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Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 7378
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 10, 2008 - 10:17 am: | 
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Full article
Robert Kolker Jul, 2008: http://nymag.com/realestate/features/48328/?imw=Y
Whose Harlem Is It?
Willie Kathryn Suggs, the so-called Queen of Harlem Real Estate, has sent local housing prices soaring. She’s also touched off a heated debate: Should Harlem be preserved as an affordable haven for blacks? Or sold to the highest bidder? |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 7124
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 10, 2008 - 11:13 am: |
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It has always belonged to the white folks. The Negroes was just on it.
If you live in Harlem and you ainm't rich, start thinking about New Jersey, Brooklyn, Da Bronx, or maybe taking your black ass back on down to North Carolina. |
Troy
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 1408
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 10, 2008 - 05:23 pm: |
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Chrishayden is correct. Indeed, this is what many of my peers are doing.
99% of my peers had ZERO interest in living in Harlem. The 1% who expressed an interest did just that -- express an interest. Instead they did what Chris desscribed.
Chris is also right that while Black folk lived here; we never owned Harlem. NY York city owned much of the land and property during my youth. Black people rented apartments in projects or from slums lords. When properties became available we, as Suggs mention, choose not to invest.
Sure there were always a few Harlem home owners by they were a very small minority. There are more Black home owners today, but if I have to guess I have to believe most of the property (at least in my part of Harlem) is owned by non-blacks. If this is not the case now it certainly will be a in couple of years.
The article was very interesting and I have to say well written. The writer really captured Ms. Suggs' personality as I remember it. I meet Ms. Suugs about 10 years ago during a seminar on how to buy a Harlem brownstone. The very seminar that lead me to my purchase home.
Did y'all see the before and after photos of my house:
 
The photo on the left is from March of 2000 the photo on the right is August 2003.
Keep in mind the March 2000 shot gives you and idea of what the street looked like. You'd clear out the rubbish in front and a few days later if you be filled with junk again.
Today the two buildings to my right are unoccupied. They serve as the neighborhood restroom faciliaties (male/female). People have no problem fornicating, selling drugs, shooting craps on these buildings...
...but the block has come a LONG way.
Back to the article. The premise is silly: "Should Harlem be preserved as an affordable haven for blacks?" This will never happen and it is dumb to even suggest it. But magazines have to make money so I get that.
Of course Harlem will be sold to the highest bidder. When/If I sell my brownstone I'm selling it to the highest bidder. They can be from Outter Whitelandia or Pluto for all I care.
The Black guy on my left sold his house to a white woman -- making a lot of money in the process. This scenario has been repeated, recently, a couple more times on my block.
This whole gentrication hand wringing has a lot less to do with little old ladies being forced out of their apartments and more to do with white people being more willing to invest in Harlem than Black people...
All the rest of it is just media hype and noise.
p.s.
My home was on a house tour recently here are some things that were said to me:
A white woman noticed that I have three college degrees on my wall and she exclaims, "You have three degrees!?! You have three degrees!?!". I could not think of a pithy retort so I just let that slide. But her shock did suprise me sometimes you forget the preconcieved notion that everyday white people have about Black men.
White woman says, "I used to live in the neighborhood but I had to move out: their were no poeple who looked like me around here". I told her; "you moved too soon". She said she is now finding it hard to find something she can afford.... |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 7143
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 10, 2008 - 05:31 pm: |
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The Black guy on my left sold his house to a white woman -- making a lot of money in the process. This scenario has been repeated, recently, a couple more times on my block.
This whole gentrication hand wringing has a lot less to do with little old ladies being forced out of their apartments and more to do with white people being more willing to invest in Harlem than Black people...
(This is it--hate to see it but all things must pass--the Harlem that we all love and dream about has been dead almost 70 years.
Think about it. Everybody here but the Native American used to live someplace else. You find someplace better, you pick up and go.
One of the wonderful things about being a human.
The other day I looked out on the hood, the hood I am always describing here, and said, "Ah, the hood. Crummy as ever."
It may be tomorrow, or a later but soon I shall shake its dust from my feet.
I would like to live out my last years in an Artists Colony--
Or Brooklyn. |
Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 3260
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, July 11, 2008 - 10:07 am: |
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"This whole gentrication hand wringing has a lot less to do with little old ladies being forced out of their apartments and more to do with white people being more willing to invest in Harlem than Black people..."
Bro Troy, that was an honest comment. Thank you. I've been hearing these stories about Harlem for years now. I always knew the Negroes would sell themselves out. The upscale speculating yuppie whites and non-whites (Koreans, et al) would invest, buy, gentrify and rejuvenate Harlem. Embittered Negroes will stick their lips out in resentment, claim foul and play the vaunted traditional victimization card. Too bad to sad. They refused to organize and make serious collective efforts to rehabilitate and improve their own communities. Oh well.....
"All the rest of it is just media hype and noise."
Agreed. The media has a lot invested in inflaming and exaggerating stories of racial tensions and conflagrations (real or created). |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 7145
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, July 11, 2008 - 11:46 am: |
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Bro Troy, that was an honest comment. Thank you. I've been hearing these stories about Harlem for years now. I always knew the Negroes would sell themselves out.
(Did anybody tell you that the Negroes didn't own the property in the first place, and unless they did (and had the money to keep it up, taxes and all) it didn't matter what they wanted to do or how well they took care of the property?
You ain't even been reading what Troy wrote, did you.
They refused to organize and make serious collective efforts to rehabilitate and improve their own communities
(You can organize all you want. If you are just a renter you got nothing coming.
Your self loathing is showing again) |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 7146
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, July 11, 2008 - 11:48 am: |
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Here in North St. Louis people are always looking at all the abandoned derelict properties and saying it is the Negroe's fault.
Turns out some 500 of these properties are owned by a white millionaire who is just sitting and waiting and letting them rot.
He bought them from other white absentee owners who rented to Negroes.
Yet it is all the Negroes fault.
I think you need to learn something about your world before you comment.
But then you'd have to give up your much cherished ideal that it is all Negroes fault. |
Troy
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 1415
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, July 11, 2008 - 02:27 pm: |
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Chris I actually agree with NTFS's assement of what I wrote.
Actually what he wrote does not go counter to what you wrote about Harlem.
Black folks never owned harlem we rented it. That said conidtions were never in our favor to buy it. Poor people can really afford it, the middle class really did not want it and the rich are two few to matter...
I heard a news broadcast that our very own Charlie Rangel has 5 apartments in one of the housig complexes here (Lenox Terrance which is physically adjacent to where the Harlem Book fair is held every year). 4 of the aparents had the walls knocked out to make one really big apartment and 1 apratment is used as an office.
These apartments really should have gone to deserving family. Rangel is apparently misusing these apartments at the expense of a real family.
In the very same complex. They are using agressive tactics (I'm told) to get people out of apartments. I know on of a Sister who has a studio that got an eviction notice because she has a PO box the management office was suggesting that she did not actually live in the apartment. She does not have the energy to fight eviction and is moving. The rent will increease an a white person (most likely) will move in...
In the housing project I grew up in I know of apartments that have been vacant for a decade or longer -- they are not filling the apartmnets and keeping them ofthe market as they are vacated -- speculation is prjects will be sold.
Some people believe they will be leveled. Some in the community want them leveled.
At the end of the day the cards were/are stacked against Black Harlemites. The best opportunity to buy was when the propertly looked like the house pictured above
Would you have brought that house? |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 10141
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, July 11, 2008 - 03:15 pm: |
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Troy,
It would be interesting to observe what happened with a lot of NYC's civil planning and programming that has affected the changes in Harlem in recent years.
Essentially, was it EASIER for Whites to buy and invest in Harlem than Black foks who might have done such years prior?
How did local banking and other elements of the real estate investment community effect WHO could and couldn't invest in Harlem?
And what sort of changes in law enforcement, fire protection, insurance/indemnity, utility, infrastructure, etc. changes occur and what promises and assurance were (SECRETLY) made to guarentee that Harlem could/would become for WHITE foks what it would NOT be allowed to be for Black foks?
I hope there are indepth studies and books being done and written on how Harlem (and NYC as a whole) has changed. Because what's happening there is appears to be a very accurate microcosm of what is occurring throughout this nation. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 7157
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, July 11, 2008 - 03:18 pm: |
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These apartments really should have gone to deserving family. Rangel is apparently misusing these apartments at the expense of a real family.
(The last time I looked at the Constitution, you can use a piece of property for whatever the hell you want to after you buy it.
What kind of crap is that? Suppose some body decides that using property in Harlem for residential purposes is a misuse.
Jeez~!
Would you have brought that house
(Hell no! •••• Harlem. I would have been living in Queens or New Jersey where you can live like a human being without neighbors jammed up your asshole)
That said conidtions were never in our favor to buy it. Poor people can really afford it, the middle class really did not want it and the rich are two few to matter...
(And so it goes. This is Capitalism. If you don't like it, you know what you can try to do) |
Troy
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 1417
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, July 11, 2008 - 06:12 pm: |
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Chris the 5 apartments Rangel is using are rent controlled one can not buy them. Rangel denines any wrong doing. If remains to be seen if he is right, seems to me he should be magnanimous and just give one up. His use of the aparts defintely violates the spirit or how they should be used.
ABM, it really would be a facinating, and probably very sad story. Someone will tell it. I'm sure of it. |
Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 3267
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, July 11, 2008 - 09:07 pm: |
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"Did anybody tell you that the Negroes didn't own the property in the first place, and unless they did (and had the money to keep it up, taxes and all) it didn't matter what they wanted to do or how well they took care of the property?"
Ha! Ha! Ha! Chris, your mealy mouth hypersensitivity and excuse making never ceases to amaze me. I refuse to respond to the weak excuse making you bleat. If Harlem Negroes were serious as a collective group, determined to control and maintain the integrity of their neighborhoods -they would do so. End of subject.......
"You ain't even been reading what Troy wrote, did you."
No. I don't think you carefully read what I said. Even Troy called you out on your failed Jeti mind trick. Next....
"Your self loathing is showing again."
Self loathing? Why? Because I don't accept tired ass weak Jessie Jackson style excuse making and apologies? Because unlike you, I reject being a helpless powerless victim and blaming everyone but myself for my life failures and short comings? Ok.....You're right. I'm self loathing. Next.....
"I think you need to learn something about your world before you comment."
Trust me, I'm very aware of the world I live in and all of its trappings. Unlike you Chris, I capable of separating the comic book world from the real world.
"But then you'd have to give up your much cherished ideal that it is all Negroes fault."
Not a cherished ideal. I just see things as they are. You're the resident board Negro apologist. It's your job to make weak excuses and create ruses at any cost to resolve people of their personal responsibilities. I'm done..... |
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