Just as Manhattan Island is the cultural capital of America, it follows that the part of Manhattan known as Harlem is the cultural capital of Black America. However, that hasn’t always been so.

In the first decade of 1900, Harlem was a White enclave. The speculative over-building of apartments in Harlem, a general real estate collapse in greater New York, and opportunistic steps by Black entrepreneur Philip Payton combined to pave the way for a Black wave of renters settling in Harlem from other parts of the city.

Unknown to many to this day, during the beginning decade of the 1900’s, Payton had the silent financial backing of Booker T. Washington, then known as the wizard of Tuskegee. Washington had hoped to use talented Tuskegee University trained and financed developers, architects and builders to fully transform Harlem into a model Black-owned enclave in the North.

Payton would eventually lose his growing apartment building holdings, though Black tenants filled them. He lost his holdings to White banks due to his being over extended and his lack of access to greater capital during the 1929-39 Depression era.

By the end of the world-renowned Harlem Renaissance in the mid-1930s, Harlem was largely populated by Black people. But, outside White landlords overwhelmingly owned Harlem’s housing, commercial, and retail properties including critically important cultural facilities – churches, theaters, clubs, and the like. And therein to this day rests the problem in Harlem.

Today, some cynics would respond to the question “have we lost Harlem?” by countering with “did we ever actually have Harlem?”  Two years ago, I overheard one of the nation’s most successful Black real estate developers declare with an air of finality that “…Harlem is lost forever!”

He was talking about the reality that Harlem’s magnificent brownstones are now selling as shells to White “urban pioneers” for $400 thousand and upwards. A finished brownstone can go for two to three times that amount. He was also acknowledging another painful reality: when Black people pay those kinds of prices for a home they expect a “McMansion” style estate sitting on at least an acre rather than a “row-house” in the inner-city. It is primarily White “urban pioneers” - - usually childless and, therefore not terribly concerned about the dismal performance of the local public schools - - who shell out that kind of money for such “fixer-uppers.”

Fortunately, in the case of Harlem, there is now a noticeable tide of Black urban pioneers buying and restoring expensive brownstones. There is also a handful of Black entrepreneurs acquiring and developing large apartment buildings and condos for sale at affordable prices to Harlem residents. A handful of Black architects and interior designers – joining forces with other Black visual artists, musicians, writers and cultural intellectuals - - are dedicated to the pursuit of a Black urban aesthetic inside Harlem… literally a second and more inclusive Harlem Renaissance, if you will. However, the question remains, “is it too little and too late?”
It is vital that today’s Harlem Renaissance also includes a revolutionary approach to radically increasing Black ownership of the land, houses and stores. Otherwise, the question “is Harlem lost” has already been answered.

Melvin Mitchell

President/CEO

Bryant Mitchell, PLLC

7826 Eastern Ave NW Suite 409

Washington, DC 20012

202-545-1601

Mitchell is a regular contributor to Port of Harlem's print issue and author of

The Crisis of the African-American Architect:

Conflicting Cultures of Architecture and Black Power ($24.95)