Uptowner staff writers asked businesspeople and longtime residents about changes in their communities in recent years. Comments were edited for length.

My building when it was built all those years ago was white, and it got mixed. Then it was all black, and now it’s mixed again. All to the good. Because it’s very important that children know there are folks who don’t look like them who are decent and who wish them well.

I find New York very segregated. There’s a lot of ugly stuff. It’s a terrible school system – I don’t care what the ads say. I think the schools are more segregated than they were. This is heartbreaking to me. And if I could [stand on] City Hall steps I would say that. But in the midst of that there are incredible people and the hope is that we can get to the children before the grown up anger and the ugliness gets to them. But I’m a cockeyed optimist.

— Marjorie Eliot, founder, Parlor Entertainment, Harlem

When I came in 1982, all the stores from Madison to 3rd Avenue were vacant, including this building.  Nothing but crime and thugs. As Harlem has changed, this area has changed. North General Hospital – where I’m on the board – was built brand new and two low-rise housing developments came up just a block away on 124th and 122nd streets.

At the same time, brownstone sales in Harlem became so attractive to people outside the community looking for affordable brownstones in Manhattan. When they started to see the stabilized area around the park, this helped change the climate along 125th Street. There was a nursing home built, then two buildings on Lex, the Motor Vehicles [Traffic Violations] Bureau and then Pathmark on 125th. These were the anchors that made this area viable.

— Eugene Giscombe, president and founder, Giscombe Realty Group

It’s a place where things happen. People are fighting back, people are looking for recognition where they didn’t used to. Something like a fashion show focusing on Harlem designers simply would not have happened, like, 5 years ago.

People are building a community; there are designers who help other designers uptown. We’re showcasing what we have to offer to the rest of the world, instead of just being ignored.

— Dinna Soliman, fashion designer, Washington Heights

I think 2009 is most remarkable for what has not changed. In the face of the biggest recession in a long time, and the credit crisis, one would expect lower income neighborhoods like ours to be particularly hard hit and surely it has caused a lot of pain. However, I have not seen a lot of businesses close nor have I witnessed the kind of home foreclosure rates you see in certain parts of Brooklyn and Queens.

For so many people in this neighborhood Obama’s election was such an incredible high that I was worried what would happen the moment people would realize that one man having been elected, as momentous and symbolic as it was, is not going to dramatically change the world we live in. But I haven’t seen widespread disillusion with Obama.

I think the signing of the Community Benefit Agreement between the West Harlem LDC and Columbia University is a big change and step towards healing of some of the bruised egos caused by the Columbia expansion.

I am also a board member of the Hamilton Heights Homeowners Association, which has also seen an improvement in communication and information sharing recently. In my business, residential real estate, I am happy to report that people all over the city and in Harlem are confident enough to resume buying apartments and houses.

— Maarten Vandersman, co-ordinator, ACTION, Hamilton Heights

Some shops have burned themselves down and claimed insurance through somewhat illegal methods. I think I’ve probably seen three or four which have closed, and I talk to friends who have shops continuously caught in a vise between the rent that they find difficult to pay and trying to increase their sales.

— Patrick Bradley Moore, resident, Inwood