THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

If you have made it a point of pride to not be a part of municipal structure during the good times, it will not be well received if you beg for help from the city now.

Once the gilded retreat of the Vanderbilt family, Sea Gate, like other gated communities in New York, preserved its exclusivity with the promise that the residents would assume the costs of community upkeep, maintaining their own streets, parks and sewer systems and even fielding the distinct Sea Gate Police Department.

The special status endured, through occasional controversy and political efforts to open the streets to the public, because of the community’s self-sufficiency.

But the damage inflicted by Hurricane Sandy to Sea Gate, in Brooklyn, and another gated community, Breezy Point, in Queens, was so monumental that residents who are already struggling to figure out how they will pay to rebuild their homes say they cannot afford to pay the additional cost of repairing communal infrastructure. So neighborhoods that have long held the rest of the city at arm’s length now seek the financial embrace of the city, state and federal governments.

That turnaround has been ill-received among some on the other side of the fence from Sea Gate, in historically troubled apartment towers like Sea Rise, where Cesar Catala, 29, picked up some hot food from a relief tent on Monday.

“They seclude themselves,” said Mr. Catala, who has lived in Coney Island nearly his entire life. “We don’t have problems with Sea Gate, but they put their noses down at us. We get treated like we’re second class, just because they live in houses and we live in the projects and we rent. They say they need assistance and, fine, maybe they do need assistance. But they have insurance on their houses. We don’t have insurance. We don’t have much out here.”

Perhaps, if the city has something left over after helping its full time citizens, Mayor Bloomie can give them some aid, maybe.