Rejuvenated development corporation gives $750K to youth employment program

The West Harlem Development Corporation, the organization allocating $76 million of Columbia’s money, took a major, tangible step on Monday, funding 500 summer jobs for local kids.

The West Harlem Development Corporation has funded 500 summer jobs for Harlem teens, pledging over $750,000 to support the city’s youth employment program on Monday. It’s one small step for kids, but one giant leap for the organization that’s responsible for allocating $76 million of Columbia’s money—the check is the largest single expenditure the group has made since it formed in 2009.

The development corporation has faced criticism from politicians for not taking swift action in distributing funds to the neighborhood in the wake of the University’s Manhattanville expansion. In November, the state attorney general’s office launched an inquiry to determine whether the WHDC was at fault.

Those troubles are a thing of the past now, said recently appointed executive director Kofi Boateng. Indeed, the fanfare of a press conference on Monday morning to announce the donation of $756,000 to the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program was the sign of a rejuvenated organization.

Held in the WHDC’s sparkling, week-old office, the announcement was the group’s very first public event, but belying this milestone was everything from the complimentary coffee and pastries to the presentation of the oversized check, with politicians and board members flanked by 25 smiling Harlem teenagers.

“This is the coming-out party of the West Harlem Development Corporation to show that yes we have a place, yes we have programs going, yes we are putting the money out, and yes we are building the partnerships and the collaborations,” Boateng told Spectator.

Until Monday, the WHDC had spent only $700,000 of the $3 million it had received from Columbia—with $400,000 set aside for consultants. The group did not establish a website until December and did not purchase the office—a modest but sleek storefront on 127th Street, between Amsterdam and Convent avenues—until April.

The $756,000 will allow local organizations to hire 500 more young people via the Summer Youth Employment Program, run out of the city’s Department of Youth and Community Development. The teenagers will receive nearly $1,200 for the seven-week jobs, while the organization that hires them gets a $325 cut per kid—so not a penny will go to the city’s overhead.

Boateng cited low youth employment statistics as the main reason the WHDC chose to fund the summer program—the small budget limited the program to accept only 20 percent of applicants last year.

“This year we expect that we can increase it to 33 percent. There’s still some [unemployed], but it’s a significant improvement,” Boateng said.

“It’s about trying to create a platform for them … and to get them off of the streets, to give them opportunities to work in a structured program, like SYEP, that they can learn about workforce and job readiness, which is so often missing,” WHDC board chair Donald Notice said in an interview.

In attendance were several Columbia employees, community leaders, and politicians, most notably Rep. Charles Rangel—on the day before the primary in which he’s battling four opponents for a 22nd term in the House.

Rangel, looking healthy post-back injury, praised the development corporation’s choice to focus on youth employment, telling the crowd of 50, “This is not just a summer program. This is a ‘what do you want next?’ What do you want to build? And who do you have as partners?

“Well, having Columbia University in the City of New York as one of them is a big beginning,” he added, stressing that the WHDC’s facilitation of the program and the group’s ties to Columbia are setting children up for promising futures.

But the 82-year-old Democrat also lashed out against politicians who criticized the WHDC’s inactivity over the last few years. “So many people took such cheap shots at this community, and it’s easy to do when you see money coming,” he said. “Somebody has to say, ‘Some of it should be mine,’ and if it’s not, they have to be critical.”

Rangel took a clear shot at Vince Morgan, a one-time aide to the congressman who ran for his House seat this year until dropping out in April. Morgan was one of the most prominent voices in calling for the attorney general’s investigation.

“I want to put would-be politicians on notice,” Rangel said. “Don’t use this organization as a vehicle to compensate for what you don’t have. … We’re going to have programs in our community the likes of which we’ve never seen.”

Boateng said that the investigation has been put to rest. “The attorney general has told us that there was no finding of any malfeasance,” he said, noting that the attorney general’s office does not have to sign off on the WHDC’s expenditures, nor can it prevent them.

Community Board 9, the body of 48 unpaid residents who represent West Harlem to the borough president, has played a pivotal role in the Manhattanville development over the years. CB9 vehemently opposed Columbia’s original zoning plan for its campus, and in meetings board members have frequently questioned the effectiveness of the WHDC, calling on it to disband entirely in February 2011. With Morgan, former CB9 chair Larry English led the wave of leaders who in November 2011 called on the attorney general to investigate the corporation’s activities.

But Georgiette Morgan-Thomas, who took over as CB9 chair a year ago, has taken a decidedly more supportive position than her predecessors, echoing Rangel’s call—and the WHDC’s new slogan, “solutions through collaborations”—to work in cooperation with the organization.

“We have to stand behind the institutions in our community that we’ve created to do a job, rather than pull them apart,” she said.

Columbia’s Community Benefits Agreement, signed by the University and by CB9 in 2009, promises $150 million to residents of West Harlem in return for the University’s development of a campus in Manhattanville. The WHDC is charged with distributing just over half the money.

The funds are transferred from the University to the corporation in increments over 15 years, and the WHDC will receive the next installment of $3 million after the fiscal year closes on June 30, Notice said.

“We are moving forward,” Notice said. “Today is an example.”

By Finn Vigeland

Spectator Senior Staff Writer

Published June 25, 2012

Major rezoning plan for Harlem geared to preserve brownstones by imposing height limits on new homes

Buildings would be capped at 4-6 stories on most residential blocks

Hundreds of New York City’s most glorious brownstones and majestic townhouses will be protected from developers and preserved for generations under a major rezoning proposed for West Harlem.

The plan would safeguard an architectural treasure trove by imposing height limits in the neighborhood for the first time ever, radically transforming the zoning of a 90-block area.

If the sweeping proposal from the Department of City Planning is approved, it will mark the first time the neighborhood’s zoning has been updated since 1961 — when Robert Wagner was mayor and Nelson Rockefeller was governor.

The so-called downzoning will preserve roughly 95% of the 1,900 lots bounded by W. 126th St. on the south; W. 155th St. to the north; Riverside Drive on the west, and Convent and Edgecombe Aves. to the east.

That includes Sugar Hill, the affluent historic district named for the sweet life enjoyed by its residents, and Hamilton Heights, traditional home to such African-American luminaries as composer Duke Ellington, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and civil rights activist W.E.B. DuBois.

“This is huge!” says Manhattan Borough President and mayoral hopeful Scott Stringer.

“By limiting both height and density, it removes the incentive to demolish small buildings and townhouses and replace them with towers — and that keeps gentrification at bay.”

The rezoning will protect West Harlem’s low-lying scale and “guide future development” to mesh with the area’s prewar apartment houses and Beaux Arts, Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival brownstones, says City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden.

“If my house blows up today, a developer under current zoning could replace the four-story brownstone with a 10- or 15-story building tomorrow,” said Pat Jones, co-chair of Community Board 9’s land use committee. “That out-of-scale development will no longer be possible.”

Heights would be capped at four to six stories on almost all crosstown, residential mid-blocks. They could rise only to six to eight floors on St. Nicholas and Amsterdam Aves. and up to 12 stories on Broadway, a review of the plan shows.

The impetus for the downzoning: Columbia University’s upzoning of an adjacent, 17-acre parcel in Manhattanville, where it will erect a $6 billion, 16-building super-campus, north of 125th St. and west of Broadway, over the next 25 years.

Stringer and City Councilman Robert Jackson, who represents the area, had pressed City Planning officials to rezone the adjoining swath so West Harlem could co-exist with Columbia — and not be dominated by it.

“Columbia is humongous, its endowment is in the billions, and people have a real fear that housing costs will go up and they’ll no longer be able to afford their homes because the new campus will fuel gentrification,” Jackson says.

“Now, developers won’t be able to tear down those homes and build a 25-story tower.”

Under the city’s land-use review procedure, Community Board 9, as of May 7, had 60 days to review the proposal, after which it goes to Stringer, who has a month to review it and suggest changes.

Then it goes to the City Planning Commission, for a 60-day review, and finally, to the City Council, which has 50 days to approve, modify or reject the zoning proposal. Insiders predict it will take effect after some minor tinkering.

Public reviews generally last a maximum of seven months — and that’s a good thing, says state Sen. William Perkins, who represents the area.

“There are preservationists in my district who would chain themselves to those brownstones to protect them,” he says.

“Hopefully, that won’t be necessary now, but we always need to be vigilant and skeptical because there have been zoning betrayals in the past, and that’s why we have a public review process.”

Other provisions of the proposed West Harlem zoning plan would:

* Allow commercial uses in a light-manufacturing district between W. 126th St. and W. 130th St. to spur job creation. The so-called mixed-use zone could attract retail and arts companies or other non-profits.

* Direct future larger-scale development to a single block on W. 145th St. between Broadway and Amsterdam Ave. Only on this one site could a residential building rise to 17 stories, and only if it included a significant amount of affordable housing.

* Steer community facilities — like a gym, a library or a halfway house — to commercial and manufacturing corridors by reducing the amount of floor area they’re permitted in residential areas.

dfeiden@nydailynews.com

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/uptown/major-rezoning-plan-harlem-geared-preserve-brownstones-imposing-height-limits-homes-article-1.1079409#ixzz1vRq6A4Il

Restored Home of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton to Re-Open Saturday

HARLEM—Five years after it was shuttered and relocated, the National Park Service will reopen Hamilton Grange, the home of Alexander Hamilton, one of the nation’s founding fathers.

The Grange, built in 1802, originally stood on Hamilton’s 34-acre estate on the site of what would eventually become West 143rd Street. As the street grid developed, the house was moved in 1889 to save it from demolition. The Federalist-style home was moved again in 2008 to the southeast corner of St. Nicholas Park at West 141st Street.

The once-neglected building, which underwent a meticulous $14.5 million renovation that restored many of the home’s historical elements, will open to the public Saturday. The home has been restored to resemble as closely as possible what Hamilton would have seen for the two years he lived in the home, including the original paint colors.

Hamilton Grange at its former site at 287 Convent Ave. (wallyg/flickr)

In restoring the home, the park service also hopes to reanimate the discussion about one of this country’s lesser know, yet influential founding fathers.

“Alexander Hamilton is not one of the founding fathers that the United States has traditionally spent a lot of time talking about in the last few generations,” said Mindi Rambo, a spokeswoman for the National Park Service. “You hear much more about Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Ben Franklin. But Alexander Hamilton was very important to how the federal government runs today.”

Hamilton, who was born out of wedlock in the West Indies, was instrumental in helping to get the Constitution adopted. He founded the agency that would become the U.S. Coast Guard and served as the first Treasury Secretary from 1789 to 1795.

The only New Yorker to sign the Constitution, he was an advocate of a free press and founded the New York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves. He also founded the Bank of New York.

“In many ways, his was the quintessential New York story. He was an immigrant from the Caribbean who came here with little more than his skills, ambitions and his mind who made a name for himself,” said Rambo.

The Grange is the only home Hamilton was known to have owned. Hamilton only lived in it for two years before he was killed in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr in 1804.

The restoration includes reorienting the house so that the front entrance to the home is back in its original location. The original staircase to the home has been restored, in addition to the parlor room, which includes some of the original chairs.

The dining room and Hamilton’s study also includes historical furnishings. The original, but non-working, piano played by Hamilton’s daughter Angelica is also present.

The over-sized mirrored doors of the dining room, which are the same size as the windows in a design touch meant to bring the outdoors inside, have also been restored. The dining room windows are triple hung and designed to be used as doorways to the side porches.

“You step into the foyer where Hamilton would have met his guests,” said Rambo. “It was a meticulous process that involved 18 months of architectural investigation.”

Architects opened walls and reexamined some of the previous restoration plans conceived before the move. They looked for the home’s structure to tell the house’s history.

The investigation was crucial because it allowed some of the home’s original pieces to be rediscovered. During a previous renovation, the tops of the oversized dining room doors had been sawed off. Architects found them being used as a brace elsewhere in the house and restored the doors.

“The restoration took longer than anticipated but this was worth it because the house told us what it looked like and it allowed us to bring it much closer to what Hamilton would have seen himself, said Rambo.

Actors portraying Hamilton and 18th century New Yorkers will be on hand Saturday in full costume to give visitors a taste of what Hamilton’s life was like at the Grange.

Savona Bailey-McClain, executive director of West Harlem Art Fund has curated a work by artist Abigail Simon that allows visitors to see and hear a historical representation of the sites and sounds of the Grange using their smart phones.

“A lot of people don’t know this history,” said Bailey-McClain.

“The site is such a huge improvement over the previous site that its reopening is a great thing for West Harlem,” said Brad Taylor, vice chair of Community Board 9 who has worked on issues regarding the Grange over the years.

“It will will bring more prominence to Hamilton, his legacy and his immigrant background because we are a community of immigrants,” said Taylor.

The previous site of the home at 287 Convent Ave. will remain as a garden. After seeking suggestions from the public, Rambo said the overwhelming majority of respondents wanted to retain the garden.

“The National Park Service recommendation is to leave the Convent Avenue site as green space for the community,” said Rambo.

Taylor said many West Harlem residents will be pleased to hear the news.

“With this solution we don’t lose any open space and we gain a permanent garden on Convent Avenue in a historic neighborhood,” said Taylor.

A few years ago, talk of removing the home from the neighborhood was met with stiff community opposition. Now, integrating the home into the Hamilton Heights neighborhood, which is named after Hamilton, is a major goal of the National Park Service, said Rambo.

The Grange contains a new visitors center and exhibit space that will feature a time lapse film of the home’s move and a history of the neighborhood. Soon, area residents will be able to make an appointment to give their oral histories of the neighborhood and talk about what the house means to them.

“Because of a lot of the things happening in the economy and financial markets people are talking about Hamilton again. This is our opportunity to say he was more than economics. We wanted to honor Hamilton’s legacy and his importance to the neighborhood and the United States,” said Rambo.

Hamilton Grange, located in St. Nicholas Park at West 141st Street, will re-open to the public with a celebration from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 17. On Sunday, Sept. 18 from noon to 4 p.m., there will be a lecture series featuring speakers discussing the house, neighborhood and Alexander Hamilton.

Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/20110916/harlem/restored-home-of-founding-father-alexander-hamilton-reopen-saturday#ixzz1YFsi4bnJ

Citarella Eviction From Disputed Harlem Site Upheld by Court

HARLEM — A court has upheld the city’s eviction of gourmet grocery chain Citarella from the former Taystee Bakery site on West 125th Street in Harlem.

The city filed suit against the high-end grocery chain, saying it failed to fulfill its agreement to develop warehouse space when the property was purchased for $850,000 in 1999. The city won its case last year and earned the right to evict the chain from the space it has occupied since 2005, but Citarella owner Joseph Guerra appealed the ruling to the State Supreme Court, Appellate Division.

The city’s Economic Development Corporation, confident that it would win the new case, had already issued requests for expressions of interest to develop the property in November.

“We are pleased the court has upheld this decision,” said EDC spokesman Kyle Sklerov. “We are still reviewing responses to the request for expressions of interest and we look forward to activating that site as soon as possible.”

The chain, which was purportedly developing a multi-use facility, vacated the store on April 18, stripping it clean of all equipment. Outside, it posted a sign saying that it would be “abandoning its attempt at developing affordable housing at the former Taystee Bakery property, because of a lack of municipal support for that project.”

“It was a pleasure to serve the Harlem community and we are disappointed to leave,” the note continued.

Citarella representatives did not respond to a request for comment. The store has three other locations in Manhattan, on the Upper West Side, Upper East Side and Greenwich Village. The court proceedings have yet to conclude and city officials believe the store is likely to appeal the most recent ruling.

The former Taystee Bakery site is a six-building, 134,000-square-foot complex located at 461 W. 125th St. and 426-458 W. 126th St. Recent proposed zoning changes to the area may make it possible for residential housing to be built on the West 126th Street side of the project.

Community Board 9 chair Larry English demanded a say in choosing the new developer, calling the site one of the most crucial developments in West Harlem.

EDC president Seth Pinsky agreed to work more closely with a task force from the community board but denied them final say on the project, saying it might cause conflicts of interest and would set a bad precedent and clog projects in the pipeline.

English said that EDC is in the process of paring down five of the remaining 16 submissions to three finalists. The board’s executive committee is meeting with EDC this month to hear about the three finalists.

EDC has discussed only the nature of the project with the task-force, leaving out details on the names of developers and any financial arrangements. Some CB 9 board members criticized the upcoming meeting, saying it should be “more transparent.”

However, English says EDC has allowed the CB 9 task-force to provide “lots of input.”

“It’s not a perfect process but its moving forward. I wanted to make sure someone from the community was at least in the room,” English said.

Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/20110503/harlem/citarella-eviction-from-disputed-harlem-site-upheld-by-court#ixzz1LR92Tzq3

Columbia University alters plan for promised moves it to other neighborhood school in West Harlem,

West Harlem residents are angry that plans for a new public school pledged as part of Columbia University‘s massive expansion have been scaled back.

Columbia promised in 2007 to create a new pre-kindergarten to eighth grade school as part of a benefits agreement for residents affected by its plans to build a new campus in Manhattanville – but officials said last week the school would only include kindergarten through fifth grade.

And the school, called Teachers College Elementary and set to open in the fall, will be located for its first year in East Harlem – across town from the affected neighborhood.

“A deal is a deal,” said Community Board 9 chairman Larry English. “It’s a violation of the spirit of the agreement.

“This project will forever alter West Harlem,” he said. “Columbia owes a greater debt to the community.”

Teachers College and city Department of Education officials said they had to scrap plans for a pre-K-8 school because there’s no space available big enough to house it.

“It really is all about space,” said Teachers College spokesman Jim Gardner.

He said Teachers College Elementary would only be in the East Harlem space for a year, and then hoped to open in a permanent spot in West Harlem.

“It is a temporary site. That’s temporary in capital letters. It was space that was assigned to us by DOE. We had no hand in this,” he said. “It is our hope and our expectation that the permanent site will be in West Harlem.”

Locals, who were presented with the plan at a CB9 meeting last week, also griped that the school would only take kids from District 5 – which covers a chunk of West Harlem but is mostly in East and central Harlem.

“It was a shocker,” said board member Vicky Gholson. “It’s not that Teachers College is the enemy or that Columbia is the enemy (but) it just makes no sense.”

The city’s Panel for Educational Policy is set to vote on the 300-student school today. Even without the much-needed middle school and pre-K seats, Gardner said “it’s going to be a great school and it’s going to deliver and create an enormous community benefit.”

The school, for which Columbia pledged $30 million, was part of a $150 million deal Columbia agreed to in 2007 to gain support for its controversial expansion plans.

BY Erin Durkin
DAILY NEWS WRITER

Harlem Residents Want MORE Art

The city is considering proposals for the former Taystee Bakery site, which includes the building one that contained Citarella on 125th and 126th streets.

Harlem has 16 options for the former Citarella development on 125th and 126th streets—but choosing between them is, so far, a complicated process.

New York City’s Economic Development Corporation met with Harlem’s Community Board 9 on Tuesday night to hear locals’ preferred ideas for the site, which varied from affordable housing to manufacturing and artistic space.

The project will occupy the former Taystee Bakery site, which includes five vacant buildings and one that contained Citarella, offices, and storage. The grocery store was evicted in June 2009 after its developer failed to keep its promises to fill office and retail space in the surrounding buildings, and control of the property’s future was passed to the EDC, which accepted the 16 proposals in late January.

“We were very pleased with what we received,” said Carolee Fink, vice president of government and community relations at EDC and project manager of the Taystee Development site.

“People are very interested in this part of the city and the market is coming back. It also showed us the different types of uses that would be useful to this community,” she said.

According to Fink, only five of the proposals were fully non-residential, which became a point of contention for local residents who said housing wouldn’t do enough to create jobs in the area.

“While we remain committed to affordable housing and housing in general, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to create a unique development project,” said Larry English, chair of CB9.

“When you come to West Harlem, there is no commercial activity. While I believe it is important to always look at the opportunity to provide affordable housing, there are only a few aspects where we focus on commercial activity and this is one of those areas,” he said.

Javier Carcamo, assistant chair of the CB9 Land Use and Zoning committee, agreed that the focus should be on projects with offices and manufacturing uses.

“We need the mixing of these uses as a way to maintain foot traffic a long portion of the day. A lot of retail fails because it is a predominately residential community,” he said.

CB9 members also stressed that their main goal was to transform the relatively dead area near Amsterdam Avenue into a more active neighborhood around the clock.

“When you have a community who has artists, they don’t work for 9-5 p.m. and that creates a new atmosphere,” said Christa Giesecke, chair of the Land Use and Zoning Committee. “Don’t forget that we lost a lot due to Columbia’s development. We need to make sure that we get space back, maybe housing for artists, studios, cafés, and restaurants.”

“Most people are gone during the day. Retail won’t survive without manufacturing and offices to help fuel business during the day,” Carcamo said.

English emphasized his desire for the project to have an artistic aspect as well.

“Culture is the oil of Harlem. Any project on that site has to have that component because that is what West Harlem and Harlem is about,” said English.

Toward the close of the meeting, both CB9 members and EDC representative stressed that they want to do this process properly—no matter the land’s eventual use—so they do not have to do this again in five years.

“At the end of the day, we are going to have answer to a future generation on that property. CB9 is assuming that responsibility. This is a valuable asset that ought to maximize the community,” English said.

constance.boozer@columbiaspectator.com

CB9 calls for market in underserved West Harlem

A man browses at the greenmarket near Columbia, GrowNYC's only farmers' market in West Harlem

Residents of West Harlem say the neighborhood needs more heirloom tomatoes and free range fowl.

Community Board 9 and local community organizations including Montefiore Park Neighborhood Association and the West Harlem Art Fund passed a resolution in January calling for the opening of a farmers’ market in Montefiore Park, at 138th and Broadway by June 2011.

“The location makes so much sense—it has lots of foot traffic from the subway stop, bus stops, and commuters to City College,” said Brad Taylor, Chair of the CB9 Committee for Waterfront, Parks & Recreation.

If a farmers’ market does move in uptown it will be one of the few in Harlem, long known as a “food desert” with few options for fresh produce and other high-end dining. The only greenmarket in CB9 is the one near Columbia’s campus.

“West Harlem is woefully underserved,” said Taylor. “Greenmarket has been aware of the Harlem ‘food desert’ for years. In 2005, they were looking at market locations at various locations in Harlem. Yet if you look at their market map you’ll see that Greenmarket has no markets in East, Central, or West Harlem. You would have to ask them why they have had so little success over the years.”

Many involved in the effort to bring a farmers’ market to the area have complained that governmental programs and nonprofit organizations have not been doing enough to make it happen.

“For the past four years we have sent in requests for the market, said Savona Bailey-McClain, a member of the CB9 Economic Development Committee and director of the West Harlem Art Fund.

“Each and every year it is rejected. In the past they have claimed the foot traffic [is a problem], but there has always been foot traffic there.”

Margaret Hoffman, a representative for Greenmarket director Michael Hurwitz for GrowNYC, told attendees at a recent CB9 meeting that GrowNYC must be selective about opening new locations.

“Our issue for the most part is that we are a small, nonprofit organization and that we have very limited resources. We don’t always have the funds to do certain projects,” she said.

Taylor said that GrowNYC has opened numerous markets in other locations across the city.

“Years go by with residents imploring Greenmarket and Greenmarket in return saying they need to study a location and remaining noncommittal. In the intervening years, Greenmarket continues to set up and expand numerous markets in neighborhoods that can hardly be called food deserts—including the location adjacent to the Columbia campus at 115th and Broadway,” Taylor said.

However, Bailey-McClain does not feel that limited resources are the crux of the problem. “NYC organizations have rejected communities ofw color consistently. I hope this works out, but you never know.”

CB9 chair Larry English said bringing a farmers market, through GrowNYC or an independent market, would be a top priority this year.

“It is very difficult for a lady in her 80s to go on a bus to 110th Street for fresh food…. it’s a shame on the community board and New York,” he said.

constance.boozer@columbiaspectator.com

125th in flux as citywide interest in Harlem grows

As local tourism and citywide interest in Harlem expands, some longtime residents and business owners fear that the increased attention on the neighborhood could break up current ties in the area.

A 125th Street rezoning plan, approved in 2008, was designed to promote mixed-use development on Harlem’s main thoroughfare, and the Department of City Planning has been working with the NYC Economic Development Corporation to strengthen the corridor’s retail and culture.

Though the recession has halted some of the temporary initial plans, two years after the plan’s approval, residents and experts say that the area is becoming increasingly attractive to those outside of Harlem.

“125th Street has become an international symbol as the sort of African-American ‘Main Street,’” Barnard urban studies professor David Smiley said, adding that Harlem could be a victim of its own success.

“Harlem now exists in a global economy,” he said.

Increased interest in Harlem will undoubtedly cause prices to go up and create new demands, Smiley said.

La Linguere Fashions, located on 8th Avenue between 126th and 127th streets, got its start in Harlem selling T-shirts and accessories, employee Aita Carmichael said. But now, she said, the store’s been turned into a boutique, raising its prices and selling designer inventory to accommodate new trends and clientele.

“If you want to stay, you have to find a way to compete,” Carmichael said.

Philip Bulgar, assistant manager at Manna’s Soul Food and Salad Bar, said he fears that changes in Harlem through new development may soon put an end to the neighborhood he knows.
“We know a lot of our customers by face and name. … It’s the everyday people who support us,” he said. “The construction workers, the people who work in the projects, the tourist who come here for the day.”

A 110-year-old building on the corner of 125th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard, the former home of the Kelly Brothers Saloon, will be demolished by Kimco Realty Corporation to make room for a new retail complex.

Manna’s was also impacted by Kimco’s expansion plans, when it had to move from its longtime location on 125th Street and 8th Avenue six months ago.

Some say the changing landscape of the neighborhood has contributed to an influx of tourism.

“If you destroy the mom-and-pop stores, you lose a part of the community,” Bulgar said. “It may look nicer, but it’s not going to benefit the people that live here.”

Kimco did not respond to requests for comment.

Community Board 9 Chair Larry English said he does not see the dramatic changes that some businesspeople described. He said he views 125th as an exception to the general trends of the area.

“We have not seen a lot of chain stores being opened in CB9 because of the nature of the neighborhood,” he said. “West Harlem is 90 percent residential, and there are just not a lot of places for large commercial development.”

Smiley said that though Harlem has now become a tourist destination, this hasn’t necessarily helped the neighborhood.

“The tour buses would drive in, people would get out and walk around, and then they would leave,” Smiley said. Tourism, he said, did not have the revitalizing effect that many had hoped for.

“There is no doubt that development is always a concern living in any neighborhood in Manhattan,” English said. “The position of CB9 is not that we are anti-development, but we support development that respects the historical integrity of the neighborhood.”

Smiley said that, ultimately, Harlem has faced similar challenges and has been able to weather them in the past.

“Harlem’s identity has grown out of its resolution to carry on,” he said. “It’s always found strength given the odds.”

And some neighborhood merchants are not opposed to the growing outside interest in Harlem and 125th Street.

“When people come to Harlem, they look for different things, places to eat, places to shop,” said Michael Jones, who runs a perfume table on 125th Street. “It might even help me.”

news@columbiaspectator.com

Riverbank State Park in Harlem is Losing Rangers to Layoffs

MANHATTAN — Riverbank State Park in Harlem is losing all four of its rangers, just months after its operating hours were cut to help close a state budget gap.

The state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation sent layoff letters to the rangers earlier this month, telling them their jobs would end Jan. 1.

That means the 28-acre park, which runs along the river from West 137th Street to West 145th Street, will be without any full-time rangers, who patrol the grounds and help people navigate the facilities, union officials said. The rangers are considered by many to be the public face of the park.

The rangers’ union representatives complained that they weren’t given enough notice of the layoffs, and complained about the timing, in which workers were given pink slips just before the holidays.

“We understand the fiscal implications, which we’ve all been dealing with for several budget cycles. But these are human beings,” said Chris Hickey, executive vice-president of the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, the union that represents the rangers.

A parks department spokesman declined to comment, and referred questions to the state budget office, where a spokeswoman also declined to comment.

Although they are responsible in part for the parks’ security, the rangers are not armed, and are not police. Riverbank has its own team of state park police.

The layoffs are part of nearly 900 across state government announced by Gov. David Paterson, who said he needed them to meet a goal of $250 million in workforce reductions. He blamed union leaders for failing to give concessions that would have gone toward the savings goal.

Earlier this year, Paterson cut hours at Riverbank as part of a plan to close a $8.2 billion deficit. Hundreds of residents rallied at the park in protest, accusing the state of reneging on its commitment to the facility, which was built in the early 1990s in exchange for the construction of a sewage treatment facility below it.

Brad Taylor, who chairs Community Board 9′s waterfront and parks committee, said the layoffs portended further cuts at Riverbank.

“It’s just not right that the community continues to have this burden put on it daily, and the park keeps getting put on the cutting block,” Taylor said.

In addition to the four rangers at Riverbank, the state is laying off the one ranger who works at Roberto Clemente State Park in the Bronx.

No other rangers at any other New York state parks are being let go, Hickey said.

Patrick Robinson, the Roberto Clemente ranger, said he has been worked there for 23 years and is now trying in vain to find another job. He is 46 and married with five children.

“I’ve been working there forever and it’s like they don’t have any respect for me,” Robinson said.

Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/20101213/manhattan/riverbank-state-park-losing-rangers-layoffs#ixzz182cRMh1I