Manhattan CD12 — Washington Heights / Inwood Crime Rate Trends — New York
Manhattan's northernmost community district covers Washington Heights, Hudson Heights, and Inwood. Anchored by the George Washington Bridge bus station, Fort Tryon Park and the Cloisters, Inwood Hill Park, the A train and 1 train spines, and the Columbia University Medical Center / NewYork-Presbyterian campus.
Three signals surfaced in Washington Heights / Inwood this July: one single-month below-trend result and two sustained structural shifts. The overall shape is downward, with both the one-month and multi-month evidence pointing in the same direction across property crime categories.
Vandalism is the strongest signal, down 29.0% over the trailing 12 months, 562 incidents against 791 in the prior year, and carrying both a single-month below-trend read and a sustained multi-year shift. Motor Vehicle Theft reinforces the structural story, down 28.6% year-over-year, 220 incidents against 308. The remaining tracked categories were within normal range, with robbery the one counter-trend, up 8.7% over the prior 12 months.
Notable signals 1
Vandalism
The past 12 months saw 562 incidents — about 39% below the 921 average from prior years.
All categories, last 24 months
Each panel: recent monthly count vs. trailing 12-month context. MoM is the most recent month vs. the one before; 12mo YoY compares the trailing year to the year before that.
What's been quietly true for a year
Spikes get attention. Sustained shifts shape policy. These are multi-quarter patterns where the past 12-month total differs meaningfully from the year before — they often precede the baseline resetting.
- Vandalism has reset to a lower baseline.
The trailing 12-month count is 562, down 29% from 791 the year before. If the trend holds another quarter, it will pull the multi-year baseline down.
- Motor Vehicle Theft has reset to a lower baseline.
The trailing 12-month count is 220, down 29% from 308 the year before. If the trend holds another quarter, it will pull the multi-year baseline down.
What next month likely looks like
Forecasts trained through July 2026, with a likely range we're 95% confident the actual count will fall inside. Categories with too little recent volume — or violent categories at the neighborhood level — show no forecast and are surfaced through signals above instead. See the methodology page for the gating rules.
Aggravated Assault
Too low-volume per neighborhood for a reliable point forecast — see the rare-event and streak-break signals above instead.
Arson
Below the volume threshold for a reliable forecast — too few incidents in recent months to project from.
Burglary
Homicide
Too low-volume per neighborhood for a reliable point forecast — see the rare-event and streak-break signals above instead.
Motor Vehicle Theft
Other Larceny
Robbery
Too low-volume per neighborhood for a reliable point forecast — see the rare-event and streak-break signals above instead.
Sexual Assault
Too low-volume per neighborhood for a reliable point forecast — see the rare-event and streak-break signals above instead.
Theft from Vehicle
Vandalism
How Manhattan CD12 — Washington Heights / Inwood compares
Peer neighborhoods picked by closest 12-month vandalism volume — a pragmatic v1 of peer matching. Demographic / housing-stock peer matching isn't built yet (we deliberately don't ingest income or race data alongside crime). Volume similarity has the right intuition: “neighborhoods experiencing comparable vandalism levels.”
Manhattan CD4 — Chelsea / Hell's Kitchen
569 incidents over the past 12 months — 7 above Manhattan CD12 — Washington Heights / Inwood's 562.
Open page →Bronx CD6 — Belmont / East Tremont
571 incidents over the past 12 months — 9 above Manhattan CD12 — Washington Heights / Inwood's 562.
Open page →Brooklyn CD18 — Canarsie / Flatlands
574 incidents over the past 12 months — 12 above Manhattan CD12 — Washington Heights / Inwood's 562.
Open page →Recurring local terms (last 12 months)
Top terms in incident descriptions for Manhattan CD12 — Washington Heights / Inwood, excluding generic crime taxonomy. Useful as texture — what kinds of specifics show up here that don't show up elsewhere.
Hour-of-day, day-of-week, and seasonality
Distribution of bucketed incidents in this neighborhood across the full analysis window. Useful for routine context — shopping-strip thefts vs. late-night assaults read very differently when you can see when each typically happens.
How we built this page
Data → Anomalies → Forecast → Page
Incident data is pulled from the NYPD Complaint dataset on NYC Open Data, mapped to 10 UCR-aligned categories, and aggregated to community district × category × month.Anomalies are surfaced using strict thresholds (~p < 0.01). Forecasts are Prophet with low-count gating; violent categories at the neighborhood level skip the forecast and show rare-event / streak signals instead.
Spike rule: 12-mo total > baseline mean + 2.5σ AND ≥ 20 incidents AND 6-mo confirms. Drop rule: 12-mo total < baseline mean − 2.5σ AND baseline mean ≥ 20. Rare event: any incident in the last 90 days, no prior comparable in ≥ 5 years.