In central Harlem, a rotting five-story building sits unused as a relic of decades past. But if a longtime community organization has its way, the site will soon face a full-blown makeover.
On 145th Street between Amsterdam and Broadway, a public schoolhouse has disintegrated into a large neighborhood vacancy since it was abandoned in the 1970s. Last month, the M.L. Wilson Boys & Girls Club of Harlem, a local non-profit, scored its final sum of cash in a large funding campaign to mount a massive redevelopment project on the site.
The Boys & Girls Club has owned the building—once P.S. 186—since 1987. At the time, the local Convent Avenue Baptist Church’s Reverend Mannie Wilson, who is the namesake of the organization, bought the space from the Department of Education.
Two decades later, after many failed efforts at redevelopment and administrative turnover, the Boys & Girls Club received a final loan of $100,000 from the Harlem Community Development Corporation to cover pre-development costs.
This marks one of the last financial hurdles to turning the vacant site into a $79 million complex that would include 120 units of affordable housing, community space, operational space for the Boys & Girls Club, and a potential new public school.
The affordable housing units and the school project are meant to fund the Club, executive director Giselle Shorter explained. “We are not in the business of developing,” she said. “The goal of the entire project is to underwrite our program.”
Shorter added of the affordable fees, “We have a commitment to expanding our reach,” and said that one of the only remaining roadblocks to the project would be the city’s rezoning of the site to allow their desired architectural design.
“A lot of recent developments have little to do with the neighborhood It is going to be nice to see something community-based,” Elise Joyner, a counselor for the Club and a Harlem native, said of local construction projects.
While affordable housing is a fixed component of the plan, the public school development is not yet finalized, Shorter said. Columbia Teachers College is currently in conversations with the organization about a partnership.
Emily Zemke, associate director for school partnerships at TC, said that this relationship—though in a very early stage—could be a great opportunity for the University to work with the neighborhood.
“TC and HBGC share common commitments to and interests in creating educational opportunity for underserved youth in the area,” Zemke wrote in an e-mail.
According to Zemke, the current proposal is that Teachers College would design the school’s program and “work in collaboration with the school’s staff on best teaching practices, application of research about learning, curriculum development, and provide student enrichment opportunities.”
For the Harlem Community Development Corporation, which provided the final loan, the whole project is a necessary step in the right direction for the neighborhood.
Wayne Benjamin, the HCDC Director of Residential Development for the Harlem, said that the board’s approval of the 18-month $100,000 loan for the Club—to help cover architectural, legal, and construction fees—represented a productive move for the neighborhood. “To us, that’s a prime example of what is meant by community and economic development,” he said.
He added that the site is one of the few remaining spaces for a large neighborhood development, since so much of Harlem has been revitalized in recent years.
New York State Assemblyman Herman Farrell, who represents parts of West Harlem, said that while he has supported the organization for many years, he is frustrated that the project has been stalled for so long. “That program has been going for the last 20 years,” Farrell said. “In other words, the building of the building has been a 20 year program, 20 years of non-occurrence, non-happening.”
Still, a spokesperson for New York City Council member Robert Jackson, who represents the area, expressed optimism and support of the recent steps forward.
“This project must happen. We must move forward. We need the affordable housing and we also need the services and opportunities that the new Boys & Girls Club is going to bring to the community,” Susan Russell, chief of staff for Jackson, said, adding that the office has been interested in reviving this space since Jackson was first elected in 2001.
But for many locals, the news does little to erase feelings of hopelessness about the persisting vacancy.
Eliza Lee, whose sister attended fifth grade at P.S. 186 just before the school closed, said she was tired of waiting. “They had this for years and didn’t do anything,” Lee said. “This is just talk.”
For Manuel Mendoza, manager of the Meat Market Deli next door to the abandoned building, redevelopment could mean better business in a recharged neighborhood. “Nobody likes it. There are lots of mice there, people trespass,” he said.
Others expressed huge relief. Linda McGill, who has been a member of the Convent Avenue Baptist Church since 1979, said she has donated a lot of money toward the cause over the years. “I spent so much,” she said, adding that development “will bring the neighborhood up.”
Farrell said he was anxious to see the project completed: “I’d like to see that ugly building go away and a new shiny building be in its place, but it ain’t done ’til it’s done.”
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