In 1995, a group of enterprising New Yorkers came together to form the Alliance for Downtown New York with a mission to turn things around for the then-struggling financial center. At the time, things in Lower Manhattan were rough. The streets were lined with shuttered and graffiti-covered storefronts, and a residential population of only 14,000 meant downtown felt lifeless and empty once office workers went home.
But the Alliance brought new life into the neighborhood. The introduction of two crucial services — a sanitation team, which cleaned up and maintained the streets, sidewalks and storefronts; and a public safety team, which patrolled the neighborhood — made the neighborhood cleaner, safer and more inviting. The Alliance also reshaped the neighborhood from the inside, championing zoning changes, inventive tax incentives for commercial real estate and the creation of new housing, including the then-novel idea of converting outdated and vacant office buildings into housing.
Decades later, Lower Manhattan has completely transformed. No longer merely a 9-to-5 business district, it is now a thriving, round-the-clock neighborhood serving tourists, workers and locals alike, with everything from Michelin-starred restaurants to dozens of hotels to a state-of-the-art performance center — just to name a few local highlights. The Alliance has been there every step of the way, boosting the neighborhood through our core services and advocacy as well as through our economic data and research, communications and marketing, food and event programming and much, much more.
Watch our video below to learn more about the Alliance and Lower Manhattan, and be sure to check out all our 30th anniversary content for deep dives into our extensive work in the neighborhood.
