| 01 |
Status This corridor is not among the city's high-vacancy neighborhoods. That list is led by the Financial District at just over 21%, then Tribeca at 19.4% and Chinatown at 18.1%. Manhattan runs 12.9% and the city 11.0%. By rate the Upper West Side is ordinary, which is why nobody has looked hard at it since the pandemic counts. |
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| 02 |
Why Not a demand problem. 742 active food establishments sit in these three zips, more than double what West Harlem carries. What is missing is a price at which the empty units clear. The Manhattan neighborhoods that stay empty past two years are the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side, Midtown, Washington Heights and Inwood. That list does not sort by income. It sorts by which owners can afford to wait. |
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| 03 |
Trend Duration is where it breaks. At the eight-quarter window a small set of neighborhoods still show long-term vacancy above 60%. More than three in five storefronts empty this spring had already been empty two years. Harlem clears the nine-month band and falls out of this one. Twenty blocks decide whether a vacancy is slow or permanent. |
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| 04 |
Leases Still no public rent series, and this corridor is why that is remarkable. The city storefront registry exists because Upper West Side officials pushed it through in 2019, after their own staff counted 56 empty storefronts on thirty blocks of Broadway. It records address, business type and whether a unit is empty. It does not record rent or lease term. The neighborhood that lobbied hardest for the data still cannot see the number that decides anything. |
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| 05 |
Permits 742 active food establishments across 10023, 10024 and 10025, with 75 permitted and not yet inspected, the state a restaurant sits in before it opens. That is a 10.1% pipeline against 13.3% for Manhattan and 12.0% citywide. Ground-floor construction runs 423 year to date against 732 last year, down 42.2% where the borough is down 51.6%. Building 9.4 points ahead of Manhattan, replacing operators three points behind it. |
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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: 725 active across the three zips. From next Tuesday this line carries what left the file and the streets it left. |
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| 07 |
The opening 47 of the 75 permits sit on three avenues. Broadway takes 19, Amsterdam 18, Columbus 10. New operators are queuing on the same three streets the last ones queued on. Whatever has been empty two years is somewhere else, and nothing in the permit file reaches it. If you hold a side-street unit here, the avenue two blocks over is not your comp. |
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Where the pipeline is going. 75 permitted, not yet open.
NYC DOHMH file, pulled September 7, 2026
| Broadway |
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19 |
| Amsterdam Ave |
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18 |
| Columbus Ave |
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10 |
| All other streets |
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28 |
Three avenues take 63% of everything queued in CD7. Zips 10023, 10024 and 10025.
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The move |
| Do. Price a side-street unit off its own two years, not off Broadway. The avenue comps do not apply to it. |
| Watch. Whether any of the 75 permits lands off Broadway, Amsterdam or Columbus. None of the pipeline is currently going where the vacancy is. |
| Versus the city. Citywide vacancy is 11.0% and Manhattan 12.9%. This corridor sits under both on rate and inside the small set where most empty storefronts are two years old. Rate tells you what is empty. Duration tells you what is coming back. |
| SOURCES: NYC Comptroller, "Who's Minding the Storefronts?", June 4 2026 (Live XYZ ground survey, April 15 2026, NTA geography). NYC DOHMH Restaurant Inspection Results and DOB NOW Build Approved Permits, both pulled September 7 2026. NYC storefront registry, established under Local Law 157 of 2019. Broadway vacancy counts, Office of the Manhattan Borough President and Patch, 2019 to 2021. DOB 2026 counts lag entry and are used comparatively against the borough, not as absolute levels. |