Unequal Scenes - New York City

The Ingersoll Houses, lit up here at night, are one of New York City's oldest public housing developments, opened in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, in 1944. Some 3,500 people live in its plain brick towers, part of the roughly 400,000 New Yorkers housed by the New York City Housing Authority, the largest such agency in the country. Like much of NYCHA's aging stock, Ingersoll has struggled with chronic disrepair, and its tenants have gone to court and to Congress over years of neglect. Meanwhile, gentrification pressures exacerbate the divide, showcasing a city where wealth and poverty exist side by side.

New York City. A great heaving monster. A sky-high dream factory. A concrete jungle. No matter how it's described, the superlatives never seem to add up to the experience of entering Manhattan for the first time.

Yes, you can still “make it” in New York, and if you can do it there, you can “do it anywhere”. Take the F train to Jackson Heights, or the N to Sunset Park, or pretty much anywhere in the Bronx, and you’ll see people hustling - thousands upon thousands of people walking, selling, dancing, laughing, and building up a little nest egg - or more likely, remitting most of their nest egg back home.

To gain a foothold of prosperity in New York without a degree, English language skills, property, or even a car, is still viable, but barely. Rent is insane. Workers sleep in basement apartments so bleak, so crowded, and so inaccessible that they literally drown when it rains hard. Wages are inconsistent, pay structure can be opaque. But “making it” is a far cry from building generational wealth. “Making it” in an unequal society means surviving, not thriving. Societal protections and guarantees that you will pass along some sort of benefit to your future generations - wealth in the form of housing, an inheritance, stocks, etc - are unlikely. “Making it in New York” rings more and more some like sort of rote liturgy to the idea of American Exceptionalism, dreamed up not too far away in Madison Avenue - more akin to pageant than practicalities.

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Inequality Data created by the World Inequality Database.

Public housing projects in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn.

Central Park Tower and other "skinny" super tall buildings benefit from what's known as "air rights". Developers can purchase the airspace above neighboring buildings, and then add it on top of theirs.

The Gowanus Canal is a name synonymous with pollution in America. Used for years as a dumping site for toxic chemicals, sludge, and even as a mafia graveyard, it has been extensively cleaned up since the 1970s. However, on certain days, when the tide and wind are just right, the riverbed releases toxic, smelly ooze to the surface.

Public housing projects in downtown Brooklyn stand in the shadows of supertall buildings, signifying the completion of gentrification in one of America’s most historic black neighborhoods. Because luxury real estate is such a reliable and under-taxed investment in New York City, it’s exceedingly rare for tall new buildings in gentrifying neighborhoods to rent or sell at rates that are affordable to those who live nearby.

Central Park Tower - One of the new "super tall" skinny skyscrapers located on Billionaire's Row (W 57th St). Constructed on congested blocks in one of the world's most valuable real estate markets, developers use purchased "air rights" and innovative architectural techniques to build these slender towers with extremely narrow footprints for only the richest of clientele. Since the mid-2000s, luxury housing has become a new form of investment vehicle for the ultra-wealthy, providing a tangible asset and a cachet that you can't find in stocks or bonds. Penthouse apartments here regularly go for tens of millions, and in some cases (like 432 Park Ave) hundreds of millions of dollars.

Wealth and privilege meet everyday life on 5th Avenue in midtown Manhattan.

A Ferrari parked in front of a luxury building in the Financial District, while recyclers search for aluminum cans discarded in the mounds of trash nearby.

Luxury apartment blocks catch the rising sunlight on Central Park East.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t some individuals succeeding. Yes, there are outliers, who came from very little and worked very hard. Those people exist, and their stories are valid, and looped into endless films and other fairytales. But by and large the ability of an immigrant or low-wealth person to succeed with hard work and grit alone has declined since the 1940s.

Studies have shown that Americans underestimate wealth inequality, and overestimate their ability to move up in social classes. All evidence points to move away from a generous social welfare state funded by progressive, almost confiscatory taxation in the US beginning in about 1970. Since then, the USA has become the most unequal of the world's largest economies by many different measures. The top 1% of Americans own 21% of the country’s wealth - and the billionaires have it best of all. Their wealth, already anomalous, grew much faster than average wealth growth over the last 40 years. The first dollar trillionaire will almost certainly exist within our lifetime.

Moreover, these gains accumulate largely through the stock market, which it has been shown, is captured almost completely by the top 10% of US wealthy persons. This explosion in wealth comes at the expense of middle and lower income earners - in the form of stagnating or even declining wages relative to those of executives, wasted tax incentives (subsidies) given to corporations, natural resource extraction shifting true costs onto populations, and much more.

But Americans tend to fetishize wealth, and fetishize the struggle to become wealthy, while at the same time attributing the failure to become wealthy on personal characteristics rather than structural elements. There’s even a fancy psychology term for it - The Fundamental Attribution Error. Talking to most conservative, and even some liberal Americans will give you an idea of how this error works in practice - we are loathe to admit that class distinctions exist, that money begets money through the magic of capital appreciation, and that white men succeed at the expense of all other demographics - because these narratives are "un-American".

The truth is complicated. In many ways, our material lives have got better over time - we live longer, we are more educated, have more disposable income, are able to afford higher quality products, and have in some ways reached a level of prosperity and health unimaginable to our ancestors, even those from the recent past. But what made this possible in the first place? A tremendous investment in people - made possible by redistributing wealth in the mid-20th century due to ideas around justice, shared transformational growth, civil rights, and yes, even good old fashioned capitalist economic expansion.

At one point, not too long ago, the US government taxed the richest Americans 90% of their income. Today, that rate is approximately 37%. Tax cuts for the rich, reduced corporate taxes for businesses, and a variety of other means currently being deployed mean that we have stepped away from the vision of collective prosperity. Today, the idea that private lenders and other creditors, "trickle-down" economics (wage growth, 401k, etc) and housing price increases, amongst others, reflect a state where the media, government and the aspirational classes have captured the narrative about growth. They have captured the notion of equitable growth and made it a dirty word, associating it with "socialism" and "communism", and planting scare stories in media about how "squandering money" on the poor will lead to financial flight and ruin of the city. In spite of all this, Zohran Mamdani will become the next mayor of NYC and the future is yet to be written. In an age of growing attacks on science and journalism, coupled with increased inequality and a drift away from an open society, the next few years of leadership in the city will be pivotal.

Hudson Yards grows continuously behind historic multi-story Manhattan architecture along the city's west side. Purchased in a massive 25 billion-dollar deal which evaporated a modest but decidedly urban fabric of small factories, neighborhoods and artists' studios and swapped them for 14 high rise towers tower, Hudson Yards has been on the receiving end of dozens of acerbic critiques from people much wittier and knowledgable than I am. Adding millions of feet of office space, luxury apartments and "public spaces" (like the Heatherwick-designed "Vessel") but contributing no discernable interesting urbanity to the city, Hudson Yards has sparked years of fierce debate and controversy while simultaneously changing the skyline of the city dramatically.

432 Park Avenue - One of the new "super tall" skinny skyscrapers in midtown Manhattan. Constructed on congested blocks in one of the world's most valuable real estate markets, developers use purchased "air rights" and innovative architectural techniques to build these slender towers with extremely narrow footprints for only the richest of clientele. Since the mid-2000s, luxury housing has become a new form of investment vehicle for the ultra-wealthy, providing a tangible asset and a cachet that you can't find in stocks or bonds. Penthouse apartments here regularly go for tens of millions, and in some cases (like 432 Park Ave) hundreds of millions of dollars.

The four tower blocks straddling the highway here are the Bridge Apartments, built in the early 1960s directly above the Trans-Manhattan Expressway, the stretch of Robert Moses's notorious Cross-Bronx corridor that runs to the George Washington Bridge. Some 4,000 people, mostly working-class, live on platforms over twelve lanes of traffic. The gaps between the towers were left open because sealing and venting the road was too costly, so exhaust rises straight up between the homes. Residents have long complained of foul air and noise. Along this corridor, respiratory illness runs well above the city average.

One Vanderbilt, a new supertall in midtown Manhattan.

432 Park Avenue, the super tall with the penthouse (pictured here) currently listed for $169 million dollars.

Oakwood in Staten Island, where many homes were destroyed during Superstorm Sandy, is now a shell of itself. Some homeowners refuse to move.

Newtown Creek is the border between Brooklyn and Queens, and the site of the fourth-largest oil spill in US history. It's currently bounded by some of NYC's hottest developments.

Pubic beach ends at W 37th St in Coney Island, and the private development of Sea Gate begins. This gated community was the first in New York City.

The Ingersoll public housing project in Brooklyn.

Sea Gate, on the tip of Coney Island, is one of only a handful of private neighborhoods in the city. Neighbors have accused the privatized police force of heavy-handed policing and nepotism in the past. The neighborhood is 83% white, as compared to the rest of Coney Island which is overwhelmingly Black and Hispanic.

Because it exists as the paradigmatic, apex city in the world’s most powerful, richest country, a country which is at the moment of writing approaching levels of income inequality last seen at the beginning of the 20th century, NYC is worthy of attention. Mayor de Blasio, who campaigned to reduce inequality in a "Tale of Two Cities" paradigm, released a new 12-page document outlining his achievements on reducing inequality, but which many felt did not do enough to dismantle relationships with developers and financial titans who drive economic and political decision making in the city.

Eric Adams, elected in 2021, shifted the narrative from redistribution to “recovery,” courting business interests and emphasizing public safety. Inequality deepened as housing costs surged and pandemic aid receded. His administration’s ties to developers and police unions alienated the progressive base.

Zohran Mamdani’s 2025 ascent and expected mayoral win marks an ideological backlash to both. Running on wealth taxes, social housing, and anti-gentrification policy, he channels frustration with decades of liberal management that moderated but never reversed inequality. His challenge is structural: dismantling the finance-real-estate complex that underpins New York’s economy without triggering capital flight.

There have been strides towards reducing inequalities that are real, potentially long-lasting, and affordable. Universal "Pre-K and 3-K" (meaning all children who are 3 and 4 years old can now access free schooling) is de Blasio's signature legacy, alleviating the cost of child care, boosting total lifetime earnings, benefitting largely communities of color, and providing a "stronger, richer, fuller life for children" and their parents.

Discount transit cards, a large amount of affordable housing units built, climate change investment, a $15 minimum wage, expanded access to health care and other worker protections and many more programs are being touted as alleviating the city's inequality rates which still persist as some of the highest in the country. (note: many economists encourage multiple metrics to assess levels of inequality, but the Gini coefficient still persists as the favorite in popular culture.) Ultimately achievements such as these, which are really focused on reducing poverty rather than attacking entrenched wealth, are politically popular.

Technically, raising the bottom of society to exist on "living wages" (really, it should be called "survival wages") is a reduction in inequality by some measures. But it also seems to telegraph a future America with billionaire oligarchs and the technocratic elite touting "full employment" as an accurate assessment of a healthy society. Meanwhile, the distracted working classes quibble over the latest outrage as any semblance of social mobility disappears. How much success - measured not in dollar terms but in that elusive concept of "thriving" - can we really expect from $15 an hour?

The magic of photography is not in data or the written nuance; and these images of New York reflect the color, the balance, and the form of the city from a particular point and a particular frame. I wanted to explore all five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island. There are no tin shacks in New York; no mansions next to shantytowns, no slums or open sewers next to golf courses.

What I found was a city diverse in landscape, architecture, and people, so multifarious and utilitarian, that it was almost like every shot was a new thought waiting to be expressed visually, yet familiar and timeless all at once. More than just a dense tangle of concrete, the city is also wild and real; beach holiday homes, urban forests, and pristine wetlands exist. But I mainly found myself drawn to the architecture, to the canals and the buildings and the roads which fascinate me as the veins, carbuncles, and capillaries of all major metropolises. I hope you enjoy them in the spirit of a healthier, fairer, and more truthful society, one in which care and justice take precedence.

New developments in Long Island City.

Hudson Yards is a billion-dollar "smart city" promising revitalization and a lab for future civic tech in the heart of midtown.

Glittering apartment buildings and public housing in downtown Brooklyn.

The Gowanus Expressway - part of a series of transportation projects Robert Moses rammed through diverse neighborhoods in the early 1960s.

The Cross-Bronx Expressway, another controversial Robert Moses project, was routed north of Crotona Park and through the Tremont neighborhood, severely disrupting the character of the largely Jewish society at the time. Respiratory illnesses along the Cross Bronx run much higher than the average.

"Little Island is (billionaire Barry) Diller and his wife, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg's, $260 million present to the City of New York, topped not by a bow, but a man-made magic mountain.

The proud Bridge Apartments, on top of I-95 in Manhattan's Washington Heights neighborhood.

The world's "skinniest skyscraper" at 111 W 57th St. These skinny skyscrapers have come to symbolize the stratospheric luxury property boom of the 2010s.

Astoria Houses, public housing overlooking the East River.

Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, a famous private development on Manhattan's east side.

Skyscrapers in Manhattan catching the morning glow.

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