Silicon Alley is an area ofhigh tech companies centered aroundsouthern Manhattan'sFlatiron district inNew York City.[1] The term was coined in the 1990s during thedot-com boom, alluding to California'sSilicon Valley tech center. The term has grown somewhat obsolete since 2003 as New York tech companies spread outside of Manhattan, and New York as a whole is now a top-tier global high technology hub.[2] Silicon Alley, once ametonym for the sphere encompassing the metropolitan region'shigh technology industries,[3] is no longer a relevant moniker as the city's tech environment has expanded dramatically both in location and in its scope. New York City's current tech sphere encompasses a universal array of applications involvingartificial intelligence, theinternet,new media,financial technology (fintech) andcryptocurrency,biotechnology,game design, and other fields withininformation technology that are supported by itsentrepreneurship ecosystem andventure capital investments.
The term Silicon Alley was derived from the long-established Silicon Valley in California. It was originally centered in theFlatiron District, in the vicinity of theFlatiron Building atFifth Avenue nearBroadway and23rd Street, straddlingMidtown andLower Manhattan.[4][5] Silicon Alley initially also used to extend toDumbo, a neighborhood inBrooklyn.Columbia University andNYU's leaderships were especially important in the alley's early development.[6]
The term Silicon Alley may have originated in 1995 by a New York staffing recruiter, Jason Denmark, who was supporting clients in the newly dubbed technical hub in downtown Manhattan; in an effort to attract candidates who, at that time, were focusing on positions in Silicon Valley, he posted in publicusenet postings of Object Technology Developers, job ads with the Silicon Alley label. "Subject: NYC - silicon ALLEY" shows up in an internet post by Jason Denmark on February 16, 1995; another Jason Denmark post on June 16, 1995, is "Subject: SILICON 'ALLEY' POSITIONS."[7]
The first publication to cover Silicon Alley was @NY, an online newsletter founded in the summer of 1995 byTom Watson andJason Chervokas.[citation needed] The first magazine to focus onventure capital opportunities in Silicon Alley, AlleyCat News co-founded by Anna Copeland Wheatley and Janet Stites, was launched in the fall of 1996.[citation needed] Courtney Pulitzer branched off from her @The Scene column with @NY and created Courtney Pulitzer's Cyber Scene and her popular networking events Cocktails with Courtney.First Tuesday, co-founded byVincent Grimaldi de Puget andJohn Grossbart, became the largest gathering of Silicon Alley, welcoming 500 to 1000 venture capitalists and entrepreneurs every month.[citation needed] It was an initiative of law firmSonnenschein and theKellogg School of Management, as well as other corporate founders, includingAccenture (then Andersen Consulting), AlleyCat News andMerrill Lynch.Silicon Alley Reporter started publishing in October 1996.[citation needed] It was founded byJason Calacanis and was in business from 1996 to 2001. @NY, print magazines, and the attending media coverage by the larger New York press helped to popularize both the name, and the idea of New York City as adot-com center.[citation needed]
In 1997, over 200 members and leaders of Silicon Alley joined NYC entrepreneurs, Andrew Rasiej and Cecilia Pagkalinawan to help wireWashington Irving High School to the Internet. This response and the Department of Education's growing need for technology integration marked the birth ofMaking Opportunities for Upgrading Schools and Education (MOUSE), an organization that today serves tens of thousands of underserved youth in schools in five states and over 20 countries.[citation needed]
The rapid growth of internet companies during the 1990s, known as thedot-com bubble, came to a rapid halt during theearly 2000s recession. During this economic contraction, many internet companies in Silicon Alley folded. The recession also affected publications that covered the sector. After the dot-com bust, theSilicon Alley Reporter was rebranded asVenture Reporter, in September 2001, and sold toDow Jones. Self-financed AlleyCat News ceased publication in October 2001.[8]
A couple of years after the dot-com bust, Silicon Alley began making its comeback with the help of NY Tech Meetup,[9] and NextNY.[citation needed] On December 19, 2011, then Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced his choice ofCornell University andTechnion-Israel Institute of Technology to build a US$2 billiongraduate school ofapplied sciences onRoosevelt Island, with the goal of transforming New York City into the world's premier technology capital.[10][11] As of 2013,Google's second largest office by number of employees,111 Eighth Avenue, is located in New York.[12]Verizon Communications, headquartered at140 West Street in Lower Manhattan, was in 2014 in the final stages of completing a US$3 billionfiber-optic telecommunications upgrade throughout New York City.[13]
This revival was not restricted to Lower Manhattan, but was spread throughout New York City. Hence "Silicon Alley" has been considered by some observers to be an obsolete term.[8]
On September 6, 2024 IBM opened its new flagship office at One Madison Avenue. Located at the southeast corner of Madison Square Park, the new 270,000 square-foot IBM office spans five floors of One Madison Avenue – owned and managed by SL Green Realty Corp. – and will be home to more than 2,000 New York-area employees.
40°44′32″N73°59′28″W / 40.7421°N 73.9911°W /40.7421; -73.9911