New York: America's Busiest City

Episode Synopsis

In the second part of this new series, which takes viewers on an immersive trip to New York's most iconic locations, presenters Anita Rani, Ade Adepitan, Ant Anstead and Dan Snow reveal the astonishing daily systems that allow America's biggest and busiest city to function. In this episode the team look at food consumption. From their base at the New Fulton fish market in The Bronx, from dusk until dawn, they uncover the hidden night time operations, hard-nosed negotiations and price fluctuations of this enormous wholesale operation. This time, Anita, Ade and Ant trace New York's food back to its source. Ade discovers that New York state produces an astonishing 600,000 tonnes of apples, more than 2.5 times Britain's entire production. Meanwhile Anita visits a cattle farm that supplies the steakhouses of New York and finds their diet includes chocolate, crisps and pasta. Ant visits the New NY Bridge, a $4 billion project that will replace the Tappan Zee Bridge over the Hudson River and provide a new transport artery for the city. And TV historian Dan Snow heads to Freshkills on Staten Island - once the world's biggest landfill with 150 million tonnes of rubbish, it's now been transformed into 2,200 acres of parkland. The team also reports on the revolution overtaking New York's food-delivery networks, as cameras follow the takeaway delivery drivers responsible for getting 180,000 chicken wings to hungry New Yorkers in one night. New York is a city that chooses convenience over home cooking, with businesses adapting to new technology and long-running restaurants using mobile apps - it's another example of a forward-thinking city responding to changing demands.