Upper West Side (Central)

Neighborhood · Manhattan

Between Central Park and the Hudson River, Upper West Side (Central) takes in the middle of the Upper West Side, with Riverside Park and Riverside Drive, both laid out to Frederick Law Olmsted's designs.

  • 0.91 square miles
  • 101,767 residents, 2020 Census
  • 145 street corners
  • 6 subway stations
  • 10 bus routes

Once called Bloomingdale, probably after the Dutch town of Bloemendaal, it saw a building boom from 1885 to 1910 after the Ninth Avenue elevated line arrived in the 1870s and the city's first subway opened in 1904. The American Museum of Natural History, founded in 1869 and home to the Hayden Planetarium, and the New-York Historical Society are among its institutions. The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument stands at Riverside Drive and 89th Street.

Sources: Upper West Side (Wikipedia); American Museum of Natural History (Encyclopaedia Britannica).

Map

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Upper West Side (Central) borders three areas.

Street map of Upper West Side (Central), Manhattan, outlined among Central Park, Upper West Side-Lincoln Square and Upper West Side-Manhattan Valley, with its six subway stations and Riverside Park.Upper West Side-Manhattan ValleyCentral ParkUpper West Side-Lincoln Square
  • Upper West Side (Central)
  • A neighboring area
  • Park
  • A station in the list
  • Another station

Neighborhood areas and streets: NYC Department of City Planning. Parks: NYC Parks. Stations: MTA.

Neighboring areas

Subway stations

  • 96 St lines 1 2 3 accessible
  • 96 St lines B C
  • 86 St lines 1
  • 86 St lines B C
  • 79 St lines 1
  • 81 St-Museum of Natural History lines B C

Getting around

Six subway stations and buses on ten routes stop in or at the edge of Upper West Side (Central).

  • 6 subway stations
  • 1 of them listed by the MTA as fully accessible
  • 9 local bus routes
  • 1 express bus route

Local bus routes

  • M5
  • M7
  • M10
  • M11
  • M79-SBS
  • M86-SBS
  • M96
  • M104
  • M106

Express bus route

  • BxM2

Safety record

Between 2021 and 2025, its corners averaged more police-reported crashes than the average Manhattan corner.

  • 2,043 police-reported crashes at its corners
  • 14.1 a corner, on average
  • 13.4 the average Manhattan corner
  • 4 corners with a clean record

Signal or safety changes on City record, at 125 of its corners

Leading pedestrian intervals
105
Accessible pedestrian signals
39
Barnes Dance all-way crossings
17
Turn calming
11
Enhanced crossings
2
Safety Improvement Projects
2

Camera tickets

In 2025 its corners had more school-zone speed camera tickets than red-light or bus-lane tickets.

  • 351 red-light camera tickets at one corner
  • 7,726 school-zone speed camera tickets at seven corners
  • 315 bus-lane camera tickets at one corner
Most red-light tickets
Amsterdam Avenue & West 96th Street, 351
Most speed tickets
Amsterdam Avenue & West 96th Street, 2,550
Most bus-lane tickets
Central Park West & West 86th Street, 315

People and homes

The 2020 Census counted 101,767 residents in Upper West Side (Central), about 111,800 per square mile.

  • 56,787 homes, 2020 Census
  • 64 homes added since April 2010, net, by City Planning's count

Half of its 2,404 residential lots hold buildings from 1894 or earlier, and 95% of them date from before 1940, by the City's tax lot records.

NYCHA developments

NYCHA's De Hostos Apartments, Rehab Program (Wise Rehab), Thomas Apartments and WSUR (Brownstones) developments lie wholly or partly within Upper West Side (Central), as do four more that NYCHA names by buildings' addresses.

Parks and landmarks

Parkland
84.9 acres of Riverside Park, as NYC Parks maps it within Upper West Side (Central)
Designated landmarks
The Belleclaire Hotel, the Trinity School, the (former) St. Agnes Parish House and the Belnord Apartments, among others
Historic districts
Central Park West - 76th Street, Riverside Drive-West 80th-81st Street, Riverside-West End, Riverside-West End Extension I, Upper West Side/Central Park West and West End - Collegiate, wholly or partly within Upper West Side (Central)

Streets and trees

Trees
6,671 in NYC Parks' records, most often thornless honeylocust, pin oak and London planetree
Street with the most corners
Amsterdam Avenue, with 24 of the area's 145
Height above sea level
From 37 feet at Riverside Drive & West 97th Street to 121 feet at Columbus Avenue & West 93rd Street
Honorary street names
15 at its corners, enacted by local law

Schools and libraries

The City lists 41 schools and one library in Upper West Side (Central).

Public schools
17
Charter and private schools
24
Library
St. Agnes Library

Bike share and public art

By the station list of October 3, 2026, 20 bike-share stations stand in Upper West Side (Central). The City's public art inventory lists four works in the area, among them Soldiers and Sailors Monument (1902), Robert Ray Hamilton Fountain (1906) and The New York Times Capsule (2000).

  • 20 bike-share stations
  • 4 works of public art

Public safety

How complaints are counted

In 2025 the NYPD recorded 878 major felonies at places in Upper West Side (Central).

Recorded by the NYPD at places in Upper West Side (Central)

  • 866 major felonies in 2024
  • 2,837 other felonies, misdemeanors and violations in 2025

In 2025, on the streets along the edge of Upper West Side (Central), the NYPD recorded another 83 major felonies. Counting the streets along its edge, in 2025 the NYPD recorded 9.4 major felonies for every thousand residents the 2020 Census counted in Upper West Side (Central).

Police precincts
24th, 20th (most of the area)
Major felonies recorded at places in Upper West Side (Central), 2021 to 2025

From January to June 2026 the NYPD recorded 465 major felonies at places in Upper West Side (Central), against 416 in the same months of 2025.

Sources: the NYPD's Complaint Data Historic, updated April 28, 2026, and Complaint Data Current (Year To Date), updated July 27, 2026, on NYC Open Data. Figures to June 30, 2026.

Street corners

How the figures above are measured: Methodology.