The Bronx in New York, symbol of inequalities in the face of heat

This heat, Reinaldo, 68, experiences it with "concern, because cooling even just one room in our house is extremely expensive" in terms of energy to run the air conditioning.

"It's good that there is a center like this for cooling. But the idea that we can't even afford to cool our house is scandalous," he continues, because "we don't have not the luxury of going out and enjoying a breeze.”

With temperatures between 30 and 35 degrees Celsius this week, New York was relatively spared from the extreme heat wave which hit the United States and caused temperatures to rise to 48°C in Las Vegas.

One image still struck people's minds: on Monday, the mobile road bridge which connects the district of Harlem, Manhattan, to the Bronx, remained stuck in the same position for several hours, because the steel was expanded by the heat.

In the Bronx, which has problems of poverty, health and air pollution, certain neighborhoods are even more affected by the heat island effects experienced by large cities due to the lack of trees and the urban density.

“In this neighborhood, (...) we have little shade and the temperature therefore becomes very high, especially when the sun is at its peak,” notes the manager of the Casa Boricua senior center, Sandra Arroyo.

“We are suffocating”

Between the blocks of buildings in this neighborhood with a predominantly Hispanic and African-American population, the few trees are not enough to protect from the humid heat which is difficult to bear for Juan Lorenzo, a 72-year-old Dominican. “We go around the block, and we suffocate,” he whispers.

“You feel so tired,” adds Stephanie Rodriguez, a 21-year-old cashier, sitting on a bench in the shade, in front of her 2-year-old son who is having fun on water games, in the only large park in the entire South Bronx, a neighborhood undergoing economic revitalization.

In her three-room apartment where eight people live, Stephanie says, everyone gathers in the one with an air conditioner.

“We need more green space,” tirelessly pleads the director of the community association South Bronx Unite, Arif Ullah.

A stone's throw from its premises, on the bank facing Harlem and home to waste treatment centers, a power plant and warehouses, heavy goods vehicles come and go. At the very end, a small children's play park is wedged, in full sun, under an interlacing of elevated expressway ramps.

For Arif Ullah, this situation is not inevitable, but “the legacy of discriminatory and racist public policies, which cause a community like this to become an urban heat island, and produce more health problems” .

The South Bronx neighborhoods of Hunts Point and Mott Haven have rates of emergency room visits for respiratory problems attributable to pollution well above the city average, according to a lengthy New York City Hall report from last April, the first to address the issue of “environmental justice”.

City Hall estimates that about 350 people die each year from heat or health problems exacerbated by heat, a mortality that affects African Americans twice as often as whites. Among the aggravating factors, according to the city, is the lack of access to air conditioning at home, which affects the Bronx more than other boroughs.

In the United States, extreme and dangerous heat waves have increased in major cities because of climate change and this phenomenon will continue to worsen, scientists say.