Did Crime Rise On The Upper East Side In 2021? Here's The Data

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — The past two years have not been easy ones on the Upper East Side.

Complaints of rat sightings and noisy aircraft surged as the pandemic emptied out the neighborhood, and the coronavirus continued to sicken residents and shutter classrooms. A protest against police violence against Black people has continued weekly in Carl Schurz Park.

Meanwhile, a few high-profile crimes rattled the neighborhood in 2021: broad-daylight murders near Park Avenue and at an auto repair shop; a home-invasion burglary at a Madison Avenue apartment; and a gunpoint robbery at a ritzy restaurant on East 60th Street.

But did crime actually rise? As 2021 ends, Patch examined NYPD crime statistics for the Upper East Side's 19th Precinct to see how this year compared to 2020 — and to previous years.

A 12 percent decline

One basic takeaway: crime dropped by about 11.7 percent from 2020 to 2021 across the precinct, from 2,203 overall reports through this time last year to 1,945 through Dec. 26 of this year.

That decrease is especially notable given that thousands of people returned to the Upper East Side this year after leaving the neighborhood during the pandemic's early days. Other neighborhoods that had an influx of residents and workers in 2021, like Midtown, saw an increase in crime reports.

The data also underlines how dramatically crime has fallen in the neighborhood in recent decades: the 1,945 crimes reported this year is less than one-seventh the number recorded in 1990, when violent crime was plaguing New York.

Every major crime category on the Upper East Side has dropped precipitously since 1990, with the biggest declines including car thefts (a 95 percent drop, from 3,338 to 165 this year), burglaries (93 percent decline, from 3,695 to 243) and robberies (91 percent, from 1,904 to 174).

Comparing the past two years, the picture is more mixed. Robberies, burglaries and grand larcenies led the Upper East Side's crime drop in 2021, but car thefts and felony assaults both rose. The number of shootings also increased, from one in 2020 to six in 2021.

The Upper East Side's declining crime rates also contrast with some residents' sentiments that things have gotten worse. Mayor-elect Eric Adams was voted into office on a platform that emphasized public safety, and Julie Menin, the Upper East Side's new City Council member, also expressed more pro-police views than most of her rivals.