32,000 People Fled Greenwich Village In 2020: New Data Shows

GREENWICH VILLAGE, NY — As the pandemic swept through New York last year, residents fled Greenwich Village in droves, according to a new study by the global real estate firm CBRE.

The study looked at 29 million change-of-address requests filed with the U.S. Postal Service last year, providing insight into which ZIP codes saw the most departures — and where residents went.

New York City, which was already shrinking before the pandemic, had the second-most net move-outs of any metro in the country in 2020, trailing only San Francisco, the study found. Meanwhile, Sun Belt cities like Austin and Charlotte saw population gains.

Within the city, dense, urbanized neighborhoods like Midtown, Lower Manhattan, and Northern Brooklyn lost the most residents.

Across the four Lower Manhattan ZIP codes that include parts of Greenwich Village, more than 32,000 people moved out in 2020, while 19,198 moved in — a net loss of 13,400. That's a far great departure than the previous year, when the four ZIP codes had a net loss of about 3,200.

Here is the 2020 move-out data for each Greenwich Village ZIP Code.

• 10003 —East Village/Greenwich Village: 5,995 move-ins, 9,974 move-outs — net loss of 3,979 residents, or 35 per 1,000 people
• 10011 —Chelsea/Greenwich Village: 6,122 move-ins, 10,343 move-outs — net loss of 4,221 residents, or 60 per 1,000 people
• 10012 — Greenwich Village/SoHo: 2,773 move-ins, 5,370 move-outs — net loss of 2,597 residents, or 62 per 1,000 people
• 10014 — Hudson Square/West Village: 4,300 move-ins, 6,903 move-outs — net loss of 2,603 residents, or 51 per 1,000 people

The 10011 ZIP code, which includes a small part of Greenwich Village and the majority of Chelsea, had the most net move-outs of any part of the Lower Manhattan neighborhood — with 4,221.

The 10011 ZIP code's overall move-outs of 10,343 was the third most of any ZIP code in the state. And one of the few areas that saw more than 10,000 departures during 2020.

Most people who moved last year went only a short distance, often to a nearby county, the researchers found. Many of them were affluent young adults who had no children and were able to work remotely.

"The outflow from urban areas likely will subside as normal life resumes and lower rents lure back some who had moved out," they wrote.

Manhattan rent prices, which fell precipitously during the pandemic exodus, have shown signs of rebounding in recent months, suggesting that demand for urban living has begun to rise again.

Patch reporter Nick Garber contributed to this report.