Founded in 1996 by local, visionary property owners, businesses and not-for-profit institutions, the Lincoln Square Business Improvement District (BID) is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit that improves the quality of life in Lincoln Square, a world-famous cosmopolitan area on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, and the cultural and entertainment heart of the City.
The BID’s mission is to make Lincoln Square cleaner, safer, and more beautiful, and to undertake various improvement projects. We focus our efforts on supplemental sanitation and security services; the beautification of public spaces, malls, and parks; and the promotion and marketing of the area’s diverse business and cultural offerings. The Lincoln Square BID acts as a catalyst, working with business, community, and city partners, to promote positive change in Lincoln Square. Our programs and initiatives are designed to showcase the rich and varied resources of this vibrant Upper West Side neighborhood.
The Lincoln Square BID is a public-private partnership governed by a Board of Directors and derives its revenue from an annual assessment on all real property located within the boundaries of the BID. Members of the BID include property owners, businesses, hotels, restaurants, retailers, cultural and non-profit institutions, public officials and residents. As a steward of the neighborhood, the BID ensures curbs and sidewalks are clean and safe, public spaces are lushly planted, and that our dynamic marketing efforts put Lincoln Square in the spotlight.
Three hundred and sixty-five days a year, the BID plays a number of vital roles in its district acting as neighborhood planner, caretaker, problem solver, marketer, and promoter of economic development. To help maintain the neighborhood’s liveliness, the BID contracts the well-trained members of its Clean Team and all of its Public Safety Officers to supplement the City’s sanitation, maintenance and public safety services. The BID and its Public Safety Officers address daily quality-of-life issues such as homelessness, unlicensed vendors and uncollected trash. This includes monitoring changes in pedestrian traffic and business operations. The BID also communicates with City agencies reporting issues that range from dangerous intersections that need restriping to potholes.
In Lincoln Square’s public spaces and Broadway Mall gardens, the BID celebrates nature’s most delightful seasonal changes with beautiful cultivars. Its parks, planters and Broadway Malls from 60th – 70th Street make chameleon-like changes from brilliant panoramas of bold tulips in the spring to sweeps of sunny wildflowers in the summer to evergreen shrubs and illuminated trees during the holidays.
In its marketing role, the BID invites the public to sample the pleasures of Lincoln Square – diverse and stylish shopping and dining venues, as well as the world’s finest music, opera and dance performances. Our online events calendar is filled with the latest on community events, performances, and more. The BID’s Information Carts offer a number of publications retail, cuisine, and cultural amenities in and beyond the district.
The BID organizes an array of programming to help foster community in the neighborhood. Throughout the summer, BID programming delights audiences in Dante Park every Wednesday at its free lunchtime concert series – Summer Jazz Sensations. Lincoln Square has also offered holiday events for over 20 years, from its former program – Winter’s Eve at Lincoln Square, to its current holiday programming, Magical Lights.
The BID’s unwavering commitment to the area is evident in its continued strive for progress. For instance, the BID spent many years working towards improving the district’s two parks, Dante Park and Richard Tucker Park, by submitting new designs and advocating for renovations; these parks are now beautifully rejuvenated and maintained by the BID. Most recently, the BID partnered with the NYC Department of Sanitation (DSNY) to containerize trash in the district installing six Citibins, rodent-proof trash containers, that have helped to preserve public spaces.