A Boulevard in Harlem Undergoes a Resurgence
It was not that long ago, Leon Ellis remembered as he stared from the window of his latest restaurant, when no one wanted any part of this section of Harlem, when cabdrivers would not stop here. The farthest taxis would venture uptown was 110th Street, a boundary that fractured the neighborhood from the rest of Manhattan.
When Mr. Ellis opened Moca Lounge in 2003 at the corner of Frederick Douglass Boulevard and West 119th Street, “people thought I lost my mind,” he said. Now Mr. Ellis has a second restaurant, Chocolat, as well as a Harlem-themed clothing boutique, Harlem Underground, on Frederick Douglass.
Now, developers said, when condos hit the market, they go quickly, with the average price for a one-bedroom at about a half-million dollars. Now, along today’s boulevard sit an organic products store, a sushi restaurant and a yoga studio with toddler and tween classes, taking the places of abandoned buildings, vacant lots and drug dealers.
There are still remnants of the old: a rundown 99-cent store, where one recent morning three men debated the cost of rolling papers for a blunt. But even the three lots under a dilapidated building at Frederick Douglass and West 115th Street recently sold for $4.16 million. The new owners, listed as AH FDB LLC, declined to comment.
Once isolated by blight and neglect, Frederick Douglass Boulevard, the northern continuation of Central Park West, has undergone a mainstreaming that has turned this part of Harlem into an extension of the Upper West Side. The churning redevelopment and related tax abatements — accompanied by the expansion of Columbia University in Manhattanville nearby — have sparked outside interest, some said, in a culture and charm that was already there.
“When you’re talking about new development,” said Sarah Saltzberg, a co-owner of Bohemia Realty Group, whose office on the boulevard focuses on property above 110th Street, “people think the prices are good, they’re right near the park, you’re 15 minutes from Midtown and your real estate taxes are as low as $4 a month for the next 25 years — obviously I’m going to move up here.” And as more businesses open, she said, “the neighborhood is more diverse and there’s things to do; it’s becoming a destination.”
As more white residents have moved in, the number of black residents has fallen. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of African-American residents decreased to 64 percent from 81 percent, according to census tract data for the neighborhood that includes the boulevard, while the number of white residents jumped to 20 percent from 6 percent. Also, the median household income rose by 67 percent. The neighborhood now skews young and trendy.
For some, such change leaves a fear over how much of the old, fabled Harlem will be lost: an intrinsic gumbo of art, culture, music and cuisine that has been stirred by pride, protest and struggle.
“We need to find a balance,” said Ousmane Keita, co-owner of Bier International, a beer garden on Frederick Douglass and West 114th Street, “and not forget what was here.”
Mr. Keita and his business partner, Chris Pollok, said they had always been drawn to Harlem. Two years ago, they packed up their world-music lounge in the East Village, and opened the beer garden uptown.
“Every other borough had one, and there was none here,” said Mr. Pollok, who has lived in Harlem on and off, and now on again, for more than a decade. “So we said, ‘Let’s do it.’ ”
The two took over a shuttered record store and adjoining restaurant, and turned it into Bier International, back then with condo construction all around them. They also own Frederick Cafe across the street, which opened just a few months ago.
“We bet on the fact that in a year or two from now,” Mr. Keita said, “it would become a different neighborhood.”
Jim Baldwin, 42, moved here about a year ago from the Upper East Side, and as a result cut his living expenses in half. In addition, “everything I need is in a short walk,” said Mr. Baldwin, as he sipped tea at the nascent Frederick Cafe amid laptops, white mugs and a few baby strollers. Although he is sometimes awakened by the blast from a car stereo outside his duplex, Mr. Baldwin, who is an X-ray technician at a nearby hospital, said “all the things that really matter to me are here,” including, he said, a strong sense of community.
As evening fell, a cascade of storefront lights beckoned along the boulevard. A growing crowd at Bier International sipped beer and ate over world music. Down the street, ladies sat under hooded dryers and skimmed gossip magazines at Fantasy Beauty Salon. The clerk at the floral boutique waited on a customer. Down from Fouta African Market, three teenagers huddled outside a corner deli. Across the street from the mosque, where cabdrivers sometimes double-park during prayer, a butcher at Harlem Shambles took a cleaver to a giant slab hanging from a meat hook.
For all of the hum, some cannot help but call off the names of the dead. There used to be a church on the corner where a condo now stands, said one business owner. Then there are the mom-and-pop businesses that endured for years, and suddenly, for whatever reason, shut down.
“Change isn’t always bad,” said Melba Wilson, the owner of Melba’s Restaurant, across the boulevard from the beer garden. “But I don’t want it to become a place where the original people are no longer welcome here, that they can no longer afford to be in a place that they built.”
But things, she added, have a way of coming full circle. “In some ways drugs destroyed Harlem,” she said. “But it could not penetrate our soul.”
She then recalled an old proverb her grandmother used to say: This too shall pass. “There’s a charm, a warmth to Harlem,” Ms. Wilson continued. “Harlem is so much a neighborhood, and so much a community, and it’s getting back to that.”
By KIA GREGORY