Allen didn't expect Gore or Bradley to offer any solutions at the debate, and he had a larger audience in mind anyway. "When people hear that 6 percent of real estate in Harlem is black-owned -- and particularly white people need to hear it -- then the problems this neighborhood faces become real to them," Allen says. "Homeownership is a primal part of the American dream. And when black people feel they cannot reach a part of the American dream, then we're all in trouble. Sharpton, while I'm proud of him in many ways, has not talked about what we should be doing in our own communities. There's no equivalent to Floyd Flake in Harlem. Imagine if we had a Floyd Flake! Then the middle class could have some security about their future in the neighborhood."

Philmore anderson sold his house on Convent Avenue, but he wasn't about to leave Harlem completely. He bought a house in the Hamptons and a two-bedroom co-op at 111th Street and Riverside Drive. "It was more difficult this time to find a place in the city," he says. "It was sticker shock. What I paid for this house on Convent Avenue is the same as what I'm paying for a two-bedroom that would fit into this floor!"

Besides voting with his own checkbook, Anderson has been an aggressive one-man Harlem chamber of commerce. "I believe the regentrification process is not about just investing in Harlem. It's about bringing people to Harlem that are of all walks of life," Anderson says. "So the diversity, whether it's socioeconomic or race, religion -- a diverse neighborhood is really what regentrifies a place. We wanted to take a more proactive role, so as a result, six or seven of my friends have either moved up here or bought up here. They got tired of listening to me, and said, 'Awright, I'm moving, I'm moving!' "

Anderson, though, has a few parting words of advice for the Levys and all the other newcomers.

"Respect the culture and the history, maintain the Dance Theater of Harlem, the Harlem Boys Choir, our church establishment, the jazz legacy, the authors and poets -- protect all of that, and never let people forget what that community represents. But there's plenty of room," he says. "There's plenty of abandoned buildings that need to be regentrified, that do not encroach on any race or religion. I don't buy the fact that we need to wait so that we get the 'right' people up here. The right people are people who respect Harlem's integrity and want to embellish it and let the world see that Harlem is back to its original grandeur."

After two weeks in Harlem and her first community board meeting, Carla Levy is sounding right at home. "I was interested to see if we would be rejected by anybody, like, 'Oh, yeah, here you come, now that it's getting expensive.' But it hasn't happened," she says. "People aren't idiots. If their property values are going up, they know that's a good thing."

Related:

• Archive: “Cover Story”
• Articles by Chris Smith
• Table of Contents: Apr 10, 2000 issue of New York | Subscribe!