How safe is New York City? I am asked that frequently. In the last few weeks, the question has come up from people I met in rural Michigan, rural Maine, and rural Vermont. Yes, I travel to a lot of un-citified places. I say that I feel safe. But come to think of it, maybe that isn’t the whole story. 

The taxi driver who took me to LaGuardia on my way to Maine had just witnessed a man pull a gun and start shooting after two others had pummeled him. The driver wasn’t hit and didn’t hang around to see what happened next. On our way home two days later, our taxi was attacked at a stoplight in Harlem. A gang of seven young men surrounded the car. One sprawled on the hood and beat his hands on the windshield. Others tried to open the doors and, finding them locked, pounded on the windows. Some just kept lookout. 

Oddly enough, it seemed more like a spectacle than a dangerous situation. The driver said this was a “new thing” that the kids had been doing recently. My wife observed that if the taxi had had out-of-town passengers, they would probably have been alarmed. Which raised the question: why weren’t we?  

The easiest answer is that the young men weren’t armed. They were attempting to scare people, not harm them. Maybe this is just a matter of reading the situation. My wife and I have both faced more alarming figures in the streets—usually lone individuals who are either crazy or who appear to be selecting targets to rob. The residents in New York have collectively adjusted to some of the new perils. As incidents of people being shoved into the path of oncoming subway cars have become more common, almost everyone now waits well back near the wall. Not so long ago, people crowded forward to be near the subway doors when they opened. Natural selection has solved that problem. 

Most New Yorkers I know stay well away from Times Square. We know where the immigrant hotels are and pick our routes to avoid those blocks. It generally pays to walk quickly. Chanting crowds promoting Hamas or other violent causes may be less dangerous than they sound, but I prefer to leave them to choral antics. Don’t make yourself part of the audience for those extolling the glories of homicide or martyrdom.

But apart from that, New York seems perfectly safe. In the first seven months of this year, major crime fell by 12.7 percent in the city, to the lowest rate in recorded history. We had only 281 shootings (for 462 victims) and only 149 murders, from January through July. Great job, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. Keep it up.

My wife and I have been taking karate instruction for the last 16 years. We’ve never used it outside the dojo, but our sensei is relentlessly focused on self-defense “street techniques.” He also goes out of his way to make sure I know how to handle myself in sketchy bars. I haven’t had the heart to tell him that the closest I’ve come to a sketchy bar is the Yale Club. Still, it gives me a little more confidence to practice tai tsubaki, which is essentially the art of getting out of the way. Slipping past the guy who is up to no good solves most problems.

Often people who ask how safe New York City is next ask whether Mayor Mamdani has done anything to change the situation. Not that I can tell. He has left Commissioner Tisch in charge of the police, which is far and away the best thing he could have done. He has made various pronouncements that he must already regret: raising onerous taxes on the truly wealthy and imposing pied-à-terre taxes on out-of-towners who own New York City apartments, which will drive many affluent people out of the city and erode capital investment here.

In the same vein, he has allowed his staff to float ideas about confiscating private property; he has come down on landlords. And he is jeopardizing small independent businesses (fruit stands and bodegas) with his promise of city-run grocery stores. He is also attempting to stir racial and religious antagonism. None of this sounds good, but his plan to impoverish the city as the first step to a socialist revolution has a long way to go. Most of us think it is just bluster. The boy from Bowdoin College with no work experience has no idea how to carry out his big ideas.

How safe is New York City? For now, as safe as it ever was, and maybe a little safer.   

And since this is a post to Minding the Campus, let me add that the whole city is a campus. There are colleges and universities across all the boroughs. They could not exist if parents thought the city was truly unsafe. And they probably couldn’t exist either if students didn’t feel a little frisson that comes from knowing that there is indeed real danger out there if you don’t know what you are doing.

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