We love the idea of turning Broadway into a pedestrian mall–it’s a win for New York City and there’s plenty of evidence that increasing foot traffic on a street generally translates into higher sales for local merchants. But when we checked in with about 20 business owners and street vendors in Times Square recently, we were surprised to hear them report almost unanimously that revenue is down over the past month.
As a reason for the decline, they tended to cite dispersed walking patterns now that pedestrians have a lot more real estate at their disposal. Here’s a representative sample of what they told us:
- “There are fewer people on the sidewalks now,” said Duane Jackson, who owns a souvenir stall on the corner of 45th and Broadway and has been in business for 11 years. “It’s the allure of being able to walk in the middle of the road. There are obviously more pedestrians now, but they’re all out on the roads, distracted by the buildings. They’re not looking at surface level.”
- “I can say business is low, at least 5% less than before,” said John Palha, 46, manager of Grand Slam New York, on Broadway between 46th and 47th Streets. “We used to get customers from tour buses stopping right in front of our store. They’d come in while waiting for the bus or after finishing their tour. Now we’ve lost all that.”
- Abdul Azim, who works at Mike’s Newsstand on 46th Street and Broadway put it this way: “In Times Square now people don’t look down. They look up.” Due to the lack of potential customers on the sidewalk, he reports sales at his business are down 10 percent.
- “I still think it was good they opened the streets to people, but everyone is walking away from my stall,” said Joseph Salih, 50, vends souvenirs along Broadway. “It could also be the economy, I’m not sure.”
The Times Square Alliance, which supports and represents business interests in the area, is reserving judgment for the moment. “It’s too soon to tell,” said Minerva Martinez, director of communications for the Alliance. “We haven’t been tracking individual businesses.”
The only positive reports came from ticket agents who can roam amidst the crowds on the roadway. “It’s given us all some breathing room and we have more room to work to find people,” says Kevin Doyle, 23, of HHC marketing, who now manages to sell 10 to16 tickets a day – an improvement from his usual 6 to 10.
But Doyle also thinks the space could be put to better use for business owners. “I’m torn about this,” he says. “I think to just close off an entire street is not as productive unless you at least allow vendors and artists to set up there.”
Not a bad idea, if done right…
June 30th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
I wonder how much of this has to do with the current state of economy, as opposed to pedestrianization.
It’s also not like there are any parking spots on Broadway. You’d be insane to drive from point to point in midtown manhattan.
June 30th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
Go back to herding thousands of pedestrians per hour onto a tiny fragment of sidewalk? I don’t think so. Some things are more important than retail sales. How about also looking at the changes in area property values, pedestrian comfort levels, and PM2.5 particulate concentrations before vs. after the change?
June 30th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
This is only anecdotal evidence. (Well, save for the ticket sellers, who have an approx numerical value of the increase in tickets sold/day.) How about some sales figures from merchants, cross-referenced with national averages on downturns in sales? Sometimes you have to wonder if these people even collect historical sales data.
July 1st, 2009 at 1:55 am
Did you really not see this coming?
July 1st, 2009 at 8:51 am
Okay, so businesses that can adapt will, and businesses that can’t adapt will go out of business and others will take their place. Welcome to the free market. Sometimes businesses go out of business and that is okay. (Unless it is MY business, of course. Then the government should step in and do something!)
July 1st, 2009 at 9:21 am
The storefronts in times square are a competitive but fragile ecosystem. They spent decades becoming over-specialized toward crowded sidewalks and crowded streets. Now that pedestrians have more space shopkeepers will have to adapt to the new ecosystem.
How about something that will utilize some of that space if the city govt will allow it (which it should)? Cafes are almost cliche now, but they would fill the niche very appropriately.
July 1st, 2009 at 9:54 am
Excellent!
So here we have a chain of events:
1) Broadway businesses do extremely well
2) Some moron thinks that by banishing cars, you can increase foot traffic. This will help business.
3) Despite the warnings from reasonable people everywhere, they go ahead with the plan.
4) The plan turns out to suck for business.
5) The morons who thought a huge government intervention would be good for business turn around and blame it on the free market.
July 1st, 2009 at 10:45 am
1. These business owners are likely describing the impact of a downturn in the overall economy. This has little to do with the change in street design.
2. The tchatchke vendors interviewed in this relatively clueless article are not the businesses that matter in and around Times Square. The businesses that matter are the hotels, the theaters and the corporate offices. If these businesses are happy with the results, then the experiment is a success.
3. Commenter “Danny” has no idea what he is talking about. You want “huge government intervention?” Let’s talk about the interventions that brought all that automobile traffic through Times Square, in the first place. Let’s talk about the interventions that created Manhattan. Did you know that it was once a tranquil forest?
July 1st, 2009 at 10:58 am
Time Square businesses will adapt or be replaced with businesses more suitable than crappy souvenir tchotkies for the different pedestrian dynamic that now exists in the area. Capitalism at its finest.
July 1st, 2009 at 11:10 am
Danny, do you live in New York? Have you ever tried to park in Times Square? Tell me, how is it that vehicle traffic in this puddle of humanity is the major driving force?
Besides the vendors in that area suck.
July 1st, 2009 at 11:38 am
Dane-
1. I find the explanation that the vendors offer to be perfectly convincing–they would have felt the downturn in the general economy well before this.
2. It matters to the vendors. They’re real people with real businesses — not the most glamorous economic activity, certainly. But they sell crap to tourists and that’s part of the local economy, always has been and always will be. What’s happening to them seems a data point worth recording. Not of overriding importance, but at least worth noting. The “article” is almost entirely their testimony.
3. I’m not sure what commenter Danny is talking about either.
-Jebediah
July 1st, 2009 at 5:07 pm
This article is as logical as determining whether or not fisheries are over-fished, or climate crisis are realities based on a few weeks worth of data. Has anyone noticed that it’s been raining most of the time Broadway’s been closed? Not to mention the downturn in the economy.
Which of the variables (a. closing the street to traffic, b. rain, c. recession) is the culprit? a, b, or c? perhaps all three? perhaps b & c? I think more data is necessary & this Chicken Little story is premature.
July 1st, 2009 at 5:52 pm
I’m a bit perplexed by the response to this post. Nowhere do we suggest herding people back onto sidewalks or that this constitutes anything more than anecdotal evidence.
As we stated pretty clearly, we are in favor of closing off Broadway–and to an even greater extent than has yet been done–to vehicle traffic. Yet it’s worth seeking a complete understanding of what the effects are\. The effect on newsstand owners and vendors is a very minor concern in the larger context, naturally. But they are not exactly power players in all this and if there are easy ways to make it work better for them–perhaps allowing a newsstand owners to reconfigure their stands a bit to adjust to new pedestrian traffic patterns or whatever–then we would should do so.
-Jebediah
July 1st, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Tommye - Yes, the weather has sucked here in NYC. No doubt an element in the mix.
JR
July 1st, 2009 at 10:52 pm
“I’m a bit perplexed by the response to this post… Yet it’s worth seeking a complete understanding of what the effects are.”
It is worth it. And that’s why you’re getting such a negative response here. You’re casting judgment on the project based on an incredibly small set of anecdotal data and before the new pavement markings have even been laid down. It’s a little bit like writing an architecture review of a building that’s under construction. And then, on top of that, you’re framing your snap judgment as “Intellectual Honesty.” Frankly, that’s the part that really annoyed me, in part, because it seems to suggest dishonesty elsewere. I walked from Times Square to Herald Square this evening and the new public spaces were absolutely jam-packed. I don’t know if everyone was spending money with the local retailers. But these temporary, half-built spaces seemed, this evening, at least, to be a huge success and a genuinely radical re-envisioning of what’s possible in this city.
July 2nd, 2009 at 12:04 am
Dane-
The “Intellectual Honesty” slug in no way should suggest dishonesty elsewhere. It related to my expectations going into the story, the fact that Sindu found something very different when she actually reported it out, and my feeling that intellectual consistency required me print the story anyway. Or pixel it, or whatever.
Beyond that, I’ll note the objections.
Jeb
July 2nd, 2009 at 8:31 am
Having walked through this area the past couple of weekends to see how things were going, I can add a few observations:
This is still very much under construction. Sections are still closed off as they add barriers and put down paint on the roadways.
While the extra pedestrian space has relieved some of the pressure on the overcrowded sidewalks, it is still very congested in places.
Cars are still very much a presence in Times Sq. One of the striking things walking though here (in comparison to many of the European pedestrian town centers) is that as you walk you are continually leaving and entering pedestrian zones. When you hit a cross street or 7th Ave, it is not just a car or two, but a major flow of vehicles. So while some oasis is provided by the larger plazas, this is far from “car-free”.
I think it is way too early to start drawing conclusions based on a few weeks of operation. There are so many factors at play here. Yes, the weather in NYC has been unusually wet. The economy stinks. Tourism is down. And worst of all, hundreds of reporters are coming through constantly asking business owners “does this suck or what?”
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:05 pm
as a “tchatchke vendor” in times square for 30+ yrs. i can say the effects of this experiment are not yet known. i can say that the whole scene is bizarre and absurd. it has definitely sucked some of the vitality out of the area.
Just wait until the cold months Oct. — April. NO ONE is going to lie around on beach (or any other) chairs. Its going to be a black hole.
Times Square has made amazing strides in the last 20 yrs. This plan goes too far and this space is needed for vehicular traffic.
Reminds me of the story about the blind couple who have a baby that can see. they are so fascinated that they keep touching his eyes until he too goes blind.
Put TImes Square back together. Incremental changes can be made to ease pedestrian traffic flow.
July 7th, 2009 at 11:40 pm
There are plenty of factors. The economy is faltering. What was the weather like that day? I don’t think a one-time street closure can give you enough information.
July 9th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
[...] On Newly Car-Free Broadway, Vendors Disappointed By Slow Sales from INFRASTRUCTURIST We love the idea of turning Broadway into a pedestrian mall–it’s a win for New York City and there’s plenty of evidence that increasing foot traffic on a street generally translates into higher sales for local merchants. But when we checked in with about 20 business owners and street vendors … [...]
January 3rd, 2010 at 12:23 am
The Times Square Alliance is run largely by a largely clueless group of hacks who have no understanding of Economics, Marketing or the history of New York City, including Times Square. So much about what has been done in remaking Times Square has been designed for middle America, not New Yorkers, many of whom by nature avoid the area. So in essence by writing off the local income stream you have to wonder whether these folks truly no what they are doing. Times Square is the one place in New York City that real New Yorkers avoid unless they work in the area.