When it’s hot outside everyone outside feels it, though some people feel it more than others.
“It makes it very difficult to work in kitchens in the summer time,” said Sam Amoah, who owns Sam’s Soul Food Restaurant in the Bronx.
It’s not just where you work that determines the level of heat one encounters. It’s also about where you live.
A recent study shows, the amount of green space in the environment you live in may actually determine how hot it gets in your neighborhood.
“There is more concrete less green space, less shade and in some areas I would imagine less air corridors to get wind moving through a city but that really is rooted in a history of structural inequality in many American cities, including New York,” said Cascade Tuholske, a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia’s Earth Institute.
The study, which was a partnership between Columbia University Climate School and the data analytics group, CAPA Strategies, strapped sensors to volunteers and tracked temperatures in Manhattan above 59th St. and across the Bronx in the summer of 2021.
Researchers found that parts of the South Bronx as well as areas of Inwood and Washington Heights, which are predominantly lower income communities of color, recorded higher temperatures than in other, wealthier areas in Manhattan.
A map produced by the study’s authors shows areas in blue in Manhattan that are cooler and areas in red and orange in parts of the Bronx that are hotter.
Tuholske said the study really highlights a lack of investment in lower income Black and brown communities.
“Clear lack of investment in historically low income and neighborhoods where people of color live,” he said.
Researchers said it’s not just about being outdoors, but also about how one can deal with the heat indoors. For example, less money means not being able to afford the electricity bill for the air conditioning.
“It comes down to a policy level change. Some of that could be through subsidies so people can make their electricity bill. A lot of that is investing money in climate resilient infrastructure, including heat waves,” Tuholske said.
That’s something Towan Solone knows all about.
“I don’t walk around with no clothes on at home and I stay cool that way,” he said.
Keeping the AC and fan on at home is getting expensive for Solone, who works over hot stoves at Sam Soul Food Restaurant on Grand Concourse in the Bronx during the day.
"When it was $60, $70, now it’s almost like $200,” he said.
Amoah said his business was already struggling financially before energy costs to keep the place cool started going up.
“Yes, my bills are up. A place like this is paying over $1,000,” Amoah said.
That’s more than 1,000 a month.
The study’s authors were surprised to find that some parts of Manhattan’s generally affluent Upper East Side were just as hot or hotter than other wealthy parts of Manhattan. However, researchers said those areas are likely to have more resources to protect them from extreme heat, including quality air conditioning and access to good health care.