Harlem is bleeding – the murder rate doubled there this year.
Slayings spiked at least 100 percent in each of the neighborhood’s three police precincts, jumping to 40 this year from a total of 19 last year.
The increase in Harlem – the biggest among any adjoining precincts in the city – fueled this year’s 35 percent surge in homicides in Manhattan above 59th Street, police statistics through last Sunday show.
In Manhattan South, the area below 59th Street, the rate inched up 4 percent, leading to a 27 percent increase for the borough as a whole.
Overall, the city saw a 9.4 percent increase, stats show. There were 566 murders in 2006, up from the 517 citywide in 2005 through Dec. 17.
All other crimes were down during the year, with notable decreases in rape (down 7 percent) and auto theft (down 11 percent).
Other hot spots for murder were Brooklyn’s Fort Greene, which had 11 slayings this year after logging just one in 2005, and Crown Heights, which had a 120 percent increase.
Killings climbed 128 percent in the Morrisannia section of The Bronx.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has said the spike in the city’s murder rate is partly due to cops reclassifying old crimes, including five deaths ruled as homicides this year from shootings that occurred more than 30 years ago.
A total of 35 of the murders were reclassified this year, up from 19 in 2005, a police spokesman said.
Killings shot up 26 percent on Staten Island and 17 percent in The Bronx. The rate went up 4 percent in Brooklyn and was down 12 percent in Queens.
Harlem victims included Kevin Cobb, an abusive husband whose wife bashed him with a ceramic elephant and stabbed him, and Bronx drug dealer Nathaniel Wright, ambushed and shot over a debt while on his way to a surprise birthday party.