Charts
This Again
The Best Neighborhoods in New York, 2015
There are two hundred neighborhoods in New York (more or less). But we hear about the same few over and over. Don’t tell us Long Island City got expensive. Don’t tell us the South Bronx got a new bar. Don’t tell us East New York is the last frontier. We all know that. And there’s no such thing as a frontier.
Let’s compare the neighborhoods. All the neighborhoods. Metric by metric, toe to toe. Affordability, commute times, walkability, crime and open space. And see – all style sections aside – how they stack up.
The Best Neighborhoods in New York, 2015
I. Superlatives
II. Everybody Now
II. Basically Mike Bloomberg & Beyoncé
IV. The Best Places to Rent
V. The Best Places to Buy
VI. The Worst
……….
Cheapest Rent
Eastchester, Bronx
Last year: Hunts Point, Bronx
Cheapest to Buy
Port Richmond, Staten Island
Last year: St. Albans, Queens
Shortest Commute
Midtown South/Koreatown, Manhattan
Last year: Financial District, Manhattan
Most Walkable
Chinatown, Financial District, Flatiron, Fulton/Seaport, Gramercy, Greenwich Village,
Little Italy, Midtown, Midtown South/Koreatown, Noho, Nolita, Soho, Turtle Bay (tie)
Last year: Little Italy, Chinatown, NoHo, Flatiron, SoHo, Greenwich Village (tie)
Safest
Tottenville, Staten Island
Last year: Tottenville, Staten Island
Most Open Space
Inwood, Manhattan
Last year: Inwood, Manhattan
Renting Is Way Cheaper Than Buying
#1 West Harlem, Manhattan
#2 Greenpoint, Brooklyn
#3 Harlem, Manhattan
#4 Bushwick, Brooklyn
#5 Nolita, Manhattan
Buying Is Way Cheaper Than Renting
#1 Parkchester, Bronx
#2 Fordham, Bronx
#3 Shore Acres, Staten Island
#4 Concourse, Bronx
#5 Port Richmond, Staten Island
Sure there are the five physical boroughs of New York but then there are the boroughs of the mind. Like the Manhattan that ends at 110th street or extends to Marble Hill. Or the Dumbo that, as far as price and walkability go, might as well be in Manhattan. The Sunnyside that might as well be in Brooklyn. The Brownsville that might as well be part of the Bronx.
Vinegar Hill has one restaurant. Roosevelt Island has a one subway station. For where you can walk, those (literal and figurative) islands sure cost a lot of money.
But boy is Mott Haven a bargain.
Reading along the righthand border of the pie slice, you can find the most expensive neighborhoods for each increasing band of commute time:
Tribeca, Civic Center, Battery Park City, Vinegar Hill, Clinton Hill, Park Slope, Forest Hills, Kew Gardens, Shore Acres, Hollis, Manhattan Beach, Riverdale
And then, along the left side, their counterparts – the least expensive neighborhoods with the same commutes:
Fulton, Lower East Side, Stuyvesant Town, Prospect Heights, Mott Haven, Bushwick, Brownsville, Morrisania, St. Albans, Arrochar, Todt Hill, Eastchester
And boy is Mott Haven a bargain.
Staten Island and Queens dominate the safest neighborhoods, while upper Manhattan has a lock on neighborhoods with the most open space. Inwood Hill Park alone is 23% of Central Park’s size. And no horses.
But boy is Mott Haven – actually, Mott Haven doesn’t do so well on either of these metrics. You have to make concessions somewhere.
III. Basically Mike Bloomberg and Beyoncé
The Best Neighborhoods If Money Is No Object
#1 Chinatown, Manhattan
#2 Noho, Manhattan
#3 Murray Hill, Manhattan
#4 Washington Heights, Manhattan
#5 Upper West Side, Manhattan
#6 Lower East Side, Manhattan
#7 East Harlem, Manhattan
#8 Harlem, Manhattan
#9 Financial District, Manhattan
#10 Flatiron, Manhattan
Money is an object. Money is all the objects.
#1 Harlem, Manhattan
#2 Washington Heights, Manhattan
#3 Hamilton Heights, Manhattan
#4 Manhattanville, Manhattan
#5 Sunset Park, Brooklyn
#6 Inwood, Manhattan
#7 East Harlem, Manhattan
#8 Ridgewood, Queens
#9 Morningside Heights, Manhattan
#10 Mott Haven, Bronx
Like last year, Upper Manhattan dominates the best neighborhoods to rent, occupying 7 of the top ten slots. The best neighborhood in Staten Island is St. George – #80 of 200 neighborhoods, overall.
#1 Washington Heights, Manhattan
#2 Ridgewood, Queens
#3 Inwood, Manhattan
#4 Concourse, Bronx
#5 Hamilton Heights, Manhattan
#6 Harlem, Manhattan
#7 Sunnyside, Queens
#8 Sunset Park, Brooklyn
#9 Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
#10 Borough Park, Brooklyn
The best neighborhoods for buyers this year orbit northern Manhattan and southwest Brooklyn. Bonus points: both areas are elevated, so you’ll still have a place to live when the Red Hook IKEA is ceded to the mer-people. The best neighborhood for renters on Staten Island is the best neighborhood for buyers on Staten Island – St. George, just outside the ferry terminal. Total mer-people potential.
Midtown continues to have the high crime rates, low affordability and lack of green space that earned it the lowest spot in last year’s rankings. But this year’s lowest ranked neighborhood succeeds where Midtown fails and fails where it succeeds, boasting New York City’s longest commute times and lowest walkability score.
Breezy Point, Queens is the worst.
It is, however, the best place in New York to be a piping plover.
Rent: Average prices per bedroom, Trulia. Purchase price: Price per square foot, Trulia. Commute: time to Times Square and Wall Street on public transportation, 9am Monday morning, Google Maps. Walkability: Walk Score. Safety: nyc.gov. Open space: Department of City Planning. Images: Google Street View.
The Jackson Ten
U.S. popularity rank of the Jackson children’s names in order of their birth. (Source)
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How About We’ll Go There And You Come Here
Beginning with Aud
The State of the Mall
The Songs That Time Forgot
Some pop songs are timeless classics. Some play endlessly at weddings and on oldies stations. Others find renewed vigor in movie trailers or because their lyrics can be applied to Golden Grahams. Still others just, well – disappear.
We started with the top 10 songs of each year from 1900 to present (as calculated by the Whitburn Project), recording each song’s Google hits, Wikipedia presence and last.fm scrobbles to calculate an obscurity score.
Least Obscure Hit Songs
1 Adele: Rolling in the Deep, 2011
2 Eminem: Love the Way You Lie, 2010
3 LMFAO: Party Rock Anthem, 2011
4 Gotye: Somebody That I Used to Know, 2012
5 Carly Rae Jepsen: Call Me Maybe, 2012
6 The Beatles: Help!, 1965
7 One Direction: What Makes You Beautiful, 2012
8 fun.: We Are Young, 2012
9 Macklemore: Can’t Hold Us, 2013
10 Maroon 5: Moves Like Jagger, 2011
Most Obscure Hit Songs
1 Mina Hickman: Come Down, Ma Evening Star, 1903
2 Big Four Quartet: Good-Bye, Dolly Gray, 1901
3 Olive Kline: Hello, Frisco!, 1915
4 Marguerite Farrell: If I Knock the ‘L’ Out of Kelly (It Would Still be Kelly to Me), 1916
5 Horace Wright: My Own Iona, 1917
6 J. W. Myers: On a Sunday Afternoon, 1902
7 Orpheus Quartet: Turn Back the Universe and Give Me Yester Day, 1916
8 J. W. Myers: Way Down in Old Indiana, 1902
9 Alan Turner: Till the Sands of the Desert Grow Cold, 1913
10 Roy Ingraham Orch: Chant of the Jungle, 1930
Surprise. With a few exceptions, songs popular during the adolescence of people still alive today are much more popular than songs and racist comedy routines recorded during the reign of Queen Victoria. So let’s adjust the scores by the year of release and see what shakes out:
Least Obscure Hit Songs, Adjusted for Time
1 Bing Crosby: White Christmas, 1942
2 Elvis Presley: Jailhouse Rock, 1957
3 Glenn Miller Orch: In the Mood, 1940
4 The Animals: The House Of The Rising Sun, 1964
5 The Rolling Stones: (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, 1965
6 The Beatles: Help!, 1965
7 The Beatles: Yesterday, 1965
8 Elvis Presley: Love Me Tender, 1956
9 Elvis Presley: Heartbreak Hotel, 1956
10 Elvis Presley: Hound Dog, 1956
Most Obscure Hit Songs, Adjusted for Time
1 Roy Ingraham Orch: Chant of the Jungle, 1930
2 Hilo Hawaiian Orch: When It’s Springtime in the Rockies, 1930
3 Horace Wright: My Own Iona, 1917
4 Marguerite Farrell: If I Knock the ‘L’ Out of Kelly (It Would Still be Kelly to Me), 1916
5 Olive Kline: Hello, Frisco!, 1915
6 Orpheus Quartet: Turn Back the Universe and Give Me Yester Day, 1916
7 Horace Heidt Orch: Ti-Pi-Tin, 1938
8 Clay Aiken: This Is The Night, 2003
9 Mina Hickman: Come Down, Ma Evening Star, 1903
10 Don Bestor Orch: Forty-Second Street, 1933
55 of the 100 most obscure hit songs (those on Spotify) are available to listen to below. And don’t cry for them. All they need is one Wes Anderson movie to get back in the game.