That has finally brought national chains, sparked a spate of refurbishing of its turn-of-the-century brownstones and infused many of the area’s half million residents with a sense of optimism after years of fear and loathing.

For others, the minirebirth has led to fears that Harlem is in danger of losing its cultural significance as the neighborhood becomes glutted with chain stores and outsiders wanting to move in. In many cases, the newcomers in the predominantly African American and still economically struggling neighborhood have been white, a change that has rankled some old-timers. 

While Harlem and the rest of upper Manhattan has roughly the same population as a city the size of Seattle or Atlanta, the area lacked, until the past year or two, such basic amenities as a full-service supermarket, a salad bar or sufficient bank branches, pharmacies and dry cleaners. There is still no bookstore and there is a dearth of hardware and computer stores.

Even the neighborhood’s main commercial artery, 125th Street, is still dotted with boarded-up buildings with oversized billboards advertising new records and clothing. In spite of the steady hum of construction cranes along vast stretches of Harlem’s major thoroughfares, there remains far more abandoned buildings than occupied homes or businesses. 

“It’s easy to do (economic development projects) downtown, but what we are doing in Harlem is creating greater confidence in a community that was for too long ignored, and at the same time changing people’s perceptions,” said Gov. George E. Pataki, who has become one of Harlem’s most influential backers.

The most obvious symbol of those changes is the sprawling, $68 million Harlem USA shopping center at 125th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard, which took more than a decade to build because retailers were skeptical that the neighborhood would support national chain stores. 

The 10-month-old glass-and-chrome complex is the largest development built in Harlem in more than 30 years. Physically, it dwarfs the small businesses that surround it. 

Harlem USA’s tenants include a nine-screen Magic Johnson movie theater complex with seating for 2,700, and branches of Old Navy, Modells Sporting Goods, HMV Records and the Disney Store.

When completely occupied, developers say the 274,000-square-foot mall will provide as many as 500 jobs, three quarters of which have been reserved for local residents. Since the center opened last winter, the neighborhood has welcomed it with a flood of business: The Old Navy is the fourth-highest grossing Old Navy in the nation; Modell’s is No. 1 in its chain; the Disney Store is doing better than $1,000 per square foot. 
“Basically, there is pent-up consumer demand here that’s been unmet with the existing businesses,” said Terry Lane, president of the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, which loaned Harlem USA’s developers $11.2 million. 

Harlem USA, along with a range of projects that include Black Entertainment Television’s new production studios in East Harlem, a chain of dry cleaners and several new restaurants, had assistance from the empowerment zone, a 1994 initiative aimed at aiding some of the nation’s most distressed urban areas.

So far, the city, state and federal governments have disbursed $140 million to the area through the empowerment zone, mostly in the form of below-market-rate loans. By 2004, a total of $250 million will be spent in Harlem and neighboring Washington Heights and Inwood.

In spite of the minirevival that Harlem USA has inspired, the shopping center has brought an undercurrent of unease. Commercial and residential rents have shot up in the neighborhood, pricing out some longtime residents. Along 125th Street, for example, commercial rental rates have doubled in the past three years, with prime space now going for $100 per square foot. Brownstones sell for more than $500,000. Some apartments now rent for $3,000 a month. There is definitely the sense that they are trying to price us out of our own neighborhood so that whites can move in,” said 61-year-old Charles St. Clair, who has lived in Harlem all his life. 

Recently, 200 marchers chanting “Harlem is not for sale” demonstrated in front of Harlem USA.

“People feel that they are being economically cleansed from 125th Street,” said march organizer Nellie Bly, executive director of the Harlem Tenants Council. “Is it responsible development to offer a stuffed toy at the Disney Store for $70?”

The average household income in Central Harlem is about $20,000, one-third less than the rest of Manhattan. Even in the city’s flush economic times, the unemployment rate in parts of the neighborhood has lingered at 18 percent, about three times as high as the rest of Manhattan.

As a testament to the neighborhood’s stubbornly high jobless rate, in February, when the Old Navy opened, some 2,000 people applied for the store’s 150 jobs. Still, Harlem’s new shops, restaurants and a few revitalized jazz clubs have led a few to dream of the return of the glory days, when the neighborhood’s nightlife attracted touring musicians and people from around the country. On a recent evening at the Lenox Lounge, an Art Deco jewel where Billie Holiday once had first dibs on the red leather banquette in the back corner, a mix of locals and tourists from Japan and Europe listened to a jazz combo well into the night.
The lounge’s owner, Alvin Reed, said that in the past few months, he has been able to attract downtown crowds who might usually go to the Blue Note or Village Vanguard.

“A few years ago, I thought about closing down,” said Reed. “But things are looking up a little bit now. I figure I’ve seen Harlem through some of its worst, so I might as well stick around and see what happens.”

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