What I'll miss about this neighborhood

Today I was at the bodega across the street and this lady came in and asked the guy at the counter:

Lady: Are you Alex?

Alex: Yeah

Lady: My mom lives down the street and she said to come get her a turkey sandwich. She said you'd know how to make it.

Alex: OK. (calls over to the guy at the deli counter for a turkey sandwich with lettuce and tomatoes on it in some foreign language).


These are the kind of things people worry about losing when they think about communities getting destroyed by developers. Manhattan is a small island, and this neighborhood is one of the few patches left to exploit. Uptown, most of the affordable housing is being bought up by private equity firms who have a vested interest in getting rid of long-term residents and jacking up the rent. Downtown, the city is rezoning 125th Street, the main drag of harlem, for high-rise condos and such. (Not to mention the battle of morningside heights over the expansion of Columbia a little further downtown.)

While it may be an isolating and sometimes scary place to live for a transplanted 20-something midwestern white girl, this is the kind of neighborhood where families have had roots for many, many years, where everyone on the street seemingly knows each other, where people sit in chairs outside their places of residence (or employment) and chat with people as they go by. Progress and safer streets and better stores are all good, but I really hope I don't come back to visit this place in 10 years to find that it's turned into the upper-upper west side and all the longtime residents have been pushed up to the south bronx.