Harlem - Sepanjang jalan kenangan

Bila terbaca laporan dalam majalah The Economist semasa menaiki pesawat dari Kuala Lumpur ke Kota Bharu semalam teringat akan kisah-kisah kehidupan semasa tinggal selama lima tahun di 1230 Amsterdam Avenue (120th Street), Manhattan pada tahun 1979-2004. Saban hari kami ke 125th Street dari simpang Amsterdam Avenue menuju ke Harlem Post Office dan kadangkala merentasi Apollo Theatre. Di 125th street itulah juga kami sering membeli ayam hidup dan menyembelihnya di dalam kedai mereka, malah kami menjadi pelanggan tetap yang membeli dan sekali gus menyembelih ayam.

City planning

Harlem reborn
Mar 13th 2008 NEW YORKFrom The Economist print edition

A dream is no longer deferred

WALK along 125th Street in Harlem, and it is hard not to get swept up in the history of the place. Many buildings still stand from the 1920s, when Harlem was the centre of a thriving black culture. Its side streets are lined with beautiful brownstone houses. On 125th Street itself are legendary buildings: the Apollo Theatre, where Ella Fitzgerald first sang, and Theresa Towers, where Fidel Castro met Nikita Khrushchev in 1960.

Yet it is also easy to see where Harlem has failed. Average incomes trail the rest of New York's. Although a few national chain stores have moved into the area over the past decade, closed-up shops still abound.

Michael Bloomberg, New York's mayor, hopes to change this with the most sweeping rezoning of 125th Street since Kennedy was president. After working on the proposal for four years, the city's planning commission voted on March 10th to rezone some 24 blocks in and around 125th Street. The rezoning will allow at least one high-rise and more than 2,000 apartments as well as hotels, nightclubs and galleries. For the first time, it will set height limits and establish a plan for future development. It is hoped that the plan will create a cultural renaissance in Harlem as well as 8,000 badly needed jobs.

Not everyone is happy. Some 70 small businesses could be forced to close and some historic buildings could be demolished. Critics fear long-term residents will be priced out of their homes. Gentrification over the past decade has certainly contributed to the increased cost of housing in Harlem. Others fear the neighbourhood's character will be irreparably changed because of luxury housing. The city's planning commission thinks the fears are unfounded, as 90% of the housing is rent-protected.

Julia Vitullo-Martin of the Manhattan Institute thinks the proposal doesn't go far enough. The first big office building to be built in Harlem in 40 years, which will be the headquarters of Major League Baseball, could be taller. But she understands critics' concerns: the proposal comes on the heels of last year's approval of Columbia University's plans for a new $7 billion campus in West Harlem. The city council will vote on the 125th Street proposal by April 30th