17th precinct / population 79,126
This affluent Manhattan enclave is home to the United Nations, and much of the neighborhood, with its consulates and government offices, still caters to the international mission of the U.N. It's also the site of a phony meet-up in the movie "The Bourne Ultimatum." And in all three of the recent Spider-Man movies, Harry Osborne's penthouse was located at the top of a residential complex in the area — Tudor City.
The swanky brick townhouses of Sutton Place — including the addresses of architect I.M. Pei, actor Sigourney Weaver and designer Kenneth Cole — sit on the northern border of the neighborhood. Given all this pedigree, it might surprise some that the area ranks only a middling 32nd out of 69 neighborhoods for per capita crime in DNAinfo.com's Crime & Safety Report, with an overall crime rate of 125 incidents per 10,000 residents.
Over the past decade, many young banking and finance types who were not making million-dollar salaries have not only patronized the sports bars and restaurants in Turtle Bay, but have also taken up residence in the neighborhood. The area is more affordable than the Upper East Side, Upper West Side and a lot of neighborhoods in lower Manhattan.
There were no murders in 2009 and 2010. The number of rapes has dropped 27 percent between 2009 and 2010, from 11 to eight incidents, despite a booming nightlife scene and contrary to the citywide trend of rising numbers of reports of sexual assaults. The neighborhoods ranks fourth safest for robbery and sixth safest for felony assaults in 2010, although the latter rose 15 percent last year. Overall, for these four categories, together classified as violent crimes, Midtown East rated a very positive fifth safest in the city.
Property crimes — burglary, car theft and grand larceny — dropped 79 percent from 2001 to 2010. There were just 12 burglaries per 10,000 residents in 2010; and there were just 31 car thefts in total, ranking the area the second safest in the city for this crime, just behind the Upper West Side.
15%
Rise in felony assaults, 2009 to 2010
27%
Drop in reported rapes, 2009 to 2010
Photo: Getty/NY Daily News Archive
Consulate Blast Still a Mystery
With the city on edge following the September 2011 terrorist attacks, a small blast outside the British Consulate in Turtle Bay rattled terror-weary neighbors, even though there wasn't much damage. On May 5, 2005, when it was about 4 a.m. in New York, and British citizens were heading to election booths in the United Kingdom, two blasts shattered the glass doors of the British Consulate's building on Third Avenue, near E. 51st Street. Police believed that a pair of "novelty grenades" — World War II relics — had been left inside concrete planters outside the building. Video footage showed someone leaving the scene on a bicycle. The bombing was followed by two similar mystery attacks: a bombing at the Mexican Embassy, in Murray Hill, in October 2007, and an attack on the Armed Forces Recruiting Station in Times Square, in March 2008. Both attacks caused minor damage, and no one was injured. Police never officially linked the three bombings. No group has taken credit for the explosions, and no person has been charged.
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