Jan 15 2008
Sedgwick and Cedar resident

Tenants of Hip-Hop’s Birthplace Fighting Off Gentrification

Tenants of 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, the building where hip-hop was born, announced plans today to buy the 100-apartment building in an attempt to keep it from going private. The current owner is looking to shake it loose for big bucks. The building is an area of the Bronx where gentrification is in full swing; a sale to private interests could find the tenants paying higher rents or having to dial up U-Haul.

To prevent the shift in ownership, they’ll have to come up with $14 million. Of course there is no way residents of an affordable-housing complex (ok.. the projects)  have that kind of money. Their best bet is to gather funds from a combo pack of official and philanthropic sources. The city’s Urban Homesteading Assistance Board is helping to make the necessary connections to ink the deal. Residents will then be able to buy their apartments as co-ops for a couple thousand a-piece.

Tony Tone and Kool Herc in their 1970-something sheepskins

Kool Herc, the official Godfather of Hip-Hop told AM NY (where this was scooped), “It’s like Graceland or the Grand Ole Opry, it’s the birthplace, where it all started from. It’s a piece of the American dream and we just want to preserve it.”

Ny Senator Charles Schumer

NY Sen. Charles Schumer met with residents of the building this morning, where he echoed the sentiment, if not on historical terms, at least in economics, “1520 Sedgwick is in danger of losing its affordable status, as its owner prepares to sell the building to wealthy speculators whose only hope of profiting on the building hinges on hiking the rent rolls,” Schumer said. “That is why it is essential that the owner negotiate a reasonable, affordable deal with the tenants and their representatives to preserve affordability in this special place for the long haul.”

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With 1520 Sedgwick being the birthplace of hip-hop, doesn’t this sound like something the big boys of the music - Jay-Z, Diddy, Dr. Dre, Russell Simmons, etc. etc. etc - could pool their money together, a mil from this guy, a mil from the other, so they can buy it and insure this symbolic landmark remains a place that people can call home?

That’s all some of the tenants are concerned about.

They consider it a safe and quiet place to live.

Annie Jenkins, 70, who raised four children there, told AM NY, “It’s been my home for 36 years and I don’t want to leave it. I’m an older woman. It’s nice to have some history here, but I just always look at it as my home.”

Clarification: That’s not Annie J. in the picture up top, that’s Mary Fountain. She felt the same way, but Annie’s quote was better.


☼ What's Your Opinion? ☼

1 Actually Wed, Jan 16, 2008 - 1:51 pm

I absolutely love the fact that these people are taking a pro-active approach and are actually doing more than protesting! Buying into your own community is where its at!!! I hope this idea spreads through the city before we all get priced out.

And yes, I agree that the boys of music could have stepped in and done something too. But I think its even better that these people know what it is and are trying to do for themselves. By now we all know not to expect too much from these selfish rappers, which is the very reason that I refuse to buy rap cd’s anymore.

I encourage any self-employed black person working in a black neighborhood to try and buy the property that they may be renting.

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