[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 86 (Wednesday, June 28, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1314-E1315]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     A REVIVAL OF HARLEM'S ELEGANCE

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 28, 2006

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to enter into the Record, an 
article by Ruth La Ferla, titled Downtown Comes to Harlem. The article 
published on June 22, 2006, in the Thursday Styles section of the New 
York Times, talks about the retail potential of Harlem. Most inner city 
communities, such as Harlem, possess tremendous undiscovered potential, 
and provide manifold opportunities for success by large scale business. 
It is a region of the city that has a greater competitive advantage, 
according to Michael E. Porter, a professor of Harvard Business School 
and a leading authority on business strategy. Compared to the suburbs 
and areas in the other boroughs of the city, the Harlem community is 
under-serviced and under-retailed. Although the average household 
income is low, the dense population of the Harlem community represents 
a buying power that is comparable to that of other parts of the city. 
Because of its historical and cultural heritage, entrepreneurs in 
Harlem have an added marketing advantage. As Ms. La Ferla remarks, N, 
the new fashion emporium in Harlem, ``is the latest in a growing number 
of retailers to invoke Harlem's multilayered heritage to put their 
wares on the fashion map.''
  Offering a mix of local labels and African American designers like 
Byron Lars and Tracy Reese with more established, upscale brands, these 
rarified stores are visible symbols of the rapid gentrification of 
Harlem. Springing up along and just off Seventh and Lenox Avenues, from 
about 114th St. to 135th St. stores like Pieces of Harlem, Montgomery, 
Denim Library, B. Oyama, Harlemade are realizing urban sociologists' 
prediction of the ``branding'' of Harlem using niche marketing. 
Meanwhile some longtime residents are fretting that the goods might not 
be relevant to the local population. The store owners are countering 
that their inventories were specifically conceived to cater to the 
locals, simultaneously drawing attention of the tourists.
  I want to commend these business owners who are finally utilizing the 
competitive advantage of Harlem to revive the community. By infusing 
the legacy of Harlem's glory days with Cab Calloway, Dorothy Dandridge, 
and Nat King Cole with the modern street-inflected sensibility, these 
entrepreneurs are marketing Harlem's diversity and culture to revive 
the elegance of Harlem.

                [From the New York Times, June 22, 2006]

                        Downtown Comes to Harlem

                           (By Ruth La Ferla)

       Talking up N, his new fashion emporium in Harlem, Larry 
     Ortiz posed a question: ``If we had to put Harlem in a 
     bottle, what would the scent be?'' He then answered with no 
     prompting. ``It would obviously be a little retro, a little 
     1930's.'' An infusion, in short, evocative of Harlem's glory 
     years, an era of artistic ferment that spawned Cab Calloway, 
     Dorothy Dandridge and Nat King Cole, fused with a modem 
     street-inflected sensibility.
       For Mr. Ortiz, one of N's three partners, capturing the 
     essence of the neighborhood is not just rhetoric. To succeed 
     as a merchant, he maintained, he will need to distill Harlem, 
     not just in a fragrance but in all of the upscale fashions, 
     home accessories and cosmetic lines sold at his gracious two-
     level store in a town house on 116th Street between Seventh 
     and Lenox Avenues.
       His objective in showcasing brands like Nicole Miller, Hugo 
     Boss, Marimekko and Jonathan Adler to the increasingly 
     affluent enclave north of Central Park is partly to cater to 
     a fashionably hip local population that has until now 
     traveled downtown in search of popular fashion labels. He is 
     also the latest in a growing number of retailers to invoke 
     Harlem's multilayered heritage to put their wares on the 
     fashion map.
       ``One of the things that is compelling to us is the idea of 
     branding Harlem,'' Mr. Ortiz said. It is an idea he hopes to 
     render concrete by offering a mix of local labels and 
     African-American designers like Byron Lars and Tracy Reese 
     with more established, upscale brands. ``It's very important 
     to push a lot of black designers who wouldn't get the same 
     attention elsewhere,'' he said.
       ``This store is not about hip-hop,'' he added emphatically.
       At 4,000 square feet, N, which opened in April in Mount 
     Morris Park, is the largest upscale retailer to descend on 
     the area. Like N, other newcomers are pointedly distancing 
     themselves from the brash hip-hop aesthetic and offering 
     fashion that deliberately summons Harlem's fabled past, along 
     with current fashion trends being interpreted by downtown 
     outposts like Scoop, Intermix and Big Drop and also by a 
     clutch of stylish men's stores.
       As well they might. They have arrived in a rapidly 
     gentrifying neighborhood. Mount Morris Park, a 16-block area 
     from 118th Street to 124th Street between Fifth and Seventh 
     Avenues, has the highest concentration of Harlem households 
     with incomes exceeding $100,000, said Nikoa Evans, a partner 
     in the store and a former vice president for finance for the 
     Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, a federal economic 
     development initiative. Affluent residents pay about $750,000 
     for a one-bedroom condominium and $2 million for the 
     traditional brownstones that are in high demand.
       But Mount Morris Park, and much of Harlem, remains a 
     relative bargain for boutique owners, who pay rents varying 
     from $75 a square foot to as much as $150 on 125th Street, 
     compared with $700 on prime blocks along Madison Avenue.
       Flaunting an aura of exclusivity, the new shops offer a 
     high-style--and pricey--alternative to the wares on 125th 
     Street. That crowded, populist thoroughfare is now home to, 
     among others, a MAC cosmetics store; Atmos, a Japanese-owned 
     store specializing in hard-to-find sneakers, with a flagship 
     in the Harajuku district of Tokyo; Old Navy and H & M.
       ``Harlem is so much more than just 125th Street,'' said 
     Faith Hope Consolo, the chairwoman of the retail leasing and 
     sales division at Prudential Douglas Elliman. ``There is so 
     much retail potential there,'' said Ms. Consolo, who is 
     scouting sites for several clients. ``The challenge is to 
     choose the right location.''
       Springing up along and just off Seventh and Lenox Avenues, 
     from about 114th Street to 135th Street, are stores like 
     Pieces of Harlem, on West 135th Street, a boutique that sells 
     denim skirts and jackets with Victorian-inspired ruffles and 
     pearl buttons designed by the owners, Latisha and Colin 
     Daring. It also carries draped jersey dresses ($354) by 
     Rachel Roy, who is married to the rap entrepreneur Damon 
     Dash, and ribbon-trimmed T-shirts ($185) by Gwen Stefani.
       Montgomery, on Seventh Avenue, sells handbags, T-shirts and 
     lingerie emblazoned with the image of Jolinda, a head-wrapped 
     rag doll that recalls the Southern roots of its designer, 
     Montgomery Harris, who moved her store from SoHo to Harlem 
     about three years ago. Ms. Harris is also known for her 
     whimsically hand-embroidered, one-of-a-kind skirts and 
     dresses, many in a vintage mood ($400 to $500).
       Another new store is Denim Library, on Seventh Avenue, a 
     repository for premium jeans like People's Liberation, 
     Citizens for Humanity and Ciano Farmer, all of which are 
     displayed folded with rear pockets on

[[Page E1315]]

     view in a series of library shelves, and sell for $130 to 
     $750. Hats by Bunn, on Seventh Avenue, sells waxed-straw 
     chapeaus and flat-top felt hats by Bunn, the Trinidad-born 
     milliner.
       Bernard Oyama, the owner of B. Oyama, an elegant old-world 
     style haberdashery on Seventh Avenue, sells his own designs 
     of suits, shirts and neckwear, which are displayed amid a 
     collection of black-and-white photographs of dapper greats 
     like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington, each a reminder that the 
     Harlem of the 30's through the 60's was a thriving style 
     capital.
       ``The idea was to bring back the sense of quality to 
     Harlem,'' said Mr. Oyama, a native of Gabon who studied 
     fashion design in Paris. His store draws locals and, he said, 
     even greater numbers of clients from the Bronx, Brooklyn and 
     New Jersey, who drop in from time to time to be fitted for 
     custom-tailored suits ($800 to $2,200), and to pick up bow 
     ties, cravats and kaleidoscopically colorful gingham and 
     paisley pocket squares.
       Not every store is so rarefied. Harlemade, which has been 
     at 116th Street for six years, is stocked with books and 
     photographs offering glimpses of the historic area and its 
     architecture. It also sells handbags, dolls and an assortment 
     of T-shirts bearing Harlem logos.
       ``I was the first to brand Harlem,'' insisted Murphy 
     Heyliger, an owner. ``Since then I've seen other companies 
     realize you can get cool by putting your neighborhood on a 
     shirt.''
       Mr. Heyliger is typical of the merchants catering to both 
     residents and visitors drawn to a Harlem that is increasingly 
     perceived as romantic and vibrant enough to draw several 
     thousand tourists on weekends, many of whom place boutique-
     hopping high on an itinerary that might also include dining 
     at Emperor's Roe or Settepani, and touring the Studio Museum, 
     which exhibits the work of contemporary African-American 
     artists.
       Despite those attractions, some skeptical local merchants 
     and residents wonder if importing fancy wares to Harlem is 
     not premature. The new boutiques are interspersed with 
     bodegas, hairdressers and discount stores, and not all of the 
     retail landscape looks promising. Stores like N ``may be too 
     early,'' said Minya Quirk, the owner of Brand Pimps, a 
     fashion consulting company, and a Harlem resident.
       Ms. Quirk also frets that the goods may not be relevant to 
     a local population. ``Harlem residents have a deeply 
     ingrained sense of personal style,'' she said. ``They know 
     what they want, and I think a lot of retailers might 
     underestimate that.''
       Not Mr. Ortiz, who argues that his inventory was conceived 
     expressly to appeal to style-driven locals. N offers fashion 
     at prices that vary from $165 for a cotton shirt with 
     grosgrain detailing to $1,000 for a leather coat. Sizes range 
     from 0 to 16.
       ``We have a market here that has certain needs when it 
     comes to sizing,'' he said. ``We're offering larger sizes 
     mixed in with smaller ones in a very unapologetic way. And 
     we're always making sure we'll accommodate a variety of body 
     types.''
       The fashions are often more boldly patterned than those at 
     shops in other neighborhoods. ``They reflect the way our 
     uptown customers would like to wear clothes, and an 
     understanding that this market is more heavily into color,'' 
     Mr. Ortiz said.
       Harlem shoppers also are serious fragrance consumers, which 
     is evident from the proliferation of shops displaying ever-
     widening selections of designer scents. That infatuation 
     attracted Laurice Rahme, the entrepreneur behind Bond No. 9, 
     with scents named after New York neighborhoods. Ms. Rahme, 
     who was prescient in branding the area with New Haarlem, a 
     scent introduced in 2004, plans to open a store in Harlem 
     this year. Her flagship is on Bond Street in Lower Manhattan. 
     ``But what happened to retailing and tourism downtown is 
     going to happen uptown,'' she predicted.
       Bud Konheim, the chief executive of Nicole Miller, a line 
     with hothouse colors and animated prints that are popular at 
     N, is confident that a presence in the neighborhood is 
     healthy for the bottom line. The collection at N is expected 
     to generate $300,000 to $500,000 in its first year, he said.
       ``Harlem is an undiscovered secret for now, but that won't 
     last,'' Mr. Konheim went on. ``Things are moving too fast.''

                          ____________________