The Glaring Gaze of Gentrification
2008 June 19
Shopping at El Mundo, by gregbrophy via Flickr
Victim of Columbia’s expansion or the city cracking down on building code violations, the latest Harlem institution (of sorts) to be shuttered is El Mundo on Broadway and 134th. Photos and back story over on Curbed.
Stumble It!
Most of us from around the block already knew that Columbia was going to develop in this area.In fact if you look at Columbia’s designs it actually already has a building on this same corner. It’s the top right-most building in yellow :
http://neighbors.columbia.edu/pages/manplanning/images/gallery/RenderedSitePlan_20080613.jpg
It’s been on their sight for quite a while now.The garage managers had already told us that they had a definite deadline by which to vacate.
Columbia doesn’t own the building. It is owned by Mr. Tuck-it-Away
right, because no store ever gets shuttered downtown. no one ever goes out of business downtown. no white owned business operating in Manhattan has EVER faced a similar fate.
ONLY gentrification is ever responsible for shutting down business.
well, that’s what the managers of the garage told me. perhaps Columbia is leasing the space or straight up buying it but they definitely plan on building there.
Columbia does plan on building there sometime after 2015, but if you look at the properties currently owned by Columbia on their website, it is not one of them. It is still owned by Sprayregen, as are all the other properties in the campus plan area that are not yet owned by Columbia, with the exception of the gas station behind Floridita.
http://www.neighbors.columbia.edu/pages/manplanning/images/gallery/ownership.png