International Conference on Communication, Media, Technology and Design 16 - 18 May 2015 Dubai – United Arab Emirates

Show Me Your World: Harlem News, Harlemworld Myrtle Jones, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA [email protected] Abstract In tandem with Harlem’s iconic status as the epicenter of Black culture has been its designation of being replete with overcrowding, poverty and an overabundance of the ills of American society. One particular publication, Harlem News distributed free throughout Harlem since 1995 features advertisements and article headlines that stand in stark contrast to the quantitative data collected by the US census for Central Harlem. In what ways can textual analysis, using a humanistic approach (Shoemaker and Reese, 1996) cross the chasm that exists between the Harlem as seen through quantitative data and the Harlem depicted in Harlem News? This paper explores the Harlem depicted in Harlem News juxtaposed with 2010 census data. Additionally, John Jackson’s “Harlemworld” concept (2005) as this ideal and realized neighborhood in New York City extending beyond the geographic barriers of the physical place, will address Harlem as this “imagined community” (Anderson 1991) Introduction New York City is the largest city in the United States with a population of over 8 million people. (2010 Census). The city consists of five boroughs with New York County, often referen"ced as Manhattan, being the most populous with a land area of 23 square miles and a population of 1,585,873. Harlem consists of Central, East and West Harlem. Central Harlem which consists of Community Board 9 in New York County is often the Harlem “of” the Harlem Renaissance . Unlike other Black sections of inner cities Central and West Harlem were unique in that it was an area built initially for the wealthy (Freeman 2006). East Harlem was developed as tenement housing for immigrant groups lacking both the opulence and transportation options of Central and West Harlem (Davilla 2004). Black population losses in northern manhattan which includes Central Harlem was responsible for most of the nearly 30,000 (13 percent) decline in blacks in the entirety of the borough of Manhattan, more than any other borough. Central Harlem has seen its Black population shrink from over 95% during its heyday to the current 60+ percent (New York City Department of City Planning, May 2012). Although Harlem experienced an economic decline during and following the depression, segregation kept many Blacks in Harlem where they remained the dominant, if not sole group well into the 1990’s. The great migration contributed to Harlem’s iconic designation as the mecca for Blacks in America. The Harlem Renaissance, an arts and culture movement in the early 20th century, contributed to Harlem’s designation as this epicenter of Black culture. In addition to its Black cultural roots, census and other qualitative data present a Harlem marked with income that is lower than that found throughout the rest of New York City. The median income then and now in Harlem lags behind the income of the rest of Manhattan making it financially challenging for many to flee. This paper does not seek to debate whether the quantitative data is correct, nor the process through which the data is released. The New York City planning documents released in August of 2011 still contained data from the 2000 Census, the full data set containing 2010 Census data was released in 2012. This paper seeks to explore the Harlem as depicted in

413

International Conference on Communication, Media, Technology and Design 16 - 18 May 2015 Dubai – United Arab Emirates

Harlem News juxtaposed with census data. Additionally, the concept of “Harlemworld” as posited by John Jackson (2005) as this ideal and realized neighborhood in New York City that extends beyond the geographic barriers of the physical place, will be used in addressing Harlem as this “imagined community” (Anderson 1991) Methods A humanistic approach proves an apropos lens as it lends itself to conflation of the researcher with the phenomenon. The impetus for this study arose while in the field conducting research for a larger study on Harlem’s Black elite, They Chose to Stay. During my time in the field there were shoot-outs, one fatal, on 111th street between 5th Avenue and Lenox Avenue. I was actually caught in one of the shoot-outs, while driving down the block in the early evening as the sun was setting looking for parking. I canvased the local media to review coverage of the event I had experienced first hand. Harlem News pledge to only focus on the good in the community, “Good News, You can Use,” resulted in that shooting or any of the shootings never being mentioned in the publication. Harlem: Moving Up-Town that is... My move to Harlem was prompted by a yearning to live in a community where I was not the only or one of the few people of color. My previous apartment, a cooperative in Kew Gardens, Queens had less than five apartments occupied by families of color, spread throughout a 21 story high-rise building. Prior to that I lived in Brooklyn Heights and was the only person of color living on my block. My move in 1996 prompted warnings from all of my New York-born friends, especially my Black ones, who admonished me for moving to an area that they viewed as crack infested and replete with poverty, and violence, none of which I found rampant. I had worked in Harlem from 1994 until 1995, as the Manhattan Single Copy Sales representative for the now defunct New York Newsday. My move to Harlem in 1996 was grounded within curiosity regarding Harlem’s middle and upper class, that has since haunted me and planted the seeds for my summer research thirteen years later. In 2000 I moved further downtown to a building on Fifth Avenue between 111th and 112th street, my base while conducting fieldwork. My fieldwork area fell within boundaries which comprises all of Central Harlem, East Harlem and portions of Washington Heights: from the Westside highway to Fifth avenue, as far south as 110th street to 161st street at the north; from the East river to Fifth avenue as far south as 96th street to 138thstreet at the north. The fieldwork area mimicked the dispersion of middle and upper-income residents from historic areas such as Striver’s Row, Sugar Hill, and Mount Morris Park, which had previously been clusters of safe and acceptable housing for middle and upper-income residents (Hyra, 2008) My field site—a six story mixed income rental building with 55 apartments. The fiedlsite building had been built in 1989 as part of one of the initial waves of New York city funded projects meant to revitalize the area receiving 421a tax incentives. The block was initially tenement buildings, which were demolished. The city provided the land to the owners at a low cost, rumored to be one dollar, in exchange for development of the land into mixed use, mixed income residential housing with ground floor commercial space. The fieldsite was located next to King Towers, a New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) property built, in 1954. There are 1,373 apartments housing and an estimated 3,325 residents. The 13.75-acre site was completed October 31, 1954 and is between West 112th and West 115th Streets, Lenox and Fifth Avenues.

414

International Conference on Communication, Media, Technology and Design 16 - 18 May 2015 Dubai – United Arab Emirates

The NYCHA building lacked a well lighted lobby and did not feature a doorman, whereas my apartment during fieldwork had a 24 hour staffed doorperson, valet parking garage, laundry on every floor and a well lighted marble entry lobby with a couch and plastic floral arrangements in the lobby. My initial Harlem fieldwork was conducted in the Summer of 2009 from May until September when I conducted 17-week field research investigating Information Communication Technology (ICT) by Black parents, caretakers and educators whom I met in Harlem. Subsequent fieldwork was conducted from October 2010 until October 2013, and again from November 21st until January 27th, 2014. Although I “officially” ended fieldwork on January 27th, 2014 I continue to meet and see many of the people featured throughout the paper, with IRB approval through November of 2015. I observed hundreds of people, and interviewed 17. Utilizing participant observation as a method which included multiple techniques: observation; informal and semi-structured individual and group interviews; spot observations; and archival research (Bernard 2006), I connected with people, spending time with them in their homes and as they conducted their daily lives, shadowing them (Czarniawska, 2007), attending social events, family events, and as they conducted business. I used the snowball technique, which also led to shadowing and an interview with several people who no longer lived or worked in Harlem. Snowball Sampling was to minimize the problems associated with understanding and sampling hard to access populations such as “elites.” This paper defines elites as those who made a choice to either work or live in Harlem when they had the resources to flee and relocate elsewhere. Recognizing the challenges inherent in snowball as it predicates that people know one another. I requested contacts at multiple touch points and thus had mutliple balls “rolling.” I use the term “peeps” as a more unifying way to refer to those who participated in my study. Those who participated in my study did more than simply participate, they ARE the study. I always felt an uncomfortable twinge when referring to them as “Participants,” “Informants,” or even “Interlocutors.” Working with some of my “peeps,” we came up with the term, which seemed to embody the intimacy of our relationship. This term also helped me work through some of my own challenges with the hierarchical relationships inherent in some of the other terms. “Peeps” stems from an urban term, which is a shortened form for “my peoples,” used to refer to friends or people within your circle. The use of “peeps,” spoke to the urban nature of the study and the complexities of the “elite,” who are not often associated with using urban slang. I interviewed key “peeps” at least three times for 90 minutes each using a phenomenological approach focusing on the experiences of those interviewed and the meanings they make of those experiences (Seidman 2013). There were some interviews which only occured once and in the case of married couples I interviewed both partners together. My “peeps” either read or were aware of Harlem News and one, “Sheila” during my time in the field approached the owner regarding writing a column targeting young people interested in college and other educational opportunities. Sheila is in her late 50’s approaching retirement following a succesful career owning a boutique public relations firm. Sheila who had attended Wellesley for undergrad, New York University for Graduate School with some time at The London School of Economics wanted young people to have access to higher education. Pat Stevenson the owner paid her a nominal fee to write a weekly column.

415

International Conference on Communication, Media, Technology and Design 16 - 18 May 2015 Dubai – United Arab Emirates

In addition to Sheila, another one of my peeps Vivian knew Pat Stevenson and admired her tenacity and drive. She shared that Pat came out of the “advertising world,” and got “how to maneuver and make enough money to keep herself afloat.” Vivian also shared that her news gathering process relied heavily on press releases stating, “All you have to do is send her a press release and she will cover your event.”

Setting Harlem was initially a rural area settled by the Dutch and during a time of great expansion in the early and mid-1800’s Harlem was developed as an upscale suburban community. At the time transportation options were limited which would have made travel to the commercial section of Manhattan cumbersome. Transportation growth in the 1870’s fueled real estate speculation and growth of real estate development, which collapsed in the first decade of the twentieth century (Scheiner 1966). In the beginning of the 18th century there were 1500 Negroes in NYC, by 1900 that number had increased to 36,000 in Manhattan alone, counting the annexed districts, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx the total number was 60,000. Harlem was one of the places Blacks in Manhattan relocated to in an effort to ease overcrowding (DuBois 1901). The initial groups of Black migrants to Harlem were middle class, as the area was only opened up to Blacks following economic downturn of the late 1800’s. Many Blacks who fled the overcrowded areas south of 63rd street had the means to flee. Harlem’s development as a Black community was also a response to the race riot of 1900, where a Black man saw his wife being abused by what turned out to be a police officer. The Black man subsequently killed the police officer precipitating a race riot between blacks and the police (Johnson 1930). The period of the 1950’s and 60’s saw ethnographies confirming the perception of a declining and crime ridden Harlem (Lewis.) This period saw the introduction of data and other statistics, which although meant to attract resources and attention to various youth programs such as Kenneth Clark’s Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited Inc. (HARYOU) offered statistics and other observation which came under fire from people like Albert Murray, who called his methodology shoddy and ultimately isolated people within the confines of Harlem. Furthermore the anthropological fascination with Harlem was historically one with poverty and its rationale (Lewis 1966), and more recently drug dealing (Bourgois 1996), health disparities (Mullings and Wali 2001, Mullings 2005), and gentrification (Jackson 2003, Davilla 2004, Sharman 2006, Rhodes-Pitts 2011). Central Harlem’s terrain covers 1.5 square miles and 961 acres. The area is bordered by 5th avenue to the East, Morningside Avenue, St. Nicholas Avenue, Edgecombe Avenue and the Harlem River Drive to the West, 110th Street and Central Park North to the South and the Harlem River to the North. The area has several natural boundaries which include Central Park to the South of 110th Street, Harlem River to the North, and Marcus Garvey Park also known as Mount Morris Park to the East of 5th avenue, Morningside Park to the West of Morninsgide Park, St. Nicholas Park to the North of St. Nicholas Avenue. The area covers a small area yet within this small parcel of land lies Le Petite Senegal—known as the largest

416

International Conference on Communication, Media, Technology and Design 16 - 18 May 2015 Dubai – United Arab Emirates

area hosting Senegalese outside of Senegal, the famed Apollo Theater, and Harlem Hospital—as of 2014 the only Hospital in Central Harlem. With a population slightly over 110,000, 37% receive government cash support in form of either medicaid—governemnt health insurance for the poor, supplemental secuirty income—a federally funded program to provide cash suppoort to hep aged, blind and disabled people, or cash supprt in the form of the state and federeally funded Teporary Assistance for Neeedy Families (TANF) commenly referred to as “welfare.” (New York City Department of City Planning May 2012) Harlem News: Harlemworld The Harlem News Group publishes a free weekly newspaper: Harlem News: Good News You Can Use Connecting Harlem, Queens, Brooklyn and the South Bronx “featuring ‘only’ positive news and information. Harlem News is the longest continuously published free weekly available in buildings, restaurants, and cultural institutions. Their mission states: The Harlem News Group will publish positive news and information. Our mission is to deliver “good” and informative news to our readers focusing on health, education, housing, business and employment opportunities. We look for and publish results, not problems. We promote businesses, opportunities and events happening in the communities we serve. We are dedicated to providing you our readers with valuable information they can use to improve the quality of life for themselves, their families and their communities. (p.2) The owner Pat Stevenson has published similar papers in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx since 1995. She has always struggled to keep the paper alive and as of 2015 started holding more sponsored events to drive revenue and offer a more integrated media offering to advertisers (Jones notes . There are paid publications available on newsstands targeting Blacks which are distributed throughout Central Harlem: Amsterdam News—which is the longest running paid newspaper in Harlem founded in New York city in 1909 moving to Harlem in 1910, New York Beacon, and NY Carib News. The Harlem Times is another free weekly founded in 2001—whose tag line is “News for Harlem and the Harlems of the World,” according to their 2013 media kit they print 25,000 copies which are seen by 100,000. The only audited publication was The Amsterdam News, all of the other publications self-reported their circulation numbers. Harlem News is the only publication without a stated audience based on news regarding a race or ethnicity. All of the other publications have tag lines state that they feature news regarding people of Black, African-American, or Caribbean descent. Harlem News purports itself to be a publication geared towards Harlem, with the only caveat being that they only publish “positive news.” The Harlem News Group, Inc. publishes four newspapers; Harlem Community News, Queens Community News, Brooklyn Community News and Bronx Community News. These publications are “free” to our readers. We currently distribute 50,000 weekly copies in malls, supermarkets, retail outlets, apartment buildings, banks, colleges, YMCA, libraries and cultural institutions in the communities we serve. Our editorial features “only” positive

417

International Conference on Communication, Media, Technology and Design 16 - 18 May 2015 Dubai – United Arab Emirates

news and information. We provide a positive environment in which businesses and corporations can advertise and promote their products and services. Our rates are reasonable for advertisers who may want to reach consumers in a specific area or they can advertise in all four of our publications utilizing our metro rates. All of our issues are presented with 4-color throughout. Publisher Pat Stevenson has been publishing community newspapers in Harlem and other areas in New York since 1995. Harlem, historically known as an area of predominantly the lower class, confirmed with census and other statistical data produces newspapers and magazines which when analyzed reflect Harlem as an Imagined Community in the sense of Benedict Anderson, “imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion (1991:6). Albeit the imagined community resides in parallel with the geographic and physical Harlem of census tracts, community boards and other geographical boundaries which contain the “residents” of Harlem. Harlem exists in both the physical and imagined sense as evidenced in the cover, articles, and advertisements found within Harlem News, the only free local weekly newspaper whose goal is to provide “positive community news.” Often the Harlem Renaissance is credited as being one of the major catalysts in the perception of Harlem as this epicenter of Black culture. A “Harlemworld” not bound by space with its basis tied to print culture, i.e. the printed word which was produced, and distributed during the Harlem Renaissance, indeed supports Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Community concept, in that “print capitalism laid the bases for national consciousness, albeit a national consciousness of this idealized Blackness depicting “a kind of image” of the social life of Harlem while concurrently “actively creating social life.” Currently Harlem is experiencing a renaissance of another sort, often conflated with talks regarding gentrification. This renaissance within the last ten years has seen the introduction of Uptown Magazine with its office located in Harlem on 125th street with a national focus using the local euphemism for Harlem—“Uptown.” Whether Harlem is considered an imagined community or one with geographic bounds, census and other quantitative data obscure the existence of the middle class within Harlem’s confines. In spite of studies that noted the Black middle class flight as a social phenomenon in the age of deindustrialization (Wilson 1976, 1980, 1987, 1996, 2009, Lacy 2007), Steven Gregory argues that this was exaggerated by the likes Wilson who focused too narrowly on poverty and conflated poverty with Black culture (1998). “My Peeps” remained, fought (both publically and behind closed doors) to maintain and eventually reinvigorate Harlem. I would argue that middle class flight should not be the basis of arguments regarding urban decay. Mary Patillo, looked at middle class Blacks in a Chicago neighborhood. During a lecture November 1st, 2013 at Columbia University Patillo clarified that her definition of middle class was actually more the lower middle class. “The middle class is not the people like you and I in this room. They are secretaries, postal workers, not people with PhD’s making more than one hundred thousand dollars a year.” In contrast, “my Peeps” held assets in the form of real estate, stocks, or savings of at least $500,000. They all had either a bachelor’s degree or some sort of training or license, often a real estate brokers license, many

418

International Conference on Communication, Media, Technology and Design 16 - 18 May 2015 Dubai – United Arab Emirates

had master’s degree, and there were at least six with doctoral degrees. Despite arguments that state as African Americans generate wealth they often flee the inner city (Wilson 1976, 1980, 1987, 1996, 2009, Lacy 2007), there have been wealthy African Americans in Harlem since African Americans first flocked to the area in the early 1890’s. The non-poor in Harlem have been documented since the first group of middle class Blacks migrated to the area (DuBois 1901, Johnson 1930, Dodson 2000). The African American middle class in Harlem have most recently been studied primarily around issues of class and race as it relates to black (re)gentrification (Taylor 2002, Jackson 2003, Hyra 2008, Rhodes-Pitts 2010). Quantitative data on Central Harlem showcases a geographic area where 43.3 percent of the population receive income support in the form of cash assistance, supplemental security income, or Medicaid. Census data for 2010 showcases a Central Harlem that is no longer predominantly Black, with one of the lowest incomes within all of Manhattan.

Textual Analysis Using a Humanistic Approach From 2010 to 2011 the Central Harlem’s 28th precinct recorded murders jumping from two to six. I was caught in one of those shoot-outs while driving down the block looking for parking. Harlem News pledge to only focus on the good in the community, “Good News, Your can Use,” was reflected in their news coverage. None of the shootings were ever featured in Harlem News. The third week in October for 2010 and 2011 was selected to conduct the textual analysis. According to the 2010 Census Data, Central Harlem has a population of approximately 118,000, an increase of about 11,000 over the past 10 years. Presently, African Americans, which according to the census definition includes Caribbean’s, African immigrants, and Blacks, whom I define as those who came to the United States involuntarily as slaves and those who identify as their direct descendants, all comprise approximately 63% of Central Harlem’s population, followed by Hispanic at 22%, Whites at 10% and Asian at 2%. Blacks are no longer the sole inhabitants of the Central Harlem. Census tracts Harlem News October 2010 comprised 48 advertisements and in October 2011 comprised 35 advertisements, which included 2 in-house advertisements for Harlem News. Of the Advertisements featuring people who did not appear to be of African descent: one appeared in both the 2010 and 2011 publication using the same advertisement featuring four students marketing the Harlem YMCA Literacy Zone, and the other advertisements featured only in 2011 marketed Rev Will of the United Divine Church of the Healing Christ as a wedding officiant, and another with a photo of Rev. Will from the previous advertisement marketed the United Divine Church of the Healing Christ. Columbia University had a full-page advertisement with one photo which featured a football player in full gear whose race was obscured. The articles did not feature photos of anyone that did not appear to be of African descent, although there was a montage of 19 photos from Harlem Week, which featured one photo where there appeared to be two people who were not of African descent. About 15 percent of Harlem’s black population is foreign-born according to census data, mostly from the Caribbean, with a growing number from Africa, which is reflected in the

419

International Conference on Communication, Media, Technology and Design 16 - 18 May 2015 Dubai – United Arab Emirates

articles and people featured throughout Harlem News e.g. Latin legend flutist Dave Valentin, Marva Allen owner of HueMan Bookstore of Caribbean descent, of the students listed on the article about the Touro College of Pharmacy participation in the Senior Entitlement Fair mentioned three students Olawemimo Abiona, Chukwuma Pius and John Park. There did not appear to be any news coverage of issues related to African immigrants. The Harlem News 2010 cover features national radio show host, writer and comedian Steve Harvey’s Dreamer’s Academy recruitment drive. There was a photo with Steve Harvey and five youth taken at a New York event October 7th which celebrated five years of the Dreamers Academy. The Dreamers Academy is held at the Walt Disney World resort in Orlando, Florida, and the recruiting event was held at a hotel in Midtown Manhattan. The Publisher referenced the event in her opening letter, which is found in every magazine. The Attendees of the Academy were announced in December 2010 and there were five listed from the state of New York, 3 from Brooklyn, one from Cambria Heights in Queens and another from Liverpool, New York. The content throughout the publication equally holds true to the tagline. The community section featured one article: Special Ceremony Celebrating the 9th Incoming Class of Lang Scholars, about a program founded by a philanthropists with students from Washington Heights and Inwood areas of New York focusing on science and math education in Manhattan. The longest section was the events section which featured a Jazz for Young People family Concert at Lincoln Center, a Concert Celebrating John Coltrane at Rose Theater, also part of Lincoln Center, Modern Art by Anton who is actually based in Mt. Vernon—a predominantly African American Town in Suburban Westchester County which based upon 2010 census data is 63.4% Black. Anton’s work was featured at an art event I attended in the summer of 2010 at Renaissance Gallery in Harlem and during our conversation he informed me that this studio was in Mt. Vernon. I had also met Anton when I worked at a newspaper in Westchester County from 2000 until 2006. The events section also featured Dreamers Academy story from the cover, asking students to submit applications. The publication’s advertisements feature primarily local businesses. There was an advertisement for the Mountaintop, a Broadway play featuring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett. Tickets range from $136.50 to 49.50, although no ticket price was mentioned in the advertisement. The advertisements for rental apartments featured apartments ranging from $1,400 to 2,200 per month and condo’s from $450,000 to 650,000 up. There was an advertisement entitled, Living with HIV/AIDS, for an outpatient adult day health care program for people with HIV/AIDS in Harlem. They advertised themselves as the “Only AIDS Specialty Skilled nursing facility in Harlem.” They mentioned that they had served Harlem since 1992. The full-page advertisement on the back page was for the City College of New York Continuing and Professional Studies Program. Many of the advertisers had Harlem in the title, Physical Therapy of Harlem, Harlem Alliance for the Mentally Ill (HAMI), Harlem Arts Alliance, The Brownstone, Harlem’s Crown Jewel, and Harlem YMCA Literacy Zone Jack Goody mentions lists as it relates to literate and pre-literate societies and writing. Goody serves as a valuable tool when analyzing the lists featured on the cover of Harlem

420

International Conference on Communication, Media, Technology and Design 16 - 18 May 2015 Dubai – United Arab Emirates

News. The 2010 Harlem News cover featured Steve Harvey and students from Disney’s Dreamers Academy with the following headlines: Left hand navigation all in white type on green background Inside NY Urban League Present a Parents Guide to College Touro College Participates in Senior Entitlement Fair John Coltrane Legacy Concert Oct. 28&29 at Rose Theater Below Photo all in white type on green background Disney’s Dreamers Academy with Steve Harvey Looking for High School Students with Dreams Goody referenced various types of lists, administrative lists, “information extracted from the social situation in which it had been embedded” (1990:88), event lists which are chronicle type records (91), and lexical lists, “lists of classes of objects, such as trees, animals and the body parts” (94). Reviewing the lists on the cover of the publication provide a glimpse into a Harlem the publication outlines as being one focused on academic success, music and entertainment, and events for Seniors in the community. The list also showcases an interest that extends beyond the geographic bounds of Harlem.

Conclusion The Harlem depicted in Harlem News provides a glimpse into one of the many Harlem’s that could be argued as existing, alongside the one depicted in the quantitative data. I would argue for a multiplicity of Harlem’s some imagined quasi-groups, which come together around common causes, comprising geographical as well as non-geographical boundaries. A Harlem that is both a “state of mind” as well as one with physical bounds all existing concurrently. The publication demonstrates a Harlem that exists in both places, as it extends Harlem beyond the physical bounds while also making a case for a geographic space known as “Harlem.” Qualitative data serves as a lens through which to also view Harlem, and make the case for the presentation of multiple Harlem’s. Harlem News’ coverage obscures “shootouts” and the census data obscures the people covered in Harlem News. De Certeau asserts in the Practice of Everyday Life, reading is thus situated at the point where social stratification (class relationships) and poetic operations (the practitioner’s constructions of a text) intersect; a social hierarchization seeks to make the reader conform to the “information” distributed by an elite (or semi-elite); reading operations manipulate the reader by insinuating their inventiveness into the cracks in cultural orthodoxy. (1984:72) De Certeau reference to the readers highlights an interesting component of the distribution of Harlem News which is only found in certain residential buildings 1330 fifth Avenue a market rate rental building where rents range from $1200 for a one bedroom to $2300 for a two bedroom, restaurants such as MoBay—which closed its doors in 2013—owned by a husband and wife team—which yelp listed as having entrées in the moderate price range at $11-30 and cultural institutions such as the Dwyer Center within Harlem. Further study would involve canvassing Harlem to provide a map of all of the places where the publication is available, which would in some ways hint at readership. Although free by controlling where the

421

International Conference on Communication, Media, Technology and Design 16 - 18 May 2015 Dubai – United Arab Emirates

publication is made available the publisher is thus controlling or in some ways “targeting” access to the information. This targeted access amounts to an “elite or semi-elite” distribution, as I did not find copies of the publication available in King Towers, a public housing development, sandwiched between a rental building and a condo development, which both had copies of the publication available. It could be argued that the presence of doorpersons at each of these buildings facilitated distribution, which further research would be necessary to conclude or at least shed more light upon. References Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined Communities, 2nd edition. London: Verso Bourgois, P. (2002) In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio. New York: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clark, K.(1965) Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of Social Power. New York: Harper & Row. Davilla, A. (2004) Empowered Culture? New York City's empowerment Zone and the Selling of El Barrio. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 594: 49-64. De Certeau, M. (1984) The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Dodson, H., Moore, C. & Yancy, R. (2000) The Black New Yorkers: The Schomburg Illustrated Chronology. New York. John Wiley & Sons. Dubois, W.E.B (1901) The Black North in 1901: A Social Study. New York: Arno. 1903 Some Notes on the Negroes in New York City. Atlanta: Atlanta University Press. 1927 Harlem In Crisis 34(7): 240 Freeman, L. (2006) There Goes the ‘Hood: Views of Gentrification from the Ground up. Philadelphia: Temple University Press Goody, J. (1968) Literacy in Traditional Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gregory, S. (1992) The Changing Significance of Race and Class in an African-American Community Vol. 19( 2) pp. 255-274 Gregory, S. (1998) Black Corona: Race and Politics of Place in an Urban Community. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hyra, D. (2008) The New Urban Renewal: The Economic Transformation of Harlem and Bronzeville. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Jackson, J. L. (1999 ) Toward an Ethnography of a Quotation Marked Off Place. In Souls a Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society, 1(1):23-35 Jackson, J. L. (2003) Harlemworld: Doing Race and Class in Contemporary Black America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Jackson, J. L. (2005) Real Black: Adventures in Racial Sincerity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Johnson, J. W. (1930) Black Manhattan. New York: Arno. Lacy, K. (2007) Blue-Chip Black: Race, Class and Status in the New Black Middle Class. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lewis, O. (1966) The Culture of Poverty Mahon, M. (2004) Right to Rock:The Black Rock Coalition and the Cultural Politics of Race. Durham: Duke University Press. Mullings, L. (1987) Cities of the United States: case studies in urban anthropology. New

422

International Conference on Communication, Media, Technology and Design 16 - 18 May 2015 Dubai – United Arab Emirates

York: Columbia University Press Mullings, L. (2005) Resistance and Resilience: The Sojourner Syndrome and the Social Context of Reproduction in Harlem. Transforming Anthropology, 13(2): 79-91 Mullings, L. (2005) Losing Ground: Harlem, the War on Drugs, and the Prison Industrial Complex.” In The New Black Renaissance, Manning Marable, ed.. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers Mullings, L. and Wali, A. (2001)Stress and Resilience: The Social Context of Reproduction in Central Harlem. New York: Springer. New York City Department of City Planning (May 2012) Manhattan Community District 11 Profile. Retrieved 2/8/2015 http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/lucds/mn11profile.pdf Peterson, Carla (2011) Black Gotham: A family History of African Americans in Nineteenth Century New York City. New Haven: Yale University Press. Rhodes-Pitts, S. (2011) Harlem is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America. New York: Little, Brown and Company. Scheiner, Seth (1965) Negro Mecca: A History of the Negro in New York City, 1865-1920. New York: New York University Press. Shoemaker, P. and Reese, S. (1996) Mediating the message: theories of influences on mass media content. White Plains, NY: Longman. Taylor, Monique (2002) Harlem Between Heaven and Hell. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. U.S. Census Bureau, 2000 and 2010 Census Public Law 94-171 Redistricting Files Population Division -New York City Department of City Planning (March 2011) NYC 2010 Results from the 2010 Census: Population Growth and Race/Hispanic Composition. Retrieved 11/12/2013 http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/census/census2010/pgrhc.pdf Wilson, W. J. (1976) Power, Racism, Privilege: Race Relations in Theoretical and Sociohistorical Perspectives. New York: Free Press. Wilson, W. J. (1980) The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Wilson, W. J. (1987) The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Wilson, W. J. (1996) When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor. New York: Knopf Wilson, W. J. (2009) More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.

423