I was born in Guinea, West Africa. When I was a year old my dad moved to New York City and lived in Harlem for about 12 years, in 2007 I along with my mom joined him in Harlem. I remember the first few months I lived in Harlem I would always overhear my dad talking amongst his friends about how the rent is going up and keeping up on all the old time neighbors that were relocating to the Bronx for a more affordable rent. We lived in 116 Street which was a neighborhood that was mostly populated by African Americans and a bunch of immigrants from West Africa just like my father.

( Picture of the building as of today)

The first few year I lived in my building in 116 Street there was a bunch of things that were wrong with the building, the building door had a broken doorknob so we always kept a fold of newspapers on the door to keep it open, the stairs made a noise every time someone walked into the building and everyone in the building always kept their doors open because we all knew each other, our mothers would borrow cooking recipes from each other and we the kids always went outside the building together to kick a soccer ball or go to the basketball park. After my first year of living in the building, little by little we started noticing renovations to the building, a neighbor had moved out of the upstairs apartment and it was vacant for a few months due to renovations, there were an alarmed sense and a sense of anger within the grownups in the building my father came home and told my mom “they’re not making these changes for us, they are going to push us out.” By 2009 a lot of our old neighbors had moved out replaced by white neighbors and we ended up moving to the Bronx. I still take trips back to 116 but now I can’t help but notice the changes and reminisce about how our old African restaurants are changing into bars and Starbucks.