Harlem Gentrification

This is my first Blog, ever. 

Okay, on to the topic. I hope I get some people to check me out, make some comments, give me some feedback.

I am a native of Harlem. Just turned 39 years of age, I am a third generation Harlemite. Both my parents were born in Harlem. My mother was born in the former Sydenham Hospital on 124th Street at Manhattan Avenue, and my late father was born on 118th and 7th Avenue and grew up near 125th Street and 8th Avenue. My Mother grew up on 110th between 7th and 8th Avenue (aka A. C. Powell Blvd. and Frederick Douglass Blvd, respectively). Their parents came from Mississippi and Georgia on my dad's side and Virginia and North Carolina on my mother's side.

I was born on the Upper East Side (New York Hospital, presently known as Weill-Cornell) in November, 1972. Raised in the area where East/Spanish Harlem and central Harlem meet. I'm a product of the N.Y.C. public school system - for better or worse; and of CUNY (C.C.N.Y Class of 1999) where I majored in Cultural Anthropology. 

For the last 12 years, I have worked off and on with a real estate attorney who specializes in among other things, buy/sell transactions of brownstones and condominiums in Harlem. Working with him as an Independent Consultant has allowed me the opportunity to observe changes in this community in terms of housing stock, prices, demographics and physical changes to the streets and avenues of Harlem.

Even before working with him, I have been keen to notice the changes in Harlem going back to the late 1980's and early 1990's.

This will be the primary (but not the sole) purpose of this blog. This will be my personal soapbox  for me to voice my observations and opinions about the changes in Harlem over the past 20 years. In addition, this will be not only those observations, but opinions and observations about a variety of topics that interest me. I may talk about public education, gender relations, popular culture, race relations, the economy (and related topic like employment), history, etc. 

Even if no one else reads this blog, if nothing else this will be my recorded, written and published thoughts that I will share with if nothing else, but for my own reference. I cannot and will not promise any regularity to this blog. It will be updated when I have both the time and the inspiration to do so. My opinions are in no short supply.

I welcome feedback, both positive and negative.

That's it for now.