What Will Happen When Harlem Becomes White?
Harlem is gentrifying.
Get off at 125th street’s A subway and walk south. As you go, you will spot luxury condominiums in between brownstones and walk-ups. If you want to, you can stop off at a designer flower store or a hat boutique. On your walk, you will almost certainly spot more than a few white, middle-class-looking faces – something that would have been inconceivable 20 years ago.
Couples can now be spotted in and out of bars and restaurants along Frederick Douglass Boulevard, locally renamed “restaurant row”. Outside of 67 Orange Street, a small craft cocktail speakeasy, reality television crews have been known to ask customers to sign off releases so that their faces can be used on film. The bar is a staple of Harlem’s “new” renaissance, where young, hip, black customers have adopted local venues to spend their downtime.
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By Rose Hackman | May 13, 2015