Do You Live In "Loud Party" New York Or "Vermin Infested" New York?
Rats and obnoxious parties are two iconic big-city problems, but these irritants, like income, are not evenly distributed across New York City. The map above—inspired by this similar project from The Furman Center—examines two-and-a-half years of complaints to the city's 311 phone line, focusing on the calls classified as either "vermin" or "loud party/music." That's over 260,000 complaints in total, split by ZIP code.
The complaints have been color-coded to show which problem prevails in which neighborhoods. Red indicates more complaints about parties, blue means more complaints about vermin, and the size of the hexagon is proportional to the total number of complaints in these two categories. Overall, New York had 57 percent more vermin complaints than party complaints.
Click here for a spreadsheet of complaints by ZIP code, and here are the leaders:
Top Party Complaint Neighborhoods:
- Interior Williamsburg (11211): 3,544 complaints
- East Village (10009): 3,106
- Lower East Side (10002): 2,985
Top Vermin Complaint Neighborhoods:
- Flatbush (11226): 5,847 complaints
- Norwood (10467): 4,535
- East New York (11207): 4,459
Most Party-Dominated Neighborhoods (min. 500 complaints):
- Waterfront Williamsburg (11249): 10.0 party complaints for every vermin complaint
- Tribeca/Little Italy (10013): 9.5 to 1
- NYU/SoHo/Nolita (10012): 8.7 to 1
(The 10012 ZIP code includes Gawker's very own offices. We prefer to complain about our vermin on the internet.)
Most Vermin-Dominated Neighborhoods (min. 500 complaints):
- Far Rockaway (11691): 17.4 vermin complaints for every party complaint
- Hunt's Point (10474): 7.8 to 1
- Brownsville (11212): 7.5 to 1
Most Balanced (min. 1,000 complaints):
- South Harlem (10026): 877 vermin complaints, 893 party complaints
- Woodside (11377): 928 vermin complaints, 911 party complaints
- Washington Heights (10033): 1,652 vermin complaints, 1,542 party complaints
h/t Ellen G.