By West Side Rag
An Upper West Side train station was among the most violent in New York City in 2023, according to a recent report that analyzed 15 years of underground crime data.
Earlier this month, the nonprofit Vital City published a sweeping study titled, “Crime on the New York City Subway: How Rare Is It Really?”
Among the findings were that the 59th-Street Columbus Circle station, which services the A, B, C, D, and 1 train lines, was the fourth most violent of any of the nearly 500 train stations in New York City during 2023, according to Vital City.
Violent crimes were most likely to occur at the Upper West Side station between 8 p.m. and 12 a.m., the nonprofit added.
The only stations to see more violent crimes take place during 2023 were the 125th Street 4, 5, and 6 station, the Lexington Avenue/59th Street 4, 5, and 6 station, and the 74th Street Broadway/Jackson Heights 7, E, F, M, and R station in Queens.
The 59th Street-Columbus Circle station is also one of the largest in the subway system, which was common in all the stops with the most violent crime in 2023.
The study had a few major takeaways:
- While major crime on the subway remains rare, serious assaults in transit have more than tripled between 2009 and 2023, from about 150 to 540.
- Robberies and thefts have decreased on the subways during the same time period.
- Less than a tenth of the city’s 472 subway stations account for half of all violent crime during the period.
- Since 2019, violent crimes from repeat subway offenders has doubled.
- Gun violence on the subway remains very rare.
- Around 2,000 total subway crimes are recorded each year, according to the data.
You can read more on Gothamist’s website, which published an in-depth piece on the report last week.
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I have been assaulted three times in NYC – the police didn’t take a report, they just kept giving me assurance that they would catch them next time. Stood there and listened attentively with their hands in their pockets – despite the guys being about 100 yards away walking down the middle of Broadway. They had tried to pull me out of my car through the window. I don’t believe police data anymore. They only take reports if you left in an ambulance or a police car.
That is not the subway. You can’t drive your car in the subway. This article is about underground crime, not traffic incidents.
So were these transit cops?
They’re the same now, remember? Street cops, transit cops, all one force.
Need to vote better.
If a police officer for mayor can’t bring the results you want from the police, maybe it’s time for something new.
Evidently NYPD aren’t interested in doing their jobs as that story indicates. How many more billions should we be spending on a non-functional police department?
What’s the incentive for the NYPD to do their job when you have DA’s that let the perp’s out with no bail within hours. Would you risk your life for that. Get aa clue! You get the government you vote for.
What’s the incentive to report when cops show plainly they are not doing their jobs acting on what’s reported? I’d expect this MO, your report, as bound to suppress others’ reporting, Your report leaves me discouraged. As I recall NO instance of seeing police acting in the face of various violations: of vehicles in traffic, by pedestrians, by people on subway platforms….No instance of acting to MY getting attacked, threatened. Including many instances when several people nearby have stopped to see I was OK: that I needed no help. People w/ no official duty to protect me; to enforce laws against violations. Much kindness, compassion. Alas, just a few bad episodes can overwhelm so many that are good. Or likely would be.
NYPD may not like it, but they don’t get to write the laws. Their job is to enforce the laws as written and if they don’t like it they should find other work instead of going on strike.
Alvin Bragg has chosen not to enforce the laws that he doesn’t like. Are you ok with that ?
Not really complicated to fix.
Police department is non-functional because leaders who represent us
passed laws that made it so.
Rollback the changes they made.
Elect District attorneys who will actually prosecute criminals.
All this costs nothing,
“serious assaults in transit have more than tripled between 2009 and 2023,”
“Since 2019, violent crimes from repeat subway offenders has doubled”
I am guessing that one factor may be “bail reform” given the 2019 date. Also an increase in the numbers of violent repeat mentally ill / addicted offenders residing in the subway system.
Is ANY potential opponent of Mayor Adams going to do something about this?
What I loved about the actual article was that there was no “guessing” involved. So much more interesting to read something that includes facts not suppositions.
The Mayor cannot change legislation like “bail reform,” “raise the age,” or “the diaphragm compression bill.” That has to be done by State Senators and State Assembly members, and signed off by The Governor, in Albany.
Agree our Mayor has been inept, just look at the jokers he put in charge of NYPD… but are we really just going to pretend nothing else happened in 2020? Maybe something dramatic that saw crime rates increase nationwide?
You are correct. The summer of 2020 birthed the Left’s disastrous Defund the police movement, which directly led to the spike in crime. As many of the commenters here have stated: “We need to vote better”.
Except they weren’t actually defunded, so your inference that a protest slogan translated into actual policy is nonsensical.
I said “one factor.” There was also the defining down of various crimes so that the accused would not be held in jail to await trial. The goal was keeping dudes out of Rikers not protecting the general public.
In 2019, New York ended the use of money bail and jail for most cases involving misdemeanors and lower-level felonies. The law, which was implemented in January 2020, sought to make release rather than detention the default in these cases.
Unbelievable. There is a police station in that subway station!
I once called 911 from the Columbus Circle station and the operator couldn’t find the station in her database! This is true, not a joke.
A few years ago I called 911 from the B/C platform – right downstairs from the police hub. Couldn’t get a policeman at all
Possibly why more crimes are quickly and easily reported there! I like Grand Central, CC is also a station that has a lot of tourist traffic. Tourists anre ant once easy marks for crimes of opportunity, and maybe more likely to report robberies if NYPD are present. Also it’s an incredibly busy, huge, station. Like Grand Central, these big stations might show very little crime if the data were reported as incidents per station user. Not to blame the victims, just to say that issues related location, ridership and crime reporting, actual crime, and crime in areas with police presence might affect the data collected.
Time and place is the story of most crime citywide.
We need many more cops and cameras in the stations.
I would not be caught dead in the subway. UBER is the only safe mode of transportation at this time.
Meh – NYC still has one of the lowest per capita crime rates of any city in the nation – extremely low. Articles like this get people worked up and the more reactive among us will pledge to “not be caught dead in the subway” but that’s an over reaction. Pretty darn safe (and certainly more than driving).
Things are much safer than they were in the 1850s and 60s.
Mile for mile traveled, you are incorrect.
To each their own, but I’ve used the subway for decades and have been okay. Several people I know personally had bad, creepy, and nasty experience on Uber … What is statistically safer? I don’t know. Only that no one solution works for everyone, and that Uber isn’t necessarily safe (let alone the “only safe mode”).
I complain about crime, even in this thread, but I use the subway all the time. It gets you there.
That sucks! I’ve used the subway in NYC forever! Never had any problems! …. (Fingers crossed! )
Same here. Over 60 years and no incidents.
I wonder if the 74/Broadway in Queens is high on the list because there are lots of travelers coming in on the Q70 from LGA? Might be ripe pickings.
I recently saw a deranged person threatening people on the 7 train platform at Times Square. I called 911 and the operator asked a bunch of questions about me (my name, phone number, where I lived , etc). I tried to explain the situation and where I was but she wanted me to answer her questions first. I just gave up and disconnected the call.
I went to a meeting in the Time building or whatever it’s called near CC with the cops and the cops were blasé and not that engaged. It’s sad.
Criminals are like children; if you don’t punish them, they will continue on the same path.
Make police effective. get rid of “bail reform”, catch and release, repeat offenders, legalization of everything.
Interestingly, I think that the transit police is stationed at 59th and Columbus. Or am I wrong?
You are correct. NYPD Transit District One. However, it is a large station with several entrances and many train lines.
Just curious, why take ownership of this station as part of the upper west side? The only people who call this area “UWS” just fell off the onion truck from Vidalia, CA (and calculating realtors).
the internet disagrees with you.
Just to be perfectly accurate, Columbus Circle is the Lincoln Square neighborhood, not UWS.
I’m a native New Yorker, and I never heard the term Lincoln Square until I moved there. I always considered the are from 59-72nd the lower part of the Upper West Side.
Lincoln Square is actually part of the UWS.
Of course that station is high on the list; it’s like 10 stations in one!! I’d like to see statistics for the “IRT” 72nd and 96th stations. How about the local stops. That would be interesting.
To call this an UWS station is a tad bit of a stretch.
It is midtown.
Stats are based only on reported crimes. The stuff that doesn’t get reported or ignored by the phone scrolling cops go uncounted.
One of the things I don’t see mentioned a lot is the City Council. From what I understand, getting some things approved by them is virtually impossible. A great example is the Sanctuary City situation, which they refuse to change.
As much as we need to vote for a decent mayor, and DAs who will keep felons in jail, we should look at how we vote for City Council.
@Vera – the UWS starts at 59th street. Lincoln Square (broker BS) is also part of the UWS.
Over 45 yrs using the subway every day and never an incident. So I guess I’ve been lucky so far.
>”Less than a tenth of the city’s hundreds of subway stations account for half of all violent crime underground — with some of the largest transit hubs at the top of the list”–I’m puzzled: Who does this surprise? What impression on me is it intended to leave? I feel I don’t have the requisite context. “An Upper West Side train station was among the most violent in New York City in 2023, according to a recent report.” Well, is that station among the busiest half of stations? While all others here are among the least busy half? If so, that’s precisely what I’d expect. I’d be surprised if instead this report deviates one way or the other. Albeit not much if only marginal deviation. If the report instead conveyed none of the largest transit hubs top the list. That would surprise me. Strikingly so.
I was watching local news this afternoon and the reporter asked Mayor Adamas what he thought of this situation and his reply was “pardon me”.
Thank you and have a wonderful day!
I was at the 59th street station, downtown side, at 5:30 on Tuesday evening. There were nine cops on the platform in clusters of two, three and four. A couple where questioning or engaged in conversation with someone, some were on their phones, others just standing around, not moving. I wondered why there were so many in one place and none on the uptown side that I could see.
The behavior of the cops is just ridiculous. I want to like/respect them but this is what they do: flock like groups of birds in the cold, eating seeds on the ground, and waiting for the time to fly off for a break.
I have lived on Columbus Circle for 25 years and the deterioration of the station during that time is appalling. Homeless sprawled out on the benches. Mentally ill ranting and raving. Migrants EVERYWHERE selling their nasty fruit. Migrant candy sellers standing on the stairways. The two principal escalators have been out of service for 9 months with a projected return date of May 31. That will make ONE YEAR since the escalators stopped working. The MTA needs to get its act together.
Not interested in wading into the politics, but I’m a very regular subway rider and I can report that I have seen a dramatic increase in police presence and arrests in the last year or so. Mostly in other boroughs though so it may not be as visible here. But I have noticed a corresponding reduction in panhandling and other inappropriate subway use which I’ve seen in Manhattan as well. A lot of the arrests have been for relatively minor things like fare evasion, but that may result in fewer people getting on the subway to preach/beg/do other non-transportation activities.
I’ve never been attacked on the subway despite riding it regularly for 50 years and regularly taking it to the South Bronx and similar areas. This doesn’t necessarily mean I think it’s safe though.
Ironically my only time being attacked on public transportation was while going through the suburbs on NJ transit. On that occasion I was unable to make a police report and I felt like it may have been made intentionally difficult. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case here as well.