Motley — NYC Neighborhoods, Schools & Admissions

Search and filter NYC neighborhoods by borough or name. Returns NTA codes, names, boroughs, and centroid coordinates.

Get full details for a single NYC neighborhood including demographics, raw 0-100 scores, location, and a family-readable interpretation (labeled score bands + cached editorial blurbs). Use the nta_code from search-neighborhoods.

Get a decision-ready, family-readable summary of one NYC neighborhood: a one-paragraph fit verdict, labeled score bands (e.g. 'Peace of Mind: strong (78/100)'), and cached editorial blurbs — with raw scores still available, weekday-morning transit minutes to the city's main job centers, and a link to the neighborhood's Motley page. The interpretation-first front door; start here when a family wa

Get schools within a neighborhood — public, charter, and private. Includes quality ratings, grade levels, contact info. Use count_only for a quick summary, or limit/offset to page the full list (the response reports total/returned).

Find NYC schools citywide by what a family wants — borough, community school district (1-32), grade band (pre-K/elementary/middle/high), school type (public/charter/private), admissions method (zoned, screened, unscreened, limited unscreened, ed-opt, audition, SHSAT, charter lottery, private, universal pre-K), and program focus (arts, sports, STEM, language, academic, clubs). Use this when the f

Use this to turn a school's name into its DBN — the official name, a common short form ('Brooklyn Tech', 'PS 321'), or a DBN to confirm. Returns candidate schools with their district, neighborhood, admission method and Motley page; pick the one that matches and pass its dbn to get-admissions-demand. Never guess a DBN. K-12 schools only (public, charter, private).

Use this when a family asks which elementary school is zoned for a specific NYC address, such as an apartment or building they name. NYC draws school zones building by building, so pass the street address exactly as they typed it — building number and street, ideally with the borough — never the device's location. Returns the zoned K-5 school, the neighborhood, and how zoned admission works; s

Get family resource counts for a neighborhood: recreation centers, playgrounds, libraries, hospitals, farmers markets, ADA subway stations.

Get kids' activities and businesses in a neighborhood — classes, sports, arts, tutoring, etc. Use count_only for category breakdown, or limit/offset to page the full list (reports total/returned). Each place's last_refreshed is when we last confirmed it was still listed.

Get safety and health environment indicators for a neighborhood: crime complaints, collisions, HPD violations, air quality, lead levels, asthma rates — plus a family-readable interpretation of the Peace of Mind and Air & Child Health scores.

Find neighborhoods most similar to a given one based on a 9-dimension score vector (family density, wealth, education, safety, transit, etc.). Returns similarity scores.

Find which NYC neighborhood (NTA) an address or coordinate is in. Pass a NYC address the family gave (placed with NYC's official address directory; include the borough when you know it) OR lat+lng. Returns the NTA code, name, borough, a link to the neighborhood's Motley page, and a decision-ready family-fit summary. Use this to turn a real-world location into a neighborhood you can pass to the oth

Rank NYC neighborhoods by what a family cares about. Pass per-metric weights (family density, schools, affordability, neighborhood character, transit, safety, air quality & child health) and/or ranked priority keywords; optionally scope to one borough. Keywords that map to a metric: safety, schools, academics, affordability, budget, transit, commute, walkability, proximity, community. Any other ke

Compare 2–6 NYC neighborhoods side by side across the 9 family-fit metrics (Family Fit, Families, Affordability, Schools, Neighborhood Character, Transit, Safety, Health, Activities). Pass an array of NTA codes; returns a per-metric matrix with each neighborhood's band and the per-metric leader, plus weekday-morning transit minutes from each to the city's main job centers. Non-residential areas

Use this when a family asks how one of Motley's scores is computed — a neighborhood score (Family Fit, Schools, Safety / Peace of Mind, Affordability, Getting Around, Neighborhood Character, Air & Child Health, Things to Do) or the school rating — or whether the scores are biased toward wealthier areas. Returns what the score measures, its inputs and weights, how they combine, its share of Fam

Use this when a family asks for lists of NYC schools or neighborhoods picked by a rule rather than a ranking: zoned schools that beat their district while serving high-need students; high school programs with more seats per applicant; schools where no group is a majority and families rate them highly (kind 'schools'); or affordable family neighborhoods with such a school, and family neighborhoods

Get the full NYC school-admissions reference: every entry point from 3-K and Pre-K through Kindergarten, Gifted & Talented, and the 8 middle/high admission methods (SHSAT, audition, screened, Ed-Opt, limited unscreened, unscreened, zoned, charter lottery) — each with its typical application window. The methods carry a live program count plus a special_badge naming any extra ask beyond the standa

Explain one NYC admission entry point or method in full — the plain-English explainer, its typical deadline window, and, when the method asks a family for more than a ranked application, exactly what it requires (audition or portfolio, SHSAT registration, a demonstrated-interest sign-in, a private school's own test/interview track) plus the extra paperwork that comes with it. Pass a method key (

Use this when a family asks how a specific school admits students or how hard it is to get in. Returns the school's admission method in full (what it asks of a family, and when), its programs with seats and who may apply, and — where NYC MySchools publishes them — seats vs. applicants per program with a competitiveness band that is Motley's own, not a DOE rating. Most middle schools, and all c

Use this when a family asks what's coming for their child — which NYC school applications (3-K, Pre-K, Kindergarten, Gifted & Talented, middle school, high school) they'll make, and when. Pass each child's current grade, or an age (0–5) for a child not in school yet. Returns every transition in the next two years with the city's published dates where it has announced them, and the typical wind