NYC Open Data (311) API

Base URL

https://data.cityofnewyork.us/resource

Authentication

No key needed for reasonable volumes. A free Socrata app token raises throttling limits, but it is not required and anonymous requests are not blocked.

Rate limit

Anonymous requests share a per-IP throttle pool. Heavy scraping is throttled rather than refused; an app token moves you to a higher bucket.

Pricing

Free. NYC Open Data is published under the city's open data terms of use.

CORS

Enabled — callable directly from browser JavaScript

Official docs

Read the docs

Every request below was executed against the live API on 21 Aug 2026, and the response shown is the real body it returned — not an illustration.

curl 'https://data.cityofnewyork.us/resource/erm2-nwe9.json?$limit=1'

const res = await fetch("https://data.cityofnewyork.us/resource/erm2-nwe9.json?$limit=1");
if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${res.status}`);
const data = await res.json();
console.log(data);

import requests

res = requests.get("https://data.cityofnewyork.us/resource/erm2-nwe9.json?$limit=1", timeout=20)
res.raise_for_status()
print(res.json())

[
  {
    "unique_key": "70117611",
    "created_date": "2026-08-20T01:50:51.000",
    "agency": "NYPD",
    "agency_name": "New York City Police Department",
    "complaint_type": "Blocked Driveway",
    "descriptor": "Partial Access",
    "location_type": "Street/Sidewalk",
    "incident_zip": "11369",
    "incident_address": "24-29 95 STREET",
    "street_name": "95 STREET",
    "cross_street_1": "24 AVENUE",
    "cross_street_2": "JACKSON MILL ROAD",
    "intersection_street_1": "24 AVENUE",
    "intersection_street_2": "JACKSON MILL ROAD",
    "address_type": "ADDRESS",
    "city": "EAST ELMHURST",
    "landmark": "95 STREET",
    "status": "In Progress",
    "community_board": "03 QUEENS",
    "council_district": "21",
    "police_precinct": "Precinct 115",
    "bbl": "4011060053",
    "borough": "QUEENS",
    "x_coordinate_state_plane": "1018980",
    "y_coordinate_state_plane": "218103",
    "open_data_channel_type": "ONLINE",
    "park_facility_name": "Unspecified",
    "park_borough": "QUEENS",
    "latitude": "40.76525055292101",
    "longitude": "-73.87462516861908",
    "location": {
      "type": "Point",
      "coordinates": [
        -73.874625168619,
        40.765250552921
      ]
    },
    ":@computed_region_f5dn_yrer": "65",
    ":@computed_region_yeji_bk3q": "3",
    ":@computed_region_sbqj_enih": "73",
    ":@computed_region_92fq_4b7q": "21"
  }
]

unique_keystring

Stable identifier for the service request.

created_date / closed_datestring

Floating timestamps with no timezone suffix — they are local New York time.

agency / agency_namestring

Short code and full name of the responding agency, for example `NYPD`.

complaint_type / descriptorstring

Category and sub-category. `complaint_type` is the field worth faceting on.

statusstring

`Open`, `In Progress`, `Closed` and similar values.

borough / community_board / council_districtstring

Political and administrative geography attached to each request.

latitude / longitudestring

Coordinates as strings, not numbers. Cast before using them.

locationobject

GeoJSON Point with numeric coordinates — easier to consume than the string pair.

:@computed_region_*string

Socrata's automatic spatial joins. Not city data; safe to ignore.

• Map noise, rat or pothole complaints by neighbourhood
• Aggregate complaint volume per agency without downloading the raw rows
• Track response times by comparing `created_date` and `closed_date`
• Feed a civic dashboard with live 311 activity
• Study seasonality in heating and hot water complaints

If NYC Open Data (311) does not fit, these government & open data apis cover similar ground. Every one was called before publishing, and each links to its own reference page with a working curl command and the response it returned.