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nysOpenData

nysOpenData provides simple, reproducible access to datasets from the NY State Open Data platform — directly from R, with no API keys or manual downloads required. The package is available on CRAN.

Version 0.1.0 introduces a streamlined, catalog-driven interface for NYS Open Data.

The package provides three core functions:

  • nys_list_datasets() — Browse available datasets from the live nys Open Data catalog
  • nys_pull_dataset() — Pull any cataloged dataset by key, with filtering, ordering, and optional date controls
  • nys_any_dataset() — Pull any NYS Open Data dataset directly via its Socrata JSON endpoint

Datasets pulled via nys_pull_dataset() automatically apply sensible defaults from the catalog (such as default ordering and date fields), while still allowing user control over:

  • limit
  • filters
  • date / from / to
  • where
  • order
  • clean_names
  • coerce_types

This redesign reduces maintenance burden, improves extensibility, and provides a more scalable interface for working with nys Open Data.

All functions return clean tibble outputs and support filtering via
filters = list(field = "value").

Installation

Development version (GitHub) 

devtools::install_github("martinezc1/nysOpenData")

Example 

library(nysOpenData)

data <- nys_pull_dataset(dataset = "lottery_cash_4_life_winning_numbers_beginning_2014", limit = 5000)

head(data)
## # A tibble: 6 × 3
##   draw_date           winning_numbers cash_ball
##   <dttm>              <chr>               <dbl>
## 1 2026-02-21 00:00:00 20 25 30 52 55          4
## 2 2026-02-20 00:00:00 02 28 49 50 56          1
## 3 2026-02-19 00:00:00 51 54 57 59 60          3
## 4 2026-02-18 00:00:00 03 28 38 40 49          1
## 5 2026-02-17 00:00:00 11 22 32 56 60          4
## 6 2026-02-16 00:00:00 02 11 14 15 22          1

About

nysOpenData makes New York State’s civic datasets accessible to students,
educators, analysts, and researchers through a unified and user-friendly R interface.
Developed to support reproducible research, open-data literacy, and real-world analysis.

Comparison to Other Software

While the RSocrata package provides a general interface for any Socrata-backed portal, nysOpenData is specifically tailored for the New York City ecosystem.

  • Ease of Use: No need to hunt for 4x4 dataset IDs (e.g., kwxv-fwze); use nys_pull_dataset() with a human-readable catalog key.
  • Open Literacy: Designed specifically for students and researchers to lower the barrier to entry for civic data analysis.

Contributing

We welcome contributions! If you find a bug or would like to request a wrapper for a specific nys dataset, please open an issue or submit a pull request on GitHub.

Authors & Contributors

Maintainer

Christian A. Martinez 📧
GitHub: @martinezc1