These empty storefronts are representative of businesses that disappear as a result of rising rents and the popularity of online retailers.

It’s a troubling trend we looked at in September, and it seems to be getting worse.

Recently, Cornelia Street Café in the West Village closed after four decades, thanks to a rent increase, the owners said.

In some neighborhoods it can feel like every street has vacancies.

“I just walked by a restaurant on Ninth Street” that recently closed, State Senator Brad Hoylman said on the phone as he walked in his Manhattan district yesterday. A block later: “Now, I’m opposite a vacant storefront.”

In 2017, Mr. Hoylman released a report on the “high-rent blight” on Bleecker Street.

Now he and his fellow Democrats control the State Legislature. But he seemed less than enthused by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s recent proposal to tax landlords who leave storefronts vacant.

Supporters say a vacancy tax would push landlords to fill empty spaces or work with their tenants so they don’t leave in the first place. Landlords, not surprisingly, think it’s a bad idea.