Wednesday, December 3, 2025
In today’s digest, subway changes, lighting the Rockefeller Christmas tree, and the latest RTO data. 📊
But first: Tech:NYC’s Decoded Futures initiative, empowering nonprofits with AI skills, is welcoming technologist volunteers for its next cohort. Interested in supporting mission-driven organizations? Apply here.
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New Yorkers like being the best, but this time it’s good we’re not No. 1: Chicago has officially swiped the “most congested city” title from us. 🏆🚘 According to data released this week by transportation analytics company INRIX, the typical U.S. driver lost 49 hours to traffic this year (up from 43 in 2024), but New Yorkers saw no increase at all. (Smart Cities Dive)
The likely reason: NYC’s congestion pricing program. 💪
Heads up, MF’ers: Starting Monday, M and F trains will permanently swap routes between Manhattan and Queens (on, appropriately, Mondays to Fridays, from 6am to 9:30pm). 🚇 (amNY)
The change will eliminate delay-prone merges between the E and M lines at Queens Plaza.
Service remains unchanged on weekends and late nights.
The annual Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting ceremony goes down tonight at 45 Rockefeller Plaza. Thousands of New Yorkers and visitors are expected to watch the 75-foot tree illuminate the start of the holiday season — or you can tune in live on NBC. 🎄 (PIX 11)
If you’re heading to Midtown, note the street closures: 46th Street up to 52nd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues will be blocked off.
The ceremony runs from 7 to 10pm.
In other reading:
Chanel took over a New York City subway (The Cut)
NY to launch tool in 2026 to curtail elderly scam victims (NY State of Politics)
MTA plans to use ‘European model’ of agents asking bus riders if they paid after boarding, Lieber says (amNY)
Office Space 2: Return to the Office
October’s office-activity numbers tell a familiar story: New Yorkers are back at their desks more than almost anywhere else (just not on Fridays). 🏢
💼 RTO flow: Return-to-office momentum has continued — and NYC remains a national leader, according to a recent report from Placer.ai.
Visits to Placer.ai’s Nationwide Office Index were 30.8% below October 2019 levels, but still up 4.7% year-over-year.
After adjusting for the number of business days, national October office traffic was 1.2% higher than September.
New York and Miami led the way for post-pandemic office recovery metrics, and NYC office visits were up 4.8% YoY.
🔍 Zoom in: Office occupancy in New York City reached 58.4% in early November, according to Kastle data, a new post-pandemic monthly record.
NYC leasing volume hit 33.9 million square feet in the first three quarters of 2025 — the highest since 2019.
Midtown and Midtown South have recovered to pre-COVID leasing levels.
Attendance in New York’s premier office spaces (Class A+ buildings) continues to rise, up 27% since January 2022.
Surprising perhaps no one, foot traffic slows down considerably on Fridays, especially in NYC. 🛌
Between January and October 2025, only 12.4% of weekday office visits nationwide occurred on Fridays. No city saw Friday visits above 15.0%.
New York City, despite strong overall return-to-office numbers, trailed the national baseline in Friday attendance at 12%.
Leaving you with a showy stat: Broadway attendance averaged 289,500 visitors per week over the most recent four weeks of data, 102.5% of pre-pandemic attendance for this time of year. 🎭
Dig deeper: Read the October 2025 Placer.ai Office Index here.
Dig even deeper: Read the most recent New York City Economic Snapshot from NYCEDC here.
In other reading:
How Estée Lauder and Google taught AI to sell fragrances (Wall Street Journal)
The data on self-driving cars is clear. We have to change course (New York Times)
Spotify Wrapped is here! How to find yours and what's new in 2025 (USA Today)
Eon, an NYC-based cloud infrastructure company, raised $300 million in Series D funding. Elad Gil led the round and was joined by Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and others.
PermitFlow, an NYC-based AI-powered permit application and management platform for builders, raised $54 million in Series B funding. Accel led the round and was joined by Kleiner Perkins, Felicis, Initialized Capital, Altos Ventures, Y Combinator, and existing investors.
Zafran Security, an NYC-based AI-powered threat exposure management platform, raised $60 million in Series C funding. Menlo Ventures led the round.
Fierce Foundry’s Investment Readiness Bootcamp for Female Founders, a six-week program designed to help female founders prepare for their first institutional raise in the next 6-18 months. Apply by December 15 for 10% off here.
New York City Economic Development Corporation is re-launching the Greenlight Innovation Fund, a Request for Proposals to provide City capital funding for the development of facilities in New York City that support the Green Economy, Life Sciences, Advanced Technology and Creative Industries. Submit your proposals by December 19 here.
New York City Economic Development Corporation’s Founder Fellowship, an accelerator program designed to improve access to capital and networks for underrepresented founders across all tech-enabled sectors. Apply by December 31 here.
The New York Fashion Tech Lab has announced its 2026 Collective, for women-led, B2B, retail tech startups. Apply here.
HubSpot’s How You Hustle, where you and your business could be featured and receive free press exposure to their 1.5 million subscribers. Apply here.
Company Ventures’ Grand Central Tech Residency’s spring 2026 cohort, a 12-month residency program for founders and teams looking to build in-person in NYC. Apply here.
Company Ventures is hosting AI Review events, a year-long conversation series on the current and future state of AI. Submit your AI-related event for consideration here.
Union Square Ventures’ “usvwork” — a casual coworking day once a month for founders and builders in NYC. Apply here.
Zero Irving — the Union Square tech hub home to Civic Hall — is relaunching its Workforce Development Project Fund, which awards $200,000 annually for programs that expand tech access and economic mobility for underrepresented New Yorkers, especially those in Manhattan Community District 3 (Lower East Side, East Village, Chinatown). Submit your proposal here.
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