Eat Your Vegetables

When it comes to vegetables, kids in East Harlem have the same thoughts as kids anyplace else.

“They’re nasty,” said Sixth-grader Essence Holmes in an interview with the Associated Press.

Getting children to eat their greens is a challenge; but in Harlem, where diabetes and obesity rates are much higher than the national average, it’s more important than ever. That’s why a charter school in my neighborhood is in the national spotlight. Promise Academy, an East Harlem school where food is as important as homework, strictly enforces a regimen of unprocessed, regionally grown food and bans sugary snacks.

Education officials throughout the country are examining the school program closely. They are looking at how the effects of good food and exercise on students' health and school performance can be measured and replicated.

What I find particularly interesting about this story is that Promise Academy, located on 125th Street and Madison Avenue, is surrounded by several all-you-can-eat, deep-fried, fast food restaurants. The good eating habits the students are learning at Promise Academy are being put to the test the moment they leave school. It seems finding an unbuttered vegetable in this area can be as tough to track down as a fresh bagel…

Choose Your Bagels Wisely

One of the most highly publicized signs of Harlem’s revitalization came in 2001, when President Bill Clinton moved into his post-White House office space on 125th street. Since then, Clinton has made Harlem’s agenda his own – speaking in my neighborhood on issues such as childhood obesity, small business initiatives and tax credits for low-income residents.

Clinton’s words have resonated with many in Harlem, but it’s a few particular words that are causing a stir today.

The William F. Clinton Foundation has posted an Internet job listing for unpaid interns. One item on the site promises "hands-on experience" and says the interns have the “responsibility of interacting directly with the staff.”

Hmmm... Maybe next time the staff will consider interacting directly with an editor?

One Busy Bagel

There’s been an uptick in web traffic to this blog over the past 24 hours. Is it an outpouring of empathy for the bagel that's missing in East Harlem? Perhaps. But the more likely story is that readers came across an article in today's NY Times that referenced this site.

I have received dozens of emails today — mostly from men looking for some hot bagel love; but I’ve also collected messages from people expressing a real curiosity about East Harlem and the changes occurring in the neighborhood. I’ve heard from couples who are considering moving their families here, young professionals looking to leave their Lower East Side haunts and current residents with tips on where to find a bagel. The one recurring message in all of these emails is that there is serious interest in my neighborhood.

“Harlem is the last great frontier of Manhattan real estate,” emailed one blogger who recently bought a brownstone with his wife.

I have no doubt that his assessment is correct. Unfortunately, as someone else noted, “The changes are going to be hard on the residents here who have rented for decades.”

I feel mixed about my part in these changes. My desire for a fresh bagel reflects a craving for goods and services that I’ve come to expect as a New Yorker. But my expectations (along with my pocketbook) spell trouble for some of the residents who might well be priced out of East Harlem; residents who have raised families here and whose only home they’ve ever known is Harlem.

Milo Meed, the café director at the upscale BOMA Coffee & Tea Company on East 126th Street and 5th Avenue, said he recognized that some long-time residents are angry about the changes driving rent prices up. But he was quick to add that it all boils down to opportunity.

“People who have been living here for 20 years and didn’t buy when they had a chance are kicking themselves,” he said. “Every one of us is given an opportunity in life. It’s the person who can recognize an opportunity who comes out ahead.”

Judging by the amount of email I’ve received today, I’d say a whole lot of people hope to come out ahead in East Harlem real estate… Let's keep each other posted.

East Side Story

Granville Woody hasn’t had much luck in the bagel department. When the 67-year-old East Harlem resident gets a hankering for a bagel, he places his black derby cap on his head and walks to the grocery store on 125th Street.

“I’m not real sure about this bagel stuff,” he said with a shrug. “I like em’ but I don’t eat em’ that often.”

As Granville gave me a tour of the 300-dollar a month rent-stabilized apartment he’s resided in for more than 30 years, I learned that he was born on a farm in Halifax County, Virginia. Granville moved to Harlem in 1956 for a job at a pickle factory in Long Island City. Soon after arriving here, he met his wife, Florence, on the sidewalk along 17th Street. When I prodded him on how he approached her, he winked at me.

“She found me,” he said laughing. “That woman couldn’t keep away.”

He married her soon after, and the couple had seven children together; six of them live in various apartments in Harlem. In the nearly four decades Granville has been in the neighborhood, he’s seen the area change substantially.

“There were abandoned buildings everywhere. [In the 70’s] there was a lot of rioting. People were real poor. They were upset about things and they took it out on the neighborhood.”

In fact, Harlem lost 30 percent of its population in the seventies. But population numbers began rising in the late 90’s and by 2000 central Harlem’s population leapt by a stupendous 22 percent.

Now Granville finds himself living on the edge of a gentrification wave that could soon crash into his neighborhood; it's already happened a few blocks west. But Granville is taking it in stride and says he enjoys looking at the new faces pass by his ground-floor apartment window.

“It’s really something to see," he said. "I never thought it would happen here."

Want A Bridge?

Psst… anyone interested in buying a bridge for the price of a bagel? New York City has one for sale for the low, low price of just one-dollar!

Yup, it’s true. It’s the Willis Avenue Bridge and it connects Manhattan to the Bronx across the Harlem River. Even better? If you buy it, you’ll get delivery of the bridge anywhere within fifteen miles of its present site, at 125th Street and the Harlem River.

The bridge was built in 1901 to accommodate the traffic that resulted from a boom in industry in the Bronx. Currently, some 75,000 vehicles pass over it each day, providing easy access to the changing landscape of my East Harlem neighborhood.

The city wants to replace the bridge because it’s corroding. In an interview with The New Yorker, Iris Weinshall, the commissioner of the city’s department of transportation, explained that normally the city would dismantle a property like the bridge but because a portion of the funds for the new bridge is coming from the federal and state governments, the city is required to try and find a new use for it.

The Willis Avenue Bridge is a swing bridge – it opens to traffic on the river – so it comes in two sections: the longer piece is 301 feet and pivots horizontally to allow boats to pass. The fixed portion is 244 feet long. If you buy the bridge, it will arrive to you via barge in two sections.

Commissioner Weinshall says she hasn’t received any calls on the bridge yet. Maybe she will now…

Size Matters

On the heels of Manhattan's largest auto mall setting up shop in my East Harlem neighborhood, news of a proposed parking lot continues to trickle in. The project would include 1,000 new parking spaces and an underground garage for city buses. It is massive in scope; filling an area bounded by 125th and 127th Streets and Second and Third Avenues.

The parking lot proposal is part of a "bigger is better" development agenda being pushed on East Harlem. There are also plans to build a shopping center along the East River between 116th and 119th Streets that would include a Home Depot and a Costco.

Where am I? Last time I checked, Harlem was still attached to the island of Manhattan. These retailers, parking lots and auto malls seem detached from Manhattan reality. Sure, New Yorkers like to shop big; but they generally do so in local shops and small boutiques. Harlem needs big-scale planning for small-scale projects; planning that reflects the neighborhood and the residents that reside here...

The Boxing Bagel

Being a single Jewish woman in New York City, I have the opportunity to meet a lot of Jewish men. It's like having a jumbo-size box of Whitman's Sampler at my front door; I can reach in and sample different varieties of Jew: bittersweet (the conflicted type), dark (the brooding type) and nut (i've had a few). I've met bankers, artists and teachers, but one Jewish male I have yet to meet is the one who boxes for a living. When it comes to a fight, Jews prefer the verbal jab over the knockout punch; the Jew brings out the wit to do the hit. Until now.

Enter the 23-year-old boxer named Dima Salita. He's a professional super-lightweight from the Ukraine, by way of Brooklyn. He is also a Hasidic Jew. He is building a boxing career in the New York ring, routinely fighting at the Manhattan Center. He doesn't go into the ring on Shabbat, and his boxing manager is his rabbi's brother. According to the Associated Press, Salita is the World Boxing Association's eighth-ranked; in a year or so, he could well be ready for a title fight.

"He looks Russian, prays Jewish, and fights black," said Jimmy O'Pharrow, a well-known trainer on the amateur circuit.

I've met my fair share of "nice Jewish boys" and I must admit that the boxing bagel thrills me a little. People in my East Harlem neighborhood actually respect Dima; they know his name. My mother always warned me about the "bad boy" - the one who caused trouble and got into fights. I always thought the tough guy meant the wrong guy for me. Not anymore.

Bagel Bowl

Bowling has been around a whole lot longer than bagels. The bagel dates back to Austria a few hundred years, but bowling has its roots in Egypt some 7,000 years ago. Back in the day, players used marble balls and sticks to get their game on.

Next month, the sport is rolling into Harlem. It will mark the first time in three decades that this neighborhood will have a bowling alley (there are currently only three public bowling alleys in all of Manhattan). The Harlem Bowling Center, located on 126th Street and Seventh Avenue, will open its doors in just a few weeks. It is the brainchild of sisters Sharon Joseph and Gail Richards. They said they were walking down 125th Street when they realized that it was time to bring the bowling experience back to Harlem.

"We were thinking about something that would be beneficial to the community, and with so many families coming into the community, we knew that this would be something everybody could participate in,” Joseph said in an interview in BlackAmericaWeb.com.

You know what they say, "First comes bowling, then comes bagels..."

Spilled Milk

Shopping malls and car dealerships make me queasy. The former produces a distinctly chemical orange taste in my mouth, while the latter conjures up an intense aroma of sour milk.

Growing up in Indiana, I spent an obscene amount of time in the mall where the Orange Julius shop was the epicenter of cool for my friends and me. I sucked down those frothy concoctions for years before recognizing that the mall was sucking up one too many of my brain cells.

The sour milk memory was fueled by an accident in the backseat of our sporty 1979 Honda Civic. Soon after my parents drove the shiny red car off the dealership lot, my 9-year-old brother spilled a thermos of milk onto the upholstered mesh seat. The stench of milk stayed in the car for years to come; it was a gift that kept on giving.

Shopping malls and car dealerships are nausea-inducing enough on their own - so imagine my horror upon learning that these two establishments have joined forces a few blocks from my East Harlem apartment. A "one-of-a-kind-block-sized auto mall - set to be one of the fanciest auto-dealerships in the nation" - will open March 1. It will be both a car dealership and a service center. Today, the first batch of vehicles was delivered to the massive, three-story building, and a press conference set against the backdrop of Hummers, Cadillacs and Saturns ensued.

"Harlem is jumping," said Don Keyes, a general manager for the project, in an earlier interview with Newsday. "This place is happening, and that's why we're here."

"I'm here because I live here," I thought, trying not to gag.

Officials say the location on East 127th Street is ideal. Because of its close proximity to the Triborough Bridge and the FDR Drive, 350,000 vehicles a day pass by the auto mall.

I have to leave now and find myself a bagel. I hear the plain ones are good for nausea…

Hip-Hop On The Bus

Seeing tourists in my Harlem neighborhood is nothing new. You can spot them from a mile away - their tour buses taking up a half city block; their light faces showing recognition of the Harlem institutions they've heard so much about. Sylvia's Restaurant, The Lennox Lounge and the Apollo Theatre consistently teem with out-of-towners.

But now, it seems, there's a new tourist in town. And this tourist, often white and "dressed like LL Cool J circa 1985," is checking out Harlem's hip-hop hotspots. For 70-dollars, these bus tours roll through 33 years of New York hip-hop history, making stops at such places as the Graffiti Hall of Fame at 106th Street and Park Avenue (a schoolyard featuring enormous murals by some of the city's top graffiti artists), Bobby's Happy House (a record store owned by Bobby Robinson, the onetime proprietor of Enjoy Records, which released some of the earliest hip-hop singles) and The Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel, where the Notorious B.I.G. was laid to rest.

I should pony my honky self up to the next hip-hop bus and take a spin through Harlem with a new set of eyes and ears. And if I donned the purple Kangol hat, maybe being a tourist wouldn't be so bad...

According to the NY Times:

The success of Hush Tours is a sign that hip-hop has become part of New York's official cultural heritage — for younger visitors especially, a tourist magnet right up there with the Brooklyn Bridge or the Statue of Liberty...

"When you go to Nashville, you know that's the home of country music," [tour founder] Debra Harris said. "New York needed to step up to the plate, to say officially that this is the birthplace of hip-hop. The city was sleeping on it. I discovered that younger visitors who loved rap music were eager for more knowledge, for a different kind of tourist experience that would get them out of Times Square."

Brokers' Blues

In New York City, finding a decent apartment at an affordable price is difficult enough. But introduce a smarmy, fast-talking real estate broker into the mix and you've just added insult to injury.

"Two thousand dollars a month for a one-bedroom?" the broker says to me incredulously via cell phone. "You can't find a one-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side for that. You're going to have to go above two-grand if you want something bigger than a studio," he snaps.

"Good times," I think as I hang up my phone and re-focus my attention on the Craigslist apartment postings on my computer screen.

There are an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 real estate brokers in Manhattan, and many of them sound like broken records. They condescendingly inform you that whatever amount of money you are willing to fork over isn't enough - that the only way to get the apartment you want is to actually hemorrhage cash. They use words in their listings like "gorgeous" and "amazing" to describe a space that is nothing short of a crack den.

So when I heard the news that beginning March 1 there will be a $10 fee imposed on New York brokers each time they post their crack on Craigslist, I felt marginally vindicated. Craigslist officials say they are doing it in the hopes of deterring the brokers who list the same apartment several times in a single day. The Washington Post Reports:

In the highly charged, competitive real estate market of New York, the [Craigslist] site has become a victim of its own success. Its simple interface gives the newest listings the most prominent spot, prompting some brokers to repost the same listings several times a day to ensure that theirs were the first ones that home-seekers encounter. As a result, the site gets 600,000 listings for real estate in New York per month; by instituting a fee, Craigslist hopes to cut that number down by 90 percent.

Now if we could just institute a "crappy apartment fee" on the broker every time he or she wastes our time showing us one...

Hot Today, Gone Tomorrow

New York City is the priciest place to live in the country, with homeowners paying 137.9% more than the national average. In fact, the average cost of a Manhattan apartment hovers over a million dollars. Still, there are deals to be found in East Harlem, where one can get a slice of the Manhattan pie for as much as 50% less than in other areas in the city. Here are two of today's best apartment finds:

Hot Bagel For Rent: A renovated 2-bedroom, 1-bath with chef's kitchen, washer/dryer and central air on 128th Street and 5th Avenue. Asking $2,100 a month.

Hot Bagel Just Sold: A renovated 2-bedroom, 2-bath in a pet-friendly, doorman building with fitness center on 119th Street and Madison Avenue. Listed for under 500K and maintenance is a mere 614-dollars a month.

Split Ends

Hair is big business here in East Harlem. You can't walk a block without becoming entangled in the wave of hair shops lining the neighborhood streets. So it's no surprise that Cinemax just launched a one-hour documentary examining the role barbershops play on the social fabric of my community. The show, "Cutting Edge", uses the barbershop as a forum for Black male converstation and provides some insights into urban African-American culture. And with the increasing gentrification of Harlem, a number of clients from all walks of life, including a white, gay man, occasionally enter the fray.

Bagel in El Barrio

This bagel business is making me batty. Ever since I moved to East Harlem this past summer, I’ve searched high and low for a fresh bagel. Although there are a handful of bakeries, coffee shops and bodegas near my apartment, none of them sell bagels. Donuts, cornbread and muffins we have; bagel we do not. Each weekend, I feel obligated to inquire with the store managers about the bagels’ whereabouts.

“Not yet,” they say as they see me coming.

Today, however, I made some headway. I stopped into the BOMA Coffee & Tea Company, an upscale establishment on the corner of 126th Street and Fifth Avenue. The café director, Milo Meed, informed me that he was looking into bagel recipes. It seems he and his staff is considering making bagels from scratch and selling them in his café. I was stunned.

I’ve always thought that bagel-making runs in ones blood; that it’s nothing short of an art form. In fact, in the early 1900s a group of New Yorkers formed Bagel Bakers Local #338. It was an exclusive group of 300 craftsmen. At the time, it was said that it was probably easier to get into medical school than to get an apprenticeship in one of the 36 union bagel shops in New York City and New Jersey.

After Milo told me his intentions, I picked my jaw up from the ground and thanked him. Who knows? Maybe he and his team will create the next big thing - a bagel that fills the belly of East Harlem. I’m hungry just thinking about it.

How the West Went Condo

Although I'm only a few blocks away the from the condominum craze sweeping West Harlem, the fad has yet to flourish in my neck of the woods. The once-abandoned wrecks, referenced in an article in today's New York Times, generally remain neglected here on the east side of the Fifth Avenue divide. It's the West Side that is on the frontline of this 'Harlem Renaissance' buzz. All of the interviews and photographs in the story focus on points west; it is a Harlem that is rapidly gentrifying. According to the NYTimes article:

Brokers say they are seeing interest in the brownstone condominiums from families displaced by high prices on the West Side, downtown musicians and artists who can't afford to live downtown, affluent foreigners with a romantic attachment to Harlem, and bicoastal Californians who want a pied-à-terre in New York...

"Central Harlem has already made it past the hump; it is already the next SoHo," said Charlie Marcus, an actor, singer and dancer who has temporarily retired from the stage to complete work on two brownstones that he is turning into condominiums on West 117th Street. "I don't think it will revert into a dangerous slum. A lot of people have sunk a lot of money into it...

Big money is promised to be sunk into East Harlem, as well. But it is evident by the abundance of vacant lots and boarded-up buildings that the check hasn't been written yet. For now, all eyes are on the transformation west of Fifth Avenue; to a Harlem that has become increasingly disjointed from its eastern half.

The Big Dig?

Curbed.com reports:

Finally, some good news for Harlem Park, the proposed 125th Street many-use development (including a Marriott hotel) that was announced in 2003 and kicked off with fanfare a year ago but has languished since. The Voice reports that the cash-poor developer, Michael Cardi, is planning to sell his stake in the project to a new group led by Vornado Realty Trust. Vornado's plan: an even larger development! For which we're expecting at least 16 shovels to be used at the groundbreaking.

According to Buildings.com, since January 1997, Vornado Realty has completed more than $6.8 billion in real estate acquisitions or investments. Note the word 'completed.'

Tough Times

The time has come to get my badass on. It’s late, it’s dark and I’ve just gotten off the subway at 125th Street and Lennox Avenue. It’s time to let the smack talk fly and walk the walk of one badass woman.

It took a move to East Harlem to discover that I had it in me. My sensibilities as a woman have generally directed me to smile demurely and tread lightly through my environs; stepping to a beat more Jerry Garcia than Eminem.

Thoughts of artist Juelz Santana pop into my head. He’s recently announced that he’s going to “rip 125th [Street] up” with his new HipHopSodaShop. I’m unclear on the specifics of exactly what ripping it up entails, but I like how it sounds. “I could rip things up a bit,” I think to myself as I spot a group of young men in the distance congregating outside the shuttered Rite Aid drug store.

The closest I’ve ever come to ripping things up was in high school, when a redneck named Jolene wanted to rip me up because she didn’t like my face. I avoided that confrontation at all costs, namely by hiding in the girls' bathroom until Jolene found some other girl to rip up and ultimately got expelled from school.

“What’s up snowbunny,” one of the boys in front of the pharmacy says coyly, jolting me out of my Indiana daydream and back to the streets of Harlem. “The usual shenanigans,” I say coolly. "You having a good night?”

“We are now,” he says.

And then the smack talk spews forth:

“You can’t let that nonsense get you down,” I say, stopping for a moment to look at him intently.

“That’s right woman,” he says understanding that I’m saying nothing but am ballsy enough (or stupid enough) to smack talk this smack talker.

I tell him to stay out of trouble as I walk past him and his posse. It feels good to throw my shoulders back and walk purposefully; to feel tough in a way that extends beyond any mental or physical strength I’ve known. Perhaps it’s part of a reinvention of self that comes with the territory that I find myself living in. Or maybe the badass in me has always been lurking - looking for a place like 125th street to come out. As I make my way home, I pull the belt of my wool coat tighter around my waist, and tug at my ponytail holder to let my hair down.

Growing Pains

The signs of change loom large in East Harlem. Billboards detailing a 200-million dollar complex to be built on 125th Street and Park Avenue; Corcoran-wrapped condominiums with price tags starting at $750,000. Starbucks, H&M and The Body Shop are just a few of the companies that have settled in a couple of blocks from my apartment.

Against the backdrop of these colorful corporate announcements are the lines of homeless people that form on the corner of 127th Street and Park Avenue each morning. They carry huge, clear plastic bags filled to capacity with aluminum cans. All day long, men with grocery carts pound my neighborhood pavement, looking in trashcans for anything that they can get five cents to the dollar on. At the major grocery store on 125th Street and Lexington Avenue, mothers with small children pay for their family’s dinner with Food Stamps. These are not the people who are buying a five-dollar cup of coffee, or a 12-dollar bottle of moisturizer.

But these overpriced goods are selling– some of the locals are slurping up the foamy lattes, as are the tourists snapping photos of the Apollo Theatre; transplants like me fueling the on-demand lifestyle so many of us desire. Still, on a recent Thursday evening I called a local restaurant for delivery and ran into a little trouble:

“The car was jacked last night so we can’t deliver your food,” the woman on the other end of the phone said in a thick Caribbean accent. I thought she was joking so I giggled until her silence shut me up.

Getting what we want, how we want, whenever we want is in high-demand here in New York and that philosophy is slowly spreading to this neighborhood. At least that's what the signs say.