APPLICATIONS ARE DUE JUNE 18
Anyone interested in operating one of New York City’s new Green Carts should apply now! All applications must be postmarked no later than June 18, 2008. This year’s 500 permits are now up for grabs. Another 500 permits will be available in 2009.
Categories: GENERAL
By FRANCIS MORRONE
May 29, 2008
http://www.nysun.com/arts/a-stroll-down-125th-street/78814/
In April, the City Council voted — 47 to 2 — in favor of the Bloomberg administration’s plan to rezone Harlem’s 125th Street (and some surrounding streets) between Second Avenue and Broadway to make way for the high-rise development of nearly 4,000 apartments.
<a title=”IN TRANSITION Looking west on 125th Street at Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard in Harlem. (Heuichul Kim)” href=”http://www.nysun.com/pics/1068.jpg” rel=lightbox[slideshow]>Click to enlarge image >
Heuichul Kim
IN TRANSITION Looking west on 125th Street at Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard in Harlem.
Many Harlemites feel uneasy about the rezoning. Since half of the housing will be market-rate, some area residents fear that the gentrification already occurring will intensify, and that longtime residents of the community will be forced out. (The other half of the housing will be “affordable housing.”)
Yet is that how it really works? Adding to Harlem’s housing stock might bring down the upward price pressure on the older brownstones and apartment buildings. At least that’s what Economics 101 suggests. In other words, when you have a severe housing shortage, the solution is to build more housing. Yet the fear is that the presence of shiny new housing on 125th Street will cause overall Harlem rents to rise.
Even without the rezoning, 125th Street has changed dramatically in recent years. We’ve seen the move of large national and international chains — Starbucks, Rite Aid, Body Shop, H&M — to 125th Street. One widespread presumption holds that until recently — until the crime reductions of the Giuliani years and after — such chains were simply afraid to operate in Harlem. Whatever the reason, Harlem long endured a desperate lack of retail, as evidenced by the fact that several of the chains report their per-square-foot sales in Harlem to be among the highest of any of their stores.
Now may be a good time to take a stroll along 125th Street.
At Park Avenue, the railroad viaduct and Metro-North station house date from the 1890s. The New York & Harlem Railroad opened its 125th Street station in the 1840s, when this was a country village, decades away from being engulfed by the urban sprawl of northward-growing Manhattan. By the time of the current station, the area was in the midst of intensive development — of, indeed, vast speculative overbuilding, which ultimately led to the many empty new homes being marketed to African-Americans.
As you walk west, at Fifth Avenue look left to Marcus Garvey (formerly Mount Morris) Park, one block away, with its marvelous wooden fire watchtower from the 1850s. Between Fifth and Lenox avenues at 55 W. 125th St. stands the 14-story office building, erected in 1974, where President Clinton maintains his office. At Lenox, note that a block to your right is Sylvia’s (328 Lenox Ave.), the well-known soul-food restaurant, in business since 1962.
At the southwest corner of 125th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard (Seventh Avenue) stands the 13-story Hotel Theresa, opened in 1913 and for 60 years Harlem’s tallest building. The “Waldorf-Astoria of Harlem,” the Theresa hosted countless black celebrities during years when they appeared at Harlem venues. Guests included Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Josephine Baker, and Jimi Hendrix.
Fidel Castro stayed there in 1960; the Theresa is where he entertained Nikita Khrushchev. Malcolm X made the hotel the headquarters of his Organization of Afro-American Unity. In the 1950s, Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown grew up in the Theresa, where his father was the manager. Congressman Charles Rangel once worked there as a desk clerk. The hotel closed in 1966, a victim of Harlem’s downward economic spiral.
In 1971, the building reopened as offices. The handsome design, with white-brick façades of rippling oriels, we credit to George and Edward Blum, among the premier New York apartment house architects of their time. Across the street, the New York State Office Building overtook the Theresa as Harlem’s tallest in 1973. Designed by Ifill, Johnson & Hanchard, the state building definitely has its critics, but the boldly framed concrete structure with big glassy bays has a kind of period élan.
On the north side between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Frederick Douglass Boulevard (Eighth Avenue) stands the Apollo Theater, opened in 1913 as a burlesque house called Hurtig & Seamon’s. The theater did not welcome black audiences until 1934, by which time the name had been changed to Apollo.
It was around then that the Apollo legend began to grow. Amateur night and other events provided early showcases for such performers as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, James Brown, and Aretha Franklin. Following years of decline, the Apollo re-emerged in the 1980s as a major musical venue and as home to the syndicated TV program “Showtime at the Apollo,” on the air since 1987. When James Brown died in December 2006, his body lay in state at the Apollo.
Across the street is the former Blumstein’s department store, for many years Harlem’s largest. The handsome Art Nouveau-style 1923 building was designed by Robert Kohn and Charles Butler (who with Clarence Stein designed Temple Emanu-El of 1927-29 on Fifth Avenue at 65th Street). In the 1930s, local residents, led by the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., boycotted Blumstein’s, where all the customers were black, yet where only whites were hired for clerk and cashier positions. Blumstein’s began to hire blacks, and in time gave America its first black department-store Santa.
Categories: GENERAL
By SARAH GARLAND, Staff Reporter of the Sun
May 29, 2008
http://www.nysun.com/new-york/police-pinpoint-origin-of-a-harlem-shooting/78836/
Police officials say they have linked a shooting at one of Harlem’s busiest intersections this week to an ongoing dispute between two groups of young people who live 20 blocks north of the area.
<a title=”Deadly Intersection A view of 125th Street and Lenox Avenue. (Heuichul Kim)” href=”http://www.nysun.com/pics/1085.jpg” rel=lightbox[slideshow]>Click to enlarge image >
Heuichul Kim
Deadly Intersection A view of 125th Street and Lenox Avenue.
The incident was one of five during the course of one night that left 10 people injured and the neighborhood reeling.
Six teenagers were hurt in the shooting at 125th Street and Lenox Avenue on Monday, and police said they had found new evidence to suggest the incident stemmed from simmering tensions between teenagers living along West 144th Street.
“Detectives believe that the shooters knew several of the victims with whom they had long-standing dispute from their neighborhood,” a spokesman for the police department, Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne, said.
A 15-year-old was arraigned and released yesterday on criminal weapons charges related to the shooting, and police said they are looking for at least one other suspect.
Monday’s shooting is the latest in a series across the city in the past month involving teenagers that has worried community leaders and the police commissioner, Raymond Kelly.
Police officials said they arrested 15-year-old Jamal Armstead yesterday for allegedly shooting Maurice McGiver, also 15, on the Upper West Side on Saturday. He was charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon.
Police are searching for a suspect in the shooting of a 15-year-old in a separate incident in Harlem on Monday, and for the shooter who killed a 15-year-old girl, Brandon Bethea, in Far Rockaway this month.
Smokin’ good times at the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party
BY ROSEMARY BLACK
Thursday, May 29th 2008, 4:00 AM
The city’s biggest barbecue starts smokin’ June 7, with 14 of the nation’s top pit masters turning out ribs, brisket and all the trimmings for a two-day feeding frenzy that will serve an estimated 125,000 people. The sixth annual Snapple Big Apple Barbecue Block Party at Madison Square Park is one of the city’s best-smelling summer events, and it gets bigger and better each year. (The first year, despite a heavy downpour, 10,000 people showed up).
Categories: GENERAL
MediaTakeOut.com has learned that, according to a new report by the NBA’s Player’s Association, 60% of NBA players will be broke within 5 yers of retirement. Here’s the story as reported on the popular blog Le Basketball.
“Sixty percent is a ballpark. But we’ve seen a lot of guys who’ve really come into hard times five years after they leave the league,” said Roy Hinson, the former NBA forward who’s a representative for the players’ association. “The problems are, for a lot of guys, they have a lot of cars, they have multiple homes, and they’re taking care of their parents. They’re taking care of a whole host of issues. And the checks aren’t coming in anymore.”
“Sometimes you can stop the bleeding, and other times you can’t stop the bleeding,” said Hinson, who added that many players associate with “too many ‘yes’ people.”
We’ve all heard the stories of NBA players owning 15 cars and 5 vacation homes. The sad part is most of these players lack educations and support outside of their posses and families. Most of these players could use some legal guidance as well as financial guidance but seem at times to not be so willing. The players’ association has continually proposed a financial firm that offers players free 2nd opinions on their financials, but getting these players to act has been a challenge.
Shaquille O’Neal of the Miami Heat was in the news recently with a court document representing his annual income as well as his annual and monthly spending. The “Diesel” pays $156,000 a month just in rent and mortgages on the various properties he owns or leases and another $1500 just for his cable TV bills! Of course Shaq is on another level than most other NBA players with the simple fact that he pulls in $20 million a year in salary but this still shows you a great example of the kind of money players are capable of spending.
Remember former Chicago Bull, 6 time NBA Champion, Michael Jordan running mate and top 50 player of all-time Scottie Pippen? Just 2 years removed from retirement, Pippen was back in the news looking to make an NBA comeback to a team that was a title contender. NBA teams laughed at a Pippen return which was later rumored to be based on his poor financial standing. The rise and fall of Pippen was so drastic that he was seen overseas playing 2 games for Finnish powerhouse, Helsinki ToPo to make a little cash.
Besides the fact that players fork out all of this dough for houses, cars and cable bills you still can’t forget that many of them have multiple children from multiple women. This is yet another expense that must be accounted for and child support is one of those bills that doesn’t go away for at least 18 years. Again, you can see how 5 years removed from an NBA career with 2-3 child support payments a month and you could run out of millions pretty damn fast.
Jason Kapono of the Toronto Raptors expressed his thoughts after the players’ association presented their materials. “Going above and beyond isn’t worth it. I don’t want to be a part of that 60% that’s in trouble five years down the road. It’s a short career and I’m blessed to be earning a great salary playing basketball. But if it ended, my contract only takes me to age 30. Life expectancy is 80-plus. So I’ve got another 50 years. Do I really need to buy another car?”
Categories: GENERAL
