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Until recently, the most important thing to know about Amazon for residents of the Queensbridge Houses, the country’s largest public housing project, was that any packages left in a lobby would likely be stolen.

But Amazon will soon be a far larger presence in their New York City neighborhood.

The company owned by Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, will announce on Tuesday that it will establish a major headquarters in Long Island City, Queens, where Queensbridge’s 26 aging buildings are home to a mostly black and Hispanic population with a median household income of $15,843, well below the federal poverty line for a family of four.

Here, where livings are eked out on meager paychecks, or social service assistance, with nearly 60 percent of its households relying on food stamps, the new neighbor will be one of the world’s most profitable high-tech companies, bringing what could be a work force of 25,000 people making salaries upward of $100,000.

The stark contrast amplifies some of the social and economic tensions coursing through American society — a widening income gap, a lack of access to high-paying jobs for many minorities and a technology sector struggling to diversify.