I wouldn't want to walk around Washington Heights in Manhattan alone at night; I didn't feel terribly safe there during the daytime.

The Bronx is not a terribly safe place either.

Sure, downtown/midtown Manhattan are very safe, but Manhattan is a minority of the overall area of NYC.

Most of the Bronx, about half of Queens, about 1/3 of Brooklyn. Manhattan is mostly gentrified these days, with only a handful of exceptions. Staten Island is odd b/c it is barely walkable to begin with, so it's neither safe nor dangerous to walk.

To be fair, unless you live in the hood in the Bronx or Brooklyn, why would you be walking around alone at night anyway?

Also... in which parts of Queens did you feel unsafe? Queens is actually quite safe.

Everything is relative to what you're used to I guess. I'm from a Canadian suburb, where a 16 years old girl who got attacked in a dark alley at 3:30 am while alone made the news for 3 months because that was the worse thing that had happened in decades.

Now I'm in Boston, in a heavily gentrified area, and I'm scared shitless after 11 pm. People all tell me it's a super safe area, but I know a few people who got mugged a few blocks away in various occasions.

Maybe it's just bad luck. Maybe compared to other areas, a few people getting their backpack stolen is nothing. But feelings are not always rationals. I don't feel safe here.