by Oliver Hill
Narration
The Harlem USA complex, which houses the closed Disney store, is bustling. Sales at the Old Navy store here are better than at any other branches in the city, and Commerce Bank will soon move in and take the plastic covering down from the windows of the old Disney Store. Around the corner in the same complex, Clara Villarosa runs Hue-Man Bookstore, relocated last August from Denver, Colorado.
Tape:
Clara Villarosa:
I sold that store and moved to New York and opened this one.
Narration:
Villarosa says that unlike Disney, her African-American Specialty store has a market in the community.
Tape:
Villarosa: I think you have to look and do it need based. What kind of businesses are needed, what's lacking up here? and therefore, try to fit that, whatever that is to the demographics and the culture.
Narration
Vincent Morgan is director of information at the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, a federally funded organization with a mission to develop historically distressed communities. He says the migration of well-established businesses like Old Navy and Staples creates opportunities for small entrepreneurs.
Tape: Morgan
As these larger commercial projects get developed the opportunity is there for small businesses to utilize the foot traffic that's being generated by these larger developments to increase their presence in the community as well. This the proper time right now to invest in Harlem. Harlem is experiencing an unprecedented revitalization.
While he is optimistic about the future of Upper Manhattan, Morgan acknowledges the threat to the community posed by escalating rents.
Tape: Morgan
Unfortunately it is a problem, you can't really legislate the amount of money landlords who own those properties charge.
Narration
Landlords who have been sitting on their boarded up buildings for years, and new speculators who see a real estate jackpot, are refurbishing and putting their houses on the market to capitalize on the current upswing. On 138th street an ornate brownstone is being renovated.
Ambient
applying cement
Mexicano Worker: Voiceover This House has been abandoned for a long time, and now they're fixing it up to rent.
Narration
Where the city was auctioning off boarded up Brownstones for a dollar ten years ago, today the same shells are going for upwards of $300,000.
Many long time residents fear a gentrification of Harlem in which they will no longer be able to afford to live there, but others see the current development as an opportunity to express the wealth that does exist and build on the cultural heritage of the neighborhood.
Tape:
Dr. Cynthia: There's a lot of money in harlem.
Narration:
Dr. Cynthia Grace opened Cynergy Spa on 135th street four years ago.
Tape: Grace:
I started talking about opening a spa - there were many people who said it's just not gonna work, a spa in Harlem, that's not gonna work, there's not enough money here.
Narration:
Grace says Harlem's economy has now matured to where it can support businesses like her own.
Tape: Grace
The economic diversity had to be there. It wasn't here in this way ten years ago and it's here now. In fact we've done so well that we were able to open another branch in Brooklyn.
Narration:
Whether opening new branches in Harlem or relocating here before it becomes too expensive, businesses are showing keen interest in the neighborhood. Again, Vincent Morgan.
Tape: Morgan
There's been a spike in small businesses that are located somewhere else that are looking to now expand into the upper manhattan community.
Narration:
The Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone provides small business loans of up to 200,000 dollars to some of these incoming businesses to help them refurbish commercial space and get started. Disney's closure, while perhaps a blow to Times Square North, has sent the message to smaller businesses that their viability depends on successfully harmonizing with the existing community rather than hoping to change it.
Oliver Hill, Columbia Radio News.