Jun 10, 2006 US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT

Rising Rents Threaten NYC Neighborhoods

By KAREN MATTHEWS
Associated Press Writer

AP Photo/MARK LENNIHAN


NEW YORK (AP) -- Inside the flower wholesalers on 28th Street lie stacks of roses in every color of the rainbow. Outside, the sidewalk blooms with pink and blue hydrangeas, zinnias, lilacs, hibiscus. The air smells of day lilies.

The flower district - a short stroll from the Empire State Building - has been perfuming the north Chelsea air since the 1890s. But the district is so threatened by rising rents and new residential and hotel development that it may have to be moved or disappear entirely.

"We're history," said Bill Nikolis, a third-generation flower seller who owns Bill's Flower Market with his brother, Jim. "The market has been kind of just blown apart by all this development."

It is a common refrain around Manhattan these days. Luxury apartments and chain retailers are sprouting up everywhere as colorful neighborhoods like the flower district fade. Long gone are districts for butter and eggs, leather and radio parts. The Fulton Fish Market, a lower Manhattan fixture for 180 years, moved to the Bronx last year.

As recently as the mid-1990s, the flower district took up several blocks, and walking along Sixth Avenue meant picking your way through a jungle of potted palms.

"Ten years ago this street was booming," said Rob Houtenbos, whose Dutch Flower Line offers peonies from New Zealand and lilies of the valley from Holland. "There were 40, 50 stores filled with beautiful flowers."

But the district has since shrunk to one block and will have difficulty staying there much longer.

The neighborhood, once a warren of low-rise retail and light industry, was rezoned in the 1990s to include residential uses. Condo towers have sprung up along Sixth Avenue, and more apartments and hotels are being built on the block the flower district occupies, displacing several businesses in the past year.

Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, said he mourns the loss of unique neighborhoods as Manhattan is increasingly given over to luxury apartments and chain stores like Starbucks and McDonald's.

"There's this homogenizing steamroller that's kind of moving through the borough that's making Greenwich Village the same as Harlem, the same as the Lower East Side, the same as the Upper East Side," he said.

In Greenwich Village, several of the small theaters that gave the neighborhood its character - such as the Sullivan Street Playhouse, where "The Fantastiks" played for a record-setting 42 years - have been gutted to make way for condos, Berman said.

In SoHo, high rents are forcing small and medium-sized businesses out in favor of mega-retailers like Apple and Bloomingdale's. Retail space in the Meatpacking District that went for $25 a square foot six years ago now commands $125 a square foot or more, said Gene Spiegelman, a broker with Cushman & Wakefield.

There have been several attempts to move the flower district to another Manhattan neighborhood or possibly to the Bronx or Queens.

Houtenbos said his customers - retail florists, party planners, big corporations - are tired of Manhattan's scarce parking and would follow him to Queens. "I think it is essential for the market to move," Houtenbos said. "Every location is a compromise."

But consensus on a move has eluded the Flower Market Association, which represents about 35 storefront businesses. Manhattan sites are too expensive and some merchants believe the outer boroughs are too remote.

Berman, whose group tried unsuccessfully to help the flower district join the Meatpacking District, said a move seems unlikely.

"The attrition scenario is the most likely one," he said. "It's just going to kind of dribble away and there won't be any flower market anywhere."

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.