Pedestrians strolling down Madison Avenue this summer are confronted by
two competing narratives for the economic health of the high-end retail
zone on the Upper East Side: large numbers of vacant storefronts mixed
in with a wave of construction and rehabilitation projects. While in recent years the number of empty locations has approximately
doubled along Madison Avenue from 57th Street to 86th Street, new
construction and rehabilitation work is filling other spaces, as the
accompanying slide show of photographs by The Real Deal shows. Of the 350 storefronts on the strip, there are now 30 vacant sites
compared to an estimated 14 in September 2007, data from the Madison
Avenue Business Improvement District, which covers the 29-block
stretch, indicates. [more]