Harlem’s Real Estate Boom Becomes a Bust

clipped from www.nytimes.com Harlem’s Real Estate Boom Becomes a Bust Tina Fineberg for The New York Times Craig Charie paid $750,000 for a brownstone he had hoped to resell for for as much as $1.6 million. It is for sale for $599,000. By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY Of all the New York City neighborhoods swept up in the real estate boom of the last decade, few became as hot as Harlem. It grew increasingly gentrified and integrated. Its economy developed a lively pulse, and its town homes — stately, historic, but often neglected — fetched prices unheard-of for the area. But that sense of electricity and evolution, which thrilled some residents and troubled others, has been unplugged. And a single block — West 134th Street between Frederick Douglass Boulevard and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard — offers a vivid illustration of just how cool the market and the mood have turned.

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