 10-11 June. Participants included top executives from over 280 stores worldwide with Selfridges in London taking the title of world's best department store followed by Bloomingdales in New York City. Lane Crawford in Hong Kong came in third. Criteria which were assessed included strength of brand, innovation, in store experience, customer service and financial results.

Selfridges

Harry Gordon Selfridge founded Selfridges and is widely credited with coining the expression "the customer is always right". Techniques for marketing at Selfridges are techniques that were adopted by department stores all over the world such as placing the highly profitable perfume counters at the front of the store in the middle. Unusual and interesting exhibits were also features which attracted shoppers to come back to the shop. In 1909, Louis Bleriot's monoplane was exhibited in Selfridges after it's first cross channel flight. Innovation in bold marketing is epitomised by Selfridges world famous window displays which have been pored over by photographers for generations and published in many magazines worldwide including Vogue, Design Week, Harpers Bazaar and the New York Times. 1-27 April 1925 saw the first public demonstration of the television which was given from the first floor of Selfridges by John Logie Baird. Selfridges stores are also known for their architectural excellence and the London flagship store was designed by Chicago architect Daniel Burnham who also designed the Marshall Fields department store in Chicago.

Bloomingdales

Window displays also became a trademark of Bloomingdales with many imported European products used as a centrepiece to elaborate theatrical backgrounds. Another trademark is the small medium and large brown bags which have became a part of a shopping trip to Bloomingdales from 1973. Bloomingdales target market became the affluent young professional classes in New York and around the same time as the brown bag was brought into use, many expensive designers were supplying the store. Famously, in 1976 traffic was reversed on Lexington Avenue so that Queen Elizabeth II could exit her vehicle on the right hand side and enter the store through the main entrance.

11 Times Square, New York City

Statistics

• Completed 2010
• Height 600ft (183metres)
• 40 floors
• Architect
• 1.1 million sqft

The construction process of 11 Times Square was the first time in New York's history that a core was completed before the steel superstructure. The design features a sculptural composition of forms sheathed in various combinations of sheer glass curtain wall and unique "silk glass"panels. In keeping with the Times Square streetscape there are large-scale illuminated features including a 40' diameter iconic globe at the corner. 11 Times Square is LEED certified and is a state-of-the-art, environmentally responsible building with high performance glazed curtain walls which facilitate ample penetration of daylight, optimize views and provide excellent environmental control.

This compilation of stills shows the time lapse of the building's construction.

The love affair with Concorde

Concorde flew regular transatlantic flights from London Heathrow to New York JFK, operated by British Airways, between 1977 and 2003 when the aircraft was retired. This enabled passengers to travel between the two cities in less than three and a half hours, travelling at over mach 2, or twice the speed of sound.

Concorde was the aircraft of choice for the rich and famous between London and New York and amongst the celebrities that used the aircraft were Diana Ross, Phil Collins, Mick Jagger, Joan Collins, Sean Connery, Elton John and Rod Stewart. This video, which shows the farewell and very last departure of Concorde from JFK, always puts a lump in my throat from the loss of a baby which Londoners and New Yorkers had fallen in love with and which offered the best way to have breakfast between London and New York.

The New York Subway and The London Underground

Which is the better transit system, The New York Subway or The London Underground? It's pretty easy to sit and push the merits of both into a keyboard but for me, the answer is easy - as long as you can have two answers. It's an emotional answer - not for me but for the people that have made it, watched it, used it and not only been part of it but made it a part of their city and life.

Better start off with throwing a few statistics into the pot and see where we end up then. The London Underground was the worlds first underground transit system when it opened in 1863 and the first to operate electric trains. Nowadays the tube network transports about 3.5 million people on any given weekday along 250 miles of track stopping at 270 stations. By comparison, New York has a larger ridership of 5 million on a weekday covering 229 miles and 468 stations. Yet these kind of statistics are all a bit shallow in comparing them and to me serve as the precursor to the pages of information you could pull up from a quick search.

For Londoners, the Underground is a lot more than a way of getting around. It's the lifeblood of the City, and at no time more than during the second world war. We have a housekeeper where I live in Kent, England who said that everytime the German aircraft flew over the countryside to bomb the hell out of the big smoke, her mother would say, "oh those poor Londoners". The

underground played a key role in saving the lives of people from the Nazi bombs. Government policy prior to London being bombed said the underground was not to be used as a shelter for fear that people may develop a "deep shelter mentality" and refuse to come back to the surface. However, heavy raids on London on 7th and 8th September 1940 led to public shelters being critically overcrowded to an unhygienic level. In October that year it was decided to build several deep level shelters, each with a capacity to hold 8,000 people and providing sanctuary for more than 60,000 people that lived in the worst affected areas of the City. In reference to the underground's role in ww2, Winston Churchill said,"London is like some huge prehistoric animal, capable of enduring terrible injuries, mangled and bleeding from many wounds, and yet preserving it's life and movement." Churchill always had a way with words but he was right, the underground saved the lives of thousands of people in the war - it protected people and then humbly went on to do what it does normally.

For New Yorkers too, the subway is a lot more than a way of getting around and their subway faced a different type of bombing in the 1970s. I first came across the New York subway when I was 12 years old with the publication of a book called Subway

Art by Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfont (right). This book is now legendary in the world of graffiti and was one of the first books to give the world an insight into the graffiti movement, why it had come about and it's expressionism, artists running from the authorities whilst trying to display what they do to the public on New Yorks subway trains. It also contributed massively to the perception that modern graffiti's roots lie deeply embedded in the New York Subway. Maybe but nowhere was it more prevalent. Critics said that it showed how out of control New York was when in the 70s and 80s subway trains were completely drowned in writers tags, window down pieces, window up pieces, whole cars - it was war between artists. Although not what one might expect an artist to be although early protagonists such as the writer "Seen" have gone on to develop successful careers out of graffiti and related arts. Seen is now 'seen' as the godfather of graffiti. The importance of graffiti in the history of the New York subway can be seen in the size of some of the pieces and planning that went into the trips to train yards. Writers faced competition from one another in a bid to become the best known writers or the best painters alongside normally having to steal the paint and escape the law. For hundreds of youngsters it was a way of life that ordinary members of the public were exposed to in the most colorful, criminal, messy, imposing and beautiful way. Everyone had a view on it. It took years and millions of dollars to clear up New York's trains but the old images of New York subway trains colorfully screeching into stations with a top to bottom whole car painted the night before will remain etched in my head forever - I love it.

Above ground in both cities, station entrances are like the gateways to a different world. Modern, art deco, tired, classical, funky - with hundreds of stations to choose from there are as many styles of architecture as there were styles of graffiti in New York's graffiti heyday.

Hearst Tower, New York City, distinctive and sustainable

Statistics

• Constructed 2003-2006
• Height 597ft (182m)
• 46 Floors
• 80,000 sqm (861,100 sqft)
• Architect Foster & Partners

The Hearst Tower was the first tower to break ground in New York City after September 11th, 2001. It was also the first green skyscraper in the city shifting building technology in New York into a new era and became the city's first LEED Gold designated building (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). The building features a tank in the basement which stores rainwater collected from the roof which is used for the cooling system, plant irrigation and also in the water sculpture in the main lobby. It's diagrid triangular framed design even uses about 20% less steel than conventionally designed and constructed skyscrapers. Water is circulated under the flooring through polyethylene tubing for cooling in the summer and heating in the winter.

The atrium of the Hearst Tower is befitting of a corporation whose publications include magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Harpers Bazaar and Marie Claire and you could be forgiven for thinking the atrium was part of an elaborate art gallery. The escalators run through 'Icefall' which is a 3 storey water sculpture featuring thousands of glass panels which cools and humidifies the air in the lobby and is complemented by a 70 ft tall painting called 'Riverlines' by Richerd Long making the Hearst Tower a truely unique building for Hearst employees and visitors.

Millionaires in London and New York

The bread and butter of the economies of New York and London, the financial services industry, is renowned for delivering high salaries and creating high net worth individuals. The difference in the number of millionaires in either city is remarkably different though. New York has 667,200 millionaires - more than Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco combined. There are only 448,000 in the whole of the UK of which around 40% live in the capital which makes roughly 183,700 in London.

New York also has more billionaires than London with 60, Michael Bloomberg being the

wealthiest with a fortune of $18 billion (£11.5 billion). Other notable billionaire residents of the Big Apple include Ralph Lauren ($4.6bn/£3bn), Rupert Murdoch ($6.3bn/£4bn) and Donald Trump ($2bn/£1.3bn). Billionaires in London number 36 headed by Lakshmi Mittal, the steel tycoon whose $28.7 billion (£18.5 billion) fortune makes him the fourth richest person in the world who is joined by, amongst others, Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson ($4bn/£2.6bn) and Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone ($2.25bn/£1.5bn).

The difference in number of high net worth individuals does not

seem to correspond to the populations of both cities. The crucial information may be in looking at overall productivity. New York's gross domestic product is $1.406trillion compared with $565billion

for London.

Synopsis of Airports in London and New York

I'm going to focus on the main airports of each city as there are countless other airports around London and New York which don't carry nearly as many passengers. New York is served by John F Kennedy (approx. 46 million passengers 2009), La Guardia (approx. 23 million passengers 2008) and Newark Liberty (approx. 35.4 million passengers 2008). London is served by Heathrow (66 million passengers 2009) , Gatwick (32,5 million passengers 2009), Stansted (20 million passengers 2009) and London City to a lesser degree (2.8 million passengers 2009) although it's quite important for business travellers. So roughly 104.4 million passengers passing through New York's airports and 121.3 million through London.

Heathrow is clearly the biggest of these airports, the busiest international airport in the world, although plans to build a third runway have recently been scrapped. Heathrow will probably continue to deliver regular delays as long as it does not

have enough runway space. In terms of customer experience, Heathrow has five terminals, each of which are completely different from terminal 1, which is very dated, to terminal 5 which opened in 2008, cost £4.2bn to build and comprises the largest free standing building in the UK, so it's very difficult to give the airport an overall rating. I love the new terminal 5 as access from the M25 is very easy and for such a big terminal car to airside is very quick. Terminal 5 would seem to be paying off for the British Airports Authority (BAA) who said it recorded it's busiest ever month in July with 6.7 million passengers in the month which was a 3.5% increase from July 2009.

New York's La Guardia delivers a very chaotic experience to passengers with a lot of overcrowding. La Guardia, according to one Port Authority official, is so outdated it needs to be torn down. The travel experience here worsened post 9/11 with tighter security but the most exciting development with these airports since Heathrow's Terminal 5 was announced last week

by Delta Airlines, the Port Authority and JFK with plans for the enhancement and expansion of terminal 4. The project is going to cost $1.2bn and will help transform JFK into one of the most state of the art airports inthe US. At the moment Delta operates predominently out of terminal 2 for domestic flights and terminal 3 for international. The expansion of terminal 4 will replace outdated terminal 3 facilities and there will also be upgrading the inter-terminal connectors between terminals 2 and 4 as well as dual taxiways.

http://news.delta.com/index.php?s=43&item=1095

The first airport I ever went through in the US was Newark airport. It was a long time ago and I still remember how rude I found the staff to be there. I have read a lot of customer reviews on Newark airport and staff rudeness is probably the most frequent complaint from users. In nearly 15 years, this place hasn't changed! Customer non-service aside, Newark is another ageing airport albeit still kept fairly clean.

In contrast to Heathrow's increase in passenger numbers in July, Gatwick, which was sold to Global Infrastructure Partners for £1.5bn this year, fell by 3.1% for the year on year month of July. However, just like Heathrow, a further runway was ruled out to increase volumes due to the high cost of a planning application, thought to be somewhere between £100m and £200million. GIP's preference for increasing the existing runways capacity is to request an increase in the number of permitted take offs and landings. Stansted completes the hat trick of London airports with abandoned plans for a further runway in the face of campaigns against development. Stansted is a major European hub for low cost airlines to holiday destinations.

In terms of the whole experience, there is no airport in London or New York that is really delightful. Both cities have grown organically and all airports have been yanked along with their legs trying to play catch up with the growth in passenger numbers in and out of each city. The net result is that London and New York have airports that are there to serve the purpose and although JFK and Heathrow have big ideas, they are all a long way behind the likes of Frankfurt and Hong Kong.

Central Park, New York City

Thank you very much to readers for bearing with me whilst I have been away in glorious Melbourne and unable to provide much content for my blog. I will be resuming posts from hereon in so here is a short video on Central Park to get started.