Harlem

Harlem's most ubiquitous activist and resident Cassandra, Sikhulu Shange, has been warning against the perils of gentrification and the displacement of small businesses in the community for decades. He became living proof of his most dire prophesies this summer when he was forced to close his iconic music store on 125th Street, the Record Shack, after losing a two-year legal battle with his landlord.

A team of city marshals seized all of his inventory and evicted him on July 24 from the store he occupied for 36 years -- more than three months after the May 31 deadline a civil court judge had given Mr.  read more »

The New York Times' Timothy Williams tackled a timely subject over the weekend: the continued emigration of whites into Harlem. It comes during a time of record rents in Manhattan; the final push by Columbia and the state to expand the Ivy League school in West Harlem; and a major rezoning of East 125th Street.

The article covers the debate not just among blacks and whites, but among newcomer African-Americans and old-timers who still call the neighborhood the "Village of Harlem." It also chronicles the simple assimilation feats of recent townhouse and condo buyers.

And, toward the end of the article, we learn that sexual harassment on the streets of Harlem may, in fact, be all in the heads of the women it's directed toward.  read more »

In the early 1980's a water engineer once described the Hudson River to me as "the biggest and fastest flushing toilet in the world". Until the North River sewage treatment plant opened in 1986 for what was called "advanced preliminary treatment" we dumped all of the west side's raw sewage straight into the Hudson. No wonder Riverside Drive is about ¼ mile from the river--up on a bluff with railroad tracks and later a park and highway between the fancy apartments and the river. No wonder the most expensive residential avenues in Manhattan, 5th Avenue and Park Avenue, were traditionally those furthest from the East and Hudson Rivers.  read more »

A team of city marshals began removing merchandise from one of Harlem’s most iconic music stores, the Record Shack, before noon today, carrying out eviction orders delivered back in February.

The United House of Prayer for All People, the landlord of the 35-year-old de-facto Harlem landmark, gave Record Shack owner Sikhulu Shange 30 days to vacate the premises across from the official 125th Street landmark the Apollo Theater.

Mr. Shange then lost an appeal in civil court in March, and a judge ordered him to leave the premises “broom clean” by May 31.  read more »

The Times' Sewell Chan has a run-down on Representative Charles Rangel's public defense today of his four rent-stabilized apartments in Harlem. Mr. Rangel, who entered Congress in 1970, a year after the state introduced rent-stabilization in New York City, seems rather flustered by all the attention:

Toward the end of his news conference, Mr. Rangel suggested that it was absurd that he should be criticized, asking rhetorically whether he should place an ad in a newspaper asking, “Is there any place I can get this at a higher price because there’s some crazy reporter who thinks I have a good deal?”

Master mall builder Forest City Ratner and Blumenfeld Development Group have snagged another discount retailer for East River Plaza, the 485,000-square-foot suburban-style mall being developed in East Harlem along the FDR Drive, between 116th and 119th streets.

Marshalls, the discount housewares and clothing store, has committed to taking 33,000 square feet in the mall, according to a press release issued today. It will be the first Marshalls in East Harlem.

A recent article in The New York Times said the mall is slated to open in October 2009.

Some highlights of the $480 million project include an estimated 2,000 jobs (that is, of course, the developer's estimate); a multi-level 1,248-space parking lot; a Target; a Best Buy; and possibly a Home Depot.  read more »

Are you searching for a room and a life experience in the city this summer? If so, then this $700-per-month room in the "awesome Harlem Queer house" that we found on Craigslist might be just your thing.

"Do you like Dolly Parton and have a special place in you heart for kitsch?", the ad reads. "Do you want to live in a place this summer full of communal meals and time with roommates? Are you just awesome? Then welcome to the Harlem homo house."

The 125th Street Merchants Association is hosting a town hall meeting tonight on "The State of Black Harlem" at the Harriet Tubman Learning Center at 250 West 127th Street from 6 to 10. Issues up for discussion include "gentrification, mis-education, the shutdown of street vendors and black businesses, police harassment, youth and unemployment," according to the organization's press release.

The gentrification train keeps roaring its way up to Harlem and Morningside Heights, or should we say "SoCo."

Today Curbed posted two items that spell trouble or progress, depending on your point of view. W Hotel's parent company Starwood is building a branch of its new Aloft brand on Frederick Douglass Bpulevard and 124th Street. Aloft Harlem is slated to open in June 2010 next to an old carriage house that perhaps not coincidentally was long-rumored to be the site of a W hotel before it was recently converted to lofts.

And if the 125th Street rezoning, a luxury boutique hotel chain, and Columbia's expansion were not enough to seal upper Manhattan's fate, brokers have coined a pretentiously trendy name to attract young people to the nabe: "SoCo."  read more »

Here’s a shot of Manhattan City Councilman Robert Jackson seconds before Christine Quinn ordered the balcony cleared of the boisterous protesters who were yelling about the Harlem rezoning the Council was about to pass.

“Jackson you’re a snake. Jackson, you’re a sellout to your people,” one women yelled down from the balcony. Another man yelled out, “Uncle Tom!”  read more »

The City Council is expected to approve a modified plan to rezone 125th Street to allow for denser residential and commercial development today, but the rezoning’s most vocal opponents are not giving up the fight.

The Coalition to Save Harlem is mounting its umpteenth protest against the plan, which they contend “falls woefully short of what is needed for the future development of Harlem," outside the City Council’s legislative building at noon.  read more »

Rents went up all across Manhattan in April, according to the latest rental-market report from The Real Estate Group -- except for Harlem, where rates for studios and two-bedroom apartments both dropped.

Harlem remains the only Manhattan nabe where a one-bedroom unit costs less than $2,000 per month on average, according to the report, and about the only place where a two-bedroom runs less than $3,000.  read more »

AM New York today examines the controversy surrounding Harlem's shuttered Victoria Theater:

Local developer Steve Williams of Danforth Development Partners, LLC, wants to transform the 1917 burlesque theater into a 30-story condo/hotel, cutting up the ornate 2, 400-seat theater into two mini-theaters while preserving the facade and parts of the lobby.

Neighborhood activists argue that the Thomas Lamb-designer theater shoud be restored to its original grandeur.  read more »

Buoyed by a set of concessions and modifications hammered out in the past few days, the Bloomberg administration’s plan to rezone 125th Street is set to sail through the City Council, as a key subcommittee voted to approve the plan today.

Key to winning support was a boost in the amount of affordable housing added to the proposal. The city’s original plan unveiled last year allowed for about 500 units or 20 percent of the total new housing to be considered affordable; in the accord reached today between local Council Member Inez Dickens and the city, 46 percent of the housing would be affordable.

This theme has made appearances before, as in an age of soaring property values, the concept of affordable housing wins many friends, especially at the last minute. Columbia University agreed to a $150 million community benefits agreement, much to go to affordable housing, just before the vote of its contentious West Harlem rezoning; in the Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning, the city boosted the amount of sub-market rate housing from about 20 percent to about 30 percent before the Council vote; and Sheldon Solow committed to hundreds of affordable units in seeking approval for his apartment complex planned to rise south of the United Nations.

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Word that a key City Council subcommittee had approved the rezoning of 125th Street this morning had just started to make its way up to Harlem by the time an “Emergency Demonstration and Rally” organized by a group of neighborhood street merchants began at 3.

Vendors had been passing out fliers for the rally that advised local City Councilwoman Inez Dickens to “Do the Right Thing!! Vote No against the 125th Street rezoning” all morning and continued well after the subcommittee's vote ensured the rezoning's passage by the full Council.

The first protestors started to gather in the plaza at Adam Clayton Powell Jr.  read more »

The Coalition to Save Harlem is planning on Saturday to create a human chain stretching the entire length of 125th Street to protest the city's plan to rezone the neighborhood's main commercial corridor.

Dubbed “Hands Across Harlem," the demonstration is one of dozens of local protests aimed at halting the rezoning proposal that was approved by the City Planning Commission in March before it comes up for a City Council vote this month.  read more »

Charles Barron, a City Council representative from what he called “the People's Republic of Brooklyn,” stood on the steps of City Hall this morning before a scheduled hearing on 125th Street rezoning and denounced it as an “abusive use of eminent domain.”

“Harlem is not for sale,” he said, prompting cheers from the Harlem residents, community groups, and handful of local politicians in the audience. “We are tired of this city using development as a new wave of Jim Crowism. This place is supposed to protect people, not developers and the real estate industry.”

Craig Schley, the director of the Harlem group VOTE People, said residents “are not going to let this happen.” With the help of civil rights lawyers, VOTE People will invoke a 110-year-old, obscure provision in the City Charter to challenge the rezoning of 125th Street. Subsection 3 of section 200 of the Charter basically says that if 20 percent of property owners in the “affected area” sign a petition opposing the rezoning, the plan needs to be approved by three-fourths of the City Council, rather than by the usual simple majority.  read more »

The Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously voted to hold hearings on a pair of New York Public Library branches in Harlem, putting them on track toward landmark designation. The move is presumably aimed at placating critics who have faulted the LPC for neglecting Harlem ahead of the anticipated rezoning of 125th Street.  read more »

Ronald McDonald walked onto the stage of the Apollo Theater on Wednesday night to introduce the first two performers during the venue's weekly Amateur Night.

The handful of young children in the audience were delighted, but others seemed confused by the appearance of such an incongruous corporate mascot on the hallowed Harlem stage.  read more »

Late last week, we put up a post about how the Bloomberg administration agreed to exempt a Vornado RealtyTrust-owned site in Harlem from a new height limit to be established on 125th Street as part of a rezoning of the area. The City Council is expected to follow suit.

Getting to such a point, where Vornado would build its 600,000-square-foot Harlem Park office tower at Park Avenue about 40 feet higher than the 290-foot height limit, took a bit of wheeling and dealing.

In order to gain the community’s nod for the tower, and by association the expected approval of local Councilwoman Inez Dickens, Vornado had to work out an agreement with Community Board 11, pledging to give more than $1 million in concessions.  read more »

The path may now be clear for Vornado Realty Trust to build Harlem’s first Class A office tower in decades, as the developer has received the nod from the city to proceed despite a possible rezoning of the area.

Vornado wants to build a tower of about 330 feet, which is 40 feet higher than the height limit in the proposed rezoning.  read more »

The city’s Industrial Development Authority had a hearing this morning on a request for subsides at Vornado Realty Trust’s planned Harlem Park development on 125th Street, which would be home to Major League Baseball’s new television network.

Vornado is contending that it needs $7.8 million or so in tax breaks in order to complete the office and retail project, saying in its application to the IDA that the project will benefit the city. MLB wants $2.23 million in breaks to take 132,000 square feet and be an anchor tenant in Vornado’s tower, saying the development will add scores of jobs.  read more »

City Councilman Miguel Martinez was one of the politicians who helped deliver Hillary Clinton's February 5 primary win in Harlem, which looked far from a sure thing beforehand, despite the support she had from much of the political establishment in the district.  read more »

Here's part of the flier I got from Independence Party activists outside a polling location at 134th Street and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard.

The fliers were paid for by the "Committee for a Harlem Debate Between Clinton and Obama," whose members are associated with Independence Party activists Lenora Fulani, Virginia Fields and others. [added]. 

A reader reports from voting at Riverview Tower on 139th Street and Riverside Drive this morning:

if not for the wonderful older ladies who helped me today, i would be a grouchy voter. the address for my polling center was different than the address of the entrance, so i spent ten minutes walking around circles trying to find the building. i am used to polling centers with doors and entryways covered by signs. this one had a bent sign that read VOTE HERE, but only when the wind blew your direction. I went inside and was on some lists, but not others.  read more »

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A reader in Harlem sends this dispatch about his experience voting this morning at P.S. 122:  read more »

More than four years after the concept was first presented, and four months into the city’s public approval process, the Bloomberg administration’s plan to rezone 125th Street appears to be facing mounting opposition.

Numerous advocacy groups plan to critique the proposal at a City Planning Commission hearing scheduled for Jan. 30, and Manhattan’s Community Board 10 has been holding workshops that prepare residents to deliver testimony in preparation for the meeting.  read more »

The fight for Harlem’s Victoria Theater began back in December of 2005, when 11 developers submitted bids to convert the shuttered vaudeville house into a mixed-use cultural building. The board of the Harlem Community Development Corporation, which was chaired at the time by Democratic Assemblyman Keith Wright, narrowed the choices down to two firms.

But, according to The New York Times, the Pataki administration resisted, favoring another developer, Apollo Real Estate Advisers, which offered more money for the development rights and also happened to have strong ties to the Republican governor.

Mr. Wright lost his chairmanship a little while later—because of the dispute, according to an aide­­--but he ended up getting his way today. The Empire State Development Corporation, now controlled by appointees of the Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer, announced that one of the two firms selected by the Harlem Community Development Corporation, Danforth Development Partners LLC, had won the conditional right to redevelop the 1917 theater on 125th Street into a complex containing a hotel, 91 condominiums, and space for four arts organizations: the Classical Theatre of Harlem, the Harlem Arts Alliance, the Jazz Museum of Harlem, and the Apollo Theater Foundation. (The complex will, at 317,570 square feet, require a pretty large tower on top of the current building.)  read more »

We just got an email invite to the "World Premiere Party" for 111 Central Park North, the luxury condo going up on what you know better as 110th Street. It's on Nov. 15, by invite only, and hosted by developer the Athena Group.

In an era of condo-as-neigbhorhood-changer, 111 Central Park North represents the pinnacle, though it may be a while before we know for sure. Not only does it have to change in New Yorkers' collective mind the name of 110th to Central Park North, it has to convince people to pay luxury rates to live in an area that's, as they say (for better or worse), still emerging. Along 110th above the park, the condo juts out like a very sore thumb.

It's a gutsy gamble and, if it works, no area of the city may again be off-limits to luxury development. Every market-rate home developer hence will be able to toss off the line, "Well, Athena made it work with 111 Central Park North."

The Observer donned a hardhat in June and took some snapshots of the views from the still-under-construction condo.

Edward Cardinal Egan snapped at reporters covering a protest outside the Capuchin monastery on West 31st Street yesterday afternoon, telling them they shouldn't be covering protesters who buttonholed him after a mass he said there.

 

30 or 40 protesters, angered at the closing of Our Lady Queen of Angels church on East 113th Street, met the Cardinal outside the monastery Sunday, chanting and holding signs. The cardinal stopped to tell reporters: "Why don't you just ignore them? Grow up. We've had enough of this."

He was then driven away without addressing the protesters.

The church was closed in February as part of the Cardinal's unpopular program of closing and consolidating neighborhood parishes around the city to rescue the Church's ailing bottom line. The Archdiocese of New York has argued that there are other parishes nearby, and that O.L.Q.A. served too few parishioners to remain open. Neighborhood activists have claimed the church was closed because the neighborhood has too little influence with the Archdiocese.

• The New York Post

Today, Mayor Bloomberg and Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe broke ground on the second phase of the Harlem River Park Greenway and Esplanade.

Once completed in August of next year, the project will extend the greenway and esplanade from 139th Street to 142nd Street along the Harlem River, according to a press release. The initial phase of the project was completed in 2003, and opened up the greenway and esplanade from 135th Street to 139th Street.

The second phase will cost $8.7 million, according to the release

More information after the jump.  read more »

Nick Sprayregen, a key opponent of Columbia University’s expansion plan, is still in the game.

Last night, he defeated, by two votes, an attempt by elected officials to oust him from the West Harlem Local Development Corporation, a panel negotiating a community benefits agreement with Columbia, because of an alleged conflict of interest.  read more »

The Church of Scientology has purchased more property on 125th Street, and one of the buyers is listed in city records as Richard Fear. We kid you not.

The L. Ron Hubbard-founded religion recently closed on 230 and 232 125th Street for $10.2 million, according to city records. The latter address was formerly the site of the St. Samuel Church of God.  read more »

Luxury lodging is coming to Harlem.

Paul Reisman of New Jersey-based Reisman Properties recently told The Observer that his company is breaking ground in August on a hotel on 125th Street.

“The hotel will run along Fifth Avenue from 125th to 126th Street,” Mr. Reisman said.

Although a flag has yet to be picked for the property, Mr. Reisman said that a number of very high-end chains are in the running. “Right now, who we go with is an open question,” he said. “But we are narrowing it down.”  read more »

The last time AIMCO, the Denver-based development group, was in the headlines it was in the initial stages of making a bid for Starrett City with big boys Tishman Speyer and the Related Companies.

While AIMCO, and seemingly everyone else, lost out on that deal, the group has not slowed down. It recently closed on an eight-property deal in Harlem for $53.75 million, according to a company spokesperson.  read more »

Baruch Singer certainly doesn’t let any grass grow under his feet.

Just weeks after selling off one of his Hudson Yards properties for $15 million more than he paid, the uptown landlord has closed on two Harlem apartment buildings for almost exactly that amount.  read more »

Zipcar will have a home in Harlem by next year.

The self-proclaimed “green” car rental company will open up a 1,000-square-foot ground-floor space in 2008 at the Kalahari, a soon-to-open condo development at 40 West 116th Street, according to a press release.  read more »

Here's Harlem-based architect Michael Cogen explaining Michael Bloomberg's enthusiastically positive reception from the crowd he spoke to last night on 125th Street.

Presented (by me) with a choice between the job Bloomberg has done as mayor, his track record as a businessman, or the fact that he's now speculative presidential material, Cogen said that the national stuff was the least of it.

Finally! It seems that Columbia University, after talking about its Manhattanville expansion for almost five years now, has got its act together and is taking the plunge. The land-use review process is expected to begin as soon as Monday, which means that in seven months the City Council will vote it up or down--no ifs, ands or buts. The community board is none too happy about the timetable though, since it means that the first part of the review, when it gets to weigh in with its two cents, will take place during the summer, when people are likely to be on vacation.  read more »

A considerable chunk of Manhattan’s condominium projects proposed for 2007—nearly half—will be constructed above 86th Street, and many of them will be built by first-time or little-known developers.As reported in this week’s Observer, some 30 of the 65 planned condominium projects submitted to the State Attorney General’s office, between Jan. 1 and May 7, are above 86th Street. And a vast majority of those will be above 110th Street.

But instead of having backers with names like Zeckendorf, Trump or even Padeh, these $20 million new-construction and conversion projects—like the one going up at Seventh Avenue and 127th Street—are being built by outfits like NYC Designs Inc., the Poko Partners and Mann Realty. A $27 million conversion at 1890 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard at 114th Street, for example, is slated to be built by something called Tahl Propp Equities.  read more »

With a portfolio of apartment buildings in Harlem selling for $940 million this month, public officials are beginning to offer responses. The buildings were formerly apart of the Mitchell-Lama program, a state-backed affordable-housing initiative.  read more »

Columbia University’s "final scope of work" for its Manhattanville expansion just came out, which means that they are at about step two of a seven- or eight-step city approval process. This document just lays out what the project entails and what has to be studied, and comes in at 278 pages—which doesn’t bode well for the actual environmental impact study.

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