New York, New York, a Tupll neighborhood field guide
Times Square
At Broadway & 7th Ave, Midtown ManhattanCoordinates 40.757958, -73.985640
A global crossroads of tourism, theater, and dining, wrapped inside the densest office district in America.
Times Square nighttime billboards and trafficSatsuka_Osaka / Mapillary, CC BY-SA 4.0
How to use this report
A Tupll Area Report is a field guide to the character and operating environment around a location, not a revenue calculation or a site evaluation. Measured figures come straight from cited public datasets; Interpretations are Tupll's labeled reading of them, and neither is a site-specific revenue forecast.
Geographies used
~1-mi core businesses & jobs
~3-mi context ring
ZIP 10036, residents
Greater NY metro, benchmark
Each figure below is tagged with the footprint it was measured on.
Empty Times Square with billboards, pandemic-era streetsfarlab / Mapillary, CC BY-SA 4.0Midtown street with theaters, signage, trafficsmartmaper / Mapillary, CC BY-SA 4.0Crowds crossing Times Square under billboardscbrown8 / Mapillary, CC BY-SA 4.0
Who lives here
The residential population (ZIP 10036, Theater District and Hell's Kitchen), against the Greater New York metro benchmark. It is a small population for such a famous place.
31,036
residents in the ZIP area
MeasuredZIP 10036 · ACS 2024
InterpretationA small resident base for one of the world's most visited places. The people who matter commercially here mostly arrive, they do not live here.
90% rent
of occupied homes are rentals
MeasuredZIP 10036 · ACS 2024
InterpretationAlmost nobody owns. A transient, renter-run residential fringe around a commercial and tourist core.
$95,638
median household income, vs Greater NY ~$100k
MeasuredZIP 10036 vs metro
InterpretationRoughly at the metro median. But resident income barely describes this area's spending, which is dominated by visitors and daytime workers.
22%
of residents (age 1+) moved in the past year
MeasuredZIP 10036 · ACS 2024
InterpretationHigh residential churn, the norm for a dense, rental Manhattan neighborhood.
The daytime economy & access
This is the real story of Times Square: a resident population of 31,000 sitting inside the densest job market in the United States.
~1,114,306
jobs in and around the core
Measuredtracts over ~1-mi core · LODES 2022
InterpretationOver a million jobs within a mile. Commercial demand here is driven by a vast daytime workforce and a global tourist flow, not by the 31,000 residents.
~12×
more jobs than the area has employed residents
Measuredtracts over ~1-mi core · LODES 2022
InterpretationAbout 1,114,306 jobs against 94,081 employed residents, an overwhelmingly workplace-and-visitor economy.
581
transit access points within 1 mile
Measured~1-mi core · OpenStreetMap
InterpretationOne of the densest transit hubs on earth. Nearly every customer arrives on foot or by subway, not by car.
11/20
EPA National Walkability Index
Measuredblock group · EPA
InterpretationWalkability is understated by a national index built for residential mix; on the ground this is pure pedestrian territory.
Top daytime employment: Professional & technical 20%, Finance & insurance 17%, Information 12%, Administrative & support 9%. Source: U.S. Census LEHD LODES 2022, for the 44 census tracts over the ~1-mi core.
What kind of place it is
The commercial DNA of the ~1-mile core, by share of mapped locations.
40%31%8%
4,848 mapped businesses, amenities & venues within the 1-mile core ~1-mi core
OSM record completeness: 96% carry a name; 41% list opening hours. These describe the mapped records, not the share of all real-world locations captured.
Measured Food, nightlife and retail make up roughly seven in ten mapped locations, alongside hotels, theaters and offices. Interpretation A tourism, dining and entertainment engine sitting on top of an office core, built to serve people passing through by the millions.
How the area appears to be changing
Qualitative interpretation · Confidence: Moderate
Read from current activity, density and mix, a present-day interpretation rather than a measured trend. A time-series is not yet wired in.
Direction
DecliningStagnantSteadyRising
A categorical read from current signals, not a computed score.
Development stage
EmergingMaturingEstablished
A fully built-out, world-famous district. Change happens at the margin (tenants, billboards, tourism cycles), not in its fundamental form.
Commercial stability
FragileVariableResilient
Demand is anchored by a million daytime jobs and a global tourism draw, so it absorbs individual-business churn. Caveat: it is unusually exposed to tourism and office-attendance cycles.
Measured
Extreme commercial density
4,848 mapped businesses (1,544/sq mi) and ~1,114,306 jobs in the ~1-mi core, OpenStreetMap + LODES.
Interpretation
Tourism-and-office cyclical
Activity tracks tourism seasons and return-to-office patterns more than local demographics. A qualitative read, not a wired time-series.
Operating implications
Conditions an operator would plan around in a place like this. These describe the place, not a recommendation, a forecast, or a revenue estimate for any specific business.
Demand is visitors and workers, not residents
With only 31,000 residents against a million daytime jobs and heavy tourism, a concept relying on a local resident base would badly misread this market. Foot traffic is the whole game.
Pedestrian and transit, not cars
Nearly everyone arrives on foot or by subway. Sidewalk visibility, corner position and signage matter enormously; parking and drive-time are largely irrelevant.
Premium occupancy cost
Some of the highest retail rents and billboard values in the world. The location commands a brand-visibility premium, and the cost structure to match.
A near-24/7 clock
Theater lets-out, late dining and tourism keep the area active well beyond office hours. Demand is spread across day, evening and night rather than a single peak.
Cyclical exposure
Unusually sensitive to tourism seasons, major events, and office-attendance trends. Plan for pronounced swings rather than steady week-to-week demand.
Intense competition
Nearly 5,000 businesses within a mile, including global brands and flagships. Differentiation and visibility matter more here than almost anywhere.
Data quality & limitations
Labels:Measured = direct from a cited dataset; Interpretation = Tupll's labeled reading of that data.
Sources: residents from the U.S. Census (ACS 2024, ZIP 10036); jobs from Census LEHD LODES; walkability from the U.S. EPA; businesses and transit from OpenStreetMap.
Geography: residents use ZIP 10036; businesses, jobs and transit use the ~1-mile core (jobs over the 44 tracts covering it). Benchmark is the Greater New York metro.
Coverage: OpenStreetMap tagging varies, so a mapped point is not a verified venue, and in a place this dense counts are indicative rather than exhaustive.
Tupll characterizes areas, never a specific parcel, listing, or building. These figures describe the district around a point. They carry no revenue projection and are not an investment recommendation.
Evaluate this location's revenue potential
This report shows the area's character. A full Tupll evaluation fuses it with your own locations and sales to predict revenue for this specific site, the one number this free report can't produce, by design.
