From the WSJ Opinion Archives
CROSS COUNTRY
Chateau Harlem
What's remarkable about a wine store in Harlem is that it wasn't remarkable.
NEW YORK--It's a testimonial to just how far Harlem has come back economically that when an upscale wine store, Harlem Vintage, opened on Frederick Douglass Boulevard last November the buzz centered on the quality of the wines rather than the store's very existence. This was Harlem's first wine store in living memory (a second has since opened a few blocks south), but that historic fact paled beside the Burgundies that were being served as gracefully as if this were the Four Seasons.
The opening of a wine store as well as many other successful businesses in Central Harlem is of profound interest to those of us who have watched the neighborhood decay economically for decades--despite its assets. Harlem is sited in Northern Manhattan, high above the Hudson on one side and the Harlem River on the other. It has some of the finest housing stock in the city, is well-served by both public transportation and parks, and has received billions of government dollars from GOP and Democratic administrations since the Kennedy years. It is not only the nation's most famous black neighborhood but was dubbed by Nelson Mandela "the black capital of the world." Yet for much of the 20th century it ranked as the poorest area of Manhattan.
What's been missing from Harlem's list of assets is the entrepreneurial spirit--which was strangled time and again by vicious neighborhood politics, cumbersome government programs, and lack of private investment capital. Kathy Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City and one of Harlem's first major developers, recalls that in the late '70s "there was no functional market in Harlem. You couldn't attract investment. For one thing, the government owned every other lot. There was no way of convincing anyone that a private market could function." At the southern edge of Harlem on the northwest corner of Central Park, the Partnership erected a high-rise condominium in 1983 to be sold to middle-income households. This was the first new apartment construction in Harlem in 50 years--an initial but not sufficient step in Harlem's economic rebirth, which continued to be blocked by neighborhood politics. Says Ms. Wylde, "The threat of a comeback is what always stopped Harlem's comeback before--the continual negative fear that residential development would lead to gentrification." James Baldwin once referred to the Harlemites' sense of grievance and fear as "a certain pride of bitterness."
This fear seems so old-fashioned today, as excellent restaurants, florists, delis and services spring up all over Harlem--including a charming boutique, Harlemade, devoted to goods produced in the neighborhood. Harlem's new entrepreneurs are providing a template for blacks in other cities. Harlem Vintage's co-owner, Eric Woods, who lives a few blocks from his store, says, "Our client base is predominantly Harlem. Those who live in the neighborhood want to support local businesses." His co-owner, Jai Jai Greenfield, notes that while the store stocks many familiar European wines it specializes in artisanal winemakers, including black-owned vineyards. "Here's the message we send," she says. "We're supporting black-owned winemakers and we hope they support us--not because we're African-Americans but because we've created a wonderful wine experience for our customers."
This is revolutionary talk. As Nathan Glazer and Daniel Moynihan pointed out in their 1963 book, "Beyond the Melting Pot," American blacks had long failed to develop an entrepreneurial class--a severe judgment in their otherwise optimistic analysis of the future of ethnic groups: In particular, "the business-minded" among urban blacks had not gotten a "foothold by serving their own, as so many ethnic groups had done before them." They predicted that black urban neighborhoods would never be strong unless they could develop their own business class. Even Jane Jacobs, in her "Death and Life of Great American Cities," argued that Harlem never had been a "vigorous" neighborhood, and never would be until it got a "good, healthy mixture of work stirred alongside and among its stretches of dwellings."
These censures held for many years, despite a ready market. Studies in the '90s showed that some 70% of Harlem residents left the neighborhood to shop. Didn't that demonstrate that Harlemites would happily shop at home if given a chance? But violent crime was a huge barrier to business. Even the good stores in Harlem, like a famous sweet-potato pie shop people traveled far to patronize, greeted customers with steel barriers.
No longer. Harlem today is the jewel in New York's crime-fighting crown. While violent crime has decreased 67% citywide since 1993, it has dropped 72% in Central Harlem. And burglary, down 73% citywide, has fallen 82% in Central Harlem. Willie Suggs, one of Harlem's most successful real-estate brokers, told me, "Homeowners organized and we fought back. We all had the precinct captain's phone number pasted on our refrigerator doors." The worst year, from a realtor's perspective, was 1977--when a whole townhouse could be bought for $5,000.
Now townhouses sell in the millions, but city government has programs to ensure that development includes middle-income households--who in turn provide an economic base for new business. New York's Housing Development Corporation made a $6 million loan to help finance the handsome 123-unit Harriet Tubman Gardens co-op across from Harlem Vintage. (JPMorgan Chase provided a $12 million construction loan.) The site had been vacant for 15 years. It also financed a middle-income condominium, 1400 on Fifth, whose Princeton-educated developer, Carlton Brown, buys corporate gifts at Harlem Vintage. "I like the Harlem name," he says.
The store's name, says Mr. Woods, "conjures up ideas of the Harlem Renaissance but also the new Harlem--vibrant economically and cutting edge culturally." And it's certainly better on the palate than Baldwin's pride of bitterness.
Julia Vitullo-Martin is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
