The 50 Best Streets to Live on in NYC (Backed by 5M+ Data Points)

Top-rated streets & avenues, scored on complaints per resident plus what is in walking range

Based on 5,344 streets
5344
Streets & Avenues Listed
51
Avg Score
Updated: Sep 8, 2026

About Best Streets & Avenues

The best-scoring streets in New York are not the emptiest ones. Our score counts 311 complaints, HPD violations, and NYPD crash records against the people who live on a street, then adds what that street reaches on foot: trains and buses, food shops, street trees. Each measure is ranked against streets of the same kind, so a busy avenue with 800 flats is judged against other busy avenues rather than against a cul-de-sac. That change matters more than it sounds. Under our previous model, which divided complaints by street length, the hundred highest-scoring streets in the city had a median of sixteen homes on them. The hundred highest today have a median of more than 1,700. The top of this list now runs through Battery Park City and the East Side, with South End Avenue at 94 the highest reading on the site.

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How We Rank These Streets

Rankings are built from 5M+ NYC 311 complaints, HPD violation records and NYPD crash records, counted against the people who live on each street and ranked against streets of the same kind.

Updated daily from NYC Open Data
Streets with <5 data points excluded
Learn more about our methodology →