New York, NY

ZIP code 10022 is assigned to New York, NY, and falls within New York County. Like every US postal code, it began as a mail-routing device rather than a geographic boundary — the US Postal Service groups delivery routes under a single code so carriers and sorting equipment can process mail efficiently. Today it also serves as a practical shorthand for the area itself: roughly 34,340 people live inside it.

At 77,169 residents per square mile spread over 0.445 square miles, 10022 reads as a dense urban area. It is a populous postal code, and density shapes almost everything else on this page — how people get to work, whether they own or rent, and what housing costs.

Household earnings here sit well above the national picture. The median household income of $171,038 places 10022 in the upper reaches of American postal codes, ahead of 98% of them. The US median for comparison is $70,109. Bear in mind that median income describes the midpoint household, not the average — it is not pulled upward by a handful of very high earners the way a mean would be.

Housing in 10022 costs far above the national median. A typical home is valued at $1,116,700 against a US median of $207,500, and median gross rent runs $2,928 a month. The split between owning and renting is fairly even at 48.4% owner-occupied, which tends to indicate a mix of housing types rather than one dominant form.

The building stock is dominated by larger apartment buildings of twenty units or more, which account for 73.7% of housing units here. The median construction year is 1958, making the housing here mid-century. The vacancy rate of 27.5% is high, which in many places reflects seasonal or second-home use rather than abandonment.

The population skews older than the national median, with a median age of 47.1 against 42 nationally. Households average just 1.84 people, and 49.0% consist of one person living alone — a signature of areas with a lot of studio and one-bedroom stock.

Getting to work takes 28.8 minutes on average one way. The dominant mode is walked at 33.4% of workers, while 25.0% take public transit, 33.4% walk, 28.6% work from home. Commute patterns are one of the better proxies for how a place actually functions day to day.

Beyond addressing mail, 10022 does a lot of quiet administrative work. Retailers use it to calculate shipping and sales tax at checkout. Insurers use it to set premiums, since risk profiles vary geographically. Employers and marketers use it to define service areas. Government agencies use it to route benefits and organise reporting. If you have ever been asked for a postal code by a form that clearly does not intend to send you anything, this is why.

For anyone weighing a move, 10022 offers a compact profile of New York: 34,340 residents, a median household income of $171,038, 83.6% of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher, and an unemployment rate of 5.6%. A handful of figures like these answer more relocation questions than most neighbourhood guides do.

One caution worth repeating: a postal code is not a neighbourhood. 10022 may cover parts of several distinct areas, and a single neighbourhood in New York may be split across more than one code. Boundaries also shift as USPS adjusts delivery routes. Treat the figures here as describing a delivery area, which is what they actually measure.