What's The Problem With Retail On Hudson Street?

A walk down the east west side of Hudson Street last week from Bank to Charles Streets showed ten empty store fronts. This does not account for the east side of the street. A number of the locations are being leased by Ripco Real Estate. 

A resident sitting on her stoop was nonplussed: "That's how it always is over here," she asserted. "They want too much rent for these storefronts."

Perhaps tellingly, Bleecker Street, which underwent a radical transformation this past decade from haven for local retailers to a popular retail climate for high-end stores—with the accompanying quintupling of rents, runs parallel to this stretch of Hudson.

Are market forces on Bleecker St. sucking the life out of nearby Hudson? Are the property owners on Hudson Street hoping for a similar transformation, or at least a spillover? Photos of the ten empty stores are below.