A TALE OF TWO CITIES
(YouTube: Associated Press)
“46 percent of our city’s residents live at or near the poverty line.
Our middle class isn’t just squeezed; it’s at risk of disappearing altogether.
That disparity, that inequality crisis, is the greatest risk to our New York promise.”
-Mayor DeBlasio
In his First State of the City Address, Mayor Bill DeBlasio addressed the income inequality crisis, a trend with no signs of slowing down without policies to shrink the disparity. His 2013 mayoral campaign focused on New York City’s growing anguish over income inequality, promising progressive changes that would provide economic justice and would bridge the “tale of two cities”.
The Mayor states that New Yorkers’ personal commitment to tackling inequality knows no boundaries of geography or income, but at a city-wide level, we can see that although the boroughs of Manhattan and Bronx are geographically close, there remains a large income gap that distances them.
Scroll to Manhattan and Bronx through the map above to see the income differences.
Let’s explore wealth inequality by taking a closer look at neighborhoods in the wealthiest borough and the generally poorest and most underprivileged borough – Manhattan and the Bronx.
A VISUAL REPRESENTATION OF NYC’S ECONOMIC GAP
These diagrams with the emerald spires are the creation of artist/researcher Nickolay Lamm. He has created this diagram to represent the wealth inequality present in Manhattan. Each half of an inch is equal to $50,000 as an average salary earned. When we look at Lamm’s diagram we see that around Central Park, some of his emerald buildings can go as high as 8 inches, meaning that some of the average salary for some of those buildings in the area can go as high as $800,000 a year.
When we go up Manhattan into the Harlem, Inwood, and Morningside Heights areas, some parts of the diagram do not even make it up to a quarter of an inch, meaning that some of these areas are having a hard time even making $25,000 a year. These areas also happen to be the poverty ridden area with multiple projects all over.
New York has always been a place of wealth, but when there is wealth there will always be someone who is suffering. Lamm’s graphs also serve to show that Manhattan is economically segregated as well. The opportunity of living in the downtown area is just a dream for many of the residents of north Manhattan.
THE NEW YORK CITY SUBWAY SYSTEM
The New York City subway system expresses far more than just every commuter’s anger for the spikes in metro card fares, it also expresses income inequality, which is definitely something to be even angrier about. Income changes are dramatically different amongst boroughs and neighborhoods, especially between Manhattan and Bronx. Taking a closer look at the 1 train ride from the South Ferry to Van Cortland Park says it all. By tracking the shifts along the city’s subway, we can see that along the same subway line, income earnings range from considerably wealthy to poverty. Chambers Street, Manhattan only 30 stops (56 minutes) away from 238 Street, Bronx, has an income difference of $167,000.
Click on train lines 1, and 2 for the infographic.
Now, let’s take a ride on the 2 train. Chambers Street, Manhattan, only 18 stops (54 minutes) away from 180th Street, Bronx, has an income difference of $192,000. This is the largest range in median household income on a single subway line. And what’s more, the smallest range isn’t much smaller. Chambers Street, Manhattan, 27 stops (59 minutes) away from 233 Street, Bronx has an income difference of 158,000. This is the smallest range in median household income from Chambers Street.
If you think that your eyes are deceiving you, let your ears reassure you with the sonification of income inequality on the New York City Subway below.
Two Trains – Sonification of Income Inequality on the NYC Subway from brian foo on Vimeo.
The song gets louder, increasing in quantity, volume, and force throughout the Manhattan stops and is loudest at Parks Street and Chambers Street, Manhattan, where the median household income is so large you nearly impair your hearing. The song gets softer as we pass by the Bronx stops, and is the softest at 180 Street, Bronx, where the median household income is so small you’d have to tell those around you to lower their voices to be able to hear what the income sounds like. Both the sonification and the visualization demonstrate the ugly truth that economic inequality is real.
THE TWO PARK AVENUES
740 Park in Manhattan is currently home to the highest concentration of billionaires in the country. Across the river, less than five miles away, Park Avenue runs through the South Bronx, home to the poorest congressional district in the United States.
NYC’s 14th and 16th congressional districts are barely a mile apart – separated by the Harlem River and only ten minutes by public transportation, they are nevertheless worlds apart from a socioeconomic standpoint.
The astoundingly wide wealth gap among the residents of New York City is portrayed visually in the comparison of pictures of the two Park Avenues – that of Manhattan, the city’s wealthiest borough, and of The Bronx, its poorest, where more than half the population receives food stamps in order to sustain themselves.
The American Dream of equal opportunities and hard work says that one be raised on the Bronx’s side of the River and make his way across it to one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the country, known as ‘home to the 1% of the 1%’. How plausible is this idea?
Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream
“There’s always been a gap between the wealthiest in our society and everyone else, but in the last 30 years something changed. That gap became an abyss. As of 2010, the 400 richest Americans controlled more wealth than the bottom half of the country. That’s 150 million people.”
– Alex Gibney, filmmaker
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney presents his take on the gap between the rich and poor in Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream.
Park Avenue: Money, Power & the American Dream | Video | Independent Lens | PBS
The documentary “Park Avenue: Money, Power, and the American Dream”, loosely based on the book 740 Park – The Story of the World’s Richest Apartment Building by Michael Gross, challenges the notion that America has no caste system, comparing the access to opportunities of residents of Park Avenue both on the Upper East Side and in the South Bronx.
“The idea of the American dream is that every one’s got an equal opportunity. You’ve just gotta decide to play. But in fact, there are large groups of people that experience the game as unfair. The opportunity’s not there. All the rules have been decided. The property’s already been bought up and the money is already in the hands of the other players.”
– Paul Piff, psychologist at University of California, Berkeley
Wealth and economic inequality is a key characteristic of New York City which can be analyzed holistically through poverty, gentrification, and race. Even though New York City has faced economic troubles, it has always been able to come back to financial stability. The same can’t be said for most of its citizens. While it has most recently caught the public’s eye, the disparity has been an underlying issue from the start. How can we, as New Yorkers work towards making economic equality attainable for all? Will we ever be able to?
