2010 Census Center To Be Headquartered in Midtown

The U.S. Census Bureau has chosen midtown Manhattan as its new home base for regional operations for the 2010 Census, federal officials announced yesterday.

The new regional census center will be housed at a 23,000-square-foot space at 330 W. 34th St., and will employ nearly 200 people when census operations reach a peak in 2010, the officials said.

According to the census bureau, the New York region encompasses all five New York City boroughs; Nassau, Suffolk, Rockland, and Westchester counties, and ten counties in northern New Jersey. All told, the census region contains 11 of the 100 most populated counties in the nation.

Now, the new Manhattan census center will be the region's operational hub — providing "field management, recruiting, administrative, community outreach, and automation support to local census offices," the agency's New York regional director, Lester Farthing, said. Eventually, it will support a "temporary staff of thousands in our two-state region."