Though no passport is required and no armed guards are on patrol, East 96th Street is a dividing line between Carnegie Hill's mostly wealthy, white inhabitants and East Harlem's poorer black and Latino residents.

On East 96th Street and Park Avenue, the median family income is over $200,000. Walk 300 yards north to East 98th Street, and the number plummets to under $27,000.

"It's the border where the rich area ends and the ghetto begins," said Toni Veza, 25, who lives on 100th Street between Park and Lexington. The area has a $26,277 median family income.

"It's fairly distinct," said Danielle Edmonson, 41, a resident of 96th Street between Park and Madison, of the income divide. "You just go up a couple blocks and it's a different world."

Margot Feely, 71, has lived on 95th and Park for 30 years. She said she only travels to East 97th and 98th Streets to walk her dog. Feely raved about a Mexican restaurant that she enjoys a few blocks north of her home. But, when asked if she ever dines there, Feely, 71, admitted, "I plan to. I get take out from there now."

After work, residents on either side of East 96th Street appear to confine themselves to their respective territories. Intermingling is rare.

Some say it is a matter of taste. To Upper East Siders, East Harlem only offers cheap Spanish food and dangerous streets. Conversely, an area like Carnegie Hill is seen by East Harlemites as snobbish and prejudiced, full of $10 gourmet sandwiches and distrustful eyes.

Veza, a Puerto Rican who works at Gristedes, an upscale supermarket chain on the Upper East Side, said that he is well aware of the economic boundary a few blocks south of his home. Except for a theater on 86th Street, he rarely visits areas below East 96th. "I stay here. This is my side," he said.

Veza's neighbor, Tony Rome, a photographer who works in midtown, agreed saying race and class were factors of the division. "I wouldn't be accepted down there," said Rome, running his hands across his black parka and baggy jeans.

PHOTO: Sean Alfano

Jose Rivera is glad to live in East Harlem.

Referring to the people living five blocks south of him, Rome, who is African-American, said, "They probably think I would do something wrong." Veza, whose white hood covered most of his face, was more specific. "They look at me like I'm going to rob somebody."
As uneasy as both men felt about people below East 96th, they were equally content with their current surroundings. "Everybody here is cool," Rome said. "People on this block take care of each other."

A white off-duty policeman, a resident of East 95th Street who asked to remain unidentified, shared his experience: "There is a lot of crime. A lot of bad people over here," he said, pointing northeast from the corner of East 96th and Park Avenue. "If I am going to ride my bike, am I going north of 96th Street? No, I'm going down. That's just common sense," he said.

Crime statistics confirm that East Harlem is more violent than the Upper East Side. The 23rd Precinct, which patrols above East 96th, recorded nine murders and 30 rapes in 2002 compared with three murders and 14 rapes within the 19th Precinct, which patrols below East 96th.

However, last year the 23rd Precinct dealt with 2,141 incidences of grand larceny and 735 burglaries, compared with 274 and 160, respectively, for the 19th Precinct.

"I don't think the city cares much about anything outside of 96th Street," the 35-year-old sergeant said. Recalling a recent summer heat wave that prompted the Con Edison electric company to turn off power in poorer areas in Upper Manhattan, he said, "You think they would turn the lights off on the Upper East Side? Hell no."

When asked about East 96th Street's role as a dividing line, Jose Rivera, a third-year law student, responded with another question: "What? You mean the border between the rich and the poor people?"

As he brushed snow from his car, near his 97th and Park Avenue apartment, Rivera, 24, who self-identified as a middle class Puerto Rican, said that even with the gradual gentrification of East Harlem, "96th Street is still the line." Though Rivera said he did not feel uncomfortable traveling below East 96th Street, he rarely goes there.

Rivera's family has lived in the area since his grandparents emigrated from Puerto Rico after World War II. He said he relishes the neighborhood's strong ties to Latino culture, exemplified by the corner bodegas and Spanish eateries.

Many Latinos move away once their economic situations improve, Rivera said, but his family refused to go. "I'm glad my parents stayed. I don't want to move," he said. "I'm comfortable here."

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