The 10 Most Dangerous And Worst Neighborhoods In New York City, NY

The 10 Most Dangerous Neighborhoods In New York City For 2025

Where’s the worst hood in New York City? Hunts Point is. Located in the Bronx, right along the East River, this ghetto little area of about 11,425 people takes the prize as being the worst place you can live in our nation’s biggest city.

The aggravated assault rate an insane hundred and fifty-one people per hundred thousand, and the arrest rate for rape has gone up by a factor of five. And more than 1 in 100 people here has been arrested and found guilty.

Like the rest of the city, for now, overall crime has gone down, but we’ll see what happens when the NYPD backs off. I mean can you imagine?

There’s a lot of homeless here too, and the homeless shelters are in terrible shape. Residents here have sort of tried – they’ve at least fought off plans to open more strip clubs in the area. And many complained about the crime for ages, but no one’s really done anything. In fact, while other New York City boroughs have gentrified and improved crime rates, the Bronx has been kinda neglected.

About 30 percent of Bronx County residents live below the poverty line, the largest share of any of New York’s 62 jurisdictions. And the Bronx remains one of the largest outdoor shooting ranges in the nation.

Located in the northwest part of the Bronx, Woodlawn-Nordwood sits on the outer edges of New York City. A little further along the road will take you to Yonkers and points north. The area also stands as the number 3 worst neighborhood in New York.

The 10,349 residents of the area often struggle to make ends meet. The economy is relatively healthy, but much of the locals’ median income of $63,730 gets eaten up by a high standard of living. The median home value stands at $230,318.

Woodlawn-Nordwood isn’t without its charms. It serves as home to many examples of unique architecture, such as the stunning St. Brendan’s Church. For a sample of old-time New York, you can also head to Valentine–Varian House, which dates back to 1758.

Back on the subway we go. We’re on the 3 train, just minding our own business. Worried about how safe it will be when we arrive.

We’re here. This is the Rockaway Ave Station in Brooklyn. We’re in Brownsville.

This neighborhood is down near Crown Heights, East Flatbush and East New York.

Brownsville is one of the few neighborhoods in New York that has remained relatively untouched by gentrification. The buildings in this area are older and the crime rate’s lower than its peak in 2012 when Time magazine called it one of the most dangerous hoods in the whole city.

Brownsville’s getting a little better. The hope is that gentrification will reach deep into this neighborhood. Since the Barclays Center was built in Brooklyn, neighborhoods have improved. When gentrification does take hold in Brownsville, that’s just going to push the poor people here up to the Bronx, into Westchester County into areas like Mt. Vernon, or even send them far away into places like South Philly.

Train’s leaving. I’m sure we’ll be back to Brooklyn at some point.

Bedford Park is a diverse neighborhood located in the northwestern part of the Bronx, between Norwood and Fordham. Sections of the area are considered trendy, but a weak economy for the rest of the 55,901 residents makes this one of the hardest sections in New York City to live in.

A lack of good-paying jobs makes Bedford Park a difficult place to put down roots. The unemployment rate sits at a lofty 6.5%. While Bedford Park is more affordable than much of the rest of the city, residents struggle to make ends meet with a median income of $45,401.

Still, there are reasons to seek out Bedford Park. It features many lovely tree-lined neighborhoods and has its share of attractions. For example, you can check out the New York Botanical Gardens.

Methodology: How we determined the most dangerous New York City neighborhoods in 2025

To figure out how bad a place is to live in, we only needed to know what kinds of things people like and then decide what places have the least amount of those things. We plugged the following criteria into Saturday Night Science to get the worst neighborhoods in New York City:

• High crime (Estimated)
• High unemployment (Less jobs)
• Low median income (Less pay)
• Low population density (No things to do)
• Low home values (No one’s willing to pay to live here)

Then, we ranked each neighborhood in New York City, New York for each of these criteria from worst to best.

Next, we averaged the individual rankings for each criterion into a “Worst Score.”

The neighborhood with the lowest “Worst Score” ranks as the most dangerous neighborhood of New York City.

The article is an opinion based on facts and is meant as infotainment. We updated this article for 2025. This report is our time ranking the worst neighborhoods to live in New York City.

Skip to the end to see the list of all 123 neighborhoods ranked from worst to best.