Imam Shamsi Ali on a workday, clean shaven and wearing a suit. (Photo by Hani Yousuf)

Imam Shamsi Ali sits with his group of three students in the main prayer hall of the mosque at 96th Street and Third Avenue, officially the Islamic Cultural Center of New York. Recent converts to Islam, the students attend the imam’s Saturday lectures on subjects ranging from prayer rituals to looking beyond the Quranic text to its essential meaning. The class is informal: students get to ask questions during and after it, and Ali smiles a lot. He makes references to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.

“What happened?” he calls across the hall when a student hurriedly walks out just after coming in. He has accidentally brought shoes into the prayer hall, not allowed in a mosque. Allah always forgives mistakes, Ali says with a smile.

Imam Shamsi Ali wears a suit and has no beard. He doesn’t conform to the stereotype of a Muslim cleric and doesn’t feel he needs to dress the part. Robes and a long beard are not necessary criteria for being a good Muslim, he says. He has a slight build and calm voice, speaking clearly and articulately despite the accent and grammar of one who is not a native English speaker.

Named one of the city’s “influentials” by New York Magazine in May 2006, he is best known for his efforts towards interfaith harmony. “He’s soft spoken but projects this moral force,” says Walter Ruby, Muslim-—Jewish program officer at the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, who has worked with Ali on interfaith relations.

For two years, since his predecessor retired, Ali has led this mosque, overseeing everything from cleaning to settling religious issues. He has modernized the mosque’s communications by encouraging email use and has placed stricter rules around distributing zakat, a charity all Muslims are required to contribute to. He was also instrumental in planning an Islamic school, Manhattan’s first, scheduled to begin next fall.

Ali is an unconventional Muslim cleric. Unlike many other imams, he doesn’t consider music unIslamic. He doesn’t believe women need to cover their faces and thinks they should have roles equal to men, in religion and otherwise.

The imam dressed to lead prayer. (Photo by Hani Yousuf)

Ali believes that American Muslims should have an identity of their own rather than trying to adopt their parents’.

“I personally am in the view that we must create our own identity as a community,” says Ali. “ So, I want to see in the future American Muslims that identify themselves as Muslims and Americans; in other words they are not forced into certain identity as Pakistanis or Bangladeshis or Africans or Arabs.” He adds that he wants the Muslim community in New York to be very “advanced” socially, culturally, educationally and politically.

Born in Indonesia, Ali went to an Islamic boarding school there. It was unlike madrassahs elsewhere in the Muslim world, he emphasized; his school required biology and history along with Islam, he says. After graduating, he attended the International Islamic University in Islamabad, Pakistan, then located at Shah Faisal Mosque, considered the country’s most beautiful. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Islamic education, then went to Saudi Arabia to teach. In 1996, he came to the US with the permanent mission to Indonesia for the UN and led a small mosque for Indonesian Muslims in Astoria, Queens.

“September 11 then gave me even more opportunities to reach out,” says Ali, speaking in his spartan office in the mosque. “I represented the Muslim community at the Yankee Stadium’s Prayer for America weeks after September 11.” One of two Muslims who received President George W. Bush at Ground Zero, Ali told the president the terrorists did not represent the Muslim faith, but their own “ego.”

And after that he was everywhere, Ali says, lecturing at universities, speaking to the FBI and police officials, appearing in synagogues and churches. He believes such efforts landed him the job of assistant imam at the Islamic Cultural Center of New York, where he has organized many seminars and talks with rabbis and priests.

Last year, Rabbi Michael Weisser invited Ali to be the guest speaker at the Free Synagogue of Flushing on Holocaust Memorial Day, which takes place each year after Passover. Since then, Weisser says, he has spoken at the mosque after Friday prayers and the two have participated in prayer together at both the mosque and the synagogue. “He’s a shining light on the world,” says Weisser. “He sees the truth and then speaks the truth.”

Weisser calls Ali an inspiration not only to Muslims, but to Jews and Christians as well. “I introduce him to people as my rabbi,” says Weisser laughing and adds that Ali introduces him as his imam.

Ruby, from the Foundation of Ethnic Understanding, says Ali is a “very impressive guy.” While many Muslims have denounced terrorism, says Ruby, Ali is especially outspoken — despite the criticism he’s encountered from within the Muslim community.

“We organized a two-day seminar on what the holy book says about the others,” says Ali. “The Quran is very critical of the Jews and Christians and how should Muslims understand those verses that talk about the Jews and Christians? And in the meantime, we must maintain our relationship with the Jewish community and the Christian community.”

Bishop Ebony Kirkland of the Church of the Living God Worldwide in Queens Village, Queens, has been involved with Ali, since he spoke at an interfaith dialogue at the church. During a debate about which religion was right, she was struck by the imam’s statement that, “ There is really no absolute, the only absolute is God.”

“He has a peace that passes all understanding,” she says, referring to his calm manner. “He teaches in such a spirited way,” Kirkland adds. “There is such an ease of learning from him.”

Ali has also recently received the Prince Naif award, given by a Saudi official for intereligious harmony.

To help Muslim immigrants in the U.S. better assimilate, Ali organizes Thanksgiving celebrations every year and has been very involved with the Muslim Day Parade, which he sees as an opportunity for integration. “Get from the city and give back to the city,” says Ali. The parade, which usually takes place in early fall, proceeds down Madison Avenue, from 42nd Street to 24th, followed by bazaars and cultural shows.

Though orthodox Muslims consider music unlawful, Ali has brought children from the Indonesian community school in Astoria, Queens to perform Islamic songs at the post-parade celebrations.

“Some imams talked,” says Ali. “But they didn’t talk directly to me. Probably they know that when they talk to me, I will make them understand.”

His own colleague at the 96th Street mosque, Assistant Imam Abdul Rehman, thinks music is unacceptable.

Ali leading prayer at the 96th Street mosque. (Photo by Hani Yousuf)

“For me music is a neutral thing,” Ali responds. “Depends on what kind of music you’re talking about. And for which purpose you are using it. And so, if music is used for Islamic song where you are reminded of God and Islam, then what is wrong to use the music?”

He adds, smiling, that he has watched disapproving imams’ faces during the singing and they seem to be enjoying it.

As for the practice of women covering their faces, Ali agrees with the controversial Egyptian scholars who deem it more cultural than religiously required. “I see it as sometimes kind of embarrassing when I see a woman walking on the street covering her face,” says Ali. “People tend to say, ‘This is the way Muslims treat their women, covered from head to toe. They cannot move.’ This is not what Islam is about.” Though the niqab veil is regarded as a sign of modesty, Ali sees it differently. A veiled woman walking in Time’s Square will get stared at, rather than avert attention, he says.

Further, women with covered faces can’t participate in the mosque and its affairs as much as he thinks they should. While he doesn’t think women should lead prayer, which hasn’t been done traditionally, he believes women can lead other mosque activities.

He does believe that women’s covering their heads is essential to modesty but also sees it as a choice which shouldn’t be imposed.

This has brought critics within the community, including a widespread rumor that he once tried to convince a woman to have an abortion, considered a sin by orthodox Muslims.

Ali says he doesn’t remember such an incident, but that Islam is flexible on that issue, given the circumstances. In the case of teenage pregnancies or when there is a threat to a pregnant woman’s life, the religious leader needs to be wise and flexible while advising someone, he says.

The Islamic Thinkers Society, an Islamic advocacy group, has posted Ali’s picture circled in red, with a caption that reads “FBI Mouthpiece.” The site denounces him as a hypocrite and criticizes him for bringing music into the Indonesian mosque he leads in Queens and for allowing the “free-mixing” of the sexes. Ali thinks the FBI accusation stems from Islam-awareness lectures he held for FBI employees.

The Islamic Thinkers Society, emailed for comment, did not respond.

“These individuals oppose me basically because I oppose their ideas, their hateful ideas, their narrow mindedness in understanding our religion and I really disagree with them and I oppose them strongly and I will never agree with them in their approach,” responds Ali.

One of the two buildings that still sit under the Metro North rail tracks, taking up three blocks instead of five as they used to in the 1930s. (Photo by Cecile Dehesdin)

On a regular weekday, the stretch of Park Avenue between 111th and 116th Streets in East Harlem is all but deserted, with four passers-by at most. Blocks away from the newly opened Costco, two brightly painted buildings sit under the Metro-North railroad tracks. Only one is open, welcoming visitors with a sign spelling La Marqueta in joyful letters. Inside, the two first stalls are rented and open, plus a few more next to them, but that’s all. The rest of the building consists of empty stalls barred by iron gratings, some of which can only be seen from afar, because a huge grid blocks half the building. The only noise is the soft humming of Latino soap operas watched by some vendor waiting for customers to serve, and every so often a discussion with those few customers.

Shopping at La Marqueta used to be a real bustle. “In the ’60s you couldn’t even come through here because it was so busy,” butcher José Cintron fondly remembers. “It was packed from 6 to 6 Monday to Saturday, it was loud, and there was a fish stink like hell!” He pauses. “It was the good days.”

The good days passed in the late ’70s, when La Marqueta started slowly dying. Since then, the city has tried various times to revive it, without success. Today, a new plan is in place: part of the market is to become a kitchen incubator, where food entrepreneurs will rent kitchen space to get their businesses started at a low cost.

It was the city that first created La Marqueta, East Harlem Chamber of Commerce President Henry Calderon explained. “It started with Mayor La Guardia in the ’30s,” he said. “There were vendors all over the place,” and so the idea was to regulate the activity of all these street vendors by putting them in one place. Merchants quickly filled the five buildings, and evolved with the neighborhood. It was the place to find food impossible to spot in New York. “The food in the rest of the city catered to the majority” of its residents, said Calderon. And so as Puerto Ricans settled in East Harlem, La Marqueta “became a place where you could find food that your recognized. So La Marqueta became a symbol of El Barrio.”

Yuca, yautia, bacalao, malanga, morcilla, chorizo, longaniza were among the specialties at La Marqueta. “Everyone came here, from the Bronx or Brooklyn too, especially those who didn’t have the staples of their diet,” said Pedro Pedraza, a longtime resident of East Harlem and a researcher at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies. “And since you were here you might eat here too, since on the West Side you couldn’t find Puerto Rican restaurants, unless you went farther up.”

Marina Ortiz, founder of the advocacy website East Harlem Preservation, said, “That was the shopping district.” Goods would be “pouring down on the sidewalks, blocking the access,” she said. “It was just a trip. You could spend a day there and buy cheap. We didn’t have chain stores or as many bodegas.”

It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment of and reasons for La Marqueta’s slow death. According to Pedraza, the East Harlem community started changing in the late ’70s, diversifying. As he and the few merchants still at the market explained, some vendors died, some retired, and no young generation came to replace them.

At the same time, supermarkets and bodegas started carrying the ethnic food that used to only be found at La Marqueta. “Before, people came from all the boroughs and all over the city because they couldn’t find it elsewhere. If you can, then why make the trip?” Calderon said. Ortiz added, “It became a place where people didn’t go, and even avoided.” The downhill slide “culminated in a fire that destroyed most buildings,” she said. Today only two buildings are still standing: the one with the market, and a large empty one. A third lot has become a gated outer plaza, while the two last ones are empty.

With fewer and fewer shops, La Marqueta stopped being that giant open air market, and “people like to shop in places where they can buy everything at the same time,” fishman Bernard Lifschultz said. At 90 years old, Lifschultz, who goes by Benny and is affectionately nicknamed “the old man” by some customers and vendors, has been working at La Marqueta for 63 years. He came at the end of World War II, and hasn’t left since. He still remembered the time when “there was a long waiting list to have a stall here, because it was very lucrative.”

Today business is not as profitable, but Benny and the handful of current vendors are not ready to leave. “It occupies my time,” said Benny, whose savings from the glorious days of La Marqueta help carry through his older years. “I doubt a newcomer would do very well.”

Jose Cintron watches a Latino soap opera while waiting for potential clients. (Photo by Cecile Dehesdin)

His colleague of 40 years, José Cintron, said: “I’ve got two more years before I retire. I don’t need to get rich, I don’t want to die rich. I make enough to have fun now.” Cintron, Benny and the few other vendors benefit from low rent since the building is owned by the city. Cintron pays $600 a month, utilities and insurance included. He said he had enough to live with around $5000 a month after expenses, 60 to 70 customers a week.

“Forty years ago, I had 1,000 customers a week,” Cintron said. “I don’t think this place is going nowhere.”

Throughout the years, city administrations have tried to revive the space but one plan after another fell through. Calderon said, “The plans to revive it have been mislaid because they were trying to recreate something that was there in the ’50s.” Ortiz added: “People are very nostalgic. They don’t want to let go of the heart of El Barrio, it’s a landmark.”

For the New York City Economic Development Corporation, one of the reasons previous attempts failed was their large scope, spokesperson Janel Patterson explained. So at the beginning of August, the group decided to take another, smaller approach, by announcing the construction of a kitchen incubator in the market’s building. The fully equipped shared kitchen will take over a little more than a third of the 10,000 square foot building. Young food startups or food businesses looking to expand will be able to rent a kitchen space and equipment to cook at a cheaper rate than elsewhere in the city.

Contractors sent out proposals to undertake the construction at the beginning of September. They are now being reviewed, Patterson wrote in an email. Construction is expected to begin by the end of the year, and the incubator should be completed by the end of summer 2010. Ultimately, the group hopes to revive the whole La Marqueta area, but for now the focus was on the market building and the empty building, which could be used for storage. The city has budgeted $1 million, allocated by Speaker Christine Quinn for the outfitting of the incubator, Patterson said.

For the vendors, it’s a simple case of being burnt one time too many. “I went to so many meetings,” Cintron said. “We sit down there like dummies hearing those people say, ‘We’re gonna do this and that’, and then they get the money and they vanish. Promise, promise, promise, yeah, promise in your pocket!”

Patterson wrote that the vendors have been “informally informed,” and that the kitchen’s construction and operation should not affect them. Cintron said he learned about the plans from a reporter in September. “I got to see this to believe it,” he said. As for Lifschultz, he said he may have heard of it, but that “it sounded so ridiculous to me that it slipped my mind.” La Marqueta’s veteran thinks the area will not support the initiative. “People come here to buy food cheaper than elsewhere, they’re struggling to subsist. See those tails I cut off the fish to put in the garbage? Yesterday someone asked me to give it to them to make soup. Times are bad, and they are making fancy projects.”

Calderon said: “To me, it’s a sad ending. Having a commercial kitchen sounds good because it creates these jobs in this economy, but the symbol is lost.” While agreeing that nostalgia was not going to help La Marqueta, he would have preferred it to be turned into a destination for tourism, something with local restaurants and ethnic cuisine, but also local artists creating crafts. “Something that brings tourism, money, and jobs for the people who live there, while keeping the name of La Marqueta,” he said.

Deciding to start small might not necessarily be the best answer, said Kathrine Gregory, who started working with kitchen incubators seven years ago. As a consultant for kitchen incubators with her company “Mi kitchen es su kitchen,” she was in touch with the New York City Economic Development Corporation over the plans for La Marqueta. She said though kitchen incubators were a good solution for food start-ups since they reduced costs drastically (renting a kitchen space means not having to buy a $50,000 bread oven for example), they couldn’t be sustainable by themselves. “No incubator without other streams of revenue is financially viable,” she said as she was touring the kitchen incubator she runs in Long Island City, Queens, because without them “you can’t keep prices low enough.”

Ovens like this one, lit up by Kathryn Gregory in her Queens kitchen incubator, can cost up to $50,000. (Photo by Cecile Dehesdin)

The Queens kitchen was built into the Consortium for Worker Education building, and is used for a culinary certification program as well as for the incubator. Those classes, as part as numerous other classes the consortium provides, are the reason the incubator can survive, Gregory said.

“To be sustainable in and of itself, an incubator has to be 75 percent occupied,” she said. If the 4,000-square-foot incubator in La Marqueta was broken into four kitchens, available to rent for three shifts seven days a week, like the one in Queens is, that would amount to 336 shifts. The incubator would need to rent 252 shifts out of those 336 a month in order to be sustainable. “That’s why an incubator as a stand-alone project will not work,” Gregory said, arguing that side projects could help pay for utilities, maintenance and managing fees, especially at the start.

Gregory, who did not answer the city’s requests for a proposal but would consider working with whichever contractor wins the request, said she had tons of ideas for La Marqueta, “to create something that becomes like a Mecca” for East Harlem. She thought side projects should include renting small stalls in the market to incubator users or other food merchants, as a way to create a buzz. “More stalls equals more excitement equals more people coming and more chance of them buying!”

When asked about the possibility of incubator users renting stalls in the market to sell their products, Patterson said that those were still early days, and that “lots of decisions will be made by the manager.”

A menorah, a traditional Hanukkah candelabra, at the Old Broadway Synagogue. (Photo by Joshua Tapper)

By Joshua Tapper

In recent years, Harlem hasn’t been a magnet for Jewish New Yorkers. In addition to a Chabad chapter and an itinerant minyan group, Harlem has just one traditional synagogue. Yet, the Old Broadway Synagogue, tucked under the shadow of the elevated subway, just off 125th Street, remains a stalwart of the small Harlem Jewish community, as it has since 1923.

This Hanukkah, the synagogue opened its doors to the community, bringing Jews and non-Jews together to celebrate the Festival of Lights. On the fourth night of the eight-night holiday, the synagogue, in conjunction with Senator Bill Perkins’ office, hosted a candle-lighting ceremony and feast of latkes (potato pancakes) and sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts).

Paul Radensky, the synagogue’s gregarious president, began the festivities by welcoming the crowd of about 30 to the community-building affair. A series of speakers, including Sen. Perkins, spoke of the Jewish community’s importance to Harlem.

The Hanukkah celebration, in its second year, “shows another side of Harlem and the diversity that exists,” said Cordell Cleare, Sen. Perkin’s chief of staff and the event’s main organizer. “We can learn what others are celebrating and it’s a way for us to come together.” Sen. Perkins’ office is organizing Christmas and Kwanzaa parties as well.

As guests filtered into the narrow sanctuary, taking their seats in wooden pews, a silver, menorah sat high on the bimah, an elevated platform at the front of the room.

Ronald Newsome, a 78-year-old Harlem resident, was attending his first Hanukkah party. He recalled the days when Harlem was home to a vibrant Jewish community. “We all occupy the same spaces,” Newsome said, stressing the importance of interfaith programs.

Old Broadway Synagogue has a congregation of 50 to 60, but draws 25 to 35 for regular Saturday morning services. While many of the congregants come from the Upper West Side, there are “more and more Jews living in Harlem now,” Radensky said. He jokingly calls the community “a ghetto in the ghetto.”

Paul Radensky, left, Sen. Bill Perkins, center, and Cordell Cleare, Sen. Perkins' chief of staff, discuss the night's festivities. (Photo by Sonal Shah)

The Hanukkah party attracted a diverse crowd. Bearded Orthodox Jews sat next to blacks, some Jewish, some not. Carla McIntosh, a black Jew and Harlem resident who’s attended the synagogue off-and-on for 10 years, said she’s never encountered religious prejudice. The party was important, McIntosh said, “because we’re a community, a small neighborhood, and we need to get along.”

Candace Queen Mother Abbess, also knows as Bishop Shirley Pitts, of the Ethiopian Orthodox Coptic Church of North and South America, is an example of religious synthesis in the area. She’s cared for “Jewish elders” for 40 years and has picked up some of the traditions. She pulled a prayer shawl from her purse. “I always carry a prayer shawl in case the Sabbath catches me somewhere,” she said.

Reporting by Sonal Shah

TALKING ABOUT KWANZAA

By Shareen Pathak

This holiday season, African-Americans will be placing candle-filled kinaras side-by-side with tinselly Christmas trees to celebrate Kwanzaa, which takes place from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1.

Created by Ron Karenga in 1966, the seven-day celebration is the first specifically African-American holiday.  The Uptowner spoke to Abdel Salaam, assistant director of Forces of Nature: A Kwanzaa Celebration, opening tonight at City College, about the holiday. (We have edited and condensed his responses.)

Q: What is the history of Kwanzaa? How is it particularly relevant to Harlem?

A: The holiday is non-heroic, non-religious and nonsectarian. It is based on the East African harvest called Kwanza, and finds a particularly relevant home in Harlem, which many celebrate as the black cultural capital of the modern world.

Many of the earliest devotees of Kwanzaa were from Harlem and Brooklyn and helped disseminate its cultural doctrine, the Nguzo Saba, or seven principles. They are:

• Umoja (unity)
• Kujichagulia (self-determination)
• Ujima (collective work and responsibility)
• Ujamaa (cooperative economics)
• Nia (purpose)
• Kumba (creativity)
• Imani (faith)

Q: How widely celebrated is Kwanzaa?

A: Kwanzaa probably has its greatest following in the cities of the United States, like New York, Chicago, Newark, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles, which was the home of Dr. Karenga.  While particularly relevant to African-Americans, Kwanzaa’s universal principles can be celebrated by anyone and currently have followers and practitioners in Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and of course the Americas. Probably about 18 million people celebrate it today.

Q. What special products are sold for Kwanzaa in Harlem?

Kwanzaa cards, childrens’ games, Kwanzaa kits, Mishuma Saba (seven candles) and mkekas (straw mats) are very popular. We also get Kiikombe cha Umoja (unity cups) and vibunzi (Native American corn). Zawadi (hand-made gifts) are available nationwide in most African communities and some major chain stores. Walk along 125th Street and you’ll see what I mean. All the small shops are selling this stuff.

Harlem Stage presents Forces of Nature: A Kwanzaa Celebration, a dance, music and theater experience opening tonight at the Aaron Davis Hall at City College. For tickets and more information, call 212.281.9240 x 27.

EL MUSEO PARADES NEW PUPPETS FOR THREE KINGS DAY

By Shane Show
Note: This story was updated on Dec. 16, 2009.

El Museo's original Three Kings figures are being converted into a museum exhibit. Roughly six feet high, they rolled down Harlem's streets on wooden frames, but have been in various states of decay as years have passed. Photo by Shane Snow.

Having paraded down East Harlem’s streets each January for 32 years, El Museo del Barrio’s renowned, trundling Three Kings Day figurines will be retired this year, to be replaced by 12-foot high papier maché puppets representing the convergence of traditions, races and cultures in Latin America.

Local artist Polina Porras Sivolobova designed and is overseeing construction of the puppets, which will make their debut at this year’s parade on Jan. 6, said El Museo spokesman Ines Aslan. They’ll blend the traditional Christian style with some Caribbean flavor, Aslan said.

The puppets, an El Museo statement explained, are “inspired in the Taíno cosmological tradition, are made of papier maché, colorful fabrics, and a carefully-crafted structure that allows for graceful movement.” Taínos were pre-Columbian inhabitants of Puerto Rico and other nearby islands.

The local parade, which will step off from Park Avenue and 106th Street at 11 a.m. and circle its way to El Museo by 1 p.m., is renowned for its colorful floats, upbeat music and dancing. “The director of the museum started the parade,” Aslan said. “The museum staff and neighborhood artists created the puppets and decorations.”

Operators control the new puppets from the inside, bearing the weight with a backpack-like mechanism. The finished puppets will hold gifts in front of them and feature detailed painted heads rich in Taíno and Christian symbolism. Photo by Shane Snow.

Three Kings Day, the culmination of the traditional Twelve Days of Christmas, commemorates the trio of Biblical magi who brought gifts to the newborn Christ child. Though often overshadowed by its more commercial holiday counterpart on Dec. 25, Three Kings Day remains popular in many Latin countries, often celebrated with a banquet known as the Feast of the Epiphany.

“The synergy of the Christian and Taíno traditions, wonderfully embodied by our new puppets, perfectly synthesizes the unique cultural mix that characterizes our community, as well as El Museo del Barrio’s mission,” the museum statement said.

Harlem Renaissance High School, a transfer school in East Harlem, offers programs tailored to the needs of students previously off-track from graduating. (Photo by Rachael Horowitz)

Dashawn Gadsen left John F. Kennedy High School in the Bronx without a diploma after four years of poor attendance. Overage and under-credited, he entered Harlem Renaissance High School in 2008, at the age of 17, in the hopes of turning around his academic record. “A real person will admit to their mistakes,” he said of his years at JFK, where his problems had less to do with his classes and more to do with his not showing up. “I had to break out of it.”

The Department of Education does not freely offer public records of overage students like Gadsen in the system, but it does offer a definition of overage as being two or more years older than the standard age for a grade. Gadsen is at risk for dropping out due to his age and his lack of credits, but unlike him, many at-risk students are already overage by the time they leave middle school, if not earlier. About 65 percent of the students in the city who drop out of high school were overage when they began ninth grade, according to a 2008 study from the department’s Office of Accountability.

Students become overage when they repeat grades, either because they don’t meet the promotional criteria or because of interruptions in their schooling, like foster care or frequent family relocation. “They’re overage because they’ve gone through a series of systems that haven’t met their needs,” said Shadia Alvarez, an aspiring principal at Harlem Renaissance High School, from which Gadsen hopes to graduate in August. “By the time we get them, they come in fighting us. We have to break down that wall in order to gain access to help and support them.”

Alvarez is training to become a principal through the New York City Leadership Academy and has been at Harlem Renaissance – a transfer school that accepts only students who have already been in ninth grade and are considered off-track for graduation – since August. The students are part of a group categorized by the Department of Education as under-credited, and as a result, more than 1 in 4 is also overage – older than the typical student in his or her grade.

The number of overage students in the city is significant and extends to all five boroughs, according to Christie Hill, a staff attorney for Advocates for Children of New York, an education access advocacy group, but disproportionate numbers are non-native English speakers, students with special needs and students of color. Ninety-eight percent of students at Harlem Renaissance Academy are African-American or Latino.

Advocates for Children is in the process of analyzing the Department of Education’s data on overage students to make recommendations and raise awareness, “so people know that a 16- or 17-year-old in eighth grade is not all that uncommon in New York City,” Hill said.

The issue of overage students is tied to promotion and retention policies in school – when students are allowed to pass from one grade to the next. Because overage students are less likely to graduate from high school, some people equate leaving back a student with giving him or her a dropout sentence.

However, the Department of Education released a report in October detailing the success of the latest fifth-grade retention and promotion policy, requiring students to earn a level 2 out of 4 in both math and English language arts proficiency tests before they advance to sixth grade. A level 2 generally indicates that the student is approaching grade level standards in the subject. The department began implementing the policy with third graders in 2003 and extended it to include fifth graders in 2004 and commissioned the RAND Corporation to conduct a study of its effectiveness.

Very few fifth graders – approximately 600 – were retained during the first three years of the policy, according to Jennifer McCombs a co-author of the study, which followed three cohorts of fifth graders from 2005 to 2007. A small number of those students were multiple holdovers, meaning they had already been retained once before: 126 in the first year and 56 in the third year.

“The majority of overage fifth graders end up being promoted,” McCombs said, supporting the conclusion that the impact of the fifth grade promotion policy on the number of overage students already in the system is minimal, and that it has increased student performance overall.

Despite RAND’s results, critics of retention still point to longstanding research correlating retention and lower graduation rates. “Retaining a student even one time puts them on a track to drop out at an exponential rate,” Hill said. She is particularly critical of the way retention is implemented in the city, where students who don’t meet promotional criteria in one area must repeat the entire year’s curriculum. “It keeps them off track,” she said, adding that if the Department of Education wants to use retention, it needs to “be smarter,” about it.

Concerns about overage students are frequently expressed in high-need schools where students are more likely to be retained, said McCombs. But researchers at RAND believe that as performance continues to increase in schools, over time the number of overage students will drop off. “It’s a very small population, but there’s grave concerns around these kids,” McCombs said.

The department has acknowledged the challenges of the overage population, a major, but less often discussed subset of the dropout population, and as a result is targeting it specifically at the high school level with the Office of Multiple Pathways to Graduation. The office allows schools like Harlem Renaissance to tailor to the needs of students who’ve fallen off the traditional time line for high school graduation. “We recognize that it’s not just ‘Brand X,’ ” said Tom Pendleton, the director of learning to work initiatives at the Office of Multiple Pathways to Graduation, one of the programs available to the overage, under-credited high school population, which according to Alvarez has offered a lot of support to Harlem Renaissance. “There’s not just one student who falls behind in high school,” Pendleton said.

Elisia Burrows likes to go by the name “Star.” In 10th grade, she took a yearlong break from school after the birth of her son, Sincere. When she returned to school, she chose Harlem Renaissance because it offers on-site daycare for her son. Now 20 years old, she can’t imagine herself at a “regular” high school. “It’s embarrassing,” she said. Burrows plans to graduate in June.

At Harlem Renaissance High School, students are not divided by grade level, but rather, by how many credits they’ve earned in an effort to target the specific needs of each student. In early December, the school’s credit recovery week gave students the opportunity to “recover” hours of missed coursework. Students flowed in and out of Alvarez’s office, eager to make up the credits they need in order to stay on track for graduation. This year the school implemented a computer-assisted program for credit recovery and students had questions about login information, passwords and assignments.

During this time, students at Harlem Renaissance worked busily on laptops in each classroom for a singular purpose: catch up. While this wasn’t what a typical day looks like at the school, it reflected the atmosphere there: one that encourages students who are off-track to take control of their academic future. Alvarez explained, “We’re trying to create an environment where people don’t see that as a negative, but as a possibility.”

“The work going on at the high school level is needed,” Hill said. “But we do need to do the work earlier.” She is optimistic about the Office of Multiple Pathways to Graduation’s efforts and recommends that middle schools follow suit. “A 16-year-old in eighth grade has different needs than a 13-year old,” Hill said. She explained that middle schools should be authorized to be “flexible” to meet the needs of these students and keep them invested with half-day programs, midyear promotion to high school, or increased access to high school curriculum to earn credits even if they’ve been retained.

This year the Office of Multiple Pathways to Graduation also opened the High School for Excellence and Innovation, designated for students who turned 16 in the eighth grade, and according to Pendleton, the city is opening more transfer schools each year. While these interventions show promise for an under-served population, some worry that it’s not enough. “The resources do not meet the demand,” Hill said, noting the long waiting lists for many of these new schools.

Alvarez is also concerned about the large numbers of students requiring the type of specialized academic setting offered at Harlem Renaissance, which serves 230 students and has increased its class sizes. “The DOE will send you everyone if they think you have a supportive environment,” she said. “But they’re not taking into account what happens when you overpopulate a classroom.”

Though the resources may not yet meet the need, acknowledging the unique needs of overage students is a step for the Department of Education in reining in the number of high school dropouts. “New York is one of our leading cities in terms of addressing the dropout crisis,” said Chris Sturgis, former consultant to the U.S. Department of Education on secondary school strategies, and co-founder of the Youth Transition Funders Group, a network of grant organizations focusing on young adults in need of extra support.

Hill also acknowledged the work of advocacy groups and non-profits in supporting the overage population in New York. “There’s lots of good work going on across the city,” she said, “but they’re in their own silos not communicating.”

East Harlem has one of the highest rates of diagnosed diabetes in the city.  The Nourishing Kitchen*, a soup kitchen with a difference, is helping local residents eat well and lower their risk.

* Correction: This story originally included an incorrect link.

Source: New York State Department of Labor (Graphic by Tim Kiladze and Lisa Waananen)

By Andrew Keshner and Joshua Tapper

Widespread unemployment in uptown Manhattan is forcing people to find new careers or juggle several jobs, while touching off concerns that those lost jobs might not come back, local business leaders say.

Elbagina Bonilla, deputy director of the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Economic Development, sees rising unemployment rates weighing heavily on local residents. A particularly hard-hit demographic is young heads of household from their 20s to their 40s, she says.

As the economy dives, a way of life becomes tougher for low-income individuals and families, says Ernest Johnson, senior director at Strive, an East Harlem-based agency that assists the chronically unemployed nationwide. “It’s difficult,” he says. “People are having it pretty rough. A lot of people are hurting.”

Looking at the numbers, it’s not hard to see why: The unemployment rate has essentially doubled since last year. As of October, the unemployment rate in Manhattan was 9.2 percent, says Jim Brown, labor market analyst for the New York State Department of Labor. In October 2008 – the month after Lehman Brothers imploded – it was just 5.5 percent citywide. Unemployment rose from 6.3 to 10.3 percent citywide during the same period.

Unemployed Inwood woman sells her belongings from Shane Snow on Vimeo.

But the unemployment rates of uptown Manhattan neighborhoods are drastically higher than the borough or citywide numbers. Historically, neighborhoods with a high concentration of African Americans have been hit harder by labor market shocks than the rest of the population, explains Kevin Foster, a City College economist. Typically, African Americans work jobs susceptible to layoffs, like personal care and food preparation, Foster says. The black unemployment rate is 15.7 percent nationwide, and it’s especially dire among 16-to-19-year olds, nearly 40 percent of whom are without work. Even before the recession, African Americans had an 8 percent unemployment rate. “It started at a level the country would have called a recession,” Foster says. “Now it’s at a depression level.”

In East Harlem, for example, unemployment climbed from 16 percent in 2005 to between 18.3 and 19.2 percent so far this year, according to Johnson. Johnson believes the East Harlem unemployment rate will peak at 19 to 20 percent over the next two or three months. The neighborhood represents a “microcosm for the rest of the country,” Johnson said.

Bonilla sees some people taking on two or three small jobs to make ends meet; others look to change careers or improve their computer skills. Her organization offers training for child care and security jobs and she reports increased interest in both. Between 20 and 25 people have taken the security training course this year, says Bonilla, compared with 10 to 15 who took the course last year. Last year, the organization offered six classes aimed at helping people open childcare businesses; this year, the organization may offer eight, owing to higher demand. Both Johnson and Foster says green collar jobs are becoming popular in low-income neighborhoods, a result of President Obama’s economic stimulus package. Strive, for example, offers training in green construction.

Henry Calderon, executive director of the East Harlem Chamber of Commerce, has seen some businesses cut back on employees as local consumers trim their own budgets to necessities like rent and food. Though some well-established businesses are still getting by on lower volumes, others, like restaurants, are feeling the pinch.

Foster, the economist, believes many unskilled labor jobs will return once the economy rebounds, simply because they don’t require much training or education. But Calderon, heading an organization representing almost 230 businesses, says there is still a lot of pessimism about the economy improving anytime soon.

And when it does improve, he worries that businesses won’t rehire the same number of workers they let go and will try to do more with less. “The net result,” he says, “is a loss of jobs even if it picks up.”

Yorkville Common Pantry volunteers and staff restock shelves for the next day's distribution. (Photo by Nate Rawlings)

Outside the pantry, a few minutes before the doors would open, Carlos Dominguez, 20, waited in line with 20 other. It was his third visit to the pantry within a week. He talked about why he came.

“Somebody told me, a couple of my friends. I come with three or four of them,” Dominguez said. “People come here to eat every day. I don’t have much money, and the food is free.“ He said the economy has hurt his business as a handyman and jack of all trades. “I’m a car mechanic for BMWs, Volkswagens, Toyotas, I paint, I make keys,” he said.

Dominguez has tried another free food pantry, although he couldn’t remember its name. He prefers Yorkville’s pantry because it offers so many different kinds of foods and services. “You can brush your teeth, wash your clothes,” he said. “There’s a lot of food—like every kind of food. I like the fruit, some oranges, apple juice.”

He described his favorite meal. “The one with the chicken, the rice, the beans and potatoes with cheese,” he said. “It’s real good.”

—Sam Petulla

The Yorkville Common Pantry, the city’s largest community pantry, provides food to more than 7,000 households. Clients receive weekly packages containing nine planned meals– three a day for three days – and usually purchase additional meals with food stamps.

The average client family used to visit the pantry 1.5 times per month, according to Daniel Reyes, the pantry’s program director. That number increased to 3.85 times per month at the recession’s height, but has fallen back to 3.2 times per month.

“The year before last, we saw a spike in the number of new clients,” Reyes says. “Low end workers lost their jobs at a greater rate than others.”

More than a million New York City residents require emergency food at least once a year, according to a study by City Harvest and the Food Bank for New York City. More than a third of those residents will have to choose between buying food and paying rent. And that report was released in 2006, when national unemployment was 4.6 percent. It’s now 10.2 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

So at the Yorkville pantry, where volunteers are preparing invitations for the big annual fundraiser, there are no plans for a black tie gala, theater excursion or cocktail party. This year, the pantry is asking its supporters to stay home and mail checks.

“In this climate, we didn’t feel it was right to have an event,” says Stephen Grimaldi, the pantry’s executive director. “This year we’re having a non-event event. Don’t rent a tux, go to the dry cleaners- –spend your money on yourself, and a little bit on us too.”

In the lingering economic downturn, organizations that feed the hungry are facing a two-sided crunch. As unemployment rises, more people need their services, but the corporations that traditionally support them have suffered large losses and contributed less money.

“It has dried up — more than a bit,” Grimaldi says of corporate donations. Since government funds only account for 13 percent of the pantry’s operating budget, private and corporate donations must cover the cost of feeding the hungry in Harlem.

Over the past three years, as Stein notes, the number of clients who come to the Yorkville Common Pantry has increased dramatically. In 2007, the pantry served 1.4 million meals, which rose to 1.7 million in 2008. This year, the pantry has served more than 2 million meals, 1.9 million of which were pantry food packages.

“Hunger’s on the front page, and it should be,” Grimaldi says. “People who didn’t traditionally need meal programs are coming.”

Such challenges have affected the vast majority of the city’s food assistance programs. Nearly 93 percent of emergency food sites saw an increase in first-time clients; more than half saw a greater than 25 percent increase, according to another report by the Food Bank of New York City.

The Food Bank, which is the city’s largest hunger relief organization and contributes food to nearly 1,000 assistance programs, including the Yorkville Common Pantry, had difficulty meeting the higher demand early in the recession. Almost 70 percent of its emergency food sites reported reducing the amount of food given to each family, 28 percent reduced distribution hours and days, and more than half reported having to turn away individuals for lack of food, according to its 2009 report, “NYC Hunger Experience: A Year in Recession.”

The Food Bank used several tax changes and increased unemployment benefits to enroll more eligible families in food stamp programs and turn away fewer clients. But these maneuvers have been temporary solutions, and the Food Bank is seeking more sustainable ways to serve the growing need.

“Last year’s response, however successful, was temporary, and leaves us with a tremendous gap in resources,” Food Bank President and CEO Lucy Cabrera said in a statement. “Only sustainable solutions will drive down food poverty.”

The Yorkville Common Pantry has never had to turn away any client for lack of food, according to Reyes. “Granted, the packages aren’t as full as they used to be,” says Reyes. “When we see a large intake of new people, it’s usually from a pantry that’s shut down or turned them away. We get them processed quickly and make sure they get a meal package.”

Though Yorkville Common Pantry serves anyone in the city through its hot meal program, which allows people to receive a single meal when they’re in great need, the core of its service is the pantry program. Individuals and families in 12 Manhattan zip codes can register to receive free groceries weekly. Seven of those 12 are in Harlem.

Candice Frawley has served as a volunteer since 2002, and chairs the pantry’s development committee. “My background, unfortunately, is professional fundraising,” Frawley says. “But I’d rather be stuffing boxes.”

Her dual role in the pantry’s operations has allowed Frawley to see donations ebbing during the recession.

“Last year was the toughest, but people have still been generous,” Frawley says. “Lots of corporations donate time through volunteer days and gifts in kind. It actually started getting tighter in the 90’s because of mergers and acquisitions. We might have three banks all donating, then they merge into one bank.”

Though corporate donations account for part of the pantry’s funding, Frawley says it has never relied on large donations for the weekly food distribution. “Thank goodness we weren’t heavily reliant on those that ran into problems when the you-know-what hit the fan last fall,” she says.

In the midst of the slowdown in funding and the increase in clients, the pantry has expanded its services for the most needy New Yorkers.

Its basement serves a variety of purposes: Homeless people living on streets or in shelters can use its showers and laundry machines. A counselor works with homeless clients to find them more permanent help. On Saturdays, the basement becomes a classroom where volunteers teach cooking and nutrition classes for adults and children, emphasizing a healthy lifestyle. Once a week, a volunteer barber gives free haircuts. “Food is the primary object, but it’s an engagement tool for other things,” Grimaldi says.

For instance, the pantry recently added a program, with the city’s human resources department and its housing authority, to help clients file electronic food stamp applications. Clients can bring their paperwork to the pantry, where a staffer will prepare an online form, so that clients don’t have to trek to another office for food stamps. This year, more than 500 people have received food stamps through this program. “That’s $1 million back into this Harlem community,” Grimaldi says.

To support such services, Grimaldi and his staff have found creative ways to cut costs while actually increasing service.

“We’ve cut every possible expense,” Grimaldi says. “Everything from turning off the lights to negotiating gas and electric rates, buying early at a locked in rate.”

The pantry operates with a staff of only 19 paid employees; volunteers provide 63 percent of the labor.

Roland Woodland, directing clients to the exit after they receive their food, began volunteering at the pantry when he retired after teaching special education in Harlem for 27 years. He has gotten to know many of the clients, but cautions “you have to keep it professional. No one can have more peanut butter or bags than anyone else. You have to treat everyone the same.”

The pantry recently received an award from the Robin Hood Foundation that included a $50,000 grant to continue servicing Harlem’s hungry. “We’re a professional organization with a professional manager,” Stein says. “You will much more directly help the needy by giving to the YCP rather than to a city-wide organization or a smaller one that doesn’t feature the professionalism, client relationship and case management we have.”

Before moving on to administrative tasks, the volunteers leave the shelves stocked for the next day, when clients will line up for food packages again.

A public hearing in Harlem Thursday will revisit the controversial May 28 police-on-police shooting in East Harlem, once more spotlighting issues of racial tension in law enforcement.

In a similar hearing in Albany Nov. 16, law enforcement officials, researchers, and community members emphasized the role of racial stereotypes in police-on-police shootings and offered recommendations to prevent future incidents. The hearing, held by a task force organized by Governor David A. Paterson, was the first of three in the state. On Thursday afternoon, the second hearing will take place near the crime scene, where a white police officer mistakenly killed a black plainclothes officer.

Officer Omar J. Edwards was fatally shot by another officer earlier this year. (AP Photo/New York Police Department)

The Albany task force included nine community members, law enforcement officials and experts on law and justice. “We are here to discuss the issues and implications arising from police on police shootings, especially those between those of different races, nationalities, and ethnicities,” said Christopher Stone, the task force chair and a professor of criminal justice at Harvard University.

Lewis Rice, a former Drug Enforcement Association agent, emphasized the role of race in the shooting. “No longer can it be acceptable to consider men and women of color…criminals before being proved otherwise,” he said.

On the night of the shooting, Andrew P. Dunton shot and killed another off-duty officer in plainclothes. Omar J. Edwards, 35, had just finished patrolling East Harlem’s housing projects and then chased a man who had supposedly broken into his car. With his gun drawn, he ran along 125th Street between First and Second avenues when three other officers saw him.

Dunton fired six rounds, and three bullets struck Edwards, one wounding him fatally. The shooting prompted angry protests, with marchers shouting “Justice for Omar,” according to The New York Times.

The upcoming trial will determine whether Dunton ordered Edwards to put down his weapon before he opened fire. Investigators said they think Dunton had called “Stop, police!” just before Edwards turned and Dunton fired the fatal bullet, according to The Times. The sequence of this scene will determine the verdict. Meanwhile, Dunton has been on administrative duty since the shooting. A grand jury in Manhattan decided not to indict Dunton, but a Police Department investigation is still underway.

The Harlem hearing can be expected to address many of the same issues that arose in Albany. Task force members there suggested cultural diversity training to prevent racial profiling, but some questioned whether the city would have the funds to support new programs.

“We must be creative in the recommendations we make so they are relevant in the reality of the current budget crisis,” said task force member Michael J. Farrell, a deputy commissioner with the New York Police Department.

The public hearing will begin at 3:30 p.m. Dec. 3 at the State Office Building on 125th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard.

An architect's 1833 drawing of the Corn Exchange. (Photo courtesy HarlemBespoke.com)

Until she starts talking, Ethel Bates looks like anyone’s grandmother with her maroon windbreaker, a dun scarf wrapped turbanlike around her head. Short, forceful and sharp as a whip, this energetic 77-year-old community activist has spent much of the last decade in court – mostly pitted against various city departments. “She’s a little dynamo,” says Garry Johnson, Community Board 11’s treasurer and Economic Development Committee chair.

Johnson’s architecture consultancy on 125th Street looks right over the Corn Exchange, a landmark building that is the locus of Ethel Bates’ legal struggles. From the street, the 126-year-old red brick building decorated with ornate white masonry looks to be in good shape, though cosseted with scaffolding. From Johnson’s window, though, the building’s dilapidated innards present quite a contrast to the ordered lines of the adjacent Metro North station.

The building after demolition began in September. (Photo by Tim Kiladze)

The city is in the midst of carrying out an “emergency demolition” of the five-story building’s top three floors. Since 2003, Bates has officially been in charge of renovating this building, one of 125th Street’s scattered 19th-century landmarks. Bates, who harbors an above-average suspicion of government, claims that the disrepair is due not so much to neglect on her part as to obfuscation by the city and to the Department of Buildings’s “secret agenda.”

The Corn Exchange was built, in the Queen Anne and Romanesque-style, as the Mount Morris Bank by architects Lamb & Lamb. With well-appointed apartments on its upper levels (it earlier had seven stories, with gables at the top), the building later became the Corn Exchange, a bank that eventually merged with JP Morgan. Used briefly as a church, the building was abandoned in the 1970s and lay empty for almost 30 years. A fire destroyed the decaying upper levels before Bates decided to adopt the Corn Exchange as the site for a pioneer culinary school in upper Manhattan.

The Economic Development Corp. had doubts when Bates first approached the city with her proposal in 1999. “I wasn’t anybody as far as they were concerned,” Bates said. Bates said she got a boost from developer Lew Rudin, who put in a cameo appearance for her at an EDC meeting – “you would have thought a saint had walked in, or God himself.” Bates eventually landed an appointment with then-deputy mayor Rudy Washington.

Washington had “heard on the one hand that here was this elderly woman that had a good heart but who didn’t know squat and it would be a disaster to let her have this building,” Bates recalled. “On the other hand she was a person who had these certain merits.” Impressed by Bates’s personality and business acumen (she had studied business at New York University and City College), Washington told Bates that he was on her side.

So she was surprised to find that the building had suddenly been auctioned off to Elie Hirschfeld (son of Abraham), who she said just wanted to sell it back to her for three times the cost. Bates sued the city. It took a year for the decision, but she won her case as well as control over the Corn Exchange. In 2003, Bates held the property deed with a promise to develop the building in three years.

It wasn’t the first time Bates had sued New York. In the 1980s, she was involved in the restoration of Marcus Garvey Park. She sued the parks department after she was handcuffed by some of their officers.

Ethel Bates speaking at a Town Hall meeting (Photo by Edmund J. Eng)

Bates’ dream of opening a culinary school stemmed from a long history with foreign travel, food and art. Bates was born in Birmingham, Ala., but moved to New York with her father, a railway employee, her mother and her six siblings when she was a child. After college, Bates traveled to Europe and lived in France, England and Italy for several years. She worked as a contract negotiator for performers and traveled to Israel, Palestine and North Africa. When she returned to New York, she did everything from being an accountant to running a bakery.

Bates wanted to open a culinary institute because she felt that “in this community you have so many people who are able to do some cooking but they can’t compete. They can’t afford the Culinary Institute of America, they can’t afford the French Culinary… you can’t go and compete with somebody who’s got a reputation behind them and all you’ve done is work in a greasy spoon place.”

She was set on this building, “a place that gives you a certain amount of cachet… That’s my idea: save the building and do a culinary institute.” Bates had already signed on Ark Restaurants and several other potential tenants for the New Corn Exchange project.

Finding a developer proved more difficult. While candidates came to her in droves, Bates felt that each was after her valuable property and had no interest in creating a community culinary institute. Her unwillingness to cede equity control kept stalling the project.

Johnson felt Bates bears some responsibility. “I believe she’s had opportunities,” he said. “The real estate boom has come and gone now.” He said he knew of a big-name developer who had offered Bates a 49 percent stake in the building and that she had refused. He also said that the Community Board approached Bates with a proposal financed by its members. If Bates could not find a developer, he said, she should have tried to open the school elsewhere first, so that it could build a track record.

Bates’ account of her dealings with developers over the years is a laundry list of shady proposals and corrupt maneuvers. About once a year, a newspaper would report that restoration was about to begin. But Bates repeatedly wound up in court, fighting with would-be developers who she claimed wanted to wrest control of the building from her. The city held off on taking any action until 2007, when it moved to rescind Bates’ ownership.

Bates said she has spent $300,000 of her own money fighting cases and paying various fines the city imposed. She also arranged for the protective scaffolding that surrounds the Corn Exchange. Eventually, Bates filed for bankruptcy in order to restrategize. “We fought it nip-and-tuck,” she said.

Bates lost her plea for bankruptcy and the matter reverted to Supreme Court, where a judge ruled in January that the city could take over the building in a non-final disposition. The city claimed that the building was a danger to pedestrians and the 125th Street station and moved to tear down its top floors. Demolition began in early September, but Bates still hasn’t given up. She says her legal status is “sensitive,” but that she hasn’t given up on regaining control.

There is a discrepancy between the Court’s ruling that the deed revert to the city and an April 20 letter asking Bates’ group to take immediate action on repair and demolition. The letter stated that if Bates failed to take action, the city would move to demolish and “recover its expenses from you.” This summer, Assemblyman Adam C. Powell wrote to the Economic Development Corporation strongly backing Bates. The advocacy group Historic Districts Council wrote to Deputy Mayor Edward Skylar in August, stating that council members had visited the building and found the proposed emergency demolition unfounded. The members asked the mayor to intercede until “a more experienced developer can be found.”

The demolition of the Corn Exchange’s top stories may have been drastic. Calling for an emergency demolition allowed the Building Department to bypass authorization from the Landmarks Preservation Commission in the name of public safety. In an April field report, investigators cited loose bricks in various places, but maintained that the protective scaffolding around the building was sound. Johnson, for one, believes that demolishing three floors was overkill and that the fifth floor is the only one that really had to go. “As an architect, I believe those are load-bearing walls,” he said.

Bates suspects that the city will wait, then propose another demolition and eventually hand the building over to a prominent developer. Developer Vornado owns the lot across the street and the Corn Exchange is prime property, with empty lots and the train station just next door.

The Corn Exchange in its heyday, circa the 1920s or 1930s. Until recently, the building had five of its original seven stories. (Photo courtesy HarlemBespoke.com)

If the building is restored by the city or someone else rather than commercially developed, it may never be profitable. Real estate agent Eugene Giscombe, whose office overlooks the Corn Exchange, thinks the building is “economically obsolete.” He estimated that even if the Corn Exchange were raised to 10 stories, the cost of building (about $13.5 million) would be far beyond the recoverable yearly rent ($1.35 million). Giscombe believes the only commercial solution would be to combine that lot with others around it. If the building remains a low-rise, he said, the landlord might be able to get tax incentives to rent to a non-profit.

In all this controversy, the building’s historical significance has been largely overshadowed. Johnson thinks the city should have better preserved the building’s shell. He pointed to the example of a mental asylum on Roosevelt Island that has been kept intact pending future development.

“Had it been in the Upper West Side or Upper East Side there would have been meltdown,” he said. “People would have been screaming bloody murder. This wouldn’t have happened. It just shows a complete disregard for the community.”

A Supermarket Need Index determined areas lacking access to fresh food. The dark green areas show FRESH Food store areas and light green shows additional areas where financial incentives may be available. (Map courtesy of NYC Department of City Planning)

Growing up in Harlem, Gail Brown got used to having limited access to fresh foods. She now shops at Fine Fare, a chain supermarket on Lenox Avenue and 116th Street, but still doesn’t see farm fresh or organic food. “I’m a little disgusted with this,” she said, pointing to the package of cellophane-wrapped chicken in her cart. “But this is the selection they had tonight.” Brown describes it as “second class food.”

Laura Purcell, who moved from the Upper West Side to central Harlem, also shops at Fine Fare when she needs something quick. For larger orders, “I tend to shop at Fairway,” she said, adding that she appreciated that store’s wider selection when she lived further downtown.

The City Planning Commission has voted to approve a fresh food program that offers incentives to develop supermarkets in targeted neighborhoods, including Central and East Harlem and Washington Heights. The City Council has until November 24 to review the proposal.

The Planning Commission developed a Supermarket Need Index last year to pinpoint areas with high levels of diet-related disease and limited supermarket access. The index showed that East and Central Harlem and Washington Heights needed better access to fresh food. New Yorkers living there and in Inwood are more likely to be obese and to have diabetes and other diet-related health conditions than other Manhattan residents, according to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

The FRESH program, short for Food Retail Expansion to Support Health, would allow businesses certified as “fresh” to be 20,000 square feet larger than the law currently permits. Such businesses would also benefit from reduced real estate taxes, sales tax exemptions and reductions in the amount of required parking.

A fresh-certified business would dedicate at least 6,000 square feet to selling groceries, according to the amendment, with 30 percent of that area designated for perishable foods like produce, meat and dairy products.

The FRESH program aims to improve the health of New Yorkers in “underserved areas,” according to a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of City Planning. The department also expects the program to generate new jobs for neighborhood residents.