Upper East Side Has Most Vacant Homes In NYC, Census Data Shows

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — While the Upper East Side's population grew in the past decade, it also maintained a less desirable distinction: the most vacant homes in the city.

The neighborhood's community district had 16,357 vacant housing units last year, according to data from the 2020 Census: the most of any district in the city. Its vacancy rate of 11.8 percent was the city's sixth-highest. (Parts of Midtown, the Upper West Side and Lower Manhattan all had higher vacancy rates.)

Housing units are considered vacant if no one was living there on April 1, 2020, when the census was taken — unless the occupants were only away temporarily. They are also listed as vacant if the current occupants normally live elsewhere, like many vacation rentals.

A closer look at the census tract-level data shows that vacancies are clustered along the south and west parts of the neighborhood, in the wealthier, more tourist-heavy areas along Fifth, Madison and Park avenues. (Zoom in and click on the interactive map below.)

The single census tract with the highest vacancy rate — 47% — runs between East 59th and 63rd streets, west of Park Avenue.

The lowest-vacancy area, meanwhile, covers the northeastern corner of the Upper East Side: a triangle above East 90th Street and east of First Avenue, where about 96 percent of homes were occupied.

This isn't the first time the Upper East Side recorded the city's most vacant homes, having done the same in the 2010 Census. Notably, though, the Upper East Side's vacancies declined in the past decade, dropping by about 200 homes since 2010.

New buildings don't align with vacancies

While the number of vacant apartments rose in some parts of the Upper East Side, the data does not suggest that new construction spurred that rise.

The blocks with high vacancy rates had relatively stagnant housing growth between 2010 and 2020, the data shows. Meanwhile, some areas that saw lots of new housing growth kept their vacancy rates low.

Indeed, experts have argued that New York's thousands of empty apartments are still nowhere near enough to make up for its desperate housing shortage. While the city grew by more than 629,000 residents since 2010, it added only 247,000 units of housing during that decade, according to the census.

This is part of a series of articles breaking down insights from the 2020 Census on the Upper East Side. To stay on top of future installments, subscribe to the newsletter from Upper East Side Patch.

Previous coverage:

• Here's Where The Upper East Side Grew, Shrank Since 2010
• Upper East Side Gained 12K People, Got More Diverse This Decade