As of 1973, the Towers were described as being home to white, elderly residents. 60 percent of the apartments in Holmes Towers are set aside for tenants over the age of 62. Since June 2006, a greenmarket has operated on 92nd Street and 1st Avenue in front of Holmes Towers. It was the first Greenmarket on a NYCHA property. The Isaacs Houses projects are located just north of the Holmes Towers. Both developments are considered one complex totaling 5 buildings having the same Development Management Office managed by New York City Housing Authority. Both housing projects, as a whole, have been designated a "high crime zone" by the New York City Police Department's 19th precinct since the early 2000s, and are thus policed to a higher extent, especially due to the heavy socio-economic mixing of the immediate surrounding area, which includes public housing, working-class small tenement buildings, middle-class medium-size buildings, and upper-middle class to upper-class luxury buildings along 1st avenue in the area. Crime, however, is considered to be relatively minimal compared to the projects further north. In 2015 it was announced that the complex's playground would be razed for a new mixed-use building under New York's NextGen program to help meet the capital needs of NYCHA. It was estimated that the towers would need $47 million in capital repairs over the next five years. The 47-story tower was intended to be half affordable housing and half market rate housing with the lower-income tenants on the lower floors. Holmes Towers residents decried the plan, citing the lack of sunlight would lower their quality of life and lacked input in the plans, later staging a protest. In order to build the towers, property developer and de Blasio donor Fetner Properties would lease the land from NYCHA for $25 million for 99-years, pocketing all rent, qualifying for $13 million in subsidies, and paying no property taxes. In 2019, Manhattan Borough PresidentGale Brewer sued Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYCHA to block the new tower. The lawsuit accused of de Blasio of trying to use his power to push the towers through illegally by skirting zoning laws and not having the project go through Uniform Land Use Review Procedure. Later that year, NYCHA withdrew its Section 18 land disposition that would allow the building to be built. In 2018, the Holmes Towers along with Isaacs Houses and Robbins Plaza, which are all run by the same managers, ranked the worst in the nation after federal inspections by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.
