Just In Case You Missed It (Bullshit Related)
The_Non
5,691 Posts
Drummers clash with new Harlem residents By VERENA DOBNIK, Associated Press Writer Sat Aug 11, 6:19 PM ET NEW YORK - On Saturday nights in summer, hundreds of fingers pound out mesmerizing rhythms on African drums ??? a ritual repeated for decades in Harlem's Marcus Garvey Park. This year, the drums have a counterpoint: the complaints of "new Harlemites.""African drumming is wonderful for the first four hours, but after that, it's pure, unadulterated noise. We couldn't see straight anymore," says Beth Ross, who lives in a luxury apartment building near the park. "It was like a huge boom box in the living room, the bedroom, the kitchen. You had no way to escape except to leave the apartment."Ross's complaint is just the latest sign of conflict in Harlem, where upscale apartments and hotels are rapidly changing the face of a neighborhood long considered the heart of black culture in America.Central Harlem around Marcus Garvey Park is especially attractive, with its opulent brownstones and churches from the Gilded Age of the 19th century.The park was formerly known as Mount Morris Park, the name given to it by developers in the 1800s, when the area was mostly white; that name is now often used by real estate agencies. The park was renamed in 1973 for the Harlem-based black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey, who had advocated black ownership of Harlem.[/b]The influx of outsiders intensified after the arrival six years ago of Harlem's most famous commercial tenant, former President Clinton, whose 125th Street office is a short walk from Marcus Garvey Park. He said then that he hoped his presence would encourage others to move to the neighborhood.Longtime Harlem residents say that while his intentions were good, the "new Harlemites" are making changes that are destroying some of what's dearest to the black community.A community garden was bulldozed to make way for elegant new apartments ??? right next to the future Museum for African Art on Fifth Avenue. After 50 years in business, the soul food restaurant Copeland's closed in July, a victim of what the owner called the neighborhood's changing demographics and food tastes."They call this the new Harlem Renaissance ??? bringing in people who are able to pay for these properties, who push out people who can't, like schoolteachers and municipal workers," said James David Manning, the 60-year-old Baptist pastor of the Atlah World Missionary Church, a block from the park.[/b]The original "Harlem Renaissance" was a flowering of literature, art, theater and music during the 1920s and 1930s, when black writers, artists and musicians became famous ??? from Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston to Josephine Baker and Duke Ellington.In recent years, Manning said, "the community has been taken over by big business and banks, and deep-pocketed entrepreneurs. If we lose Harlem, we lose the flagship of African-American people worldwide."Apartments are priced at $400,000 to $4 million in a condo complex set to go up on the south side of the park. About a fifth of its 26-story residential space is reserved for affordable rental apartments.The drumming dispute erupted earlier this summer with complaints from residents of a new 23-unit co-op overlooking the north end of the park. Days later, the drummers reluctantly moved farther inside the park after a few of their representatives met with building residents and officials of the city parks department, which gave the drummers a permit for the summer.Now, complains Agnes Johnson, a community activist and dance choreographer, "You can't hear the drummers or see them from the street. Try and find them now!"To the drummers and their supporters, the Saturday-evening ritual that began in 1969[/b] is part of their history and culture."Some of these drums are prayed over, blessed in Africa," said Benjamin Thompson, a retired security guard who plays trumpet with the group.Carl Alexander, 71, a retired teacher originally from Trinidad, has been drumming here for 34 years. "People come and drum for spiritual reasons ??? and to get away from the hustle and bustle," he said. Ross, an executive career coach who moved into the area a year ago, says she feels "honored" to be living in Harlem alongside longtime residents. "It is their community, their history," she said. But when it comes to their drumming location, she thought it was time to change. "It's a matter of quality of life," she said.
Comments
I love this type of schitt, J.
No one thought of the noise environmental impact of the area when planning for the snob ass condos!? Another aspect of delicate and underlying themes of planning that is hard to decipher when developing in an area that is rich in human culture as Harlem.
Should they move? Probably not. It will be interesting to see what happens on this.
What the fuck do the bourgeois of Harlem now about the drums!
It's not exclusive to Harlem, either. For years now, especially since property values in the UK began to rocket, and the movie made Notting Hill such an appealing place to live, the same beneficiaries of the area's gentrification have been trying to get the Notting Hill Carnival moved to another area of West London where it'll cause them less of an inconvenience. Never mind that it's taken place in Notting Hill for over 40 years, or that people from all over the world come to take part in it every year, or that it's only for one weekend a year.
Same thing's happening in parts of East London as well, such as Shoreditch and Hoxton (kinda like London's equivalent of Billyburg in BK). The artistic community that moved to these areas in the late 90's because of the availability of cheap warehouse/studio space helped create a burgeoning night-time economy in their wake, and made the area more attractive to your garden-variety yuppies looking to for property to blow their seven-figure City bonuses on. Now these same yuppies are forming resident's associations in order to get many of the bars and clubs in the area closed down because of fears that all the noise and whatnot will make the area a less desirable place to live, and that property prices will fall as a result. Perhaps then, all the boho types who've had to either move out or close up because the yuppie influx has meant rent rises and costlier leaseholds will be able to move back. It's not often I find myself in the hipsters' corner, but this is pretty typical of what's happening in many of the livelier and more interesting parts of London.
A similar situation is happening, or has happened with the Chelsea cruise, poncy riverside apartments spring up on derelict land, overpaid denizens of the apartments get the arse over the monthly cruise taking place. Granted it's not much of a 'cultural' event, but tough! it's been happening for a lot longer than you have lived there.
same thing is happening here in chicago, around wicker park. not sure if the movie of the same name was the catalyst though
they want to move in, have bitch ass cafes everywhere and trimmed hedges
also reminiscent of people moving out to the country and filing complaints about the smells coming from farms. fuckers
- J
expand your attention span homie!
You know that America don't wanna hear the sound
Of the bass drum jungle music go back to Africa
Nigga I'll arrest ya if ya holdin up trafffic
I'll be damned if I listen, so cops save your breath and
Write another ticket if ya have any left and
I'm breakin ear drums while I'm breakin the law
I'm disturbin all the peace cause Sister Souljah said war[/b]
Yeah, but that's been happening for about 15 years now, and I've only been living in Wicker Park for 6. It's still a slap in the face when the former "Crossroads of Cool" at Damen, Milwaukee, and North is now populated by 3 banks, a Starbucks, a cell phone store, and a trixie/asshole club. Boutique Culture is certainly in full swing and has been for longer than I've been living here. The brick-and-mortars that used to be medium- and then high-end independent stores are now G-Star Raw, Levi's, Artsy $50 t-shirt/$200 shoe stores, and other chains like Urban Outfitters and American Apparel. Most disturbing is the Levi's store, which upon its arrival - nearly a block Southeast of the corners - proudly proclaimed the location "Levi's Bucktown." Hell - I just miss the local taquer??a.
Honestly, though: This is nothing new. Money moves in and things change. Ho-fucking-hum. We can still claim the worst home invasion/burglary rate in all of Chicago. Now that's gritty and underground. Hah. It's far worse in Harlem, where there's actually a culture that embodied a cultural image. Wicker Park only really had a junkie, Man-With-The-Golden-Arm legacy, or at least for the last 50 years. Artists are naturally transients, anyhow, if they don't get better-paying jobs. Really, if Bronzeville started to become the hip new white area in Chicago in, say, 1925-30, or about 10-15 years after the Great Migration, then it'd be on par with the Harlem situation.
People don't usually move to Wicker Park anymore because it's "cool," but because it's an investment opportunity. The home two doors down from me sold for over a million dollars to a French family with an au pair. A year ago, the same month they moved in, the new owners called the police to protest the noise levels of the church-run community Summer Fair in the Park. I witnessed this as it occured. The policemen, who had just arrived were holding back their smiles and disbelief as they told the French woman "Just wait it out - they'll quiet down." Ain't nothing changed.
Now, about those 45s, N*gel...
damn W*ll you've been in an arguing mood lately, everything cool over there?