NELLIE HESTER BAILEY: This is a condo, very expensive, $500,000, $1 million units, across
from Marcus Garvey Park.
DAVID DOUGHERTY: Harlem is changing. Widely considered the historic cultural capital of
black America, the neighborhood situated in New York City's Upper Manhattan area looks
very different today from its life in previous decades. Where there were once crumbling tenement
housing complexes and a critical lack of infrastructure and services, there now stand luxurious new
condominiums and a variety of upscale urban amenities. The cityscape is not the only thing
that has changed in Harlem. The population is looking increasingly wealthier and whiter,
as newcomers continue to move to the neighborhood while previous residents find themselves moving
out as housing prices and the cost of living skyrocket. Harlem community activist Nellie
Hester Bailey says the neighborhood's experience with gentrification raises important questions
about who benefits most from urban economic revitalization.
BAILEY: Well, when you redevelop houses, any house, and of course it's good, the issue
is: why--and this is a standard reply of so many old-timers in Harlem--why is it that
the development here was only worthwhile when whites moved in? Why didn't we see this? Why
was this not done for us? Why were we allowed to live in the misery of drug infections and
vacant lots that was littered with glass and garbage and needles? And I think that's a
legitimate question. And it's fair for one to ask what undergirds all of this, this public
policy and legislation, if it's not race and class.
DOUGHERTY: Harlem and the rest of New York City have witnessed a steady decline of their
black population, as people displaced by gentrification have been forced to relocate to more affordable
parts of the country like the South. Harlem's black population grew significantly in the
early 20th century, as many people migrated from Southern states and were often unable
to find housing in many other parts of the city due to the unwillingness of white landlords
to rent to people of color. In the 1920s and '30s the neighborhood became the epicenter
of an explosion of black cultural production in the areas of art, music, and literature
in an era that became known as the Harlem Renaissance.
BAILEY: This is the famous Cotton Club from the Harlem Renaissance. It has historic note
in the Harlem Renaissance, one of the few remaining buildings from that period. It still
has a very active clientele and series of events. It is a favorite of the tourists who
come into New York City, because it really represents the jazz age period of the Harlem
Renaissance.
DOUGHERTY: There are many people from Harlem who share a difficult history of marginalization
and abandonment by the state. The area was previously subjected to severe targeted cutbacks
in public spending on vital services and regularly endured sustained predatory landlord practices
that led the city to repossess a large number of neglected properties that had become uninhabitable.
Community investment has long been desired in black Harlem, but neighborhood residents
today say they are still feeling betrayed by the city's policies and the role of real
estate markets in decision-making processes.
BAILEY: Black people came to Harlem because they had no other choices. There was nowhere
to go. They were pushed into Harlem, into a slum. And it was part of--it was because
of institutional racism. It was because of public policy that discriminated. The city
used to own 60 percent of the real estate here in Harlem. Why was there not a strategic
program of development that developed housing that was income-targeted, that it reflected
the reality of the incomes of the people who was here?
DOUGHERTY: There are a number of powerful actors and interests at play, with investment
practices in financial and real estate markets. The Manhattanville area of West Harlem is
the target site of a large and costly expansion project by the prestigious Columbia University.
The private Ivy League school says that it needs more space to accommodate its growing
student body and research institutions, and that the project will create thousands of
jobs for the community. Those opposed to the move worry that many of the jobs will not
become available for years to come and that they may come too late. The announcement of
the expansion had already attracted a number of real estate developers to the area, and
has since accelerated gentrification and community displacement, as rents continue to rise as
a result.
BAILEY: This Columbia University expansion site that expands from 125th to 133rd, from
12th Avenue--which would be, really, the Hudson River to Broadway. And Columbia University's
18 acre expansion cost about $6 billion.
DOUGHERTY: There have been several legal battles over the power to use eminent domain in Manhattanville,
which allows an entity to confiscate private properties if it is determined that the surrounding
area is blighted and will be developed for civic purpose. A small number of private property
owners have continued to resist attempts by the university to pressure them into selling
and relocating, though New York's Court of Appeals recently ruled in favor of Colombia's
use of eminent domain, reversing an earlier ruling. Columbia University has been accused
of manipulating regulation so that the Empire State Development Corporation, a New York
public authority that has received significant financial contributions from the university,
would determine that there was sufficient blight in the area to initiate the eminent
domain-backed land grabs.
BAILEY: Columbia University had its sight on all of these private properties. But in
order to jumpstart eminent domain, there has to be a finding of blight. So what did the
university do? They allowed their property to become blighted so that the determination
of blight would be found to jumpstart the eminent domain process. The public review
process that is required for this confiscation was completely controlled by the university.
And so it was a foregone conclusion what the results were going to be.
DOUGHERTY: An active and enduring resistance has been born in Harlem in opposition to the
expansion project and other motors of gentrification, as community members engage in protests and
other forms of organizing. Some residents and organizers like Nellie are concerned about
the means by which institutions like Columbia University are able to use their influence
and tax exempt status to manipulate levers of power through their connections with financial
elites, real estate developers, and the state.
BAILEY: President Bollinger, the president of Columbia University, also serves as the
chair the New York Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is one of the most powerful financial
institutions in the country. One can easily surmise that they are in fact the shapers,
the architects of the future of New York, both financially and residentially and commercially.
They will determine, through the control in its relationship with the financial markets,
what goes on here in New York City.
DOUGHERTY: In addition to Columbia University's president's recently appointed role as chair
of the New York Fed, there are also a number of other heavy movers in the school's current
24-member board of trustees. Among them are a number of high-level executives and some
of the most powerful financial investment banks, including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup,
and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Also in the ranks of the board of trustees is the
owner of a luxury New York City highrise real estate company, as well as a standing judge
on the United States Court of Appeals' Second Circuit court.
BAILEY: Columbia University is a key partner in deciding the future of New York City. They're
not just an educational institution; they're one of the leaders of the city in deciding
the course of growth and development of this city and who stays and who doesn't.
DOUGHERTY: Harlem's experience with gentrification and an influential university using its leverage
to collaborate with state and private sector elites in large expansion projects is not
an anomaly. Places like Boston with schools like Northeastern University, Baltimore with
Johns Hopkins University, and Richmond with Virginia Commonwealth University, along with
a number of other cases across the country, reflect a growing trend. For Nellie, the development
and growth promised by such projects often fails to materialize into concrete gains for
working class people of color, who instead find themselves disproportionately pushed
out of their communities and into an uncertain future.
BAILEY: The story of Harlem here is really a reflection of the stories of Harlem across
this nation, and it is about what are we going to do. This is not just a local problem. It's
not just a Harlem problem. What's happening in Harlem is happening in the Bronx and Bedford-Stuyvesant,
where these communities are being lost, where people are being driven out, and deliberately
so, as a result of public policy, which is really about ethnic cleansing. You've got
to get out of here. We don't care where you go. New York City has, on any given night,
38,000 people in its homeless shelter system--38,000. Mayor Bloomberg has made it clear we don't
care where you go. We will give you money, a one-way ticket to leave New York City, but
we want you out of here. You have to leave. This is expensive real estate. We can no longer
afford to have working-class black people here or immigrant communities with great expectations.
We have other plans, and these plans are governed and driven by the market.