cost-of-the-city

Ana Terrones sat in a window seat of the M15 Select bus, brushing raindrops off her jacket and scrolling through her phone. The glow of incoming text messages bounced off her glasses.

Tamer Hassan is ready to get out of the street food game.

He manages four food carts — smoothies, hot dogs, chicken and rice — on 49th Street, just off Times Square. At 45, he's been doing it for a decade.

Bernie Sinclaire calls herself a "mommunist."

When Massiel Lugo's parents moved to Jackson Heights, Queens, from the Dominican Republic nearly 50 years ago, the working-class neighborhood was an affordable place to raise a family.