In New York, hope sometimes comes at the price of the sun.
The city welcomes poor immigrants, but its housing does not. Most rents are far beyond the means of people like Amado, who arrive looking for a better life or to make money to send back home.
So they turn to the basements of Queens.
— The New York Times
The New York Times has produced an interactive photo essay profiling New York City residents in the borough of Queens who live in some of the city's windowless basement apartments. The arrangement, derived out of economic necessity and rooted in a desire to stay out of sight, provides newly arrived immigrants with a much-needed (and extremely dangerous) place to get settled in America.
According to the article, there is no accurate count available detailing how many of these units exist, but estimates run into the tens of thousands.
1 Comment
this is what you get when the building dept fails to enforce the building codes that are established and rule of law and thus allow a dangerous and illegal conversion of basements into living quarters and by the way let's audit the income tax reports of the homeowners to see if they are declaring the income on the rental of the illegal apartments and charge them with income tax evasion.
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