New York, NY Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 7.3 miles southeast of New York, NY
Good news, and an honest one: USGS's data can't distinguish this stretch, 7.3 miles southeast of New York, NY, from a flat trend. Whatever small movement it measured here is statistical noise, not a reliable direction, so none is claimed.
The grain of this number
USGS surveys the coast in transects spaced a few hundred feet apart; this page groups the nearest ones into a single ~3.5-mile reading for the stretch closest to New York, NY, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 40.57, -73.88. USGS's New England / Mid-Atlantic assessment last surveyed this stretch through 2007-2009, computing the rate with its LRR method. Other US regions were surveyed in different years, sometimes decades apart, so this page states its own rather than implying one national vintage.
How solid is this number
19 transects feed this segment's number; 63% of them individually measured retreat. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.99 ft/yr either side. The unadjusted figure here, -0.21 ft/yr, would place it 491 of 1211 if ranked directly - but an unreliable rank isn't a useful one, which is exactly why "no significant trend" is the headline instead. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Rank 1069 nationally for growth belongs to Stone Harbor, NJ, 114 miles from this stretch, measured at 0.73 ft/yr. 1 miles away, Inwood, NY is the nearest other measured stretch: slight accretion (beach growing) at 0.59 ft/yr.
Not this whole stretch, just New York itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.