UWS Broadway Regained Just 1 Storefront After COVID Losses

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — The Upper West Side's busiest corridor regained just one new tenant after the pandemic hit New York City and decimated local businesses, according to Patch's third storefront count.

Patch found 56 storefronts standing empty on Broadway between West 68th and 98th streets this April, a decrease of one from the 57 we found closed in October 2020.

"It's a huge number of vacancies," said Upper West Side Council Member Gale Brewer. "When I walk around, I see the vacancies and know we have a lot of work to do."

For many years, Brewer was one of the elected officials pushing to create a database that would track the vacant storefronts throughout New York City.

The database went live in 2021, but Brewer told Patch that she's not happy with how it has been unrolled.

In its current form, the storefront tracker only includes the address, the type of business using the space and whether or not it is vacant.

It does not include the more sensitive information, such as the location's average lease duration, the remaining term to lease expiration and the price of rent.

Brewer said an effort was underway to improve the tracker, but that it is a "very slow process."

Upper West Side Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal didn't mince her words surrounding the number of vacancies on the Upper West Side.

"They (landlords) have to lower the rent," Rosenthal said. "It has to change. I think buildings are charging way too much rent. I don't understand their calculations."

56 Vacancies In 30 Upper West Blocks

Putting the recent count of 56 vacancies on Broadway in perspective — there is at least one positive — the number hasn't grown.

In the 18 months from April 2019 to October 2020, the vacancies from Broadway and West 68th to 98th street grew by 21 percent.

It decreased by one from October 2020 to April 2022.

However, the closure of a few larger stores during the past six 18 months hasn't helped.

Those larger closures include the DSW at 2220 Broadway, the Victoria Secret's at 2333 Broadway, and the Duane Reade at 2069 Broadway.

The shuttering of storefronts of that size on blocks that are not particularly long north to the south gives the sense that the entire block has been somewhat abandoned.

There are also vacancy hotspots between West 68th and 98th streets.

• Four vacancies between Broadway and West 82nd to 83rd streets (both sides of the avenue)

• Five vacancies between Broadway and West 79th to 81st streets (both sides of the avenue)

• Four adjacent vacancies on the corner of West 69th street that have all been vacant since 2019.

“This has been a problem for so many years now, and of course one wouldn’t expect stores to come to any neighborhood during COVID,” Rosenthal said.

Both Brewer and Rosenthal mentioned that stretches of the Upper West Side that didn't have Business Improvement Districts (BID) seemed to struggle more to fill their storefronts.

The elected officials pointed toward the work BIDs were able to do on Columbus Avenue in the neighborhood by using the storefronts to display art and welcome in more new businesses.

Brewer also said that she was about to start working with Upper West Side Save Our Stores and the Jewish Community Center (JCC) with funding provided by the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce to tackle the vacancy issue on a wider scale, but did not specify exactly what the work would be.

UWS Save Our Stores was an advocacy group created in 2019 dedicated to "stopping the epidemic of long-term vacant storefronts and improving the quality of street life on the Upper West Side."

Check out more photos of the Upper West Side vacant storefronts below.

UWS Broadway Regained Just 1 Storefront After COVID Losses originally appeared on the Upper West Side Patch