New Zealand Paralympic swimmer Cameron Leslie poses for portrait at the Millennium Pool on March 26, 2012 in Auckland, New Zealand. (Photo by Hannah Johnston/Getty Images)

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)

Students play in their school yard on the first day of the new school term at a primary school in Baghdad, October 18, 2015. (Photo by Ahmed Saad/Reuters)

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 woman jumps in the air as she poses for a photo during New Year celebrations in the Manhattan borough of New York, January 1, 2016. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Reuters)

Revellers take part in New Year celebrations in Coin, near Malaga, southern Spain, January 1, 2016. (Photo by Jon Nazca/Reuters)

America may be a nation obsessed with automobiles, but today the bicycle is giving the car a run for its money. And while New York is just one of many cities that is implementing new bikefriendly policies, the local cyclist population stands out as one of the most diverse, inventive, and stylish in the world.

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)