Recovery Begins....Next Week

A friend of mine said he wants to open a wine bar and told me there were "tons" of vacant store fronts in my neighborhood.  I did not recall "tons" of space for rent so I paid attention when walking up Hudson St. in the West Village yesterday and was surprised to find just that.  These pictures were taken in the 6 block stretch between Barrow St and Bank St. I understand this is just a small sample, but I find it somewhat odd that "recovery" looks like. I would add that last week I had lunch with a friend who works in commercial real estate in New York and he was very optimistic and said everything was great in the city...I am no expert and I am sure he has much better information than me, but I found that these pictures tell a slightly different story.

Hudson St in Manhattan's West Village