The Essence of New York City 'What's the next train for the United States?'"86 By the twentieth century, the influence of Italians and Russian Jews upon the city's personality was increasingly apparent, especially in the realm of religion and in the support of the arts. "New Cork" was being transformed into "New Minsk, New Pinsk, or New Naples," according to some observers; and increasing currency was given to the cliche that the city was "built by the Italians, run by the Irish, and owned by the Jews."87 Andre Siegfried, who visited New York in 1925, was struck by the increasing evidences of a "fantastic cosmopolitanism," which in his opinion had submerged the city's earlier stock.88 The curtailment of immigration, in the twentieth century, brought little diminution in the cosmopolitanism of New York, although, as always, the ethnic pattern exhibited changing hues. The advent of refugees from Nazi oppression increased the Hebraic ingredient of its society; and as the mid-century approached, Negro and Puerto Rican elements grew to be proportionately more numerous and hence potentially more influential in affecting the city's cultural tone. The selection of the Empire City as the site for a permanent home of the United Nations further emphasized the international character of the community. As J. B. Priestley wrote somewhat cynically in 1947: "The New York that O. Henry described forty years ago was an American city; but today's glittering cosmopolis belongs to the world, if the world does not belong to it."89 Mid-twentieth- century New York was certainly not un-American—for in the dynamism of its economy it symbolized the achievement of the American ideal; but it was an American city with a stronger international outlook and with more overtones of Europeanism in its personality than the other major cities of the nation. The dynamism of the city's economy reflects, as well, one further persistent feature of New York's personality—the animation, 88 James H. Bridge [pseud., Harold Brydges], Uncle Sam at Home (New York: 1888), 117. 87Douglas Reed, Far and Wide (London: 1951), 66; Luigi Barzini, Jr., Nuova York (Milan: 1931), 5. 88 Andre Siegfried, America Comes of Age (New York: 1927), 17. 88 Priestley, "Priestley Appraises New York." 416