Author: Corey Kilgannon / Source: New York Times
Until recently, the most important thing to know about Amazon for residents of the Queensbridge Houses, the country’s largest public housing project, was that any packages left in a lobby would likely be stolen.
But Amazon will soon be a far larger presence in their New York City neighborhood.
The company owned by Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, will announce on Tuesday that it will establish a major headquarters in Long Island City, Queens, where Queensbridge’s 26 aging buildings are home to a mostly black and Hispanic population with a median household income of $15,843, well below the federal poverty line for a family of four.
Here, where livings are eked out on meager paychecks, or social service assistance, with nearly 60 percent of its households relying on food stamps, the new neighbor will be one of the world’s most profitable high-tech companies, bringing what could be a work force of 25,000 people making salaries upward of $100,000.
The stark contrast amplifies some of the social and economic tensions coursing through American society — a widening income gap, a lack of access to high-paying jobs for many minorities and a technology sector struggling to diversify.
The planned location for the new headquarters is still unclear, as is whether Amazon will deliver any benefits to the roughly 6,000 people who live in the Queensbridge Houses and other disadvantaged parts of the neighborhood.
“What are they going to do for the community? Are they going to guarantee us employment opportunities?
” said April Simpson, the president of Queensbridge Tenants Association. “I’m worried about, when they come, they’re not going to have opportunities for people. Not just people from Queensbridge — but other lower- and middle-income people in this area.“That’s why we’re leery about them coming in.”
As New York City seeks to challenge Silicon Valley’s dominance as a tech hub — Google recently announced plans for a significant expansion in New York — the explosion of jobs has helped propel the local economy. But it has not mitigated the “tale of two cities” narrative of economic disparity that Mayor Bill de Blasio has vowed to address in a city where the poverty rate in 2016 was 19.5 percent, significantly higher than the national rate.
That stratification is keenly felt in Queensbridge, a gritty complex just across the East River from the East Side of Manhattan and some of the wealthiest neighborhoods and real estate in the country.
Hard by the Queensboro Bridge, the Queensbridge Houses have been plagued with crime and drugs. Those problems have eased in recent years, Ms. Simpson said, and community programs have improved the quality of life. Last year, the housing project did not record a single shooting, something that had not happened in more than a decade and was a source of pride.
But the neglect that afflicts many public housing developments and has led to harsh criticism of the de Blasio administration, persists here, residents and other local leaders said. “There are still a lot of problems with the apartments — the lack of heat and hot water, non-working elevators, mold and broken front doors,” said Jimmy Van Bramer, the city councilman whose district includes the Queensbridge Houses.
Tyshema Basnight, 42, said she had been trying to rejoin the work…
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