Nurse's Home, North Brother Island, New York. Photographer Christopher Payne specializes in the documentation of America’s vanishing architecture and industrial landscape. His new book, North Brother Island: The Last Unknown Place in New York City, explores an uninhabited island of ruins in the East River of New York City. (Photo by Christopher Payne)

Drastic inequality is by no means new in New York. Jacob A. Riis was called a muckraker after he chose to spotlight the city’s poverty at the turn of the 20th century by photographing it. Here: Sweatshop in Hester Street, 1889-1890. (Photo by Jacob A. Riis/Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Roger William Riis)

The Upside Down Room, with furniture on the ceiling and real beds and chairs that open out of the floor, is one of many creative and even bizarre rooms shown photographed February 14, 2002 at the Propeller Island City Lodge in Berlin, Germany. Owner, artist and musician Lars Stroschen designed the rooms of the hotel, which has 28 rooms and has been open since June, 2001. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Revelers march during the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, Tuesday, October 31, 2017, in New York. (Photo by Andres Kudacki/AP Photo)

A person dressed as a zombie walks during the annual Zombie Walk in Mexico City, Mexico on October 21, 2023. (Photo by Quetzalli Nicte-Ha/Reuters)

Images created with Post-it notes are seen in the windows of offices at 75 Varick Street in lower Manhattan, New York, U.S., May 18, 2016, where advertising agencies and other companies have started what is being called a “Post-it note art war” with employees creating colorful images in their windows with Post-it notes. (Photo by Mike Segar/Reuters)

A dancer from the Trisha Brown Dance Company performs during “Roof Piece” above the High Line park June 9, 2011 in New York City. Roof Piece (1971) consists of nine dancers performing improvised movement signals to each other in a chain on various rooftops overlooking the city. This presentation marked the first full performance of the piece since 1973. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)