Arthur Fredric instructs students at PS 189 during one of the National Dance Institute's classes at the school.

For the National Dance Institute, which opened its first headquarters in Harlem this fall, the easy part was deciding to acquire a home. What came before and after proved more complicated.

The Institute, founded 35 years ago, had been searching for a permanent location for a decade. It teaches dance and other arts to more than 40,000 public elementary school students annually, primarily through free in-school classes but also in after-school and weekend lessons. As borrowing space from schools and arts institutions around the city became increasingly difficult, the institute decided to put down roots on West 147th Street between Adam Clayton Powell and Frederick Douglass Boulevards.

It has transformed P.S. 90, a school abandoned since the 1970s, into what founder Jacques d’Amboise describes as “a communication center for the arts,” with four studios, two art galleries and a convertible performance venue. “They took an enormous abandoned space and brought life to it,” says Lloyd A. Williams, president and CEO of the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce, of which the National Dance Institute is a member.

The institute launched a $20 million capital campaign to purchase the school, including $11.5 million for the building and subsequent renovation and another $8.5 million to sustain operating expenses. George Soros’s Open Society Foundations contributed $5 million in what d’Amboise calls “a moment of generous madness,” while board members and other donors provided much of the rest, though the institute remains $6.25 million from its goal. The institute was able to purchase the building outright and has no mortgage.

Its $3.8 million annual budget comes largely from foundations (40 percent) and from its annual spring gala (25 percent); government grants, corporate and personal donations provide the remainder.

But with its new location, the program hopes to increase corporate fundraising. “Now that we have a physical space, it will make forming collaborations with the corporate sector easier, because we do have four walls and the ability to have signage and recognition and host events,” says Michele O’Mara, director of development.

The renovated school provides potential donors with a compelling reason to contribute, she adds. “We can bring them downstairs and they can immediately see the children dancing and see firsthand the experience these children have,” O’Mara says. “Seeing is believing; it’s truly a sight to behold.”

John Sheehy, the director of development and marketing for The 52nd Street Project — a nonprofit that develops and produces new plays with children in Hell’s Kitchen and acquired its own center in 1996 — attests to this benefit. “The challenges of fundraising are constant and ongoing, but we have found an advantage in establishing a new home,” he writes in an e-mail. “We have taken the opportunity to gain wider exposure for The 52nd Street Project in the press and in the community. This has in turn opened up new relationships with funders. So while it is an enormous undertaking to establish your own place, and the attendant expansion in expenses can be daunting, it can be an enormous opportunity for growth.”

As the National Dance Institute adjusts to its new home, it will also try to engage with the Harlem community. “We just arrived here in October,” O’Mara says. “We’re all just settling in and getting to know one another, but we very much want to be part of the neighborhood and partner with not only the residents but the businesses here as well.”

The business community has already started to benefit, Williams says. “Of course they’re bringing visitors and employees, so the fact is that naturally the center has a broad economic impact on the surrounding landscape for the businesses that now have a strong infusion of economic capital,” he says. The institute employs nearly 50 full and part-time teachers and administrators, but Williams estimates that it brings hundreds of people to the neighborhood daily.

Its eventual impact remains to be seen, however. In the future, for instance, the institute could rent out space in its new home, but such plans remain unclear.

“This is going to be a year of firsts for us,” O’Mara says.  Along with its evolving programs, “We’re very hopeful the new space will change the fundraising landscape for the organization a bit as well,” she says.

For more information on the National Dance Institute’s move click here.

The fashion show at the Alhambra's 2011 Bridal Expo showcased wedding dresses by local designers. (Photo by Roland Hyde)

From traditional white dresses to gold, green and everything in between, the fashion show at Alhambra Ballroom’s Bridal Expo had something for everyone. Audience members gasped simultaneously at a halter-style African print wedding dress. The patchwork fabric, similar to a quilt, fused black, gold and a rich blue.

“We don’t always have to wear white, ladies; custom Afro-centric designs are in,” wedding coordinator DiAnne Henderson told the brides-to-be, their families and friends. This year’s expo, at the Alhambra on Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard and 125th Street, drew 25 vendors and about 100 guests.

DJ Mario came equipped with a turntable, music and a fitness trainer. As he blared First Choice’s “Love Thang” from the speakers, the trainer led women in the Wobble, then the Cha Cha slide — both popular line dances at African-American weddings.

“Dancing is a great way to lose a couple of pounds before the big day, ladies,” Henderson said as she encouraged everyone to join in. “We are Harlemites, we are in Harlem. This is how we get down!”

The U.S. wedding industry generates about $40 billion a year. According to the 2011 American Wedding Survey, the average wedding in the United States costs about $26,500. A 2011 survey by the bridal website The Knot found that in Manhattan, the average cost jumps to $70,730.

Uptown entrepreneurs are working to grow a Harlem wedding industry. In 2006, Amber Saunders-Nobles started A’Marie Weddings, a wedding planning service. She’s seen her clientele incorporate people of different races and financial backgrounds. “The biggest wedding I’ve done in Harlem was around $60,000,” she said. “We did the reception on a cruise around city.”

Henderson believes Harlem has the potential to thrive in the city’s wedding industry. “Harlem is often overlooked as a destination to have a city wedding,” she said. She helped launch the Bridal Expo and Fashion Show four years ago to spotlight local vendors and help uptown brides make their wedding dreams come true.

“Everyone can’t have a $40,000 or $50,000 wedding so we try to work with the person’s pockets,” said Henderson, who says her average wedding costs around $12,000. “I have the chance to speak with people and encourage them.”

For 17 years, she has worked exclusively with the family who owns the Alhambra Ballroom, where she says she’s done more than 200 weddings. “For someone else that may not be a lot,” she said, “but for me that is part-time work.” By day she’s a director at Harlem’s St. Nicholas Senior Center;  on weekends she runs her event planning service, My Eye Is on You, at the Alhambra.

“There aren’t enough wedding expos,” Henderson said. “Afro-American designers that are known in the Harlem area do not have enough exposure. I think that we as Afro-Americans in Harlem should try to be more involved in helping one another.”

It has been a challenging effort. In 2006, Nidelka Mayers was the first person to put the Harlem weddings on the map, she says, when she created the Harlem Weddings bridal show and guide, showcasing local wedding-related businesses. The Harlem Weddings Bridal Show ran for three years but was canceled in 2010.

In 2008, Saunders-Nobles held a bridal show at the Apollo Theater, where she advised Harlem brides how to save during the recession (and provided literature on breast cancer).

“It cost thousands of dollars,” said Saunders-Nobles, who paid most expo costs out of her own pocket.  It lasted one year, but she plans to resuscitate it next year.  “We constantly have new vendors who want to do it again,” she said.

“Getting sponsors for these events is not easy,” agreed Henderson, who recruited five sponsors for the Bridal Expo this year. She said she sold about 50 tickets at $10 each and is not sure yet if the event turned a profit.

“Cassandra, for example, trusted me enough to bring her things,” Henderson said. “She gave me her free time and no one got paid.”

Afro-centric inspired wedding gown by Cassandra Bromfield. (Photo by Roland Hyde)

Cassandra Bromfield, a Brooklyn wedding and evening gown designer, wants to tap into the Harlem wedding market. “The bridal show is a good option for people to find me,” said Bromfield, who specializes in Afro-centric wedding gowns and fielded many questions about her patchwork gown.

Harriette Cole, author of “Jumping the Broom: The African-American Wedding Planner,” believes that with the right marketing and promotion, Harlem can become a wedding destination.

“I imagine that Harlem can become even more of a player in the world of weddings, thanks to more restaurants being developed and additional event spaces that have opened,” said Cole, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1988 and seen it “blossom into a thriving diverse community.”

Saunders-Nobles talks in terms of hidden gems and jewels in Harlem, for those who know where they are.

“The good thing about being a wedding planner is you have the creative eye to look into a space and say ‘This might work for this purpose, but it could also work for a wedding,’” she said. “When you think of the all the events that come with a wedding — the bridal shower, the brunch — there are so many restaurants that are hip places opening up.”

Harlem already offers multiple venues and options for weddings of all sizes and budgets.

Sylvia’s, the famous Lenox Avenue soul food restaurant, specializes in catering, with free space for wedding parties under 45 guests and or $500 an hour for more than 50. Special event coordinator Jacqueline Gaines estimates the restaurant hosts about 30 weddings a year.

Riverside Church, on the border between Harlem and Morningside Heights, holds anywhere from 65 to 75 weddings year. The main sanctuary rents for $3,500 and the most popular space, The Assembly Hall, for $3,200. But wedding coordinator Angela Gregory says few Harlem couples marry there. “I would love to see more local couples,” she said.

The Alhambra Ballroom, which opened in 2003, specializes in wedding receptions. Its wedding package includes a Rolls Royce limousine, a cake and five hours’ ballroom use for 125 guests for $12,350.

“That is one of the most reasonable venues in Manhattan,” said Sanders-Nobles. She married this past May at Bethel Gospel Assembly on East 120th Street and held a reception for 175 family members and friends at the Alhambra.

Other popular spaces include Melba’s Restaurant at Eighth and Manhattan avenues, the Dwyer Cultural Center on 123rd Street between St. Nicholas Avenue and Frederick Douglass Boulevard and, in West Harlem, the Harlem School of the Arts. “A lot of people don’t know about this space and they have wonderful things to offer,” said Saunders-Nobles, including a theater and a courtyard garden.

“I would love to have my wedding in Harlem,” said Franshara Hunter, a bride-to-be who lives in the Bronx. She traveled down to Harlem for the expo and said, ”I see some really nice stuff here.”

Even with a successful bridal show, business has been slow in Harlem. Photographer Chad Pennington of Sobitart Photography says he’s shot just two Harlem weddings this year; most of his work is downtown. But when he gets to shoot in “Harlem USA,” as he calls it, he has a blast. “In Harlem you always get something different,” he said.

Karen Eatmon Harrigan, who goes by the name DJ Passion, began her career in Harlem. She deejays for $550 an event but charges $100 more for weddings.

“Weddings usually have a little more involvement working with the bride. I do consultation with them and go over the music,” she said.  She has taken part in the wedding expos since they began, yet only works twice a year in Harlem.

Princess Jenkins, who owns The Brownstone boutique on East 125th Street, said she will continue to participate in the expo. “Anyone who comes to us is looking for something nontraditional. We do about five weddings a year and many mothers of the bride,” Jenkins said. “I continue to participate in the expo because we are very interested to show our brand.”

“If you do want to get married in Harlem the businesses and professionals are here,” said Saunders-Nobles, who says she understand why vendors may find it difficult to reach clients. “You have to be resourceful because there isn’t a Great Bridal Expo like in Times Square with 40,000 brides. That is great, but there is never something permanent in Harlem.”

Despite the odds, Henderson says she’s planning another Alhambra expo for April. She wants to continue to showcase local vendors and teach brides. “All of my work comes from the heart,” she said.

“That is why I love Harlem weddings,” said Saunder-Nobles, “because we have a passion not just  for our business, but for our people.”

b condoms currently sell two products online: the Classic and the Platinum. (Photo by Paul Smith)

The image of a marching band jitters across the screen to a hip-hop soundtrack. Black and white footage of Morehouse College is interspersed with shots of trendy young African-Americans watching a football game. The dancing photos stop and a slogan appears: “b healthy. b proud.”

The YouTube clip, directed by George Twopointoh – noted for his work with singer Janelle Monáe – documents a recent college tour sponsored by b condoms, a Harlem startup.

The b condoms elevator pitch takes some explaining. As the self-proclaimed “only minority-owned socially responsible condom company in the world,” b manufactures contraceptives and reinvested 20 percent of its first-year profits in HIV/AIDS community programs. “It would be easy if it was just a condom company and I was only dealing with retailers and working on profit margins,” says co-founder Elkhair Balla. “It’s bigger than that.”

Since its inception last year, b has begun selling to major institutions, including Harvard University, and local health organizations. The company has hosted panel discussions at high schools, encouraging teenagers to get tested. Yet the ambitious project had humble beginnings. Its headquarters are on Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard between a hair salon and a hat boutique.

Balla and co-founder Jason Panda, dressed in dapper pinstriped shirts fastened with cufflinks, are sitting around the conference table in their office on a recent Friday afternoon. They’re planning to start selling in stores early next year and are researching retailers. “We want to make sure we pick the right partner that will represent a socially-responsible brand and highlight our message,” Balla says.

B currently sells products only online, with three packs of Classic condoms costing $15 or $18 for Platinum XL, wrapped in metallic packaging. “We’re priced at the same level as competitors,” says Balla, “and in some cases a little higher. Part of it is psyche. You don’t want to be known as the discount condom.”

They argue that their social cause distinguishes their brand in a competitive market. “Trojan, Durex, LifeStyles,” said Panda, tapping figures into his iPhone calculator, “they don’t fund campaigns on the scale we do.”

In fact, UK manufacturer Durex donated over 200,000 condoms to the International AIDS Conference; Sir Richard’s, a Colorado company, donates one condom to a developing country for every one purchased.

But Panda says, “There hasn’t really been a condom company to bring all the collective pieces together under one umbrella.” The pieces he has in mind combine educational outreach with strategic marketing. “We fund a lot of prevention and awareness initiatives,” he says.

Before life as a social entrepreneur, Panda was a disillusioned attorney specializing in pharmaceutical patent law and “top-shelf miserable” despite a six-figure salary. “I wanted to do something more community-focused, something bigger than arguing about the difference between ‘and’ and ‘or’ in a patent,” he said.

He sought inspiration from his mother, who runs a Massachusetts treatment facility for drug addicts and alcoholics. “Nonprofits can buy boxes of thousands of condoms,” he said, “but why isn’t any of that money reinvested into communities to create change at a grass roots level? That simple concept sparked something.”

After recruiting Balla, a Sudanese former investment banker and friend from Morehouse College, Panda began ordering samples for manufacture in Malaysia, from the same factory that produces condoms for the U.N. The packaged condoms are shipped in batches, often by the thousands, to a warehouse in the Bronx.

A year ago, Panda sat in his Harlem apartment making cold calls with Balla. “We’d get somebody on the phone, put our little suits on and get our couple of samples,” Panda recalls. Both 32, they christened themselves Subway Salesmen, riding the train from Brooklyn to the Bronx, pitching their new products.

They struck up an early partnership with the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS, a nonprofit working with religious leaders to raise awareness of sexually transmitted disease among African-Americans.

Harlem Coordinator Leatrice Wactor, who has shared an office with b condoms since summer, invites Panda and Balla to speak in churches. “It’s refreshing to see two black heterosexual men discuss HIV,” she says. Young African-Americans, she thinks, “feel more comfortable talking about condom use” with their peers.

For Balla, the firm’s marketing director, rebranding the condom is crucial. The name b was his idea. “You can be anything you want to be so long as you do it in a safe, responsible way,” he says. “Our slogan is ‘b cool. b safe. b yourself.’” He adds, “You don’t have to sell sex. Sex sells itself.”

Financially, Balla says he has “no concern” over the venture, which he and Panda have self-funded with a third investor, Ashanti Johnson. He wouldn’t disclose the initial investment, but says that the company is already profitable and paying five salaries.

Last month, Balla celebrated the company’s anniversary with a World AIDS Day cocktail reception at Nectar on Frederick Douglas Boulevard. Panda was off speaking at a Georgia health care conference. Balla paced about the candlelit wine bar, taking pictures of the hors d’oeuvres platter on his iPhone. “I’ve got to tweet stuff,” he said, sharing the images with b’s 1500 Twitter followers.

Elkhair Balla, co-founder, at b condoms' World AIDS Day reception in Harlem. (Photo by Paul Smith)

Peter Kim, part of the crowd, responded to an ad on ideaslist.org and joined the team as a summer intern. Now, at 24, he’s strategic partnership director. “Students like the packaging,” he said, “but in addition, our socially responsible message really resonates with them.”

Kim finds the prospect of working for a startup exciting, even if his job provokes various reactions from friends. “A lot of people confuse it with condominiums,” he said, shaking his head. “I say, ‘It’s a different kind of high rise.’”

Jabir Elamin searches employment websites at the Department of Labor in Harlem (Photo by Lucy Pawle)

Sitting in the waiting room on the fourth floor of the New York Department of Human Resources in Harlem, Mozel Williams, 77, is applying for food stamps for the first time in her life. “I was always able to provide for myself. This is the first time I’ve had to apply for anything,” she says, her eyes watering. Pulling a handkerchief from her pocket, she takes off her glasses and wipes away tears.

A short African-American woman in an oversized black coat, Harlem native Williams retired from housekeeping in 2004 after 32 years, but the cost of living means she needs a job again. The $930 Social Security payment she receives each month has become increasingly inadequate. “The rent I’m paying overrides anything coming in. It’s over $1,000,” she says.

But eight months of job-hunting has proved unsuccessful, which is why Williams is here. “I need help badly,” she says.

Her problems are not unusual. Around 2.2 million Americans over 55 are unemployed, double the number in 2007. That represents 15.7 percent of total unemployment, according to October data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. New York City currently has 8.8 percent unemployment.

While recent layoffs account for the majority of unemployed seniors, re-entrants into the workforce have also risen substantially and account for almost a quarter, according to an October 2010 Congressional Research Service analysis.

Older workers aren’t targeted in layoffs; in fact they are often the last to go, says Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. “Employers typically lay off people with the least seniority, which is more typically the younger people,” he says.

But the rise in job-hunting seniors is pushing up their unemployment rate. In some cases, debt has forced their return to work. Thirty percent of unemployed seniors have more credit card debt than retirement savings and 41 percent have as much, according to a November 2010 report from the Sloan Center on Aging and Work at Boston College.

Williams needs to work because of the rising cost of living. Her rent is “cleaning me out of everything,” she says, increasing $150 a month this year. Health costs and rising food prices concern her too.

Such issues are familiar to staffers at Single Stop, an anti-poverty program with two Harlem centers; it launched an initiative this year specifically targeting the elderly. “There’s a disparity between the flat-lining of Social Security income and the skyrocketing medical expenses,” says communications director Grace Lichtenstein. Single Stop monitors seniors’ poverty rate, which this year jumped from 9 to 16.1 percent when the Census Bureau began including medical expenses and other costs.

Older unemployed workers not only give up things that they want, but things that they need, says Carl Van Horn, director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. “They are particularly hurt by giving up on health care,” he says, “and they also cut back on food and other essentials.”

Jabir Elamin, 59, walks into the Labor Department on West 125^th Street early on a Monday morning. He got laid off in 2008, so he’s there three times a week to use the Internet for job-hunting “You’ve got to be proactive,” he says.

But the job fairs advertised on the department’s website have passed and Elamin has already applied for the one suitable position he finds. “No one ever got back in touch with me,” he says. But he writes down the contact details again anyway.

While seniors may not be the first fired, they are often the last hired. They take nine weeks longer to find work than younger competitors, says the Bureau of Labor Statistics, their searches averaging just over a year.

“There’s a lot of ageism out there,” says Maria Serrano, program director of the Senior Employment Program at the New York City Department of Aging. “There’s enormous competition with the younger workers, workers from other parts of America, and from all over the world now.”

Baker agrees. “It’s formally illegal to discriminate against people on age but people do it,” he says. “I’d be surprised if an employer was more likely to pick a man in his 50s.”

This isn’t news to Elamin. “I’ve found discrimination against my age on a daily basis,” he claims, “but I think it’s very foolish.” A licensed real-estate broker for 21 years, among many other jobs, he feels his age should count in his favor. “Experience is just as important as education and will sometimes take you further,” he says.

Serrano says technology presents the biggest barrier for older job-seekers. “Many of the seniors are not conditioned with the computer skills that are necessary,” she says. “We trying to help people to do the cross-over, but it’s a challenge.” The program had 1,200 participants last year and applicants have increased significantly since 2008. But this year brought 25 percent cuts in federal funding, “slowing us down a little bit,” Serrano says diplomatically.

These government programs are simply inadequate, however, for the problems seniors now face, says Van Horn. “Many are designed for short and shallow recessions. This is neither,” he says.

Elamin enrolled in the department’s program for four months, doing computer training while earning $7.50 an hour, 12 hours a week. But he has doubts about its usefulness. “I learned things that I hadn’t known before, but it didn’t get me a job,” he says. He blames employers who are “insensitive to the needs and to the values that the elderly can bring to the table,” not the Department of Aging.

Baker shares Elamin’s skepticism. “There just aren’t enough jobs,” he says.  “So far as these programs can give workers skills, that’s good, but it’s just shuffling musical chairs.”

A lack of Internet access compounds the problem for many job-hunting seniors.  Neither Williams nor Elamin has a computer, so they’re forced to go to the Labor Department office. But seniors’ job-searching skills are less sophisticated than younger workers’, says Van Horn. “Their use of social networking and Internet job-searching words is much lower,” he says.

Elamin uses the Internet regularly, however, to little avail. Wearing a three-piece brown suit with matching suede shoes and a trilby hat, and carrying a briefcase, he certainly looks ready for the office. “I am always prepared,” he says. “Always looking for an opportunity.”

He organizes his day with military discipline. “I wake up at 5:30 every morning,” he says. “I start out by researching jobs on the Internet, then I make face-to-face contacts with prospective employers. I spend the other part of my day researching about starting my own enterprise.”

Jabir Elamin notes the contact details of a prospective employer (Photo by Lucy Pawle)

Many unsuccessful job seekers end up living with family in multi-generational apartments. Elamin lived with his mother before she had a stroke. Megan Sergi, Single Stop’s uptown director, says this can put a further strain on seniors. “Sometimes their Social Security is the sole provider for paying the rent or supporting the grandchild,” she explains.

For some the strain proves too much. “I’ve seen people as old as 75 trying to find work,” Elamin says. “It’s outrageous and absurd. They shouldn’t have to be looking for it!”

Williams clearly feels the same. “Do you think I should be working at this age?” she simply asks, raising her eyebrow.

Older workers’ horizons are shorter, Van Horn adds, and “the financial and psychological blows they’re taking at that age are harder to recover from. When you’re in your 20s or 30s you’ve got your whole life still ahead.”

What Elamin misses most about his old life is the recreation he could afford. “I used to buy books every week and had quite an extensive library. I can’t do that now,” he says. “I used to love going to shows and concerts but I don’t do that any more either.”

Unsurprisingly, 35 percent of the city’s seniors say their single biggest concern is finances and employment, according to an AARP 2010 survey. Elamin isn’t destitute – he’s better off than many — but his fruitless search for work has had a clear emotional impact.

“It’s frustrating and it’s humiliating because I’ve worked all my life. When this happens and you’re not working it affects you, emotionally and spiritually,” he says. “Because you can’t function properly.”

With the unemployment rate uptown usually double the city’s average, the horizon looks grim for people like Elamin, lacking a college degree, or Williams, without even a high-school diploma.

“The unemployment rate by education is huge,” Baker says. He says their best bet is restaurants and retail, two expanding low-skilled sectors that offer just above the minimum wage. But, he acknowledges “it’s going to be very, very hard for those people.”

Nevertheless, Elamin feels optimistic. “I’m going to be in sales as an independent contractor,” he says confidently.

By setting out as an entrepreneur, he may be wise. The 1.5 million jobs being created a year only accommodate those entering the workforce. “It doesn’t help with the enormous backlog of those who are already unemployed,” Baker says.

Weeks earlier, Elamin was displaying the contents of his briefcase filled with bottles of perfume and stacks of make-up. “I’m thinking about the retail selling of cosmetics and selling them on the Internet,” he said. “I’m also thinking of starting a consulting business.”

Now he says he will probably join an existing “telecommunications energy service company” as an independent representative.   “I’ve got a meeting in December and I expect I’ll be working with them early in the new year,” he says.

But today, after an hour at the Labor Department, he gives up. He’s searched four websites for work without any luck and leaves before his allotted time is up. “It’s like searching for gold,” he says. But he’ll be back later this week, just in case.

Precious Williams with her line of plus-sized lingerie. (Photo by Sarah Tan)

The idea of starting her own plus-sized lingerie company first came to Precious Williams in the summer of 2010 when she had just started dating again after a long relationship ended. Like any woman, Williams, 32, wanted to update her wardrobe; the process included a trip to Victoria’s Secret.

But the lingerie store, best known for its televised fashion show, didn’t carry her size.

“They sent me to Lane Bryant and Ashley Stewart’s but I wouldn’t be caught dead in that,” Williams said of those stores’ plus-sized lingerie selection.

“Nowhere is a curvy woman celebrated as sexy and cute,” Williams said. “I’m a size 22, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to look cute. I always say size 22 body with a size 10 mentality.”

Williams said she talked to countless other large women with the same problem and, early this year, began saving and planning the launch of Curvy Girlz Lingerie, her own company catering to the plus-sized and stylish.

The line hasn’t yet formally launched online yet, but she has already set up a website and has been selling her Winter 2011 line at small entrepreneur events and private showings since early October.

Her lingerie comes in colorful and fashionable patterns and her line also includes plus-sized bodysuits and camisoles. Bras typically cost $60 to $75.

For now, Williams runs the company as a one-woman band. An attorney by day, she’s invested close to $20,000 of her own money to pay a designer and buy materials and has converted half her studio apartment in Harlem into a showroom.

Last month,  the Harlem Business Alliance recognized Williams as a promising local entrepreneur and awarded her a grant of $5,000 to help with her launch.

“Curvy Girlz has great potential to thrive in Harlem which is the location of their proposed store and where their target resides,” a spokesman for the Harlem Business Alliance said. “Precious’ business plan was strong and well thought-out and we look forward to seeing her grant grow.”

Even though her business is still small, Williams said she has already seen a lot of enthusiasm for her product. More than 100 customers have bought samples, she said. In the two months  she has been selling her collection, including through a sale in her apartment, she has already made back more than half of her start-up costs, she said.

“We have such a following right now; people are on the website reading and getting very excited,” Williams said.

She intends to use the Business Alliance grant to help create her Spring/Summer 2012 line, to be featured on her website, CurvyGirlzLingerie.com, in March. She also hopes to open a retail store in Harlem at some point next year.

“There was something about Harlem that did it for me,” Williams said. She moved back to Harlem from Brooklyn last January because she felt an indescribable pull to the neighborhood.

“There are times when you’re on 125th Street and you feel energy, you have black people, you have white people, Asian people, Hispanic, the energy is here,” she said.

Lane Bryant and Ashley Stewart, which have stores on 125th Street, are the only local retailers that cater exclusively to plus-sized women. Jenny D’Andrea, manager of HotSexyFit, a Harlem jeans store that sells plus-sizes, said she felt the neighborhood could use another plus-sized retailer.

“There’s a need for plus-sized clothing,” D’Andrea said.  ”The average size in America is size 13.”

Williams also hopes that by launching her business in Harlem she would can reach a younger demographic in need of feeling accepted.

“I see young African-American girls out here on the street and I can see how sad they are because they’re bigger,” Williams said. “I want to be able to say, ‘Look, I’m a curvy girl and I’m embracing life and I want you to have the self esteem that I have.’”

A lingerie store with roots in Harlem, she said, could prevent plus-sized local women from feeling isolated.

“We celebrate the beauty of a curvy woman,” Williams said, “so we are all about making sure the woman loves the skin that she’s in.”

Matou Mukamabano braids her client Kalisha Steven's hair in her Harlem salon (Photo by Yumna Mohamed)

Between braiding clients’ hair in her salon, Matou Mukamabano checks that her two daughters are doing their homework.

With a $1,500 microloan from Grameen America, Mukamabano opened Africa Hairbraiding, her salon on West 116^th Street in Harlem, in 2009 and now spends up to 16 hours a day there. Most days, her daughters come to the salon after school, eat lunch and sometimes dinner there and watch a DVD or two after they’ve finished their assignments.

“This job requires a lot of man – no, woman-hours,” Mukamabano said. “African women work harder than African men.”

Immigrant women are one of the nation’s  fastest-growing groups of entrepreneurs, according to a 2007 report by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Missouri, and have attracted investment from  local and international microfinancing organizations. The Kauffman Index of Entrepreneural Activity reported that immigrant women started businesses at a rate 57 percent higher than American-born women.

Among their supporters is Grameen America, a division of Grameen Bank, a microfinance enterprise, founded by 2006 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Muhammad Yunus, that provides small loans to women. Grameen America entered New York in 2008, the lender’s first operation outside Bangladesh.

Since 2008, the organization has disbursed over $16 million to more than 5,500 members living below the poverty line in the United States, with immigrants making up about 65 percent.

While microfinance loans often carry very high interest rates – Mukamabano is paying 15 percent a week, the Grameen standard – microfinance firms do not require collateral or credit histories, which can be major obstacles for immigrants.

Many immigrants turn to family members for financial assistance, and when that isn’t an option they approach predatory lenders who exploit their situation.

By contrast, “Grameen’s model allows women to form support groups, so they are not alone,” according to Noor Shams, a former Grameen America employee.

Grameen America has expanded to a number of U.S. locations, including a branch in northern Manhattan, launched in 2009. In 2010, the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation gave Grameen a $500,000 loan and a $125,000 grant to serve borrowers in Harlem, Washington Heights and Inwood.

“We were pleased to provide this funding to Grameen America which shares our goal of providing loans to those businesses which are too often considered ‘unbankable’ by many of the traditional commercial banks,” corporation CEO Kenneth J. Knuckles said in an e-mail.

This branch has grown to nearly 400 borrowers with a growth strategy to increase to over 4,000 borrowers over the next five years, with most borrowers starting food carts, hair salons, and home-based child care services or selling beauty products door-to-door.

Among other microlenders operating uptown is ACCION USA which, since its establishment in the U.S. more than 20 years ago has provided 18,000 microloans with a total value of $119 million, according to Gwendolyn Bonilla, an intake officer at ACCION. The company gives 40 percent of its loans to women.  While Grameen America requires its borrowers to have legal status, ACCION USA also lends to illegal immigrants, provided they have individual taxpayer identification numbers, which can be issued without Social Security numbers.

With average loans of about $5,100 and interest rates between eight and 15 percent a month, Bonilla admits that she would advise entrepreneurs to seek bank loans instead because interest rates are so much lower. “But the challenge is, many immigrants don’t qualify for bank loans because of their poor credit history or immigration status,” she said.

Grameen makes loans of between $500 and $3,000, with a maximum of $1,500 for first-time borrowers. Borrowers need not have collateral, a bank account or credit history, but must have incomes below poverty level (in New York, $22,350 for a family of four).  With four others, each borrower takes a five-day business training program and open a savings account, after which she can take out her loan. Once the borrowers start generating income, they begin repaying loans and deposit savings, about $2 a week. Once they have repaid their loans, they may take out another. Grameen America boasts a 99 percent repayment rate.

Makumabano, who moved to New York with her husband from Senegal in 2000, worked in retail stores and was a store security guard before opening her braiding salon. Over a few years, she managed to save enough money to start braiding hair in her home, then with her Grameen loan rented this small space near St. Nicholas Avenue, where she sees 10 to 15 clients a day.  She charges $50 to $200 for her braids.

Whatever obstacle she faces, she prefers being a business owner to being employed by someone else, especially as an immigrant.

“When I first came here I didn’t know anything about New York culture,” she said. “Some of my friends had lots of family support here, but my husband and I didn’t know anyone and people took advantage of this.”

“Immigrants are vulnerable to employers, especially if they are not familiar with the financial culture here in the U.S.,” agreed Foulis Peacock, an immigrant from England who last month launched a website called IMMPRENEUR.com, aimed at providing immigrant entrepreneurs with research and financing to help them start businesses.

Peacock believes that immigrant entrepreneurs have a cultural advantage: They can bring new ideas from their home countries. He also agreed that microfinancing often represents a good option for immigrants and features microfinancing organizations on the website.

But the microlending industry has also generated controversy.  Last year, officials in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh urged people not to repay microlender loans to protest against high interest rates. The state also passed stringent laws to regulate the microlending industry.

“The problem is that some lenders have tarnished the reputation of microlending institutions that truly have the interests of the poor at heart,” Shams said.  “They jumped onto the microlending bandwagon because of its do-good reputation and were using the opportunity to make exorbitant profits.”

While microloans do carry higher interest rates (interest on Grameen’s loans in India can be up to 60 or 70 percent monthly), they remain a better alternative for immigrants who, when they do not qualify for traditional bank loans, are forced to borrow from non-traditional institutions in the U.S. such as payday lenders or check cashing services. Moneylenders can charge up to 300% in interest, according to Shams.

Despite high interest rates, microlending institutions like Grameen America do have a future in the United States especially in light of the economic downturn when banks are keeping credit tight, says Jeffrey Ashe, director of community finance at Oxfam America.

But while the microfinance movement is growing in America, Ashe said, there still aren’t enough microfinance firms to serve immigrants. He pointed to another system used by ethnic communities in the U.S.: rotating savings and credit associations, small groups that save and borrow together. Each member contributes the same amount at each weekly or monthly meeting, and the whole sum is lent to each member until everyone has received funding. At that point, the club disbands.

“ROSCAs are popular among all types of immigrant communities, from Nepalis to Bolivians,” Ashe says.  “The simplicity of the program makes it suitable for immigrants with low levels of literacy.”

Mukamabano said some immigrant women need more help than she did, adding that she had a formal education in Senegal and spoke English before she arrived. In particular, few lenders help illegal immigrants. “They don’t speak English, don’t have papers and don’t know the city,” she said.

She emphasized the importance of helping each other, adding that she would be happy to teach other women how to make it in New York.

“If you teach one person he can teach another, and so on until you reach 100 people,” she said.

People assume downtown is where you should go to chow down. Not so. To demonstrate that there’s an alternative, the Uptowner visited a random selection of uptown eateries that offer pita pizzas, local meats, a French brunch menu and a traditional Dominican dish of mashed plantains.

Tags labeled “It’s back” direct customers to items being reintroduced. (Photo: Wal-Mart)

Since 2007, Walmart has poured $13 million dollars into New York City non-profit organizations, helping to rescue Jamaica Bay’s deteriorating marshes, finance the middle school curriculum at Harlem Academy and fuel Harlem RBI’s Youth Empowerment Program—although the retailing behemoth has no stores in the city.

It’s no secret that the retailer is trying to tap into the New York City market.

“While we do not have any announced stores in the five boroughs, we think Walmart can be part of the solution for New York City customers who need jobs or want more affordable grocery options in their own neighborhood,” said Steven Restivo, Walmart’s director of community affairs.

But some uptowners are not buying it. In October, prompted by rumors that Walmart was considering a store at a vacant lot on 125^th Street and Lenox Avenue, about 75 Harlem residents and business owners gathered in protest at the location.

“Walmart does not create jobs, it destroys jobs,” said State Sen. Bill Perkins at the rally, sponsored by Walmart Free NYC, a coalition working to keep the retailer out of the city.

The corporation, no doubt anticipating such charges, has launched a website geared at winning over skeptical New Yorkers, walmartnyc.com, where browsers can find endless lists of job statistics and health benefits the city would purportedly gain if it welcomed Walmart.

Such tactics represent a seasoned strategy among big-box retailers facing stiff community opposition. Before opening its controversial store in East River Plaza, Target spent over 10 years wooing the uptown community, refurbishing an East Harlem elementary school library, financing admission to El Museo del Barrio and developing the Target East Harlem Community Garden on East 117^th Street.

Last summer, Walmart announced that it would donate $20 million over five years to Chicago charities; a critical city council vote three days later paved the way for a store on the city’s South Side.

In this case, a Walmart Free NYC public research team had learned that Walmart was scouting the vacant Harlem lot, said Kasha Johnson, client support representative at Bill Lynch Associates, a consultant to the Harlem sector of Walmart Free NYC.

“They are in the form of having secret meetings, so you kind of have to do your own digging,” Johnson said. “Sometimes you don’t know.”  The fall rally, she said,  ”was planned as us being more proactive than reactive. It was us saying, ‘You don’t even want to know how we’ll react if we find out this is really what you want to do.’”

Walmart Free NYC is supported by labor unions including the United Food and Commercial Workers, which has repeatedly tried, but failed, to unionize Walmart stores across the country.

“Harlem is full of small businesses that are neighborhood institutions, but Walmart would take over the marketplace and give shoppers fewer retail options,” said Stephanie Yazig, director of Walmart Free NYC.

While Walmart claims to provide a broad assortment of goods at low prices, local employees and customers have mixed reactions to the prospect of a store uptown.

“I’ve never been in the store, but if they can offer fresh fruits and vegetables it could benefit the community and create jobs,” said Harlem native Jewel James. “I go downtown for my stuff. Obesity, salt, fat—this place is a poison for kids.”

Jay Daniels, an employee of King Party Center on Lenox Ave and 125th Street, admits to shopping at the store elsewhere and using its website, but doesn’t support a store in Harlem. “I like Walmart, just not here,” he said. “Walmart would shut mom-and-pop businesses down and spit them out piece by piece.”

Next door, Baji Shak, a cashier at Harlem 99¢ and Up, believes Walmart would attract more shoppers to the neighborhood. “This means it will be a busy area and will bring in more customers,” she said.

But Neene Ramp, a manager at Paramount, a local housewares store, says she can’t compete with Walmart’s prices. “They are cheaper and go down to a price I don’t think I can do here. It would be a hard competition,” she said.

She has a point: At the $1 Dollar Depot on St. Nicholas Avenue and 125thStreet, a tube of Colgate toothpaste sells for $3.99, while a two-pack sells for $3.28 on Walmart’s website.  A 28-ounce bottle of Pine-Sol sells for $2.99 in the store, two cents more than Walmart’s 48-ounce bottle.

“The reality is that smaller businesses have to pool their resources and local merchants need to get in the habit of buying from local stores, even if it costs more,” said Larry Nickens, 47, a Harlem native.

“They have to put their money where their mouth is,” he said. “We have to take things like this more seriously before the fact than after the fact.”

Jobs are a major concern in Harlem. According to the State Department of Labor, the city’s unemployment rate was at 9 percent in October.

A big-box store would bolster the job market, said Ernest Jackson, senior director of Strive, a nonprofit East Harlem employment service. “It would make more jobs available for residents,” he said.  ”It would bring a different alternative to the neighborhood.”

“There is Marshall’s and CVS here; what is the difference? I don’t see anything wrong with Walmart,” said Brad Bathgate, a local resident. “People get upset with changes in Harlem but change is good, not always bad. “

Karen Bussen works in her new one-bedroom East Harlem condo. (Photo by Gabriel Stargardter)

When longtime renter Karen Bussen decided to buy a home in August, East Harlem wasn’t her first choice. She wanted to stay near her central Harlem rental, but after an exhaustive search yielded few reasonably priced options, she settled on a $258,000 one-bedroom condo on East 118^th Street.

“I am so much happier than I even thought I was going to be,” Bussen said, looking around her new white-walled, driftwood-decorated space.

Demand for East Harlem real estate has more than doubled since last year, according to figures released by Urbandigs.com, a real estate analytics site. Even in the last three months, the pending sales trend, which provides the most accurate measure of changing demand, has moved from -30.8 percent in August to nearly +11 percent in October.

This growth is altering the neighborhood, spurred by three factors: lower prices than in nearby neighborhoods, first-time buyers lured by low interest rates—they’ve dropped by 0.5 percent in New York City since last year, according to mortgage rate analytics site HSH.com—and new incentives for development.

Bussen, an interior decorator and party planner, is delighted to own an apartment.  As part of her contract she’ll have a seat on the building’s co-op board in a year and a half, a thrilling prospect for a first-time buyer.

“Madonna, forget it, you’re out,” she said.

Buyers appreciate East Harlem’s cheaper prices, said Bruce Robertson, a real estate agent with Corcoran Group. He said local properties offer similar perks to central Harlem’s for less.

“We’re selling a one bedroom on 112th which is practically brand new because the guy never used it,” he said. “It’s a resale, we’re selling it for $375,000, and it’s like 650 square feet in a nice building.” A similar west Harlem condo typically goes for closer to $550,000, Corcoran’s website shows.

Paradoxically, the economic malaise can benefit first-time buyers with steady incomes. “If you only have to put down five percent, your payments are still going to be comparable to renting,” said fellow Corcoran agent Brian Armstead.

It was low prices and mortgage rates that lured Bussen into purchasing. ”The housing market was a buyers’ market,” she said.

Realtors are also offering a host of incentives for new buyers. At Corcoran’s “attainable luxury” Embelesar condos on East 118^th Street, where Bussen lives, studios start at a bargain $138,000; they come with a number of resale restrictions, but give buyers access to affordable first homes.

Robb Pair, president of Harlem Lofts Real Estate, said his clientele has changed since 2007, when he mostly sold to investors looking to rent out properties. Now more than 95 percent are “in-users,” meaning they plan to live in the buildings.

“The investors had some trouble getting loans and stopped investing for a short period of time and then the federal laws, the lending practices, supported in-users,” he said.

Bussen bought her apartment as an investment, but also plans to stay for at least a decade. As a freelancer who travels for work, her airy new building’s proximity to JFK was an unexpected bonus. “It was never about purchasing and flipping it,” she said. “I wanted a base.”

Developers, too, have flocked to East Harlem. According to 2010 Department of City Planning figures, the neighborhood had 385 vacant lots compared to 287 in central Harlem. It’s cheaper for developers to build on vacant lots than to demolish and rebuild, Armstead said, which prompted a construction boom in East Harlem.

Another factor is the September arrival of Hunter College’s School of Social Work between East 118^th and 119^th Streets, which drew a new group of potential customers and raised the neighborhood’s profile. For Karen Bussen, however, the school is only one of many local attractions.  Not only is she walking distance from Central Park, her favorite place in the city, she also appreciates East Harlem’s diversity and the slew of new businesses sprouting up.

Gentrification is no foreign concept to East Harlem’s longtime residents, but Bussen’s immediate neighbors sounded pleased about the new arrivals.

Across from the Embelesar, Altagracia Camilo sat in the Leiby Beauty Salon getting her hair colored.  She has lived above the salon for 12 years and watched the condos go up.

“The people who came are calm, without problems,” she said in Spanish. “They are a good influence on the youth around here.”

There’s no sunshine where this garden grows. (Photo by Lina Zeldovich)

Devoid of sun and soil and shaken by rumbling trains above, the concrete slab underneath the Park Avenue Metro North tracks could hardly produce a weed, but it looked like a good garden spot to Dimitri Gatanas, a landscaper with a green thumb and green outlook.

Gatanas, 38, also sought a chance to return to his roots: for his grandparents and his mother, Harlem was home, and the concrete patch was a market where they shopped every day. In the 1950s, La Marqueta was a booming multiblock market, but it has shrunk and lost many tenants since.

“These plazas were full of butchers, grocers and retailers,” says Gatanas, whose Urban Garden Center occupies the block between 116th to 117th Streets in East Harlem. “The entire upper Manhattan was dependent on this public market. You could buy clothes here, fish, beans, everything.”

A mortgage broker, Gatanas, turned to landscaping when his grandmother asked him for help with the family business 12 years ago.  “I started helping and before I knew it, I was taking in orders and picking out plants at markets,” he recalls.

House plants do well underneath the buttress. (Photo by Lina Zeldovich)

After losing his family’s Upper East Side location, he moved the business to the Bronx, then Harlem.  Now Japanese maples 5 feet tall and delicate palm trees flourish in clay pots next to herbs and colorful fall mums in plastic planters. Many houseplants don’t need much light so they do well in the shade, he says.  The sun-loving shrubs get the garden’s east side, where they bask in morning rays.

So does the chicken coop where pudgy white and brown hens peck at pumpkin shells.

“I got them from a live poultry place,” says Gatanas’ father, Nick.  He waits for the train above to pass and continues. “I basically saved their lives. The neighborhood children love it, they come to see them all the time.”

Gatanas’ mother, Aspasia, chimes in, “They can watch them, but not pet them, because they may peck.”

Both parents work at the garden center. “I wish my grandma was alive when I got the deal,” says Dimitri Gatanas, adding that he worked hard to lease his two 10,000-square-foot lots, which the city had slated for parking.  “Not everyone has the opportunity to come back to where they were.”

Mike gets his face painted at the garden fall festival. (Photo by Lina Zeldovich)

More than 400 people showed up on the freezing rainy spring day he opened, Gatanas says. In the fall, the business slows down, so he runs a Halloween fest where local children can explore a haunted house, drink apple cider and get their faces painted – all for free.

The garden center presents challenges beyond marketing and agriculture.

“We don’t have electricity here so we are forced to take check or cash, but next year I’m toying with an idea of a Paypal account,” says Gatanas, who moved his office – computers, printers and scanners — into a trailer running on a diesel generator. It will be soon converted to bio-diesel powered by used vegetable oil from restaurants. Gatanas uses his cell phone as his hot spot. The Community Board 11 office on the next block lets the Gatanases use its restrooms.

The city has awarded Gatanas a grant for composting. “I don’t throw away garbage anymore,” Gatanas says, pointing at the compost bins. He donates the compost to community gardens. “People from the neighborhood come and dump their garbage into the bins; we just have to watch out they dump the right stuff.”

Gatans enjoys telling people about ecology, animals and green lifestyles. “We’re showing to people it’s possible,” he says. “You don’t need much to garden – you can do it under the train.”

Dimitri Gatanas cooking pumpkin soup while trains rumble above. (Photo by Lina Zeldovich)

He says you don’t need soil either.  Gatanas is researching hydroponics, a way to grow plants in water by using mineral nutrient solutions. He’s also thinking about building an aquaponic fish farm where water recycled through plants is filtered into a pond. He may be able to produce a million pounds of fish a year under the Metro North buttress, he says, proving that one doesn’t need trucks to deliver food to table.  “All poor people in this community can benefit from this,” he says excitedly. “And it would all exist in a parking lot space!”

Kjerstina Salmon, who lives nearby, brings her two children to watch the hens while she buys plants.

“The best thing about this place,” says local resident Marquis Devereaux, “is that people can buy fresh herbs, fruit and vegetables here.”