NYC Real Estate News

Last year, when World’s 50 Best issued its first global ranking of hotels, only two properties in the U.S. made the cut: the Equinox and Aman New York hotels, both in Manhattan.

Now Michelin has arrived stateside, in its second-ever presentation of “keys” — a new system from the eponymous tiremaker that’s doling out one, two or three key emblems, like its restaurant stars but to the world’s worthiest hotels.

Out of more than 1,000 luxury hotels across the country, 11 were awarded three keys. The winners were all in California and New York, from Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur to Single Thread Inn in Healdsburg and the Whitby Hotel in Midtown. Aman New York, echoing its position on World’s 50 Best, was also included; Equinox, meanwhile, received no keys at all.

Importantly, keys were only distributed to hotels in seven primary markets across the U.S. where the Michelin Guide also reviews restaurants: New York City, Atlanta, California, Chicago, Colorado, Florida, and Washington, D.C. Michelin says next year’s ceremony will expand to include more of the U.S.

One key denotes a “special” stay, two make it “exceptional” and three reflect hotels that are “extraordinary.”

Gwendal Poullennec, international director of the Michelin Guide, has described the criteria for these awards in highly subjective terms. Earlier this month he told Bloomberg that these most exceptional properties will be judged based off “the experience” alone. Rather than requiring them to adhere to certain definitions — like having a spa, pool or minimum staff-to-guest ratios — the hotel experience “has to be memorable and singular in a way that will give people a feel for local character,” he explained. At the awards ceremony, he built upon that sentiment. “We’re not a checklist of amenities,” he said.

This is still an improvement over other ranking systems, which rely on already-published articles by outside media or complimentary stays to produce their results; by contrast, Michelin has committed to independently paying for its hotel reviewers to stay at each property. In an interview after the ceremony, Poullennec went further, adding that multiple inspectors stay at each hotel, sometimes multiple times, before assigning keys.

“We have boots on the grounds, inspectors working the field in every country, leaving no stone unturned and also looking for discoveries, new openings, in order to be fully up to date in their recommendation,” Poullennec said in remarks during the key presentation at the Museum of Art and Design on Columbus Circle.

To some hoteliers, Michelin’s recognition holds outsize importance. In background conversations leading up to the event, owners of several new independent hotels in major cities held hope that earning multiple keys could help them compete with better-established luxury brands such as Aman, Rosewood or Ritz-Carlton. That may be the case for the boutique London-based Firmdale Hotels, whose two New York hotels, the Whitby and the Crosy Street Hotel, both earned three keys.

Others in more remote locations expected that any honor could help them lure talent — places like Twin Farms in Barnard, Vermont, or Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee, for example. Unfortunately the prospect will have to wait.

It’s not that Michelin is the only designation that consumers can use to parse quality hotels. Walk into many of the key-awarded hotels, and you might see a Forbes’ five-star plaque — that honor was given to some 80 luxury hotels in the U.S. in 2023, and American travel magazines dole out similar recognitions each year. But Michelin’s reputation spans much of the globe, in a way that the others do not.

“Our users say that when they are looking for places to stay, they will spend on average 10 hours on 10 different platforms to do so,” Poullennec said at the ceremony. “They’re at a loss. There is a demand for real recommendations and independent ones, that you can trust and go beyond brand labels, and that apply from one country to another — a global reference.”

Still, there are many skeptics. Michelin’s entry into the hotel market comes at a time when the company is looking for new revenue streams and attracting criticism for expanding its Michelin Dining Guides in a way that prioritizes destinations with big marketing budgets, even when they don’t have the restaurant quality to back it up.

The Atlanta Michelin Guide, for instance was sponsored by the local tourism board in a deal worth $1 million, but no restaurant in the city earned more than a single star. Its inclusion as one of the first destination in the hotel keys presentation will come as a surprise to luxury hotel afficcionados; the city is not widely known as a hub for luxury hotels, and only three hotels in the city were included, each with one key.

Pouillennec tells Bloomberg the overlap is because restaurant critics need places to sleep; that made it logistically feasible to prioritize these places. Although, as he told Bloomberg earlier in Paris, they’re not excluding the possibility of sponsored hotel guides in the future.

Also leading to skepticism about the awards is Michelin’s acquisition of Tablet Hotels, which took place in 2018 for an undisclosed sum; it’s a curated booking platform for luxury and boutique hotels that features some 6,000 hotels globally and around 950 properties in the U.S.

The technology gives Michelin a place where it can facilitate bookings for its recommended hotels, earn commissions from them, and also collect feedback from guests about their stays. As a result, some hoteliers have wondered whether Michelin has prioritized Tablet properties in its inspections; the company says reviews are completely independent and carried out by full-time employees, but adds that every hotel it recognizes is immediately bookable on its website.

“Nothing matters more than the independence of our recommendations,” Poullennec said.

In all, 124 hotels in the U.S. were recognized with keys. Here is the full list of winners divided by market:

New York City
Crosby Street Hotel
The Whitby Hotel
Aman New York
Casa Cipriani New York

The Beverly Hills Hotel, Dorchester Collection
Post Ranch Inn, Big Sur
SingleThread Inn, Healdsburg
Hotel Bel-Air, Dorchester Collection, Los Angeles
Auberge du Soleil, Auberge Resorts Collection, Rutherford
Meadowood Napa Valley, St. Helena
Canyon Ranch Woodside, Woodside

The Fifth Avenue Hotel
The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel
The Mark Hotel
Hotel Barrière Fouquet's New York
Nine Orchard
Pendry Manhattan West

L’Ermitage Beverly Hills
The Maybourne Beverly Hills
The Peninsula Beverly Hills
Ventana Big Sur, an Alila Resort
Bernardus Lodge & Spa, Carmel Valley
The Stavrand, Guerneville
Montage Healdsburg
The Madrona, Healdsburg
Montage Laguna Beach
Rosewood Miramar Beach, Montecito
Milliken Creek Inn & Spa, Napa
Four Seasons Hotel San Francisco at Embarcadero
The Battery, San Francisco
Cavallo Point Lodge, Sausalito
Pendry West Hollywood
Chateau Marmont, West Hollywood
North Block, Yountville
Bardessono, Yountville

Pendry Chicago
The Langham
The Peninsula Chicago

Mayfair House Hotel & Garden, Miami
The Setai Miami Beach
Faena Hotel Miami Beach
Four Seasons Hotel at The Surf Club, Miami Beach

Rosewood Washington, D.C.
The Jefferson

1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn
Ace Hotel Brooklyn
Wythe Hotel, Brooklyn
1 Hotel Central Park
Baccarat Hotel & Residences
Ritz-Carlton New York, Central Park
Ritz-Carlton New York, NoMad
The Beekman - A Thompson Hotel
The Bowery Hotel
The Greenwich Hotel
The Hotel Chelsea
The Lowell
The Ludlow Hotel
The Mercer
The Peninsula New York
The Wall Street Hotel
Warren Street Hotel

Stonehurst Place Atlanta
The Candler Hotel Atlanta
Hotel Clermont

Four Seasons Resort Napa Valley, Calistoga
Harbor House Inn, Elk
Downtown LA Proper Hotel
Soho Warehouse DTLA, Los Angeles
The Aster, Los Angeles
The Paramour Estate, Los Angeles
The Prospect Hollywood, Los Angeles
Stanly Ranch, Auberge Resorts Collection, Napa
Pendry Newport Beach
Dive Palm Springs
Holiday House Palm Springs
La Serena Villas, Palm Springs
Sparrows Lodge, Palm Springs
Rancho Caymus Inn, Rutherford
1 Hotel San Francisco
Hotel Drisco, San Francisco
Hotel San Luis Obispo
San Luis Creek Lodge, San Luis Obispo
El Encanto, A Belmond Hotel, Santa Barbara
Casa Del Mar, Santa Monica
Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows, Santa Monica
Santa Monica Proper Hotel
Shutters on the Beach, Santa Monica
The Georgian, Santa Monica
The Sea Ranch Lodge, Sea Ranch West
Chamberlain West Hollywood
Hotel 850 SVB, West Hollywood
Palihouse West Hollywood
Soho House Holloway, West Hollywood
Sunset Tower Hotel, West Hollywood
The Charlie, West Hollywood

Chicago Athletic Association
Nobu Hotel Chicago
The Gwen, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Michigan Avenue Chicago
Viceroy Chicago
Waldorf Astoria Chicago

Hotel Jerome, Auberge Resorts Collection, Aspen
The Little Nell, Aspen
Mollie Aspen
Clayton Hotel & Members Club, Denver
Four Seasons Denver
The Crawford Hotel, Denver
Sonnenalp Hotel, Vail
Four Seasons Vail

Mandarin Oriental Miami
Mr. C Miami – Coconut Grove
1 Hotel South Beach, Miami Beach
Esmé Miami Beach
Hotel Greystone - Adults Only, Miami Beach
The Betsy - South Beach, Miami Beach
Ette Hotel, Orlando
Lake Nona Wave Hotel, Orlando
The Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes
Palihouse Hyde Park Village, Tampa
The Tampa Edition

Eaton D.C.
Pendry Washington D.C. – The Wharf
Riggs Washington D.C.
The Dupont Circle Hotel
The Hay-Adams Hotel

The news this month that the former home of Papaya King, a tiny takeout joint on East 86th Street and a mainstay of the shopping strip since the Great Depression, will meet a wrecking ball to make way for housing came as a shock to some observers: How could a longtime business loved as much for its cheap hot dogs as for its quirky neon signs vanish just like that?

But in a way, it shouldn’t have been surprising at all. With tick-tock-like steadiness, East 86th has been losing its mom-and-pop businesses for decades, as tea shops, music venues, budget hotels, movie theaters, pet stores and banks, several of which once catered to the area’s longtime German population, have said auf wiedersehen.

In the end, a single-story structure with ample unused air rights serving mango drinks seems to have barely stood a chance in a “highest and best use” analysis, the often ruthless calculation deployed by real estate players to wring the most value out of even specks of land.

It’s clear that the owner of the site, whose address is 171 E. 86th St, has greater aspirations for the low-slung building, which also once included an eyewear store and children’s clothing shop. That owner, developer ZD Jasper Realty, a Long Island-based firm increasingly active across the city, has proposed a 17-story condo with 25 units.

Some recent residential trends involving new homes rather than resales may have inspired its plans.

While activity has been mostly flat — 193 new condos sold in Manhattan during the first quarter of this year versus 201 during the first quarter of 2023, according to data from Douglas Elliman — prices of those units were relatively strong. The median sale price for new developments was $2.1 million this winter versus $1.6 million the previous year, a hefty 31% gain.

Conversely, any investor looking at similar figures for the retail sector might conclude that storefronts aren’t what they used to be.

In the first quarter of this year, asking rents for retail berths in Manhattan averaged $255 per square foot on nearby Third Avenue (the closest major retail thoroughfare), according to data from CBRE. This represented an increase from the first quarter of 2023 but only by about 3%. Along the same lines, more than half of Manhattan’s 19 top shopping areas saw rent declines over the same period, CBRE said.

The pandemic doesn’t seem to have helped Papaya King’s case. In 2020, its landlord Imperial Sterling dragged the no-frills frankfurter stand to court over alleged non-payment of rent, a case that appeared to be ongoing in 2021, when Imperial Sterling sold No. 171 to residential builder Extell Development Co. for $21 million. Although Extell took steps to raze the site, the developer eventually changed its mind, choosing to unload the corner property at a profit to ZD Jasper instead.

To be fair, ZD Jasper, which did not return a call for comment, does plan to include 2,700 square feet of retail space in its new high-rise, according to permits. Likewise, most of the other towers that have marched onto East 86th in recent years offer retail berths on their ground floors as well.

But whether because of changing culinary tastes or the cold realities of real estate economics, it may be hard to imagine any of them having tenants whose business is serving up buns filled with low-cost meat.

171 E. 86th St.

The small retail building at this site, which for decades housed a Papaya King stand — its 1930s-era opening seemed to mark the first time the classic New York combo of hot dogs and sweet drinks were offered — was gobbled up by luxury builder Extell Development before being offloaded to developer ZD Jasper Realty last year. The company, whose chief is Tom Wu, filed plans in April for a 17-story, 25-unit condo project. Papaya King was on the outs with its landlord at the site after allegedly missing more than $120,000 in rent payments during the pandemic. After closing in 2022, the stand tried to make a go of it across the street in a former sports store at 1535 Third Ave., but it never really got off the ground. ZD Jasper, meanwhile, has two projects afoot near Hudson Yards, a 52-unit development at 439 W. 36th St., and a 174-unit, two-towered version at 501 and 489 Ninth Ave. In April, the firm also picked up a sizable Long Island City development site for $47 million.

310 E. 86th St. 

Like many stretches of the street, the southern side of this block for years included row houses with faded grandeur. A previous retail tenant in one of them, at No. 310, was a holdover from Yorkville’s German heyday, M. Rohrs’ House of Fine Teas and Coffees. Founded in 1896 and located at different addresses around the Upper East Side in the years since, the narrow 1,800-square-foot berth at No. 310 sold 90 types of its namesake beverages as well as German beers. But M. Rohrs reportedly had a hard time keeping customers as the Q line extension project in the late 2000s turned Second Avenue into a clamorous construction zone, and the store closed in 2011. A Petland Discount followed. In 2019, developer Izaki Group Investments razed No. 310 and four buildings around it, a span from No. 306 to No. 314, to make way for the Harper, a 20-story, 62-unit condo project named for the author Harper Lee, who lived on nearby East 82nd Street. A decades-old Israeli firm whose U.S. division is headed by Eldad Blaustein, Izaki is offering two- to four-bedroom units and amenities such as a gym, music practice room and two roof decks with TVs and kitchens. Eleven of the 62 for-sale units at the building, or 18%, had sold and closed between the start of sales last summer and April 22, according to a spokeswoman for the project. The least expensive unit for sale in late April was a two-bedroom asking $2.1 million, according to the listings site StreetEasy. Izaki snapped up the assemblage in 2017 for $42 million but didn't file its $260 million offering plan with the state until the Covid summer of 2020. Officials green-lighted the plan the following year, records show.

1289 Lexington Ave.

The challenges that come with mistiming the market seem evident at this site, which is home to an 18-story, 61-unit cond-op originally called the Hayworth. Its original developers, Ceruzzi Properties and Kuafu Properties, assembled the corner site for $119 million in 2014 but didn’t kick off sales until the tower was complete in 2019. By that time, the robust condo market of the mid-2010s had begun to peter out. Company founder Louis Ceruzzi also died in 2017. And then of course came Covid, which in early 2020 ground virtually all projects to a halt. When the team defaulted on its construction loan, lender Children’s Investment Fund, the U.K. hedge fund, moved to foreclose on the project. But developers were simultaneously shopping around the Hayworth, and the team of Zeckendorf Development and the Stahl Organization wound up taking the site, which sits on land leased from the Goldman family, for about $232 million in 2022, records show. Now known just by its address, No. 1289 had by late April sold and closed 34 of its 61 apartments, or about 60%, according to a Crain’s analysis of public records. A 1,700-square-foot two-bedroom unit with two-and-a-half baths was asking $4 million as of April. The white-walled high-rise replaced a retail site whose tenants in recent years have included Petco, Verizon and New York Sports Club. A Dr. Stroer’s School of Languages occupied the site in the early 20th century, vintage photos show.

124 E. 86th St.

Developers may be shying away from large new multifamily projects, but East 86th has some notable exceptions. Rybak Development, a Coney Island-based firm that has been particularly active in the Covid era, grabbed this narrow mid-block site in 2020 for $26 million, and after tacking on some air rights from No. 128 in a $3.6 million deal, is putting up a 20-story, 28-unit condo called Arloparc. Amenities include a gym, a music room and a roof deck with a fireplace. Sales at the limestone condo, which began in spring 2023, are expected to take in about $139 million, according to its offering plan. A spokesman for the project declined to say how many contracts have been signed at the condo, which is to begin closings this summer. A two-bedroom on April 22 was asking $2.7 million, according to StreetEasy. The Beaux-Arts-style bank that once stood on the site contained a branch of the Corn Exchange, a once-ubiquitous retail bank founded in 1853 that Chemical Bank absorbed in the 1950s. Chase Bank later acquired Chemical, and JPMorgan Chase sold the site to Rybak. Debt for the condo project has come from Valley National Bank, which has so far provided $35 million in financing, according to the city register. Most of Rybak’s portfolio is concentrated in Brooklyn, but the firm does seem bullish on Manhattan’s East Side. In 2022, Rybak completed Manor 82, a 7-story, 22-unit condo at 333 E. 82nd St.; it also filed permits in the late fall for a 23-unit offering at 656 Lexington Ave., a single-story retail building at East 55th Street.

222 E. 86th St.

Some nonprofit groups may also view this block as underbuilt, like at this site, a five-story prewar structure that for decades contained a single-room occupancy property known as the York Hotel. In 1994, Postgraduate Center for Mental Health, a nonprofit formed in 1945 to help returning World War II veterans, purchased the York and converted it into a 35-unit affordable housing site. But two years ago, the center filed plans to demolish the gabled building. At the same time, the group, whose CEO is Jacob Barak, has taken steps to increase the size of what might come next. In January Barak purchased air rights from two nearby buildings, Nos. 222 and 230, for $7.5 million, records show, which could allow for a tower at No. 222 with up to 55 units, according to zoning documents. Barak has come under criticism in recent years for allowing poor conditions at some Postgraduate sites, though they appear to be ones operated rather than owned by his nonprofit, and he has blamed a lack of public funding for their challenges. Postgraduate Center reportedly has $130 million in reserves that can be tapped for its real estate. A phone message left for Barak was not returned.

225 E. 86th St.

The street’s shift from retail to residential really began generations ago. Originally home to a German beer hall on a strip teeming with nightlife, this site housed a trendy live music space called Barney Google’s by the late 1960s. Behind a facade lined with candy-colored signs were performances by acts like Tina Turner. Movie director Woody Allen, known for playing the clarinet in regular gigs with jazz bands at the nearby Café Carlyle, apparently launched his local live music career in 1970 with Wednesday night shows at the address. A few years later Barney Google's became a disco where women were allowed in free before 10 p.m., according to an ad. Real estate interests came knocking by the early 1980s, when developer Joseph Neumann attempted a condo conversion of the mixed-use site, though Neumann did not complete his effort for unknown reasons. A subsequent developer, Roberto Spinelli, tried to pick up the pieces, but he died in 1986, apparently also coming up short. (Spinelli’s partner, the late architect Rafael Vinoly, was executor of Spinelli’s estate.) The firm APM Group finally brought the project across the finish line in the late 1980s, completing a 60-unit project that raked in $18 million, according to its offering plan. Offering mostly one- and two-bedrooms, though with triplex-style layouts, No. 225, which is called Buckingham East, had a one-bedroom non-sponsor unit for sale in mid-April for $780,000. Before Covid hit, a branch of Santander Bank occupied the former bar space. The vacant berth hit the market for $16.5 million in 2021 and sold for $8.7 million the next year to a buyer who appears tied to the rapidly expanding Korean grocery chain H Mart, property records show.

210 E. 86th St.

A union hall for musicians, many of them German, occupied this spot until the mid-1960s, when the Ornstein family developed a 9-story office building on this lot.“Musical Mutual Protective Union” remains inscribed on the back wall facing East 85th Street, but “Yorkville Medical Arts” is the name of the site today. A theater has been tucked inside the walls since 1904, according to the Cinema Treasures website, though its appearance has changed greatly over the years thanks to much slicing and dicing by its owners. A single-screen offering with 700 seats that showed German language films in the mid-20th century morphed into a 2-screen version by the 1980s and then a 4-screen cinema in the 1990s before going dark in 2019, though its marquee survives. Its owner appears to be the Perlbinder family, a four-generation real estate clan, according to the city register. Joseph Perlbinder built housing in Brooklyn in the early 1900s, while son Julius later developed Manhattan apartment complexes such as 35 E. 35th St. in Murray Hill. Julius’s son Barton, who goes by Mark, meanwhile, completed the condo Morgan Court at 211 Madison Ave. in the 1980s. Mark also seems to control No. 210, records show, though he and his brother Stephen have battled in court over the family portfolio. In April, Mark listed the family’s 10-bedroom compound in the Hamptons enclave of Sagaponack for a price that The New York Post reported as $90 million, though Mark had apparently privately shopped around the waterfront estate a year earlier for a hefty $150 million.

Mayor Eric Adams’ nearly $112 billion executive budget, released Wednesday, includes more than $5 billion for health care initiatives, a figure that has grown by $172 million since his January preliminary budget.

The revised plan avoids new spending cuts for city agencies and paints a rosier picture of the city’s future thanks to pared-down spending on migrants and an improving economy, Adams said Wednesday.

Specific funding for mental health programming was unclear in his preliminary budget, but it saw a significant bump in the revised one. Adams dedicated $74 million toward supporting nearly 500 psychologists and social workers who provide care in schools or FY25 and beyond, and $9 million to provide more services in precincts that see high levels of gun violence. He also restored cuts to school-based mental health programs.

The city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene also got an $89 million increase over the preliminary budget, to $2.2 billion. About $55 million is set to go toward a new public health laboratory, according to a summary of the executive budget. The budget for New York City Health + Hospitals has held steady at just over $3 billion.

Despite these bumps, members of the City Council are pushing for more.

Council Speaker Adrienne Adams criticized the mayor Wednesday for not including an additional $225 million for mental health initiatives which the council pushed for in its preliminary budget response earlier this month.

“We are disappointed that critical support for key mental health services, programs to reduce recidivism, and libraries that our city desperately needs are not included in the Executive Budget,” Adams and Council finance chair Justin Brannan said in a joint statement. They added that “significant work” remains ahead to reach a conclusion that advances New Yorkers’ health and safety.

Councilwoman Lynn Schulman of Queens, who chairs the health committee, told Crain’s she is pushing the administration for more funding for programs that combat chronic disease. According to the health department, chronic and diet-related diseases such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes continue to be the leading cause of death across all racial and ethnic groups of New Yorkers.

To that end, Schulman is working to get funding that can be used to collect data for the city’s HealthyNYC initiative, she said. The program aims to address factors that contribute to premature deaths, including chronic disease, in an effort to raise New Yorkers’ average life expectancy to exceed 83 by 2030.

Schulman is also advocating for more money for programs that will make breast cancer screenings more accessible to New Yorkers and pushing for increased funding to help birthing people access in-home doula support for free.

Councilwoman Mercedes Narcisse of Brooklyn, a registered nurse who chairs the council’s committee on hospitals, said she’s pushing for more funding for education, genetic screening and outreach for sickle cell disease, which disproportionately impact Black New Yorkers. She said funding will become more crucial as more migrants arrive in the city from West Africa and parts of the Caribbean.

Additionally, Narcisse said, she is fighting for more funding in the budget for New York City Health + Hospitals residents, who have repeatedly called on the mayor for new contracts with better pay. She emphasized that bolstering the public health workforce will be crucial in lowering instances of chronic disease among vulnerable New Yorkers and addressing disparities.

The Adams administration and the City Council must agree on a final budget by July.

Mayor Eric Adams’ nearly $112 billion executive budget, released Wednesday, includes more than $5 billion for health care initiatives, a figure that has grown by $172 million since his January preliminary budget.

The revised plan avoids new spending cuts for city agencies and paints a rosier picture of the city’s future thanks to pared-down spending on migrants and an improving economy, Adams said Wednesday.

Specific funding for mental health programming was unclear in his preliminary budget, but it saw a significant bump in the revised one. Adams dedicated $74 million toward supporting nearly 500 psychologists and social workers who provide care in schools or FY25 and beyond, and $9 million to provide more services in precincts that see high levels of gun violence. He also restored cuts to school-based mental health programs.

The city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene also got an $89 million increase over the preliminary budget, to $2.2 billion. About $55 million is set to go toward a new public health laboratory, according to a summary of the executive budget. The budget for New York City Health + Hospitals has held steady at just over $3 billion.

Despite these bumps, members of the City Council are pushing for more.

Council Speaker Adrienne Adams criticized the mayor Wednesday for not including an additional $225 million for mental health initiatives which the council pushed for in its preliminary budget response earlier this month.

“We are disappointed that critical support for key mental health services, programs to reduce recidivism, and libraries that our city desperately needs are not included in the Executive Budget,” Adams and Council finance chair Justin Brannan said in a joint statement. They added that “significant work” remains ahead to reach a conclusion that advances New Yorkers’ health and safety.

Councilwoman Lynn Schulman of Queens, who chairs the health committee, told Crain’s she is pushing the administration for more funding for programs that combat chronic disease. According to the health department, chronic and diet-related diseases such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes continue to be the leading cause of death across all racial and ethnic groups of New Yorkers.

To that end, Schulman is working to get funding that can be used to collect data for the city’s HealthyNYC initiative, she said. The program aims to address factors that contribute to premature deaths, including chronic disease, in an effort to raise New Yorkers’ average life expectancy to exceed 83 by 2030.

Schulman is also advocating for more money for programs that will make breast cancer screenings more accessible to New Yorkers and pushing for increased funding to help birthing people access in-home doula support for free.

Councilwoman Mercedes Narcisse of Brooklyn, a registered nurse who chairs the council’s committee on hospitals, said she’s pushing for more funding for education, genetic screening and outreach for sickle cell disease, which disproportionately impact Black New Yorkers. She said funding will become more crucial as more migrants arrive in the city from West Africa and parts of the Caribbean.

Additionally, Narcisse said, she is fighting for more funding in the budget for New York City Health + Hospitals residents, who have repeatedly called on the mayor for new contracts with better pay. She emphasized that bolstering the public health workforce will be crucial in lowering instances of chronic disease among vulnerable New Yorkers and addressing disparities.

The Adams administration and the City Council must agree on a final budget by July.

Nursing homes in underserved areas with insufficient staff are more likely to give their residents antipsychotic drugs, a new study from researchers at NYU’s nursing and medical schools has found.

The research results, released Wednesday, make the first connection between homes’ location and medication prevalence. The study shows that understaffed nursing homes in severely disadvantaged neighborhoods across the country gave 19% of their residents antipsychotic medications, compared to 17% of residents in homes in in less-deprived neighborhoods. 

Researchers assessed usage for residents that didn't have a diagnosis of schizophrenia, Tourette syndrome or Huntington's disease. They defined severely disadvantaged communities as those that have an area deprivation score, or a measure of socioeconomic disadvantages that can influence health care outcomes, of 85 or higher on a 100-point scale. “Understaffed” facilities were defined as those where residents received less than three hours of nursing care per day.

Throughout New York, nursing homes give antipsychotic medications to about one fifth of their residents to treat behavioral and physical aspects of dementia, including agitation and aggression. However, antipsychotics can be used inappropriately and have side effects that can increase mortality and morbidity risks among vulnerable patients.

New York’s long-term care sector is expected to grow into a $51 billion industry by 2030 according to Verified Market Research and Gov. Kathy Hochul’s final fiscal 2025 budget restores about $300 million in Medicaid funding to nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

According to NYU, residents in underserved neighborhoods might experience environmental factors that contribute to worse mental and physical health, such as less green space, higher crime rates and greater noise pollution. Worse health could contribute to greater use of antipsychotics.

The study found that when staffing levels improved, use of the medications decreased. Facilities in underserved areas that gave patients between three and 4.1 hours of care per day used antipsychotics for 15% of patients; homes in more affluent areas with the same staffing levels gave the drugs to 14% of residents. In nursing homes that provided “sufficient” staffing, or more than 4.1 hours per day, deprivation did not significantly influence antipsychotic usage.

“This means that staffing really made a difference in that inappropriate antipsychotic medication use,” said Jasmine Travers, an assistant professor at the NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing and senior author of the study. She added that having more staff helps facilities find non-medication solutions for residents experiencing distress, such as taking them for walks or learning what triggers agitation for each individual.

However, she said, it’s a challenge for many facilities to reach sufficient staffing levels–one that could be made harder by a new federal staffing mandate that will require residents to receive more hours of care each day. The New York nursing home industry has met the mandate with pushback, and Travers added that its success will depend on whether enough federal funding is allocated to help homes make more hires, raise wages and provide more training.

The NYU researchers, from both Rory Meyers and the Grossman School of Medicine, studied more than 10,000 nursing homes around the U.S. including more than 1,800 in severely disadvantaged communities. Both schools are based in Kips Bay; the researchers also worked with a colleague from the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Their project was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging.

A digital clinical trial company in Chelsea is laying off half its U.S. workforce this summer to move production overseas, part of an effort to cut costs after launching its latest clinical trial technology.

ObvioHealth, a global company that develops technology to help researchers design and execute clinical trials, plans to lay off 51 workers from its New York office by July, according to a notice published Tuesday by the state Department of Labor. 

The company is slashing its U.S. workforce after it “dramatically expanded” its product team in recent years to gear up for the launch of a new clinical trial platform called ObvioGo 2.0, said Ivan Jarry, CEO of ObvioHealth. Jarry said in a statement to Crain’s that ObvioHealth is a global company with teams in the U.S. and Singapore, but has decided to center the company’s product development work in Singapore due to its growing portfolio of products in the Asia Pacific region.

The announced layoffs come just a week after the company publicly launched ObvioGo 2.0. The new technology was created to help with study design and patient data collection for decentralized clinical trials, which are studies occurring at multiple research sites or in unconventional locations like a patient’s home. The company’s new product is designed to make it easier for trial investigators to keep track of studies that enroll patients who speak different languages or have both virtual and in-person sites.

But now that ObvioGo 2.0 has launched, Jarry said the firm is “seeking ways to reduce costs and boost efficiencies.”

ObvioHealth, which launched in 2015, has raised $106 million to date, according to data from PitchBook. The company expanded a partnership in February with the Austin, Texas-based cloud software company Oracle to continue launching clinical trials in the Asia Pacific region.

PIG KIDNEY: A patient at NYU Langone Health became the first patient ever to receive both a mechanical heart pump and pig kidney transplant, the health system announced Wednesday. After receiving the heart pump, Lisa Pisano, a 54-year-old woman from New Jersey with heart and kidney failure, received a transplant of gene-edited pig kidney and thymus gland to aid with rejection. The transplant marks the second pig kidney transplant ever completed and the first with a thymus combined, NYU said.

IVF ACCESS: New York State Attorney General Letitia James led a group of 21 attorneys general to urge U.S. lawmakers to pass legislation to the right to in-vitro fertilization nationwide. The coalition sent a letter to federal legislators Wednesday requesting that they pass the Access to Family Building Act, which would guarantee patients’ right to IVF, encourage health insurers to cover these services and ensure patients can make their own decisions about their reproductive health. The letter comes after an Alabama Supreme Court decided in February that embryos should be considered children and the loss of embryos in IVF was considered wrongful death.

MENTAL HEALTH: Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Wednesday that she included $33 million in the state budget deal to fund mental health initiatives for people within the criminal justice system. The budget adds 200 forensic inpatient psychiatric beds across the state and allocates $14.6 million to expand forensic Assertive Community Treatment teams to offer intensive care to people with serious mental illnesses. Additionally, Hochul announced an expansion of mental health navigators in the court system to connect patients with behavioral health treatment.