New York City is a big city of small businesses — mom and pop shops, bodegas, food trucks, restaurants, and more — and there’s no better time for our businesses to shine than the holiday season. The holiday season adds $500 million to the city’s economy through increased spending and foot traffic — and this goes back into New Yorkers’ pockets, making the city more affordable for working people.
Last year, during a single day — Black Friday — over 1 million people visited Manhattan retail hubs like Bryant Park, Times Square, and SoHo alone. Retail hubs like Jamaica and Flushing in Queens, Fordham Road in the Bronx, and Metrotech in Brooklyn, all saw year-over-year increases in foot traffic on Black Friday as well.
This data also underscores the importance of the holiday shopping season for our city’s tourism sector. On Black Friday 2024, two-thirds of Times Square visitors were from outside the city and roughly half were from outside the metro area. It should come as no surprise that New York City retains its appeal as a global holiday destination.
Thanks to steps our administration has taken to make our city safer and more livable, we are now in the eighth straight quarter of crime declines and New York City now has the most small businesses in our city’s history.
Additionally, since the start of 2024, more than 16,000 New Yorkers have attended a Jobs NYC Hiring Hall, which has resulted in more than 5,000 on-site interviews and over 2,000 conditional job offers. And since we know financing and accessing capital is crucial to the success of small businesses, our NYC Small Business Opportunity Fund has awarded more than $85 million in capital to 1,000 small businesses since launching in 2023. In total, our administration has facilitated more than $350 million in financing to small business owners and entrepreneurs since we came into office less than four years ago.
Today, more than one in four businesses operating in New York City were created under our administration. In January 2022, as one of my first actions as mayor, I signed the “Small Business Forward” Executive Order to save small businesses an estimated $8.9 million in reduced fines and advanced an education-first approach to help small businesses survive. When you combine our efforts to cut red tape with our NYC Business Express Service Team’s work helping small businesses navigate city bureaucracy and avoid fees and fines, we’ve saved small businesses over $70 million.
Small businesses are the cornerstone of our economy and the heart of our communities. They support families and help the many diverse neighborhoods across our five boroughs thrive. I encourage every New Yorker to go out and support your neighborhood stores and spend locally. New York City is where dreams are made, and we want every small business to get their slice of that dream and deliver opportunity for the working-class people of our city.
Eric Adams
Mayor of New York City
Featured image credit: DepositPhotos.com
