"Next month, construction is scheduled to begin on Hotel 124, a 130,000-square-foot property located on 125th Street and Fifth Avenue"
_

Just so I am clear this is a general reference point and they mean that large empty lot mid-way down 125th between 5th and Lex? On the same side of the street as the Bodyshop I believe. There is no empty lot on the precise location mentioned.

The problem with these press releases that are basically cheerleading is they are pure press releases and nothing more and the entire purpose of them is to prime the pump. This is not reporting or news.

There are two sides to every story and there is a lot new condo inventory in Harlem not selling with extremely protracted days are the market. In fact a glut of unsold new condo inventory is brewing. I am not referring to the lottery driven market, but the open market. Inventory like 555 Lenox Ave, Savoy West Condos, etc.

It's a total buyers market and becoming ever more so with the completion of more of this new inventory. All I am saying is no different than financial news and reports on stocks, everybody primes the pump, and that is what this article is entirely. For example that article references Harlem Lanes but only in the funding they've received, I've heard rumors of them possibly being in trouble, not saying those ladies are, however if you're in the business community, you hear about slow business at H Lanes, Pier 2110 below, etc. and griping by the principals.

That report lacks integrity as it has an agenda to paint. All is fine and dandy. A real report would have some measure of balance and address the current state of the problem plagued The Lenox Grand, did those people ever close? Is the project hung up due to the developer being broke? There are a lot of good things happening in Harlem, but the verdict is not in at all by a long shot on a lot of things. This new inventory glut brewing and taking shape is going to be fun to watch.

The article is referring to the derelict Boro Hotel on the southeast corner of 125th and 5th. And just for info, Michael Stoler writes a real estate column every Thursday in the Sun that focuses on an area or an aspect of the market...

Hotel 124 is going up at 124th and frederick douglas, in the old Associated supermarket. This has been much reported on. The Sun keeps making reporting errors like this one--can't keep Harlem addresses straight in their minds.

125th corridor is undergoing a complete transformation with the new river to river zoning. The FAR values are still not fixed, but they will be either big or really big. We are seeing developments including Harlem Park, Hotel 124, 125th Lenox etc, they just keep coming, chomping at the bit to get ahead of the development curve. There are many small buildings along 125th waiting for the right offer from a developer, their time served through the bad old days will be well rewarded. For those who bought in early close to 125th, they will be surfing the wave of more RE appreciation.

Even folks who buy into the much talked about (obsessively irrational negative postings on these boards) Lenox Grand will benefit hugely from this 125th rezoning. Harlem has much RE upside, those who have lived here for years have seen so many incremental changes that make Harlem living unrecognizable to the bad old days.

More change is coming in the form of these big new buildings. The new 125th will look like the movie “independence day”, an alien invasion of new big buildings along the prized 125th corridor.

unfortunately, the bad old days will remain if the MASSIVE projects continue to stand right below this transformation on 125th street. It seems as though people are delusional to think that a bunch of new buildings will really change a neighborhood to where they want it to be if there are still 2,000 project buildings clustered together from Lenox Ave straight to the east!

GET RID OF THE PROJECTS!!!

Anon @ 1:14pm is drinking the kool-aid, the whole pitcher. "their time served through the bad old days will be well rewarded". This statement justifies and legitimizes "warehousing" and not selling to Blacks at the time when Blacks had the money and wanted to buy. I understand that it not your intension, you're just spouting buzz lines and phrases as a good RE hack and shill should.

"For those who bought in early close to 125th, they will be surfing the wave of more RE appreciation". This statement is total nonsense and you don't want to be right on 125th St now or in the future, unless you consider the types that crowd 125th. St. an "amenity". You want to live a couple of blocks off of the "wild zone" where not even Statbucks can limit the filth that comes walking in their doors.

It's not negative to point out a population with a medium income of $32,000 per year, it's communicating facts. No you're doing all this cheerleading, using typical and predictable RE hack lines, promising and assuring, blah blah blah. Tell me, with that might crystal ball of yours of "things to come", any chance of a decent grocer coming to Central Harlem?

Many are oblivious to the obvious. When Harlem has indeed "arrived", a Food Emporium or Whole Foods or TJ's or ________fill in the blank, anyone but a ghetto grocer, will be opening, not a Fairway strategically located to serve Hwy commuters to and from NJ, CT, etc. Pathmark? Foodstamp money outnumbers real money 20 to 1. That's the Harlem problem that's always avoided. Sufficient density of those with disposable income levels sufficient to justify certain amenities.

As opposed to cheerling, priming the pump and speaking globally about the grand Harlem to come, how about saying when a grocery store will come? I'll even be impressed if you can announce a friggen Ollie's, one decent Chinese place to balance out the 500 greasy joints.

Perspective: There are blocks in Manhattan and not in the best areas on the LES, etc. yet still have more amenities (albiet of a certain level and caliber) than all of Central Harlem. They don't have the welfare class density of Harlem.

Harlem's challenge is demographics and density. The welfare class is entrenched, very young, and we have a system and world where they have more incentive to retain their social system perks than to improve their lot in life. They are not going anywhere.

That's where the real estate shills and hacks don't want attention focused, the demographics and density of Harlem's welfare class and the "drag effect" they have on gentrification. Lenox Avenue stretches from 110th to 145th. How many restaurants are on this nearly 2 mile strip? The reason you can use one hand to answer that question is density & demographics. There are more places to buy hair weave on that stretch than sit and have a decent meal. Why?

Explain how the demographics and density numbers move sufficient to bring in a grocer, a couple of restaurants, etc. What kind of dent into the problem does 1 $100K earner make when their are 250 unemployed young Black men with secured locked in place housing. The welfare class in Harlem is gigantic, it's statically accurate that there are more Black men in Harlem that are unemployed than are. 55% are unemployed officially, I think the real number is about 65%, How's that going to change? That number has to change to justify a grocer, a restuarant or two, etc.

please. please! PLEASE! do not put food emporium in the same catagory as whole foods, trader joes or fairway.

the fine fare on 126th and lenox does laps around any other food emporium i've ever been to in NYC...

Anon at 3:59, I know for years you have been ranting about the eminent demise of Harlem’s gentrification, with an unnatural obsession towards the Lenox Grand. All this time Harlem has been gentrifying, and that gentrification has been and is accelerating, and RE appreciation has outpaced most every other part of Manhattan. All this gentrification seems to be going unnoticed by yourself.

I suggest an optometrist, maybe a new prescription for your glasses.

Getridoftheprojects, The projects have not and will not prevent Harlem’s gentrification.

I sympathize with your plight, however Harlem has come a long way since the bad old days, if you had seen it years ago you would understand how very much Harlem has improved. The projects certaintly put a damper on improvements, but they have not and will not stop Harlem moving forward.

The projects where supposed to be a ‘hand up’ but are in reality a ‘hand out’, this helps no one and creates generational welfare.

The seven blocks along Lexington Ave. from 119th to 126th Sts.is home to the highest concentration of convicted criminals in the city. One in every 20 men in the area is sent to prison, according to an exhaustive analysis of incarceration data. More than half the convicts will return to the same swath of East Harlem between Third and Park Aves. within four years of their arrest. They will be largely unemployed and addicted to drugs [snip]
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/03/18/2007-03-18_convict_alley_in_harlem_nabe-2.html

Do you think real estate agents disclose this information when they show a property over there?

Would you buy into this area? Do you think this is the only region like this in Harlem? Harlem is nice, but sketchy and spotty.

You really have to research your micro nabe and see if despite your new digs, the area is long termed burdened with a crime class, a welfare class, get an idea how much density of rent controlled housing in your nabe and the prospects of change over time.

Take the local NYPD Police Precinct Chief to lunch and get the scoop, take the local head of the welfare and social services office to lunch and do the same. Do not listen to a real estate professional with a vested interest because they will do all they can to conceal and hide demogragphic data you should know, like the one example above.

This discussion had digressed into a bunch of mumbo jumbo so I will side step the poop on the sidewalk and go on to discuss the prospect of a Bed, Bath and Beyond being an anchor store in Harlem. Um, okay. I'll give it 3 years in Harlem's current state and 5 or 6 if Harlem continues to gentrify. BBB's tend to come in one of two categories - oversized and unstaffed or stuffed to the gills and disorganized. Hmmmm, wonder which the Harlem store will be. A support store I could see but an anchor is setting yourself up for failure. Or perhaps that's the plan....duh-duh-duh! Stay tuned!

6:13PM, I have spoken to some of the 28 precinct cops, their opinion, they wish they could afford some of this Harlem RE

5:14, I think that 3:59 said it best. If you have thousands of people living in a failed system of buildings who are not going anywhere because they have no incentive, what will happen is that we are going to have new buildings with no amenities to serve them. This is not true gentrification.
The projects have to go in order for Harlem to truly change!

Have you been to the whole foods at the base of the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle? That's what Harlem needs at 125th & Lenox, a center that draws in people on a daily basis for one reason or another (for the surround 20 blocks in every direction). Now that's an anchor. Bed Bath & Beyond? How many times a year does a person need to go to such a place? I go in that Marshalls maybe 3 times a year, never been in H&M, been in Staples about once a month.

The problem is density of those of us with disposable income sufficient to justify certain amenities, that's what they're (merchants) are monitoring. You need a critical mass of a certain consumer to justify a Whole Foods or Trader Joes, etc. that's going to catered to by foot (Manhattan style). I think that critical mass is a long way away for Harlem. I've not detected a whiff of a decent grocer for Central Harlem.

The only whiff you will be smelling is the rotten meat that goes hand in hand with poor service at Fine Fair.

With so many projects surrounding the supermarket, there is no hope for anything else even if Trump puts up a tower where the African Market is now.

The Fine Fare on 8th Avenue is also very clean and well stocked.

I'm loathe to comment on anything posted by "getridoftheprojects" for fear that I'll legitimize his/her statements, but there are several examples of areas in Manhattan adjacent to public housing that have gentrified quite nicely--16th St. btw 8th & 9th Ave; 26th St. btw 7th & 8th Ave; and the UWS in the high 90's/low 100's.

To the last poster...I said the same thing to myself (silently) because I work in that area and barely notice the PJs compared to the homes and thriving businesses in the area. I think as long as the PJ residents are offered a step up (there are organizations lending a hand like City Harvest) we don't really need to "get rid of" them. Chicago's situation is similar to what is taking place in other major metro cities like San Francisco and now New Orleans. We can convert the city housing to mixed income use as long as a contributing percentage of residents don't have to fear that they will homeless. Yes, you have a point (GROTPJs) that 2, 3 and 4 generations of families in the PJs is too much but is that their fact or the fact of the infrastructure? If you ask me, it is the fact of the "system" for not giving them the tools to step outside the box (so the speak). We can pontificate and philosophize to our heart's content but until something is done about these generations of forgotten people it is going to be an ongoing issue. Getting rid of the condition doesn't necessary solve the problem.

Have you seen how many project buildings there are from 112th to 116th from Lenox Ave on to the east? There is no other neighborhood in Manhattan with the amount of project buildings in one area and that basically is the problem.

And...let's face it -- the area near the projects in the high 90's and Low 100's is still the gutters... You have to go over to Broadway for a night/day difference. It is the same thing that is happening on 8th Ave up here in Harlem... You will see that area changing dramatically because the projects and 687 churches are all on Lenox Ave right next to the MASSIVE projects.

Harlem should take a cue from Chicago. I never thought dilapidated, yet occcupied housing projects could be razed and rebuilt into luxury homes/condo. But, it is being done; see Division Avenue. Project living became a way of life that abetted negative points of livelihood. Hopefully that was not the original intention (too young to know). While it may be next to impossible to razed or cut the size of an expansive housing project in NYC, I do welcome any new luxury residential development and mainstream business establishments on any available land. It is the influx of new people that will change a neighborhood. Long time residents, have open arms.