" New York City skyline, view from Weehawken NJ " Eva Abreu © 2009. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution license

From coast to coast the US is putting its best foot forward to dominate the technology industry and start-up tech firms.

California’s ‘Silicon Valley’ has long been known as the home to many of the world’s largest technology corporations, however, for almost a decade, New York City has seen a dramatic increase in its technology and start-up companies.

Referred to as ‘Silicon Alley,’ the area between Union Square and Madison Square Park along 5^th Avenue and Broadway has seen a 28.7% increase in technology jobs in the past five years. A reminder to us all of the truth in the iconic Sinatra lyric: “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.”

The area is well situated near many New York central hotels allowing for business partners from other cities and countries to be easily accommodated. It’s dually idea for the start-ups themselves, being that the rent is much cheaper than in its neighbouring Soho.

Since 2003, Silicon Alley has joined the ranks of San Francisco and Boston as one of the three leading technology centres in the United States. As of 2007, Google’s second largest office is located in NYC and as of 2009, the area became the start-up leader in advertising, new media, financial technologies and a slew of web 2.0 companies.

Most recently, after the devastating impact of hurricane Sandy, New York City’s Chief Digital Officer, Rachel Hoat, challenged the entrepreneurs in Silicon Alley to redesign the city’s 11,412 payphones for the digital era, as payphones proved to be a crucial link for New Yorkers during the emergency situation.

Hoat is encouraging designers to reinvent the city’s existing infrastructure, which may include charging docks for digital devices at payphone kiosks and turning them into WiFI hotspots, something that the city has done on a very limited basis for the past ten years.

For the “Reinvent Payphones Design Challenge,” fifteen semi-finalists will be selected to demonstrate their prototypes this coming March. Once the selection process comes to an end, the selected model will be finalized and the future of the city’s payphone infrastructure will be determined.

Silicon Alley is located in the heart of the United States most world-renowned city and is taking the technology industry by storm. New York central hotels as well as company’s from other industries near the area are experiencing boosts in sales because of it. The impacts have already proven to be beneficial for the US economy and as Silicon Alley continues to grow the positive impact will hopefully continue to do so as well.