NYC across all of the boroughs has a car ownership rate around 45%. Being able to point to one poor person with a car who lives in NYC (probably in their car) doesn't make it a common occurrence or statistically significant. Also poor relative to what?

I've lived in NYC as well as upstate NY and I can tell you for a fact that my friends with cars in university statistically speaking were from Long Island. Total anecdata, but you can look at the actual demographics of who owns private vehicles in NYC and what economic class they belong to. It sounds like the results may surprise you!