Violent crime in the nation's largest city has hit a two-decade low, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Tuesday. The number of homicides in the past four months was down 7 percent compared with the same time frame last year; the number of robberies dropped 14 percent, according to TIME.

The figures mark the lowest level of crime since 1993, city officials told the magazine.

"We always talk about bringing crime down and keep communities safer while at the same time bringing police and communities closer together. We are seeing that happen," de Blasio said. "Thanks to the (New York Police Department) and the leadership of Police Commissioner (William) Bratton, crime in New York City is at historic lows."

Crime went down in nearly all major categories, including rape and robberies, the Associated Press said. Shootings, however, were up slightly, the news service added.

City officials credited a surge of police officers into public housing buildings with curtailing a spike in crime the development had experienced earlier this year, the AP said. Some units, however, remained prone to violence, they admitted.

Bratton underlined the safety of New York's mass transit system, which transports up to 6 million individuals on a daily basis. The system averages a mere five crimes a day, the police commissioner noted.

"But this administration doesn't rest on its laurels," de Blasio insisted, according to CBS New York. "We will continue to build on our efforts to strengthen the bond between our police officers and communities they service, working to keep New York the safest big city in the nation," the mayor added.

De Blasio's news conference resembled a "victory lap," CBS judged, as political rivals had warned that crime would rise if New York elected its first Democratic mayor in a generation. The city's administration pointed to changes it has implemented at the NYPD "at a time when the relationship between police and communities of color has fallen under an intense spotlight nationwide in the wake of the (incidents) in Ferguson, Missouri," the network editorialized.

The NYPD had come under criticism in recent years for its so-called "stop-and-frisk" policy, which allowed officer to stop anyone deemed suspicious. The use of the tactic, which a federal judge ruled discriminatory against blacks and Latinos, has fallen 79 percent in the first three-quarters of 2014, CBS said.