Uptown Radio

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Just 62% of Jewish voters say they will cast a ballot for Obama this November, according to a recent poll. That’s down from 78% in the election four years ago. The new poll from the Public Religion Research Institute indicates that Republicans may be luring voters away from the Democrats. As Rachel Rogers reports, this could be a reflection of the changing Jewish American population.

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Stephen Greenfield was a Democrat. But about 25 years ago he changed his mind and became a Republican. Since then he has voted for both parties, including twice for Bill Clinton.

GREENFIELD 1

I vote for the candidate who I think is best for the job. Basically I’m looking for someone who is interested in the economy and who is friendly with Israel.

TIME 0:14

In this year’s election that means former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

GREENFIELD 2

I think that Romney’s gonna be a better friend to Israel than Obama. He’s the only Republican I would have voted for.

TIME 0:08

Greenfield, a medical consultant, lives in Bethesda, Maryland. Three years ago he joined the D. C. chapter of the Republican Jewish Coalition, a pro-Israel political action committee. The organization’s website highlighted the poll. It also included a Pew Research Center report that said the percentage of registered Jewish voters who identify as Republican or leaning Republican went from 20 percent in 2008 to 29 percent in 2011.

Hank Sheinkopf is a rabbi and democratic political strategist. He doesn’t find the change that surprising.

SHEINKOPF 1

The Jews have been the most reliable portion of the Democratic electorate after African Americans, so after 80 years it would not be unusual for people to change directions.

TIME: 0:10

The strong party ties go back to the early 20th century. Democrats were seen as welcoming to minorities and immigrants, while the Republicans shunned them. As a result, the Democratic party won the Jewish vote in every presidential election since 1924. The habit was deeply ingrained, says Rafael Medoff, who writes for the conservative news outlet The Daily Caller.

MEDOFF 1

The idea of voting for a democratic candidate was almost a part of their religion.

TIME: 0:06

That’s no longer the case. Now the so-called “assimilated” Jewish population doesn’t necessarily see religious heritage as their primary identity. Instead they’re voting by the issues. The PRRI poll shows that Jews who identify as Republican agree with Republican stances on military strength and social policy.

Also, Medoff says the religiously conservative Orthodox community is moving heavily in favor of the Republican party.

For all Jews the protection of Israel is a key issue. Rabbi Jonathan Glass has worked at the Synagogue for the Arts in Tribeca for 22 years.

GLASS

If the potential adversaries of the Jewish community are clear that there is a very strong Israel it tends to insulate the uh, broader Jewish community from any potential threats, but also it means that there is a refuge. That was the whole point of the state of Israel.

TIME: 0:19

President Obama has been a friend to Israel. But many conservative Jews feel he should have been a better friend. If the 62 percent support indicated in the PRRI poll holds true in November, Obama’s support would be the lowest among Jews since the Democrat Jimmy Carter lost to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980. Rafael Medoff.

MEDOFF 2

Then too you had a Democrat incumbent president who was perceived in the Jewish community as being unfriendly to Israel and ultimately the majority of American Jewish voters abandoned Carter.

TIME 0:09

Media consultant Hank Sheinkopf thinks it would be simple for Romney to build the Jewish vote.

SHEINKOPF 3

All that Romney has to do is to show up with orthodox Jews as often as possible, to campaign as intensely as he can among them, but the problem is they’re really not worth doing that for.

TIME: 0:09

That’s because most Jews live in states that are strongly democratic like New York and California. But Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio are swing states, and have large enough Jewish populations to have a potential impact on the outcome of the election.

Obama will also be fighting to maximize his support among Jews, like he did in 2008. Still, the fact remains that for the first time in many decades, the Jewish vote could be up for grabs.

Rachel Rogers, Columbia Radio News.

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There are more people riding the New York subway today than at any time since 1950. More people live in the city and the newcomers choose to live outside of Manhattan.Reporter John Light took a look at how the subway system is handling the growing ridership.

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John Light, Reporter:
The L train from Brooklyn into Manhattan is packed on a weekday afternoon.

FADE IN [doors]

By the time the train pulls up to the Bedford Avenue platform, the last stop before Manhattan, the cars are standing room only.

CROSSFADE TO SUBWAY AMBI

But Bushwick resident Aaron Schragg says this is nothing compared to rush hour.

Aaron Schragg:
The platform will be crowded — full — at eight o’clock, five after eight.

He lives near the Dekalb [De Cal B] Avenue L station in Bushwick, eight stops from Manhattan — or about 20 minutes, when trains are running.

Schragg:
Every once in awhile at rush hour, the whole thing will basically just shut down, almost with no explantation, and they’ll say basically good luck. Or at least that’s what it feels like.

John Light:
Sitting next to Schragg on the L train is Carla Cubitt. She’s also a Bushwick resident — and she says service on the weekend is particularly frustrating.

Carla Cubitt:
Then they have the shuttle bus, and then you like get off at Lorimer and then… sometimes I’ll just give up and go home if it’s not really an emergency.

John Light:
This crowding on the L line, and on other trains in Brooklyn in the Bronx, is a relatively new phenomenon.

FADE OUT SUBWAY AMBI

Historian John Tauranac has designed maps of the transit system for decades; he now teaches architectural history at NYU. He says the subways have played a major role in the city’s recent growth.

John Tauranac:
Population follows transportation. Build it — the it in this case being public transportation — and they will travel.

John Light:
Between 2010 and 2011, Dekalb [De Cal B] Avenue — that’s Aaron Schragg’s station — added 40,000 passengers. Other stations in Brooklyn and the Bronx experienced even larger increases in that time — up to twenty percent more riders. Cate Contino oversees a transit advocacy group, called the Straphangers Campaign — and she says the MTA has some planning to do.

Cate Contino:
We all know that the city’s population is increasing over the next 20 years. All the projections show that. So the MTA will be forced to think pretty critically in the near future about how to meet those rising demands. [cut stammers]

John Light:
But the MTA has been struggling. In 2010, it made deep service cuts, eliminating 5 bus routes and scaling back service on some train lines. The same year, the G train added five stations in South Brooklyn — but that service could end in 2013. At a press conference earlier this month, New York City public advocate Bill de Blasio railed against that plan.

Bill De Blasio:
[full] This is where the New York economy is going.

John Light:
The existing subway system is big enough, says Cate Contino with the Straphanger’s Campaign. But she says the MTA needs to improve the infrastructure. For instance, the signal system could be computerized. That would allow more trains to run closer together. But Contino says that would take government funding that the MTA doesn’t have right now.

Cate Contino:
Overhauling the signal system is going to be a multibillion dollar project that’s been pushed off for dozens of years at this point. The majority of the signals in the system date back to the earlier part of the twentieth century.

John Light:
Historian and mapmaker John Tauranac suspects that, eventually, the transit authority will have to expand. But he thinks the MTA won’t feel enough pressure until all of Brooklyn, and the Bronx, have the clout Manhattan does.

John Tauranac:
Money is power. The moment that neighborhoods start being gentrified, they will exert power on politicians, and on the MTA, et cetera, to improve service.

John Light:
The MTA did not respond to repeated requests for an interview. But in March it released a report online saying that around eighty percent of trains arrive on time. And a press release acknowledged the growing ridership figures, beginning with the line: “Everyone knows there is no better way to navigate the city than riding the subway.”

John Light, Columbia Radio News

Two new initiatives are bringing high-culture below-ground. The MTA’s Arts for Transit program is reintroducing its Poetry in Motion series, and a new app to showcases the subway’s installation art. Will Sloan reports.

–

Narr: After a long absence, the Poetry Society of America is reviving “Poetry in Motion” to select poems each month be printed on posters, and on the back of hundreds of thousands of metrocards. In the spirit of the summer holidays, Alice Quinn, Executive Director of the Poetry Society, reads the first selection: “Graduation,” by Dorothea Tanning…Quinn: He told us, with the years, you will come

to love the world.

And we sat there with our souls in our laps,

and comforted them.

Narr: Poetry in Motion began in 1992, but was retired for four years in 2008  when the MTA decided to experiment with prose passages instead. Quinn says the experiment was unsuccessful, perhaps because the out-of-context choices were decidedly downbeat.

 

Quinn: I think the opening sentence of ‘The Metamorphoses’ about awaking one morning and discovering you’ve been transformed into a cockroach did not endear subway riders to the program!

Narr: Quinn believes that poetry lends itself more easily to the confines of a small poster or Metrocard, and any connection to art is a connection to one’s inner life.

 

Quinn: Those poems are short, and they make an impression. And you have a chance to read them over and over. With a poem, you can have the amazing experience of having a work of art within you. You’re most likely to encounter it in your own voice for the first time, and if you memorize it, it’s doubly within you, and you can call it to mind any time.

Narr: Arts for Transit, which supervises arts and entertainment programs at the MTA’s subway stations, is also launching a new iPhone and Android app. The MTA launched it last month to give New Yorkers a guided tour of subway art installations. Users can search by subway line, station and artist, and see photos of installations with explanatory descriptions. Users can search neighborhood by neighborhood to see how Roy Lichtenstein captured the essence of Times Square with his “Times Square Mural,” or how Faith Ringgold immortalized uptown legends with “Flying Home Harlem Heroes and Heroines” at Lenox St. station.
Amy Hausmann, assistant director of Arts for Transit, says the neighborhood connections are key to the art.

 

Hausmann: It’s very site-specific. It’s very much about the people who live in the neighborhoods, and we ask the artists to really think about the people who have lived in that place before, the people who live there now, and the people whowill come to that place in the future.

Narr: Arts for Transit was established in 1986, a time when New York’s subways had fallen into neglect. Since then, a portion of construction costs has gone to permanent artwork – typically $100,000 to 126,000 per installation.

Jean Phifer is the author of the book Public Art New York. She says that arts initiatives always enhance her subway trips.

 

Phifer: They’ve just done a new installation at the Brooklyn Museum with reproductions of historic artefacts in the walls. So there are a lot of stations that have really unusual and interesting things. It can be really beautiful, it can be moving, it can really make you think, and interact with the space.

Narr: At 42nd St./Times Square, commuters rushing past the Lichtenstein mural agreed.

 

MOS: “I love it. I’m also in the arts myself, I think it enhances travel for a lot of people.” “I think it makes the train station look way better.” “I love it! It’s fun. It makes people feel alive.”

Narr: That was Joy Dreyfuss, Jannea Alyce, and Lilya Rubinov. Amy Hausmann, Assistant Director of Arts for Transit, says that art in the subway is important for more than just its aesthetic pleasure.

Hausmann: We hope it really changes the way people think about their day and the way they interact with each other. Y’know, It just kinda makes your day a little bit brighter, and what could be wrong with that?

Narr: There will be new art underground when the 7-line extension opens in 2013. Final plans are underway for a new mosaic by Harlem-based artist Xenobia Bailey. Will Sloan, Columbia Radio News.

HOST BACKANNOUNCE: You can also find a link to Arts for Transit’s newly-launched Tumblr site at UptownRadio.org.

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Commentator Mackenzie Issler has volunteered in a clinic in Haiti and has also reported from the island nation. She made many friendships she hopes will last a lifetime. But she’s learned that in Haiti, a lifetime can be short.

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Here’s the problem that residents of the outer boroughs face.

I went up to the corner of 161st Street and the Grand Concourse this morning, next to the Bronx County Courthouse, and tried to catch a ride back to the Uptown Radio Studios in Manhattan.

HERZ 1
IC: “This is a really busy intersection…”
OC: “…I’m going to see how long it takes me to hail a yellow cab here.” (:06)

I’ll spare you the 15 minutes I waited without seeing any yellow cabs.

So I tried a new approach: looking for a livery car.

Livery cars aren’t as easy to pick out. They’re not yellow. They don’t have lights on top. But they’re all over the Bronx.

SOUND: Door opening

HERZ 2:
IC: “Hi. Can you take me to Columbia University?…”
OC: “…Where? Columbia University. Okay.” (:06)

It took less than a minute, and I was on my way to my destination.

But the problem is, what just happened was illegal. Under the old regulations, livery cars can’t stop for street hails—only yellow cabs can.

But yellow cabs tend not to leave Manhattan. David Yassky, chairman of the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission, says that’s created a vacuum.

YASSKY 1

“This vacuum has been filled by a huge underground market.” (:04)

NAR: That’s what Yassky said yesterday during the commission’s hearing.

The new rules would allow the city to sell up to 6,000 new licenses, starting in June. The licenses would let livery car drivers take street hails everywhere in the city, except for most of Manhattan.

The commission voted 7 to 2 to approve the new rules.

The livery car industry is delighted. The yellow taxi industry is angry. Some drivers have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for their medallions—their own licenses that let them pick up street hails in all five boroughs.

The new livery car licenses will cost just $1,500. Some medallion owners told the commission that they were worried their investments would lose value.

SAPONE 1
IC: “I borrowed from everyone I knew to purchase my medallion…”
OC: “…I didn’t grow up easy.” (:20)

That’s 74-year-old Vincent Sapone, who said he started driving a yellow cab back in 1964.

Sapone used to work in the Bronx and in Harlem, but he said livery cars pushed him out. And he blames the city for letting it happen.

SAPONE 2
IC: “The day came when the taxi stand was full with liveries…”
OC: “…You get into fights, and they push you out to Manhattan.” (:20)

NAR: A coalition of medallion owners has sued to stop the city’s rules from going into effect.

And livery car owners face other hurdles before they can start picking up street hails. Twenty percent of the new licenses must go to handicapped-accessible vehicles.

While New Yorkers wait for resolution, livery cars will keep taking street hails in the Bronx, illegally. Outside the courthouse this morning, Ralph William Boone said he thinks the new rules make sense.

Boone 1
IC: “It seems to me if you’re allowing the livery cabs…”
OC: “…Because the yellow cabs aren’t here in the first place.” (:08)

If the new rules pass muster with the courts, street-hail livery cabs will get their own roof lights and fare meters, just like taxis. And they’ll be painted a uniform color, though the TLC hasn’t decided which.

The only thing that’s for sure is that it won’t be yellow.

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Libraries have shared information in the same way for centuries, collecting and preserving written material for their users. The form has shifted from clay tablets to computers. Now, it’s digital books. They are the fastest growing area of publishing, and libraries are seeing a surge in demand for e-book titles. Ben Bradford reports that this is threatening the libraries’ model.

It’s pretty clear customers at the Central Library in Queens want e-books. The library became the first in New York to start lending e-readers last week—50 of them, pre-loaded with dozens of books each. Librarian Wanda Wright didn’t even need to put signs up.

The e-reader program is primarily for users who don’t already have devices or can’t afford them. The library already offers thousands of e-books for its customers to download on their own. Queens Library CEO Tom Galante says this is the library’s mission—and business model—offering content to users in whatever forms it may take.

And more and more it’s on e-books. Now, libraries have been struggling with years of national, state, and local budget cuts. Galante says the new medium could bring some relief, because it eliminates the cost of labeling, shelving, and tracking.

Galante: In Queens we have over 70,000 books a day that we check back in and 70,000 going out. So in a digital world, there’s considerable savings for libraries.

For customers, the lure is simpler. Downloading an e-book is just convenient.

Gussie Young: I can do it right from my house. I can do it from my computer, if I wish.

Gussie Young has been visiting the Queens Library since moving to New York in 1963.

Young: You just hit the button and it comes to your computer. It’s a wonderful thing, if you can find a book you want.

But finding a book can be tough. Wait lists for popular titles can literally extend for years. On last glance, 46 people were waiting for two copies of the first Harry Potter, published in 1998. That’s better than many bestsellers, like the Hunger Games series. Publisher Scholastic is one of four—out of the six biggest publishers—that doesn’t allow libraries to purchase its e-books.

But down the road, there’s another problem. Almost all U.S. libraries that offer e-books do so through an outside company called Overdrive—although competitors are cropping up. Galante says when libraries buy an e-book from Overdrive, they don’t actually buy it.

Galante: When you license content through them, you really aren’t owning the content. Every year you have to pay them to continue to use that subscription service or you lose the content you’ve already paid for.

If a library stops using Overdrive, they lose all the books they’ve licensed. For the first time, libraries are renters, not owners, of their content. And, the more e-books they purchase, the larger the problem becomes. So, libraries are looking for other solutions. Robert Wolven heads an American Library Association group that’s tasked with addressing the problem. He says libraries need to develop a new model for e-books, but they don’t know what that is yet.

Robert Wolven: These are questions that go beyond what we’re doing now and what we’re doing next year. We’ve talked about how we want to avoid developing the model for next year that’s going to be obsolete by the time anyone puts it in place, and that’s a real challenge.

Wolven says e-books could change the entire way books are sold. He theorizes that publishers could sell subscriptions to their books—like a Netflix for paperbacks. Maybe libraries will pay a fee for books based on how popular they are. Or, maybe they won’t actually own their books at all anymore.

Ben Bradford, Columbia Radio News.

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New York University is planning to grow its Greenwich Village campus and it’s sparking fierce debate. Opponents say the 2 million- square foot expansion would damage the neighborhood’s character. Last week, the university agreed to scale back the plan, as a compromise to those concerns but protests continue. Acacia Squires talks with reporter Jacqueline Guzman live from Washington Square Park.

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Last week, Commentator Jason Slotkin decided to finally reverse his first adult decision. He quit smoking.

If you have a dog and it’s not registered, you’re breaking the law. The city wants more people to license their dogs, but only 1 in 5 have. That’s why the Health department ran a large subway ad campaign for six months, and launched an online service to help find lost dogs. But now that most of the ads are gone, registration numbers remain low. Annie Russell reports that the situation may be more complicated than the city is saying.

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At the Riverside Dog Run, 5 dogs enjoy a rare off-leash moment.

SOUND: Top dogs barking at the dog run. (:02)

Fade up and and hold, then fade down under narration. Ambi of dog run throughout the piece.

Odds are, only one of these dogs are what the city calls a real New Yorker. That’s the term the Health Department gave to licensed dogs in a subway ad campaign it launched in October to reach dog owners like Michelle Davis who lives on the Upper West Side. She isn’t even sure if her dog Mahla is licenced.

 

DAVIS 1 (:10)

“I’m assuming he is, because my sister brought him from Africa and the whole process of bringing a dog in from another country is really strict.”

Besides, Davis doesn’t think it matters if he’s registered, because she doesn’t worry about him getting lost.

 

DAVIS 2 (:03)

“He’s really well-behaved and I can’t imagine him ever getting away.”

Finding lost dogs is only one reason why the city wants more New Yorkers to register their pets. The nonprofit Animal Care and Control or ACC, which runs the city’s shelter system, estimates that right now only 2% of lost dogs return to their owners.

 

SOUND: Desi Kim calling “Shelby!” (:02)

Shelby was a lost dog who found a new home through an ACC shelter. He got licensed as part of his adoption process. His owner Desi Kim didn’t realize she had to re-register him every year or that it costs $8.50.

 

KIM 1 (:10)

Wow. I’m surprised. I know someone who came from Maryland and she hasn’t registered her dog yet. So I’m surprised she hasn’t done it even though it’s so cheap.

The city’s campaign is designed to convince dog owners that licensing their dogs is cheap, easy, and in their best interest. Licensed dogs are eligible for subsidized spay/neuter services and allowed to run off-leash in city parks.

And since last month, owners who lose licensed dogs can turn to a city database for help. It’s called the  Dog eLocator. It enables a person who finds a lost dog to enter in the license number on the website. Then they’ll be matched with the owner so that the dog can go home. The city licensing will remind owners to vaccinate and help keep track of dogs in emergencies.

And it is, of course, the law. It has been since 1894. In fact, the fine for an unregistered dog can be up to $200. But at a press conference at the Hillside dog run in Brooklyn last fall to promote the dog licensing awareness campaign,  Mayor Michael Bloomberg admitted it’s not a high risk crime.

 

BLOOMBERG 2  (:18)

“It’s just not practical to have our police department or parks people run around and try to give out tickets. We can enforce the pooper scooper law, but going into parks and starting to check dogs for licenses isn’t something we’re likely to do, in all fairness.”

But some animal advocates say that licensing dogs supports a flawed animal control system. What the city doesn’t advertise on its subway ads is that part of the 8.50 license fee also goes to support those ACC shelters.

 

MARSH 2 (:04)

“But that money goes back into a shelter system that’s not necessarily working.”

That’s Donna Marsh. She works at Dog Habitat Rescue it is based in Greenpoint loft space that it shares with a pet supply store and an animal boarding facility.

It’s part of the trend towards no-kill shelters. In other words, stray dogs stay here until a home can be found for them. ACC shelters, on the other hand, put down strays in as little as 7 days. Marsh says her shelter actually rescues dogs rescue dogs from ACC. She’s working to get no-kill shelters around the city to coordinate to save more dogs.

 

MARSH 1 (:08)

“We would be able to do it more quickly. ACC doesn’t hold dogs very long before they put them down. Sometimes they’re not helpful to certain shelters.”

Marsh says pet owners would be better off making donations to no-kill shelters.

Neither ACC nor the Department of Health returned calls requesting comment for this story.

Annie Russell, Columbia Radio News.

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Harlem’s Sugar Hill neighborhood is a stately enclave of 19th and 18th century houses. In the 1920’s they were the epicenter of the Harlem renaissance, but by the 70’s, the area had deteriorated. Much of Harlem has been gentrifying since then. Sarah Laing tells us about the growing interest in reviving what locals call Sugar Hill’s “sweet times.”

–

The Sugar Hill Inn is a Harlem Renaissance themed bed and breakfast at 141 and Amsterdam.

creaking, servcant

It’s owned by Irish transplant Jeremy Archer, who’s been restoring this century old mansion for seven years.

jangling keys, door open…

Like all the houses on this block, it was built to impress.The front door has scrolling wrought iron, and sits between dignified pillars. There’s a mosaic of a star of David in the foyer floor…an ornate fireplace, and wood panelled walls.

Archer says the house was a wreck when he bought it. But he adds the tourists who stay with him now are less nervous than they used to be.

For this he credits another neighbor – a former president.

Archer:
When Clinton took his office there on 125th, that made a big difference. A lot of white people thought oh, maybe it’s okay to come to Harlem.

This was the hope of white speculators who bought land here in the early twentieth century,thinking the new subway would bring comfortable Jewish families uptown.

A stock market crash in 1907 changed that. The white buyers never materialized – and the development was suddenly within reach of well to do African Americans.

In 1944, author Langston Hughes wrote of Sugar Hill:

“Don’t take it for granted that all Harlem is a slum -
there are big apartment buildings on the hill…
nice high rent houses with elevators and doormen”.

(start music)

Three years earlier, Sugar Hill got a name drop in Billy Strayhorn’s tune “Take the A Train”…

(fade up song, fade under)

Duke Ellington’s instrumental version made this song a classic, but the little known lyrics tell listeners to “go to Sugar Hill, way up in Harlem”.

At the top of that hill is the Morris Jumel mansion, the oldest house in Manhattan. Ellington called it the “jewel of Sugar Hill”.

(x-fade music to outside noise)

Rich Foster works at the Jumel mansion.

In the front garden he points at a grey stone house across the street. It belonged to singer Paul Robeson.

Foster says Robeson bought that house to overlook the mansion, where his freed slave ancestor was a baker for George Washington’s troops.

Before that, Robeson lived at 555 Edgecomb Avenue…

Foster:
…also known as the triple nickel, which is famed for so many of the members of the Harlem Renaissance period

The list of famous residents includes band leader Count Basie, actress Lena Horn,  director Canada Lee, the first female heart surgeon, and … Duke Ellington.

Author Theresa Mulligan’s family weren’t celebrities, but she did grow up two blocks down, at 369 Edgecombe.

Mulligan’s new memoir called Sugar Hill: Where the Sun Rose Over Harlem.

It’s a love letter to the neighborhood where she grew up in the 40’s and 50’s.

She says she’s wanted to write this book for almost forty years – ever since she left Harlem as a new bride to settle in Missouri …and met her incredulous new neighbors.

Mulligan:
They said I was too nice, I didn’t act like I came from Harlem…this is me, I’m Harlem, and Harlem is as much a character in my life as the people who raised me, and it’s so misunderstood.

Mulligan knew the Harlem her neighbors were thinking about - a violent place cut down by poverty and racial strife. She says many of her contemporaries did get caught up in drugs later.

But she says Sugar Hill used to have a different atmosphere - even in the way people dressed up to sit in the park after dinner.

Mulligan:
There was a certain decorum. Nobody would sit on a fire escape, or even look out the window – my grandmother was an exception, but she kept inside the window because she was watching me. The women didn’t sit on the bench – a woman on Sugar Hill did not hang out.

Sugar Hill did feel pressure from the world outside.When Mulligan was in tenth grade, a girl named Minnijean Brown arrived quietly at her progressive private school.

Brown was one of the Little Rock Nine - black students who’d unsuccessfully tried to attend a white high school in the segregated South.

Mulligan was stunned.

Mulligan:
I thought we were rich. Our elders shielded us a lot from what had happened in their life. I knew from television what was happening in the South, I could drive through Harlem on the bus and see how lucky we were, and see how quote unquote rich we were.

The tour buses that visit Sugar Hill today would have been unthinkable when Mulligan was a child.

But then, it didn’t seem possible that Harlem would be as diverse as it is now. She thinks that has the potential to make Sugar Hill rich in a whole new way.

Sarah Laing, Columbia Radio News.