There are many incentives in NYC that prevent rents from dropping. What we saw during the pandemic was static rent prices with increased benefits that lowered the actual price, for example last month is free so in effect rent has been lowered by 1/12 while still being listed as 12/12. Landlords do this for a variety of completely [redacted] reasons, including price controls, taxes, vacancy regulations, credit for "improvements", advertising histories. Rents do not fall in NYC, they merely stop rising for a time.