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My husband and I are caucasian and we've been living in West Harlem for the past 2.5 years. Our current neighborhood is fine and you can't beat the commute.
The one thing that continues to trouble me is that - while our direct neighbors are really nice - on the whole, the vibe we get just walking around the neighborhood feels like 'you're not welcome. You don't belong here.'
In fact, a friend who visited us one evening was told that almost verbatim when going to his car, because he was a "white boy." My husband and I were also nearly physically attacked when we returned from our honeymoon by a woman - I'm pretty sure she was drunk or on something. But we were walking to our building, and she had to be held back by her friends as she started screaming Mod cut: Language .We'd never even seen her before.
I understand that Harlem has always been a predominately African American neighborhood. I get that. And I get that often the arrival of white people means rising rental prices, etc. But things are becoming more diverse everywhere in the city, and that includes Harlem. It's kind of unavoidable. And prices will go up with time, regardless.
Our situation? We're a couple of actors, we like being around plenty of parks, and it's one of few convenient places on Manhattan that we can barely afford.
Has anyone else experienced this situation or does anyone have something to add?
Last edited by Viralmd; 09-21-2009 at 09:46 AM..
Reason: Language
You think Harlem is bad, try Coney Island. It's getting worse all around. Unfortunately you as a white person will never be embraced by all of Harlems resident's. Same with Bed Stuy or other black neighborhoods who are seeing a rise in the white population. In some ways I guess I can't blame them, rents go up, mom and pop shops get flushed out and replaced by trendy cafe's and boutiques, and the neighborhood becomes homogenized. Look what happened to the lower east side (Alphabet City), Soho, West Village, and Williamsburg. Hispanics and artists got flushed out and what replaced them was the sushi restaurants, trendy cafe's and hideous boutiques. The corner tavern was replaced by exclusive nightclubs where they hand pick who gets to enter. Gentrification means you take the good with the bad, and for some folks, the bad outweighs the good. They've grown accustomed to life in their neighborhood, and they've developed the survival skills necessary to live there. Along comes Whitey from Wisconsin and suddenly the balance of nature is thrown off. I'm white, and I hated seeing other whites from out of town moving into my neighborhood growing up. In my neighborhood we all knew the unwritten rules of the street. Folks from the out of town suburbs didn't, so they would look to change things. They weren't very tolerant of others and many of them lived there to brag to their friends about how they were "slumming" it in the big bad city. As though the original residents were freak show attractions. To us the newcomers were replicants, and we often just didn't "get" one another.
This is where your street smarts, or lack of, come into play. Honestly, you should have opted for safer ground somewhere else. The bragging rights of living in Harlem come at a cost. Bill Clinton can have an office there because he has secret service protecting him 24/7, so it's a romantic notion for people like him. Not so for the rank and file who are living there for cheaper rent just so they can still say they live in Manhattan. You can find better and safer places to live by subway in Queens and Brooklyn, that won't cost any more and maybe even less. Or you can hang around and wait for something bad to happen. Somtimes the law of averages catches up with you.
This kind of thing comes with the turf unfortunately when you have ongoing gentrification. I think its something you have to have a thick skin to handle and be prepared to encounter coming in. It's not for everyone certainly. Most of it never escalates further than intimidation tactics or catcalling so I do think some of it is overblown (not trying to downplay your post OP, but some people take this type of thing and run with it). I certainly don't defend this type of behavior, I feel people should be able to live anywhere they please.
The funny thing is a lot of it is not White people causing the gentrification but Black professionals. But since White people are the stereotypical gentrifyers they get the brunt of the harassment.
I understand that Harlem has always been a predominately African American neighborhood. I get that. And I get that often the arrival of white people means rising rental prices, etc. But things are becoming more diverse everywhere in the city, and that includes Harlem. It's kind of unavoidable. And prices will go up with time, regardless.
Our situation? We're a couple of actors, we like being around plenty of parks, and it's one of few convenient places on Manhattan that we can barely afford.
Has anyone else experienced this situation or does anyone have something to add?
I'm sorry that your friends were insulted and harassed. I am not making light of the situation, it can happen to any of person of any race, or ethnic group when they are in a neighborhood where they are not part of the dominate group.
In Harlem it is not about rents entirely, rents are not based on White people moving in. Most people that live in rentals, live in rent stabilized buildings that will only go up a certain percentage, and others live in newer market rate rental buildings that are usually unaffordable for the average Harlemite.
There is another underlying reason not really discussed on this forum and that is that sometimes, White people cannot afford to live further downtown, but have plenty of money for Harlem standards. So the rents in Harlem are cheap and affordable to them. They can pay sometimes the entire 1 or 2 years of their leases upfront.
Because of this sometimes LL's are holding out for these tenants, instead of taking tenants of any race that can only pay the standard rent, security, and broker fees, and continuing paying month to month.
Apts like jobs, are a lot of times obtained through word of mouth. Someone you know has a vacancy in their building and they put in a good word for you to their landlord. This is getting harder and harder for the average Harlemite. To the point where it is almost virtually impossible now.
As I can tell from your post you feel comfortable in Harlem, it is a nice area overall, some areas of Harlem are not good, but most of it is. Most Black people that have been there for a long time feel the same way, so most want to stay. They don't want to try to fight their way into another working/middle class area, where they may be made to feel like you, and your friends, probably in a worse way. I think that this is where most of the fear comes from. If you are feeling anything negative, it is mostly from those just trying to hold on to a place where they have felt comfortable to come home to all of these years.
The funny thing is a lot of it is not White people causing the gentrification but Black professionals. But since White people are the stereotypical gentrifyers they get the brunt of the harassment.
The thing about the Black professionals is that most of them still have a family member or 2 living in subsidized housing, or the pj's. They are not that removed from them socially, and culturally. They probably enjoy eating the same foods, so your supermarket isn't changed into something that sells none of the things you used to buy. They wouldn't try to stop the drumming in the park, or the bbqing, the basketball, baseball, and soccor turnaments in the parks. These things are constantly being negotiated, and resolved, to be renegotiated, and resolved again, and again.
The Black professionals are usually aware of what they getting themselves into, and usually want to stay in that type of environment because they themselves are comfortable in it.
With White people, they may be comfortable with it, and also know what they are getting themselves into, or they may not. They just may want to be there because Harlem is in Manhattan, and they hope it will change.
These things are usually worked out over and over again, but it takes time and patience.
This is where your street smarts, or lack of, come into play. Honestly, you should have opted for safer ground somewhere else. The bragging rights of living in Harlem come at a cost.
Um, bragging rights have nothing to do with it. Not sure where you got that. And I wasn't looking for a advice on whether or not I should live there, I just wanted to discuss the situation.
As I said, it has to do with the fact that it's one of the only places in manhattan that's convenient and affordable. Aside from that one time i mentioned, I've actually never felt 'unsafe' (and that was near our old harlem apartment.) It's just the tangible feeling that we are not liked because we are white.
have you been the minority in a community before? these types of experiences are commonplace for minorities - whether they are black, white, asian, middle-eastern, etc. i don't think this has that much to do w/ rental prices or gentrification - when you're a minority, you stick out. And when you stick out, you get treated differently and stereotyping is abundant. most of the time, they are isolated incidents and should be just shaken off. being a minority in a community means you will develop thick skin and patience.
as a minority myself, i can relate to your experiences - my best advice is for you to just shake them off, appreciate the minority experience and carry that with you in the future when you are no longer a minority in another community.
Unfortunately, it's nothing new...and it's not exclusive to Harlem. I wish there was something I could add to that, but people are people. And in a city of eight million, there's no way anything like utopia is ever going to break out. We just have to do the best we can.
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