Urbanities Volume 4 | No 2 - November 2014 - page 65

Urbanities, Vol. 4 · No 2 · November 2014
© 2014 Urbanities
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leaving the building by September 2008. In 2009, Manna’s was eventually allowed to move
back to its location and reopened its restaurant. As of 2013, Manna’s was still there, while the
rest of the building sits vacant, with most of the storefronts boarded up.
At East 125th Street, between 3rd and 2nd Avenues, the building of the East Harlem
Media, Entertainment and Cultural Center also collided with the interests of existing long-
time small businesses. In 2008, the city approved the huge mixed-use development and
moved in court to condemn six acres of properties in preparation for the project. In 2009, half
a dozen small businesses filed a lawsuit against the DCP’s determination to make use of
eminent domain for the benefit of private developers. Their lawsuit was dismissed on October
12, 2010.
Other casualties of rezoning-led development are to be seen all along 125th Street. The
Boro Hotel, at 125th and 5th , has been slated for demolition in April 2008. Its first floor once
hosted a small locally owned restaurant and jazz club called La Famille, opened in 1958 by
two sisters who were among the first African American women to work at 125th Street (Moss
2008). Also the M&G Diner at West 125th Street, known in the neighbourhood for its
extravagant marquee sign and its southern food, was sold in 2008 and now sits vacant and
boarded up. The famous Record Shack across from the Apollo Theatre was shut down in 2007
after 35 years of activity after his lease was literally tripled by the landlord. After 73 years in
Harlem, the world-famous Lenox Lounge at Lenox Avenue and 125th Street closed its doors
on December 31, 2013 after the rent was doubled from 10 thousand to 20 thousand dollars per
month (Moss 2013). The same year, more stores that had been around for decades, like
Harlem Lanes, Hue-man Bookstore and MoBay Restaurant were forced to close due to
escalating rents.
If in just a few years a large number of small businesses at 125 th Street went out of
business, the crisis was instead a golden opportunity for large corporate retailers. During the
recession, chain stores heavily increased their presence along the strip (CUF 2008, 2010;
Irwin 2009). These included Starbucks, which in 2008 opened its second 125th Street branch,
and Applebee’s, which in 2009 opened a new store at 125th Street between 5th and Lenox
Avenues.
As the recession ended, average commercial rents along the 125th Street corridor
climbed again. By the fall of 2011, they soared to 129 dollars per square foot (REBNY 2011).
To put these numbers in perspective, average asking rents in Manhattan were at 112 dollars
per square foot. Such prices are enabling only corporate retailers to settle in at 125th Street and
the surrounding areas. Only in 2012, there was an 11.2 per cent rise in corporate retail in
Harlem compared to 2011 — the biggest growth in new chain retail openings recorded in New
York City that year (CUF 2012).
The effects of these transformations are striking. Today, 125th Street looks and feels
just very much like other major commercial cross-town corridor in Manhattan and it is almost
indistinguishable from 14th or 23rd Streets Downtown; Subway, McDonald’s, Dunkin Donuts,
H&M, CVS and CVS dominate the landscape. The homologating force of corporate retail’s
aesthetics is compromising the community’s uniqueness and, according to some observers,
even jeopardizing its potential as a tourist destination. In 2012, the executive director of the