Reporter Adam Bloch has taken to the streets in the Upper West Side and reports for West Side Spirit that there's been a slight uptick in the number of retail tenants in the area. He canvassed Broadway, Amsterdam and Columbus avenues from West 59th to 110th streets, "counting all the ground-floor, on-the-avenue businesses. Overall, 108 units stood empty, four were closing imminently and five more were planning to open soon. The total vacancy rate was 8.12 percent, slightly down from last year’s mark of 8.44 percent," he reports.

After speaking to people from the Upper West Side’s three Business Improvement Districts (BIDs), Bloch surmises that the neighborhood’s "commercial health is more accurately evaluated in geographical blocks rather than in long, thin avenues." 

But Peter Arndtsen, district manager of the Columbus/Amsterdam BID, was not as upbeat, saying: “Nobody’s doing really well. Things right now are hard, and everyone is feeling the pinch. People are watching how they spend money.” His overall vacancy rate is 11.94 percent, according to Bloch. Read the full story here.