40.6979° N, 73.9995° W

NEW YORK CITY

Most Famous People Born in New York City, United States

Notable people

22,064

Peak decade

1940s

Median birth year

1935

Most distinctive

Screenwriter 5.4×

If the 20th century held a casting call, it was in New York. Almost all of the city's notable births fall after 1900, fueled by an entertainment economy — Broadway, Tin Pan Alley, the studio system, late-night TV, hip-hop in the Bronx — that has minted more actors, comedians, and musicians than any other American city. Even its 19th-century names skew literary: poets, editors, journalists, not generals or industrialists.