Every Building — New York City

Methodology & Definitions

Data Source

Building data comes from MapPLUTO (Primary Land Use Tax Lot Output), published by the NYC Department of City Planning. MapPLUTO merges tax lot data from the Department of Finance with building and zoning information from the Department of Buildings and City Planning. The dataset used here is version 25v1 (January 2025) and contains approximately 857,000 building records.

Construction Era

Before 1920 — MapPLUTO YearBuilt before 1920. Includes colonial, 19th-century, and early 20th-century construction. Dates this old are highly unreliable; the city's DOB permit records do not go back this far, so many buildings are tagged with later dates or have no date at all.

1920–1950 — YearBuilt between 1920 and 1949. The interwar building boom: Art Deco skyscrapers, the first public housing, and the outer-borough apartment expansion. More reliable than earlier eras but still imperfect.

1950–1980 — YearBuilt between 1950 and 1979. The postwar era: Robert Moses highways, towers-in-the-park, and suburban-style development in the outer boroughs. Generally reliable.

1980–2010 — YearBuilt between 1980 and 2009. Late 20th-century development through the post-9/11 building boom. Reliable.

Since 2010 — YearBuilt of 2010 or later. The most recent wave of construction. Most reliable era in the dataset.

Unknown year — YearBuilt is 0 or missing. Approximately 39,000 lots.

Important: Dates before roughly 1950 are highly unreliable. The city's building records (MapPLUTO YearBuilt) come from DOB permit filings, which were not designed as a historical archive. Much of New York was built in the 1800s, but the data dramatically undercounts pre-1900 construction. (More, more)

Building Height

Single-story (1 fl) — MapPLUTO NumFloors = 1 or 0 (defaulted to 1).

Low-rise (2–6 fl) — NumFloors between 2 and 6. Includes most row houses and walk-up apartment buildings.

Mid-rise (7–20 fl) — NumFloors between 7 and 20.

High-rise (21–49 fl) — NumFloors between 21 and 49.

Skyscraper (50+ fl) — NumFloors of 50 or more.

Floor counts are self-reported by building owners to the Department of Finance and may not always reflect current conditions.

Building Use

Derived from the first character of MapPLUTO's BldgClass field, which uses the NYC Department of Finance building classification system.

Residential — Class A (one-family), B (two-family), C (walk-up apartment), D (elevator apartment), R (condominium).

1-Family — Class A. Detached and attached one-family homes.

2-Family — Class B. Two-family homes.

Walk-Up — Class C. Apartment buildings without elevators, typically under 6 stories.

Elevator/Condo — Classes D (elevator apartments) and R (condominiums).

Mixed Use — Class S. Buildings combining residential with commercial use, such as ground-floor retail with apartments above.

Commercial — Classes H (hotels), J (theaters/auditoriums), K (stores/retail), L (lofts), O (offices).

Industrial — Classes E (warehouses), F (factories), G (garages), T (transportation facilities), U (utilities).

Institutional — Classes I (hospitals/health facilities), M (religious buildings), N (asylums/civic institutions), W (schools/educational buildings).

Religious — Class M. Churches, synagogues, mosques, and other houses of worship.

Schools — Class W. Public and private schools, colleges, and other educational facilities.

Hospitals — Class I. Hospitals, clinics, and health facilities.

Other Civic — Class N. Asylums, nursing homes, and other institutional facilities.

Other — Classes P (outdoor recreation), Q (parks/open space), V (vacant land), Z (miscellaneous), and any unrecognized class codes.

Borough

Derived from MapPLUTO BoroCode: 1 = Manhattan, 2 = Bronx, 3 = Brooklyn, 4 = Queens, 5 = Staten Island.

Spotlight Layers

Landmarks — Buildings individually designated as landmarks by the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission. Data from LPC's public designations list. Note: Historic districts are not included — only individual landmark designations.

Demolished — Buildings with recorded demolition permits in DOB filings (approximately 2000 onward). Earlier demolitions are not tracked. Derived from DOB job filings with job type "DM" (Demolition).

Vacant lots — Tax lots with building class starting with "V" (Vacant Land) in MapPLUTO.

Under Construction — Active new-building permits from the DOB NOW: Build filing system. Includes jobs with types "New Building" and "ALT-CO — New Building with Existing Elements to Remain" in "Permit Entire" or "Permit Issued" status, filed since January 2023. Fetched live from the NYC Open Data API. Does not include renovations or alterations to existing buildings.

Color Modes

Age — Buildings colored on a warm-to-cool gradient. Bright orange = recently built; darker orange = ~50 years old; mauve/purple = ~100 years; deep purple = 200+ years. Gold-tinted dots indicate individually landmarked buildings. Red flash indicates a recently demolished building.

Height — Buildings colored on a cream-to-crimson gradient based on floor count: pale cream = 1 floor; warm gold = mid-rise; deep crimson = 50+ floors.

Type — Each building class is assigned a distinct color. See Building Use definitions above for the class-to-category mapping.

Borough — Each borough gets a distinct color: Manhattan (amber), Bronx (pink), Brooklyn (blue), Queens (green), Staten Island (yellow).

Other Data

Parks — Green polygons from NYC Parks Department open data. Shown at all times regardless of filters.

Addresses — Derived from MapPLUTO Address field. Title-cased for display. Some lots have no address recorded.

Lot size — Dot radius is proportional to MapPLUTO LotArea (in square feet), clamped to a reasonable range.

Building count — The "812,036 Buildings" counter reflects the number of buildings currently visible given the active year and filters, not the total in the dataset (857,000).

Known Limitations

• Construction dates before ~1950 are highly unreliable (see above).
• Demolition records only go back to approximately 2000.
• Floor counts are self-reported and may be outdated.
• Landmark data covers individual designations only, not historic districts.
• Under Construction data covers DOB NOW filings only, not the older BIS system; some active construction sites may be missing.
• Building class codes are assigned by the Department of Finance for tax purposes and may not perfectly reflect a building's current use.
• MapPLUTO is updated quarterly; the data here may lag real-world conditions by several months.

Last updated: March 2026. Data sources: NYC Department of City Planning (MapPLUTO 25v1), NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, NYC Department of Buildings (DOB NOW: Build), NYC Parks Department.

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