Upper West Side To Hold Town Hall About Its Vacant Storefronts

UPPER WEST SIDE, MANHATTAN — This event has been postponed due to coronavirus concerned. A new date has not yet been announced, but the Eventbrite page linked below will be updated accordingly.

A town hall led by members of the community board will discuss reasons for the vacancies that have plagued Upper West Side storefronts.

Community Board 7's Business and Consumer Issues Committee will hold a "Retail Challenges on the Upper West Side" forum on Wednesday, April 1 to discuss struggles business and property owners face when trying to fill vacant commercial spots in the neighborhood.

Studies of the Upper West Side have found that some of its main corridors have been blighted by dozens of empty storefronts for several years.

A count carried out by Borough President Gale Brewer's office in May 2017 found 30 stores standing empty between West 68th and 98th streets. Patch found 20 of those shops are still shuttered — and counted an additional 27 businesses that have gone under.

Brewer's 2017 survey found a total of 188 empty storefronts along all of Broadway's 244 blocks, from the Battery to Inwood, including the 30 identified on Broadway between 68th and 98th. In a separate survey conducted in November 2017, Rosenthal's office found 57 of 422 storefronts on Broadway from 62nd Street to 109th Street—14%--were vacant.

The town hall forum will include a panel of two local property owners and longtime Upper West Side residents, including Glen Siegel, of Belvedere Capital, A.R. Walker & Co.'s George Beane, jewelry designer and shop owner Kate Thompson, restaurant owner Danny Abrams and retail broker and Community Board 7 Second Vice Chair Doug Kleiman.

Following the panel discussion will be a 30-minute question and answer session with questions submitted by audience members on cards distributed at the beginning of the Town Hall.

It will be held at 6:30 p.m. at the Kaufman Auditorium at the American Museum of Natural History.

Attendance to the Town Hall is free, but registration is required at Eventbrite.