Rezoning Discussion Elicits Strong Reactions

Racial and religious tensions took the forefront at Saturday’s Coalition to Save Harlem meeting, where community members protested the 125th Street rezoning proposal to a tense crowd.

Passionate speakers and supportive neighbors gathered at the Oberia Dempsey Center on West 127th Street to hear a panel of local activists and store owners, as well as Councilman Tony Avella (D-Queens). Panelists encouraged Harlem residents to lobby city politicians against the rezoning proposal and to unite to retake “the Mecca of Black Culture.”

The City Council Land Use Committee will hold a hearing on Tuesday morning to address the rezoning plan before the council votes on it on April 16. The city proposal­—which would provide for the construction of high-rise luxury condos and commercial buildings on the neighborhood’s central thoroughfare—has elicited widespread disapproval and outrage from the surrounding community. Neighbors have expressed concern that the high cost of rent will displace them from their homes and businesses while destroying Harlem’s historic culture.

“The most important part is the holocaust we’re having in Harlem. This is takeover, theft, highway robbery,” said Sikhulu Shange, owner of the Harlem Record Shack on 125th Street, to a responsive audience.

Shange said that he felt change was not needed and would only be harmful to the area.

“You have enough clothes anyway,” he said, protesting the potential influx of retail developments.

Rezoning opponents protested that Harlem belongs to its residents, some of whom have lived there for 75 years. “This city is not made up [of] real estate developments. It’s made up of people,” Avella said, prompting loud applause and shouts of “Free the people.”

Avella, who officially announced his candidacy for mayor Sunday, was blunt in his address and admitted that he was not optimistic that opponents would be able to successfully thwart the rezoning.

In an atmosphere full of anger toward New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Congressman Charles Rangel, and State Senator Bill Perkins, the issue of race took center stage. Speakers said that the successes of the civil rights movement, the solidarity brought about by slavery and its aftermath, and a common African heritage illustrated the potential for resistance.

“We’d still be in chains if we didn’t have that strength,” said event organizer Brenda Stokely, who urged a “bad-ass united front” to reclaim locals’ basic rights to decent housing and a say in the rezoning process.

Despite a standing ovation after Stokeley’s speech, racially-charged comments by a member of the New Black Panther Party elicited some objections.

The speaker disdained “Chinese men” as “the new Jews of Africa” and termed the city as “Jew York City,” a place run by “so-called Jews.” According to the New Black Panther, the rezoning signifies a removal of the neighborhood from its people’s hands, similar to Manhattan “being taken by white men from our indigenous brothers and sisters.” One audience member voiced that such comments were anti-Semitic and irrelevant.

Reactions by attendees after the event suggested that some of the racial tension derived from what they saw as a misrepresentation and lack of respect from their local politicians. Robert Greene, a Harlem resident who said that current gentrification efforts are shocking because of the relative lack of activity over the past 40 years, blamed Bloomberg, Rangel, and former mayor David Dinkins.

Attendees also hinted that they felt betrayed by local black politicians and booed upon hearing Councilmember Inez Dickens’ name.

Speakers said that politicians should expect masses of protesters at Tuesday’s City Hall hearing.

“Development in the community is not happening for the sake of life in Harlem,” said Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, author of the forthcoming book Harlem is Nowhere. Rhodes-Pitts, who will testify Tuesday, expressed worry about Harlem’s future: “We don’t want its black identity to become a museum piece.”

scott.levi@columbiaspectator.com