UPTOWNflavor

Redefining the Flavors of East Harlem

From The New York Times:

“There will be some displacement, but we will retain our heritage and our culture.” “You won’t stop gentrification, but you can contain it and slow it down.” -Carmen Vasquez, public relations manager for Hope Community Inc.

The Aspen is “an extension of the Upper East Side. People are bringing more money north, which is a good thing. “You just got to be street smart.” -Peter Lorusso, 25

Fifteen blocks north of the Aspen, on the site of the former Washburn Wire Factory at 116th Street and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, workers have dismantled the plant to make way for the $300 million East River Plaza shopping center, which will feature a Home Depot, a Best Buy and a Target store.

A second large development in the area was derailed by the Bloomberg administration last year after widespread opposition. The $1 billion project, known as Uptown New York, had called for retail space and 1,500 apartments in an area between 125th and 127th Streets and Second and Third Avenues. Eighty percent of the apartments would have been rented or sold at market rates.

Still, residents say many of East Harlem’s new residential developments are unreasonably expensive. On 117th Street between First and Pleasant Avenues — a block that the police say has been home to a thriving drug market and where two people were killed in the past six months —more than eight buildings are being renovated or constructed.

One of the buildings is the Nina, nine units of “luxury condominiums” where a one-bedroom penthouse is on the market for $850,000.

“The Upper East Side is now the playground for the sophisticated bohemian,” reads the Nina’s Web site. “East Harlem will be known as the area that will feature SoHo-type lofts, with a NoHo sensibility, and a Village flair, without the hefty price tag.”

Jose Hidalgo, 76, one of the men playing dominoes in the shack on 117th Street next door to the Nina, has lived in the neighborhood for 55 years. He grew up in Santa Isabel, Puerto Rico.

“Where am I going to live with these people and their condominiums?” he asked. “If I have to leave, I’ll go back to my country. I don’t have to pay rent; and I have a house there.” But Mr. Hidalgo said he believes that even if the new condos and co-ops find buyers, their owners won’t stay.

“These people come here and they don’t last long,” Mr. Hidalgo said. “Once they see what the neighborhood is really like, especially in the summer,” he said, when the streets become noisy and the crime rate typically climbs, they will sell their apartments and leave.

Nicholas L. Arture, executive director of the Association of Hispanic Arts and treasurer of the East Harlem Board of Tourism, said even without significant rates of Puerto Rican home ownership, one way to preserve the area’s pedigree is to market it to visitors. One plan calls for transforming 106th Street east of Fifth Avenue into a “cultural corridor” showcasing Puerto Rican heritage through murals and cultural centers, art galleries and restaurants.

Source: Times
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