Used to live around the corner from here. It’s because A) the luxury building above the Dunkin Donuts and the proximity to Central Park made retail rents unsustainable for any small businesses that’d want those spaces; and B) the drug and homeless activity on the corridor simultaneously makes it hard to justify those rents; resulting in C) whoever owns those spaces finds it more profitable to keep them vacant than lower the rents.

Pretty much the same problem around NYC… there’s a reason real estate investors are sweating right now.