C5 commercial districts, for example, like Madison Avenue, were intended for the wealthy; that meant high fashion was permitted, but service businesses, like catering and appliance repair shops, were banned. By contrast, C6 commercial districts, like the area around Herald Square, were intended for the working class and permitted a broader range of uses, like billiards and wholesale retail.
A whopping 426 uses of space are defined in the zoning, as varied as taxidermy specialists, typewriter repair shops and travel bureaus. All were assigned areas where they could operate. Existing businesses that did not conform with the new list of permitted uses in their locations were grandfathered in. But they were prohibited from making any substantial alterations to their footprint or evolving business operations — like repairing bicycles in a shop that was permitted only to do sales. And if a storefront was vacant for more than two years, the zoning would default to the new permitted uses, potentially precluding a new store from opening in an old one’s place.
In response to blight in the 1970s, the city eventually caved on the compliance question in some residential areas. But these restrictions persist in large sections of New York, applying to, for instance, beloved legacy businesses on and near Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, like Montero Bar, the Long Island Bar and Brooklyn Heights Deli, which are considered nonconforming.
“When the pandemic hit, it exposed all the ways in which our zoning is holding businesses back in their ability to respond to change,” Matt Waskiewicz, an architect of City of Yes for Economic Opportunity at the city’s planning department, told me. To this day, in many parts of the city — from the Lower East Side to Bedford-Stuyvesant — there are empty storefronts that cannot be reoccupied under current code.
City of Yes would do away with the two-year vacancy clock altogether and focus on further integrating residential and commercial areas. That has prompted angst from some community board members, who seem to prefer to live in a homogenous suburb.