What's Eating Harlem: College Institutions’ Roles in Gentrification and Displacement
I’ve watched the show “What’s Eating Harlem” with my mom countless times. In each episode, the host takes a trip to the hottest spots in Harlem. Whether it be a new restaurant, an upcoming cultural event or an open mic night at the Apollo Theater, “What’s Eating Harlem” ensured that viewers never missed out on what Uptown Manhattan had to offer.
But the Harlem I traveled to from Queens for Saturday school during my elementary years does not appear to be the same Harlem I see today when exiting from the 125th Street D/B/A/C station. There are massive highrises being built next to housing projects. It is street knowledge in New York City that once a Whole Foods Market opens in your neighborhood, the plague of gentrification has arrived, and it will not stop spreading until your neighborhood looks like another average block on the Lower East Side. Hearing my friend discuss how she and her fellow high school peers were banned from the Harlem Whole Foods Market briefly after its opening in 2017, simply for browsing, displays what occurs when chain businesses are placed in a neighborhood, but are not meant for the people that live there. The street vendors that used to populate the street corners in abundance are dwindling in number. The crack down on street vendors is one of many problematic plans on Mayor Eric Adams’ agenda, as people who are attempting to make an honest living are depicted as criminals. So when Columbia University allows a course called Co-Designing Smart Cities, in which the syllabus claims will explore ways to “[increase] crime management” and ensure that places like Harlem are “places people want to live,” I am forced to ask myself, what is truly eating Harlem?
Harlem has been a culturally rich mecca, with the Harlem Renaissance and El Barrio being two main associations that people have with the area. The famous Apollo theater served as a place where Black artists, such as Duke Ellington, could showcase their talents. Shows and plays still come to the stage, exhibiting new talent within the youth. Civil rights icons such as Malcolm X and Marcus Garvey were able to gather supporters in the ongoing fight for civil rights and equity on the streets of Harlem. Harlem still remains the home to plenty of racial and socioeconomic minorities. However, that reality is continuously threatened when neighborhood staples like the Pathmark grocery store once on 125th street become high rise apartments with one bedrooms starting north of $3,000 per month. The struggle to accommodate the climbing rent prices is no stranger to the restaurants residing in Harlem. The ongoing push toward rezoning, would displace up to 71 African American owned businesses and 975 employees including those in the restaurant industry. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on dine-in restaurants adds to the challenges that businesses have had to keep their doors open. “Legacy brands” such as Sylvia’s, Melba’s, and Red Rooster have been able to keep up with surging rent prices and the inevitable reliance on delivery services to serve the community. Sadly, smaller family businesses will continue to struggle to keep their heads above water, while implant restaurant ventures grow white roots in Harlem.
Major colleges and universities, like the Ivy League Columbia, contribute to stripping the cultural richness of these communities. When their students enter low income areas, they drive up the price of rent, as landlords would rather lease spaces to the highest payer. Mom and pop shops are replaced with smoothie and salad bars, leaving the community unrecognizable to those who lived in and once enjoyed the richness. This Co-Designing Smart Cities Course is teaching Columbia University students to further intrude upon and surveil a community that did not ask for interference, in order to create a Harlem more palatable to them. The fact that this class is working in conjunction with the mayor's office makes it more alarming and harmful for the community that will experience further abuse, erasure, and displacement.
The questions then become: how do universities support the communities they reside in instead of further exploiting them? How can college communities like the one at Columbia ensure that local restaurants aren’t pushed out, the history and cultural richness leaving with them? Columbia University and others can begin by considering the following:
Meeting with community leaders to discuss the stressors that the University places on the community. From there, assist in creating programs and strategies to prevent displacement, fully funded by the school, led by community activists, with continuous and adequate resources that will ensure that they are able to withstand the inevitable demand that will come with these changes.
Place funding into local minority owned restaurants that have struggled due to gentrification and the COVID-19 pandemic. Partner with these restaurants so that students can purchase meal plan options that are exchangeable when they patronize at those local restaurant locations.
Advocate for the building of rent-stabilized affordable luxury housing units and commercial units to be built in Harlem in conjunction with the high rises that the community is currently excluded from enjoying. Create opportunities for people and businesses to stay in their neighborhoods, not to be forced out by your students.
Place funding into institutions that assist with educating minority and low income students residing in Harlem, such as the Harlem Children’s Zone or Harlem Educational Activities Fund. Aid residents by creating a program that ensures a certain number of high-performing high school seniors from Harlem get a scholarship to the university.
