Harlem's Main Street

125th Street was once a cultural and commercial center of Manhattan. Now, thanks to ambitious revitalization efforts, it is entering the limelight again.

The thoroughfare, also called Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, runs unbroken across Harlem, once New York's largest African-American community, and has long served as its main commercial street. During Harlem's heyday, from the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s until World War II, the street became the neighborhood's cultural heart, home to renowned theaters and jazz clubs. But by the 1950s, the neighborhood had begun to decline. Crime, drug use, and unemployment increased, while average income fell as middle class families left. The area acquired a reputation as a slum, and 125th Street went dark.

Wayne Benjamin, director of residential development for the Harlem Community Development Corporation, has experienced firsthand the rejuvenation of the area. When he came to work there in 1995, he found little remaining of the street's former nightlife. "After six o'clock everything was closed," he said.

But today, the sidewalks on 125th street overflow with pedestrians. Street vendors sell food, souvenirs, and clothes. Shoppers bustle through tightly packed rows of stores, many of which stay open well into the night. Quite a few are national, or international, chains: a branch of popular Swedish clothing store H&M sits next to the Adam Clayton Powell state office building, and a Starbucks occupies the corner of Malcolm X Boulevard.

The change did not happen on its own. The street has benefited from numerous public projects, run through several organizations, that have collectively aimed to develop real estate, create jobs, and provide services so that Harlem's main street can thrive.

One of the most important entities working to develop the street is the HCDC, created as a subsidiary of the Empire State Development Corporation in mid-1995 to lead the redevelopment of Harlem. The HCDC, according to Benjamin, is "very focused on real estate development ... less so on employment and empowering the community." Over the last decade, it has funded and coordinated a wide range of commercial developments in Harlem, many along 125th Street, and facilitated agreements between property owners and tenants, to maximize property use. It has also advised private developers, including the Marriott Hotel company, which will open a large complex near Lexington Avenue this year.

Another nonprofit, the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation, has a similar mission. Hope Knight, the chief operating officer of UMEZ, said that its mission is to "stimulate economic development opportunities throughout upper Manhattan." Like the HCDC, UMEZ funds public development projects and cultural institutions. However, it emphasizes job creation, job training, and technical assistance for small businesses more than real estate development. "A lot of the work we [HCDC and UMEZ] do complement each other," Knight said.

Also integral to the development of 125th Street is its Business Improvement District, formed in 1993. Under a program run by the New York City Department of Small Business Services, any area of the city can apply to form a BID, technically a nonprofit corporation. Businesses within the area pay a special assessment on their property in exchange for services, including sanitation, maintenance, lighting, and landscaping. "We provide supplemental services and zoom in on areas that are not being addressed," said Barbara Askins, President and CEO of the 125th Street BID. Askins explained that the BID operates by monitoring detailed, constant tracking of residents' needs, sometimes by conducting extensive telephone surveys or interviewing people on the street. "There is no other entity in government that gives that kind of attention on a day-to-day basis," she said.

Currently, the BID extends from Fifth Avenue to Morningside Avenue, though there are plans to expand it.

Underlying all of these efforts is the 125th Street River to River Study, a project run by the New York Department of City Planning. The ongoing study focuses on rezoning the 125th Street corridor. Creating a thriving commercial district means more than just zoning for heavier commerce. Zoning changes cannot overwhelm the ability of the street to accommodate traffic, and the street needs to remain pedestrian-friendly. Commercial building and activity must be limited to accommodate concerns about noise and street-level sunlight. A successful street needs to be zoned for "quite a mixture of uses to keep it lively," according to Lunke.

The people who live, work, and shop around 125th Street have seen results from all of these programs. "We have benefited tremendously," said Yasmin Cornelius, district manager of Community Board 10, which includes the middle section of 125th Street. According to Cornelius, many residents in her district have moved into new housing projects near 125th Street thanks to the efforts of the HCDC, while the UMEZ has brought "opportunity to small businesses." And because of the BID, 125th Street is cleaner and better lit. "125th Street used to be totally dark after a certain time," Cornelius said.

The communities around 125th Street have not welcomed the new development without reservations. "The main concern overall is the control over the type of development that's going to occur," said Cornelius. She said that in the face of new development, residents often have questions who will get the construction jobs, who will live in new housing, and what kinds of businesses are coming to the neighborhood. Some worry that the essential character of the neighborhood will be lost.

Knight agreed that "there's definitely a need to preserve the character," but said that "by and large the community is fairly receptive of new developments." Benjamin, though sympathetic to communities' concern, said that nostalgia for the Harlem of the early 1990s is misplaced. He regards the revitalization of 125th Street as a return to decades further past-a time when, he pointed out, some of the street's most well-known stores were national chains.

"It was one of the major commercial streets in Manhattan-not in Harlem, in Manhattan," Benjamin said.