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)





A man on a makeshift bed made of a plank across two barrels, 1890. One of four pedlars who slept in cellar of 11 Ludlow Street. (Photo by Jacob A. Riis/Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Roger William Riis)





Children’s Playground, 1892. (Photo by Jacob A. Riis/Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Roger William Riis)





Bohemian Cigar Makers at Work, c 1890. (Photo by Jacob A. Riis/Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Roger William Riis)





Bandit’s Roost, c 1890. (Photo by Jacob A. Riis/Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Roger William Riis)





Scene on the Mott Street Barracks, c 1890. (Photo by Jacob A. Riis/Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Roger William Riis)





Police Station Lodgers 19. The typhus lodger in Eldridge Street, he lay by the stove in the policemen’s room no one dreaming what ailed him. (Photo by Jacob A. Riis/Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Roger William Riis)





Five Cents a Spot, c 1890. (Photo by Jacob A. Riis/Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Roger William Riis)





Little Susie in Gotham Court, 1892. (Photo by Jacob A. Riis/Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Roger William Riis)