congressional_record: CREC-1994-12-20-pt1-PgE6
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| CREC-1994-12-20-pt1-PgE6 | 1994-12-20 | 103 | 2 | A SPECIAL HARLEM HOMECOMING | HOUSE | EXTENSIONS | FRONTMATTER | E | E | [{"name": "Charles B. Rangel", "role": "speaking"}] | 140 Cong. Rec. E | Congressional Record, Volume 140 Issue 150 (Tuesday, December 20, 1994) [Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 150 (Tuesday, December 20, 1994)] [Extensions of Remarks] [Page E] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov] [Congressional Record: December 20, 1994] From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] A SPECIAL HARLEM HOMECOMING ______ HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL of new york in the house of representatives Tuesday, December 20, 1994 Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to share with you and my colleagues here in the House, a story which appeared in the October 19, 1994 edition of the New York Daily News. The story is about a homecoming, a very special homecoming of friends, neighbors, and acquaintances from years past coming together for the annual gathering of residents of the Harlem River Houses. It was the best of times and gives true meaning to what we term today as the good ol' days: Their Harlem Homecoming (By Lenore Skenazy) a project's alumni return to celebrate the old nabe It could have been a Harvard reunion. The judge from Detroit greeted the cardiologist from California who joshed with the official from the UN who hugged the executive from CBS who called over the deputy commissioner of the NYPD * * * Except it wasn't a Harvard reunion. It was a housing project reunion in a church basement on 151st St.: The annual gathering of folks lucky enough to have grown up in the Harlem River Houses--New York's first federally funded housing development. ``I don't think you'll find too many communities where folks will come back from the far corners of the nation for a reunion.'' says Don Matthews, a city housing honcho. ``But I grew up here with a bevy of friends. This is truly the personification of community.'' As it was born to be. In 1936, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia helped break the ground for a great New Deal experiment: A housing complex straddling Seventh Ave. at 152d St. for low- income New Yorkers anxious to escape Harlem's tenements. The project would be four stories high, sturdy and attractive. The apartments would overlook a courtyard, making it easy to keep an eye on the kids. The application process would be lengthy, affording a superselect tenant base: Only two-parent, stable-income, churchgoing families need apply. And 11,000 did. For 433 places. ``This was an experiment,'' explains Rodney Saunders, now an architect. ``The idea was: If they were going to build more [public housing], this one had to work.'' It did better than that. It became a lovely place to live. ``We were poor, but we didn't know it,'' recalls David Scott, now second in command at the NYPD. ``It just felt so secure!'' It was secure, thanks, in great part, to the fact that all the adults looked out for all the kids. ``If you were crossing the street and someone saw you, they'd call your parents and say, `What's your son doing crossing the street?' Then some parent or your own parent would come and get you,'' says Don Fitzpatrick, who went on to become Andrew Young's policy affairs officer at the United Nations. The shopkeepers--and there were 24 stores in the project back then--did the same thing. Buy a box of cigarets, ``and before you got home they'd have called your parents to let them know you're smoking,'' recalls Peggy Grant Baylor, now a judge in Detroit. ``You were given very little room to do wrong,'' sums up George Edwards. ``You really had to work to be a bad egg.'' If, somehow, you succeeded, you did not escape unpunished. The project's one and only security guard would give you a whack. And then your parents would do the same. The best of times ``I wish I could've grown up there,'' pines Joe Bourne, a former Harlem Globetrotter, who grew up on 144th St. He used to play ball against the Harlem River Houses kids and, the everyone else in the neighborhood, he considered them rich. ``They had the best housing,'' he says. ``the best everything!'' They even had some of the best athletes: John Carlos, who won the bronze medal for the 200-meter dash at the 1968 Olympics (and raised his hand in a black power fist at the awards ceremony)--he used to race from one end of the courtyard to the other. ``And I'll tell you something,'' confides Saunders, the architect. ``He wasn't even the fastest guy in the project!'' The Apaches, one of the five local baseball teams thriving at the time, became the first black team to win the citywide Police Athletic League championship. That was back in '49 or '50--no one can remember for certain. But they do remember what happened: ``Being from a poor neighborhood,'' says Emmett Baylor (now special assistant to the mayor of Detroit), he and his teammates were very attracted to the jackets worn by their opponents. ``They were big, bulky, wool fleece jackets that the P.A.L. champions always got,'' Baylor recalls. ``We said, `Man, we will win those jackets!''' And they did win. But they didn't get the jackets. ``They gave us runnerup windbreakers that they stitched `Winner' across,'' says Baylor, shaking his head. ``This was not too long after Jackie Robinson [had broken the baseball color barrier]. The system could not stand a black team winning.'' look back in non-anger The system could not stand too many blacks doing too well at anything, back then. But strangely enough, despite the rampant discrimination of the era, Harlem River's alums still remember a halcyon childhood. ``In the `50s and `60s, no one locked their doors,'' says Saunders. On sunny days, the kids played in ``The Pit,'' a playground in the central courtyard. Rainy days, they'd chase each other through the tunnels connecting all the buildings. ``We'd play Wild Bill Hickok or Roy Rogers,'' Saunders recalls. ``It was very clear in those days: Good guys versus bad guys. Nowadays you have a lot of anti-heroes. Kids are really confused about who the good guys are.'' True, life in the 1990s is not simple. Drugs and violence pollute too many projects. Too few parents peer out the window. But to this day, the Harlem River Houses look good. There's a branch of the public library still operating in one of the buildings. Lots of trees--and little graffiti--grace the project. The Pit still beckons to kids. If the early alums no longer live here, it's mostly because they've moved up and on. ``This was nice in the beginning,'' says Don Fitzpatrick, pointing to the project. ``It's still nice. But now I have an apartment on Fifth Ave.'' Thanks to a solid childhood in Harlem. ____________________ |