A man sits waiting for a train on the London Underground in 1890, when the platform floors were still made from wooden floorboards. (Photo by Hi-Story/Alamy Stock Photo)

People watch the Macy's Fourth of July fireworks at the Edge at Hudson Yards on Thursday, July 4, 2024, in New York. (Photo by Yuki Iwamura/AP Photo)

People in a pub druring the Whitby Goth Weekend in Whitby, Yorkshire, where Bram Stoker found some of his inspiration for “Dracula” after staying in the town in 1890 in Whitby, United Kingdom on October 29, 2017. (Photo by Danny Lawson/PA Images via Getty Images)

The Derpy Tiger balloon during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade 2025, in New York City, U.S., November 27, 2025. (Photo by Jeenah Moon/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)