In the days after Donald Trump’s election, stores in midtown Manhattan watched a stream of foot traffic slow to a trickle as gates went up and police officers fanned out.
Security restrictions near Fifth Avenue’s gilded Trump Tower have eased somewhat since then, but small businesses and people who live nearby are still worried about four years of inconvenient detours.
On Tuesday, they’ll have a chance to sound off. A New York City committee is meeting to discuss what securing Trump Tower means for the neighborhood and the city at large.
Trump has conducted his presidential transition almost exclusively from the skyscraper he calls home. Business owners were especially hurt because the security apparatus descended during the busy holiday season, New York City council member Daniel R. Garodnick told CNNMoney.
“They are struggling, and they worry about how the security will change once he becomes the president,” he said.
Garodnick, who represents parts of the East Side and midtown, says he’s fielded complaints from constituents over street closures around Trump Tower.
“You have a hotel on that block [that saw] a real bump in cancellations because people felt they couldn’t access it, and for the people who did come, they had to navigate police and walk a quarter mile to hail a taxi,” Garodnick said. “You also have showrooms where people can make appointments to buy clothes in the area, and they reported that their clients did not want to go anywhere near midtown.”
Revenue at one bar on 56th Street fell 30% as a result of street closures, he said. “That block felt like a ghost town.”
Since the election, some streets that were inaccessible to cars have opened, and shoppers can visit retailers that were cordoned off before.
But the disturbance hit hard. In a December survey of 50 businesses around the tower, 80% reported a drop in foot traffic. Half of those said the impact was severe.
Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito predicts that “Donald Trump’s decision to conduct business out of Trump Tower for the foreseeable future will have significant impacts on local businesses.”
Dr. Sam Chandan, associate dean of the NYU School of Professional Studies’ Schack Institute of Real Estate, says it’s hard to predict how Trump’s presence will affect the area in the long term.
“In the recent history of New York there have been very few cases where a section of town has been disrupted in this way,” he said.
Chandon said that in highly congested areas like midtown Manhattan, “we could make an argument that there’s an impact on overall productivity.”
It’s possible that businesses might think twice before they decide to open offices or retail spots — or that they’ll see the congestion around Trump Tower as a small price to pay for a midtown location.