West 42nd Street, Manhattan NYC — Times Square Corridor
W 42nd St runs from Times Square to the Hudson. Theater, transit hub, and residential pockets. See block-by-block quality scores.
Livability score
Grade B+, livability 70 out of 100.
Calm 57, ranked against numbered streets. Access 94, ranked against every street in the city. Fewer complaints per home than most numbered streets, and a lot within a walk.
That puts W 42 Street in the top 7% of scored streets citywide.
Strongest on infrastructure (92) and food nearby (100). Traffic safety (31) is the weak spot.
On the record
NYPD collision records are what stand out on West 42 Street. 208 people have been injured in reported crashes here since 2021, and traffic safety ranks 31 among numbered streets. Homeless person assistance draws more reports than anything else here, 280 of them. The whole 311 file on West 42 Street holds 1,286 reports, and homeless person assistance is 22% of it. Vehicle noise follows with 215 reports, and illegal parking with 183. The file runs across 92 distinct 311 categories in all. Divided by the homes on file, West 42 Street carries roughly 34 reports per 100 of them.
The HPD file on West 42 Street carries 65 Class C violations, the most serious of the three classes an inspector can write, about 2 per 100 homes on file. HPD's most-cited category on West 42 Street is doors, at 69 violations. Pests follows at 61 violations, then paint and lead at 42. 22 residential buildings on West 42 Street hold the 3,801 homes on file, 5 of them walk-up apartment buildings and 3 of them buildings with an elevator. Across those buildings the average is about 173 homes each.
Against numbered streets, parking comes in at 90, with quietness at 54. A 54 on quietness places West 42 Street in the stronger half of numbered streets. Housing ranks 75 on the same scale, with cleanliness at 65. Against every street in the city, West 42 Street ranks 98 on transit and 75 on tree cover. Food nearby is the strongest of the three citywide measures here, at 100. The band those ranks are drawn from holds about 990 numbered streets.
Infrastructure is the strongest of the measures ranked inside the band, at 92.
About 10% of the 3,801 homes on file are rent-stabilized, 370 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
- E 44 Street, Manhattan
- Avenue Of The Americas, Manhattan
- E 37 Street, Manhattan
- W 37 Street, Manhattan
- E 42 Street, Manhattan
- W 38 Street, Manhattan
W 42 Street runs through Midtown and Hell's Kitchen, 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).