Blue-State Paradise: Vacant NYC Storefronts ‘Creating Havoc,’ Nearly Double Since Pandemic
New York City’s storefronts aren’t as alluring as they once were. The brutal statistics coming out are bad (but wholly predictable) news.
As of 2024, 11.2 percent of the city’s storefronts are sitting vacant. This is up from 6 percent in 2019. That doesn’t seem like a huge number, but that 5.2 percentage point increase translates to an 86% percent increase from 2019 to 2024. That is a massive jump.
Manhattan Councilmember and Democrat Gale Brewer said these vacancies, “are creating havoc because there is homeless, garbage and the business next door hurts.”
What’s the cause of this trend? During a New York City Council Committee on Small Business meeting on Wednesday, Calvin Brown, deputy commissioner for neighborhood development,
