Moving on up?

Luxury Apartment on the Upper East Side

After living in Clinton Houses for the first 12 years of my life my mother and I would relocate to another public housing, this time not in East Harlem, but in the neighborhood blocks away, the upper east side. I remember not wanting to leave Clinton when my mother told me about the move. By this time, it was just my mother and I living in the 1 bedroom apartment a few yards away from the metro north train that woke me up every night. When my mother and I walked to the new apartment I noticed a change. We made our way from 104th heading downtown to 93rd street. When getting to 93rd street I noticed the public housing development that I would be living in, but across the street was much different than what I was used to. Instead of a neighborhood full of small tenements and Projects, it was a neighborhood of tenements and luxury apartments. Earlier in my life I didn't consider myself to be low income, mostly because my surroundings did not suggest that. I was now living in one of New York's Highest income neighborhoods after living in one of New York's "poorest" for my whole life. When I was 12 I kind of got the feeling that my mother and I "moved up" but in reality we lived the same. I just saw people in this neighborhood living more comfortably. Keep this in mind. One of New York's richest neighborhoods (Upper East Side) is literally ONE block away from East Harlem, Manhattans lowest income neighborhood. This will be important when I get to the topic of gentrification.