I’m getting a paywall on NYT article. But my first thought is, I bet this correlates strongly to property values/density. I don’t know how to build that viz but if anyone is bored with the know how please post it.
I wasn't the OP but that was my underlying motivation linking to the direct data repository. The good news is that NYC provides basic visualizations across zipcodes and boroughs, and one of the visualizations allows for a breakdown by "poverty" level.