(So technically can I still claim the west-side?)
Here's a little background on a bandwagon we have jumped on that has been in the making for a while now and a question I often ponder: do you think I am a gentrifier? ($1800/month rent)
here are some excerpts from an article that breaks it down:
In the decade after the riots in the '60s, more than 100,000 Harlemites fled to the suburbs. Landlords walked away from buildings that weren't producing profits. The city took ownership of more than 65 percent of the buildings in the community. Miles of land stood vacant. Where Malcolm X's speeches once echoed through these streets, his words now seemed more like whispers buried in the concrete...What happened over those two decades is an urban planner's dream: booming housing and business markets that are mostly the result of the steadfast work of a tight-knit group of planners, professionals, and politicians who took action after too many bad years. And contrary to popular opinion, the change has not necessarily translated into a white invasion, though that population has increased. The long-term gentrification that has been going on in Harlem is predominantly an influx of the black middle class—professionals from all over the country who want to be part of this "Second Renaissance."
Yet many longtime residents are outraged by rents and real estate values that have gone higher than they, or their children, can manage...Over the past five years, the cost of housing has become a problem on all fronts. Brownstone owners receive midnight visits from developers offering $800,000 for their properties. Those on the prowl range from Upper West Side doctors to wealthy entertainers. "You can't even start a conversation to buy a gutted brownstone for under $300,000," Rivera said...Even for those who grew up middle-class in Harlem like Sharon Wilson, a social worker and mother of one, remaining in the community seems impossible. Earning a civil servant's salary, Wilson figures she will have to move out of the neighborhood when she needs more than one bedroom. Buildings in her area are charging $1500 a month for larger apartments. Generally, one-bedroom rentals that once would have been considered high at $500 now go for $1300 to $1500. And holding onto fairly priced apartments is becoming an increasing struggle. This year alone, there have been nearly 200 holdover-eviction cases in the Central Harlem zip codes. "We have seen a sharp increase in people losing their apartments due to landlord harassment for problems other than non-payment," says Nellie Bailey of the Harlem Tenants Council. "Money is in the air and everybody wants to get on the gentrification bandwagon."..Activists don't deny the need for economic revitalization. But why do it at the expense of tenants who can't afford the new community?..It's hard to think those involved in business and housing development are not linked and working toward similar goals of a corporate-run, upper-middle-class Harlem..Where we have come is good, but now it's starting to get bad. This is the time to rise up for city and federal subsidies to moderate prices.
furthermore we do our laundray about a block away where you will find the following sign on the wall. maybe as part of the campaign they should take this down?
here's a link to whole article if you want to read it.
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0238,little,38429,1.html
coming soon: video tour of my apartment
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