The newest addition to the New York City Thunder ABA men’s basketball team stands 5-feet-6-inches tall and wears her hair in a tight ponytail. The only female player in the entire league, Milani Malik earned a spot on the Thunder’s roster a month ago, the latest step in the 24-year-old Brooklyn native’s quest to becoming a full-time professional basketball player.
Author Archives: Sarah Kazadi
Harlem Shopping Survey Analysis
I think I did myself a disservice by not promoting my survey more. I did the basic Facebook/Twitter plugs once I created my survey, but I didn’t really follow through afterwards. I also feel like I should have reached out to more organizations, like the Harlem Business Alliance, for help getting some responses. Only one person took my survey, and I know that is not nearly enough to draw conclusions from.
The person can’t speak for the shopping habits of all Harlemites, but I did get a nice response in the “Anything else you want to add?” section. “Shopping in Harlem isn’t too bad,” the person wrote, “It’s just that there are about two stores that I actually like in the area.” This statement kind of reversed my preconceived notion that Harlemites don’t like shopping in Harlem, but it did back up the fact that many of them feel Harlem’s shopping scene isn’t up to par. Again, I don’t want to analyze this too much, because it is the only response to my survey and can’t be used to represent other people.
In retrospect, I would promote my survey more than once or twice and personally reach out to all of the people I know who live in Harlem. I didn’t use all my resources and it showed.
iFFY The Badman
When speaking of East Harlem-bred musicians, names like Tito Puente and Celia Cruz come to mind. The pioneers of the rich Afro-Latino, mambo and salsa musical genres that have helped shape the area’s music scene today are immortalized through murals and street signs all around the neighborhood. But as East Harlem has evolved, through the wave of cultural and economic change, so has the definition of what an East Harlem musician is supposed to sound like.
Meet iFFY The Badman, a singer and songwriter of pop and soul influenced punk music who is a walking representation of that change. After moving to East Harlem at 12 years old, his deep Rock and Roll influences clashed with El Barrio’s Afro-Latino culture, and his musical identity has made him stand out from East Harlem’s current musicians. Despite being recently signed to Universal Republic records, gaining his neighborhood’s support for his different sound has been a challenge, one that he has chosen to use as motivation to stick to his guns.
As he performs for the first time in New York City, iFFY The Badman provides a glimpse into how it feels to represent something different than the norm.
Building Futures In East Harlem
In East Harlem, youth violence, especially gun-related crimes, have been a hot topic of conversation for the past several months. From the broad daylight shooting on 122nd Street and Third Avenue in late September to the many deadly gang-related shootings this summer, the violence among youth has put the neighborhood on edge.
YAPH has been on 118th Street for nearly 33 years. (Photo: Sarah M. Kazadi)
Violence among youth is nothing new, but the recent surge in youth gun-related crimes have shed new light on the issue. From local elected officials implementing task forces to non-profit organizations focusing on youth initiatives, the community is taking various approaches to grappling with this pertinent issue.
One of those youth-focused organizations is East Harlem-based Youth Action Programs & Homes, Inc, part of YouthBuild Americorps. For nearly 33 years, the organization has used construction and community development projects to give youth members practical skills and leadership abilities, as well as presenting an alternative to the streets. Most of the young people in the program come without high-school diplomas and earn a GED at the completion of the 10-month course. All around East Harlem, the program’s youth members have helped build various affordable housing developments and buildings, keeping busy and out of the evident trouble that permeates the streets they work on daily.
Below is staff member Jacqueline Mason-Francis, speaking about YAPH and its role in the East Harlem community.
The Corner
Spend 10 minutes on the corner of 124th Street and Lexington Avenue and you’ll get a quick glimpse into two longstanding issues in East Harlem: drug addiction and homelessness.
Jose Gonzalez sorts through his bag of recyclable items. (Photo: Sarah M. Kazadi)
There are seven recycling machines stretched along the wall of the Rainbow clothing store on the corner, offering money in exchange for aluminum, plastic and glass. The most common visitors of the recycling engine, also known as a redemption center, are either homeless or living in local shelters, says manager Auto Ferril, and many of them are either still on drugs or recovering drug addicts. Ferril opens the center at 6 o’clock every morning. In some cases, the change his visitors earn in exchange for digging through garbage for recyclable materials is their only income.
Shop ‘Til You Drop, Harlem Edition
From new ethnicities to higher property values, Harlem has experienced a steady cultural and economic makeover in the past decade. Some of the most significant changes have come in the area’s shopping scene.
In the past two years, over a thousand new businesses have sprouted in East Harlem alone, according to ReferenceUSA. The neighborhood’s higher cost of living, fueled by spiking property values in response to higher-income new residents, has brought chain stores like Best Buy, Old Navy and Starbucks to the area.
The Famous Famiglia on 125th Street and Lexington Avenue is one of over a thousand new businesses in East Harlem over the past two years. (Photo: Sarah M. Kazadi)
Some of these new business owners cite the neighborhood’s activity and people as motives for the move. “This is like the Times Square of Upper Manhattan,” said Frank Grecco, who opened Family Famiglia on the corner of 125th Street and Lexington Avenue nearly two years ago, expanding the pizzeria chain to 124 locations worldwide.
The expansion of chain stores has received support for its ability to boost employment, like the 4,000 retail and construction jobs that resulted from the new East River Plaza. Residents, both old and new, are exposed to more retail options and job opportunities, although local employment has faced hurdles.
Some longtime East Harlemites, like Tony Garcia, question whether the new stores and cultural diversity is really financially benefitting the area, saying that Harlem’s newest residents don’t use the new stores in the neighborhood. “I don’t see them shopping here, they might rent here, but you don’t see them hanging out or going to the local places,” he said.
So, where exactly are Harlem residents, both new and old, shopping? Is Garcia right? If new residents aren’t shopping in the area and older residents are worried about the higher prices in the neighborhood, where is everyone shopping? This survey will help answer these questions. If you live in Harlem, click here to take it now.
Dear Social Media Diary,
I used Facebook more than Twitter for this assignment, since I just created a Twitter account and my audience there isn’t as large as my Facebook one. For my “question blog promotion” posts, instead of promoting my blog, I promoted my latest article. I felt that my question blog post was a bit dated and I’d already promoted it and received significant feedback. This article, which was about long-standing East Harlem small business owners struggling to hold on to their shops amidst higher property values and a changing community, spurred some conversation on Facebook. It was also tweeted by Welcome To Harlem, a wordpress blog, even though I only tweeted it once.
For my survey research, I might have been too vague in the questions I posed, because I didn’t get much feedback. I tried once, hoping that my humor would get some responses but it didn’t really work out that way:
Then tried again, trying to focus more on Harlemites:
…But still, not much feedback.
My survey is going to be on Harlem’s shopping scene, being that the neighborhood has gone through mass changes expected to make it more shopper friendly and boost the area’s economic outlook. I want to see if people are actually beginning to shop here, and figure out what they shop in Harlem for. The first step is to get out there and speak to people, and this survey could help if it’s done right. Judging by my few responses, I have a lot of work to do in order to make this survey interesting enough for people to want to chime in.
Claudia’s Long Beach Surfing Pics
No Youth Jobs = Violence ?
Ten days after 18-year-old basketball star Tayshana Murphy was gunned down in Harlem, the two young men allegedly responsible for her murder are in police custody, officials said Wednesday.
Despite a visible police presence in Harlem, youth violence has spiked in the past few years. (Photo: Sarah M. Kazadi)
As Murphy’s family mourns, her killing has shed light on the steady rise in youth violence and gang related crimes in the area. East Harlem community leaders say the surge could be largely attributed to the lack of jobs, and initiatives to create more opportunities for youth employment are underway.
Harlem hasn’t been spared from the job market’s downward slant. With overall unemployment in the area almost doubling the national rate, the youth labor force – falling between the ages of 16 and 24 – is also feeling the blow. The National Urban League reports that youth unemployment among minorities, who make up a large chunk of East Harlem’s population, hovers around 39 percent.
The high unemployment rate has coincided with the recent spike in youth violence, and community leaders have tied the two trends. Raichelle Thompson, a 21-year-old lifelong East Harlem resident, said youth violence in her neighborhood is at an all time peak. “The younger the group, the more deaths. Kids with guns and no diplomas, it’s really crazy out here,” she said.
At a community board meeting in February, East Harlem police said gang violence was their toughest challenge, and that gang members ranged from 13 to 21 years old. There are about 24 active youth gangs spanning Harlem, according to a DNAinfo report, some even using social websites like YouTube to taunt each other.
Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito established the El Barrio/East Harlem Youth Task Force in response to the alarming numbers, organizing events on youth violence and putting an emphasis on youth jobs. Congressman Charles Rangel has teamed with other local elected officials and the NUL to gain support for the Urban Jobs Act, which promises to “provide critical resources for non-profit groups to prepare at-risk youth for new employment and educational opportunities.”
With the initiatives freshly under way, it will be a while before we can determine whether they can create more youth jobs and slow down youth violence. Percentage wise, how much do you think the lack of jobs is to blame for the spike in violent youth crimes? What other factors should be addressed to stop the trend in communities like Harlem?
SEO Headline Rewrite
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