Low Overall, Local Crime Rates Drift Upward in Some Categories
The most current NYPD statistics for the First Precinct show no increases in major categories of crime, but a gradual shift toward lawlessness in several areas.
The command—which covers Lower Manhattan south of the Brooklyn Bridge and City Hall, along with the area west of Broadway up to Houston Street—logged no murders in 2023. Seventeen rapes were reported, along with 133 robberies, 147 felony assaults, 201 burglaries, 1,313 grand larcenies, and 78 grand larcenies of a motor vehicle. During 2024 thus far, there have been one murder, five rapes, 36 robberies, and 46 felony assaults. In the current year, there have also been 64 burglaries, 314 grand larcenies, and ten grand larcenies of a motor vehicle.
The metrics for 2024 seem to indicate that most major categories of local crime remain steady from last year. Zooming out to the prior five years, however, the picture shifts slightly. Between 2019 and 2023, rates of murder and rape barely fluctuated in Lower Manhattan, but the occurrence of robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand larceny of an automobile all jumped sharply during the same interval, increasing by margins of 71 percent, 50 percent, 53 percent, 26 percent, and 310 percent, respectively.
For longer term historical context, in 1990, the First Precinct saw high rates of crime in nearly every category. In the year that the Hubble Space Telescope was launched and “Dances with Wolves” won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Lower Manhattan experienced eight murders, 13 rapes, 1,281 robberies, 350 felony assaults, 1,486 burglaries, 5,554 grand larcenies, and 1,191 grand larcenies of a motor vehicle. These statistics are all the more remarkable in view of the fact that Downtown’s population in 1990 was a fraction of its current level. Crime declined continuously in Lower Manhattan and across New York City between the mid 1990s and the 2000s.