Top 10 Worst Neighborhoods In Queens (2024)

Many people associate poverty with crime, which is why they just assume that Queens must be a crime riddled neighborhood. They then search the worst neighborhoods in Queens in an attempt to prove their misguided assumption right. To be unbiased; there is crime in Queens, New York, but hardly on the scale of Portland, VA or Corpus Christi, TX.

Queens has its own share of misguided young people who think that guns can empower them to get whatever they want with minimal effort. They therefore go about committing petty crimes, and doing stupid things, therefore worsening the already bad perception that people have about this otherwise cultured community.

Nevertheless, these are the parts of Queens that are generally unsafe, and that should be avoided as much as possible.

Top 10 Worst Neighborhoods In Queens 2023

1. Jamaica

Jamaica in Queens, is a neighborhood that is made up of a large commercial section, and a smaller residential area. There are several small businesses in the area; many of them being retail outlets. Jamaica has many government establishments within its borders, and they provide an added boost to the economy of the neighborhood and of the city as a whole.

Jamaica has a lot of unruly and very aggressive people; many of the street fights circulating on the internet originate from this neighborhood. There is still some gang related activity going on in Jamaica; although that has dropped sharply.

Nevertheless, Jamaica is still one of the roughest parts of Queens; there is usually at least one shooting incident every month, and some of them resulting in multiple casualties. Muggings are also quite frequent, and there is a lot of low level drug activity.

2. Willets Point

Willets Point; in Queens is an industrial area which is also locally called The Iron Triangle. This area also has a lot of junk yards, and a few auto-repair shops. Willets Point is undergoing redevelopment, and the face of the neighborhood is changing.

Willets Point sees a few shooting incidences, but what is more worrying is the spate of armed robbery. Homes and businesses have been robbed, sometimes at gun points, while pedestrians have also been relieved of valuables including cash, jewelry and mobile phones right on the streets.

3. The Rockaways

The Rockaways is a peninsula at the southern edge of the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, New York. It is called the people’s beach; a place where New Yorkers come to enjoy themselves in the sun. Nevertheless, this area has its own residents; there are about nine neighborhoods in this area.

The Rockaways is a mixture of lower, middle and upper-class neighborhoods; it is quickly attracting people of a finer quality. One of the big attractions to the Rockaways is the Rockaway Broadwalk; which is an important tourist attraction.

The Rockaways has a bit of crime on-going; there are murders, shootings, and robberies. Interestingly, some of the heavy crimes in this neighborhood have been committed by women.

4. Ozone Park

Ozone Park dates back to 1882; it is a neighborhood in the southwestern section of Queens, in the New York. This nearby is close to the Aqueduct Racetrack in South Ozone Park, which is a center for Thoroughbred racing. Ozone Park is multiethnic; many residents are from Caribbean, Hispanic, and Asian backgrounds.

Ozone Park has a large residential area; there are low income, middle income, and wealthy people living in this neighborhood. There are also small businesses and retail outlets here as well.

Ozone Park is considered one of the worst neighborhoods in Queens, not because of the state of the architecture, but because of the constant occurrence of gun violence in the area- of which children are not spared.

5. Rosedale

Rosedale is a neighborhood in the southeastern side of Queens. The neighborhood is multiethnic, although it is predominantly black. Furthermore, this neighborhood has noticed a marked decrease in population; people are moving out.

This may be because Rosedale is just not a very safe place to live; there is a high rate of crime in the neighborhood, and some of them are quite perplexing. Rosedale has several reports of gun violence, and periodically there are casualties; people ending up dead- some of them quite young.

6. Corona

Corona is a neighborhood in the borough of Queens in New York City. Some of the most popular thoroughfares in this neighborhood include; Corona Avenue, Roosevelt Avenue, Northern Boulevard, and 108th Street. Interestingly, most of the residents of this neighborhood are of Italian, German, Irish and of other European ancestries. To make the neighborhood even more multicultural, Corona also has a significant Chinese population.

Corona is not considered one of the safer neighborhoods in Queens; there are several shooting incidences happening there throughout the year, and there even more worrisome reports; including people being killed by blunt force trauma to the head, or by stabbings in the torso. This is just a dangerous neighborhood to be!

7. Ridgewood

Ridgewood is a neighborhood in Queens, New York City. This neighborhood has a lot of German descendants; it was largely the influx of people with German ancestry that led to the development of the neighborhood in the early 20^th Century. However, the neighborhood has largely become multicultural; with every major ethnic group represented in its demographics.

The presence of gangs make Ridgewood a rather disturbing place to live; much of the gun violence recorded in this neighborhood is traced back to gang related activity; there are many shootings in the neighborhood, and there are also robberies and other kinds of crime in the area.

8. Long Island City

Long Island City is a neighborhood in the western tip of Queens, in New York. It is more or less a commercial neighborhood, although there are a few residential buildings as well. This area is one of the main art centers in New York; it has a thriving art community, as well as a high concentration of music studios and art galleries.

There is an on-going association between arts (including music) and drugs; many young people think they cannot do one without the other. As a result; Long Island City has a lot of gang related activity; as well as gun violence- some of which result in deaths.

9. Queensbridge Projects

Queensbridge Projects is actually in the Long Island City neighborhood; but this area deserves its own special mention. This is a public housing development; one that is

Most people already know that they need to be wary of anything with “projects” attached to it; those places are generally unsafe. In Queensbridge, it is considered normal to hear reports of shootings quite frequently- many of which result in death.

10. Roosevelt Avenue

Roosevelt Avenue is one of the main thoroughfares in the borough of Queens. There are many commercial destinations along this road; and the rail line is also interwoven with it. This is one of the busiest parts of Queens.

Roosevelt Avenue is a place where the good people must meet some of the more unsavory types in the city; there are shootings reported in the neighborhood quite often; and casualties are usually reported. There are also many reports of robberies in this neighborhood, some of which involve bodily harm.

Closing

The worst neighborhoods in Queens often have gang related activity, as well as gun violence at the heart of their problems. These neighborhoods have for a long time been abandoned; thus resulting in poverty, and a concentration of people with criminal tendencies. It now seems like Queens is becoming gentrified; the city is proud of its history, but doing a lot to fight crime.