Safety First: Is Battery Park Safe?

Not to give away the ending – spoiler alert! – but Battery Park City neighborhood has more advantages than just how safe it is – that will be explained later in the article – and read on to the next paragraph to find out which is the biggest advantage of all…

Battery Park City neighborhood is in Manhattan! That’s right, Manhattan, the most desired of all five boroughs! To find a neighborhood like Battery Park City on the island is a miracle. Wanna know why? Keep reading!

To The Five Boroughs

…is a fantastic album by hometown New Yorkers The Beastie Boys. The album is a tribute to the five regions, or boroughs as they are called by the natives, that make up New York City, which some call the center of the world.

The five boroughs are Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx and Staten Island. Two of those boroughs are islands. Can you guess which ones?

One is obvious. The other is Manhattan. Manhattan is the place most people refer to when they say New York City. It’s been extensively mythologized throughout the history of film and television. 

Manhattan is where the action is! It’s where everyone wants to live, preferably near Central PArk. Despite the fact Manhattan is not the most populous of the five boroughs. As a result, good real estate is hard to come by.

Battery Park City is family-oriented with a small-town vibe and ranks number one on the list of best neighborhoods to raise a family in New York City and number three on the list of best neighborhoods to live in New York City. 

Finding a place like that in such a major metropolis, with such a reputation for grittiness, is rare. To put it in perspective, Gotham City, which Batman is constantly protecting from crimes, is modeled on Manhattan. 

Battery Park City neighborhood is unique and now is your chance to find out what makes it so.

A Battery Of Borders

Battery Park City is quite small. Just ninety-two acres, which translates to just about one-fifth of a square mile. That’s compact.

Battery Park City is on the western side of the southernmost tip of Manhattan island. On the west, it is bordered by the Hudson River, and on the north and south, the Hudson River shoreline. 

Finally, on the east, Battery Park City is bordered by the West Side Highway. Also to the south is the namesake of the neighborhood, The Battery, formerly known as Battery Park. The Battery is a twenty five acre public park. 

The boundaries of Battery Park City neighborhood run from Chambers Street in the north to Little West Street on the southside. 

A Typical Battery Parker

Battery Park City is a smattering of homes and buildings. Sleek high-rises dot, or rather, slice through, the skyline. It is important to note that Battery Park City is a planned community. 

The community is the result of efforts spearheaded in the nineteen fifties to rehabilitate a once prosperous and now run-down port area. In nineteen sixty-eight, plans started in earnest and in 1981 ground was broken on the first skyscraper. 

The typical Battery Parker favors efficiency and practicality, enjoying the easy walkability and direct routes to other parts of the city. They enjoy the convenience the neighborhood has to offer and the accessibility. They are not so interested in the urban aspects of the Big Apple that seem to attract tourists. 

Parents in Battery Park City are generally recognized as more casual, with a laid back approach to raising their children. 

Demi Graphics

Battery Park City has a population of only sixteen thousand, a miniscule slice of the NYC pie. 

More than two thirds of the population identify as white, with a little more than another quarter composed of Asians and Hispanics. The remaining percentage is mixed. Over half of the population fall in the twenty five to fifty four demo. 

Gender diversity skews slightly more towards male than female, but just slightly. The average income is over two hundred thousand dollars, with nearly two-thirds making over one hundred fifty thousand dollars a year. That’s more than three times the national average!

The average resident of Battery Park City – close to half the population – possess a master’s degree or higher. Additionally, forty percent of residents hold a bachelor’s degree. Most of the rest possess at least an associate degree. 

Two thirds of people in the area are best described as ‘living in the city while raising a family’. The remaining third can be called at least ‘family-oriented’. The neighborhood is roughly thirty-three percent populated by families with children. 

Fun Fact! Battery Park City was initially projected to be home for around fourteen thousand residents. As you just read, it has exceeded that estimate.

A Real Look At Real Estate

The bad news is real estate is really expensive! Some of the highest rents outside of the posh neighborhoods of Manhattan like Midtown and the Upper East Side. Battery Park City is characterized as a ‘dense urban’ environment. 

The median rent for just a studio starts at close to four thousand. If your one of those family-oriented residents who need more space, a three bedroom can go into five figures a month to put a roof over the younguns’ heads. Fifteen thousand for a four bedroom.

Maybe it’s better to buy? Maybe a little. A studio will cost you under a million. A four bedroom can get as high as four million. That’s eight figures per bedroom! 

The median home value clocks in at over one and a half million. Still, a much larger percentage of Battery Park City residents prefer to rent their home. Three quarters of the residents rent, as opposed to just one quarter owning their domiciles. 

It’s worth noting that Battery Park City has some notable personalities amongst its residents. Titanic stars, in fact, like Leonardo Dicaprio! ‘Born On The Fourth Of July’ director Oliver Stone calls Battery Park City home, as does Tyra Banks, Cobie Smulders, Dave Gahan, Kris Humphries and Borat himself, Sacha Baron Cohen. Mostly all in the same residential complex, actually.

Fun In Battery Park City

Battery Park City has no shortage of the things a neighborhood in New York City should offer. The neighborhood has many restaurants and bars, enough to keep you planning for months!

Battery Park City does have somewhat of a formal fine dining culture. In line with the real estate prices, I guess. Haute Couture cuisine au francais is on the menu at L’Appart, a Michelin-rated establishment.

You can still get your comfort food on at Shake Shack, though! Or something more casual at Tartinery Hudson Eats. Wash it all down at Loopy Doopy Rooftop Bar, where you can sip your cocktail as the sun sets on a magnificent view. Or rises, whatever your preference, day drinkers. 

That’s not all you find. Everything from mexican burritos at El Vez,a Starr Restaurant, to Texan barbeque at Blue Smoke. Hungry, anyone?

When Nature Calls

After stuffing your stomach, why not walk it off? Or bike it off? Or baseball it off? Being situated so close to the water and the ports, Battery Park City has a lot of outdoor spaces for your enjoyment and recreation.

First off, there is the evergreen popular Nelson A. Rockefeller Park, named after the much-beloved governor. The park overlooks the Hudson River. Enjoy a picnic on one of the lawns or take your kid to the playground. Pick up some treats for the picnic at the nearby intimate Bowling Green farmers market. 

If something more edgy is your style, skip over to Pier A and check out the much-lauded street murals. It’s near the Staten Island Ferry stop. Pier A is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. 

Being a pier zone, naturally there are places to dock your Hudson river sails, such as North Cave Yacht Harbor, a happy home for the rich and powerful. Sailing lessons are available at North Cave.

If indoor entertainment is more your flow, or you need somewhere to plop the kids on a rainy day, Battery Park City also has a comfortable multiplex run by Regal Cinemas. 

Cannot Kill The Battery!

Yes, that is a Metallica reference. Great song! And great words to describe the main attraction of the neighborhood, the place formerly known quaintly and simply as Battery Park, now formally called The Battery.

The park, and thus the surrounding neighborhood, is named for artillery batteries that were built to protect the zone in the eighteen hundreds.

The park is home to many monuments, as well as an ancient fort called Castle Clinton. Another famous attraction of The Battery is the Seaglass Carousel, a fish themed carousel.

The monuments are mostly situated on the appropriately named Monument Walk. Amble along monuments to World War Two, immigrants, the Netherlands, and telegraph operators.

Besides the monuments along the walk, enjoy a moment of serenity in the Hope Garden, a tribute to victims of the AIDS virus. 

Community Matters

As stressed previously, Battery Park City is family-oriented with a small town vibe. A great place where parents know the other residents’ kids and vice versa. 

One hundred percent of respondents in recent polls reported that Battery Park City has a good sense of community and a great rating of public and private schools. The community extends even to diverse segments such as LGBTQ+. Respondents also unanimously rated Battery Park City a place where LGBTQ+ are very accepted. 

One of the top three tips residents will give you when moving into Battery Park City is to get involved in the community. The other two tips are to enjoy the warm months and to be prepared for the cold winter winds off the water. Good advice all around!

The Neighbors Next Door

One selling point for many residents of Battery Park City is the proximity to the neighborhoods nearby, both of which are notable neighborhoods themselves and are mostly within walking distance.

The first neighborhood is the Financial District. You might know it better as Wall Street. Young professionals who live in Battery Park City apartments often work on Wall Street and enjoy the walkability.

Also bordering Battery Park City is the hip, trendy, posh Tribeca. Tribeca might be best known for the Tribeca Film Festival and New Yorkese actor Robert De Niro’s efforts to reinvigorate the neighborhood after the devastating events of 9/11. 

Tribeca is an exceedingly wealthy area full of chic artistic types that represents the great past of New York City.

Getting Around The City

Because of the strategic location in Manhattan, travel to other parts of NYC is convenient. However, what is inconvenient is that there are no subway stops in Battery Park City. You have to scamper over to one of the neighboring hoods.

Wall Street is just a mile away so the commute by foot is just ten, no more than fifteen minutes! And it’s good exercise! Rockefeller Center, the midtown hub, can be reached by public transit in roughly half an hour.

Ferry service is accessible from Battery Park City. The Staten Island Ferry has a station, and you can even ferry over to New Jersey. Should Hell or New York City freeze over. 

But Is It Safe?

Yes, Battery Park City is safe. A very safe place indeed. It has a low violent crime rate and a below-average property crime rate. Crime rates are thirty-eight percent lower than the national average.

Total crime is down almost forty percent, while violent crime is down over fifty percent. Property crime rates is down thirty-five percent. Violent crime rates are fifty-six percent below the national average.

You have a roughly one in seventy chance of becoming a victim of crime, far better odds than many other Manhattan hoods. Your chances of being a victim of violent crime is nearly nonexistent – one in five hundred eighty-two. 

Recent polls reflect this. In one poll, fifty percent say there is virtually no crime. Thirty-three percent say there is very little crime. Only seventeen percent say it is ridden with crime.

In another poll, one hundred percent of respondents say they feel incredibly safe walking alone in Battery Park City alone at night. Day or night, night or day. 

Battery Park City is patrolled by the First Precinct of the New York Police Department, who report that per capita crime in the neighborhood is much lower than other parts of the city.

Straight From The Residents’ Mouth

Residents describe living in Battery Park City as ‘a dream’! They say it is one of the best areas in Manhattan to do almost anything. They call it a ‘more mature’ area compared to other parts of NYC.

Alternately, residents complain that Battery Park City is overrun with cops and security guards and that it has less character than hipper hoods like Chelsea next door and the East Village nearby.

Mostly, they enjoy the outdoor dining, the stunning views, and the fitness of the outdoor atmosphere. Some even go so far as to say, ‘Let’s just admit it, it’s basically a suburb.’

Safety First

Of course, Battery Park City is not a suburb. It is in the middle of a major metropolis. It is prudent to focus on this quick reminder of general safety tips when in Rome or NYC.

Board subway cars that are well-populated, especially at night.

Stay alert. Pickpocketing is a thing, especially in tourist areas. You still have to pass through them as a certified New Yorker. Don’t flaunt your valuables.

In conclusion, you can feel safe in Battery Park City while finding your little slice of peace and quiet in the city that never sleeps.