El Barrio (Spanish Harlem), New York City

Mural of Oshun on P.S. 7

 

The New York City neighborhood of East Harlem, now known as El Barrio, has been the first stop for many immigrants over the decades. I recently took an early morning walk through part of El Barrio to enjoy some of its original architecture.

East Harlem developed as the first train lines were built during the second half of the 19th century. Between WWI and WWII, the area was the landing place for mostly Jewish and Italian immigrants. They built businesses, churches and synagogues. After WWII, the children of these families used their GI benefits to go to college, and to buy homes in the outer boroughs and suburbs of New York. So by the 1950’s there were plenty of apartments ready for the “great migration” of Puerto Ricans. They moved into the area, which was close to jobs in lower Manhattan, and which came with the Catholic infrastructure already in place. So East Harlem became known as “Spanish Harlem”, or to the people who lived there, El Barrio - The Neighborhood.

Spanglish in Effect

El Barrio, like many working class neighborhoods in large cities, went through tough times in the 1970’s. Landlords abandoned buildings. The government eyed the area for “urban renewal.” By the 1990’s, just like with earlier immigrant families, the younger generation took advantage of educational opportunities, and started to move out of El Barrio. The next wave of immigrants moved in. Mostly from Mexico, they found a place that already had an infrastructure in their native language, and rents that were reasonable.

Today, El Barrio carries the remnants of all these populations. Buildings that originally served as synagogues are now Spanish language Pentecostal churches. There are still some classic Italian restaurants in the area. Bodegas sell Mexican food alongside its Caribbean selections. Many Puerto Ricans still live in the area, and families return all the time to celebrate their history of arts, culture and food. El Barrio is still a hub of Puerto Rican life in New York City.

Casita in an urban green space

A former synagogue repurposed as a church

El Barrio stretches from East 96th street north to 125th Street, from 5th Ave east to Pleasant Ave. There is a lot to see and many great places to eat.
 

Alphabet City, New York

 

 

For full disclosure, I have a deep and strong nostalgia for the New York of the 1970’s. Yes, I know all of the issues with crime and drugs. I lived through them. But the city had a “realness” then that 21st century gentrification has done away with. One neighborhood where this is fully evident is in Alphabet City.

Alphabet City is the area east of Greenwich Village. Its name comes from the fact that the avenues there are named A through D, being east of 1st Avenue. It stretches from Houston Street north to 14th Street. When I was in college it was a poor, working class neighborhood. Drugs were rampant. Many buildings were abandoned, and squatters had moved in. The play/movie “Rent” is set in this area.

There are clues to the age of store. One of them is not having an area code

Homemade chairs set up for hanging out

Alphabet City was one of the first neighborhoods in New York to be gentrified. While it has made the area safer, it has also struck at the heart of it. In the old days it offered a home to artists and musicians who couldn’t afford the rent for studios in other parts of New York. The mix of an integrated collection of workers and artists created a vibe that has pretty much disappeared. There used to be clubs, bars and shops that catered to the people who lived here. Today the population has become much more prosperous, and the stores and restaurants reflect this new clientele.

Gentrification in Alphabet City is thought to have started with The Christadora House. The Christadora House was built in 1928 as a settlement house, a temporary living space for immigrants and low-income people, allowing them to find their footing before moving on to permanent housing. It closed in 1948 and the building was sold to New York City. The city planned to use it as a home for delinquent boys, although that never materialized. It was basically left empty, and by the 1960’s it had been reclaimed by the neighborhood. People moved in, and legend has it that it was home to Black Panthers office for a while. In 1986 the building was sold to developers, who planned to convert it to high priced condominiums. The Christadora House became a focus of the anti-gentrification movement and the “Thompkins Square Rebellion.”

One really positive remnant from the old Alphabet City is the prevalence of community gardens. These green spaces were created when local residents “appropriated” empty lots that had been abandoned by their owners. The locals cleaned the lots and turned them into gardens for growing food, and places to hang out. Many of them have been rolled into the NYC Parks Dept. but they are still run by the local groups that founded them.

As in many neighborhoods where gentrification has taken place, you have the old and the new mixed together. Five story Rail-road flat tenements sit next to modern condominiums. Store fronts have been fixed up to have larger windows and modern lighting. But this change has not replaced everything. There are still working class people in Alphabet City, and some of old stores are still there. But in the long run money usually wins, and “Benjamin Coffin III” has had his way with the neighborhood. 

Built as a bank, waiting for a new life

Built as a synagogue, now serving as a church