Walking Off Class Struggle in New York

My entire possessions consisted of five dollars and a small hand-bag. My sewing-machine, which was to help me to independence, I had checked as baggage. Ignorant of the distance from West Forty-second Street to the Bowery, where my aunt lived, and unaware of the enervating heat of a New York day in August, I started out on foot. How confusing and endless a large city seems to the new-comer, how cold and unfriendly!*
-Emma Goldman, Living My Life, Vol. One, Page 1

Walking Off the Big Apple is increasingly concerned about the appalling division of social classes in the city. Though an ever-present part of the city's life, documented over the ages in fiction and non-fiction, the current configuration of hedge fund managers on top and the working poor at the bottom bothers the moral conscience. Thusly, I am rummaging through the grad school shelves for wisdom on the topic - Thorstein Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class, Karl Marx's articles for the New York Daily Tribune, Edith Wharton's novels, and everything by Emma Goldman - to share with you in the days ahead.

* Emma Goldman walked approximately 4 miles from the ferry landing near W. 42nd St. to the Bowery.

See full text of Living My Life at the Anarchy Archives

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See full text of Thorstein Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class here.