Harlem on my mind

I live in Harlem, home of the Apollo Theatre, the Harlem Renaissance, Sylvia's and Bill Clinton. I've always lived here, apart from college in Syracuse, and when I lived in London. Recently there's been a lot of talk in the media about the how Harlem has now become a popular place to move too, primarily because the area is filled with gorgeous brownstones that are half of what they would cost if you lived below 96th Street.

Which would have been great news if my father and uncle hadn't sold my grandmother's house on 144th Street and Convent Avenue. It's the one thing my mother never let my father forget. This house was gorgeous, 4 stories with a back garden where my grandmother grew roses and tomatoes. I have so many pictures of the two of us by the roses. It's one of the reasons that I don't like hot house roses. When you've grown up with rose bushes, it's just not the same thing.

Anywhoo, that house would now be worth around $4MM. I can just imagine my mother berating my father once again before she heads off to have a martini with Telly Savalas (my mother's big crush).

On the blog A Bagel in Harlem, a recent poster was berating and bemoaning all the white people who have moved in the neighborhood, claiming that they're ruining it by driving up real estate prices, and making it increasingly difficult for the long time residents who have lived in the neighborhood for years. I have only one thing to say to that. Yeah white people! It's finally encouraged builders to start creating more housing both upper and middle class in the neighborhood.

Let's get real. The black elite are not moving to Harlem. You don't Sean Combs, Russell Simmons, Spike Lee or Chris Rock moving to Harlem. None of them are buying brownstones on Strivers Row. Now they all live either in New Jersey or the Upper East Side or Soho. Even Samuel L. Jackson who lived in a brownstone across the street from my building decamped to LA, and he's certainly not buying a pied a terre in Harlem. Who does business in Harlem? Bill Clinton, that's who. I don't see any of these guys buying up real estate and putting up middle-class housing so that Harlem can stay black and Latino.

After all, Harlem was originally designed for the white middle class. Unfortunately during the depression of 1893, no one was buying all the way uptown, apart from middle class blacks who were moving out of the Tenderloin and the other areas where they were segregated. So Harlem became black.

So if Marcia Gay Harden and Cameron Mathison want to buy brownstones near Mt. Morris Park, I say more power to them.

I certainly plan to stay for awhile. After all where else in Manhattan, am I going to find a six room apartment for what I pay in maintenance?

Thanks for stopping by!
EKM