Target This: East Harlem

The avenues of El Barrio constitute a retail desert, where shops charge unwarranted prices for goods of dubious quality. But, with Target on tap, soon there may be higher caliber doormats, cutlery, and Halloween costumes galore for East Harlemites.

Sandwiched up against FDR Drive at the site of the old Washburn Wire factory, the 1.2 million square foot East River Plaza on East 116th Street is under construction at a time when the credit crunch and the equities nosedive present exceptionally unfavorable market conditions.

But, the reality of the economic downturn presents an opportunity for retailers that offer higher-quality goods at consistently low prices.

“Target is a perfect store to open up here in this type of economic situation. It’s not like they’re Neiman Marcus,” said Mark Olson, construction manager for RC Dolner, which is building the East River Plaza complex.

Olson estimated that the Target’s grand opening would take place around October 2009.
Target’s breakneck expansion across America seems undaunted by dismal economic forecasts.

From Wasilla, Alaska, to Alpharetta, Georgia, the Minneapolis-based Target chain opened 45 stores last Sunday alone, following news that September sales were up 2.5% - when the rest of the retail sector had its biggest contraction in three years.

With a total of 1,685 stores in 48 states, “Target offers a strong brand and value message, with high-quality products at affordable prices,” said spokesperson Anna Anderson.

At East River Plaza, the mega-retailer looks to transplant suburbia into the ghetto by sublimating local infrastructure into its voguish bulls-eye.

Generating new tax monies at a time when the city is becoming increasingly cash-strapped, East River Plaza promises to be a “unique shopping experience…and a catalyst for future economic development,” according to the developer, Blumenfeld Development Group, a Syosset N.Y.-based company that is partnering with Forest City Ratner on the project.

“I am always willing to reach out to make developers and those businesses coming into the area be more responsive to the community,” said Melissa Mark-Viverito, councilwoman from East Harlem.

According to the developer, the project is generating 2,000 permanent retail jobs and 2,000 construction jobs.

Target promises around 200 jobs, which will be opened up first to area residents via local media, said spokesperson Anna Anderson.

Moreover, through its charitable wing, the corporation said that it gives more than $3 million per week to local communities for grants and special programs.

Last Thursday, Target awarded $14.9 million to schools nationwide, a small chunk of which was reaped by dozens of East Harlem schools who are participating in the Take Charge of Education program, according to spokesperson Harold Reid.

The company also has honed its community relations with the October 4th dedication of the Target East Harlem Community Garden, in conjunction with Bette Midler’s New York Restoration Project.

Giant red metal umbrellas covered with solar panels greet green-seekers who enter the East 117th Street garden. In addition to the solar energy, giraffe-like steel masts can be cranked out to harness wind power. The electricity then powers the light bulbs of a community gardening shed, as well as the irrigation system that uses harvested rainwater.

While the goal was to open the space to anyone, head gardener Callie Yarbrough stated the need to keep out riff-raff from the unspoiled, corporate-financed plot.
On Sunday, the Diaz family elected to continue their weekly domino game in the non-Target park down the street. The son littered his Lays bag, and the grandfather stumbled to and fro with a Bud Light, both of which would not mesh well with the Target garden or its stewardess.

“The New York Restoration Project’s vision is to create a more aesthetic and neutral place. They argue that this is more appealing to a wider audience but I have spoken to them and told them that I disagree with this perspective,” said Councilwoman Mark-Viverito.

“I want to ensure that the organization is respectful of the existing residents and making the place a welcoming environment for them and that the garden is not seen as one that is only for the new residents arriving into the community,” she added.

The cushy Target garden space will be used to display Target lawn furniture starting in December, according to Yarbough.

The success of the Target garden has inspired Yarbough and her gardening friends to work with Home Depot on another garden on the same block.

“I’m looking forward to Costco, because then we won’t have to go all the way to Jersey or the Bronx,” said Yarbrough, who lives next to the Target garden.

Originally, Target was expected to fill the second story of the East River Plaza building anchored by Home Depot. However, there is rampant speculation in the neighborhood that the home improvement giant is seeking to exit its 30-year lease, leaving the project with a gaping 110,000 square foot hole.

While Best Buy and Marshalls are expected to round out the project, rumors abound that Costco will fill the Home Depot slot. Sources that wished not to be revealed also mentioned the possibility of Home Depot subletting their space to another tenant, such as Loews. Blumenfeld Development Group principal David Blumenfeld would not comment on the issue.

The nearest existing Marshalls is nine blocks north from East River Plaza on East 125th Street, and the nearest Best Buy is 30 blocks south on East 86th Street.

Although Target already operates stores in Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island, the East River Plaza store will be the first in Manhattan – albeit in an area in dire need of decent retail.

With 485,000 square feet of prime retail space and a 1,248-space parking garage, the project will contribute traffic to a community with already congested and polluted arterial roadways and one of the highest asthma rates in the country.

Until the 2nd Avenue subway line opens around 2020, automobiles will be the main way to access East River Plaza.

“The more people they bring in, the better for us. Traffic is what we need,” said Gordon Telford, an employee at Benjamin Moore paints on First Avenue.

“It behooves Target to have easy and convenient access to the site. We are committed to where we build and take pride in the location that we select,” said Target spokeswoman Anna Anderson. She added, “Redevelopment in this community is drawing eyes and ears to the area, making it a great opportunity for a longstanding partnership.”

With a lack of sympathy for retailers that over-charge for clothes, chips, and cigarettes, Target is sprucing up retail options where worthy shops are few and far between.

With the sluggish tide of the area’s transformation, Target represents a thrifty and Bohemian turn for El Barrio.

Although some residents bemoan the tide of gentrification, many wonder if this will slow due to Wall Street woes. Less upward pressure on housing costs might please an area that remains skeptical of bourgeois delights and urbane big box retail, even if offered up at low prices.

“It used to be such a quiet neighborhood,” said Columbia Altieri, a retired teacher at P.S. 112.

“But who knows when they'll be finished Target. I probably will be gone by then.”

The Reincarnation of Exodus House: East Harlem School

On a formerly downtrodden stretch of East 103rd Street next to 2nd Avenue, the Arcs construction crew hastily finished sidewalk digging for fiber optic cables and hauling off chunks of concrete. An irate blond driver of a shiny Lexus SUV several vehicles into the queue yelled, “Come on, man. Let us through.”

The motorist’s view was blocked by another SUV in front of her, so she could not see the futuristic phoenix that has risen from the site of the erstwhile Exodus House drug rehab clinic.

The current avatar, East Harlem School at Exodus House, will provide similarly beneficent services to the blighted neighborhood, upon relocation in under a month.

These are the last days that the 106-pupil school will spend at St. Lucy’s Church, one block from its nearly complete new digs at East 103rd Street.

Co-founder and Principal Ivan Hageman’s family history will have come full circle when his school moves back to the Exodus House site. He was born and raised in the rehab clinic, which his parents Lynn and Leola Hageman founded in 1963.

The Exodus House became an after-school program in 1984 and subsequently a school in 1993.

While his upbringing and professional success may not be typical for a neighborhood of ubiquitous public housing and fast-food eateries, Hageman was always exposed to the substance abuse and indigence that plague East Harlem.

“It’s been a pleasure to build for Ivan and his group of kids, who will truly appreciate this,” said Marc Gee, the construction manager for Arcs. The company did a design-build with architect Peter Gluck, who has done non-profits such as Harlem RBI and Bronx Charter Prep, in addition to projects in Westchester County and Aspen, Colo.

“Most of these nonprofits are just getting by. They still think they’ll just be bringing the old building’s furniture over,” said Gee. “So this project hits home.”

While the East Harlem School’s new building was expected to open at the start of this school year, administrators had to settle for a November grand opening, the exact date of which has not yet been announced.

Gee said that the city was dragging its feet in issuing permits, due to backlog in the aftermath of several crane accidents.

In the meantime, the school is readying for an October 28th benefit at Chelsea Piers, which will attempt to generate the final $700,000 of the $12 million capital campaign that began over 10 years ago to raise funds for the school’s new home.

Around the corner in the well-worn stairwell of the school’s temporary home, a stern Grace Eagar said, “You all are never going to do that again,” as she scolds her humanities class for having broken a cardinal class rule.

Eagar, like most of the über-attentive staff, has multiple roles in ensuring that the strict academic and disciplinary policies are enforced. As the development director and a teacher, she said that the last days at the St. Lucy’s building have been hectic.

“Yet, I’m not shocked that people say this is a great school. Students are always our top priority, and the average class size is just 15 students,” she said.

In a city where 84% of minority high-school students attend dropout factories, Exodus House has a stellar record of graduates matriculating in some of the city’s best private high schools.

“The East Harlem School’s new building is beautiful for the area,” said 61-year-old Esther Rodriguez Hill, who lives in the St. Lucy’s Apartments next door. Hill’s mother was a community organizer who worked with Principal Hageman’s father.

“I have four cousins who went to the old Exodus House. Although the center really helped them, two died from heroin overdose and the other two from AIDS,” she added.

“You see those Exodus House kids walking in straight lines? That shows the progress of our neighborhood,” said Hill, after she scolded one-year-old Skyla Boldon, for whom she babysits.

“I’ve seen the Exodus House built, knocked down, and rebuilt. Ivan better send me an invitation for the grand opening!” she declared.

The new four-story avant-garde structure with Ikea-inspired 1960’s minimalism contrasts with the tenements nearby. With black, white, and grey rectangular trespa panels, the façade looks more Malmö tech park than East Harlem middle school.

Locals stroll by toting their laundry in handcarts and clutching 32 oz. Styrofoam cups of watered-down Mug root beer from the JFK Fried Chicken restaurant on the corner. Though incredulous about the new structure, they seem to betray a sense of delight in its visual novelty.

“The new facility is pretty much like a regular school, except for the front,” said 8th grader Daniel Lucero, who recounts the full-sized gym, science labs, smart boards, and spaciousness.

The building is consistent with the educational philosophy that some parents described as “New Age,” including vegetarian food and an annual spring poetry slam. Yet, passing the high-demand school’s entrance test places applicants, who must live nearby, into a competitive lottery system.

In the neighborhood, criticism of the school was scant, but Marisa Steffers, a resident of 1199 1st Ave., said that the mandatory summer classes and over-emphasis on test preparation were not ideal for her 11-year-old son Jude, who attends P.S. 3 in the West Village.

Fausto Lopez recently moved from a building down the street from Exodus House to the Bronx because of rent increases. Yet he feels blessed that his 6th grade son Richard can still attend the East Harlem School.

“This school has the highest standard, no negatives, and is so far so good. We want to send him to a New England boarding school later,” said Lopez.

“This is a huge step up for kids who used to have torn textbooks,” said Karen Ayala, 35, whom Hageman taught at University Heights Secondary School in the early 1990’s.

“Before he was my homeroom teacher, I was a hot mess. Look where I am now,” said Ayala, a teacher at the Head Start across 2nd Avenue from Exodus House.

“The school and its new building are not the norm for this neighborhood,” said Ayala. “But they try to show the children that there is something better. An opportunity of this magnitude is a beautiful thing.”

“If Ivan’s gonna do it, then he’s gonna do it big.”

The Evolution of East Harlem

The seeds of big box development are painstakingly being sown in East Harlem, to the chagrin of some residents present at Community Board 11’s Land Use Committee meeting last Monday night in the basement cafeteria of North General Hospital.

While the massive development promises to bring jobs and tenants to a blighted section of East Harlem, residents fear that the project could result in less green space, squeezed out local retail, less affordable housing, and a parking nightmare.

Almost two years after the city first issued a request for development proposals, the East 125th Street Development plan is slouching forward. Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Robert Lieber, District Eight Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito, and Manhattan Community Board 11’s East 125th Street Taskforce are ironing out an agreement to select one out of three developers being considered for the mixed-use 1.7 million square foot project.

“Developer E, the presumed favorite in the ongoing blind selection process, is real estate mogul Joseph Sitt’s Thor Equities, which is also redeveloping Coney Island,” said Robert Rodriguez, Manhattan Community Board 11 Chair. Vornado Realty Trust and General Growth Properties are the other two developers in the bidding to build the combination of retail, office, residential, and cultural space – and even a 180-room hotel.

“Our goals and priorities focus on affordable housing, jobs, a cultural center, public space, and small businesses,” said Rodriguez, who sought to make the plan’s $100 million in expected community benefits “accountable to the people of East Harlem.”

The proposed six-acre East Harlem site contains three parcels located between Second and Third Avenues and East 125th and East 127th Streets. The Economic Development Corporation, the city’s development wing, has spearheaded the stalled East 125th Street plan as an integral part of the broader Harlem renaissance and the river-to-river rezoning effort.

The East 125th Street development, which may take over a decade to materialize, includes up to 300,000 square feet of anchor retail space for national tenants such as JC Penny, BJ’s, Lowe’s, and Regal Cinema. The plan is also slated to have up to 140,000 square feet for specialty retail such as restaurants and nightclubs.

Meanwhile, at the 485,000 square foot East River Plaza project already under construction at East 116th Street, Target, Best Buy, and Marshalls are still expected, but Costco may replace Home Depot, which is no longer interested. Community Board Chair Rodriguez said he aimed not to see a repeat of the scenario in which East River Plaza construction jobs were promised but never delivered for neighborhood residents.
In addition to concerns over gentrification, community members also expressed doubts whether the proposal was competitive enough to take advantage of Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone funds.

“In this credit market, I doubt that these national tenants could work out financing for the East 125th Street project,” said Garry Johnson, president of Johnson Design Consulting Inc., an East Harlem-based company. “Look at the East River Plaza’s [Home Depot]. That will happen to these guys later too,” said Johnson. Johnson also doubted whether the 50,000 square feet of local retail would be fairly accommodated in the East 125th Street redevelopment.

“The city has promised not to use eminent domain to remove tenants, but Fancy Cleaners, Midas, and a gas station at 126th Street and Third Avenue are concerned that they might not receive market value for their properties,” said Rodriguez.

The East 125th Street plan also includes around 900 units of mixed-income housing, about half of which is slated to be owner-occupied. There would likely be one residential tower and one mixed-use tower, including over 150,000 square feet of office space. Also planned are 300,000 square feet of cultural and media space, which would include 30,000 square feet for non-profit performance space, where groups such as PR Dreams and the Caribbean Cultural Center would pay below market rent, according to the current plan.

“We don’t have to develop everything. We can leave some areas to nature,” said Francis, an East Harlem resident who doubted that the plan’s minimum requirement for open space would ultimately be fulfilled. Additionally, the plan aims to include over 600 new parking spots, and some residents worried that their neighborhood would turn into a giant parking lot.

“We cannot get [Councilmember Mark-Viverito] to back us on major land use issues...to stand up to the city and fight for this neighborhood. She always folds. Now we’re under the gun again due to her inadequacies,” said Johnson. He added, “Melissa, we got you in, and we can get you out.” The councilmember did not return phone calls for comment.

“There should be a citizen review process and [Community Benefits Agreement] equal to the ones for Columbia University’s expansion plan in Manhattanville and for Hunts Point in the Bronx,” said Lee Shan, an East Harlem resident and city employee. Board chair Rodriguez countered that a more comparable review process in terms of community feedback occurred with the 125th Street Corridor Rezoning, which has already been approved by the New York City Planning Commission.

“In this process, we should be responsive and reactive but also progressive in expressing the vision for what we want,” said Matthew Washington, co-chair of the Community Board 11 Land Use Committee and Deputy Director of Friends of Hudson River Park. “The city has not done a good job in addressing these concerns, and the people who represent us are not listening. We’re shooting full force for the community and for our families,” added Washington.

“We need to take a more active role in selecting the developer and creating a decent vision before October 7th, when the City Council votes to approve the plan,” said Rodriguez, on the East 125th Street Development’s impending Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP).

Monday night’s meeting also addressed the snail’s pace of other construction projects in the area, as well as the planned pedestrian and bike connector from East Harlem to Randall’s Island.

“We must ensure that future developments adhere to what we want before we begin them, since our children will have to live with the results. Developers want your land, labor, and the tax benefits,” said Johnson, who urged that the incipient East Harlem Local Development Corporation take heed of these concerns.

The American Ballroom Theater’s Dancing Classrooms and Hunter College’s Center for Puerto Rican Studies and are two non-profit organizations listed as possible tenants for the East 125th Street development’s 30,000 square feet of cultural space.

“We would be happy to serve the East Harlem community,” said Pierre Dulaine, founder and executive director of Dancing Classrooms. “But we were not even aware that this development is still going forward.”

Katrina's Supremely Eminent Domain

There seem to be a few irrefutable truths that emerge from the Gulf Coast's experiences with the cataclysmic 2005 hurricane season. The most drastic shift in the societal balance of the New Orleans metropolitan region derives from the impossibility of resuming the erstwhile pattern of residential settlement. Given the utter destruction of areas such as the Lower Ninth Ward and the Route 23 corridor down south into the deepest reaches of the boggish Cajun-flavored bayou, it's become clearer that governmental authorities need to step in to prevent building in areas where further human habitation would be too costly. Such a prohibitive cost precludes the cultural or social contribution that continued community presence would offer to the region. At some point, the economic and practical pricetag of shoring up marshlands that have been degraded reaches the point of no return. The levee system has always been minimally comprehensive. It's just that a fully responsible government would insall a levee network that is far more foolproof and impregnable. The flood protection that existed pre-Katrina was no match for a beastly storm, and there's no reason to believe that local, state, or federal government will ever cough up enough funds to construct a system that would protect neighborhoods - whether wealthy or poor, black or white.

Controversies over land use reflect general patterns of sociological conflict between classes who have divergent ideas about how best to organize communities productively. In contemporary American society, there seem to be two opposite phenoms that characterize neighborhood change: gentrification and ghettoization. The first connotes increase in property value, decreasing crime rates, and domestication of chaotic neighborhood elements. The second suggests a decrease in property values, increasing crime rates, and the decline in neighborhood orderliness, generally associated in American cities with the influx of minority or immigrant groups. These contrasting movements are occurring simultaneously in America in different parts of every single city. While some neighborhoods are "going downhill" and "turning bad," yet others are "getting fixed up" or "developed." It seems like people sometimes perceive that cities are either proceeding in one way or the other. This is not the case. There is simultaneous movement in both directions. Certain neighborhoods are being vacated at alarming rates and are doomed to years of dilapidation and not-so-benign-neglect, leading to a state of under-development or regression. At the same time, many other neighborhoods in the same city may face rapid evolution.
These assumptions about "getting better" or "getting worse" exist aside a league of other variables that measure the health of cities, including educational opportunities, job availability, green space, and transportation efficiency. There are thus multiple ways of measuring the constantly evolving truths of urban life. No subjective evaluation is possible for urban fabrics in which competing classes and institutions vie for resources, and each demographic segment is not even wholly classifiable as benefitting from certain patterns of development.

New Orleans and Baltimore are the two primary cases that I'm envisioning as I explore the ramifications of urban geographic shifts. New Orleans, for one, was characterized by the severe indigence and urban blight of many predominantly African-American communities. While it is indeed presumptuous of me, as an outsider, to apply my scholarly understanding of urban change to concrete realities of habitation and development, I nonetheless am in a position to evaluate incipient changes in standard of living and quality of community interaction. The problem, which I do not pretend to be able to solve, hinges upon what most people would consider the worst neighborhoods of these two urban polities. The two examples are the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans and the MidEast section of Baltimore. While the conditions of renewal, population transfer, and so-called progress are different in both cases, there are similar fears and aspirations emerging from the clashing camps. The pro-renewal folks cite the ameliorated land use, public good, and progress. Those opposing the gentrification talk about the government-sanctioned destruction of a robust community, inadequate compensation for property owners, and the lamentable transfer of land to more powerfual socioeconomic agents.

While the New Orleans example does not involve the explicit use of eminent domain, the same justifications and methods are employed as in the legally sanctioned imposition of land use statutes. In the MidEast section of Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Hospital has convinced Baltimore City's quasi-governmental economic arm (the Baltimore Development Corporation) to incur the powers of eminent domain in commandeering 10 square blocks of raw ghetto and mostly abandoned blocks of rowhouses for use by nascent biotech research interests. Following the logic of the Supreme Court's ruling about the use of eminent domain in New London, CT, a host of American cities instantly applied this principle to their crusade to seize blocs of subaltern communtities for use by more powerful interests. Again, these processes occur simultaneously to stable, middle-class neighborhood "seizure" by lower class groups. Perhaps there is some metric that demonstrates the overall rate of progress in a city and suggests which way a city is moving in an ostensibly zero-sum development game. Is it ultimately productive, whatever that adjective entails, to destroy the most depressed neighborhoods in order to fulfill broader social goals? Some might argue that sense of community is the only thing that these neighborhoods still possess and that therefore it is not advisable to strip folks of their pride and communal sensibilities. On the other hand, why preserve ghettos that are some of the most perilous and scarred zones in America, for residents and passers-by alike?

Is there an objective arrow of development that captures the transformation of urban space? I don't believe that there is a generalized, simplistic, and objective evaluation of progress, when such an equation would aim to grasp an array of postmodern factors that involve multiple subjectivites and divergent intrepretations of value and public good. Yet, a few eternal political truths remain, as far as I'm concerend. The "less desirable" groups who are displaced by EmDo and gentrification deserve decent housing conditions. This can be achieved by illiberal policies that transcend the market's ability to optimize neighborhood arrangements. The free market usually does not provide profitable opportunities for betterment of heavily minority districts within racially and socioeconomically stratified cities.

Lastly, there are normative questions that attempt to address who exactly ought to live in certain places. Should decisions about residential location and community displacement be made by means of the general will, by nominally democratically-elected councils, or by capitalist elites? Who bears the right to occupy land, either in America or beyond. Psychological attachment to land is indeed a complex phenomenon that involves psychogeographic considerations that delve deep into history and multifaceted community relations. Consideration of public good as it relates to eminent domain must include concurrent articulation of the opposite and simultaneous social processes. This means that we all must realize that "there goes the neighborhood" is a reality for folks at both ends of the spectrum. It is not merely the downtrodden or merely the wealthy who triumph in the perennial exchange of land and population across the urban landscape.