As hurricane Sandy stormed through New York, a crane dangled from atop a luxury condo construction site at 157 West 57th Street in midtown Manhattan.  The storm has passed, but the crane still hangs as plans to secure it are put in place before construction on the 90-story $90 million per unit building can resume.

Social Explorer takes a look at who lives in the shadow of the crane using data from the 2006-10 American Community Survey.

• Over 6,200 people live in census tract 137, many of whom are barricaded out of their apartments to prevent injury.
• The area is dense (72,200.7 people per square mile), even for Manhattan (69,357.7 people per square mile), and especially when compared to the state and country (408 and 86.1 people per square mile, respectively).
• The area is predominately non-Hispanic white (78.9 percent).  The next most populous group is non-Hispanic Asian (9.8 percent), whilenon-Hispanic African Americans represent less than one percent of residents (0.9 percent).
• With a median age of 42.9, residents tend to be older than other Manhattanites (median age 36.3).
• A large share of residents are employed in finance and insurance, and real estate and rental  and leasing (25.3 percent), as well as professional, scientific, and management, and  administrative and waste management services (20.6%)
• The median household income ($117,242) is nearly twice that for other Manhattanites ($64,971), and the poverty rate is less than half for the rest of Manhattan (7.0 percent compared to 14.5 percent).
• Home values and rents are high as well ($879,400 for owner-occupied units, and $2,001 for median gross rent).

In the Shadow of the Crane: Census Tract 137 Population Map

Find out more about the area by clicking on the map or creating your own Social Explorer report.