Essex Street, Manhattan: Grade C+ · 311, HPD & Crash Data
Grade C+, 50 out of 100. How does Essex Street in Manhattan rank for traffic safety, noise, and cleanliness?
Livability score
Grade C+, livability 50 out of 100.
Calm 30, ranked against built-up residential streets. Access 88, ranked against every street in the city. More complaints per home than most built-up residential streets, but a lot within a walk.
That puts Essex Street in the bottom 49% of scored streets citywide.
Strongest on parking (95) and food nearby (99). Cleanliness (2) is the weak spot.
On the record
Non-emergency police matter is the most-filed complaint on Essex Street, with 206 reports, and cleanliness ranks 2 among built-up residential streets. The whole 311 file on Essex Street holds 433 reports, and non-emergency police matter is 48% of it. After that the file runs to maintenance or facility (89 reports) and encampment (72). Reports on Essex Street span 66 distinct 311 categories. Set against the 807 homes on file, that is about 54 reports per 100 homes.
Inspectors have written 21 Class C violations on Essex Street, the tier the city treats as an immediate health or safety risk, about 3 per 100 homes on file. The category HPD cites most often here is heat and hot water, with 15 violations on file. Behind it the file holds pests (13 violations) and bed bugs (13). 35 residential buildings on Essex Street hold the 807 homes on file, 22 of them walk-up apartment buildings and 5 of them buildings with an elevator. Across those buildings the average is about 23 homes each.
Since 2021, 88 people have been injured in reported crashes here.
Against built-up residential streets, housing comes in at 64, with traffic safety at 7. Essex Street sits in the weakest quarter of built-up residential streets on traffic safety. Infrastructure ranks 57 on the same scale, with quietness at 30. The citywide frame puts transit at 96 and tree cover at 53. Of the three measures ranked citywide, food nearby is the strongest on Essex Street, at 99. The band those ranks are drawn from holds about 790 built-up residential streets.
Parking is where Essex Street ranks best against built-up residential streets, at 95.
Rent stabilization covers about 35% of the 807 homes on file, 248 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 Manhattan
- Ludlow Street, Manhattan
- Suffolk Street, Manhattan
- Allen Street, Manhattan
- Norfolk Street, Manhattan
- Rivington Street, Manhattan
- Clinton Street, Manhattan
Essex Street runs through Lower East Side and Chinatown, where every scored street in the neighborhood is ranked beside it.
Every scored street in Manhattan, the citywide rankings of all 5,700+ graded streets, or Manhattan vs Brooklyn: How the Two Boroughs Score (2026 Data).