Strivers Row in Harlem

Manhattan Community Board 10 has devised a plan to landmark more Harlem properties in nine study areas and make development around the neighborhood more uniform, NY1 reported. It has been approved by the community board and awaits an eventual vote from the Landmarks Preservation Commission and the Department of City Planning.

The proposal includes a range of landmark distinctions, such as “individual” landmarks based on building exteriors, interiors and scenic and historic districts, such as the extensions of Strivers Row and Mount Morris Park. [more]

The city’s Economic Development Corp. and the Empire State Development Corp. are calling for developers to turn a Harlem parking garage into an office building and cultural center, the Wall Street Journal reported. The request for proposals, slated to be issued today, will seek a developer to build 300,000 square feet of space. [more]

110 W. 123rd Street

A spate of Harlem construction accidents and collapses has neighborhood residents worried about their safety, DNAinfo reported. This news comes in the wake of the collapse of a five-story brownstone at 110 West 123rd Street into a community garden last Friday that left nobody injured.

Construction is speeding up in Harlem. So far in 2012, five new construction permits were issued to the Department of Buildings for Harlem developments. At the same time, there have been accidents. [more]

From left: Joseph Tahl of Tahl Propp, 1890 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. and 1900 Lexington Avenue

Tahl Propp, a Manhattan-based real estate developer and one of the biggest landlords in Harlem, is facing litigation from multiple investors who allege the company has ignored repeated requests to inspect the company’s financial records.

In a March 23 lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court, investors including Jam Capital Assoc., Pies Plus and the SD Pines Family, allege that the company, led by Joseph Tahl and Rodney Propp, have refused to allow them to review the company’s books or tax records, amid concerns that some of the $3.8 million they invested has not been properly accounted for. [more]

5th on the Park

A total of 41 contracts were signed at 5th on the Park, a new residential high rise on Upper Fifth Avenue, throughout 2011, the most out of any new development property in Harlem, Halstead Property Development Marketing, the exclusive sales agent for the building, announced today.

The development was closely followed in sales volume by 88 Morningside at 88 Morningside Avenue with 38 signed contracts and 2280 FDB at 2280 Frederick Douglass Boulevard with 31 contracts, which are marketed by Halstead and MNS respectively. (note: correction appended) [more]

A 60-year-old Harlem barbecue restaurant could be going out of business come Sunday if the owner can’t come up with the $15,000 she owes to satisfy health code violation fines, according to NY1. Sherman’s Bar-B-Q, at 2509 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard near 146th Street, was ordered to close in August after the city’s Department of Health inspected and determined there was “insufficient refrigeration, vermin infestation, extensive sanitary conditions and [they were] operating with an expired permit.” As a result, the restaurant, which at one point had five locations, was ordered to close.  [more]

The new liquor store at 183 Lenox Avenue (credit: Harlem + Bespoke)Rarely do liquor stores exemplify the tensions of a gentrifying neighborhood, where once-abandoned brownstones now garner $3 million-plus purchase prices, like the one coming to Lenox Avenue near West 119th Street in Harlem.

The New York Times reported that the liquor store owner, Behiru Mesfin, has drawn the ire of Harlem residents for a cheap-looking, bright yellow and red sign, a roll-down steel gate and low-quality liquor that recall the grittier days of the neighborhood when poor residents would sit on stoops drinking. [more]

Robert Durst and 218 Lenox Avenue

It’s been only two weeks since Robert Durst, older brother of developer Douglas Durst, bought a townhouse in East Harlem, but residents are already protesting, saying he is a danger to the neighborhood. Some believe that Durst, who purchased a 19th century property at 218 Lenox Avenue for $1.75 million earlier this month, is a threat, after being linked with various murder cases, the New York Post reported.

Isaiah Owens, owner of a funeral home in East Harlem, said he has a message for the police department: “If I disappear, go and check him out first.’’

Robert has received attention in some high-profile police cases, including one that was the basis for a film about the disappearance of his wife that Douglas and the Durst Organization sought to block. He admitted killing a 71-year-old neighbor in Texas in 2001 and dumping his dismembered body in Galveston Bay. He was also a suspect in the 2000 execution-style shooting of writer Susan Berman. [more]

Building scaffolding fell onto a public city bus at West 125th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem this morning, the New York Times reported, injuring 17 people. “We pulled into the stop and I heard a falling sound of something collapsing toward the back, and the back of the bus filled up with smoke,” said Sasha Chavkin, a reporter for Columbia University’s new investigative journalism website, the New York World. “People were running from the back and screaming. After about a minute the bus driver let everyone off the bus. I talked to a kid in the back who said he thought he was going to die. He said rubble had fallen through the windows of the bus.” Fire officials described the injuries as minor and not life threatening. The address from which the scaffolding fell was not immediately available. [NYT]

Founding Father Alexander Hamilton’s yellow villa in Harlem will open to the public Saturday after massive restoration work by the National Park Service, the Wall Street Journal reported. Hamilton’s historic home, which had previously loomed over Covent Avenue, was moved to St. Nicholas Park in 2008 (see video above), its current home, while the work was being done. Back in 1889, during the height of the Harlem construction boom, the home was salvaged from the wrecking ball of a developer by Hamilton and relocated to a spot next to St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. An exhibition by the National Park Service features objects from those historic rooms: a dainty, London-made square piano, reproductions of the silver-plated wine cooler sent to him by former President George Washington and the roll-top desk in his little study. [WSJ] [more]