Fundamentals of Interactive Journalism

Lured by modest rents to Central Harlem, new faces are moving in and making long time residents feel that they are being pushed out.

The voices of those newcomers like Joe Friedman, 32, have often gone unheard. But to hear people like him is to listen to the story of a neighborhood undergoing a controversial transition from a different viewpoint.

Friedman, a guitarist that has played on tour with jazz legend Eartha Kitt, moved to New York from St. Louis in 1999. He lived on the Upper West Side, the Upper East Side and Hell’s Kitchen before moving to Harlem a year ago. He said his former landlord in Hell’s Kitchen raised the rent so high to force the tenants to move.

The Beginning
http://www.vimeo.com/2570596

A studio apartment in the SoHo/Tribeca neighborhood runs for at least $2,395 per month, a one-bedroom in the Lower East Side costs about $2,250, while an affordable studio in Harlem for those fleeing more expensive neighborhoods can be found for nearly $1,500 per month, according to data compiled for November by Citi Habitats, a New York City brokerage.

Central Harlem had only a small white population until recently. In 1980, white residents accounted for 1 percent of the population with just 672 people. From 1990 to 2005, the percentage of white residents increased from 1.5 percent to 4.3 percent of the population to a total of about 5,000 residents, according to census data. But many say that number has probably doubled during the past three years.

The Middle
http://www.vimeo.com/2570673

Even as the numbers of white people have increased exponentially in Central Harlem, it remains a symbol of black success and autonomy. The neighborhood has been among those newly gentrified communities most closely watched.

During 1990 to 2005, the percentage of black residents in Central Harlem decreased from 88 percent to 72 percent with a total black population at about 85,000, according to census data.

The End

Although Friedman laments that some Harlemites are not happy with the newcomers moving in to the neighborhood, he hopes that time will change things. Still, some long time residents of Harlem plan to continue their struggle to stop the displacement of families from their community through gentrification.

This article from the Times last week, about European immigrants in Williamsburg reminded me of when I lived there last summer. I had just moved from California and was fascinated by the changing demographics, especially what appeared to be a hipster tidal wave. One personal experience helped me understand things.

As I jumped into a cab, a neighbor yelled, “Why are you so WHITE?”  While he was probably referring to my bright white Nike shirt—I had just come back from a run—he was also dropping an overt hint about the new Williamsburg immigrants—the youth, the white, the Hipsters.  Surely I didn’t fit the hillbilly hip dress (I had my iPod strapped to the bicep and was rocking New Balances) but I did share a skin pigment and a sub-30 age with many of the other new residents.  An old-timer, a vestige of Italian Williamsburg, this guy managed to say with a smile what I have felt since I had moved to this part of the City–The young and hip don’t always blend well with existing residents.