| 01 |
Status East Harlem storefront vacancy runs 16.9% against 15.2% in Central Harlem, 12.9% for Manhattan and 11.0% citywide. On the permit file it also reads as the strongest building corridor in the borough. Those two things do not normally sit together. |
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| 02 |
Why So we took the file apart. Of 249 ground-floor filings this year, 135 are building-systems work, boilers and flues and standpipes rather than storefront, and a single public housing heating project accounts for 124 of them. Strip systems work and East Harlem is down 37.0% where Manhattan is down 58.1%. Still twenty-one points ahead. Still wrong. |
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| 03 |
Trend Thirty of the remaining filings sit on Second Avenue. Last year that number was zero. Twenty-seven name the transit program outright: Second Avenue Subway Phase 2, cellar door alteration, vault removal. Strip the avenue and East Harlem is down 53.6% against the borough's 58.1%. Not every one of those thirty is subway work, so the honest range is somewhere between 37 and 54, and both ends are in the chart. Either end kills the headline. |
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East Harlem ground-floor permits, one filter at a time
DOB NOW approved permits, 1 Jan to 23 Sep, 2026 vs 2025. Pulled September 23, 2026.
| All filings |
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32.5% |
| Minus systems work |
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37.0% |
| Minus Second Ave |
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53.6% |
| Manhattan benchmark |
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58.1% |
Fall in filings year on year. Each bar removes one category from the count. The borough figure is measured the same way.
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| 04 |
Leases No public asking-rent series covers this corridor. What does exist is a construction calendar. Contract 1 covers utility relocation between 104th and 112th, with major work due to finish this quarter. Contract 2 runs 114th to 125th. The 106th Street station contract was awarded in June. Buildings at 115th and 116th came down in July and September. Revenue service is scheduled for 2032. |
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| 05 |
Permits 337 active food establishments across 10029 and 10035, with 43 permitted and not yet inspected. That is a 12.8% replacement pipeline against 13.5% for Manhattan. We are not going to make a claim out of that. One filing moves this corridor by 0.3 points and the gap to the borough is worth two filings. East Harlem sits fourth of seven Manhattan groups we measured. It is ordinary. |
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| 06 |
Closings The city file carries active permits only, so an establishment dropping out of it is a closure signal before anyone reports it. Baseline set today: 337 active. From next Tuesday this line carries what left and the streets it left. |
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| 07 |
The opening An operator taking ground floor on Second Avenue between 104th and 125th signs into six more years of active dig on a corridor already 16.9% empty. The upside is real and it is dated 2032. Underwrite the term against the finished station and you are pricing an asset that does not exist. Read the permit file at face value and you think this is the corridor that is building. |
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The move |
| Do. If you hold ground floor on Second Avenue between 104th and 125th, price the construction window, not the station. The window is six years long. |
| Watch. Whether Contract 1 utility work between 104th and 112th closes out this quarter as scheduled. A slip puts another year on those blocks. |
| Versus the city. East Harlem is 16.9% empty against 11.0% citywide, and reads on the permit file as the borough's strongest builder. Both come from the same hole in the ground. |
| SOURCES: NYC Comptroller, "Who's Minding the Storefronts?", June 4 2026 (Live XYZ ground survey, April 15 2026). DOB NOW Build Approved Permits and NYC DOHMH Restaurant Inspection Results, both pulled September 23 2026; ground and cellar floor filings only, Manhattan CB11 against the Manhattan borough total measured on the same filters. MTA, Second Avenue Subway Phase 2 project page and contract awards, 2024 to 2026. Food counts cover zips 10029 and 10035; permit counts cover Manhattan Community Board 11 entire. Current-year permit counts lag data entry, so comparisons are made against the borough on identical filters, never as absolute levels. |