Members of a Chinese opera take a selfie before a performance at a shopping mall ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations in Bangkok, Thailand, February 4, 2016. (Photo by Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)

A man wears a costume during a parade to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year, which welcomes the Year of the Monkey, in Madrid, Spain, February 13, 2016. (Photo by Andrea Comas/Reuters)

Crowds Gather For New Year's Ball Drop In Times Square on December 31, 2011 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)

People line the streets as a dragon passes by during the Chinese New Year parade on January 29, 2012 in New York City. Thousands of people turned out to see the event which celebrated the Year of the Dragon. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

German police officers take pictures as fireworks explode next to the Quadriga sculpture atop the Brandenburg gate during New Year celebrations in Berlin, Germany, January 1, 2017. (Photo by Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters)

A girl participates in a New Year calligraphy contest in Tokyo, Japan, January 5, 2017. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

Members of the Edo Firemanship Preservation Association balance on top of bamboo ladders during a demonstration at the New Year's fire review held by the Tokyo Fire Department in Tokyo, Japan, 06 January 2016. Some 2,800 firefighters perform various emergency rescue and firefighting demonstrations in an effort to promote the prevention of fire and disaster in the annual event. (Photo by Kiyoshi Ota/EPA)

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)