New Yorkers Assess Public Safety

New York, NY —

Residents who live closest to the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks say they feel the safest. WNYC's Bob Hennelly found the surprising results in Mayor Bloomberg's customer service survey released this week.

REPORTER: Respondents in Community Board One -- Lower Manhattan -- gave their neighborhood the highest public safety rating out of the city's 59 community boards. Public safety was defined as an assessment of fire, EMS and police performance.

Only 2 percent of those rated their local public safety "poor." The West Village and Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan also get high marks for safety, as did Rego Park and Forrest Hills in Queens.

By contrast, in the Ocean Hill and Brownsville sections of Brooklyn, 27 percent of survey respondents graded their local public safety as "poor." Other low scoring neighborhoods include Mott Haven and Morrissania in the Bronx. For WNYC I'm Bob Hennelly.

OUTRO: The public safety ratings were part of City wide customer service and neighborhood attitude survey of more than 24,000 households. The 34 questions covered a broad range of attitudes on the full gamut of city services including public education, social services, parks, and health care.