Hester Street, Manhattan: Grade C+ · 311, HPD & Crash Data
Grade C+, 58 out of 100. How does Hester Street in Manhattan rank for traffic safety, noise, and cleanliness?
Livability score
Grade C+, livability 58 out of 100.
Calm 42, ranked against built-up residential streets. Access 89, 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 Hester Street in the top 28% of scored streets citywide.
Strongest on parking (87) and food nearby (100). Cleanliness (2) is the weak spot.
On the record
More 311 reports on Hester Street name commercial noise than any other category, 100 of them, and cleanliness ranks 2 among built-up residential streets. Across every category, 427 reports sit on this street's 311 file, and 23% of them name commercial noise. Heat and hot water is the next most-filed at 57 reports, then street/sidewalk noise at 50. Reports on Hester Street span 58 distinct 311 categories. The 311 file works out to about 53 reports for every 100 homes on Hester Street.
HPD has cited 26 Class C violations here, 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 bed bugs, with 23 violations on file. Pests follows at 20 violations, then heat and hot water at 15. The housing file lists 54 residential buildings on Hester Street holding 813 homes, with 34 walk-ups and 4 elevator buildings among them. Across those buildings the average is about 15 homes each.
Since 2021, 19 people have been injured in reported crashes here.
Against built-up residential streets, infrastructure comes in at 69, with traffic safety at 43. Hester Street sits in the weaker half of built-up residential streets on traffic safety. Measured against built-up residential streets, quietness sits at 46 and housing at 44. Transit ranks 98 and tree cover 50, both against every street in the city rather than inside the band. Hester Street ranks 100 on food nearby, the best of its three citywide measures. About 790 built-up residential streets make up the band Hester Street is scored inside.
Parking is the strongest of the measures ranked inside the band, at 87.
35% of the 813 homes recorded on Hester Street are rent-stabilized, 285 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
- Eldridge Street, Manhattan
- Essex Street, Manhattan
- Suffolk Street, Manhattan
- Allen Street, Manhattan
- Rutgers Street, Manhattan
- E Broadway, Manhattan
Hester Street runs through Chinatown and SoHo, 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).