The Five Boroughs
average livability score, from Manhattan at the top of the five to Queens at the bottom
Source: Bestage borough averages, updated weekly
Manhattan's average graded street scores 64, the best in the city, because almost every address has a subway entrance inside a short walk. It is not the calm one. On quiet it comes fourth of five, at 43.
Brooklyn averages 54 and finishes second on most of what we measure. Staten Island averages 50 and wins the two things people leave the city for, quiet at 58 and traffic safety at 56, while coming last on food access and sitting level with Queens at the bottom on transit. Queens averages 47, leads the city on cleanliness and on street trees, and comes last on traffic safety at 43. The Bronx is level with Queens at 46, and housing is where it falls furthest behind: 28 on the HPD violation record, against 46 in Brooklyn.
Pick a borough for the commute you will actually make and the rent you can actually pay. Everything after that gets decided on the block, and the rest of this page is how to read one.
Pro Tip: Narrow to two or three boroughs on commute alone. The scores are for choosing between streets, not between boroughs.
Highest-Rated NYC Streets
Live rankings from NYC 311, HPD, DOB and NYPD crash records, updated weekly. Streets with fewer than 25 data points excluded.
| # | Street | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | QUEENS STSingle development | 97 |
| 2 | ORCHARD STSingle development | 96 |
| 3 | S END AVESingle development | 95 |
| 4 | E 72 ST | 93 |
| 5 | RED HOOK LNSingle development | 93 |
| 6 | N END AVESingle development | 93 |
| 7 | W END AVE | 92 |
| 8 | E 54 ST | 91 |
| 9 | E 69 ST | 91 |
| 10 | W 60 ST | 91 |
| 11 | EXCHANGE PLSingle development | 91 |
| 12 | W 67 ST | 90 |
| 13 | SUTTON PL S | 90 |
| 14 | SPRUCE STSingle development | 90 |
| 15 | W 12 ST | 89 |
The Numbers Worth Reading First
average livability in Manhattan's strongest and weakest ZIP codes. One borough holds a wider spread than the five boroughs hold between them
Bestage ZIP averages, ZIP codes with 10 or more graded streets
Quietness is the number to read first, because it swings the most and you cannot renegotiate it after you sign. Take the Upper West Side's 10024, one ZIP code averaging 66 on quiet. West 78th Street scores 95. West 91st Street, thirteen blocks north and built to the same plan, scores 7. The map does not predict that gap; the complaint records are the only place it shows up.
Each score is a rank inside a street's own type, so 50 is the middle of the type rather than a citywide rate. That gives you the threshold to carry into a listing: below 50 on quiet we would keep looking, and below 30 the block sits well into the loud end of its type and noise will be the defining fact about the address.
Traffic safety is the number people misread. Ours counts injuries and deaths in NYPD crash records against the homes on the street, so it says how dangerous the street is to cross, not how the block feels after dark.
Food access, which counts restaurants rather than groceries, is the number that usually costs you the first one. Citywide, the blocks in the top fifth on food access average in the mid-forties on quiet, against the high fifties for the blocks in the bottom fifth.
We do not measure rent.
Two Upper West Side side streets, thirteen blocks apart in the same ZIP code: West 78th scores 95 on quiet, West 91st 7.
Use Real Data
six kinds of friction on the block and three kinds of access within reach, each one ranked against streets of the same type
Source: Bestage v3 scoring model
Every graded street gets a 0-100 score built from nine measures. Six of them are friction on the block: quiet, cleanliness, traffic safety, road condition, parking, and housing violations. Three are what sits within reach: transit, food, and street trees.
The friction measures divide complaints and crashes by the homes and businesses on the street, then rank each street inside its own peer group, so a numbered residential block is measured against other numbered residential blocks and never against an arterial. An A starts at 79.
Scores are built from 311 complaints, HPD violations, NYPD crash records, MTA stop locations, DOHMH food permits, and the street tree census, divided by the homes and businesses on the street, updated weekly.
Before You Sign
The search box in the site header wants the name off the sign, not a mailing address: type W 79 ST or BEDFORD AVE, then pick the borough from the results, because all five boroughs have a Broadway and three of them have a Bedford Avenue. The street page that comes back carries all nine measures, the overall grade, and the complaint history behind them. Then, in this order:
- Read the quiet score against the thresholds above. It is the one you cannot fix.
- Read the housing score, which is built from the HPD violation record on that block, before you sign in an older building.
- Read the traffic safety score if you walk a dog, ride a bike, or have a kid.
- Put your two finalists side by side in the compare tool and see which one the records prefer.
- Stand on the block in the evening, when the noise the score is built from actually happens.