For two years I’ve been a member of a group in Harlem called the Liberation Program. In a group of about 15 young folks, we’ve been active in the fight to stop gentrification in the Harlem community.
Most Harlem folks know that their blocks are being changed. Poor folks getting kicked out, rents going up, rich folks moving in, these are a few of the signs. With brand new stores and franchises popping up every year, brownstones being bought and renovated into multimillion dollar homes and it’s just a matter of time before Harlem becomes the new Times Square.
The Liberation Program has been working very hard over the past 4 years to educate tenants about these issues. Gentrification is diplacing folks in the community by force and its not fair. Unfortunately the battle is sometimes against our own fellow community members.
On 145th between Amsterdam and Broadway sits a beautiful 7 story abandoned school building. Along with a magnificent bust of Minerva, it houses rats, stray animals, drug addicts and long lost memories of an educational institution. It is what used to be known as PS 186. It takes up a generous portion of the center of a square block.
Its owners are the ML Wilson’s Boys and Girls Club of Harlem. They bought the building from a city agency for $215,000 in 1986. The contract they signed with the city says that the building has to be substantially complete within 3 years of purchase and that 85% of it has to be for non-for-profit or community space. However, the proposals they’ve presented to the community members and Community Board 9 over the past few years have been for an expensive, outlandish shopping mall with a small space allotted for the Boys and Girls club. Their current estimate for this project is 40-45 million dollars, which would include tearing the building down.
The community that this building is in not only deserves this building to be a community center: they need it. It would be a vital asset to the growth of the children and teenagers that live in that community as well as the ones who commute to work in that area or to go to school there. Especially since that area of Harlem is the only overcrowded elementary school district in Mahanttan1 and is the main distribution point in the Northeast for cocaine2, supplying 95% of the city3.
The Liberation Program also hosts community meetings to build up a coalition of people called the Ujima Unidad Coalition. They have over 20 active members and are open for more. They’ve worked very hard to create a counter-proposal for PS 186 to prove how great this building could be if people took responsibility for it. We want to involve the community and collectively build The Peoples Community Center. The Center would include sevices to the people of the Harlem community based on membership and a volunteer staff.
There is a wealth of information about this campaign that hasn’t been mentioned. There are several committees in the Ujima Unidad Coalition and no one is excluded from a meeting or from sharing their ideas about how to get the owners to take action and responsibilty for this project. It is a difficult struggle but it’s well worth the fight.
1) Demographic & Enrollment Trends, NYC Department of City Planning 2002
2) “Whose Neighborhood� by Judith Matloff,New York times, July 14th 2002
3) “Cocaine Crackdown Comes to Harlem� by Michele McPhee, July 21, 2002
If you live in New York City and you’re interested in joining the coalition, they meet every first Saturday of the month at the Brotherhood/Sister Sol located at 512 West 143rd street in. You can contact them at 212-283-7044. Or email the Liberation Program at
aya@brotherhood-sistersol.org
Shaquesha Alequin is a 22 yr old writer from the South Bronx, NYC. She is a community organizer, a YCL member, and she is in the process of launching her clothing line RIGHTEOUS APPAREL. Que will be releasing an anthology of her writing soon!
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