It seems that the NYC remains to be a hearth of economic vigor in the U.S despite its high costs.

If you look up the synonyms of "prostitute" in a dictionary, you'll find there are so many. "Hooker", "hustler", "harlot", "courtesan", "whore", and so on.

Well, the above example may not be a very decent one. Anyways, my point is that the great number of synonyms of many words is one of the difficulties we have to overcome when we read material in English from different eras.