Abyssinian Development Corporation
I'm starting to get annoyed with headlines that have nothing to do with the meat of the article that follows.
Stress of Harlem's Rebirth Shows in School's Move to a New Building
By ALAN FEUER
To get a sense of the mixed emotions swirling around the building boom in Harlem, consider the Thurgood Marshall Academy, which is to move this morning to its new home at Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and 135th Street.
The public school - the first to be built in Harlem in 50 years - has been praised by local residents who marvel at its spacious greenhouse, its wireless classrooms, its library stocked with 20,000 books.
But creating a new home for the school, which is moving from 135th Street and Edgecombe Avenue, has also drawn the criticism of local preservationists who complain that it and a pancake house would be taking over the spot long occupied by a famous Harlem nightclub. In addition, a neighbor's lawsuit maintains that poor construction put a six-foot sinkhole in her basement and destroyed her pipes.
The second renaissance of Harlem has arrived, but it has arrived in a vortex of money, opportunity, new hopes and old resentments. Even as developers have brought in Starbucks, Disney and the Body Shop, not to mention scores of beautifully refurbished brownstones, many residents have cried foul play.
Perhaps no group has felt this shifting tide of anger and excitement more keenly than the Abyssinian Development Corporation, which built the school in partnership with New York City. As the development arm of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, which has served the poor in Harlem for 195 years, the corporation has been forced to walk a fine line between bringing economic growth to the community and remaining true to its community roots.
It has not always been easy. Abyssinian has struggled to create a balance between working successfully with big developers like Forest City Ratner while keeping an ear open to local residents who complain of changes in the quality of their life, like rats invading their block.
"People recognize that because we span both worlds, it's exactly why you want to deal with us," said the Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, the pastor at Abyssinian. "People in the community are intelligent. They want you to deal with people who have the large dollars. They just don't want you to sell them out."
