New York City was the capital of the state of New York, and one of the largest cities of the United States of America on Earth. It's aslo where the Baxter Building is located.
In 2010, the city suffered from major damage made after Emil Blonsky forced Dr. Samuel Sterns to inject the blood of Bruce Banner - the Hulk - into him, turning him into the Abomination and making him go on a rampage in the city. In order to stop him, Banner turned into the Hulk and confronted the Abomination, causing more chaos in the streets and on the rooftops, before the Hulk finally subdued the Abomination and the Abomination was taken into custody.[1]
Some time later, Tony Stark created the Stark Tower in New York City and made it the new headquarters of Stark Industries. New York City later became a battleground once more, when Loki Laufeyson had the Tesseract transported to the top of Stark Tower and created between Earth and the Chitauri homeworld, which resulted in a Chitauri invasion in the city. The Avengers, a team of superheroes consisting of Iron Man (Tony Stark), Captain America, Thor Odinson, the Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye faced the Chitauri, while the World Security Council planned to solve the problem by having New York City nuked. Before using Loki's own staff to close the Tesseract's portal, Iron Man maneuvered the nuclear rocket through the portal and into the Chitauri army. The remaining Chitauri died due to the device controlling them being blown up, and the city was saved.[2]