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structures make up the built fabric of New York City
A statistical portrait of every building in the five boroughs — when they were built, how tall they stand, what they are, and what's been torn down
City records say the 1920s shaped New York more than any other decade
Buildings constructed per decade, 1850–2020s, according to DOB permit records. Earlier decades are likely undercounted.
Source: NYC MapPLUTO tax lot data, Dept. of City Planning
Note: Construction dates before ~1950 come from DOB permit records, which are incomplete for older buildings. Pre-1950 counts likely understate actual construction in those decades.
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buildings are dated to the 1920s in city records — more than one in five structures standing in New York today. Earlier decades are likely undercounted.
Nearly two-thirds of New York is dated to before the end of World War II
Share of buildings by construction era, per city records. Pre-1950 dates are approximate.
pre-1850
1850–99
1900–19
1920–45
1946–69
1970–89
1990–09
2010+
Boom/Depression (1920–45)
Fiscal crisis era (1970–89)
Source: NYC MapPLUTO. Percentages of buildings with known construction year (817,839 of 857,161).
New York is a city of low-rises dressed up as a city of skyscrapers
Distribution of buildings by height category across all five boroughs. Median building: 2 floors.
Source: NYC MapPLUTO NumFloors field. 0-floor entries counted as low-rise.
Nearly two-thirds of New York's buildings are one- or two-family homes
Buildings by primary use classification (PLUTO BldgClass first character)
Source: NYC MapPLUTO BldgClass field. Class A = one-family, B = two-family, C = walk-up, D = elevator apt, etc.
Three numbers that define the city's built landscape
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Mean age of a
New York building
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Buildings demolished
since 2000
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New buildings erected
on existing lots
Manhattan's buildings are nearly twice as old as Staten Island's — and three times taller
Borough-level building statistics from NYC MapPLUTO
| Borough |
Buildings |
Floors
mean / median |
Avg. Age |
Peak Decade |
| Manhattan |
42,116 |
6.5 / 5 |
110 yrs |
1910s |
| Bronx |
89,341 |
2.5 / 2 |
81 yrs |
1920s |
| Brooklyn |
275,844 |
2.4 / 2 |
94 yrs |
1920s |
| Queens |
324,294 |
2.0 / 2 |
84 yrs |
1920s |
| Staten Island |
125,566 |
1.9 / 2 |
59 yrs |
1970s |
Source: NYC MapPLUTO. Bar width proportional to building count. Ages calculated from YearBuilt field. The citywide median building has 2 floors; the mean is 2.4.
1970s
Staten Island is the only borough whose construction peak came after World War II — a suburban expansion that arrived half a century behind the rest of the city
Since 2000, new construction has outpaced demolition by more than 2 to 1
Demolitions and new construction on previously built lots by decade, NYC DOB job filings
Source: NYC Dept. of Buildings job filings (DM and NB permits). *2020s data is partial through 2025.
About the data
Where the building dates come from. The construction year for each building comes from the YearBuilt field in MapPLUTO, a tax-lot-level dataset maintained by the NYC Department of City Planning. That field is populated primarily from Department of Buildings permit records. It reflects the year the current structure on a lot was built or last substantially reconstructed — not every building that has ever stood there.
Construction dates before ~1950 are unreliable. The YearBuilt field was not designed as a historical archive. Because it comes from DOB permit records, it only goes back as far as the department's filing system does. Much of New York was built in the 1800s, but surprisingly few buildings carry pre-1900 dates in the data. That's a gap in the records, not in history. Dates become more trustworthy from roughly the mid-20th century onward, once permit tracking was more systematic. Within designated historic districts, the city has done more to backfill accurate dates, but outside those areas many older buildings are misdated or undated.
What "unknown year" means. About 39,000 lots (4.6%) have a YearBuilt of zero, meaning no construction date was recorded. These tend to be utility lots, parking structures, vacant land with minor improvements, or older buildings whose records were lost. They appear on the map as dark gray dots.
Demolitions and rebuilds. Demolition and new-construction counts come from DOB job filings (type DM for demolition, type NB for new building). These records are only reliably available from roughly 2000 onward, so the demolition data here captures about 25 years of activity — not the full history of what's been torn down in New York.
Floor counts. The NumFloors field in MapPLUTO is self-reported by property owners on tax forms and can be inconsistent. A "floor" in a warehouse is not the same as a floor in a residential tower. The stories-per-decade chart uses these numbers at face value, so treat it as a rough proxy for building volume, not a precise engineering measure.
Landmark designations. Landmark data comes from the Landmarks Preservation Commission's individual and interior landmark lists, joined by BBL. Historic district boundaries are not yet included in this version.