NYC Neighborhoods polygons and correlated data with their respective Postal Codes, Assembly Districts, Community Districts, Congressional Districts, Council Districts and State Senate Districts created by Ontodia. There are hundreds of neighborhoods in New York City's five boroughs, each with unique characteristics and histories. Many historical neighborhood names are derived from the names of the previously independent villages, towns, and cities that were incorporated into into the City of New York in the consolidation of 1898. Other neighborhood names have been introduced by real estate developers and urban planners, sometimes contentiously. Boundaries of neighborhoods are notoriously fuzzy, although many boundaries are widely agreed upon. Complicating the definition of neighborhood further, boundaries may overlap, some neighborhoods may function as a micro-neighborhood within another neighborhood, or a larger district which can be made up of multiple neighborhoods. Names and boundaries of neighborhoods shift over time; they are determined by the collective conscious of the people who live, work, and play in these places. There is never an official version of neighborhoods, but the concept is deeply meaningful to many people. In many cases a New Yorker is just as proud to claim identity with a particular neighborhood, and visitors plan their trips around visits to specific neighborhoods. To display data about neighborhoods on NYCpedia we created our own neighborhood boundaries, 264 in all. In order to display a continuous map with no overlap some boundaries have been stretched or shrunk, and neighborhoods have been omitted in this version. We intend to expand our work developing neighborhood polygon files (all released with open source license) and also to collect and organize as many meaningful alternative versions of neighborhood boundaries as possible. If you are a map geek or software developer who builds apps about New York City you can find the shapefile and geoJSON of the NYCpedia neighborhoods on Data Wrangler. Drop us a line if you see any errors, or if you have suggestions for how to improve our conception of NYC geography.
