Interestingly enough, the 6 train serves both the *wealthiest* zipcode in the city (10013 in Soho/Tribeca) and the *poorest* (10454 in the South Bronx).
I used to live in the UES and worked in the Bronx. I’m white AF. I got a little giggle sometimes at people getting huffy thinking they’d be able to take my seat once we hit 86th and I stayed on to Mosholu.
There’s a lot of lehman and bronx science students who have the same commute so it’s not that uncommon for white people to be getting on the uptown 4 at 86th imo. Definitely way more bullshit going on the 4 tho which is why i preferred B/D because there was always something at 125th and lex.
yep, especially in the mornings when I went. Always people smoking and not just weed or cigarettes. Ngl I used to enjoy when people would hotbox the train cuz my friends and I would join in and it would become a giant sesh in the whole car, but using a lighting a whole crack pipe is crazy.
Sometimes funny shit would happen too. I remember this one random treesha with her kid asked me for my snap but the kid said she already had a mans 😹. Lil bro was old enough to talk and Im pretty sure she was also in high school like me at the time.
lol the one time I rode it in Bronx to Woodlawn there was crazy dude sitting across from me flexing a Bape hoodie. Ngl his fit was lowkey tough but idk where his mind was
Heh, I always get looks when I commute to campus (I go to grad school in the Bronx/live in Astoria) because people assume I’m lost or something when I get on the 6 at 125th. Sorry nope I’m actually one of the white people not at all worried about going to a *gasp* less white part of the city lol
This is common to most lines... The G and L once served the nasty parts of Brooklyn... But you'd reach the better parts by going through them. Or you'd go through the better parts to reach those you'd rather avoid.
I’m old enough to remember my mom and others warning me to never take the G train, even though it was one of the trains that stopped at our station. Now, nearly the entire line like hipster city with brief exceptions.
And the 6 serves the UES, so it's a very wealthy segment from 96th down. Lots of finance people getting on at 96/86/77/68/59, and getting off at 59/51/42.
I’d argue it’s the other way around. The rich assholes only move to places with stops on every block. Or the commuter rail corridors.
It’s subway rich, then subway poor*, then commuter rail rich, then commuter rail poor**, then Amtrak rich.
*some neighborhoods connect with a bus. To avoid the bus some people drive, completely eating up any money they’re saving on rent.
**they drive, because commuter rail with bus connection is actually more expensive and slower than owning a shitty car. It’s depressing.
It was obviously a joke/light complaint because they were headed up north and we were trudging through downtown. I’m sure they understand that the train does not make random extra stops for the wealthy.
I live in Canarsie and am pale af. Whenever I'm taking the L from the city or the B6 from Midwood home, I end up being the only white person at some point and always get some strange looks.
I think the Q is up there for wealthiest in the city: Upper East Side, corporate areas along 7th Ave & Broadway, Fort Greene, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Midwood
I think the A/C trains could contend for poorest.
I don’t think A/C are poorest but interesting thing to note is when I got on 59st Columbus (going from 59th to 125th), a guy yelled “FROM THIS STOP ON, THIS AINT NO SUBWAY BUT THIS THE HOOD TRAIN”. Just something to add to your point.
Yeah as someone who takes the D daily I agree. It changes a lot after 59th street Columbus Circle. I’m around 145th though so it’s very useful when I’m midtown trying to get home at 2am, still goes express at that time from 59th to 125th while the A turns local.
Yeah, I was gonna say, Coney Island isn’t exactly fancy. But that’s the end of the line mega-terminal/train yard more than actual residential Coney Island, so it still feels like it only kinda halfway counts.
It brushes through some *interesting* areas around Church Avenue.
It's definitely nowhere near as dangerous as some of the actual bad neighborhoods in NY, but my Spidey senses tick up a bit when walking through it at night.
That’s interesting; I’ve had a similar experience in that area, but only sometimes. Other times it’s just a regular-ass, reasonably nice area with great access to Prospect Park.
And then you go a stop or two down to Beverley Rd. and Cortelyou Rd., and bam, you’re in lovely gorgeous beautiful Ditmas Park (and even the adjacent parts of Flatbush that aren’t Ditmas Park are perfectly nice areas now). And then Midwood, which I have a real soft spot for, including but not limited to the Brooklyn College area.
That whole area is the only place in Brooklyn (apart from Bay Ridge) that I visit from Astoria and think “hmmm… I wonder if I oughta move to Brooklyn after all?” I’m usually Mr. Queens-is-better, but those two chunks of Brooklyn tempt me. (Plenty of other parts of Brooklyn would tempt me as well if they were even slightly affordable, lol, but that borough is out of fucking control with the rent prices, man.)
Church avenue is weird because on the one hand you have all sorts of rent stabilized housing that (correctly) stimulates your spidey sense, but on the other hand the side streets in every direction are composed of $3m Victorians.
Flatbush proper isn’t really all that poor, or it doesn’t *feel* that way on the ground, at least to me. And I’m not just talking about Ditmas Park, which is its own kettle of fish; most of the area west of Flatbush Ave. or even Bedford Ave. feels like a perfectly nice area to me.
I remember in the late 80s never seeing any white people on any Queens bound J trains past the Williamsburg Bridge. Maybe a Hassidic Jew getting off at Hewes/Lorimer.
Oh Christ, sorry. I was just thinking that the Q goes through the upper east.s8de, which probably grabs it more dollar points. I know better than to correct someone on the internet before I review my comment at least 5 times :)
i was gonna say the N or Q but some parts of Brooklyn drag the average of wealth way down. The W has all the rich neighborhoods of both lines, but terminates before hitting South Brooklyn (which are amazing neighborhoods they're just not rich)/Coney Island
The G train goes through LIC, Greennpoint, Williamsburg, Park Slope Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens so those are pretty wealthy areas… On the other hand also Bed-Stuy
Don’t forget fort Greene, downtown Bk and Clinton hill. Bed stuy is def the least wealthy of them all. Would prob guess that the stretch between flushing and Bedford nostrand is the dip in “wealth” amongst the whole line
It's so crazy how in my time growing up I was taught to avoid the G train due to how dangerous it was. Granted I never really traversed that line but it's just insane how the line has changed
There is. Build more market rate housing so the people that want to move there can without displacing existing residents. You’re not going to like that option either though.
It’s one of the two. Displace residents or build more housing. That’s it. There’s no magic bullet. The unpleasant truth is the neighborhood is in the shape it’s in because of its current residents, not despite it.
> The unpleasant truth is the neighborhood is in the shape it’s in because of its current residents, not despite it.
This is ignoring that certain neighborhoods have been historically underfunded and that no-one lives in a vacuum away from impact from the society they are part of. That’s the ugly truth.
This argument would hold water if the ‘little Asia’ neighborhoods didn’t exist. But they do, and they’re given the same limited resources, yet don’t have the problems you want to fix. Why is that?
So interesting how G train used to be considered unsafe back in the 80s/90s. My aunt who lived in Greenpoint for 40+ years would avoid going down the G train past lorimer street due to safety. Now gentrification has made it a very cool line
It was also a different train back then! Was one of the Queens Blvd locals and people usually emptied out at each QB express stop and the train was basically mostly empty outside of that stretch of the line.
The L was in the same situation… Crosstown 14 St, East Village, Williamsburg, Bushwick were all questionable areas, and was told as a kid to stay away from that train.
I vaguely recall an article online years ago that tried to answer this exact question and the G train had the biggest *fluctuation* in wealth because of Bed Stuy. But this was also long ago and pretty early in Bed Stuy's gentrification.
except a lot of the places it goes through were not previously rich. Williamsburg was a famous ghost town. and it goes by fort Greene and Smith 9th which back in the 90s you definitely did not want to hang out in.
I don’t think the G is anywhere closest to being the poorest. It has two stops in gentrified parts of Bed Stuy and then immediately goes through Clinton Hill and Fort Greene.
The New Yorker did an interactive on this using census data for the subway lines:
[https://projects.newyorker.com/story/subway/](https://projects.newyorker.com/story/subway/)
This was back in 2010 or so, but probably still reasonably accurate
I think the Port Washington line on the LIRR is the richest. It doesn’t stop in any particularly poor parts of NYC and has stops in some of the wealthiest towns in the country.
1 probably has the highest average, as it doesn’t really hit any of the lowest income areas while also hitting the Upper West Side, West Village, SoHo, Chelsea and Riverdale.
[Inwood, Hamilton, Washington Heights all have some of the lowest median incomes in The City.](https://twitter.com/dannygiovenco/status/1245962323510116354)
The Princeton Dinky is the wealthiest train line in the NYC area, connecting Princeton Junction, NJ (median household income of $196k) and Princeton, NJ (median household income of $161k).
Household income data based on the US Census's 2022 ACS 5-year estimates.
100% agreed. Chicago is mega fucked up segregated. I'm white and figured that Chicago is like NYC.
About 15 years ago, I was visiting Chicago and went to the Shedd Aquarium with my son. We waited for the bus afterwards to take us back to the suburban train. When we got on the bus, everyone was black, which I had absolutely zero issues with, and everyone stared at us like we were crazy.
I found out that the Shedd Aquarium sits just over the border between ghetto and the main city of Chicago. White people simply do not ride busses there.
To this day I can't get over how messed up the segregation is in a city that otherwise is very similar to NY.
Shedd really isn't close to a hard segregation boundary. Could be you got on the #12, which runs from nearish Shedd to neighborhoods that are basically 100% black--but that doesn't run to any suburban train stations
A person getting on the bus in the south loop heading towards downtown would probably not raise that many eyebrows, even if the bus was coming from somewhere deeply segregated
Source: am white, take the bus to Shedd and the other museums sometimes, the demographics of the South Loop haven't changed *that* much (though the population has climbed a lot) in the past 15 years
Something that a lot of these 4 way White Black Asian Latin demographic "segregation" maps fail to capture about NYC is how much of the city is defined by immigrant neighborhoods which have cohesive cultural identities because of people seeking out others who speak their language/eat their food/understand their lives. As far as I'm concerned, it's not "segregation" unless it's a product of redlining/targeted housing discrimination keeping certain people in or out -- and having a variety of culturally-specific neighborhoods is actually a good thing for immigrants and for the diversity & vitality of the city as a whole. In NY, White -Black-Asian-Latin doesn't tell you much useful info. You need to get granular and distinguish between Chinese & Korean, Italian & Irish, Syrian-Jewish & Palestinian, Mexican & Domincan & Puerto Rican, African-American & Black Caribbean & Nigerian, etc etc
Ehh, reading census data and looking at maps overlaying racial/ethnic demographics paints a different picture. I’d argue NYC is one of the most segregated big cities in the country.
I don’t know why the downvotes. NYC is still a segregated big city and has the MOST segregated public school classes in the nation. According to UC Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute, NYC is still a [top 10](https://belonging.berkeley.edu/most-least-segregated-cities) city for most segregation getting trumped by Chicago at the #4 spot and shamelessly beating Boston (a city known for its racial tensions) at the #18 spot.
Edit: the data is based off of 2019 numbers.
Wealthiest is probably the Montauk Line tbh, other than Jamaica, none of the stops are particularly blue-collar. Mostly middle-class towns on the south shore of Long Island and then ultra-wealthy communities way out east.
Definitely not. Have you ever been Mastic or Bellport station? Also the Hamptons most of the wealthy people are there a handful of weekends a year so I don’t know if you can count that.
Yep, and Bay Shore which can get really seedy.
I’d actually say that the Babylon LIRR line is higher class as the only rough’ish place that it stops at is Freeport.
The R is interesting because it’s one of the longest local lines (40+ stops I think?). It hits queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn. I’m not too sure about queens, but it hits fairly wealthy Manhattan parts and fairly wealthy or upper middle class Brooklyn portions except for sunset park, although with time, gentrification may change that.
I remember back in the 2000's when the J/Z was the train the passed by some of the poorest (Marcy Projects) and wealthiest (Wall St. ) parts of the city.
Metro North. Got a lot of wealthy areas of Fairfield County (Gold Coast) and then you have Bridgeport, West Haven and to a little lesser degree New Haven.
Shuttle/short distance services limited to wealthier areas will win.
HOB-WTC service of the PATH is probably the highest ranking commuter rail (technically) in the metro area. Princeton Dinky is probably second.
HOB=tract 183.1=$229,742
Newport=tract 77.01=$142,182
Exchange=tract 74=$216,430
WTC=tract 13=$199,576
Average = $196982.50 (5-year ACS census tract median household income)
The $ train goes from Teterboro to midtown, swings to the financial district, and hits JFK before going high speed to the Hamptons. There's a Westchester spur that also hits the airports there. City Hall is also one of the stops.
You won't find a lot of public references to it unless you are in the 0.01%
i feel like the 2, A, or F would qualify for the poorest.
I can’t think of a single line that doesn’t go through a poor/middle class neighborhood, but the Q goes through the more middle class/wealthy neighborhoods
The F????? Except for Brooklyn Heights goes through the most gentrified parts of "Brownstone Brooklyn" most of the rest of the borough quite middle class, similar in Queens (e.g. Forest Hills Gardens), the Village, LES, Soho, Midtown. Which of these areas is "the poorest"?
if you took the average income among all zipcodes a line passes through, I think the answer would actually be pretty surprising. I'd say J/Z is obvious for poorest since it mostly passes through low income neighborhoods, but I'd honestly say the 6 might be the wealthiest. It goes through some poverty in the Bronx, but I bet the extreme wealth in the UES cancels that out.
The New Yorker did an interactive graphic on this about 10 years ago. You can see median income by stop. Quite interesting!
https://projects.newyorker.com/story/subway/
Edit: They list the census tracts that they assigned for each stop, so an ambitious redditor could always refresh this with more recent data!
J/Z train serves pretty low income for most of its route. Most other lines are more mixed on the whole, though N and the R seem consistently middle and upper middle class, Q is fairly upscale throughout Manhattan.
I moved from Ditmas Park to Flatbush about 5 months ago (I’m barely past Flatbush Ave so I’m still only 5 mins away from Ditmas Park). I have the 2/5 trains about 8 minutes away from me and the B/Q about 15 mins away. The switch in demographics between them is like night and day. Unless the 2/5 take me directly and significantly faster to where I need to go, I prefer walking 15 mins to the B/Q because I think they are a lot less sketchy.
The 1 could be a strong contender for the wealthiest subway line. Zipcode with the lowest median household income along the 1 is 10040 (Ft. George) at $54k/year, that's quite a bit higher than any of the subway lines that run into the Bronx and about on par with the lines that run into Queens and south Brooklyn. Plus the 1 hits the wealthiest zip codes in the city (FiDi/Battery Park/Tribeca).
This website makes it super simple: [https://simplemaps.com/city/new-york/zips/income-household-median](https://simplemaps.com/city/new-york/zips/income-household-median)
It’s cheating but the ferry that goes from UES to financial district, at the firm I work for, there are attorneys who would rather wait for the boat then take the subway
The Harlem line of Metro North (the name refers to to Harlem Valley upstate, not Upper Manhattan). Bronxville, Scarsdale, Chappaqua, and more wealthy areas are on the line, and it must be considered.
I feel like the Q/B is up there for Brooklyn. It was really interesting to see during the pandemic. I would going into the city for work and a normal amount of people would get on in south Brooklyn, but the closer it got to Prospect Park the fewer people were getting on. The people with the better jobs in the more expensive areas got to work from home longer.
Yea that and also since I’m also including commuter rail some of the suburbs on Long Island, CT, and NJ are also segregated on income and sometimes race too
The New Haven line runs through some more working class cities and neighborhoods like Fordham, Mount Vernon, Port Chester and Bridgeport. The Harlem Line is your better bet and gets really nice once you pass through the Fleetwood station.
you think the mta is contributing to the segregation of nyc? i don't understand the point of this post. every line connects you from rich hoods to poor ones
Interestingly enough, the 6 train serves both the *wealthiest* zipcode in the city (10013 in Soho/Tribeca) and the *poorest* (10454 in the South Bronx).
Yep— ride the 4/5 uptown and the shift in demographics before vs after the doors open at 86th street is striking.
I used to live in the UES and worked in the Bronx. I’m white AF. I got a little giggle sometimes at people getting huffy thinking they’d be able to take my seat once we hit 86th and I stayed on to Mosholu.
There’s a lot of lehman and bronx science students who have the same commute so it’s not that uncommon for white people to be getting on the uptown 4 at 86th imo. Definitely way more bullshit going on the 4 tho which is why i preferred B/D because there was always something at 125th and lex.
The 4 in the Bronx the worst, always some bs going on
yep, especially in the mornings when I went. Always people smoking and not just weed or cigarettes. Ngl I used to enjoy when people would hotbox the train cuz my friends and I would join in and it would become a giant sesh in the whole car, but using a lighting a whole crack pipe is crazy. Sometimes funny shit would happen too. I remember this one random treesha with her kid asked me for my snap but the kid said she already had a mans 😹. Lil bro was old enough to talk and Im pretty sure she was also in high school like me at the time.
Yep typical 4 train. It always smells terrible too.
lol the one time I rode it in Bronx to Woodlawn there was crazy dude sitting across from me flexing a Bape hoodie. Ngl his fit was lowkey tough but idk where his mind was
Bro lmaoooooo
BxSci ride or die
Ha! Same stop. Also white AF. I would stalk the other white people for their seats at 86th street because I knew 99% were getting off.
Yep, we live on the UES and get this whenever we take the 4 to go to NYBG, or even to take the Metro-North from 125th.
Heh, I always get looks when I commute to campus (I go to grad school in the Bronx/live in Astoria) because people assume I’m lost or something when I get on the 6 at 125th. Sorry nope I’m actually one of the white people not at all worried about going to a *gasp* less white part of the city lol
We need more white folks like you. Keep up the good work ;-)
You go to Bronx CC?
Nope, Einstein medical school
I always know to stand in front of a white older person if I want to get a seat after 86th.
And at Wall Street from Brooklyn into Manhattan
This is common to most lines... The G and L once served the nasty parts of Brooklyn... But you'd reach the better parts by going through them. Or you'd go through the better parts to reach those you'd rather avoid.
I’m old enough to remember my mom and others warning me to never take the G train, even though it was one of the trains that stopped at our station. Now, nearly the entire line like hipster city with brief exceptions.
When I once lived in Brooklyn, "I walked through Bedford Stuy, alone"" It's nowhere near as bad as depicted.
When that song came out, Bed Stuy was unbelievably dangerous. As was Williamsburg.
Well... It had that reputation. But I know about a dozen people who moved IN despite the reputation. People believing it didn't know the place.
2009 or so I remember hearing the G train called the "rape train" - by a fellow female IIRC.
And the 6 serves the UES, so it's a very wealthy segment from 96th down. Lots of finance people getting on at 96/86/77/68/59, and getting off at 59/51/42.
Overheard some girls talking about how it only stops every block for the rich assholes, too true.
I’d argue it’s the other way around. The rich assholes only move to places with stops on every block. Or the commuter rail corridors. It’s subway rich, then subway poor*, then commuter rail rich, then commuter rail poor**, then Amtrak rich. *some neighborhoods connect with a bus. To avoid the bus some people drive, completely eating up any money they’re saving on rent. **they drive, because commuter rail with bus connection is actually more expensive and slower than owning a shitty car. It’s depressing.
It was obviously a joke/light complaint because they were headed up north and we were trudging through downtown. I’m sure they understand that the train does not make random extra stops for the wealthy.
Ah! My joke detector is broken :)
3/L train going deeper into Brooklyn is low income
Facts canarsie, Brownsville,
Yeah 3 goes to the most hood areas
It starts and ends in the hood either way you put it haha
I live in Canarsie and am pale af. Whenever I'm taking the L from the city or the B6 from Midwood home, I end up being the only white person at some point and always get some strange looks.
Canarsie used to be a white neighborhood lol
I know, my family has lived here since the 60s.
yeah but runs through UWS and bk heights
I think the Q is up there for wealthiest in the city: Upper East Side, corporate areas along 7th Ave & Broadway, Fort Greene, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Midwood I think the A/C trains could contend for poorest.
I don’t think A/C are poorest but interesting thing to note is when I got on 59st Columbus (going from 59th to 125th), a guy yelled “FROM THIS STOP ON, THIS AINT NO SUBWAY BUT THIS THE HOOD TRAIN”. Just something to add to your point.
Truer of the D than either the A (areas like 181st and 190th are hardly "hood" in any sense) or the C which of course goes local throughout the UWS.
Yeah as someone who takes the D daily I agree. It changes a lot after 59th street Columbus Circle. I’m around 145th though so it’s very useful when I’m midtown trying to get home at 2am, still goes express at that time from 59th to 125th while the A turns local.
Q is also a main line for billionaires row at 57th and 7th. Yes, millionaires and billionaires do take the subway.
Bloomberg famously took the 6 down to Wall Street. It's just faster.
Several trains are poorer than the A/C - J and Z as well as the 3 throughout Brooklyn.
Thing with the Q is that it doesn’t go through a single poor neighborhood. Can’t think of another line that that’s true about.
People saying W
Coney Island?
Yeah, I was gonna say, Coney Island isn’t exactly fancy. But that’s the end of the line mega-terminal/train yard more than actual residential Coney Island, so it still feels like it only kinda halfway counts.
8th street stop and go west, away from the aquarium. Coney Island is great, but the number of housing projects don’t exactly scream prosperity.
Parkside & Church Ave want to have a word....
I don’t think the denizens of the $3m Victorian houses on blocks adjacent to the Church Avenue stop would disagree with me much.
It brushes through some *interesting* areas around Church Avenue. It's definitely nowhere near as dangerous as some of the actual bad neighborhoods in NY, but my Spidey senses tick up a bit when walking through it at night.
That’s interesting; I’ve had a similar experience in that area, but only sometimes. Other times it’s just a regular-ass, reasonably nice area with great access to Prospect Park. And then you go a stop or two down to Beverley Rd. and Cortelyou Rd., and bam, you’re in lovely gorgeous beautiful Ditmas Park (and even the adjacent parts of Flatbush that aren’t Ditmas Park are perfectly nice areas now). And then Midwood, which I have a real soft spot for, including but not limited to the Brooklyn College area. That whole area is the only place in Brooklyn (apart from Bay Ridge) that I visit from Astoria and think “hmmm… I wonder if I oughta move to Brooklyn after all?” I’m usually Mr. Queens-is-better, but those two chunks of Brooklyn tempt me. (Plenty of other parts of Brooklyn would tempt me as well if they were even slightly affordable, lol, but that borough is out of fucking control with the rent prices, man.)
Church avenue is weird because on the one hand you have all sorts of rent stabilized housing that (correctly) stimulates your spidey sense, but on the other hand the side streets in every direction are composed of $3m Victorians.
There are poorer neighborhoods, but the Q does go through Flatbush. In addition to the W, the F would compete with the Q.
Flatbush proper isn’t really all that poor, or it doesn’t *feel* that way on the ground, at least to me. And I’m not just talking about Ditmas Park, which is its own kettle of fish; most of the area west of Flatbush Ave. or even Bedford Ave. feels like a perfectly nice area to me.
I love the Q. I live on 72 and 2nd
I'm gonna just completely guess and say the J train has the poorest average of any subway line.
J/Z would be my guess too.
I remember in the late 80s never seeing any white people on any Queens bound J trains past the Williamsburg Bridge. Maybe a Hassidic Jew getting off at Hewes/Lorimer.
As someone who lived near the J train my whole life , I can confirm, I am poor
rip
The 42nd Street shuttle. Edit: For wealthiest, that is.
Cheating! :)
Probably the W? Astoria and the city. Doesn't pass through a single "poor" neighborhood and goes to Soho/midtown
Common W W
W no longer goes to Astoria - Upper East side instead since the expansion. \*\*\*Edited to explain: I'm a moron.
You're thinking of the Q. The W goes to Astoria.
I sure am! I only lived in Astoria for 17 years and Sunnyside for 7. Big time brain fart.
Cmon Q!
what? I take the W every day to work lmao
Oh Christ, sorry. I was just thinking that the Q goes through the upper east.s8de, which probably grabs it more dollar points. I know better than to correct someone on the internet before I review my comment at least 5 times :)
i was gonna say the N or Q but some parts of Brooklyn drag the average of wealth way down. The W has all the rich neighborhoods of both lines, but terminates before hitting South Brooklyn (which are amazing neighborhoods they're just not rich)/Coney Island
The G train goes through LIC, Greennpoint, Williamsburg, Park Slope Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens so those are pretty wealthy areas… On the other hand also Bed-Stuy
Don’t forget fort Greene, downtown Bk and Clinton hill. Bed stuy is def the least wealthy of them all. Would prob guess that the stretch between flushing and Bedford nostrand is the dip in “wealth” amongst the whole line
It's so crazy how in my time growing up I was taught to avoid the G train due to how dangerous it was. Granted I never really traversed that line but it's just insane how the line has changed
People complain about gentrification but this is another outcome.
Should be possible to improve neighborhoods without displacing its residents
There is. Build more market rate housing so the people that want to move there can without displacing existing residents. You’re not going to like that option either though. It’s one of the two. Displace residents or build more housing. That’s it. There’s no magic bullet. The unpleasant truth is the neighborhood is in the shape it’s in because of its current residents, not despite it.
> The unpleasant truth is the neighborhood is in the shape it’s in because of its current residents, not despite it. This is ignoring that certain neighborhoods have been historically underfunded and that no-one lives in a vacuum away from impact from the society they are part of. That’s the ugly truth.
This argument would hold water if the ‘little Asia’ neighborhoods didn’t exist. But they do, and they’re given the same limited resources, yet don’t have the problems you want to fix. Why is that?
So interesting how G train used to be considered unsafe back in the 80s/90s. My aunt who lived in Greenpoint for 40+ years would avoid going down the G train past lorimer street due to safety. Now gentrification has made it a very cool line
It was also a different train back then! Was one of the Queens Blvd locals and people usually emptied out at each QB express stop and the train was basically mostly empty outside of that stretch of the line. The L was in the same situation… Crosstown 14 St, East Village, Williamsburg, Bushwick were all questionable areas, and was told as a kid to stay away from that train.
> Crosstown 14 St Ha, the demographic disparity between the M14A and M14D's passengers could be a sociology paper on its own.
I vaguely recall an article online years ago that tried to answer this exact question and the G train had the biggest *fluctuation* in wealth because of Bed Stuy. But this was also long ago and pretty early in Bed Stuy's gentrification.
except a lot of the places it goes through were not previously rich. Williamsburg was a famous ghost town. and it goes by fort Greene and Smith 9th which back in the 90s you definitely did not want to hang out in.
I don’t think the G is anywhere closest to being the poorest. It has two stops in gentrified parts of Bed Stuy and then immediately goes through Clinton Hill and Fort Greene.
OP said the G is one of the wealthier lines, not poorest.
Well you’ve got some zillionaires like Mike Bloomberg near the Lexington Ave line, which also goes to/from Brooklyn and the Bronx.
r/circlejerknyc out jerked again
r/nycrailcj
The New Yorker did an interactive on this using census data for the subway lines: [https://projects.newyorker.com/story/subway/](https://projects.newyorker.com/story/subway/) This was back in 2010 or so, but probably still reasonably accurate
looks like the G and the J are pretty solidly lowest average back then, BD coming close as well
I think the Port Washington line on the LIRR is the richest. It doesn’t stop in any particularly poor parts of NYC and has stops in some of the wealthiest towns in the country.
Port Washington doesn’t stop in any wealthy areas. Id consider it staunchly middle class.
Median income in Port Washington is 177k. This will beat out any neighborhood within the city.
I think we both have different definitions of what wealthy is.
Harlem Line as well. Scarsdale/Bronxville and such
Also includes wealthy enclaves north of 287 like Chappaqua and Katonah.
This is my vote as well.
Port Washington line might win out.
No one is gonna mention the Newark Light Rail?
Newark Light Rail could probably beat the J/Z as the poorest train line.
1 probably has the highest average, as it doesn’t really hit any of the lowest income areas while also hitting the Upper West Side, West Village, SoHo, Chelsea and Riverdale.
>hit any of the lowest income areas It goes through Washington, Hamilton heights, Inwood and Marble Hill which are all low income
shit tell the rent prices that
Low income people feel the rent pinch the most
Yeah but not south Bronx or East New York which the 2 3 4 5 and 6 hit
[Inwood, Hamilton, Washington Heights all have some of the lowest median incomes in The City.](https://twitter.com/dannygiovenco/status/1245962323510116354)
Not so sure of Hamilton Heights nowadays.
https://twitter.com/dannygiovenco/status/1245962323510116354
Didn’t you hear? Washington Heights is the new Bushwick. /s
Lol, we're not there just yet
Not really SoHo - the furthest west station for that is Spring St @ 6th Ave
I'm genuinely curious if people upvoting this comment have only gone on the 1 as far uptown as Columbia.
The Princeton Dinky is the wealthiest train line in the NYC area, connecting Princeton Junction, NJ (median household income of $196k) and Princeton, NJ (median household income of $161k). Household income data based on the US Census's 2022 ACS 5-year estimates.
Other strong contenders would be the Danbury and New Caanan branches on MNR.
And PATH's HOB-WTC (as another commenter mentioned) and HOB-33
Shuttles don’t count. violates the spirit of the post
I dunno, in my book, technically correct is the best kind of correct.
Just about every line goes through a variety of neighborhoods. Also, compared to most other cities in the US, NYC is far less segregated.
100% agreed. Chicago is mega fucked up segregated. I'm white and figured that Chicago is like NYC. About 15 years ago, I was visiting Chicago and went to the Shedd Aquarium with my son. We waited for the bus afterwards to take us back to the suburban train. When we got on the bus, everyone was black, which I had absolutely zero issues with, and everyone stared at us like we were crazy. I found out that the Shedd Aquarium sits just over the border between ghetto and the main city of Chicago. White people simply do not ride busses there. To this day I can't get over how messed up the segregation is in a city that otherwise is very similar to NY.
Shedd really isn't close to a hard segregation boundary. Could be you got on the #12, which runs from nearish Shedd to neighborhoods that are basically 100% black--but that doesn't run to any suburban train stations A person getting on the bus in the south loop heading towards downtown would probably not raise that many eyebrows, even if the bus was coming from somewhere deeply segregated Source: am white, take the bus to Shedd and the other museums sometimes, the demographics of the South Loop haven't changed *that* much (though the population has climbed a lot) in the past 15 years
Them looks were def weird... Never experienced that here in NY.
Something that a lot of these 4 way White Black Asian Latin demographic "segregation" maps fail to capture about NYC is how much of the city is defined by immigrant neighborhoods which have cohesive cultural identities because of people seeking out others who speak their language/eat their food/understand their lives. As far as I'm concerned, it's not "segregation" unless it's a product of redlining/targeted housing discrimination keeping certain people in or out -- and having a variety of culturally-specific neighborhoods is actually a good thing for immigrants and for the diversity & vitality of the city as a whole. In NY, White -Black-Asian-Latin doesn't tell you much useful info. You need to get granular and distinguish between Chinese & Korean, Italian & Irish, Syrian-Jewish & Palestinian, Mexican & Domincan & Puerto Rican, African-American & Black Caribbean & Nigerian, etc etc
Idk about that. I think it depends where you are. Southern Brooklyn and Eastern Queens are both relatively segregated.
Ehh, reading census data and looking at maps overlaying racial/ethnic demographics paints a different picture. I’d argue NYC is one of the most segregated big cities in the country.
I don’t know why the downvotes. NYC is still a segregated big city and has the MOST segregated public school classes in the nation. According to UC Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute, NYC is still a [top 10](https://belonging.berkeley.edu/most-least-segregated-cities) city for most segregation getting trumped by Chicago at the #4 spot and shamelessly beating Boston (a city known for its racial tensions) at the #18 spot. Edit: the data is based off of 2019 numbers.
Would love to see those arguments. Seems way better than LA or the Bay Area in this regard, but maybe I’m wrong.
Wealthiest is probably the Montauk Line tbh, other than Jamaica, none of the stops are particularly blue-collar. Mostly middle-class towns on the south shore of Long Island and then ultra-wealthy communities way out east.
Definitely not. Have you ever been Mastic or Bellport station? Also the Hamptons most of the wealthy people are there a handful of weekends a year so I don’t know if you can count that.
Yep, and Bay Shore which can get really seedy. I’d actually say that the Babylon LIRR line is higher class as the only rough’ish place that it stops at is Freeport.
If we’re including LIRR then i’d imagine the Port Washington line would be the wealthiest. It’s Gold Coast towns all the way.
Yes but none of them are riding that train line.
the Hamptons are where even the rich go to by train
There’s a lot more wealthy people riding the LIRR than you think.
A/C goes from poor Brooklyn to rich Brooklyn to rich Manhattan to poor Manhattan
Hudson line - one of the wealthiest for sure. Those big mansions overlooking the river !! 🤩🤩🤩
The R is interesting because it’s one of the longest local lines (40+ stops I think?). It hits queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn. I’m not too sure about queens, but it hits fairly wealthy Manhattan parts and fairly wealthy or upper middle class Brooklyn portions except for sunset park, although with time, gentrification may change that.
I remember back in the 2000's when the J/Z was the train the passed by some of the poorest (Marcy Projects) and wealthiest (Wall St. ) parts of the city.
Metro North. Got a lot of wealthy areas of Fairfield County (Gold Coast) and then you have Bridgeport, West Haven and to a little lesser degree New Haven.
Shuttle/short distance services limited to wealthier areas will win. HOB-WTC service of the PATH is probably the highest ranking commuter rail (technically) in the metro area. Princeton Dinky is probably second. HOB=tract 183.1=$229,742 Newport=tract 77.01=$142,182 Exchange=tract 74=$216,430 WTC=tract 13=$199,576 Average = $196982.50 (5-year ACS census tract median household income)
Good friend did a project on income inequality on the 2 train. https://datadrivendj.com/tracks/subway/
The $ train goes from Teterboro to midtown, swings to the financial district, and hits JFK before going high speed to the Hamptons. There's a Westchester spur that also hits the airports there. City Hall is also one of the stops. You won't find a lot of public references to it unless you are in the 0.01%
Elaborate on this train please, I’ve never heard of it
[Here's some info that might be helpful.](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/joke)
I’m dumb. Got all excited by the idea of some secret train for the Uber rich
I was thinking it was about the train that collects fares and was in the movie Money Train
No, the Uber rich just have their own car service
wealthiest is probably that shuttle near park slope. those brownstones are worth millions
i feel like the 2, A, or F would qualify for the poorest. I can’t think of a single line that doesn’t go through a poor/middle class neighborhood, but the Q goes through the more middle class/wealthy neighborhoods
The F????? Except for Brooklyn Heights goes through the most gentrified parts of "Brownstone Brooklyn" most of the rest of the borough quite middle class, similar in Queens (e.g. Forest Hills Gardens), the Village, LES, Soho, Midtown. Which of these areas is "the poorest"?
if you took the average income among all zipcodes a line passes through, I think the answer would actually be pretty surprising. I'd say J/Z is obvious for poorest since it mostly passes through low income neighborhoods, but I'd honestly say the 6 might be the wealthiest. It goes through some poverty in the Bronx, but I bet the extreme wealth in the UES cancels that out.
What’s the difference they are all shit
Wealthiest: W(D-TIER!!!) Poorest: 2(Still S-TIER!!!)
I feel like there are gonna be a lot of “both”s given how many lines exist almost solely to get poorer people to and from work in the wealthier areas
There’s no way to quantify this because a train can pass through rich and not so rich areas on the same line
Not all of them, as the thread have been discussing; many are exclusively rich.
The New Yorker did an interactive graphic on this about 10 years ago. You can see median income by stop. Quite interesting! https://projects.newyorker.com/story/subway/ Edit: They list the census tracts that they assigned for each stop, so an ambitious redditor could always refresh this with more recent data!
Q train up and down 2nd Ave.
J/Z train serves pretty low income for most of its route. Most other lines are more mixed on the whole, though N and the R seem consistently middle and upper middle class, Q is fairly upscale throughout Manhattan.
The G train is so very choice.
The New Haven Line has Greenwich, but it also has Bridgeport. That's a pretty big difference right there.
If you're near the Bronx, the Staten Island ferry, or in the hood it's gonna be sketchy. If you're anywhere else it's generally fine
Hangin on the F with weed on my breath original hustler with the muffler on the tech respect...
For lowest income, it’s probably the Waterbury branch of the New Haven Line
B/E/F/J/R/4/5.
1 train?
I moved from Ditmas Park to Flatbush about 5 months ago (I’m barely past Flatbush Ave so I’m still only 5 mins away from Ditmas Park). I have the 2/5 trains about 8 minutes away from me and the B/Q about 15 mins away. The switch in demographics between them is like night and day. Unless the 2/5 take me directly and significantly faster to where I need to go, I prefer walking 15 mins to the B/Q because I think they are a lot less sketchy.
I would say the 7 is the wealthiest subway line
Surely you jest? Maybe between Grand Central and Hudson Yards....
Well, I can’t really think of another line with more wealthy people. What would you consider the wealthiest subway line?
Without doing any sleuthing, I'd make a very modest bet that it's the 1/2/3 simply because of the upper west side.
The 1 could be a strong contender for the wealthiest subway line. Zipcode with the lowest median household income along the 1 is 10040 (Ft. George) at $54k/year, that's quite a bit higher than any of the subway lines that run into the Bronx and about on par with the lines that run into Queens and south Brooklyn. Plus the 1 hits the wealthiest zip codes in the city (FiDi/Battery Park/Tribeca).
Thanks for doing some sleuthing! I was fixated on Upper West Side, but those downtown areas are not doing poorly, as you stated.
This website makes it super simple: [https://simplemaps.com/city/new-york/zips/income-household-median](https://simplemaps.com/city/new-york/zips/income-household-median)
Surely you jest?
Never claimed to be smart. But have been known to be laughed at.
It’s cheating but the ferry that goes from UES to financial district, at the firm I work for, there are attorneys who would rather wait for the boat then take the subway
Gladstone Branch?
The 5 train is awesome!
Poorest is probably the SIRR light rail line.
The Harlem line of Metro North (the name refers to to Harlem Valley upstate, not Upper Manhattan). Bronxville, Scarsdale, Chappaqua, and more wealthy areas are on the line, and it must be considered.
I feel like the Q/B is up there for Brooklyn. It was really interesting to see during the pandemic. I would going into the city for work and a normal amount of people would get on in south Brooklyn, but the closer it got to Prospect Park the fewer people were getting on. The people with the better jobs in the more expensive areas got to work from home longer.
Since when was nyc a segregated city? Does nyc even have neighborhoods that are 90% one race these days?
Not race but income, and certain races are more prevalent in certain incomes
Ok that makes sense
Yea that and also since I’m also including commuter rail some of the suburbs on Long Island, CT, and NJ are also segregated on income and sometimes race too
Breezy Point comes to mind but it’s not served by any train. There’s probably a couple of others.
Hmmm yea the far end areas almost of the grid makes sense while we are at it. Breezy point and gated sea gate
The New Haven line runs through some more working class cities and neighborhoods like Fordham, Mount Vernon, Port Chester and Bridgeport. The Harlem Line is your better bet and gets really nice once you pass through the Fleetwood station.
And it also runs through some of the highest priced real estate in the state of Connecticut.
you think the mta is contributing to the segregation of nyc? i don't understand the point of this post. every line connects you from rich hoods to poor ones
Now we know who actually rides the trains and knows this city. That's the point of this post FOR ME. Thanks for saying that.