The Truth About Harlem

As a college student eager to explore the world outside the South I spent many winter breaks in New York City. My first was with my roommate Kaye who lived in Queens. I got to see a few of the sights and only visited Harlem once when we went to dinner at Copeland’s Restaurant on 145^th St. The winters after that were more about expanding my horizons in the great city and making trips to Harlem, a place ravaged by poverty and violence of the turbulent ‘60s. Over the years things have changed but even with the explosion called gentrification something about Harlem remains the same.

Harlem was considered the worse place to live in New York in the early 1970’s. The movies about the area featured buildings that were mere shells, people without jobs or a future and white on black cruelty that often ended in black on black violence. It was not a place to visit at night I was told by those who put together the tours and trips for the college. Yet that was the only time I got to go to Harlem for the days were full with visits to safe havens like NYC museums and plays. One evening after a lecture a few of us were invited uptown to an artist’s Harlem apartment where she served us tea and cookies in a most opulent setting. This place looked nothing like the streets and buildings below. There was a doorman, and a marble foyer and a working elevator with glass walls. Besides discussing her art we talked about black culture and history, about the changes taking place in the area. Aware that we were tourists in a foreign environment even though our skin color matched that of those controlling the streets, she sent us packing before 10 pm. The four of us would have preferred to take a cab but back then few taxis ventured north of 110^th Street. So we stood huddled together on the subway platform deciding to board the first train that arrived after a drunk rolled passed us asking for change and a couple got to fighting so loudly I was sure the police would come. We got back to our hotel safe and sound and boldly decided that we should go back into the belly of the beast another night for a party the artist’s daughter invited us to. Unfortunately that night we got so lost we almost didn’t find out way back to the subway station. We encountered friendly people who gave us instructions. A long black car stopped and the driver asked us if we needed a lift. We turned him down thinking something dangerous was on his mind only to learn later that he wasn’t being fresh but trying to make a living as a gypsy cab driver.

Over the years I learned to enjoy Harlem more as I visited then moved here. It changed but not overnight. Houses people paid a pittance for almost 25 to 30 years ago because nobody wanted to live in them or to care for them are now worth millions. The majority of the population is Latino but every ethnicity lives here. When we first moved into the neighborhood we had to leave town in order to buy good quality meats. Produce was plentiful and fresh at the local green grocers, all Korean owned. There was a fish market owned by a Greek guy who lived two hours away on Long Island. And the only neighborhood butchers were Jewish and of course closed on all Jewish holidays. You learned to put up with the inconveniences because you wanted to live in New York and Harlem was affordable back then. You shopped on 125^th St. or you went downtown. You rode the trains day and night without worrying about the drunks or derelicts. You learned where to stand safely on the platform and where to walk to get home safe. It was an urban area that allowed you the privilege of the whole of New York and that’s why I moved here.

Then came massive gentrification and with it the greed of those who bought real estate that they could now pass on for amazing prices. Homes that no one wanted before sold for phenomenal rates, people started charging full market prices for apartments (something that had never been done before in Harlem) and got them. And the rents for stores and businesses on the main thoroughfares shot up to a price that most of the shopkeepers could not pay. The fish market owner retired early, the butchers closed and all the green grocers disappeared. Grocery stores that never wanted to service Harlem before popped up. There was a time when they only carried white bread but now they have bagels and lox, Jamaica and Dominican canned goods and everything one needs for the insertion of other cultures into what was once considered an all black neighborhood.

There are few black businesses outside of the hair saloons and barbershops. Copeland’s closed a few years back and the restaurants that have opened are mostly owned by people who live downtown. The few that are in the area that are black and Latin owned survive by the skin of their teeth. There was a time when all the neighborhood eateries were closed on Mondays but now in order to maintain a steady clientele the places are open 7 days a week.

There is a lot of speculation outside Harlem why it became the place to live and own but being here and observing the changes I can tell you that it is still the last affordable place to live in Manhattan. College students from nearby Columbia, which literally is in Harlem, find it cheaper to live nearby in brownstones and apartment buildings where the rent is still cheaper than the tony downtown addresses. Lots of business people find the area not only affordable but easy access to work by subway and even easier to the airport than going through mid-town traffic. There are affordable places to be entertained and there is a rich history of art and music in the area.

But one thing those moving into Harlem must be aware of is this: there is still a great amount of poverty. If you live in Harlem you must accept that there are still gangs, number runners, drug addicts, and drug sellers. The street corner men are still telling their version of the history of the neighborhood, the homeless of all cultures still prowl the streets looking for food and often shelter because Harlem has always been the friendliest of New York areas. It accepts the tired, poor and huddled masses yearning to be free because the blacks that settled here only wanted the freedom that the constitution promised them that the south would not allow.

Living in Harlem does not mean you step over these people and ignore them. It means you live with them. You see them daily and often you give them a nod, not of approval but of awareness. You want them to be aware that you belong.

I no longer get lost in Harlem but I know it’s a big place and I am aware of my surroundings. Gentrification may have made it a popular place to live but it is still a neighborhood in transition. It is still the area across 110^th Street that brings fear to some but now it brings wealth to others.