Harlem: Red, White, Black and Green by Robin Postell Just who were the wizards behind the curtain, finagling the levers of this grand new Oz called Harlem? What had become thought of as the big, dirty attic of New York City, dangerous and rotting, was suddenly going through a florid gentrification, overflowing with bright, shiny stars of corporate might. “People don’t quite know yet to make of it,” says Michael Henry Adams, author of “Harlem: Lost and Found,” a historical coffeetextbook. “Some are angry, and I’m hearing some of the same kinds of things coming from blacks as I used to hear from whites, which is a bit disturbing.” For some longtime Harlemites, it feels a little like an invasion. The term “gentrification” is being tossed about like confetti at a party, but not everybody’s celebrating. Some are scared of being displaced, of becoming insignificant, and of Harlem losing its flavor and soul, what has, even in its worst moments, distinguished it as a black citywithinacity. “When you use the term gentrification, a lot of people don’t know what that means,” comments Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce general manager Emmett Causey. “There are good kinds and bad ones. If there’s an area that’s been depressed, vacated, with no jobs, is it bad to bring in and fix up these buildings and bring new tenants in there? When an area starts turning around, it draws midsize and bigname corporations that’s the American Way. What is happening is an economic renaissance, and that’s what Harlem needed, and wanted.” During the last ten years, corporate strongholds muscled their way in between gray, littered old buildings and made themselves at homeon Harlem’s main vein, the wild ride of 125th Street where not even downtown yellow cabs would dare hit for years (giving birth to the infamously dangerous roughshod unmarked gypsy cabs whose drivers are reported to be murdered about four times as often as their yellowbellied brethren downtown). First to come was an enormous Pathmark supermarket, giving Harlemites an opportunity to shop in a Big way, beyond the tiny, rattletrap corner groceries with the graffiticovered iceboxes and wildeyed hustlers out front. On its heels came Krispy Kreme, Duane Reade Drugs, Ben & Jerry’s, and Blockbuster Video. When Harlem USA, a huge mall, opened in 1999, housing corporate hogs like HMV Records, The Disney Store, Modell’s Sporting Goods, Magic Theaters (owned by Magic Johnson and his Beverly Hillsbased Johnson Development Corp) and a branch of Chase Manhattan Bank and holy smokes, is that a Starbucks across the street!? Harlemites were suddenly deluged with not only new choices, but jobs. Magic’s arrival was a symbol. An AfricanAmerican NBA proturned successful business magnate, was investing in Harlem. He even went so far as to make sure his Magic Theaters offered “fruity” drinks, knowing as he did the different tastes blacks had for sodas, doing the same over at Starbucks, providing more downhome baked goods to go with their four dollar coffees.
Things were beginning to look up, but being down for so long, it might take a little getting used to. Reactions are mixed. But life is cleaner and crime, according to precinct reports, is down drastically during the decade long period like a caped Superhero. * Stringpullers, shotcallers Big Ballers are the engineers of Harlem transformation. One is Reverend Calvin Butts of Abyssinian Baptist Church the most visible and vocal church in Harlem. In 1986 he pleaded with his parishioners to “have faith in Harlem and to show their faith by working together with one another and with the church” to rebuild their community. The Abyssinian Development Corporation was devised for this purpose, and since 1989, went from a tiny office in the church basement, to over $150 million in Harlembased investments. ADC’s philosophy is not about doing things for people, but empowering them with tools to do it themselves, targeting housing, economic revitalization, human services, education and youth, and civic engagement. Harlem Democratic Representative Charles Rangel had his own chicken to fry namely Empowerment Zone. Spearheading this $5 billion program that the Clinton Administration okayed, Rangel then focused on the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ), servicing his specific region of Harlem. Rangel was able to entice city and state officials, such as Governor Pataki and his secretary of state and longtime Harlemite Randy Daniels, to put in their own two cents (millions of them). Over the past 10 years, UMEZ has contributed $100 million to the re development of Harlem, and because of its success, its decadelong tenure has been extended through 2009. Lots of handshaking and asspatting began to go around between these Big Dogs, and the smaller, but critical, community groups like the ADC, Harlem Business Alliance and the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce. The synergy between these groups created an explosion. The Harlem Renaissance had been one of cultural proportions during the 1920s, giving birth to jazz, artists and literary greats, but this second Renaissance would be an economic one, with a doubleedged sword. Old momandpops who’ve stuck it out through Harlem’s highs and lows are vital to Harlem; they are the threads of its fabric, that though worn, still weave together the seat of its pants. Bobby’s Happy House is one of the best examples. Bobby Robinson opened it in 1946, proudly, on 125th Street. It was the only building on the entire stretch. Though it had to move recently due to a 20yearlease KFC signed with Bobby’s landlord, it hasn’t seemed to hurt it. Its display windows from the sidewalk draw people in, with gold and platinum albums winking with eye catching light, while rhythm and blues is piped out via speakers to passersby. Inside, the walls are lined with hundreds of photos of Robinson with stars, ranging from Barry White to James Brown to Smokey Robinson to Gladys Knight & the Pips. Cheryl Benjamin, holding Bobby’s reigns these days (he’s in his 80s), “Yeh, when HMV moved into Harlem USA, that hurt us, for a little while, but they’re gone now. So it doesn’t matter to us. We’re still here and not going anywhere.”
New small businesses, too, vie for the customer’s attention. Princess Jenkins, who opened The Brownstone (which she refers to as the first AfricanAmerican department store in Harlem) 6 years ago, says that the demographic she targets has always been a part of Harlem. “This place is made up of a majority of working families,” she says, “But they didn’t have anywhere to shop I know, because that was me. That’s why I opened it, because there was so much missing.” The Brownstone is stable and growing, a collection of boutiques offering a variety of merchandise and services clothing on the first floor, a restaurant on the second, and a hair and nail salon. Jenkins, the founder of Women in the Black, a 15year old organization that holds annual conferences in Harlem to help women advance their own businesses, has the advantage of being alert to the ramifications all this change brings with it. “Since 80% of small businesses rent in Harlem on a monthtomonth basis, it makes them extremely vulnerable to rising property values,” says Jenkins, who has lived here for the last ten years. “Knowing that as property values rise, I could be priced out of the market is not a good thing, no. On a social level, you think, that can’t be good. But the flipside of it is that there are cleaner, wider streets, upgraded subways, and conveniences of stores and theaters something we’ve never had.” Jenkins adds that there were only 3 banks in Harlem, and now every major bank has a chain here. “People knew they could take advantage of the demographic up here, as well as the tax incentives offered by UMEZ,” Jenkins says. “But that’s for the bigger businesses. Smaller businesses don’t have the same kind of support from these programs. Most of these big places bring in outside management, so it doesn’t really benefit the community like it should.” The William Jefferson Clinton Foundation, in conjunction with the Harlem Business Alliance, did try although Jenkins, as well as others in the community see it as shortsighted. Ten small businesses were chosen, and a variety of services were provided, such as management training, inventory control upgrading, and each business received a computer, with training, if needed. “It was great, for those ten businesses, but there are hundreds of small businesses here,” Jenkins says. “They came and were gone. It was a good idea, but it didn’t last long enough.” Jenkins and fellow small business owners in Harlem decided to get active. “Big corporations knew UMEZ was coming and they acted accordingly,” she concedes. “But as a small business we need to be super, super savvy. We had our first Harlem Business Economic Summit this year, to address the growing needs of small businesses, such as finding affordable space. We are aware that we have to show strength in numbers, and 500 people showed up. We know we had to send out a message that we are here, not going anywhere, not backing down, and we have an agenda.” She points out that The Disney Store, which had opened within Harlem USA, had already closed. Like Benjamin at the Happy House, she’s aware that big dogs’ ankles can still get bitten by little ones and yip. “That might happen to other businesses that think they’re going to wow us,” she says. “But our small businesses employ uncles, cousins, brothers, godchildren, who live here in the community. What we’re asking for is yes, we need them to be here because of the amenities, but respect has to be given to these momand–pops who kept it going. These new, more sophisticated, businesses, with more savvy, however, also need to be supported.”
Depending on who you ask, the response differs. Some are happy, others overwhelmed, some fearful of displacement. But Jenkins is matteroffact. “We’re out there, we’re at every event, we’re very active in the community,” she says. “”We’re in the Merchant’s Association, and involved politically, on many different levels. When somebody comes into town and say, where should I go, who should I see, they’ll mention us. When I talk about being savvy, you have to be really effective in the community. You can’t just sit in your stores and wait for people to come in. You have to position yourself, and that’s what is going to make things happen for small business, make them survive.” Working furiously to accommodate customers asking for another skirt size, Jenkins says, “AfricanAmericans will do what we always do. I don’t think being priced out of a community will kill a race. We will find a place. Families will move in together, they will do what they have to do to keep themselves afloat. If you want to stay in Harlem, that’s what you will do, and you’ll find a way. There are still affordable apartments here. We have our own drumbeat. We’ll make do. We always have.” Though chichi boutiques like The Brownstone, as well as Xukuma, only a few steps away, give downtown highbrows a reason to go uptown, there are still the grittier small shops like Soul Brothers Boutique on 128th Street that remind everyone that Harlem has a thumping heart and a raised fist that’s not so easily lowered just because everybody’s fat and sassy from movies, over priced coffee, and donuts. Off the beaten path a bit, its door is flung wide open and a dozen or more Tshirts are hanging outside to draw the attention of potential customers. Owner Jack Gibell, who lives in the Bronx, moved his store here nearly five years ago, and he, too, has had a front and center seat of Harlem’s rebirth. “All of that stuff,” Gibell says, referring to the government programs with deep pockets, “are invisible to me. I joined the Chamber of Commerce, and that does a little, but mostly, whatever happens, I do myself. I don’t think my market competes with the businesses that have moved in. My market is a growing market, though, for the African conscious individual.” There are Tshirts silkscreened with Black culture’s heroes Malcolm X, MLK, Muhammad Ali, Tupac. There are also disturbing ones, like the one with several lynched black men hanging from trees. “We do more conscious clothing, trying to teach history through our clothes,” he explains. “Rather than by brand names like FUBU, or ENCYE, who don’t contribute back to our community or teach anything about history, we teach people who the founding fathers of the Black Panther Party was. That’s the statement we’re trying to make.” He recognizes that the COC and other groups aren’t set up to help his business, so in order to get noticed, he started an NPO that does lectures, designed to recognize people who have contributed via struggle, throughout AfricanAmerican history. Gibell also started a company called Black Owned, Inc., to create a consortium of people who get together to open up blackowned businesses within the community. “Blackowned stores are reduced to convenience stores, specialty shops, like this,” he says. “But in order for us to be viable, we have to own businesses
that customers must you daily. People don’t buy Tshirts everyday.” “I’ve been in Harlem 30 years, and I really don’t think of what’s going on as an invasion,” he says. “As long as I remember, blacks owned very few businesses in Harlem, even though they own more than they do now. Our community has always been run by people outside of the community. I don’t think it’s an invasion, however. Instead, it’s that now we’re becoming economically aware, and the only thing holding us back is us. I feel like as black people want to get more involved in the economic determination of their community, they’re realizing they don’t have the resources to get it, and that’s frustrating. Some people might want to say, oh, these people are taking advantage of us, but that’s not true. It’s that they’re taking advantage of opportunity, where as we’re not able to. We’re unable to get into the industries that makes us an everyday purchase. We need businesses that are used everyday, like these corporate giants. But it’s not so much a color thing. In the past blacks always assumed somebody else was supposed to do it, but now we’re realizing it’s something we can’t do. Now we’re trying to figure out how we get into it from here.” * Businesses, big or small, need a strong residential core to keep it thriving. That, says Willie Suggs, is no problem these days. According to Willie Suggs, one of the top dog real estate brokers in Harlem, if you got the dough, you’re in the do’. “This place is going to the highest bidder,” Suggs says. “People who were paying attention ten years ago are the ones getting the biggest returns they were stealing the place then, but even today, by downtown’s standards, Harlem’s still a great bargain.” Its once swank, grand buildings, which had become burntout, graffitisplattered shells housing only crackheads, rats and people’s dumped trash, were being snatched up hungrily by multi colored, multinational buyers. Today’s open house on Convent Avenue, one of the best addresses to have in Harlem, belongs to Robert Van Leirop, the ambassador to the tiny country of Vanuatu. Van Leirop bought this stunning, fourstory mansion 7 years ago, paying 280K. Today, using it as his law office, he’s just turned down an offer for 2.5 million. Suggs whispers, “He’ll not take a penny less than 3.5 million. He’s in no hurry. And he’ll get it.” Another tony address in Harlem is Mt. Morris Park, which only a few years ago was referred to as “The Ruins.” A prison had been planned for these two blocks of unlivable shells, but communityminded wheels squealed loud enough and got the grease they needed. Now it’s Mt. Morris West Condos. We look at an architect’s 2bedroom dream pad, modern and immaculate. In October 2003 the owner bought it for 330K, though it was appraised at 830K. Today he’s asking, and will get, $1,149,000, not even a year later. Even the most inhospitable spots in Harlem are being snagged, and white and black is becoming moot it’s more like green these days. Suggs points out that the wave of this boom will crest when older tenants occupying rentcontrolled apartments reach the ends of their leases, and will
me replaced by those willing to pay quadruple or more sending them packing, sorry ‘bout your luck, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. “The great unwashed masses who make 70K which is poverty level in New York aren’t going to be very happy,” Suggs shrugs. “But why should landlords have to rent to them rather than someone able to pay them more money?” Like war, there are casualties. There are several different programs through different sources ready to apply a bandage to the gaping wounds this displacement will/is causing. One such is Magic Johnson’s partnership with Washington Mutual, a number one U.S. lender, by opening a home and loan center on 125th/5th Avenue. Johnson stated, “I’ve tried to bring the very best to Harlem, and now I want to give them a chance to own their own home.” But what about that down payment? Ten percent of even the cheapest residence these days is still going to be 100K. What clockpuncher around here can rummage up that kind of rainyday ducks? * Though Harlem’s extreme makeover will undoubtedly give it a different look, the hope is that its soul will remain intact and if changed, only evolved, with a broader, warmer embrace of the world not just within it, but beyond it. It would be important to share itself with the world. One man would help draw the spotlight back onto it, being a pro at that particular talent. Harlem’s popularity in the media had waned for years, regardless of its laudable growth. The only time it emerged was when an awful crime was committed, and Al Sharpton’s mug would be all over TV. But when postWhite House Clinton became irked by NY midtown office space prices and moved his HQ right smack dab in the middle of much cheaper uptown 55 West 125th suddenly the cameras focused their lenses squarely on Harlem. This bold Clinton move was just his style scandalous Slick Willy had gone and done it again. Dubbed by the press as “America’s First Black American President,” Harlemites welcomed him with a huge crowd, where he played saxophone, hugged people, sang songs whose lyrics a white man ought not to know. Only a patch of Black Panthers chanted in defiance, but Clinton was as black as a white man was gonna get. Walking around Harlem, there is not one single depiction of a white person anywhere you see Laila Ali on the side of a building, Magic Johnson’s mug on a blockstretching banner, Chris Rock on the Apollo Theater marquee but not a white face anywhere. Except one. Bill Clinton. Nowhere besides his offices is he more present than the worldfamous Sylvia’s, where cornbread and collards are the gourmet fare on the menu. “He’s a rock star around here,” comments Sylvia’s waiter Tim Rhines, who sees stars come in and out daily Fat Joe, Chris Rock; but only Clinton causes the entire place to stop eating and howl after an awed silence. Sylvia herself might be his biggest fan. Covering her walls are hundreds of photos of stars who have visited her restaurant from Frank Sinatra to Jim Carrey, and of course, Bill. But she’s quick to note he’s had nothing to
do with the success of her restaurant, which she’s been running for 59 years with her husband Herbert Woods. They’ve built it into a thriving world renowned multimillion dollar empire. She’d moved here from South Carolina and started waitressing while Herbert drove a taxi. Before long, she’d bought the place and renamed it. “I wanted more, needed more, demanded to have more,” she says with a little headbobbing fiery verve. “And what Sylvia wants, she’s going after. My clientele has always been strong, even during Harlem’s hardest times because my customers come from all over the world, not just Harlem.” When I ask who her favorite customer is, her eyes literally twinkle, she raises her finger and points to me, and says, “You.” Bewigged, nearing 80, she laughs, then gets up and drags me through the restaurant, she’s gotta show me something, she says, with a wink. She chuckles, smiles a little coquettishly, stopping in front of a huge framed portrait of her with Bill, his arm wrapped snuggly around her tiny shoulders, taken right here in her very own restaurant, Sylvia’s, where she wanted more and got more, by God, and has the Bill photo to prove it.