A Dispute in Harlem

Commerce and Conflict Resolution in Harlem

Linda Stamato

This article was first published in Peace Review 9:3 (1997), 399401

On December 8, 1995, a street vendor, Roland Smith, Jr., entered Freddy's, the discount clothing store on 125th Street in Harlem that he, along with scores of others, had been picketing for several weeks. He fired a gun indiscriminately, killing several people. He doused the store with a flammable liquid, and before turning his weapon on himself, ignited it. In all, eight people died, including the deranged Smith. Others were injured and the store was ruined.

What's the genesis of this tragedy? It arose from a contentious commercial dispute between a Jewish landlord and his African-American tenant. It happened when the tenant's lease renewal was denied, and he sought, through economic and social pressure, to reverse that decision. But the roots of the clash lie deeper, embedded in historic resentments, racial and class antagonisms, the disappearance of jobs, and the political gamesmanship endemic to the community.

To avoid repeating its mistakes, we study history. Even now, so recently removed, the Harlem tragedy allows us to learn. How can the community manage its differences so that competing visions, and the protests they may engender, do not explode in violence?

We should revisit what happened in Harlem in the weeks before this tragedy, not only to understand what really took place there, but also to reinforce what this history exposes: commercial disputes, similarly rooted and situated, need the constructive conflict management that mediation can provide.

Generations of peoples, Jews and African-Americans among them, have owned and operated stores on 125th Street, enduring economic vagaries and neighborhood unrest. Some failed, others have succeeded; some left, others have stayed on. Harlem's stories have been mostly invisible. One of these struggles to succeed would have otherwise remained invisible, too, had Fred Harari -- wanting to expand his business, Freddy's, not tried to evict Sikhulu Shange.

Shange had been operating Record Shack for two decades, in a space he sub-leased from Harari in a building owned by the United House of Prayer for All People, a Pentecostal Church. A series of demonstrations, accompanied by anti-white and anti-Semitic diatribes against Jews in general and Mr. Harari in particular, exploded on that day in December when Smith eventually walked into Freddy's and started shooting.

Why did this tragic event occur? Consider the opportunities for constructive intervention, for mediation specifically, that were not taken. Before and during the protests, which began in early November 1995, Shange requested mediation, as well as community support for retaining his lease. As a community fixture for 20 years, Shange had many backers.

But the street protests were also joined by those with political ends, and by those who were Freddy's economic competitors: Morris Powell, a store owner and head of the 125th Street Vendors Association, led the protests not only at Freddy's but also down the street at Bargain World. As an African-American, his call to "buy black" reflects more than simply racial interests. Even after the fire and deaths at Freddy's, for example, Powell led, as scheduled, the protest outside Bargain World, which the Rosen family owned for several generations. Shange discovered that some people wanted to fuel the dispute rather than resolve it. Others, less directly interested and reluctant to "interfere," either watched from the sidelines or looked the other way. Shange received no offers of mediation.

Investigative reports run in The New York Times (December 1995-December 1996) show several opportunities where mediation might have led to constructive discussions. The building's owner tried to arrange meetings but key participants, such as the Reverend Al Sharpton -- a community leader, mayoral candidate, and dominant voice in the protests, and a leader in the community -- did not attend.

Direct negotiations between Shange and the owner, to discuss moving Record Shack into another church-owned building nearby, fell apart. Certified letters sent to various elected and appointed officials led nowhere. Offers by local political luminaries to host "settlement discussions" were repudiated for one reason or another.

The principal parties were not the only ones to miss opportunities to resolve the dispute. Police officials had been checking allegations of anti-Semitism by the protesters as early as November 29 but took no action. The Human Relations Commission had been monitoring the protests. It knew about the racist invective and threats of violence but attempted no intervention. Calls for help by Shange, Harari, and the Church owners, fell on deaf ears as well. Smith entered Freddy's with no more opportunities left to lose.

Four months after the violence, Shange received a two-year lease, with an option to renew, in the same building he had always run Record Shack. Now Shange leases directly from the United House of Prayer and not through Fred Harari of Freddy's. Harari continues leasing space from the church, but Freddy's remains closed, a steel door barring entry, decorated with tributes--poems, photographs, and candles~dedicated to those who died there. According to his lawyer, Shange's new lease could not have been "arrived at or done without the cooperation of Mr. Harari." Why couldn't this have been done, with the help of a mediator, on time?

The tragic events at Freddy's show Harlem at a crossroads, with visions for its future uncertain, residents at odds with merchants and merchants at odds with one another, some clinging to long-established businesses, others new, fresh contenders for the consumer's dollar. Some still recall the days when African Americans were denied jobs in stores that thrived on their purchases. Battles were waged then, in the 1 930s, and boycotts gradually generated job opportunities for Harlem residents. In the I 990s, on 125th Street, though, the cry now was not for jobs but rather for black ownership: Buy Black! was the slogan. Support the (Black) community!

Against this background, Harlem residents hold diverse expectations for the commercial future. While the Freddy's attack was manifestly racist, problems of economic growth and development-and who is in charge and who profits-also loom large. The descent of Harlem into poverty and misery provides another subtext for this story. Problems of social inequality threaten the fabric of Harlem society, fueled by record-level joblessness.

Remedies such as education, employment, social support, and economic development incentives require state and national backing. Yet local action remains essential. At least part of it must involve "conflict resolution." Without a means to effectively confront differences, particularly over commercial interests, Harlem will not likely be revitalized. Not to mention that social coherence and a well-functioning civic infrastructure also require it.

As a process, mediation involves a neutral "third" party who helps disputing people to communicate, to understand each other s views and interests, and to solve problems, reconcile differences, and reach consensus. It responds ~ the problems underlying disputes, attends to peoples' needs, and seeks enduring resolutions. But mediation was missing in December 1995. We need it all the more today, not only for individual, retail, and commercial disputes but for planning and policy decisions as well.

Harlem's economic structure has been in transition since the national government designated the district as an Empowerment Zone (E). As one of the largest renewal projects in upper Manhattan's history, the zone will receive $250 million in public money over the next decade to bolster social services, finance education programs, and spur economic development through loans, job training, and business partnerships. How those funds are spent will significantly influence Harlem's future.

The potential is enormous. Indeed, Sony, Disney, and Greyhound Bus Lines (which hopes to run an employee training center) have been among the nearly 200 applicants for federal E funding. They stand to join other recent arrivals, such as Blockbuster, a marina development project, and several restaurants, including Londel's on Frederick Douglass Boulevard and Copeland's Country Kitchen on 125th Street.

These developments are encouraging but they still linger in the shadow of the Freddy's tragedy. Rarely is it left out of discussions about progress in Harlem. For example, the August 20, 1996 edition of The New York Times says that: "Few merchants who are considering investments in Harlem can forget the 1995 firebombing of Freddy's clothing store on 125th Street owned by a Jewish retailer who wanted to expand his business into space leased by a black-owned- -store."

Nevertheless, some movement has now begun out from under that shadow. Building ownership on I 25th Street, once almost exclusively white, is diversifying: African-Americans own some 158 of the 322 businesses between Fifth Avenue and Frederick Douglass Boulevard. The rest are owned by Asian, Jewish, and Hispanic storekeepers. As The New York Times also reports, "so many black people work in the stores that it is difficult to tell who owns what."

Yet tensions continue between white owners or operators and non-whites. Periodically, they surface. Some months back, for example, the Giuliani administration forcibly removed illegal street vendors from the thoroughfare. Earlier, a dispute erupted over plans to build a Pathmark supermarket on a vacant, city-owned lot on 125th Street.

During hard economic times, when residents struggle with insecurity, declining real wages, and increasing job displacement, citizen frustrations -- according to Harvard Professor William Julius Wilson -- must be channelled in constructive directions. More than ever before, Wilson believes we need a vision of interracial unity that acknowledges distinctly racial problems but also recognizes common problems that should be addressed with common solutions.

Nowhere is this view more compelling than in Harlem. The area has an uncertain economic future: one million square feet of commercial space lies vacant while as much as seventy per cent of Harlem's residents shop elsewhere for gifts, clothes, furniture, and electrical appliances. A spokesperson for the Gap, the San Francisco-based clothing chain and E funding applicant, claims that "Harlem is retailing's best kept secret."

Harlem's economic rebirth certainly requires funding but significant priv~ate commitments will come only if investors think their investments will be sound, secure, and remunerative. Businesses, especially retail, cannot operate without community support. Increasing resident earnings, community social programs, and economic redevelopment monies will help create a market for goods and services in Harlem.

But the confidence for driving investment requires something else, as well: a mechanism for reconciling differences among those participating in the area's economic life, which can help build the community. People need a means to deal with differences and clashing interests as they work to develop the larger community. Mediation can perform such a function. It has an integrative capacity to resolve, non-adversarially, disputes that might otherwise seriously divide institutions, and harm individuals and communities.

Mediation cannot generate social change or social justice, nor can it directly enhance a l9cality's economic prospects. But it can provide a level playing field where stakeholders pursue their legitimate interests in a cooperative, negotiative setting, even ultimately as partners rather than adversaries. At the very least, mediation may better manage individual disputes and produce more acceptable results.

The problem of whites dominating the businesses in a predominantly black neighborhood will not disappear simply because a particular conflict has been resolved. Commercial disputes, large and small, will keep surfacing. Thus, such communities need mechanisms, already in place, that people accept for their fairness and effectiveness. Such mechanisms can help residents solve problems, and ameliorate the tensions that normally accompany disputes. Energies will be preserved to devote, instead, Harlem's social and economic revitalization, to everyone's benefit.

On December 23,1995, Sikhulu Shange issued a statement expressing his grief for the dead, and pleading for help in resurrecting his business:

Please God, in this season of peace and good will, help me find justice and a fair solution... Help us all learn from this tragic act of madness that will haunt me forever ... Help me rebuild and show that Harlem ... can work out its problems.

For the survivors of those who died, and for the greater Harlem community, can S something positive come from this tragedy? If so, then it rests with those who have devoted their lives and fortunes to commerce on 125th Street, from the Rosens and Hararis to the Baynes and Shanges-who collectively have more than a century invested there. Redevelopment certainly requires new investment but it relies on finding a constructive way to resolve future disputes. Harlem's civic growth and economic revitalization depends upon its ability to build community and commerce amidst constant change and diversity. As part of its developing infrastructure, mediation can help Harlem adapt to this change, and deal with these differences.