When Did New York’s Streets Get So Hollow?

St. Marks Place and Second Avenue, the East Village, 1969.

"Over the past decade, there has been much hand-wringing about New York’s puzzling empty storefront problem, with vacancy rates sitting north of 15 percent last fall in some of the city’s most celebrated areas. How did streets, from the East to the West Village, once home to the urbanist Jane Jacobs, a champion of the city’s neighborhoods, become so hollow? Rent escalation and the shift to e-commerce are, of course, obvious culprits. But behind the scenes, an important, largely overlooked factor is New York City’s zoning code, enacted in 1961. Written in the face of fears of overcrowding, the code incorporated the postwar planning ideology that New Yorkers would live in tranquil residential neighborhoods and commute by car to office jobs in Midtown or to factory jobs on the city’s periphery. The code also reflected an anachronistic, and at times elitist, view that limited where and how small businesses could operate. ..."

NY Times