THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

By Melanie Grace West

The change in season isn’t just bringing warmer weather to East Harlem it is exacerbating persistent quality-of-life problems that alarm residents and decimate businesses.

Just ask Folasade Sade Tyler, who has run a small business for about a year selling skin-care products and cosmetics at the intersection of Lexington Avenue and 125th Street, a block from the Harlem Metro North station and steps from upscale new and planned commercial and residential developments.

Men, she said, who live in a shelter on nearby Randall’s Island regularly ride the M35 bus and congregate outside her glass storefront, smoking, fighting and sometimes exposing themselves to passersby.

“It’s the most dangerous block I’ve ever been on, especially for a business,” said Ms. Tyler, who has operated stores in different parts of Harlem, where she has lived for nearly 25 years. “There’s no one that seems to care what’s going on.”

THE DAILY NEWS

By Erin Durkin

East Harlem residents are blasting a de Blasio administration plan to move a sanitation garage used to store dump trucks to 127th St. and Third Ave.

They complain that the site is just a few blocks away from an existing garage on 131st St. and near two schools. Sanitation plans to move from a garage on 99th St.

“The new garage would expose thousands of nearby students, park visitors, and other community members to truck fumes and loud noise. This would exacerbate air quality problems that have already made children in East Harlem more susceptible to asthma than others across the city,” the New Harlem East Merchants Association wrote in a letter to Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia.

DNAinfo

By Gustavo Solis

EAST HARLEM — It's not easy to promote fine dining in a neighborhood better known for synthetic marijuana abuse, but small businesses on the east side of 125th Street are trying to change that with their first ever Uptown Restaurant Week.

“It’s a tough task ahead of us, but I always say we can build a mountain with one rock at a time,” said Gregory Barrett of the Uptown Wine Pantry.

The $8 food and drink specials may help.
 

DNAinfo

By Gustavo Solis

EAST HARLEM — As the legislative session kicks off in Albany, a group of El Barrio business owners want lawmakers to prioritize a bill limiting methadone clinics in the neighborhood.

The bill — A 0307 — would limit any new clinic from opening within 500 feet of a school, park, or church. It has been sitting in theMental Health Committee since 2012 and the New Harlem East Merchants Association thinks it’s time to move the bill along.

THE DAILY NEWS

By Holley Drakeford

The de Blasio administration has big future plans for East Harlem. But before ushering in new development, officials must do more to improve quality of life here on East 125th St., right now.

While some efforts have been made, the problems still linger: homelessness,K2 drug use and an unfairly high density of methadone clinics, to name a few. Uptown, we never got a highly touted “multi-agency task force” like Times Square did.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

By Matt Chaban

When Eric Gonzalez started working as a custodian on East 125th Street in Harlem for a local merchant’s association earlier this year, the hardest part was not hauling trash or sweeping gutters. It was dealing with the K2 addicts.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

By Melanie Grayce West

At the 1997 groundbreaking for East Harlem’s Pathmark, well-wishers in attendance included the governor, the mayor and the neighborhood’s U.S. congressman, as well as a sea of businessmen, philanthropists and Latino and African-American community leaders.

THE NYC FOOD POLICY CENTER

By Ashley Rafalow

We caught up with Carey King, Project Director at New Harlem East Merchants Association, to learn more about NHEMA’s mission, core programs and food-related initiatives:

THE NEW YORK TIMES

By Nicholas Casey & Al Baker

About a week ago, 125th Street in East Harlem had been the site of a sprawling homeless population that converged between Park and Lexington Avenues to pass the afternoons, often deep in the haze of cheap drugs.

Activistas, personas de la comunidad y una artista hispana se unieron para combatir juntos la delincuencia y la marihuana sintética que afecta tanto ese sector.

TELEMUNDO

By Luis Alejandro Medina