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]
fsrq is just another person who doesn’t want to hear the truth about how poor people live in this city especially since she already knows all aboit it. She’s rather read a human interest story about rich people since she can relate to it. If that exact same article was written about a rich white person from Dumbo’s point of view of living so close to the projects and having a hard time figuring out which private school to send her kids to, then that would be the kind of story she would like, because, apparently, EVERYONE doesn’t know which private schools to go to, so that would be useful information right?
By the way, you are getting your panties all bunched up over an article in the Daily News. It isn’t exactly the Wall Street Journal or Business Week. Relax honey!
“To be a worthwhile and interesting article there should at least be SOME examination about why one group is forced to live with high levels of crime and the other group isnt.”
yeah – the median income in those projects is 20k/yr. i bet there are other neighborhoods in nyc with a similar median income that have much lower per-capita crime rates than the farragut houses. why?
There is NOTHING in the article about how income gaps continue to grow in NYC – so the article is NOT about that. As to whether it is simply a “human interest story” and it is worthwhile as that…my response is….there is no interest in this because EVERYONE knows it. Projects contain poor people and often crime – and wealthier people are just that – wealthier. And in NYC they are often very close….
To be a worthwhile and interesting article there should at least be SOME examination about why one group is forced to live with high levels of crime and the other group isnt.
ch_renter- are you rich? When’s dinner? 🙂
150k, is upper middle class at least [for a family] and rich [if you’d had it a couple of years] for a single person…
unless of course you live beyond your means [or right at your means] by buying the most expensive condo in dumbo or renting and paying a fortune renting in that hood.
i make somewhat less than my most wealthy friends, but often have more disposable income cause I don’t have the most expensive house/lifestyle that I can afford…
not that i don’t make mistakes though, i ain’t perfect…
about six years ago, I was riding my bike up Sand St. to get to Manhattan Bridge and there was a dead body laying on the stoop in front of one of the Farragut Houses…the police/EMT hadn’t arrived yet.
Also, in my eyes, if you make $150K a year, you are rich (and paying for dinner.)
I call this a human interest story and not a story about income gaps and other large trends.
The point of the story is not that there are income gaps or rich and poor neighborhoods, but that they can be geographically close to each other.
Big deal. Life has always been like that. You could run this article about any city in the country by just changing the neighborhood names.
Why does this article need to be a PHD level discussion of poverty and crime to be worthwhile? It appears like a human interest story to me, a human interest story that is is probably the reality for hundreds of thousands or people, but the typical Brownstoner reader could give two shits.
The point of this article is that the income gap in NYC (and the US) continues to grow, because politicians embrace policies that allow it to happen. I don’t know what the solution is, and to some extent NYC has been like this forever, but there is a huge divide here. A TALE OF TWO CITIES for sure.