W 159 Street, Manhattan: Grade C+ · 311, HPD & Crash Data
Grade C+, 50 out of 100. How does W 159 Street in Manhattan rank for traffic safety, noise, and cleanliness?
Livability score
Grade C+, livability 50 out of 100.
Calm 33, ranked against numbered streets. Access 81, ranked against every street in the city. More complaints per home than most numbered streets, but a lot within a walk.
That puts W 159 Street in the bottom 49% of scored streets citywide.
Strongest on parking (99) and transit (93). Housing (4) is the weak spot.
On the record
Heat and hot water is the most-filed complaint on West 159 Street, with 207 reports. The whole 311 file on West 159 Street holds 925 reports, and heat and hot water is 22% of it. Residential noise follows with 176 reports, and vehicle noise with 68. The file runs across 44 distinct 311 categories in all. About 155 reports per 100 homes sit on West 159 Street, counting every category.
HPD has cited 196 Class C violations here, the tier the city treats as an immediate health or safety risk, about 33 per 100 homes on file. HPD's most-cited category on West 159 Street is pests, at 135 violations. Paint and lead accounts for 95 more, and doors for 56. PLUTO counts 46 residential buildings and 595 homes on West 159 Street, with 31 walk-ups and 3 elevator buildings among them. That averages about 13 homes to a building.
NYPD records 19 people injured in crashes on West 159 Street since 2021.
Among numbered streets, West 159 Street ranks 86 on infrastructure and 8 on quietness. That 8 on quietness puts West 159 Street in the weakest quarter of numbered streets. The card also puts traffic safety at 44 and cleanliness at 13 among numbered streets. Food nearby ranks 85 and tree cover 45, both against every street in the city rather than inside the band. Transit is the strongest of the three citywide measures here, at 93. West 159 Street is ranked against about 990 numbered streets citywide.
Parking is the strongest of the measures ranked inside the band, at 99.
The housing file puts 59% of the 595 homes on West 159 Street in rent stabilization, 349 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
- Sylvan Ter, Manhattan
- W 160 Street, Manhattan
- W 162 Street, Manhattan
- W 161 Street, Manhattan
- W 156 Street, Manhattan
- W 155 Street, Manhattan
W 159 Street runs through Washington Heights, 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).