The Upper West Side, covered by the 20th, 24th and Central Park Precincts, is less quirky than Jerry Seinfeld would have you believe. And it's a lot safer than when his sitcom was at its prime, in the mid-1990s.

Major crime was down 78 percent from 1993 to 2010, with nearly 9,500 reported incidents dropping to 2,075 for all three precincts. All categories declined significantly, but car thefts plunged the most, by 96 percent, to 78, compared to approximately 2,140 in 1993. Burglaries were down 89 percent, to 227 from more than 2,000, while robberies dropped by 82 percent on average for the area, to 305.

Overall, crime rates have continued their long-term decline on the Upper West Side, falling less than 2 percent from 2009 to 2010. The area ranks 18th out of 69 neighborhoods for per capita crime in DNAinfo.com's Crime & Safety Report, with 99 incidents per 10,000 residents. It's the second-safest place in Manhattan, behind the Upper East Side, and in 2010 it had the lowest rate of car theft and the second-lowest rate of burglaries in the city. That year also only saw three murders for all three precincts, compared with 24 in 1993. Not bad for a population of more than 200,000.

Rape is one of the crimes that rose in all three precincts from 2009 to 2010, spiking from four to 11 in the 20th, nine to 11 in the 24th, and from zero to seven in Central Park. For other crimes, each precinct tells its own story. In the 20th, below 86th Street, overall crime rates dropped by 8 percent in 2010, led by an 18 percent fall in car thefts, to 33, and a 16 percent plunge in burglaries, to 101. Murders fell from five to one.