From the outset, Dr. Alessandro Busa derides long commutes
to work, and shows obvious disgust for tiny rooms. One thing that makes up for
it in New York City is the people. To him, tiny rooms are fine as long as he
can sit on the fire escape or stoop and watch all the people walking by. His
reason for leaving Germany and coming to NYC is to do a degree at Columbia, so
I can see how his commute – from Chinatown to Morningside Heights – is either
an adventure or a chore. I don’t know how our city’s subway compares to that of
Berlin (I’ve never visited) but I know it’s worse than Chicago.
In the first
chapter, Dr. Busa researches how Harlem transformed overnight into a place for
the rich (or at least the ones who were not rich enough for the West Village)
and how the new stores – Gap, Old Navy, Starbucks, Wholefoods – were of little
benefit to those who were already there. Marcus Samuelson’s Red Rooster – discussed
heavily in his autobiography Yes Chef – doesn’t really do much for Harlem and
probably never will. I find it unlikely that Samuelson would’ve enjoyed Harlem
in the 1990’s when he first came over; the kind of people with the money to eat
at the Red Rooster did not live there at the time.
For research, Dr.
Busa interviews random Harem residents and he finds some very disturbing
experiences. Long- time residents – who lived there during the rough times –
are forced out of their apartments and end up in the Bronx. The new arrivals
ignore the Mom & Pop restaurants, which end up closing. I personally
experienced this on the Upper West Side; the cheaper supermarket had to close
because the new residents, with more money to spend, wanted “organic” foods.
Back in 2005, I had one meal – and not a good one – at a Harlem diner when I
was working up there, and all the customers were middle aged Black men. The
food was typical diner grub, and I doubt that someone with more money – even if
they wanted a fry-up for breakfast – would want to eat there. McDonald’s has
been displacing these diners for years. As for the diner’s atmosphere, it was a
very gritty one, and wouldn’t have much appeal for a Columbia Professor. Maybe
the problems that Dr. Busa discusses are the same problems seen in all US
cities?
I don’t know if
the author read the book Home Girl by
Judith Maitloff, who, ironically, was an adjunct at Columbia, where he studied.
She bought a Harlem townhouse in 1999, back when it was undesirable except for
the price, and she did in fact eat at local places, mainly from the lack of
choice. The older Black residents, who refused to flee during the rough ages,
welcomed her in. But these weren’t the people in rent-controlled apartments;
they were owners of the buildings, and very gentile. They had no interest in
the people who were “struggling,” and they were proud of themselves for
succeeding on their own merits. They were happy to see a White family moving
in. After all, wasn’t theirs a great neighborhood?
Here’s where Busa
puts the blame. First, you had racism, because banks wouldn’t lend to Black
home buyers or builders. Then you had Redlining, a practice where the banks –
on the advice of Federal research studies – declared Black neighborhoods to be
too poor and criminal for mortgages. Then came heroin, crack, and more crime.
He points out an interesting fact with regard to credit, using the Apollo
Theater as an example. The building was shuttered in 1983, when it was bought
by a company owned by Percy Sutton, the Manhattan Borough President. Sutton was
an established Black businessman, with lots of connections in banking and in
the city government, so credit wasn’t a problem for him. The author cites this
as an example of how it takes an established corporation to make positive
change, but this is not unique to Harlem. 1983 was a difficult time to get a
bank loan, and few banks would loan money to refurbish a building. The book Illegal Living: 80 Wooster Street, is
all about how another run-down neighborhood, in this case Soho, needed bank
loans. The borrowers who fixed up the Soho lofts were all White, and many of
them had good credit, but the banks still wanted huge guarantees. Refurbishing
a building, whether commercial or residential, is loan-dependent, and the
white-collar bankers are more likely to deal with their own kind. Grass-roots
projects don’t do well with bankers.
Mayor Kotch tried
to auction off the city-foreclosed buildings in Harlem, but that failed,
because banks wouldn’t risk financing a project in blighted 80’s Harlem. The
author doesn’t mention the Homesteader program of the 1980’s, which did in fact
work, primarily because very little financing was needed. The homesteaders
fixed up the buildings with their own bare hands, often waiting months before
having hot (or even running) water. I also disagree with Busa’s attitude
towards the media’s portrayal of Harlem. It’s true that the 1970’s were all
about Blaxploitation movies and crime, but the more positive 1980’s portrayal
of Harlem is just a myth. If Harlem was a good place to be, why did not only
the Whites, but also middle-class Blacks, avoid it? The Studio Museum,
Sylvia’s, The Schomberg Center, The Apollo Theater, and all the other tourist
attractions were just a façade in a neighborhood that was unsafe at night. The
John Sayles movie Brother From Another
Planet didn’t show all of the extreme misery in the community.
In each chapter,
the author shows how it’s the capital investment that makes all the difference.
Whoever can get the bank to lend hi money is the one who will get his way. We
see in the first chapter how banks wouldn’t lend money to Black landlords,
which led to blight, and (though not mentioned in this book) the artist-owned
Soho lofts were all the result of banks that did loan money. The old Rivington
House on the Lower East Side, once a nursing home, was changed to condos for
the same reason; the owner got his hands on the $16million fee to change the
deed. The elderly residents ended up scattered to other hospices.
I disagree with the author’s attitude that
everyone is losing. Rent-controlled tenants are very hard to kick out, as seen
in the Stuyvesant Town debacle, and the big businesses with their big money
ended up bankrupt, while the Stuyvesant Town residents were left warm and
comfortable. Rent control tenants who lose in the end are the ones who (a)
don’t pay the rent on time, (b) illegally sublet their apartments, and (c) have
kids living with them who are a nuisance to the other tenants. The city had the
chance to make adjustments to rent control, but every attempt caused an uproar.
Few rent-controlled apartments were lost to eviction.
The next
disagreement that I have with the author is the Landmarks Preservation
Commission and the so-called historic districts. A lot of the old buildings are
crumbling and unsustainable, like the old Tammany Hall building. Never mind
that it was old, it was built with stolen money by the thieving Boss Tweed, and
the only good thing about it is the pretty stonework. It couldn’t be
demolished, so it had to have commercial tenants who could pay the huge rent.
It was too small to have lots of low-rent tenants, an wasn’t zoned as a
residence, so in the end, the building was pretty much useless. Dr. Busa is so
irritated by the lack of affordable housing, but it would break his heart for
Tammany Hall to be replaced by an eight-story apartment house. His chapter on
“The Rezoning that Killed Coney Island” is all wrong, because Coney Island was
a dump for years. All seaside resorts in the USA suffered after the 1950’s, not
just Coney Island but also Atlantic City (NJ) and Venice Beach (CA) which lost
revenue too. The amusement venues, only profitable in the summer, weren’t
enough to keep things going. What does the author expect the owners to do? Hold
on to an unprofitable building just for the nostalgia? Brighton Beach was
nothing until the Ukrainians moved in, and they’re probably more interested in
good housing than an old façade. He waxes nostalgia on the Coney Island
Ballroom and the old arcade, but who cares? I visited in 2008, and it was a
decaying old wreck. The old Playland, destroyed by fire years earlier, was no a
weeded lot. Across the Hudson River, Long Branch had burned in the 80’s, and
was derelict until housing was built in 2005. Today it’s completely revamped,
survived Hurricane Sandy, and nobody feels nostalgic because nobody remembers!
The author could
benefit from a little more research. Soho is a great example of activism
preserving a neighborhood, and there are many in Harlem who have found ways to
avoid displacement. He could also benefit from reading Donald Trump’s Art of
the Deal; I know it’s an arrogant tome, but it does have valid points about the
problem with rent-control and how Mayor Koch’s well-meaning plans didn’t work.
As for the old 42nd Street, gone and replaced by glass office
blocks, I have few good memories. The old “Deuce” which entertains with the
nostalgic TV drama was of no benefit to the city. Little tax revenue was ever
gained, and it was a great place for the mob to launder money.
He places a lot of
the blame on Mayor Bloomberg and his re-zoning laws, but he ignores the fact
that a lot of old buildings were barely habitable. While he laments the loss of
the “creative types” he ignores (or doesn’t know about) how 30 years ago, the
“creative” people were mostly single with no kids, and they left the city when
they did have kids. Dr. Busa wasn’t here in 1988, when it wasn’t so good. At
the time, few educated Europeans wanted to live in New York. John Lennon’s move
to Manhattan was very unusual at the time. The area where he moved to (the
Upper West Side) was NOT safe at all, and I know because my parents lived there
at the same time he did. You couldn’t go out at night, and even in the daytime
you had to be on your guard. Indeed, our city has lost many of the things that
made it whole, but at the same time, some buildings are just not meant to last.
You can’t survive
on ideals, nor on nostalgia. It’s true that the old-time residents get screwed
by gentrification, and that it wrong. But in every chapter of this book, I see
what I’ve long believed; you have to be prepared for the future, and no
neighborhood lasts forever. Time waits for no man.
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