The Projects-Dumbo Divide
The Daily News has an article about the class and quality-of-life differences between people who live in the Farragut Houses as opposed to neighboring Vinegar Hill or Dumbo: “Police sources said cops have investigated dozens of major crimes at the Farragut Houses in the past year, including shootings and robberies. The number of major crimes…
The Daily News has an article about the class and quality-of-life differences between people who live in the Farragut Houses as opposed to neighboring Vinegar Hill or Dumbo: “Police sources said cops have investigated dozens of major crimes at the Farragut Houses in the past year, including shootings and robberies. The number of major crimes in nearby DUMBO is closer to zero.” The article cites Census stats saying that the median income of people living in or around the projects is $20,995 while it’s $148,611 in Vinegar Hill/Dumbo; 7 percent of the former population aged 25 or older have a bachelor’s degree, whereas 74 percent of people in Dumbo/Vinegar Hill who are 25 or older have BAs.
Life of Poverty and Fear in Housing Project for Those in Shadow of Wealth [Daily News]
Retlaw: Where do you propose moving all the people who already LIVE in these projects? I have family who live in the Fort Green Houses who are hard-working people, they don’t make a lot of money and yes they had 4 kids – ok shoot them – but they pay taxes, don’t collect food stamps and keep their house clean. They pay about $700 for a 3BR – where else in the city could they live on that sorta “rent”?
Jaguar I dont know why asking for an article to say more and probe deeper gets your ire up. or how that means I dont “want to hear the truth about how poor people live in this city”
But I am much less interested in hearing about how some people live in crime infested housing and much more interested in the why so I (and others)can support policies and people to hopefully EASE that suffering…sorry if I am not entertained by simply reading about the plight of others.
Ah, no it was Ingersoll.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/08/ingersoll-houses-whitman_n_384217.html
However, a lot of the issues are still applicable.
Accumulated assets equal wealth. People can make $150,000 and still have nothing but debt.
Median household wealth in this country? In the area of $100,000, higher if it’s a white household, less than $10,000 if a black household. Pretty modest sums.
Across New York City median household income is around $52,000, just about the national median. Meanwhile, Manhattan’s top one percent owns 44 percent of all the borough’s household assets.
If the News were to write about the city’s wealth distribution — a much more accurate reflection of inequality — it would be another kind of newspaper.
NYGuy….I think there’s a fair number of posters who make over $150k and/or have earned over $1MM in ten years.
The Farragut houses are some of the ones that the city is warehousing too, correct? If anything’s missing from this article, I think it’s that. Wasn’t there an article a while back about how crime had increased there because the projects were all half-empty?
Honestly, the layout of those projects and the location is pretty nice — nicer than most of DUMBO. More green space. Playgrounds. It’d be nice if more working-class families got to enjoy that.
$148K is the MEDIAN income for DUMBO/Vinegar Hill – that means half the people/families there earn MORE and half earn LESS (and yes, that half the people/families in Farragut earn LESS than $21K). I would bet that DUMBO/Vinegar Hill has a relatively high median income vs. the city in general, given the small number of housing units and the relative affluence of people moving there over the last decade. Put that next to Farragut, and you get a pretty stark comparison – probably a wider disparity that most places, particularly in such close proximity, but by no means surprising.
NYC has always had tremendous disparities in wealth in relatively close proximity. The only real change over the past quarter century is that these types of juxtapositions of wealth are getting closer together. Used to be the highest incomes were concentrated in relatively small areas of Manhattan, so you wouldn’t see this type of across the street comparison.
(BTW – median income for a family of 4 in the NY metro area is around $72K – so DUMBO is more than twice that. And more than half the people in Farragut wouldn’t qualify for most affordable that is being built today.)
I don’t know, true this article isn’t earth-shattering, but the contrast between rich and poor does seem particularly stark in dumbo/vinegar hill. Walk up Gold St past luxury, doorman condos and then turn right onto York–it’s…depressing. And one of the few areas on this end of Brooklyn that I feel not entirely safe. I recall folks on this site getting really down on safety and worth of a brownstone for sale on Nevins near the projects–but I’d argue that the projects are more seamlessly integrated in neighborhoods like Boerum Hill and there’s less of a feeling of “haves” and “have nots.”
“How does earning 150k a year make someone rich”
Well considering 90% of the US populations makes less than that yeah, that’s pretty wealthy regardless of how expensive things are here. In 10 years they’ve earned over a million dollars. Can anyone on here say that?