Pollard: How Redlining Has Helped Structure Your Lacrosse Team insidelacrosse.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from insidelacrosse.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
arrow
A small neighborhood smack dab in the middle of the Bronx has become the epicenter of the pandemic’s economic toll in New York City.
Nestled between the Bronx Zoo, Southern Boulevard, the Bronx River, and the ubiquitous Cross-Bronx Expressway, West Farms is a residential community of about 19,000. It’s about 74 percent Latino and 23 percent Black, with a median income slightly above $23,000/year, compared with $38,000 borough-wide and $61,000 citywide, according to Census analysis.
In many ways, West Farms is a microcosm of a city bearing the brunt of an economic crisis unlike any other in recent history. At its peak last June, the citywide unemployment rate climbed just above 20 percent, and the NY Times reported that the unemployment rate in West Farms had reached a staggering 36 percent in that same period, before creeping down. To quote that old saying, “When NYC gets a cold, the Bronx gets the flu.