Capture Camera
Installation in
New York City

Why NYC Properties Need Capture Camera Installation

New York City is a city of old buildings, many owners and very little room, and a camera system has to work inside all three. The Rent Guidelines Board's 2026 Housing Supply Report counts 3,705,000 housing units in the city and says 54 percent of them are in buildings constructed before 1947. The Citizens Housing & Planning Council puts it another way: more than 80 percent of the housing was built more than 50 years ago, and roughly two million units predate 1947. The same council describes a range that runs from mansions in Riverdale to small homes in Midland Beach, garden apartments in Sunnyside, high-rises near Central Park, brownstones and tenements. Every one of those is a different camera job. A turret camera in the vestibule of a 1910 walk-up is fixed into plaster over brick, fed by a cable that has to find its way down from the second floor to a recorder in the cellar. The same camera in a 1960s elevator building may be fixed into a concrete ceiling with a cable running through a hung ceiling to a locked closet. A camera at a Staten Island driveway goes on wood siding, and one at a Bronx storefront goes under a roll-down gate housing on a facade the owner may not even control.

The second reason is ownership. According to the Independent Budget Office's May 2026 report, about two-thirds of the city's roughly 3.7 million homes are rentals and about one million are rent stabilized. HPD's 2023 Housing and Vacancy Survey found 829,200 units, 22 percent of the stock, in buildings with 100 or more apartments. In practice that means most people who want a camera in New York do not get to decide alone where it goes. A tenant needs the landlord. A shareholder needs the co-op board. A storefront tenant needs the building owner for anything on the facade, and sometimes the business improvement district has already put its own cameras on the block. We ask who owns what at the start of every call, because the answer decides whether a camera can be drilled into the hallway ceiling, whether the cable can run through a common shaft, and who keeps the password to the recorder when the job is done.

The third reason is what the city itself is doing with cameras. In October 2026 the Bronx Times reported that the Third Avenue Business Improvement District had installed 18 security cameras across 10 locations at The Hub, the old shopping crossroads at East 149th Street and Third Avenue, funded through the state's Downtown Revitalization Initiative, along with 75 solar-powered lighting fixtures on 30 storefronts. PIX11 reported the count as fifteen cameras on ten storefronts, live and viewable by BID members. The BID worked with the NYPD to choose locations using areas with high volumes of 311 complaints and 911 calls, and the cameras face storefronts to help with illegal parking, suspected drug sales and people in crisis. That is a good example of how a serious camera plan in this city starts: with evidence about where problems actually happen, not with a box of cameras and a ladder. It is also a reminder that a public or BID camera on the block does not replace a merchant's own view of the register, the stockroom door or the back alley.

Safety is the reason people call, and the research is specific about it. NY1 reported on October 2, 2026 that in a city-funded survey of The Hub, nearly three in four merchants and over three in four shoppers said safety needed to improve, and that in June Bronx prosecutors had charged 32 people across five alleged drug trafficking organizations operating there. PIX11 quoted Siraj Bhaiyat, who has owned Plaza Discount for 25 years, saying he hoped the new cameras would deter drug use and shoplifting. Elsewhere in the city the stories are smaller and more common. CBS New York covered a 2:30 a.m. theft of lobby furniture from the Robeson on Lenox Avenue in Harlem, a building where entry needs a key code and police found no forced entry, and a man caught on video taking packages from a lobby on Lawton Street in Bushwick. Security.org's 2026 package theft report found apartment residents were more than three times as likely as single-family residents to have a package stolen in the previous three months, 10 percent against 3 percent. Lobbies, vestibules and mailrooms are where most New York camera jobs begin.

Then there are the rules, which are tighter here than almost anywhere else in the state. The Landmarks Preservation Commission's rules bar many kinds of equipment, security cameras included, from a primary facade unless there is no feasible alternative or an agency requires that spot, and its Permit Guidebook asks that a camera on a primary facade be as small as possible and painted to match. Wikipedia counts 1,460 individual landmarks, 121 interior landmarks and 12 scenic landmarks citywide, on top of the historic districts. Since December 21, 2025, under Local Law 128 of 2024, wiring under 50 volts for signaling, communication, alarm and data no longer needs a city electrical permit when a licensed master electrician, special electrician or qualified person does it, which covers most camera cabling, but any new 120-volt outlet still belongs to a licensed electrician. HPD's Tenant Data Privacy Law limits what smart-entry data a landlord can collect when cameras are paired with fobs or app entry. None of that is a reason not to install cameras. It is the reason the plan has to be made with the building's rules in hand.

Finally, a word on the word "capture." Capture is one of the camera lines we price and install, and every borough has its own Capture price page linked from this one. People also search "capture camera" when they mean a license-plate capture camera, the narrow, purpose-built camera that reads plates at a gate or lot entrance. We do both, and this page covers both: Capture systems for buildings and businesses, and plate capture wherever vehicles are part of the problem. When we talk about what a specific Capture model does, we check it against the current price list rather than repeat a spec from memory.

We also want to be open about what our research could not find. We could not see Google's People Also Ask boxes, related searches, AnswerThePublic, Bing or DuckDuckGo results from our build environment, and we found no Reddit thread about capture or plate cameras in New York. We found no Yelp complaint text about camera installers in the city, only praise. Where this page talks about what we find in walls, cellars and conduit, it comes from the age and type of the buildings in the public record and from our own field practice, not from a survey of any one building.

New York City facts that shape a camera install

• Old housing: 54 percent of the city's 3,705,000 housing units are in buildings constructed before 1947, according to the Rent Guidelines Board's 2026 report.
• Mostly renters: the Independent Budget Office counts about two-thirds of homes as rentals and about one million rent-stabilized units, so most installs need a landlord's or board's agreement.
• Big buildings: 829,200 units, 22 percent of the stock, sit in buildings with 100 or more apartments, per HPD's 2023 Housing and Vacancy Survey.
• Public cameras everywhere: NYCHA told the City Council in November 2023 it had more than 18,500 CCTV cameras, and in April 2025 a NYCHA official described over 20,000 cameras across 214 developments and 1,519 buildings.
• Uneven internet: the City Council Data Team found 24.5 percent of households without a broadband subscription, and 44 percent in Melrose–Mott Haven–Port Morris, the district around The Hub. That changes how remote viewing is set up.
• Sharing with police is voluntary: the city's Community Camera Sharing Program lets any business with a camera share live feeds with the NYPD during emergencies, and amNY reported in 2024 that businesses in the Connect New York pilot choose how and when footage is accessible.

What property owners often add once the cameras are up. In New York apartment buildings, the next request after cameras is usually the front door itself: an intercom that tenants can answer by phone, or fob entry that ties into the same recorder. Multiple Dwelling Law §50-a already requires an intercom at the main entrance of many class A buildings, so the camera plan and the entry plan are worth making together, with one cable path from the front door to the cellar instead of two.

Brooklyn to Staten Island: How the Borough Changes a Capture Camera Install

We price each borough from its own Capture list, but price is the smallest difference between them. What really changes from one borough to the next is what the camera gets fixed to, how the cable travels, who has to say yes, and where the vehicles are. The table below sets out the patterns we plan for. The building facts come from the sources named in the stamp above; the last column is our working assumption for planning, confirmed on site every time.

Brooklyn: stoops, vestibules and plaster

Brownstone Brooklyn is the place where people most often want a camera that nobody notices. A rowhouse owner usually wants the stoop, the areaway gate under the stoop and the rear yard covered, and a two-family owner wants the shared vestibule where packages land. The front of the house may sit in a historic district, which means the front camera must be small, tucked into a reveal or under the cornice line where LPC staff would approve it, and painted to match. Inside, the walls are often lath and plaster, and the cable route from the front of the house to a recorder in the cellar usually runs down an interior wall, through the floor in a closet and along the cellar ceiling. We plan that route before we pick the camera spot, because a camera in the perfect position with no clean way to get cable to it ends up on a surface raceway across a parlor ceiling, and nobody wants that.

The Bronx: storefronts, lobbies and basements

The Bronx calls we get split between merchants and buildings. A store on a corridor like Third Avenue at The Hub wants the register, the front door and the sidewalk outside, and often the back door to the alley. The camera on the facade has to live with a roll-down gate housing, a sign, and in many cases a landlord's rules about what goes on the front. Inside an apartment building of New Law tenement age, the lobby and mailroom cameras sit on plaster over masonry, with the recorder in the basement near the boiler room, which is often the warmest and dampest place in the building. We mount recorders up off the floor, away from heat and leaks, in a locked cabinet where the super can reach the screen but a stranger cannot reach the drive. And because the City Council Data Team found 44 percent of households in Melrose–Mott Haven–Port Morris without broadband, we ask early whether the building has a wired internet line for remote viewing, or whether we need to plan around a cellular or 5G connection.

Manhattan: boards, elevators and paperwork

Manhattan jobs are paperwork first. A co-op or condo board may want an alteration agreement, a certificate of insurance naming the managing agent and the corporation, the hours of work, and a service elevator booking. Many buildings allow contractor work only on weekdays during set hours. The camera work itself is usually lobby, package room, service entrance and, in buildings with parking, the garage ramp, where a plate-capture camera earns its place. Ceilings in prewar elevator buildings can be plaster on metal lath under steel beams with masonry arches, which takes a hammer drill and patience, while newer buildings often have hung ceilings that make cable runs fast. We read the building's rules before we quote, because a job that has to stop at 4:30 p.m. for the elevator is a different job from one that can run through the afternoon.

Queens: driveways, alleys and long runs

Queens has more driveways than any borough except Staten Island and more variety than any borough at all. A semi-attached house in one neighborhood shares a driveway with the house next door, which means a camera aimed down it also sees the neighbor's side door, and the aim and privacy mask have to be set with that in mind. A garden apartment complex may want cameras across several buildings tied back to one recorder, which brings longer cable runs, buried or overhead paths between buildings, and sometimes a second network switch. Storefront strips under elevated lines bring vibration and dust that loosen poor mounts. And Queens is where the NYPD's Connect New York pilot began, according to amNY, with a demonstration that started in Flushing and College Point, so it is where we get the most questions about sharing footage with a precinct.

Staten Island: houses, porches and plates

Staten Island jobs look the most like suburban installs: one- and two-family houses with a driveway, a front porch, a side gate and a backyard. The walls are often wood frame with siding, which takes mounting blocks so the camera sits flat and the siding stays watertight. Cable runs go through an attic or a basement rim joist rather than a shaft. Driveways and small business lots are where plate capture is most often requested, because a car pulling in and out is the event that matters. The distances are longer than in the other boroughs, so we pay more attention to cable length limits and to where the recorder sits relative to the farthest camera.

Capture Camera Installation Services in New York City

These are the jobs landlords, supers, co-op boards, homeowners and business owners across the five boroughs book us for. Each one is priced from the Capture price list for your borough. Where a job needs something extra, such as a core-drilled pass-through, a long outdoor run or a second technician on a lift, the quote names it before you agree.

If your building already has cameras from another company and you want to add to them, we test before we promise anything. Some older systems accept new cameras easily, some only with a recorder change, and some are worth retiring. We tell you which, with the reason, and price only what we can stand behind.

Business Capture Camera Installation in New York City

Commercial camera work in New York happens on corridors, and each corridor has its own problems. The ones below are described in the sources we used for this page. We have no information about the camera systems inside any named business and do not claim any of them as clients; we name them to show the kinds of places and problems a business camera plan has to handle.

What a storefront camera has to survive

A camera in a New York storefront works harder than one in a house. The front-door camera faces daylight streaming through glass for half the day and headlights at night, so it needs a sensor and settings that handle a bright doorway and a darker shop at the same time. The register camera has to see hands and the counter from an angle where the customer's head does not block the view. The camera outside, on the facade, has to live with a roll-down gate that rises and falls past it twice a day, a sign that may be replaced, and in some corridors a landlord or BID with its own ideas about the facade. And the recorder has to sit somewhere an angry customer or a burglar cannot simply walk off with it, which in a small shop usually means a locked cabinet in the back room or cellar with the cables running through the ceiling. We plan each of those spots with the owner, one at a time, before we price the job.

What The Hub teaches about planning

The Third Avenue BID's camera project is useful for any business owner because of how it was planned. According to the Bronx Times, the BID chose locations with the NYPD using the places with the most 311 complaints and 911 calls, and the cameras face storefronts. The BID's Commercial District Needs Assessment, which ran from September 2024 to June 2025, found respondents overwhelmingly named public safety and cleanliness as the top priorities. That is the approach we take on a smaller scale: look at where problems actually happen in your own store or building, write down when and how, and put cameras there first. A merchant on the same block will still want their own camera on their own door and register, because a BID camera aimed at the street will not show who took what from the shelf.

Rules and practical limits for business cameras

• Landmarked facades. LPC rules bar many kinds of equipment, including security cameras, from a primary facade unless there is no feasible alternative or an agency requires the location. The Haffen Building at The Hub is an individual landmark, and there are 1,460 individual landmarks citywide. Check the building's status before planning the front camera.
• Low-voltage permit rule. Under Local Law 128 of 2024, effective December 21, 2025, wiring under 50 volts for signaling, communication, alarm and data does not need a city electrical permit when done by a licensed master electrician, special electrician or qualified person. A new 120-volt outlet for a recorder or a camera power supply is a licensed electrician's job, and our quote says so where it is needed.
• Fire-rated doors and egress. Work that alters a fire-rated door assembly, changes a means of egress or ties into a building's fire alarm system can still need filing. We keep camera brackets and cables off fire-rated doors and frames and seal any penetration we make through a rated wall.
• Audio stays off. New York's eavesdropping law makes recording a conversation without at least one party's consent a crime, so we leave audio recording off on business cameras unless the owner has taken legal advice and posted clear notice.
• Biometric features. If a camera system offers face recognition, a commercial establishment in New York City that collects biometric identifier information has signage duties under the city's biometric law. We leave those features off unless the owner asks for them and has the notice in place.
• Insurance papers. Landlords and managing agents usually want a certificate of insurance before contractors work in a commercial space. Send the request with the booking so it is ready.
• Working hours. We schedule drilling and ceiling work for hours when the store is closed or quiet and when the tenants upstairs are awake, and we tell you which parts of the job are noisy so you can plan around them.

Capture Camera Installation in NYC: Questions Answered

Plate capture at gates, ramps and lots

Why can't one wide camera over our garage ramp read the plates and show the whole entrance too?

Because those are two different jobs that pull a camera in opposite directions. A wide view needs a short focal length and a high position to see the whole entrance, while a readable plate needs the camera close to where plates pass, zoomed in tight, at a shallow angle, with a fast shutter so a moving car does not smear. One New York installer describes plate capture as a two-camera setup: an overview camera that records the vehicle and a dedicated plate camera positioned within about 10 feet of where plates pass. We plan it the same way. The overview camera tells you a grey sedan came in at 11:42 p.m.; the plate camera tells you which one.

How high and at what angle does a plate camera have to sit to work?

Manufacturer guidance cited by a New York commercial installer puts the camera at least about one meter, roughly three feet, above headlight level and keeps the angle to the plate within about 25 to 30 degrees. Too high or too far to the side and the characters stretch and blur; too low and headlights wash out the image at night. In practice that usually means a short pole, a wall bracket beside the gate or a mount on the ramp structure, aimed where cars slow down, such as at a gate arm or the top of a ramp. We set it with real vehicles going past, day and night, rather than guessing from a ladder.

Our plate shots come out as a white glare after dark. Is that the camera or the setup?

Usually the setup. Plates are reflective and headlights point straight at the camera, so a camera set for a general night view will overexpose the plate into a white rectangle. A plate camera needs exposure and shutter settings made for plates, an angle that keeps the headlights out of the center of the frame, and infrared that suits the distance. We tune those settings on site and review night footage before we sign the job off, because a plate camera that only works in daylight solves half the problem.

Old buildings, old cable

The last installer left coax cable all over our building. Can a new Capture system use it?

Sometimes. Old analog systems ran coax to each camera, and depending on the recorder and cameras chosen, some of that cable can carry a new signal while other runs are too damaged, too long or too badly spliced to trust. We trace and test each run before deciding. Where the old coax follows a good path, we may pull new network cable along it using the old cable as a guide, which saves opening walls. We give you a run-by-run answer and price the job on what we actually find.

How do you get camera cable from the street side of a brick building to a recorder in the back?

Through the inside of the building wherever possible: a core-drilled hole through the facade wall behind the camera, sleeved and sealed, then into the cellar or the first-floor ceiling and along to the recorder. We avoid surface runs across the front of the building, both because they look bad and because they are easy to cut. On landmarked buildings the hole and the camera are planned together so the approved location is the one the cable can actually reach.

Remote viewing and internet

Our building only has 5G home internet. Can we still watch the cameras from our phones?

Usually yes, but it has to be set up differently. Many 5G and cellular home internet services sit behind carrier-grade address sharing, which blocks the inbound connections that old port-forward setups depend on. We use the recorder's cloud connection or the app's relay service instead, and we tell you honestly how many cameras you can watch at once on that connection before the picture stutters. In districts where many homes lack broadband, such as Melrose–Mott Haven–Port Morris at 44 percent, this is one of the first things we ask about.

Will wired cameras keep recording if someone uses a Wi-Fi jammer?

A wired camera feeding a wired recorder does not use Wi-Fi to record, so a jammer that disrupts wireless signals does not stop it. In December 2025 Spectrum News reported New York authorities warning that some package thieves use Wi-Fi jammers to disrupt doorbell camera footage. That is one of the reasons we run cable to every camera we can. Remote viewing on your phone still travels over the internet, but the footage itself stays on the recorder.

Building rules and the city

A sidewalk shed is going up in front of our building. What happens to the facade cameras?

The shed will block most of their view, and the work under it may knock them out of alignment. Under the Facade Inspection and Safety Program, buildings over six stories are inspected on a cycle and must put up protection such as a shed when a facade is found unsafe. NYCHA told the City Council in 2023 that it relocates cameras blocked by sheds or other obstructions, and private owners need the same plan. We can move cameras under or onto the shed for the duration where the shed contractor agrees, add a temporary camera at the entrance, and put them back when the shed comes down.

We are adding fob entry with cameras at the door. What changes under the Tenant Data Privacy Law?

HPD's page on the law, Local Law 63 of 2021, covers smart access systems such as fobs, cards, apps and biometrics in class A multiple dwellings. The owner must give tenants a privacy policy, collect only minimal data, get express consent for reference data, destroy authentication data within 90 days unless it is anonymized, never sell it and never use it to harass tenants. HPD's page does not mention cameras directly, but when cameras and entry are tied together, we set them up so camera footage is used for monitoring entrances, exits and common areas, and we keep any face-recognition feature switched off.

Our hallway is so dark the test footage shows almost nothing. Is that a camera problem?

Mostly a lighting problem. The Multiple Dwelling Law already requires adequate lighting in common areas, and a camera aimed down an unlit corridor records grainy grey shapes no matter how good it is. Infrared helps at short range but turns faces into flat silhouettes when there is a bright exit sign or window behind them. We tell the owner which fixtures need fixing before cameras go up, and we choose cameras and positions that work with the light the building actually has after dark.

Storefronts and BIDs

The BID just put cameras on our block. Does our store still need its own?

For most stores, yes. The Third Avenue BID's cameras at The Hub face storefronts and the street to help with problems like illegal parking and drug sales, and PIX11 reported they can be viewed by BID members. They are not aimed at your register, your aisles or your stockroom door, and you do not control how long their footage is kept. Your own cameras answer your own questions: who was at the counter, who went into the back, what happened at closing. A BID camera and a store camera do different jobs and work best side by side.

Where should the recorder live in a small shop so a burglar can't just take it?

Out of sight and out of easy reach: a locked cabinet in the back room, a cellar, or a closet behind the office, never on the counter under the register. A recorder that walks out with the burglar takes its footage with it. We mount it in a cabinet with ventilation, run the camera cables through the ceiling so they are hard to follow, and set up remote viewing so the footage can be checked from a phone even if someone tampers with the screen.

Power and reliability

What keeps the cameras recording when the power drops for a few minutes?

A battery backup on the recorder and the PoE switch that powers the cameras. Without one, a short outage or a tripped breaker reboots the whole system, and the gap in recording comes exactly when something might be happening. Battery backup sized for the recorder and switch keeps the system up through short outages and lets it shut down cleanly in a long one. We recommend it on every system that matters, and we put it on the quote as a separate line so you can see it.

What AI Gets Wrong About Capture Camera Installation in NYC

We could not capture Google's AI Overview or the People Also Ask boxes for this topic from our build environment, so we are not going to pretend to quote them. What follows are claims we see repeated in quick online answers about camera installation in New York, set against what the public record and our field practice say. Marketplaces such as Angi, HomeAdvisor and Fixr publish national cost guides that feed many of those answers; they are fine for a rough sense of scale, but they are not a plan for a cellar in the Bronx or a garage ramp in Manhattan.

"Any 4K camera will read license plates."

This is the claim that leads to the most disappointed calls. Resolution matters, but a plate is a small target moving across the frame, often at night, often lit by its own car's headlights. A wide 4K camera thirty feet from a gate can show you a car and still turn its plate into a smudge.

What reads plates is placement and settings: a camera close to where plates pass, within about 10 feet according to one New York installer, at least about three feet above headlight level, at an angle no wider than about 25 to 30 degrees, with a shutter fast enough to freeze motion.

That is why we install plate capture as a pair: a dedicated plate camera and an overview camera, each doing the job it is built for, both tested with real cars before we leave.

"You always need a permit to install cameras in New York City."

Answers on this vary, and some sources state flatly that low-voltage work needs a Department of Buildings permit. Since December 21, 2025, under Local Law 128 of 2024, wiring under 50 volts for signaling, communication, alarm and data circuits does not need a city electrical permit when a licensed master electrician, special electrician or qualified person does the work.

That does not mean no paperwork at all. Work that alters a fire-rated door assembly, changes a means of egress or ties into a fire alarm can still need filing, any new 120-volt outlet is a licensed electrician's job, and a landmarked building needs LPC approval for exterior cameras.

So the honest answer is "it depends on the building and the work," and we tell you which parts of your job need what before we start.

"Wireless cameras are just as good and avoid drilling."

Wireless cameras avoid running cable, but they still need power, they still get mounted, and in New York they have to send video through brick, plaster on metal lath and concrete, often across a building full of competing networks.

They can also be jammed. Spectrum News reported in December 2025 that New York authorities warned some package thieves use Wi-Fi jammers to disrupt doorbell camera footage.

A wired camera on certified cable records to a recorder on site whatever happens to the Wi-Fi. We use wireless only where cable truly cannot go, and we tell you what you give up when we do.

"Cameras are required in New York apartment buildings."

There is no blanket law in the city's Administrative Code requiring every apartment building to install cameras. What the law does require in many buildings is an intercom at the main entrance under Multiple Dwelling Law §50-a, self-closing and self-locking entrance doors, and adequate common-area lighting.

HPD enforces the door rules: its self-closing door inspections for July 2023 to June 2024 produced 3,151 violations. A camera bracket or cable on a door or frame must never interfere with the closer.

Owners install cameras because of package theft, lobby incidents and insurance questions, not because a statute demands them. We plan them alongside the required door and intercom equipment so the two do not fight each other.

"A landlord can put cameras anywhere in the building."

Not anywhere. An attorney answering on Justia wrote that common-area cameras in hallways and stairwells are lawful as long as voice is not recorded and the camera is not aimed to look into an apartment when its door is open. Cameras inside a tenant's apartment are another matter entirely, and installer guidance treats them as off limits for landlords.

Owners of rent-stabilized buildings should also be careful about removing building-wide services. New York's housing agency lists "security" among building-wide services on its decrease form, without defining it.

We set each hallway camera with privacy masks over apartment doors where they fall in the frame, leave audio off, and recommend owners document the security reason and notify tenants before cameras go live.

"Remote viewing works on any internet connection."

It works on most, but not always the way online guides describe. The City Council Data Team found 24.5 percent of New York households without a broadband subscription and 12.8 percent relying on a cellular data plan only. Many 5G and cellular home internet services share addresses in a way that blocks the port forwarding older guides recommend.

On those connections we use the recorder's cloud or relay connection instead, and we limit how many streams you try to pull at once so the picture stays usable.

The cameras record either way. Remote viewing is a window onto the recorder, and we size that window to the connection the building actually has.

"Camera installation costs about the same everywhere in New York City."

National guides and AI answers tend to give one range for the whole city. Our own pricing does not work that way: each borough has its own Capture price list, with Brooklyn and the Bronx at the base rate and Queens, Staten Island and Manhattan above it, reflecting travel, access and parking.

Within any one job, the building moves the price far more than the borough. Eight cameras in a postwar building with a hung ceiling and a recorder closet off the lobby is a different job from eight cameras in a walk-up where every run goes down a stair chase to the cellar.

That is why we link every borough's price page from this one and ask for photos first, so the quote is built from the list and from your building, not from a citywide average.

Capture Camera Installation Cost in NYC

Every Capture camera job in New York City is priced from the Capture price list for its borough, and nothing on the day is added that is not on that list or agreed in writing first. We do not print a citywide number on this page because there is not one: Brooklyn and the Bronx sit at our base rate, Queens a little above it, Staten Island above that, and Manhattan highest, reflecting the cost of travel, access and parking in each. Open the price page for your borough, add up the lines that match your building, and send us photos so we can confirm them.

What moves a New York camera quote

• Number of cameras and their type. Each camera is a line, and plate-capture cameras are priced separately from general cameras because they need their own position and setup.
• Cable distance and path. A camera 20 feet from the recorder through a hung ceiling is a different run from one 150 feet away down a stair chase and across a cellar.
• Wall and ceiling material. Masonry, plaster on metal lath and concrete take longer to drill and fix than wood framing or drywall.
• Masonry pass-throughs and conduit. Core-drilled holes through facade walls and conduit in exposed areas are listed where they are needed.
• Recorder size and retention. More cameras and more days of footage need a larger recorder and more storage.
• Battery backup and switches. Listed separately so you can see what keeps the system recording through a power dip.
• Access. Lifts for high facades, board-mandated hours and parking all affect the time on site.

How to read the list for a New York building

Take a six-unit walk-up that wants a vestibule camera, a lobby and mailbox camera, a rear yard camera and a camera at the cellar door, with a recorder in the cellar and remote viewing for the owner. On the borough's price list that is four general cameras, a recorder sized for them, four cable runs at the lengths the building needs, battery backup, and setup of the viewing app. Add a garage or lot with cars coming in and out, and the quote gains a plate-capture camera and an overview camera at the gate. Move the same building from Brooklyn to Manhattan and the lines stay the same while the borough's rate changes. Nothing else is added on the day unless you ask for it and agree to it in writing.

If you already own cameras or a recorder and want them installed or reused, tell us. We test them first and price labor for what passes, as set out below.

Every Capture Camera Installation Service in NYC

Request a Free Quote

Tell us the borough and address, the building type, how many entrances there are and what each camera needs to show. Photos of the entrances, the gate or driveway and any old recorder make the quote exact. Prefer to talk? Call (800) 486-0943.

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