Uptown Grand Central 7/25/25 Uptown Grand Central 7/25/25

East Harlem To Get $750K To Improve 125th Street Business Corridor

EAST HARLEM, NY — There's going to be a new Business Improvement District in Manhattan along East 125th Street to support the small businesses lining the corridor between Fifth Avenue and Second Avenue.

Following a unanimous City Council vote to approve a new Business Improvement District at the end of May, first reported by Crain's New York Business, the vote will now go to the mayor's desk to be signed, before being approved by the New York State Comptroller.

The Business Improvement District will be entirely operational by January 2026, with an annual budget of $750,000. The budget could increase to $1 million after three years with a board vote.

June 6, 2025

The Business Improvement District will be entirely operational by January 2026, with an annual budget of $750,000. The budget could increase to $1 million after three years with a board vote.

Uptown Grand Central 5/29/25 Uptown Grand Central 5/29/25

Fast-developing East Harlem gets city’s newest business improvement district

The Business Improvement District will be entirely operational by January 2026, with an annual budget of $750,000. The budget could increase to $1 million after three years with a board vote.

May 29, 2025

A unanimous City Council vote established the East 125th Street BID as the 77th such organization in the city, helping East Harlem shed its status as the last Manhattan community district without a BID of its own.

East 125th Street, the fast-developing corridor whose growth has coincided with persistent crime and sanitation issues, now has a new distinction: New York’s newest business improvement district.

A unanimous City Council vote on Wednesday established the East 125th Street BID as the 77th such organization in the city, helping East Harlem shed its status as the last Manhattan community district without a BID of its own. Community leaders who have pushed for it since 2021 hope that the better-funded BID will help them step up efforts to clean up neighborhood streets and make them welcoming for residents and businesses.

The time seems ripe to organize businesses and landlords along the corridor. East Harlem has experienced a building boom since a 2017 rezoning, and the planned construction of the Second Avenue Subway extension, which will terminate on East 125th and Lexington Avenue, is all but certain to incentivize more development. Just this month, city and state officials unveiled plans to permit a 684-unit apartment tower atop the subway’s future terminus.

“It started from a community level, of small businesses and residents just wanting to see better for the neighborhood,” said Carey King, director of the nonprofit Uptown Grand Central, which spearheaded the effort and runs street-cleaning programs similar to what the BID will perform. “And it ends up putting us in a better position when these big things come in, that we need to have a unified voice on.”

Uptown Grand Central 10/3/23 Uptown Grand Central 10/3/23

East Harlem Vies For BID: Affordable Housing, Safety Upgrades In Plans

The Business Improvement District will be entirely operational by January 2026, with an annual budget of $750,000. The budget could increase to $1 million after three years with a board vote.

October 3, 2023

EAST HARLEM, NY - East Harlem residents and business owners are rallying together to create a business improvement district in the neighborhood, which is Manhattan’s only community district without one already in place, officials say.

Spearheaded by East Harlem nonprofit Uptown Grand Central, the NYC Department of Small Business Services (SBS), Deputy Council Speaker Diana Ayala and local business owners, tenants and community leaders, the East Harlem BID is planned for East 125th Street and would work to promote safety, beautification and “culturally responsible” development in the area, the groups told Patch.

A BID is a joint public-private partnership where property owners pay an assessment that is used to provide services in a given district. There are 70-plus BIDs across New York City to date.

Uptown Grand Central 9/29/23 Uptown Grand Central 9/29/23

Hooray For East Harlem: First Business Improvement District (BID) Coming To East 125th Street

September 29, 2023

Plans are underway to form a BID on East 125th Street, a diverse corridor with a rich cultural history, outstanding intermodal transit connectivity, and a growing population.

It is the terminus of the proposed Second Avenue Subway and has seen significant residential development over the past decade.

With the support of the NYC Department of Small Business Services (SBS) and Deputy Council Speaker Diana Ayala, local nonprofit Uptown Grand Central and a steering committee of area property owners, small business owners, tenants, community and nonprofit leaders have been working over the past year and a half to form East Harlem’s first-ever Business Improvement District (BID). A BID is a public/private partnership where property owners within a defined set of boundaries pay an assessment that is used to provide supplemental services in the district. Currently, there are 70-plus BIDs across New York City.

Uptown Grand Central 9/28/23 Uptown Grand Central 9/28/23

Exclusive: East Harlem may get city’s newest BID, hoping to clean up struggling corridor

September 28, 2023

One of the last Manhattan neighborhoods without a business improvement district will soon shed that status: a coalition of nonprofits, storeowners, residents and real estate developers have banded together in an effort to form a BID along a bustling but troubled stretch of East 125th Street.

The proposal to launch an East 125th Street BID, shared exclusively with Crain’s, comes as the corridor faces a wave of new development and the arrival of the next leg of the Second Avenue subway in the next decade. But East 125th Street has also struggled in recent years with increasingly visible drug use and unsanitary conditions, which some residents attribute to the high concentration of facilities that treat substance abuse and mental health issues.

“Everybody wants to see this area feel less chaotic, more healthy, more clean,” said Carey King, director of the nonprofit Uptown Grand Central, which is spearheading the BID effort. The city’s Small Business Services Department, which oversees BIDs, approached King’s group about two years ago and suggested they get the ball rolling.

The proposed BID covers about 20 blocks between East 124th and 128th streets, bounded by Second and Fifth avenues—bordering the existing 125th Street BID in Central Harlem. It will need approval by the City Council, likely next year, and its chances seem good, since the effort is supported by local member Diana Ayala.

Above all, forming a BID would allow for a beefed-up version of what Uptown Grand Central does already: clean the sidewalks, promote the neighborhood and host events. The key difference is, instead of hunting constantly for new funding, the BID’s budget will come from a steady stream of tax assessments from district property owners.