The City According to NY Magazine

Hey New Yorkers - you recognize this, don't you?

No, this isn't a strange Rorschach blot. This is New York City. At least, this is what New York City looks like according to NY Magazine. Or, to put it another way:

As you probably know, Nate Silver's "Best Places to live in NYC" piece has come out in NY Magazine. Now, I am a big Nate Silver fan, mostly because he brings a much-needed dose of data-driven reality and intellectual honesty into an area - namely political writing - where very often people just make shit up and expect to be believed.

And going through the methodology for the NYC neighborhoods article, I'm more and more impressed with how Silver conducted this study - not only did he go way above and beyond the call of duty in gathering and analyzing data, he also made this great tool that lets you weigh the different criteria according to your own definition of what you want in a neighborhood. Got your panties in a bunch because Silver counts schools for 6% and you don't have any kids? Easy - adjust the weighting to make schools count for nothing, and you've got the rankings that matter to you. You can never satisfy everyone, and there's tons of debate you can have over the minutae of the methodology and results - I, for one, am on record as saying the neighborhood that ended up first is a giant social ponzi scheme. But with something like this it's easy to hate and pick out faults, but really, really tough to actually create. All in all, this is a wonderful quantitative analysis - of half of New York City.

So my problem is not with Nate Silver, my problem is what NY Magazine gave him to work with. And what he had to work with was this:

5 neighborhoods in Staten Island, representing about an eighth of the population.

7 neighborhoods in the Bronx, representing about a quarter of the population.

8 neighborhoods in Queens - including all the neighborhoods west of the BQE -representing about a third of the population.

18 neighborhoods in Brooklyn - including all of the area north and west of Prospect Park - representing about half the population.

22 neighborhoods in Manhattan consisting of the entire borough (with the exception of Marble Hill, if you want to get nitpicky).

All in all, a little under half the population of the city is represented in the 60 neighborhoods that are surveyed. As for the the neighborhoods chosen - need you ask? It's everywhere the NY Magazine readership might already consider living (all the usual yuppie and trending-yuppie neighborhoods of Manhattan, Brownstone Brooklyn, and West Queens), with a few bones thrown seemingly at random to the other parts of the city (Belle Harbor? Westerleigh? Co-op City?). In short, the "best neighborhoods" are determined by considering a self-selected sampling of neighborhoods. The best proof of this? The neighborhood everyone seems to be up in arms about getting left off is Forest Hills - the one yuppie area that wasn't included.

Silver addresses this by saying "-- The choice of neighborhoods, and the geographic boundaries assigned to them, were determined by New York magazine staff. I thought they did a very comprehensive job, on balance. It's not trivial to include additional neighborhoods because a lot of this involves counting things -- whether laundromats, toxic waste dumps, or murders -- by hand. The 60 neighborhoods within our scope are not necessarily the 60 best neighborhoods. Yes, we'll get Forest Hills included if we do this next year."

This is ridiculous. Under half the city is nowhere near a "very comprehensive job." No newspaper, magazine, or any other reputable publisher would dream of putting out an article where they analyze the 19 states East of the Mississippi River and North of the 36th Parallel, plus Montana, Florida, Alabama, Oregon and New Mexico, and then list the top 20, call the article "The Best States to Live in America," and respond to criticism of this by claiming they did a "very comprehensive job, on balance," and complaining that doing the other 25 states would be too much work. But yet, that is exactly what this article does - just substitute "New York City" for "America" and "Neighborhoods" for "States."

I don't necessarily even have a problem if NY mag wants to discount everything outside of Manhattan and Brownstone Brooklyn. But it is not "the 50 best neighborhoods to live in New York." It's "the 50 best neighborhoods to live in yuppie New York." I would have actually liked this a lot better than throwing in a few neighborhoods outside this area for what seems to be the sole purpose of showing they're considering more than Manhattan, Brownstone Brooklyn, and Western Queens. When I was in college at my very white Midwestern state school, one year they noticed the cover of a University publication happened to only feature white faces. So did they look for another scene on campus to shoot that was more diverse? No. Did they try and recruit more minorities? No. Did they even just say "hey, I guess this is who we are, so we'll just go with it." No. They used the same picture - but just photoshopped in a few random, darker faces. This is the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the neighborhood selection for the article.

Really this is about me, and many other residents and lovers of the city, being fed up with half the city being completely ignored. If you like Brownstone Brooklyn better than the East Bronx, hey, I don't have a problem with that - so do I. But I at least give both of them a chance. I don't pretend the East Bronx doesn't exist, and don't pretend that it's somehow not part of New York City. And if you only have the resources to survey half the city, why is it always taken for granted that everywhere in Manhattan, Brownstone Brooklyn, and Western Queens must automatically be included, while a few of the rest of the neighborhoods of the city maybe get squeezed in if there's room? Why not distribute them equally throughout the 5 boroughs? Or, better yet, why not first eliminate the neighborhoods where 90% of New Yorkers won't be able to even afford in the first place, instead of starting with them?

There's a lot of publications in this city that focus on one or two particular areas, or ethnic groups, or cultures. But Caribbean Life doesn't call itself "New York Life." The Jewish Press doesn't call itself the "New York Press." The Queens Tribune doesn't call itself the "New York Tribune." Only one culture - the upscale yuppie culture - has the chutzpah to focus on one part of the city and call itself "New York Magazine."

The Most Desolate Place in New York

Out of the 2217 Census Tracts that make up the five boroughs of New York City, 24 have a population of zero. Ten are parks (8 part of the NYC Parks department, one part of National Parks System, and one affiliated with the Smithsonian) that have access to the public and regular visitation. Five are active cemeteries that can also be counted on to have regular visitors. Four are working environments – the Oak Point rail yards in the Bronx, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and two tracts that make up the Kings County Hospital Complex. One is LaGuardia Airport.

That leaves four Census Tracts one could reasonably call “desolate” – no permanent residents, no regular workers, and next to no visitors. One is really a ghost tract – Queens Tract 1622, which consists entirely of the Atlantic Ocean south of the Rockaways. It doesn’t even show up on the NYC Planning Department’s Census Fact Finder, but the Federal Census Bureau still lists it. Perhaps it was created to enumerate the population of Hog Island way back before it was destroyed about a hundred years ago, but I don’t even know if Census Tracts existed then. Regardless, since I can’t walk it I’m not counting it.

Two others consist of the series of marsh islands in Jamaica Bay. One of these tracts - Queens Tract 1072.02 - is easily accessed by the road between Broad Channel and the Joe Addabbo Bridge to Howard Beach, and houses the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge offices. The other - Brooklyn Tract 702.03 - is tougher, but there’s a small slice of the tract that’s on the same island. It takes a bit of trampsing through marshland, but you can get there on foot.

That leaves one Census Tract with no population, no workers, no land connection, and which is officially off-limits to visitors to boot. This is Bronx Census Tract 5: North and South Brother Islands, located at the western edge of Long Island Sound between Riker’s Island and the coast of the Bronx. I think it's fair to call this the most desolate tract in New York City.

A couple of summers ago I took a boat with Marie Lorenz out to North Brother. It was a very enjoyable few hours of exploration and relaxation, but the main purpose for me was simply to knock off what is probably the toughest Census Tract to get to in New York City.

Still, it's not exactly the South Pole - between scientists, students, reporters, and your occasional curious urbanist, the islands probably see at least a few dozen visitors a year.

Neighborhoods: South Bronx, North Brother Island. Tracts Walked: BX5

Ohhh...We're halfway there!

I always meant to update the maps a few times a year or so, but until I can do a Census Tract overlay on Google Maps or something, it's probably not going to happen. But I've made a lot more progress than the maps (which are 2 years old now) indicate. A fairly nondescript walk in Southern Brooklyn a few months ago gave me 1,109 - or 50.1%. I'll be putting up the new, updated maps by borough in the next few weeks.

Anyway, in honor of the halfway mark I give you Bon Jovi live in Tokyo.

"Greater Harlem"

A recent article came out in the NY Times with the headline "No Longer Majority Black, Harlem is in Transition." I have some problems with the general point and tone of the article, but better social commentators than I have detailed most of them (by the way, a much, much better and more straightforward article about the changing demographics of Harlem by Queens College Sociology Professor and Demographer Andrew Beveridge can be found here). As a demographic analyst though I would like to point out some facts that the Times was sloppy about at best, and disingenuous about at worst.

First though, I want to explain why the Times uses the boundaries of "Harlem" that they do - which they make no effort to explain themselves. As it turns out, they count a huge chunk of upper Manhattan, including Morningside Heights and East Harlem. There have been a few different people who have said things like "how can they say Harlem goes down to W. 106th street? How can they count Morningside Heights as part of Harlem?" or otherwise raised the regular old "what are the official boundaries of Harlem?" discussion (for the record - there are no "official" boundaries of any neighborhood in New York).

The answer is kind of boring. The reason the NY Times defines "Greater Harlem" as "river to river, and from East 96th Street and West 106th Street to West 155th Street," is because that exact area is what corresponds to the Census Bureau's Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs) NY03802 (West Harlem), NY03803 (Central Harlem), and NY03804 (East Harlem) - which is what the Times uses as their source for the demographic data. PUMA 03803 actually also takes in the Polo Ground houses north of 155th street as well, which the Times neglects to mention.

Don't ask me why the Census Bureau divides up the PUMAs that way. They usually roughly follow the Community Boards, but not always exactly. In this case, the slight difference is that Community Board 9 (West Harlem) starts at W. 110th street instead of W. 106th.

Now, as to why they used those three PUMAs to define Harlem? I suspect because that's the area that gave them the headline they wanted. "About 70% Black Now, Harlem is in Transition" - which is what they would have gotten if they had used just PUMA 03803 (Central Harlem), doesn't quite have the same ring to it. Even if you combine West and Central Harlem, or Central and East Harlem, the area is still majority black.

But back to the stats: a subtle thing I realized after looking through the numbers from the 2008 American Community Survey, was that whenever the Times says "black" - as in "in 2008, according to the census, the 77,000 blacks in central Harlem amounted to 62 percent of the population" they actually aren't using the numbers for the black population at all - they're using the numbers for the non-Hispanic, non-multiracial black population. So if you're a black Puerto Rican, or if mom's African-American and your dad's Dominican, or Irish, or Chinese, you aren't counted as "black" in the Times article. And this Hispanic and multiracial black population is fairly significant - about 10,000 people in Central Harlem, or about 8% of the population.

Now, this isn't necessarily the wrong number to use. The article specifically focuses on the rise and fall of the Southern, Great Migration-era African-American population in Harlem, and the article makes an effort to discount African and Caribbean blacks from the totals as well - although it does show a serious ignorance of Harlem's history which has long had both an Anglophone and Hispanic Caribbean black population. But what makes it a disingenuous statistic are two things:

1) The article specifically says "non-Hispanic white," when talking about the white population and doesn't say "non-Hispanic black" when talking about the black population.

2) Hispanics have only been separately enumerated since 1980, and multiracial individuals since 2000. So all of the numbers the Times uses when referencing the black population up to and including its peak in 1970 were counting black Hispanics, and all of the numbers afterward were not. All the numbers up to 1990 were counting multiracial individuals who primarily identified as black, and all the numbers afterward were not. This artificially exaggerates the decline in the black population.

This is just one concrete example of the larger issue - the Times' purposeful picking and choosing of statistics in order advance the narrative that the decline in black population is more significant than it is. You have to wait until halfway through the article before they tell you that in the "Greater Harlem" area they're talking about, blacks never made up even as much as 2/3 of the population (and that includes multiracial and Hispanic blacks). Not that this would be a terribly significant piece of news, except when coupled with the realization that the article is completely designed to overemphasize the decline of the proportion of Harlem's black population.

In fact "Greater Harlem" was barely majority black (about 52%) way back in 1990 - which is probably under 50% if you coun't people who would have identified as multiracial if they could. But of course "As Black Percentage of Population Declines by 11% at Most Over 18 Years, Harlem is in Transition," sounds really awkward.

Christmas in Middle Village

Went to go see the Christmas Lights that were referenced in this article the other day. The author of the article seems quite proud of the fact that "no guidebook mentions these," comparing them to the (relatively) heavily touristed Dyker Heights lights. Well, there's a reason no guidebook mentions them, and it's because they aren't really that noteworthy. It's a lovely block with lovely Christmas decorations. You'll find something similar in almost every neighborhood of the boroughs during this time of year. Much cooler was the gigantic 10-foot-tall snowman we found across 69th street.

I actually enjoyed the article (as well as this one about the Christmas display at the Garabedian's house on Pelham Park North in the Bronx), especially the profiles of the families on the block. But it's certainly not some kind of hidden find, and it's especially misleading to imply it's a display anywhere close to on par with Dyker Heights.

There's certainly something to be said for writing about what you find on a nice Christmas walk through 12 census tracts in Southwest Queens. But such walks are really meant for blogs like this, not the New York Times.

Neighborhoods: Middle Village, Maspeth, Rego Park. Tracts Walked: Q657.02, Q659, Q651, Q655, Q657, Q669, Q671.01, Q671.02, Q679, Q505, Q695, Q687

Lessons on Abandoned Observation Decks - part 2

The history lesson from the South Deck continues on the North Deck with the other 8 signs (and a much better view which you can see here). Numbers 9,11,12,13,and 16 illustrate the loss of the Battle of Brooklyn and retreat of Washington's Army to Manhattan. 14 gives a short description of the skirmishing in Manhattan after the retreat, and 15 is an overview of the Prison Martyrs Monument in Ft. Greene Park. 10 is missing, and has been since at least 2005 when I was first up there.

Format is the same as the south deck - the first photo is the overhead view of the deck showing the placement of the signs. The location of the numbers on the map after that correspond to the relevant sign - red for the Colonists, black for the British, and the arrows are the troop movements. If you're wondering where 14 is, it's on East 33rd describes the British landing in Kips Bay in Manhattan. The signs with the text written out follow (for some reason the formatting works best in Internet Explorer). You can click on the signs for a larger picture.

Each sign consists of text, an illustration, and an image of the area you're seeing. When you're up there, these images provide some interesting glimpses back into history - you can contrast the city as it existed in 1976 when the signs were installed, with what you see before you today. The most obvious of these occur on signs 12 and 13 where the twin towers stand tall in the skyline.

View Williamsburgh Savings Bank Signs - North Deck in a larger map

9. WASHINGTON OBSERVES STIRLING'S HEROIC STAND.
"On August 27th General Washington observed the fighting at Gowanus from the "cork-screw" fort at Cobble Hill, one of the series of fortifications comprising the American "inner line." Overcome with emotion he exclaimed 'Good God! What brave fellows I must this day lose!'"

11. AMERICANS RETREAT TO THEIR INNER LINE.
"Following the Battle of Gowanus, the Americans retreated to their inner line, a series of fortifications stretching from Wallabout Bay on the North to Gowanus Creek in the South. The "inner line" had been started under the supervision of Lord Stirling earlier in 1776 when it became clear that the British would try to take New York."

12. WASHINGTON CALLS A COUNCIL OF WAR.
"On the evening of August 29th Washington summoned American leaders to the home of Phillip Livingston for a "council of war to decide what should be done. The American outer line had fallen, many troops had been lost in the Battle at Gowanus, the Americans now had 10,000 raw soldiers to face 20,000 well trained British and Hessians, and a total of 1200 guns under Admiral Howe was standing ready to cut off Washington's only route of escape. At the council of war it was decided to withdraw from Long Island immediately."

13. WASHINGTON'S NIGHT RETREAT SAVES THE AMERICAN ARMY.
"All through the foggy night of August 29th, Washington's units silently withdrew from positions along their inner line. Quietly they made their way to the East River where waiting boats and barges ferried them across to New York. If they had known of it, the British could have destroyed Washington's army during this silent retreat. Instead, soon after dawn the next morning the Americans were gone. Washington's brilliant retreat from the western tip of Long Island enabled the American army to fight on - and five years later to prevail."

14. SEQUEL: THE BRITISH ESTABLISH HEADQUARTERS IN NEW YORK.
Meanwhile, the American forces regrouped in New York to defend Manhattan briefly. On September 15th, 1776 they skirmished with the British who landed at Kips Bay and nearly captured Washington. At the battle of Harlem Heights on September 16th Washington temporarily drove the British back, but by November all of Manhattan was in British hands. During the rest of the Revolution the British had their principle headquarters in New York.

15. AMERICA'S GREATEST MASS GRAVE.
The Prison Ship Martyrs Monument in Ft. Greene Park stands over the remains of 11,500 Americans who died of sickness and starvation on British Prison ships anchored in Wallabout Bay during the seven years New York was British headquarters. the monument stands on the site of Ft. Putnam, a primary fortification on the Americans' inner line during the Revolution. During the war of 1812 the Fort was rebuilt and renamed Ft. Greene.

16. THE VULNERABILITY OF AMERICAN POSITIONS.
Here on August 28th and 29th the British mounted cannon and built a small fort 800 yards from Fort Putnam near the corner of Vanderbilt and Lafayette avenue. The existence of this fort and the potential threat from it was a major factor in Washington's decision to call a Council of War the afternoon of August 29th.

Signs 9, 13, 15, and 16 were shot by me. Signs 11, 12, and 14 were shot by Steve Duncan. The photo of the deck from above was shot by Mike Epstein.

Lessons on Abandoned Observation Decks - part 1

The first time I got up to the abandoned observation deck of the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower was in 2005 when it was still all offices. The 26th floor with the deck was occupied, but luckily the 27th floor above was empty. Once we were up there, we noticed that the deck was actually two different decks - one terrace extended out from the South side of the building, and one from the North side. We went out a window and down a ladder onto the North deck. I was expecting some great views, and perhaps for security to come and escort us out. What I wasn't expecting was a history lesson on the Revolutionary War.

What we were on used to be a public observation deck, and for what I can only assume was the Bicentennial in 1976 16 signs were installed - 8 on each deck. Each sign describes some historical happening of the American Revolution, and points out the area where the event took place on the landscape of Brooklyn some 400-odd feet below. In 1977 the building was landmarked with the signs still up. A short time afterward the deck was abandoned. Since you can see the backs of the signs from the street, they're now considered part of the landmarked facade and can't be removed. So they stick around an abandoned observation deck, a lost little part of an older New York City, waiting to impart their lessons as a reward to the lonely few whose curiosity leads them to venture there. Look up the next time you're in the neighborhood - they're the tiny white rectangles on the gates of the uppermost terraces.

I've since returned many times with many people, and have gotten a full photographic collection of the signs. Each of the signs on the South deck (I'll cover the North deck in part 2) describes a specific action by either the British or Continental army during the early days of the Battle of Brooklyn - together, they illustrate a fairly standard pincer movement by the British. The amazing thing is that as you're reading the descriptions of the battle, you can see the entire terrain - from Staten Island, to Flatbush, to the Gowanus Canal - where it played out 233 years ago.

Below is a photo of the South observation deck from above - each number corresponds to the location of the related sign. To the left is Eastern Atlantic Avenue and Bed-Stuy. To the right is Western Atlantic Avenue, and the Gowanus area. Straight ahead is Flatbush Avenue, Prospect Park, and Southern Brooklyn.



The location of the numbers on the map correspond to the relevant sign. Black is for the British Army, Red is for the Continental Army, and the arrows describe the troop movements. The person is where the Observation Deck is located. For those of you not familiar with Google maps, you can scroll around to view the entire area.

View Williamsburgh Savings Bank Signs - South Deck in a larger map

Photos of the signs themselves are below, along with the text. You can click on the photos for a larger picture.

1. BRITISH FORCES ASSEMBLE ON STATEN ISLAND.
"In July, 1776 a fleet of British vessels landed troops on Staten Island. They were unopposed.By the middle of August a total of 32,000 British and Hessian troops - supported by more than 350 ships in the Harbor - had gathered on the island. It was the greatest assemblage of military and naval armament launched by England up to that time."

2. BRITISH LAND AT GRAVESEND.
"On August 22nd, 1776, 15,000 British and Hessians under the command of General William Howe landed unopposed on the beaches of Gravesend Bay. Another 5,000, mainly Hessians under General Von Heister landed on the 25th. As one observer said, 'the Disembaration...exhibited one of the finest & most picturesque Scenes that the imagination can fancy or the Eye behold.'"

3. BRITISH MOVE TO FLATBUSH.
"Soon after landing, a unit of 5,000 British and Hessians under Cornwallis moved to Flatbush to probe the American outer line of defense. The outer line consisted of a terminal moraine, or hill, running diagonally across Brooklyn. Through this hill ran four roads or lanes at low points called passes. American troops were deployed at or near these passes. The Flatbush pass, one mile north of the village church, was at the center of the American outer line."

4. MAIN COLUMN OF BRITISH FLANKS THROUGH FLATLANDS.
"By the evening of August 26 General Howe had moved 10,000 men - or one-half his total force - to Flatlands. From there, while the American troops were diverted by probes of his other units at Flatbush and in the Gowanus, he would launch a flanking attack around the unguarded east end of the American outer line."

5. HOWE'S TROOPS MAKE SECRET NIGHT MOVE THROUGH UNGUARDED PASS.
"On the night of August 26th, the main column of the British Army moved off cross-country from Flatlands leaving their campfires burning. Early in the morning, they captured a small American patrol but, still suspicious that there might be more Americans in the pass, they forced a local innkeeper, William Howard, to show then an alternate way through the hills above the pass."

6. AMERICANS DISCOVER BRITISH ENCIRCLEMENT TOO LATE.
"About 8:00 AM on the morning of August 27th an American scouting party under Colonial Miles came upon the rear end of the British flanking column moving west along the Jamaica Road. The Americans had been outflanked and would soon be in the gravest peril as the other two British units pressed forward to close the pincers."

7. GRANT PUSHES AGAINST AMERICANS IN THE GOWANUS.
"While Howe and Clinton were executing the flanking movement in the east, British General James Grant, with 5,000 troops was moving against the west end of the American line in Gowanus. About 3:00 AM in the morning of the 27th he was discovered on the slopes of the hill near present day 20th street. This was said to be the first formal field confrontation of the Americans with another army."

8. THE FIGHTING AT GOWANUS.
"About 9:00 AM on August 27th General Grant recived news of the success of Howe's flanking movement and began to strike hard against Stirling's men. Stirling, realizing the imminent convergence of the two enemy units from Flatbush and the east, sent most of his force of 1800 to safety across the Gowanus canal. Keeping some 250 Marylanders, he made a desperate stand near the Vachte Cortelyou house until two o'clock in the afternoon, when he and most of his men were captured."

All photos on this page were taken by Mike Epstein - he's a lot more great shots of the building and view here and here.

Part 2 is here