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.

Betty Park, a Korean immigrant and owner of Manna's restaurants, tends to the cash register at its Frederick Douglass Boulevard location near West 126th Street. The restaurant recently moved from West 125th Street because of planned development. (Photo by Jason Tomassini)

The lunch crowd is steadily growing on a recent weekday at Manna’s Soul Food on Eighth Avenue in Harlem, patrons stuffing Styrofoam containers with fried chicken, mashed potatoes and collard greens. It’s a bitterly cold day, but the heat from the 50 or so trays in Manna’s food bar fogs the storefront windows.

A familiar song fills the restaurant, one instantly recognizable for fans of Jay-Z, the Notorious B.I.G. or Tupac Shakur, all of whom have sampled it. But this is the original track: The Isley Brothers’ 1983 soul slow-burner, “Between the Sheets.”

It’s a somewhat surprising atmosphere, given Manna’s owner: Betty Park, a 57-year-old Korean immigrant who has battled racial discord, Harlem’s gentrification, the lingering recession and, recently, squabbles with a major developer, to open seven Manna’s locations, four in Harlem.

“A Korean woman opening a soul food restaurant—people laugh at you,” says Park, a tiny woman with a bright face and an affinity for equally bright clothes—today , a vivid pink sweater, in sharp contrast to her employees’ white uniforms. She is taking a break from her usual circuit, rushing between the restaurant’s cash register, storage room and kitchen, where she will soon help a cook perfect a batch of clam chowder.

“People said, ‘What do you know about soul food?’” she continues. “Now they don’t even ask me. They come here for the soul food.”

The first Manna’s location, named for the Biblical reference to food falling from the sky, opened in 1983 to scoffs; the most recent opened in 2008, at the height of a national recession that particularly decimated upper Manhattan.  Known for its food bar of southern-style dishes—$5.49 per pound—Manna’s has not only survived, but expanded, even as economic factors, plus a national focus on nutrition, have torpedoed several longtime competitors.

Harlem’s soul food restaurants are among the major remaining preserves of African-American culture in a neighborhood giving way to a younger generation and increasing gentrification. Yet over the past decade, more than 10 local soul food restaurants have closed, including such landmarks such as Copeland’s, closed in 2007 after 50 years on 145th Street, and Charles’ Southern Style Kitchen and Louise’s Family Restaurant, both shuttered in 2008 after long runs on Lenox Avenue near West 125th Street. Even Amy Ruth’s, which opened to wide acclaim 12 years ago on West 116th Street, filed for bankruptcy last year but remains open.

“Most restaurants are defeatist,” says Londel Davis, owner of Londel’s, which has served upscale comfort food on Frederick Douglass Boulevard near 140th Street for 16 years. Davis says many soul food restaurants are reluctant to adapt to Harlem’s changing demographics, marked by an influx of Hispanics, whites and food tourists from downtown. “They are closing because of their own shortcomings.” Londel’s redesigned its bar and dining room to attract a changing clientele, but Davis says business has fallen 25 percent in recent years, nonetheless.

“I want to see the neighborhood go up and not stay the same,” says David Taylor, general manager of Jacob Restaurant, known for its beef short ribs and macaroni and cheese.  It opened five months ago on Frederick Douglass Boulevard near West 143th Street, joining an existing location on Lenox Avenue near West 129th Street. But gentrification “has ruined a lot of small businesses,” he says.

Manna’s is far from invincible itself. In the 1980s, it cost $50,000 to open a restaurant; now it costs about $250,000, Park says. She’s avoided lay-offs but has reduced hours for many of the 60 employees at Manna’s Harlem locations.

“I’m concerned if I’m going to make it,” Park confesses. She doesn’t always: The  upscale seafood restaurant she opened on Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard in 2007, just before the financial meltdown, closed within a year.

Making matters worse, Manna’s top-performing location on 125th Street near Frederick Douglass was forced to move because of a planned development project. In 2008, Manna’s and four other tenants were evicted to make way for Kimco Realty Corporation’s planned retail center; construction is expected to begin soon. The tenants sued Kimco and eventually settled for $1 million.

Then the project stalled and, to Park’s surprise, Kimco asked Manna’s to reopen in the same space earlier this summer. By September, as Kimco readied for construction, that location had closed again and reopened around the corner at Frederick Douglass and 126th Street.

“It’s like David and Goliath,” says that restaurant’s manager, Tony Kamosi. “It’s corporate America; they don’t care about the little guy.”

Park is kinder toward Kimco; she feels the $300,000 Kimco provided for relocation costs is sufficient. But without a prime location on Harlem’s main street, business has dropped, Park says. The new eatery location closed briefly in November because of problems with a gas line. Now, some tables remain empty at lunchtimes when the place used to be packed

Kimco representatives did not return calls seeking comment.

The lunch rush begins on a recent weekday at Manna's. The restaurant sells food at its hot bar for $5.49 per pound. (Photo by Jason Tomassini)

Park seems to thrive on adversity, however. She came to America in 1974 “for a better life,” she says, and worked at a family-run fish market in 1984 amid a lengthy and contentious boycott of several Korean establishments by African Americans claiming unfair hiring practices.

“I thought, You know what? I have to have black employees to survive in this community,” she says. So in 1985 she opened her first small restaurant in a 300-square-foot basement on West 125th Street along with a black chef from North Carolina, whom she had met through the fish market and who taught her southern cooking.

Now, both her employees and customers are almost exclusively minorities and Park is considered a staple of the business community, though she lives in New Jersey. At Thanksgiving, Park donated 100 turkeys to needy Harlem families and has sponsored YMCA afterschool programs.

“When you come into the community, you have to look at the needs,” says Theresa Freeman, a Manna’s regular, over a pungent serving of chitlins. “That’s just a good business model.”

Park sees some similarities between Korean and southern cooking. Korean cuisine uses pigs’ feet and oxtails, traditional soul food staples, and like some southern styles, tends to be spicy. But Park says customers are becoming less interested in those traditional yet adventurous soul food dishes, instead opting for mainstays like fried chicken, short ribs and mashed potatoes. “A lot of people don’t want to eat it,” she says of her chitlins—pig intestines cooked with liberal amounts of vinegar and hot peppers. “Especially the younger generation, because it stinks.”

Soul food restaurants have also been hit hard by a national focus on nutrition and health. Londel’s longtime corn bread recipe—heavy on milk, butter and sugar—now calls for more moderate amounts of those ingredients, Davis says. Cooking with seasoned meats like pork has yielded to sautéing and broiling. “We need to get away from cooking so old-fashioned,” he argues.

Park disagrees, and still cooks her collard greens in turkey gravy and her stuffing with chicken. She touts the extended salad and fruit bar, but acknowledges that her customers aren’t coming in for cantaloupe.

Customers fill up on fried plantains and fried chicken. Owner Betty Park, a Korean immigrant, learned to cook soul food from a North Carolina chef. (Photo by Jason Tomassini)

Whatever the economic conditions, Park hopes her relationship with customers allows Manna’s to survive, like the landmark Harlem soul food restaurant Sylvia’s, which opened in 1962 and is now a tourist attraction that sells its products in supermarkets.

On this day, Park stops midsentence after hearing some loose change drop behind her. She quickly gets up to help a middle-aged woman and by the time their brief encounter has ended, she’s learned that the woman is a schoolteacher. Then she jets back to the conversation she’s suspended.

Trying to locate Park, even  in Manna’s modest storefront,  often proves difficult. At a moment’s notice she might be filling in at the cash register, holding court with a regular like Freeman, unpacking flour in the basement, lugging a pan of mashed potatoes to the food bar, or consulting with a cook over the proper spices for clam chowder.

Someday she’d like to open a more upscale Manna’s or add a takeout window to the restaurants. But for now, she has no plans to open any additional branches, only a dedication to ensuring the existing ones survive.

“Everybody in their life has bad turns,” she says. “But it gets better.”

This graphic shows a comparison of the unemployment rates uptown versus those in the city and nationwide.

Unemployed for a month and a half, Lakeisha York, a single mother from Inwood, began looking for options to help her compete in a tough job market.

Tired of seasonal and part-time work, and noticing that even highly skilled people were vying for positions for which they were overqualified, she set out to separate herself from others.

She enrolled in courses at Strive/East Harlem Employment Services, a job-training nonprofit.

“I see a lot of struggle uptown,” said York, 24. “There’s a lot of single mothers out there doing the best that they can to make ends meet.”

Despite the official end of the recession in June 2009, York is among the estimated 13.6 percent of unemployed workers uptown.

The city’s unemployment rate for October was 9.2 percent, according to the Department of Labor.

While the Department of Labor doesn’t collect unemployment data below the borough level, a 2009 report by the Fiscal Policy Institute, a nonprofit economic research organization, estimated the unemployment rate in upper Manhattan at 13.6 percent.

Joblessness remains a problem uptown.

“The numbers are still abysmal in terms of employment in this community,” said Ernest Johnson, senior director of supportive services at Strive.

The recent East River Plaza project in East Harlem, the retail complex housing Target, Costco and other stores, provided some relief , Johnson said. But Oct. 21, when the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corp., a nonprofit community organization, held its first job fair, about 1,000 job-seekers flocked to meet with 35 employers.

“We had to turn away maybe around 100 people or so that were still waiting around outside,” said Sara Farimani, the corporation’s director of workforce development, adding that it planned to hold the fair again next year.

“There is a need in our community with high unemployment,” she said.

Citywide, unemployment will stay high for a while, predicts James Parrott, deputy director and chief economist at the Fiscal Policy Institute.

Uptown residents face the same regional labor market as the rest of the city, so their labor market outlook isn’t necessarily different, Parrott said in an e-mail.

Harlem’s shifting demographic will play a role in its future unemployment rate.

“The population of Harlem is changing, so the outlook is as mixed as the population,” Parrott said.

The low-income households are more likely to suffer from the effects of high unemployment, according to Kevin R. Foster, economist at the City College of New York.

“The bottom line is that poorer people tend to get the worst of any bad thing; this is true by a variety of labor market measures,” he said in an e-mail.

Minorities are also disproportionately unemployed, Foster said, and the same is true nationwide.

The unemployment rate strains other social services in the community as well, Johnson said.

Anat Coleman, community affairs liaison at the Jewish Community Council of Washington Heights-Inwood, said that its food pantry has doubled in size the past year.

“Every day there are new people coming in,” she said.

The pantry, open from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., sees about 130 families a day.

While the council doesn’t provide job placement services, Coleman said, it posts new positions on its website to help unemployed people in the area.

“We can’t give anybody a job,” Coleman said. “I think people seem to be very hopeful that we will or we can. What we can do is to guide people toward whatever skills and knowledge they need.”

Coleman said that in her three years at the council, people drop by often to pass her their resumes or ask whether she knows of any open positions.

“There are professionals here, too, that can’t find positions,” she said. “It’s affecting everyone across the board.”

Until she finds a job, York has been relying on public assistance and side jobs — fixing computers and building Web pages — to support herself and her 4-year-old son. She would like to start a career in information technology.

Strive, she said, has helped by teaching her interview skills, offering resume help and other tips for success.

“They prepare you a lot for the job market,” she said.

The Fiscal Policy Institute plans to publish an update of last year’s report in mid-December, Parrott said.

WeHarlem logo

A new generation Harlem social network will release a BlackBerry application in December, opening new possibilities for the area. “Before, the Internet was a one-way stream of information,” says WeHarlem co-founder Sergio Lilavois. “Now what we are seeing is participation.”

The WeHarlem network, launched in September 2009, allows Harlem residents to connect with one another online. “Neighbors” can “shout” to other users, “wepeat” posts, check in at Harlem locations and upload pictures on the spot. The BlackBerry application will provide users with the site’s functions through a mobile internet connection, spreading neighborhood news on the scene, as it happens. “We are not just reading the story, we are the story,” says local artist Lynn Lieberman, who uses the site to promote her work.

The adoption of faster connection speeds and more wi-fi spots in the area made WeHarlem possible, says Lilavois, whose site is also compatible with Internet giants Gmail, Facebook and Twitter. WeHarlem has 1,000 registered users but he aims to have 10,000 by spring. “We are expecting a spike in membership and activity when the app will be released,” says Lilavois, a Harlem resident. The online business, which relies on advertising, has three staff members. While it has not broken even yet, it aims to expand to other neighborhoods.

WeHarlem’s BlackBerry app will resemble the existing iPhone and Android applications, but Lilavois believes it will be significantly more popular. “According to research, the residents of Harlem, our target demographic, favor the BlackBerry,” says Lilavois.

Users are also signing in from their iPads. James Darren Hicks, clergyman and music director at Bethel Gospel Assembly, met people he didn’t even know were part of his congregation through the site. “The first thing I did when I got my iPad,” said Hicks, “was plug it in, sign on and download WeHarlem.”

Darren Hicks checks in on WeHarlem.

A trend toward local networks is emerging on the Internet. “Twitter is great but too large,” says Lilavois, who believes that smaller sites represent the future of social networking.

Popular applications, like Foursquare, Gowalla and SCVNGR, tie information to specific locations, says Mashable.com’s social media expert Vadim Lavrusik. “With the growth of the likes of Twitter and Facebook,” explains Lavrusik, “people are trying to find ways to be part of smaller networks and communities, and location-based networks make sense.” Hyperlocal mobile applications, he says, “will help people feel more connected to their neighborhoods, people in them and be more aware of what’s going on where they live.”

WeHarlem’s local nature means that users often meet in person after connecting through the site. For example, Lieberman met the founder of Harlem Street Painters through WeHarlem. “We lived just a few blocks away from each other,” says Lieberman. Lilavois has bumped into users after posting that he was at the Hue-Man Bookstore. Smartphone access to WeHarlem can speed up the process.

Small social networks could also create opportunities for stalking, says Lavrusik, but on the whole are safe, since users can control the amount of information they post and activate privacy settings. “I think if someone really wants to stalk you, in the negative sense,” says Lavrusik, “they will use other means to do so.”

The local site attempts to redefine online relationships. WeHarlem users are called “neighbors” instead of “friends.” “If you look at my Facebook profile, how many of my friends are really friends?” asks Lilavois.

“We found a real neighborhood dynamic going on,” he says. “People befriend neighbors, not necessarily people who are similar to them in age range or in music taste but people who they live close to. … Their similar interest is their home.”

WeHarlem site data reveals that women in their 50s and 60s are most likely to use the hyperlocal network, says Lilavois, because this group is “most invested in the community.” Users must be over 21.

WeHarlem has also targeted local businesses. Users now include Studio Museum, Harlem Arts Alliance and Mojo Restaurant. Companies like Island Salad even post specials and deals on the site, says Lieberman.

Lilavois originally created the site because friends constantly asked him to recommend social hotspots in Harlem. Demand for reviews and recommendations have risen, he says, because of Harlem’s growth. “There is energy in Harlem,” he says.

Expanded online political discussions, or what Lilavois calls “Government 2.0,” are also on the agenda. Congressman Charles Rangel and Joyce Johnson, the only woman to run against him in this year’s Democratic primaries, are already users.

Alongside the BlackBerry app, WeHarlem plans to release a function that allows users to rate one another’s events.

Upscale Aloft Harlem is located on 124th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard. (Photo by Ksenia Galouchko)

In an area that hasn’t seen a new hotel in 40 years, the planned opening of the upscale Aloft Harlem on 124^th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard comes with mixed expectations. While the hotel’s sales and marketing director Aleksandra Truglio is very upbeat about the new hotel’s future in Harlem, many neighborhood residents fear the inaccessibility of the upscale hotel.

The hotel, which has been under construction since June 2008, is scheduled to open on Nov. 18, and will feature 124 loft-like rooms on the bottom six floors of a 12-story building, with 44 condominium residences, managed by Apex Condominiums and ranging from the mid-$300,000s to just over $1 million, situated on its upper six floors. The construction cost of a typical Aloft property is $15 million, excluding the price of land, says Ranu Rajkarnikar, media specialist at the Meg Connolly Communications firm, which Aloft uses for public relations.

Aloft is a new youth-oriented global branch of the luxurious W hotels, with rates averaging $319 for a room from 285 to 315 square feet with a king or two queen-sized beds. Aloft Harlem is the first Aloft to open in New York, with the second slated to open in Brooklyn.

The hotel’s design will be the first major surprise to the neighborhood since although the new Aloft is about five times smaller in room capacity than an average W hotel, it brings its big brother’s tech-savvy interior to Harlem.

When entering the hotel from Frederick Douglass Boulevard, the guests will descend a wide staircase and walk into the brightly painted hotel lobby with a round reception desk in the center. Aroma and lights in the lobby will change automatically with the time of the day, and loud club music will sound all day long, so that “no one will be able to fall asleep at Aloft,” says Aleksandra Truglio, the hotel’s sales and marketing director. Aloft will not have a restaurant but instead will provide food from local restaurants as well as hotel-prepared meals in a self-serve 24-7 grab ’n’ go eatery.  The posh w xyz bar with 15 seating spots will be the main socializing area, Truglio says.

Due to space constraints, Aloft Harlem will not have a pool, unlike other hotels in the Aloft chain. The fitness center will be small and open only to hotel guests.

The hotel wants to appeal and reach out to the local community by creating a display for local artists in the lobby. The art will change every three to four weeks, allowing different artists to display their works, Truglio says.

The 35-person staff consists of Harlem residents, since according to Truglio, Aloft administration wanted to hire people familiar with the area who could “sell” Harlem to visitors. During the recruitment process, Aloft managers turned to the cultural symbol of Harlem, the Apollo.

With the help of Workforce 1 recruitment agency, 500 people were screened with 125 making it to the Apollo auditions that replaced the traditional interviews. Job applicants danced and sang to Michael Jackson videos, mingled with one another and responded to the specially invited Harlem Hip Hop center rappers’ challenges.

Thirty-five candidates made it to the final round and have been in training for two months, says Truglio. Since the staff is small, there is no clear division between departments, and each employee is expected to fill more than one role, Truglio says.

The management of Aloft Harlem expects its main clientele to be foreigners interested in the history and culture of Harlem, families of CUNY and Columbia students, as well as corporate partners of the Clinton Foundation and Harlem Children’s Zone who will be coming to the area for conferences. The first people to make the reservations at the hotel were Germans and Scandinavians, says Truglio.

Although the hotel wants to attract business travelers, Aloft does not provide space for corporate meetings. Instead, Truglio says the hotel will turn to the Apollo, the Studio Museum and the Hip Hop center for groups that need meeting space.

The opening on Nov. 18 will be a soft launch, since according to Truglio, the hotel management wants to test the local market before hosting a grand opening later this year. Aloft has deferred its opening multiple times this year, because of construction issues.

Owners of nearby businesses welcome the opening of the hotel, which they hope will bring them customers. Louis Gagliano, owner of the flower store Harlem Flo, says Aloft is a welcome addition to the area.

“Since above 96^th Street there are no such hotels of such scale,” Gagliano says. “It will serve people in the neighborhood. When relatives visit, locals will be able to put them in the hotel, instead of having them stay in their apartments.”

Gagliano says that the $319 room rate is not high for Manhattan. “To have this type of property for this value seems reasonable,” he says.

Alicia Thomas, general manager of NY Sports Club, which is across the street from Aloft, hopes for an influx of customers, as the club offers one-month passes for $30.

“I think it’ll affect our business positively, but the number of customers will depend on the size and quality of the hotel gym,” Thomas says.

Many neighborhood residents didn’t know that the brick building on Frederick Douglass Boulevard is about to turn into an upscale hotel.

Miller Thompson, a local psychic, says the hotel will bring positive change to the neighborhood. “I think it’ll fix up Harlem, will bring more jobs, more money for Harlem,” he says.

Thompson thinks the majority of future hotel visitors will be African-American tourists, interested in Harlem culture.

Odette Wague, a Harlem resident says she doubts that her neighbors or their families will be able to stay at the hotel.

“Who is going to pay this,” she asked. “It’s unbelievable, it’s like a half of a monthly rent,” says Wague, who pays $600 a month for her apartment.

“Only Europeans will be able to afford this,” says Wague.

Damaa Bell, a Harlem resident and founder of the influential Uptownflavor blog that covers local businesses, has high hopes for Aloft Harlem.

“The impact will hopefully be positive economically though I fear it
will have a negative impact on the small bed and breakfasts that have thrived
due to a lack of hotels,” says Bell.

“Tourists in Harlem tend to be Japanese and European and I suspect they
will be the majority of clients booking at the Aloft,” says Bell.

Charles Jones, employee of NY Sports Club, agrees that tourists will be the hotel’s primary clients. “With the way the economy is, not too many minorities and local residents will be able to stay there. They’ll have to get out-of-towners to come stay.”

Belinda and Monica Rose, Harlem residents, say that if anyone will be able to stay in the new hotel, it won’t be them. “It’s pretty pricy. Only upper-class tourists will pay this price,” says Belinda.

“Harlem needed a hotel for a long time but $300 a night is too much. Local people won’t stay here.”

The Big-Box stores are changing the consumer behavior in East Harlem (Photo by Krishn Kaushik)

In the last 14 months, Target, CostCo and Best Buy have opened stores in upper Manhattan. “It’s like an alien spaceship which has come and landed in the middle of nowhere,” says Rafael Merino. “But we have to deal with it.”

He is describing the invasion of these big-box stores into East Harlem’s business dynamics as an expert for the neighborhood. Merino is the director of marketing and media development for the nonprofit East Harlem Business Capital Corp.

Target’s August opening, following Best Buy’s, Marshall’s, Bob’s Furniture and CostCo’s moves into the East River Plaza, has unnerved the owners of small bodegas and mom-and-pop shops. The big-box stores have drawn customers from across New York to East Harlem. But this increased foot traffic has not resulted in increased sales for the smaller businesses. While the effect has differed for various stores, sales have largely gone down, owners say. Local shopkeepers are still confused in their reaction. Many feel the customer shift could be temporary, others worry that it will take a greater effort to bring back the customers they’ve lost.

“About a year back this place was dead,” says Mohammad Ali, cashier at Carolina Grocery on 117^th Street opposite the mall’s entrance. “It was a dead end.”

Since Target and other stores opened, Carolina Grocery’s sales have increased. Previously he would see the same faces in his store everyday, Ali adds. Now with so many shoppers of various cultures coming to the plaza, he compares the scene to the United Nations. His store has benefitted from increased sales, often of small items like a can of soda or packets of cigarettes to plaza employees.

But the crowds haven’t brought more business for other retailers. Michael Acosta, general manager of the Compare Foods supermarket on 115^th Street between First and Second Avenues, hasn’t found these big stores helpful. “They are with big corporations, they have the money,” he says. “We are small and independent businesses with limited resources.” The difference in profit margins between his supermarket and the likes of Target and CostCo is about 20 percent, Acosta says. His business in August has declined by approximately 11 percent compared to the same month last year. Things didn’t seem upbeat the following month either, “noting has gone better, it’s not the same as last year.”  He adds, “It hurts me to see people I know walk with a Target bag.”

Other neighborhood retailers agree. Mohammad Ashraf, who owns Romana 99 Cents store on First Avenue, bemoans the nearly 20 percent drop in sales that he says his store has seen. He is not attracting new customers and is losing old ones to chain retailers. The general manager of Casa Furniture on Third Avenue, Joe Sasson says, his business has plummeted almost 50 percent, though he doesn’t blame solely the newcomers in East River Plaza. “It’s the competition and the economic slump together,” he says, but adds that the effect of the plaza alone still remains huge.

Yet Charles Walker, marketing director for Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone doesn’t see a problem. “Competition is always good,” says Walker. “Competition helps bring the prices down, and at the same time improves the quality of goods.”

Merino is skeptical about some of the small business complaints. His organization will conduct a study on the plaza’s effect on smaller stores, he says. He believes that the new complex generally benefits the neighborhood, now getting much more exposure and visitors.

The corporation wants to engage the plaza retailers with the local community, Merino says. The plaza intends to make free retail space available to a community non-profit organization, for instance. “We can’t ignore that there has been a negative impact,” he says, “but we have to be creative in dealing with it.”

Apart from affected sales, the big-box stores’ opening has also changed the dynamics of real estate and property taxes. Acosta of Compare Foods says that taxes on his building have risen by almost 40 percent. Merino agrees that taxes will inevitably increase.

Most consumers don't explore the neighborhood, complain local business owners (Photo by Krishn Kaushik)

The business capital corporation is devising a strategy to offer outdoor and print advertising space to small business owners at minimal prices. Merino wants to attract visitors, using the plaza as an anchor but not the sole destination.

Some community business people also complain, in some cases mistakenly, that the plaza retailers benefit from programs meant to help the smaller enterprises. “The city gives them benefits under empowerment zones,” says Acosta, angrily wondering why big corporations would be accepted in a program that provides loans at subsidized rates along with tax exemptions. But Walker says none of the big retailers got any money from the empowerment zone program, though they do get tax cuts. Sasson, asked why he never applied to the program, he says he’s unaware of it. “They never notified us,” he says.

Ultimately, many smaller business owners have lost customers, may face higher taxes and will have to spend more money on advertising. “I cannot give jobs to more people from the community now,” says Acosta. Under the strategy to promote local businesses to visitors, Merino acknowledges supermarkets still remain a “tricky” proposition.

“When a new store or a cluster of stores opens it creates, what in marketing terms, we call the grand opening search,” says Mark Cohen, marketing professor in Columbia Business School, describing the initial attraction of customers to the big-box stores . Cohen, a retail expert adds, “The presence of the big-box stores is beneficial and distractive for the community.” They bring, “enormous competitive presence,” often destructive to the local competition, he says, but they also bring services the community lacked before. “The best solution for the small businesses is to live up to their reputation of giving personalized services, which the big-box stores cannot,” he advises.

In the meantime, many people expect local business to pick up a bit, after the initial attraction to the Plaza ebbs. “Sometimes you make back the business you lose, sometimes you don’t,” says Anthony P. Ciarletta, proprietor of Lato-Ascione Pharmacy on First Avenue. “We are starting to feel the pinch,” he says about the sales for September. He disagrees that the big-box stores have more competitive prices than his store, “even if people go to these stores to buy a pin, they buy much more since they are already there.”

“Some consumers do normally revert back to their prior habits,” agrees Cohen. But it will take six to 12 months to understand the actual dynamics in this situation.

Sasson was expecting things to become better in October through December, when people traditionally come out to buy furniture from his store, but sales have yet to rebound. “It takes time, in the meantime you are losing revenue,” he says still hoping to regain his lost customers. “You just have to be around and wait for them to come back.”

New York State law is driving out the best podiatrists. (Photo by Zaheer Cassim)

New York State’s best podiatrists are moving to other states because of laws limiting them from working on the ankle, says an administrator from the largest and oldest podiatrist school located in Harlem.

Associate Dean of Student Services and Admissions Lisa Lee who works at New York College of Podiatric Medicine says: “New York State is losing its best trained podiatrists because it is so limited here. I’ve seen my best students leave.” Forty-four states in America allow for podiatrists to work on feet and ankles, while New York and five other states still lag behind. Lee says this is an outdated law but prevails because the orthopedics lobby is wealthier and hence has more sway with Congress.

In June, the state Senate passed a measure that will increase the scope of podiatry to ankles. The General Assembly will now vote on the issue. However, this may take some time explains podiatrist Eric Walter, who is also a member of New York Podiatric Medical Association. Walters says the association has been trying for more than six years to change this law and has seen some of his best residents leave New York during this period. “Our biggest nemesis is the orthopedic surgeons who feel like we don’t have the right training,” says Walters.

The New York State Society of Orthopaedic Surgeons has not denied this and says it will continue to oppose podiatrists wanting to work on the ankle, because the society says the podiatrists do not have adequate training. In a memorandum of opposition (PDF) to the measure, addressed to New York Legislature, the orthopedic society states that “training for orthopaedic surgeons and podiatrists are very different. Orthopaedic surgeons complete four years of medical school followed by five years of fellowship training. Podiatrists, by comparison, receive four years of graduate education followed by either a two-year or three-year residency.” This two- to three-year difference in training “is detrimental to patient care,” the letter says.

In the last 20 years, training in podiatry has become more rigorous. Residence has increased to three years from initially being a single year, so that new doctors can learn other skills, like surgery, and how to work with diabetic patients. The prevalence of diabetes, especially in poorer communities, has increased the demand for podiatrists.

Since the beginning of the recession more pre-med students have chosen podiatry as a profession. Lee says the podiatric school had a 15 percent increase in applicants over the last three years. She adds that more people are choosing podiatry over other forms of medical specializations. “Back in the early 2000s, I would say over 70 percent of our students, podiatry was a second choice after they couldn’t get into other medical programs,” she says. “But now I would say podiatry is a first choice for over 65 percent of our students.”

Third-year student Chioma Odukwe Enu, 29, worked as an administrator in the medical industry for several years before choosing podiatry. After receiving a master’s degree in molecular biology she decided to pursue a career in podiatry. She admits that in the past podiatrists were known to be the students who didn’t get into medical school, but this has changed. “You find as a trend now, kids are choosing podiatry,” she says. “Not saying I want to be in the medical field, but saying I want to be a podiatrist. It’s not so much that they didn’t get into medical school or they didn’t have the credentials to get into medical school because our credentials are pretty high, too.”

Enu says she doesn’t know if she is going to stay or leave New York after she graduates, but she implores her fellow students to get involved in the debate and make their voices known to the Legislature. She believes that if “other states like Connecticut or Washington, D.C., did it in order to increase their scope of practice so why shouldn’t New Yorkers step 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.

African-American and Hispanic households, the majority uptown, lack basic financial education and services. (Graph by Tim Kiladze. Source: Pew Charitable Trusts, 2009)

On a sunny autumn Friday, Bader Bahmad and fellow members of a financial education seminar at the Fort Washington Public Library branch were discussing rudimentary principles, such as the difference between needs and wants.

In a run-down conference room on the library’s deserted second floor, they talked about saving money. Asked to give examples of items they should save for, one woman mentioned a $7.99 blouse she saw earlier in the week and another said a pack of cigarettes. A talkative blonde said she has never saved for anything.

Cheryl Hines of Cornell University’s Cooperative Extension community program led the discussion. She provided handouts that explained the difference between short, medium and long-term savings goals; she offered tips for tracking money, like using a notebook to record expenditures.

Bahmad, 39, found the seminar a bit basic, but she liked the reminders because she and her three children are supported solely by her husband’s earnings as a taxi driver. She strictly limits spending on discretionary goods. “In every hour of the day, if I don’t need it, I’m not doing it,” Bahmad said.

Badmad’s struggle is complicated. In Washington Heights where she lives, families are lucky to have a bank account. While 12 percent of Manhattan households don’t have a standard checking account, 25 percent of African Americans and 27 percent of Hispanics in Manhattan – the majority populations uptown – live unbanked, according to a survey last year by Pew Charitable Trusts. In effect, they pay an average $1,042 annually in check cashing fees.

Bahmad has been trying to make ends meet in the U.S. for close to 15 years. An immigrant from Lebanon, she used to sew scarves and dresses for stores in Brooklyn and Manhattan. When she returned to her home country three years ago to be closer to her family, leaving her husband behind in New York, she sold her sewing machines.

But the distance strained her marriage, and Bahmad returned to New York after two years. “Here you’re missing something, over there you’re missing something,” she said.

Now back in America without a job, Bahmad is looking for financial advice. As a start, she attended the free seminar at the Public Library.

Instructor Milly DuBouchet, who teaches similar classes in Washington Heights, finds it hard to address intricate financial problems because her audience has never had the means to save money. “It’s hard for them to save 10 percent of their income monthly when they can’t necessarily pay their phone bill every month,” she said. “Financial literacy is at a bare minimum in our community.”

To help, the Bloomberg administration created the Office of Financial Empowerment, where DuBouchet also works. It offers personal finance workshops and free private counseling.

Lower-income people may lack a basic understanding of credit ratings and the principles of debt, according to DuBouchet. Many of her clients have been denied loans and “they want to see why,” she said. Moreover, “A lot of people consider credit cards quote unquote free money.” She tries to tell her seminar members and private clients how FICO scores are compiled and reminds those in debt, “If you stop paying it, they don’t forget about you.”

Workshops offering basic financial information can be found all over upper Manhattan. Friends Jenny Gil and Angela Ariza attended one specifically for women at City College. Both women, immigrants from Colombia, readily admit they know little about personal finance.

Gil, 27, is lucky to have less than $5,000 in debt, which she described as “not impossible.” She works in a restaurant office and is trying to repay what she owes so that she can start saving and investing – only she doesn’t know how.

She blames her financial illiteracy on Colombian cultural norms. She was raised with the belief that women don’t handle finances because they are too complex. “It’s the new days and now women take care of their own business,” she said.

Gil has done some reading on her own, like “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki, but still has trouble grasping certain fundamental financial concepts. To remedy the problem, she thinks personal finances should become part of the high school curriculum.

Donny Lynn Burton agrees. A vice president at the Harlem office of the non-profit Operation Hope, which offers seminars in credit and money management as well as individual credit counseling, she constantly meets people in similar situations.
Her clients live very differently from the middle class. “They live paycheck to paycheck,” Burton said. “They don’t understand the benefits of having an account” in a bank. She shows them how to create budgets and has them come in regularly to stay on track.

But often they start much too late, which she blames on pride. It frustrates her that most people in foreclosure know what lies ahead but don’t take action. ‘They never try to call their bank to work something out,” Burton said. She spends a lot of time assuring her clients that they can negotiate because the bank is better off if they stay in their homes.

She, too, would like to see financial education begin in high school, before people wade into major financial decisions.

Kevin Walters owns Creole Restaurant in East Harlem. He wants help with growth so he enrolled in a free, specialized small business program at Columbia Business School. (Photo by Tim Kiladze)

After years of impressing his bosses at financial institutions, Neil Caesar said he was “used to being a superstar.”

Then he left the corporate world, where he worked under established business plans, to run a small business, where he has minimal structure.

Caesar is now the chief financial officer and general manager of Digiwaxx LLC, a Harlem-based music marketing and promotions agency founded in 1998. Despite success in such corporations as State Farm and MetLife, where career progression follows a defined path, Caesar admits that he was ill prepared to be an entrepreneur. “You get in this environment and there’s not a lot of training for it,” he says, adding that he doesn’t have an experienced boss to consult for difficult decisions.

To help people like Caesar, professors and administrators at Columbia Business School last year created the Columbia Community Business Program.

It’s run out of the school’s Eugene Lang Entrepreneurship Center and provides a group of small businesses in upper Manhattan with free advice from both professionals at the school and a seasoned small business coach. The group meets 10 times a year but has unlimited access to Columbia’s professors who can connect participants to professionals in other faculties, like law and engineering.

The participants include 11 businesses and one not-for-profit organization that have been around for at least three years and bring in annual revenues of at least $250,000. This peer group represents one of the program’s key features; typically, business schools deploy their relatively inexperienced students into communities to work with organizations that need business advice. In this program, participants learn from peers going through similar problems and are in constant communication with seasoned professors.

Each of the organizations agreed to a two-year commitment. For Caesar, this requirement was one of the biggest lures. “It forced me to carve out time and drill down on how I’m going to improve the business,” he said.

For participants, like Princess Jenkins, the minimum annual revenue was a major attraction. Jenkins owns the Brownstone, a clothing and accessories store on 125th Street just east of Fifth Avenue. The Brownstone has been around for 10 years and is well known in Harlem, but Jenkins wants help “growing the business and taking it to the next level.” She runs the store by herself (she used to have two business partners), and is trying to launch a mail-order catalogue.

Jenkins treats everyone who enters the store like a friend, ending many of her sentences with “baby” – “thank you, baby,” “told you, baby.” She is well connected in the community, but her network lacked people running businesses of the same size, making it hard to find advice.

“A lot of the time, small business development information is developed toward startups or businesses making over a million,” she said. While she has cleared the hurdles new businesses face, she can’t yet relate to big firms’ problems.

Princess Jenkins owns The Brownstone on 125th Street in Harlem. (Photo by Tim Kiladze)

She applied to the program after hearing about it at a Harlem Business Alliance meeting. Entering with almost no expectations, she simply assumed that she would learn a great deal because of the business school’s reputation.

Looking back on the project’s first year, marked by the greatest economic disruption since the Great Depression, Jenkins acknowledges that she learned a lot – particularly such small, concrete skills as online social networking.

A year ago, the Brownstone wasn’t on Facebook. The program changed that. It also set her up with Google Analytics, which allows her to track who visits her web site and how often, and connected her with Columbia engineering students who will help improve the Brownstone’s search engine results.

Jenkins also praises Columbia’s flexibility. “They’re not trying to give you a road map for success,” she said. “They’re saying, ‘What’s your map and how do we get there?’”

Kevin Walters owns Creole Restaurant in East Harlem; he has spent the past few years finding nightly entertainment and connecting with local artists exhibited in the restaurant, and is only now focusing on promotion.

Aside from learning from his peers, who run the gamut in age, gender and ethnicity, Walters is particularly appreciative of working with the business coach, Barbara Roberts.

“She has academic training,” he says. “She also has tons of hands-on experience, so she’s in it. She’s hot. She’s a rainmaker.”

Roberts’ resume includes being the first woman on the board of Dean Witter. She also ran Acoustiguide, offered in museums and galleries, and FPG International, which sold for $80 million and became part of Getty Images.

Roberts’ experiences have taught her that small businesses drive economic growth and that helping them expand “is a lot easier than sorting out GM and would be a much quicker fix for the economy.”

She agreed to join the program at the height of the economic boom last year, but altered her advice when the economy turned sharply downward last fall.

“The first half of last year was very much on survival: cutting costs, making sure you didn’t lose a client, cash flow,” she said.

But she isn’t surprised to hear that most participants made few references to the recession — she says they’re typically so overwhelmed with detail that they tend to be myopic and “don’t appreciate their own evolution.”

This year, Roberts said, the program will focus on growth in the recovering economy.

Not everyone finds the advice useful. John Lowy runs the River Room, a restaurant and jazz bar in West Harlem, and has been an entrepreneur for 30 years, much more experience than most participants. He learned a few things from his peers, but nothing substantive. He would, however, advise other entrepreneurs to jump at the free opportunity.

The program also failed to keep all of its participants afloat. The Morningside Bookshop closed after the group meetings started last fall. Still, the project earned rave reviews from most business owners interviewed.

Columbia Business School has committed to running two more two-year program sessions, the next round starting in fall 2010.