Harlem 2016

It's now the year of 2016, and Harlem has gone through some changes. Change can be good or bad, but I'll weigh out both the good and bad changes of Harlem. Let's start from what I know Harlem as. Growing up a Harlem native, I've just grown to love it. I didn't always love Harlem. I grew up on the upper west side of Harlem. My location couldn't be any more convenient than it already was. I had transportation all around me. Buses (M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M7, M10, M102, BX19), trains (A,B,C,D,1,2,3), cabs/taxis and the best part was everything was coming and going like clock work. Missed a bus or train? Don't fret, another one came within 2-5mins. Corner stores everywhere. Growing up as a kid, the corner stores were the supermarket for us. With $1, you could've bought you a full course meal (even though they're all poison, but we didn't know anything). 25 cent juice or water, 25cent bag of chips, 25cent cake, and 5 peanut chews or Now and Laters (didn't mater, you could've mixed and matched for they were 5cents a pop). Now if you had friends/family that you always rolled with, everybody put their money together and we would all splurge. Or when we were all broke, we would just simply swipe snacks and walk out the store and just eat everything we stole. Block parties occurred often, we went outside often to hang out. At this time, cell phones didn't have all these social media apps and texting wasn't that much of a big deal then neither. We were always going to boys' houses, stay the night, play games all night then wake up to watch Saturday cartoons. Everybody knew everybody so if someone knew your folks, then they knew who you were. Summer time was always the best. The sun, the days were longer, the nights were still warm but had a nice breeze, the festivities, the parade, everything. Harlem had key points too. My most memorable one was Mart 125. It sold a lot of merchandise, cultured merchandise, food, regular clothes, whatever. Then you had the burger stand on 145th, the  theatre on 125th, and a few others I can't remember at the moment. Harlem was so lit, there was a point where a brother had an exotic zoo in his house. This brother had a tiger, alligator, and a few snakes in there along with regular domesticated animals. I saw a REAL LIFE Spider Man. It wasn't Peter Parker. It was a brother trying to get away from the cops. Even the fashion was different. Baggy jeans were the thing. Baggy jeans with baggy white t-shirts with a basketball jersey and some uptowns (Air Force Ones to those who don't know what uptowns or ups are). Enycee, Phat Farm, Fubu, Akademiks, Sean John, and a few others were THE name brands and can't forget Tims and Jordans. If you didn't have any of these, you got your ass cut, by everybody. Other kids, and even adults, it didn't matter, you got your ass cut (jokes on for those who don't know what getting your ass cut meant). It was pretty much taboo to be gay. If you was gay, you got your ass cut and the constant reminders that you were a faggot. You BARELY seen white people around, I was mainly surrounded by black people (the whole black diaspora, American born, Jamaican, Trini, Dominican, Puerto Rican, Bajan, Haitian, African). It was very cultured. Black Utopia as I call it and still to this day I call it Black Utopia. All these things took place from about age 8 until like my earlier teenage years. 

Now let's fast forward some years later...just a couple sentences ago, I said I was surrounded by my people. Now it's more than just my people, now White people started migrating to Harlem. Motherfucking GENTRIFICATION. White people EVERYWHERE now. More condos being built, private buildings, coffee shops, etc. Its so crazy now, that 125th is nowhere close to the old 125th. No more Mart 125, a bunch of clothing stores like Gap, American Apparel, Banana Republic, H&M. Now they're building a Whole Foods Store, American Eagle, and a bunch of other fuckery. Why is this bad? Cause Harlem was considered the ghetto, not the place for white people to be. Now they're here. Rent being increased far beyond tenants income causing them to relocate. We're talking about families, single mothers, elderly, even too experience for the typical 9-5 worker. Not only did gentrification invade, but the fashion changed as well. Remember how I said baggy clothes were the thing? Not any more. Everything is fitted or TIGHT! Not any tight, I'm talking about yeast infection tight. Suffocation of your balls tight. Now the new brands that are socially acceptable are Gucci, Louie V, True Religion, Burberry, and a bunch others that I decided not to keep up with. The only thing that still stuck around are Jordan's and Tims unfortunately. Even the air is different. Breathing is definitely not as smooth as before. Back then, time moved at a decent pace and now it's moving a little too fast. Too fast to really enjoy yourself. One thing I will admit is Harlem is not as violent as it was before. Gang violence died down a lot. There still murders going on but not as frequently as before. But since the gang violence died down, police brutality decided to take it's place here. Cops killing and beating us up left and right abusing their authority and they're barely getting penalized for this shit. There are less block parties, the African American Day Parade/Harlem Parade is now at it's shortest it's ever been. It's like watching Rome burning and being built but not as Rome but as something else. Now that I'm adult, all this makes me wonder...is Harlem really changing as drastically as I say it is, or was all this here already but I was too young and oblivious to my surroundings as I thought it to be???