On September 18th, Tiemann Place celebrated its 35th annual block party, officially renaming the street “Tom DeMott Way" after a popular local organizer.
The new street was filled for the occasion. A thick line of kids waited to get their faces painted, Pikachus and tigers were soon roaming the crowd. Merengue and Hip-Hop boomed from the DJ tent. Old timers watched in their chairs on the sidewalk, smoking cigars, and occasionally rising to dance to their favorite songs.
Saad Khadim, Shaun Abreu, and Jamie DeMott, posing in front of the street’s new sign and art by a local artist reading “Harlem Is Not For Sale”
DeMott, who passed away in 2018, was one of five tenants who formed a tenant alliance in 1987, organizing a rent strike to demand repairs from negligent landlords.
The strike was successful – according to the organizers the tenants were awarded more than $270,000 and landlords were forced to make necessary repairs. Since then, the block has held what’s formally known as the “West Harlem Coalition Anti-Gentrification Street Festival,” commemorating what the alliance accomplished. But the fight continues. Now with new challenges and new adversaries.
Of all the LLCs and investor groups that own property in the area, the Columbia University Trustees own the most. They have 168 residential buildings in their Morningside Heights portfolio, 9 of them on the Tiemann block. Controversial use of eminent domain and alleged displacement of 5,000 people has given more attention and anger to this local dominance. DeMott spoke out against Columbia’s expansions before he died, organizing protests against their growth into what the University prefers to call Manhattanville.
“People like to call it lots of other things, but this is Harlem,” says Patricia McClure, one of the original tenant protestors. She’s lived on the block for more than fifty years.
Although four of the five organizers have passed away, their legacy lives on. Saad Khadim, the last them, quipped that he’s “planning to live forever and so far it’s going fine.” He told the crowd that DeMott always emphasized “fighting for the last, the lost, and the least.” In other words standing up for the little guys.
But Columbia is big. Really big. And this time they didn’t succeed.
The University’s webpage, “Columbia Neighbors,” describes “a long-standing history of working together with our local community.”
Demott protested, telling the press that the Manhattanville expansion plan meant “the essential devastation of our community.” In 2007, the City Planning Commission voted 10-1 to pass the University’s $6 billion plans.
At this year’s celebration, DeMott’s son Jamie ran back and forth, shaking hands, taking photos, reflecting on the results of the expansion his father opposed. He greeted community members by name. “Columbia is coming and changing the whole community,” he said when he finally paused to give a speech in front of a sign that read “Harlem is Not For Sale.”
Along with a number of local activists, City Council member Shaun Abreu spoke about DeMott Sr.’s impact. “Tom only cared about one thing,” he said, “protecting vulnerable people in the face of powerful, powerful forces.”
For Wayne Bailey, Tiemann Place is more than just a street. “This is who I am. This is home,” he said. Bailey grew up on the block since 1967, and though he now lives in New Jersey, he came back across the river just for the annual celebration. Even so, he can see that the community is changing. He affirms that “Columbia made a dent in the culture.” Yet sitting in a chair on the sidewalk with his childhood friends, he recognizes it hasn’t completely gone away.
The party went on into the late afternoon, basketballs flying across the pavement as fathers and sons played together. But as the sun went down, a red and yellow bouncy castle jostled in the shade while Columbia’s new building, still incomplete, towered above the neighborhood.
A New Columbia University building rises on the new Manhattanville campus