My NYC Black Folk......Gentrification

[eastsideTT]

Harlem Residents Fuming Over Push to Rename the Area


Developers Using Made-Up 'SoHa' Neighborhood to Profit Off Harlem, Pols Say
By
Dartunorro Clark
May 24, 2017 5:59pm | Updated May 24, 2017 5:59pm
Community leaders and residents spoke at a rally on Wednesday, May 25.
DNAINFO/DARTUNORRO CLARK

HARLEM — Real estate professionals greedily branding a slice of Harlem as "SoHa" — short for South Harlem — are eroding the neighborhood's legacy while trying to profit off the area, advocates and politicians say.

Several elected officials, local clergy, community board members and residents rallied at the corner of West 115th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard to deliver two stern messages: "SoHa" doesn’t exist, and it’s not welcome in Harlem.

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“You can sell without using the word 'SoHa.' This is Harlem — a wonderful brand, a brand that is known all over this world," said Danni Tyson, a local real estate broker and a member of Manhattan Community Board 10, which covers the area.

“No real estate company, no coffee shop, no business should be using the term 'SoHa' to refer to Harlem. This is a home, this is a culture, this is a place that people visit."

While neither 'SoHa' nor South Harlem are official demarcations, the moniker is supposed to identify a part of Central Harlem spanning from West 110th to 125th streets.

Online real estate listings agencyStreetEasy features hundreds of listings for rentals, condos, co-ops and sales using the name.

Even realtor Keller Williams has a dedicated “SoHa” team of realtors in the neighborhood. (A representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment).

“We’re not going to let people who just got here change the name of our community for their profit,” said Harlem District Leader and City Council candidate Cordell Cleare. “This is about greed and lust.”

Although the nickname has beenlingering in the neighborhood for about a decade, Tyson has been at the forefront of a recent push to mobilize local leaders against the name, getting the community board to adopt a resolution earlier this year condemning it.

Comptroller Scott Stringer, who attended the rally, recalled when he brought up the issue in 2007 as Manhattan borough president.

“What we realized 10 years ago was this was not about Harlem, this was about real estate speculators taking advantage of a community — the gentrification of a community,” he said.

Now, the community board and politicians are planning to find ways to push back at any continued plans to re-label the neighborhood.

Just-elected state Sen. Brian Benjamin, the outgoing chairman of Community Board 10, said he’s even working on a proposal to legislate the renaming of neighborhoods.

He said he wants to propose a law that would push for a community review of any development project that plans to use a provocative new name for an area while also receiving local or state subsidies.

Benjamin recalled longtime residents telling him, "How dare someone try to rob our culture and try to act as if we were not here and create a new name and a new reality as if the clock started when other people showed up?’” he said. “That is unfair.”

He admitted that it’s a premature proposal, noting that the community can only protest private companies, but he’s “trying to make a statement” and will work with his new colleagues in Albany to flesh out the proposal

this shyt is crazy. I remember back in like 2007/2008 they tried the same thing in East Harlem with "SpaHa."

Scott Stringer has always seemed like a good dude. I wish he'd make a good run at Mayor , I been saying that for the longest.

I posted a lot in the Prodigy Mural thread in the Booth (which talked about gentrification around Queensbridge in LIC) about the sheer glut of supply right now in the city. I work part time in real estate and property management and no one wants to admit that the rental market is steadily going downhill. There is so much "luxury" supply it's crazy. Prices are slowing coming back down to earth. Of course, not for the middle class or the average new yorker. But still... there are so many huge empty glass towers everywhere (the most are in LIC Queens) and more and more slated to go up. These places are offering fire sale incentives to get people in the door; and also they usually allocated 20% at least of the units as affordable housing to get a tax credit. When these places sit empty long enough they have to get filled. I saw a "luxury" building go up in East Harlem 10 or 11 years ago that sat empty for so long the owner eventually entered into the LINC voucher program and started renting to homeless people. Think about the future...people working from home...retail not being physical anymore. what's gonna happen to all that office space in manhattan. all that commerical space? it's gonna get converted to apartments. ALL of that is gonna be high end luxury housing? I'm sure that's what they'd like, but the reality is that the world can't sustain that. Prices in NY WILL come down to earth a little bit. There is already a ton of supply and in the next 5 years there is gonna be an overload.

Anyway the reality is that it's getting harder and harder to convince someone to pay $3000 for a 1 bedroom in Queens and they over-speculated. Couple this with the complete failure and breakdown of the MTA (and the scheduled work on the N train, M train and most importantly the L train over the next 2-3 years), hopefully they do that mansion tax where they tax the shyt out of people warehousing property in NY or if you buy a condo and it's not your primary residence you're getting hit hard. Add on the death of retail - big box brick & mortars closing, balloon mortgages on commercial spaces - plus the transition of how we work (more people are starting to telecommute/work from home) - you're gonna have a TON of old office and commercial spaces converted to apartments in the future. Sprinkle on ...god forbid... another terrorist attack... and with all of these factors we're going to see the real estate bubble pop sometime soon. Not tomorrow , or next year soon... but soon. I think gentrification is on it's last legs in NYC. There's a lot of talk and hype about "them" coming for the south bronx, east NY, jamaica, etc... but it's not gonna happen. The next hoods that are gonna gentrify are the native NY white hoods where there was always traditionally a white working class, then immigrants came through, and now hipsters are gonna be on deck. Places like Kensington and Midwood in Brooklyn, Ridgewood up to Middle Village in Queens. Those are gonna be the "next hot spots"

I think the MTA inadvertently is going to have a lot to do with slowing down gentrification in NY. The trains are only going to get worse before they get better. Out of towners fanning out from the city like "oh it's only 4 stops into the city on the express... I can live there " suddenly have a 1.5 hour commute because the MTA is in shambles then they realize they moved here from out of town to take the train 1.5 hours each way just to get to work, so they can afford to... take the train 1.5 hours every day to work? and they have no other roots here? Come'on.. they're gonna pack the fukk up and leave.

I said it in the other thread and I'll say it again here.. if you're in NY and make less than like $120k a year and plan on staying here, aggressively apply for every single affordable housing development you can, both rentals and the affordable/mid-income co-ops. Sure the odds are crazy high but it's all volume and numbers. Send in a postcard to the lotto for yourself... then send in 20 more under friends and family's names and get added to their household composition if they get picked. If you're over-income for a certain development, find a family member who is retired or unemployed and add them to your household...the ceiling gets higher based on household size. That $65K you make for a family of 1 might be too much to qualify, but for a family of 2 it can fit. ETC... get agressive with it because it's possible. I was lucky enough after applying for almost 10 straight years and some of my family members got affordable spots as well. there is no other way i'd be able to afford to live here right now. my overhead is realtively low and im highly blessed but it;s still stressful making ends meet here. the system is out there and all you need is decent credit, patience and a prayer...

speaking of credit... i read somewhere that they are trying to make credit checks for housing applications illegal. I don't know if that's possible because to a degree private landlords and owners can set their own policies... but if they make credit history or financial history a "protected class" that falls under fair housing laws... it's a possibility

 

[ZoeGod]

Makes sense. They building all these condos and shyt but no one is in them. We gonna have ghost condos in 10 years at this rate. Something has to give because there is only so many people who can pay 2500-4500 a month in rent. This isn't sustainable to say the least. Oversupply but low demand leads to drop in price. This is economics 101. The real estate market here is ridiculous and will soon crash. When it crash it will be ugly.

And on the MTA they got major problems. The infrastructure is old as fukk and uses 1930s technology. But what is worse the MTA is in direct financial straits. They have massive amounts of debt and obligations that it's killing them. I saw a video that explains it and in the long term they are fukked. It is not a matter if the MTA will go bankrupt but when. And the scary thing I don't think the city or the state is prepared for a scenario if it does go bankrupt. Not even them have the money to bailout the MTA. I remember the MTA workers strike in 05. I was a freshman in high school and that shyt was a pain in the ass. If the MTA goes bankrupt it will literally be a disaster. The MTA is poorly run.

 

[Red Shield]

Makes sense. They building all these condos and shyt but no one is in them. We gonna have ghost condos in 10 years at this rate. Something has to give because there is only so many people who can pay 2500-4500 a month in rent. This isn't sustainable to say the least. Oversupply but low demand leads to drop in price. This is economics 101. The real estate market here is ridiculous and will soon crash. When it crash it will be ugly.

And on the MTA they got major problems. The infrastructure is old as fukk and uses 1930s technology. But what is worse the MTA is in direct financial straits. They have massive amounts of debt and obligations that it's killing them. I saw a video that explains it and in the long term they are fukked. It is not a matter if the MTA will go bankrupt but when. And the scary thing I don't think the city or the state is prepared for a scenario if it does go bankrupt. Not even them have the money to bailout the MTA. I remember the MTA workers strike in 05. I was a freshman in high school and that shyt was a pain in the ass. If the MTA goes bankrupt it will literally be a disaster. The MTA is poorly run.

you remember the video?


MTA got pensions I'm guessing? That's what's really fukking over a whole lotta cities

 

[ogc163]

Been out here last couple of weeks studying...the MTA has managed to get even worse. Its basically an adventure to leave White Plains road on the weekends. The 2,5, and the 6 been trash and shyt managed to get worse. But the sad truth is that the fare is too low and has to rise.

 

[mson]

Been out here last couple of weeks studying...the MTA has managed to get even worse. Its basically an adventure to leave White Plains road on the weekends. The 2,5, and the 6 been trash and shyt managed to get worse. But the sad truth is that the fare is too low and has to rise.

Why is that?

 

[ZoeGod]

Been out here last couple of weeks studying...the MTA has managed to get even worse. Its basically an adventure to leave White Plains road on the weekends. The 2,5, and the 6 been trash and shyt managed to get worse. But the sad truth is that the fare is too low and has to rise.

Fare too low?! Get the fukk out of here. The shyt is 2.75. If I put 20 dollars in my metro card it won't last me a week. So how high can it go? $4? $5? $8? The what will be the price of weekly and monthly metro cards? MTA fukked themselves and this video explains why

 

[ogc163]

Why is that?

The cost of running the system at this point is too expensive, it is an outdated system in one of the most expensive most dense cities in the world. You have to increase costs not even "just" to help cover costs, but that shyt doesn't make sense when you take a look at other cities fares. For example, a place as small as Pittsburgh charges $98 for a monthly pass, and D.C. charges $108. In NYC even with the shytty service, you are still getting a lot more utility out of the public transit system than you do in those other cities, so the fact that you are only paying $40 more is a fukking bargain. I've dealt with both of the aforementioned transit system's and the MTA outperforms them even on its worst day, now that probably says more about the sad state of public transportation across the nation than the efficiency of the MTA.

MTA is a horribly run organization, and I say this as the son of a MTA bus driver. But New Yorker's crying about fares makes very little sense given the relative costs of transportation systems across the country.

 

[mson]

The cost of running the system at this point is too expensive, it is an outdated system in one of the most expensive most dense cities in the world. You have to increase costs not even "just" to help cover costs, but that shyt doesn't make sense when you take a look at other cities fares. For example, a place as small as Pittsburgh charges $98 for a monthly pass, and D.C. charges $108. In NYC even with the shytty service, you are still getting a lot more utility out of the public transit system than you do in those other cities, so the fact that you are only paying $40 more is a fukking bargain. I've dealt with both of the aforementioned transit system's and the MTA outperforms them even on its worst day, now that probably says more about the sad state of public transportation across the nation than the efficiency of the MTA.

MTA is a horribly run organization, and I say this as the son of a MTA bus driver. But New Yorker's crying about fares makes very little sense given the relative costs of transportation systems across the country.

That's because the cost of everything else is high.

 

[ZoeGod]

This is a quote from a former worker of the City Office of Management and Budget.

I’ve worked in a number of places, and while City government is not run as efficiently as Wall Street, it is run far better than non-profits or cultural institutions, and on par with many public companies that are swallowed up by their own bureaucracy. The MTA is behind, certainly, but still better than any non-profits I’ve seen.

Around 1999, the MTA passed a 5 year capital plan which was financially preposterous. The dotcom boom was still pushing Wall Street, but with City and State endorsement, they basically expected funding to continue to come in at Madoff-like rates, as it had been doing in the late 90s. This was the timing of crazy golf course expansion and whatnot, where it seemed like 12% annual growth might be permanent. (Ridiculous, 8% is what’s used for pension modelling, and even that is a little rosy, if you’re doing any long term planning beyond 6%, you’re nuts). That’s when all the expansion projects hit: 7 train, east side access (still waiting), second avenue (hurrah!), Advanced Signalling, and if you remember the whole subway fleet was replaced (adieu, redbirds) and new railroad cars. There was also a whole new bus fleet, but no one thinks of them as real transit.

The problem was that the financial boom of the 90s had only let the MTA catch up on maintenance and get the system back to a reasonably functional state... That 2000 Capital plan basically assumed they could do the massive expansion AND keep a maintenance record like they had in the 90s, when they were luckily flush. I recall at the pre-meeting, when all us wonks from City, State, and the MTA sat around without the bosses, we’d all done our research and realized we’d built an unsustainable plan, but The Bosses and Politicians were already out there, and it was a done deal. We could show them all the dire portraits of the future, but they had ribbon cuttings to get to, and things were awesome in 1999.

Of course, 9-11 and Lehman brothers and Sandy add to the narrative, but there was never going to be a permanent boom economy, I don’t know if the ups and downs of the last 20 years are any different than the average of any random 2 decades. And while the City still had some growth, Bloomberg was only interested in real estate and added nothing to infrastructure. Even though the City was growing, its financial position didn’t really get better or worse than the rest of the country, you can’t sell bonds to people with no cash, they didn’t raise taxes to pay for the growing City, and the MTA was still burdened by that 2000 plan. So something had to give, the maintenance funding wasn’t terrible, but the Politicians began to think of the system as “fixed” because the City is still generally clean and better than the 70's and 80s. So they could splurge on shiny new things.

The payoff (or whatever you call a negative payoff) only begins to strike now, in the infrastructure world. Projects take a very long time, and infrastructure ages very slowly. But when it goes, it goes, and it takes another decade to get all the funding and do all the work to bring it back to par. You’ll get tons of stories from guys on the ground who will blame their bosses right up the chain, but those bosses are sitting there with $20 to fix $200 worth of problems. If it was $30 worth of problems, then yes, creative management might be able to do something, but they’re not close to that. So everyone is miserable, faces the same pressure, and going up the chain to the Mayor and Governor, they all know there’s no money coming. You’ll get lots of horror stories from the guy who just needed a $20 part to save a disaster, but he doesn’t realize that his boss has to give that part to 10 different guys. I’ve been that boss, every employee thinks he can save the day, but I can’t do jackshyt to help him. Journalists love to find the stories of the government employee who misused a company car, but they couldn’t care less about a general funding shortfall (I don’t blame them, it’s not interesting, or easy to get anyone to understand why it matters.)

This isn’t just the subways, you’ll see it in all American infrastructure over the next decade. There was a major build in the 30s, and then again in the 60s. (New York and the whole northeast are especially susceptible to this schedule) Things like bridges are sold under 30 years bonds (sometimes 40) which reflects their useful life. This can be pushed to 50 or 60 years, but at some point, as with any maintenance (like your car), you’re paying more to fix it than just throw it out and get a new one. So since our infrastructure was last really built in the 60's, that “some point” is basically now, where we can slap on all the duct tape we want, but it’s rebuild time.

Of course, there is no rebuild coming. You can call up your local government contact and ask them for the rebuild rates on roads and bridges and watermains and sewers, you’ll soon discover that many are on 200 and 300 years cycles. This isn’t re-paving roads, this is “tear it up and build a new one.” You’ll have to trust me that bridges are only good for 50 years, but common sense should tell you that a road probably needs to be rebuilt more often than every 200 years. We can blame the GOP and tea partiers all we want, but there’s not a single Democratic politician proposing anywhere near the infrastructure funding we need, even if there were, there’s not a single voter out there who would vote for the kinds of tax hikes we’d need to address it, we’re just not close.

It’s possible that there could be a few disasters that hit the news and make someone care. The Brooklyn Bridge isn’t going to fall down, but maybe a few highway overpasses give out in the next big storm. Even this is unlikely, a more likely result is that a lot of them are simply closed over the next 10 years when they just can’t be fixed fast enough. I only cite bridges here because its hard to demonstrate a subway or road “disaster.” When the subway signals go down, the train simply stops. Roads just crumble and ruin your car. Neither makes for good TV. And even if you miraculously got people to care, it still would take 10 years to ramp up because you need cranes and tunneling tools and whatnot that aren’t just sitting around, you have to take a few years just to build the infrastructure you need to build the infrastructure. (Sidenote, there’s an interest schedule across the globe of mega projects, because in the whole world there are only a handful of the massive cranes and barges and tunneling equipment you need, so the whole world can only build yea-much cool shyt at the same time). We got a glimpse of that in the aughts when China was building so much that concrete and steel prices became prohibitive, and noticeably reduced our own domestic construction, the number of projects was probably reduced by about 15% simply because of increased prices, putting us further behind schedule.

This is the kind of stuff we’d model out for kicks 10 and 20 years ago, as we wonks are wont to do. No one was looking at it, not that they could do anything. So while you’ve probably heard of unfunded social security and pensions and medicare and so on, American infrastructure is just another thing to add to the list. The difference is the other items are abstract and just drift into whatever we conceive of as Poverty and declining living standards, but the infrastructure will fall down (or you’ll sweat out some subway rides), so we’ll see it. We built a ton of shyt during our boom years, mostly ignored it, but compounded that problem by essentially sticking with Reagan-era tax rates for an entire generation. Let’s say we shorted ourselves on taxes just 1% per year (though probably much more), but did that for 40 years, how we would ever get that lost savings back? This is the kind of stuff that’s easy to ignore because no one would look twice at a line graph with 1% cuts. But now we all own a giant house that we can’t afford the upkeep on since we spent all our money on iphones and hookers instead of investing in the house. So all you schlubs out there are just reaping the harvest that was sowed a generation ago by schlubs like me. Too late now.

 

[shonuff]

well let me just add this

if youve ever played that railroad game you already know what the MTA is dealing with

the stations were built some 60 in some places a 100 years ago - when the cities population asnt that dense

so now a station that serviced 15thousand riders a day at peak is now servicing 50-

also ther is this - they cant run more trains because they are at capacity - meaning the most trains they can run is lets say 20 trains on one route- the trains have to stay on schedule and they can only hold 3000 people - you cant extend the number of cars on the train beause the stations are built to only hold 10 train cars- you cant extend the size of the stations to have more cars because the stations are underground - so the number of cars are fixed ; the size of the stations are fixed and the number of people are now double of what the stations were built to have

and of course the city is growing in population

 

[BushidoBrown]

well let me just add this

if youve ever played that railroad game you already know what the MTA is dealing with

the stations were built some 60 in some places a 100 years ago - when the cities population asnt that dense

so now a station that serviced 15thousand riders a day at peak is now servicing 50-

also ther is this - they cant run more trains because they are at capacity - meaning the most trains they can run is lets say 20 trains on one route- the trains have to stay on schedule and they can only hold 3000 people - you cant extend the number of cars on the train beause the stations are built to only hold 10 train cars- you cant extend the size of the stations to have more cars because the stations are underground - so the number of cars are fixed ; the size of the stations are fixed and the number of people are now double of what the stations were built to have

and of course the city is growing in population

 

[BushidoBrown]

Fare too low?! Get the fukk out of here. The shyt is 2.75. If I put 20 dollars in my metro card it won't last me a week. So how high can it go? $4? $5? $8? The what will be the price of weekly and monthly metro cards? MTA fukked themselves and this video explains why

good video
my question is: who held a gun to the MTAs heads and told them to enter into these interest rate swaps contract with banks?
sounds like whoever is/was managing the finances for the MTA bet big and lost big
or never knew wtf they were doing in the first place and got finessed

 

[Tommy Fits]

Woodside is next...entenmans outlet store on queens Blvd just sold and they plan to build condos. They're currently building a luxury hi rise on roosevelt ave and 71st

 

[ZoeGod]

Yo what is the point if they keep building these luxury condos and they wind up empty? There is no demand for them. It is like they just keep building them. Man those investors aren't going to be happy to see their return on investment.

 

[frush11]

Yo what is the point if they keep building these luxury condos and they wind up empty? There is no demand for them. It is like they just keep building them. Man those investors aren't going to be happy to see their return on investment.

Can't wait till they all become section 8 buildings in 10 years.