Homewood goes to Harlem

Lord willing and the creek don't rise, my wife and I will visit Harlem tomorrow through Tuesday. We first visited three years ago, and have been eager to return. I have especially dreamed of visiting the real estate development firm Full Spectrum NY, ever since meeting their chief operating officer, Carlton Brown, when he spoke at a green building conference here four years ago.

At that time, Mr. Brown spoke about the newly-completed 1400 on 5th, New York's first green condominium. Monday, I'm slated to visit the Kalahari Harlem, a condominium that is not only mixed-use (residential plus retail), but mixed-income, with both affordable and market-rate units. (Of course, the New York definition of affordable would not be Pittsburgh's definition of affordable).

Besides soaking up as much as I can about Full Spectrum's work, I will of course take the opportunity to speak about Homewood. Especially since the Urban Redevelopment Authority has just issued an request for proposals for a planning study "that harnesses the power of transit as an engine of neighborhood revitalization" in the area surrounding the Homewood EBA stop. Now, Full Specturm may not be interested in revdeloping the area around that EBA stop; they may not be interested in doing anything in Pittsburgh at all. But I cannot NOT let them know about the opportunity.

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Some other folks from Homewood will be letting some other folks in Harlem - and everywhere else - know about another aspect of Homewood's right-now story (not Homewood's 1965 story, its right-now story). Perhaps you've seen passing references to the Homewood Children's Village. If not, here's the nickel version of the story: for something like two years now, a bunch of people, led by Pitt prof and Homewood pastor Dr. John Wallace and Homewood non-profit exec Aliya Durham have been discussing and planning a project to replicate, as far as feasible and on a smaller scale, the Harlem Children's Zone, the no-excuses network of social and academic services established by Geoffrey Canada that gets underprivileged kids on track academically and keeps them on track right into college.

Monday and Tuesday, the Harlem Children's Zone is sponsoring a national conference for people who want to learn more about how they've done what they've done and how they continue to do it. There'll also be a presentation from folks around the country to talk about how they're planning to do likewise. Geoffrey Canada and his folks have been impressed with the Homewood Children's Village folks, so Dr. Wallace will be on that panel, to talk about our folks' planning process so far.

There's a whole delegation from Pittsburgh going up; wish them well, and if you're so inclined, say a prayer. That conference could lift their work to a whole new level.

I am on the edge of my seat. There is so much to be done in Homewood, but with the work of the CMU students, and the work of the Homewood Children's Village committee, and my own street's Save Race Street Committe and our Race Street Project; and with Operation Better Block's plans to step up its game, and the ongoing work of Community Empowerment Association...and folks who I'm forgetting to mention, or may not even know about yet...there is so much that is already being done, so much that is in various stages of becoming....the Homewood that is seems really really small compared to the Homewood that is becoming.

Have a good weekend, everyone! If I get a wifi or 3G connection going, I'll post some notes from Harlem.

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