In “The Making of Harlem,” a chapter within the Survey Graphic magazine, negroes moved from a corner of Lower Manhattan to 53rd St. Then they relocated to Harlem due to the surfacing of better houses. As there was a shortage of labor at the time, (country is stabilizing from WW1) there was of course a hefty amount of work available and more negroes are able to work, now being able to find work easier and at higher rates than what they’ve received ever in their lives. Also, property value for some foreclosures went to its cheapest point since lending companies have been holding vacant the “handsome dwellings,” with normal selling figures such as $15,000 (around $210,000 in today’s dollars) or $20,000 (around $281,000) selling at one-third of their normal asking price, ex: 5,000 (around $70,000). It was said that negroes in Harlem had owned more than $60 million dollars of property. It was safe to say at the time, Harlem was owned by negroes.
Real estate prices in Harlem are much more expensive today than in the 1920s, if you compare the aforementioned figures, with median sales prices around $800,000, well below the median sale price in Manhattan of $1.2million. Although Harlem is relatively cheap versus the rest of Manhattan, it is still expensive to many who have lived here their whole life. You will also notice how Harlem has once again be subject to demographic change, more blacks are leaving due to expensive rent or property taxes while well-off whites and hispanics have been bargaining at Harlem’s offerings.
But can the Negroes keep Harlem? I’ve already mentioned that there were pockets of negro communities before, so given the pattern before could it therefore repeat again, but at a larger scale? James Weldon Johnson claims that “when colored people do leave Harlem, their homes, their churches, their investments and their businesses, it will be because the land has become so valuable they can no longer afford to live on it.” (638) Gentrification is prevalent today in Harlem, with new luxury condos being erected and raising property values, a lot of people simply cannot afford to call Harlem their home anymore, let alone New York City. Harlem not only has been a place to call home for Negroes, but Harlem has become synonymous with Negroes itself. Detaching Negroes from Harlem would seem to lose integral value to what made Harlem, Harlem.
Picture taken from “The Making of Harlem” in Survey Graphic: Harlem Mecca of the New Negro, pp.637
This may be a silly question but when Johnson claimed that the land has become so valuable they can no longer afford to live on it, I question were the lower class and middle class colored people leaving and being replaced by upper-class colored? Earlier in the text it was mentioned that a lot of whites left Harlem (white flight) because it felt like they were being invaded. Given that negroes in Harlem were more exposed to individual, entrepreneurial jobs and now have more financial freedom than ever before, now buying up properties and properly managing their finances, this was their biggest chance of retaining an area (in which they own themselves) within this time of American history. Is gentrification a race related issue or is it a class related issue? Regardless, a high-society and posh Harlem would strip away values like community, culture, standards, and, literally, people who help construct this place. When I look at the pictures in the “Making of Harlem,” the large crowds and communities seem like they are all socializing, mingling, there is an overall feeling of togetherness. Today, at least to me, maybe it’s just a city thing, there are occasional socializing like small talk with a person on the train or hotdog stand but overall everyone is so distant and minding their own business. This is already one example of how Harlem Renaissance Harlem differs from modern-Harlem… the sense of togetherness. Maybe it is the gentrification that has made us so distant?
Harlem in the 1980s and the 1990s had put a stain on Harlem’s illustrious history, with the crack situation running rampant within its community. Harlem was in disarray. Crime was then at its peak. The New York Times had even stated in “Harlem Battles over Development Project,” “since 1970, an exodus of residents has left behind the poor, the uneducated, the unemployed. Nearly two-thirds of the households have incomes below $10,000 a year.” It is not just whites who were leaving, it was people who provided stability to Harlem who were leaving including financially stable coloreds. A journal published by Columbia University, “Crack Cocaine and Harlem’s Health,” speaks about the damage drugs have done to the community: “Between 1960 and 1990, four disparate forces – suburbanization, economic decline, epidemic disease, and municipal public policy – transformed Harlem from a functional ‘urban habitat’ to a de-urbanized area with a hyper-concentration of poor people with serious health problems. Homicides, cirrhosis, and drug-related deaths accounted for 40% of excess mortality in Harlem. Harlem had the highest rate of age-adjusted mortality from all causes, and that rate was 50% higher than U.S. blacks living in other areas.” Harlem at this time was dying. Take a look at these before and after pictures.
Note: these are not my pictures.
1988: Corner of 132nd Street and Madison Avenue
2007: Same Corner
Pictures taken by Camilo Vergara
1988: 116th Street and Lenox Avenue
2007:
1988: 125th Street Between Park and Lexington Aves
2007:
All of these photos were taken by Camilo Vergara, his pictures are digitized into the Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=camilo%20vergara%20116th&st=gallery
Some people call it a second reconnaissance while others describe it as gentrification.
Was the second renaissance or gentrification necessary to save Harlem? The question becomes would you rather stay on your storied land but have it crumble before you due to drugs, crime and poverty, which is unrecognizable to its former glory or have your storied land taken from you (cannot afford to live on it anymore) but is being converted to a neighborhood with a fresh new personality?
Works cited:
Shipp, E. R. (1991, July 31). Harlem Battles Over Development Project. The New York Times., from https://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/31/nyregion/harlem-battles-over-development-project.html
Watkins, Beverly X. and Thompson Fulilore, Mindy. (2000). “Crack Cocaine and Harlem’s Health,” Dispatches From the Ebony Tower Intellectuals Confront the African American Experience.
Johnson, James W. (1925) “The Making of Harlem”, Survey Graphic: Harlem Mecca of the New Negro pp. 635-639
Harlem Real Estate Market Trends. 2022 Home Prices & Sales Trends | Harlem, New York, NY Real Estate Market. from https://www.propertyshark.com/mason/market-trends/residential/nyc/manhattan/harlem