The NYC Chapter

The pattern, in four steps

1. Find the dataset, note its ID

   Search NYC Open Data(opens in a new tab) for what you're curious about. Every dataset's URL ends in a short ID — 311 Service Requests is erm2-nwe9. That ID is the key to everything below.

2. Every dataset is already an API

   The portal runs on Socrata, so each dataset answers at data.cityofnewyork.us/resource/<id>.json — no signup for light use. This is what the guide's API badge means: the data comes to your code, not just your downloads folder.

3. Ask a question with SoQL

   Socrata's query language looks a lot like SQL. This page's chart is drawn from exactly this query — counts of the last seven days of 311 requests, grouped by borough:

   https://data.cityofnewyork.us/resource/erm2-nwe9.json?$select=borough,count(*) as n&$group=borough&$where=created_date >= '2026-09-09T00:00:00'

4. Going further

   Heavier use wants a free app token(opens in a new tab); the full SoQL reference lives in the Socrata developer docs(opens in a new tab). The same pattern powers every Socrata portal in the directory — including Open Data NY(opens in a new tab) and hundreds of other cities.