Even before they had finished mounting their banner and distributing leaflets, a group demonstrating at the State Office Building, where the Harlem Business Alliance (HBA) was hosting its fourth annual Economic Summit in Harlem, was confronted by Walter Edwards.
Edwards, chair of the HBA, was concerned about the nature of the protest against his organization and the summit, and within minutes, he was surrounded by demonstrators and then engaged in a heated debate with Nellie Hester Bailey of the Harlem Tenants Council, one of the groups protesting the event.
When Bailey charged that Edwards and his organization were in cahoots with the sponsors of his summit, including Washington Mutual, Congresswoman Inez Dickens [D-9th District] and Columbia University, he chafed at the notion.
“You don’t know me and what I’m about or where I stand on the Columbia University expansion plan,” he told Bailey and the burgeoning crowd.
“Mr. Edwards, your testimony is part of the public record,” Bailey responded, noting that he was generally a supporter of the university’s controversial plan in Manhattanville, which has sparked community dissention.
“I don’t agree with all of Columbia’s plan,” Edwards said later, conceding during an interview that the plan was virtually a done deal. “Our aim is to obtain affordable housing from the project. Once it gets started and it is not meeting our needs, we might have to stop it.”
Edwards also expressed some concern about Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s plans, indicating it depends on what the community can gain from it. Stringer, who attended the summit, spoke briefly with the Amsterdam News, summarizing his approach.
“I’ve been working with Community Board 9 on a plan to protect the integrity and character of the neighborhood with the creation of a zoned district,” he said. If his proposal is accepted, it will give small businesses a break on retail space, affordable housing would be required of residential buildings, and there would be special protections in place for renters.
“All of this – and I’m in agreement with an article published recently in Crain’s Insider – that Stringer’s plan is a ‘wink and a nod’ at Columbia,” said Bailey, “it benefits him, but not the rest of Harlem.”
And Bailey was not done with her critique of the Human Resources Association (HRA). “We want the HRA to sit down in a community dialogue for the protection of small businesses,” she began. “There can be no negotiations unless it’s with the full community.”
At the end of their discussion, Bailey and Edwards agreed to meet and to have a dialogue about the Columbia plan and gentrification in general.
Meanwhile, Sikhulu Shange, owner of the Record Shack and one of several small business proprietors at the rally, voiced his complaint about the current crisis in Harlem. “I am not happy about what’s happening up there,” he said, referring to the summit in the State Office Building. “It has nothing to do with me and the other owners and residents who are being displaced daily. Anytime you have a summit that is financed by the banks and Columbia, it means we’re being further ripped off and demolished. It’s a sham, and that’s the reason I’m not up there.”
Shange added, “We are not only fighting for our livelihood, but for the soul and life of this world-renowned historic Black community.”
