34th Street Partnership security staff
The number of Business Improvement Districts has expanded greatly over the last twenty years, both in New York City and nationally. There are now close to 1,000 BIDs in the US, with over 60 in New York, and more in the pipeline. The focus of most BIDs is what’s been labeled “Clean & Safe.” Following the model we set up at Grand Central Partnership, they provide staff to sweep the sidewalks and curbs and empty trash baskets. Larger BIDs also tend to provide unarmed private security services on sidewalks within the district, and often those staff members are trained to provide directions and other tourist information. While at GCP, as well as in Bryant Park and 34th Street Partnership we hired and trained our own staff to provide these services, many small BIDs, and even some larger ones contract out to third-party providers for this work.
Data from the Furman Center indicate that while larger BIDs have a significant effect on commercial property values, smaller BIDs in New York City lack sufficient resources to make much of an impact (http://furmancenter.org/files/publications/FurmanCenterBIDsBrief.pdf ). The Furman Report questions the efficacy of the creation of small organizations, much of whose budgets is necessarily spent on administration, and in recent years, it has been smaller BIDs that have been started in New York. This was certainly my experience in Downtown Jamaica, Queens, which has three BIDS, two of which are quite small. None of the three can afford to maintain a security program, and even the largest of them finds itself with very limited resources, given the magnitude of the challenges with which it has been tasked. Continue reading