EAST HARLEM — The area north of 125th Street and from Fifth Avenue to the East River is so saturated with drugs and crime that no one wants to claim it in their neighborhood.
Only 8 Harlem residents believe that the area is in their community and just 180 out of 305 people in East Harlem residents marked it as theirs, according to an interactive feature by DNAinfo New York inviting people to draw their neighborhood.
The interactive map asked residents to say how long they’ve lived in the neighborhood. Those who've lived there for more than 20 years viewed their neighborhood different than those who have been there less than five years.
The neighborhood has become so notorious that the NYPD is deploying dozens of officers to the corridor.
More than 300 people used DNAinfo’s interactive boundary map to draw their versions of East Harlem. That was the highest number of responses among West Harlem, Hamilton Heights, and Central Harlem.
El Barrio residents disagreed over their southern border.
Most of the people who have lived in the neighborhood less than five years say El Barrio starts around 110th Street. Those who have lived in the neighborhood for more than 20 years, say it begins down at 98th Street.
The majority of participants in the geographical poll said East Harlem starts at 105th Street and ends at 125th Street, but some stretched the boundaries all the way north to the East River and south to 96th Street.
On the west side, Harlem and East Harlem residents claimed different parts of Marcus Garvey Park, which sits in the middle of Fifth Avenue between 120th and 124th streets.
Only 25 of East Harlem locals claimed the entire park but more than 200 marked the eastern half. In Central Harlem, 62 claimed the entire park.
