161 Street, Queens: Grade C+ · 311, HPD & Crash Data
Grade C+, 49 out of 100. How does 161 Street in Queens rank for traffic safety, noise, and cleanliness?
Livability score
Grade C+, livability 49 out of 100.
Calm 47, ranked against numbered streets. Access 52, ranked against every street in the city. More complaints per home than most numbered streets, but a lot within a walk.
That puts 161 Street in the bottom 45% of scored streets citywide.
Strongest on traffic safety (68) and tree cover (97). Parking (22) is the weak spot.
On the record
More 311 reports on 161 Street name illegal parking than any other category, 309 of them, and parking ranks 22 among numbered streets. The whole 311 file on 161 Street holds 1,291 reports, and illegal parking is 24% of it. Residential noise is the next most-filed at 189 reports, then blocked driveway at 179. In all, 75 distinct 311 categories are represented on 161 Street. The 311 file works out to about 77 reports for every 100 homes on 161 Street.
Inspectors have written 83 Class C violations on 161 Street, the tier the city treats as an immediate health or safety risk, about 5 per 100 homes on file. Pests is what HPD writes up most on 161 Street, 132 violations of it. Doors accounts for 53 more, and bed bugs for 51. City housing records put 1,687 homes in 606 residential buildings on 161 Street, 73 of them walk-up apartment buildings and 6 of them buildings with an elevator. Across those buildings the average is about 2.8 homes each.
Reported crashes on 161 Street have injured 38 people since 2021.
Among numbered streets, 161 Street ranks 60 on infrastructure and 39 on quietness. That 39 on quietness puts 161 Street in the weaker half of numbered streets. Cleanliness ranks 44 on the same scale, with housing at 42. Against every street in the city, 161 Street ranks 65 on food nearby and 27 on transit. 161 Street ranks 97 on tree cover, the best of its three citywide measures. About 990 numbered streets make up the band 161 Street is scored inside.
Traffic safety is where 161 Street ranks best against numbered streets, at 68.
About 24% of the 1,687 homes on file are rent-stabilized, 401 homes in all.
Scores are built from 311 complaints, HPD violations, NYPD crash records, NYPD felony complaint records, MTA stop locations, DOHMH food permits, and the street tree census, divided by the homes and businesses on the street, updated weekly. Read the scoring method or the data sources.
Nearest streets in Queens
- 163 Street, Queens
- 162 Street, Queens
- Pidgeon Meadow Road, Queens
- 160 Street, Queens
- Hawthorn Avenue, Queens
- Laburnum Avenue, Queens
161 Street runs through Murray Hill, East Flushing and Springfield Gardens & Rochdale Village, where every scored street in the neighborhood is ranked beside it.
Every scored street in Queens, the citywide rankings of all 5,700+ graded streets, or Queens vs Brooklyn: How the Two Boroughs Score (2026 Data).