W 81 Street, Manhattan: Grade B+ · 311, HPD & Crash Data
Grade B+, 76 out of 100. How does W 81 Street in Manhattan rank for traffic safety, noise, and cleanliness?
Livability score
Grade B+, livability 76 out of 100.
Calm 69, ranked against numbered streets. Access 88, ranked against every street in the city. Fewer complaints per home than most numbered streets, and a lot within a walk.
That puts W 81 Street in the top 4% of scored streets citywide.
Strongest on infrastructure (88) and food nearby (94). Cleanliness (25) is the weak spot.
On the record
Illegal parking is the most-filed complaint on West 81 Street, with 90 reports, and cleanliness ranks 25 among numbered streets. Across every category, 367 reports sit on this street's 311 file, and 25% of them name illegal parking. After that the file runs to residential noise (40 reports) and heat and hot water (21). The file runs across 67 distinct 311 categories in all. Set against the 1,457 homes on file, that is about 25 reports per 100 homes.
HPD has cited 25 Class C violations here, the tier the city treats as an immediate health or safety risk, about 2 per 100 homes on file. HPD's most-cited category on West 81 Street is pests, at 27 violations. Bed bugs accounts for 27 more, and heat and hot water for 10. City housing records put 1,457 homes in 71 residential buildings on West 81 Street, 41 of them walk-up apartment buildings and 12 of them buildings with an elevator. The average building on West 81 Street holds about 21 homes.
Reported crashes on West 81 Street have injured 24 people since 2021.
Against numbered streets, parking comes in at 81, with housing at 68. West 81 Street sits in the stronger half of numbered streets on housing. The card also puts traffic safety at 76 and quietness at 68 among numbered streets. Against every street in the city, West 81 Street ranks 88 on transit and 80 on tree cover. Of the three measures ranked citywide, food nearby is the strongest on West 81 Street, at 94. West 81 Street is ranked against about 990 numbered streets citywide.
Infrastructure is the strongest of the measures ranked inside the band, at 88.
The housing file puts 13% of the 1,457 homes on West 81 Street in rent stabilization, 182 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
- W 82 Street, Manhattan
- W 80 Street, Manhattan
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- W 79 Street, Manhattan
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W 81 Street runs through Upper West Side, 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).