Gentrification

In his pink polo shirt and stylishly ripped jeans, 43-year-old Arthur Hoyt, Jr. is an archetypical local resident. He often stands outside his apartment building, cigarette in hand, watching the traffic go by in Harlem. Hoyt is the perfect example of the “new Harlemite”: white, in his 30s or 40s, with a family. In south-central Harlem, which extends roughly east-west from Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard. to Morningside Park and north-south from 125th Street to 110th, people like Hoyt are arriving in droves.

Bobby Womack’s 1972 hit “Across 110th Street” describes a Harlem that is both very different and strikingly similar to the one that many of us at Columbia (don’t) know. While 110th Street may no longer be the barrier it once was, substantive racial and class reconciliation and cultural exchange are going to require a lot more than moving in next door.

The facts seem to indicate that Manhattanville will lead to the displacement of working-class blacks and Latinos.