Hip-hop and high styles on West 125th Street

By RENEE MINUS WHITE
Fashion & Beauty Editor

Whoops, hair it is! The look is big hair, tight tees and often short, slithery or full skirts and high “fly” heels at Harl3m Ink’s fourth annual Summer Stage Fashion Show, held last Sunday at the Harlem State Office Building’s Plaza.
It all works when the models are young and pretty. However, these looks are not for fuller figures, even though there were plus-size models in the show.

The sun was hot, but depending upon your spot, the afternoon’s cool breezes were enjoyable. In between fashion sets, some star rappers put the word out! Founded by Rev. Al Sharpton’s daughters Ashley and Dominique Sharpton, Harl3m Inc. produced a fabulous variety show! When the DJ played Michael Jackson’s “I Wanna Rock With You,” the already cheering audience burst into song in memory of MJ.
Hosted by Antonique Smith, star of Searchlight Pictures’ “Notorious,” and celebrity stylist Wouri Vice, this new age-inspired fashion show featured 19 segments. For their audience mix, there were styles for everyone and labeled scenes mixed with fashion and drama. Look out for designers Deranie Henderson and Styles by Chimere.

Some great hairstyles were by Jacee Allmond of Pizazz Salon, 333 Lenox Avenue, NYC. For work, there were men’s and women’s chic pants and skirt suits and outfits. For night, the gowns with tulle touches and bare jumpsuits were sexy.

Featuring 60 hand-selected models and 10 talented designers, the show was very entertaining.“We lost great legends, but don’t tell your children who they can’t be. Tell them what and who they can be. This show just shows you that all young people are not out here selling dope. Many are trying to build great lives,” preached Rev. Al Sharpton. His daughters Dominique and Ashley received keys to Harlem.

Historically, fashion has been a pivotal part of African-American culture, especially in Harlem. Over the past 10 years, Harlem has become home to a variety of big brand names and smaller entrepreneurial brands. Harl3m Ink utilizes Harlem’s fashion cache and molds the style that defines today’s urban market.

For Harlem residents, fashion fans from surrounding boroughs and stylists from the tristate area, Harl3m Ink’s fourth Summer Stage show was made possible by District Leader Teresa Freeman-Timmons, Rev. Al Sharpton and the continued support of Harl3m Ink’s staff, designers and models.

Vanessa and Angela Simmons received an award from Sister to Sister for their outstanding presence as role models in the community. Good Show!

HARLEM IS LOSING A BIT OF ITS SOUL

The M&G Diner on 125th Street is among a slew of old-time mom-and-pop businesses forced to close by ambitious projects that never materialized.

125TH ST. BOOM GOES BUST

Dreams of a Harlem renaissance have been deferred.
At least 14 projects along 10 blocks of 125th Street have been delayed, mothballed, killed or downgraded as a much-heralded development boom fails to materialize on uptown's iconic main street.
Instead of planned office and retail towers, a pro-sports television station, high-rise hotels and a culinary-arts school, there are vacant storefronts and trash-strewn lots.
Dozens of often bitter mom-and-pop businesses -- including neighborhood staples like Bobby's Happy House, M&G Diner and Manna's Soul Food -- were booted for high-rises that never rose.
The dormant development sites have doubled the retail-vacancy rate along one five-block section of the strip to 16 percent, said Barbara Askins, head of the 125th Street Business Improvement District.
"This is the grand letdown," said Evan Blum, owner of The Demolition Depot salvage store.
He criticized the city for banking its redevelopment efforts on corporations instead of local business owners.
"All they know is corporate America, and corporate America is kaput now. It's us little guys that got kicked out, that are unique and specialized, that bring people to New York," Blum said
The biggest blow to revamping 125th Street, also known as Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, was the death of "Harlem Park," a proposed $435 million tower at Park Avenue that at one point was to include TV studios for the Major League Baseball Network.
That killed two projects on neighboring lots and fueled a 31 percent decline in the asking price for one of the lots, said Randy Modell of ABS Partners Real Estate.
Lawsuits have delayed at least three other projects: transformation of the burned-out Corn Exchange building into a culinary school; a $40 million office and retail tower; and several phases of a planned 6-acre, city-administered entertainment and residential complex in East Harlem.

Marva Allen—a Harlem visionary

By MARYAM ABDUL-ALEEM
Special to the Amsterdam News
A lot of people come to Harlem for the experience. People come to see the Apollo Theater, the state office building’s statue of Adam Clayton Powell, the historic site of the Hotel Theresa, and they often finish the experience off with a meal at the famous Sylvia’s restaurant.And now, more and more, people are coming to Harlem to stop by the Hue-Man Bookstore (located between 124th and 125th streets and 8th Avenue, next to the Magic Johnson theater), a place that local residents already frequent to buy a book, listen to an author and sit in its café and drink in the ambiance from Harlem’s Black-owned bookstore.
Just ask the co-owner of Hue-Man bookstore, Marva Allen, the store’s strong-willed, “social/entrepreneurial” advocate and chief operating officer who said “Harlem is the seat of culture that defines the African-American experience.”
And the Hue-Man Bookstore by extension, Allen said, in a room at the back of the bookstore closed off to employees, is more than just a bookstore: “It’s sacred ground."
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