The Madding Crowd

While a spate of recent media stories have heralded newly published statistics from the federal Census Bureau, indicating that both New York City and the State have recently declined slightly in population, Lower Manhattan appears to be bucking this trends.

The Census data shows that New York lost more population than an other state in the past year, with its overall headcount shrinking by approximately 48,000 residents. The majority of this decline, roughly 40,000 people, are accounted for by New York City. Even with this short-term shrinkage, however, the City’s five boroughs grew by 2.7 percent since the 2010 Census.

In Lower Manhattan, however, the picture is very different, with every neighborhood registering double-digit population growth since the 2010 Census. The most robust growth spurt has been in eastern part of the Financial District. Within zip code 10005 (a catchment bounded roughly by Broadway, Beaver Street, South Street, and Liberty Street) the overall population jumped from 4,935 in 2011 to 8,680 in 2017, according to Census data, This translates into an increase of more than 75 percent.

That neighborhood was closely followed by Greenwich South (zip code 10006), which falls between Broadway and West Street, south of Vesey Street and north of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. This area grew from 2,722 residents in 2011, to 3,579 in 2017, according to the Census Bureau — an increase of 31.5 percent.

Third place in the growth stakes went to Battery Park City’s southern neighborhood (zip code 10280), which expanded its residential base from 7,741 in 2011 to 9,820 in 2017 — a leap of 26.8 percent.

During the same period, the most anemic increase in population for any community in Lower Manhattan was in Battery Park City’s north neighborhood (zip code 10282), which added 617 residents (expanding from 5,027 to 5,644). This corresponds to a bump of 12.2 percent.

Overall, Downtown’s population grew by 15,392 residents between 2011 and 2017, the Census indicates.