Monday, April 6, 2009

New Harlem Renaissance is dead

From the NY Post:

At least 14 projects along 10 blocks of 125th Street have been delayed, mothballed, killed or downgraded as a much-heralded development boom fails to materialize on uptown's iconic main street.

Instead of planned office and retail towers, a pro-sports television station, high-rise hotels and a culinary-arts school, there are vacant storefronts and trash-strewn lots.

Dozens of often bitter mom-and-pop businesses -- including neighborhood staples like Bobby's Happy House, M&G Diner and Manna's Soul Food -- were booted for high-rises that never rose.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

My sympathies to Harlem. The same thing is happening here in Astoria, except that it is destroyed old homes instead of businesses.

The only consolation I can offer is that at least it means fewer people buried under falling bricks.

I hope as many half-completed buildings are finished and occupied as soon as possible and no more are started.

Taxpayer said...

This is what's in store for Willets Point also.

The Commissar's destructive rampage leaves nothing useful in its wake.

But then it never had any chance to do otherwise.

The Commissar got what he wanted: kickbacks from the very wealthy developers. "Fuck the private business owners who have been destroyed." That's his motto.

Anonymous said...

We see this in mid and lower Manhattan as well. Mom and Pops disappear, the place gets "renovated" or "upgraded", then sits empty -- sometimes for years.

Anonymous said...

Well, at least this insanity has subsided for the time being.

Anonymous said...

Ah, hell, move them to C B 1 Queens, the only place in NYC, hell the planet, that still entertains 1000s of new people with serious expressions on their faces.