Participants

Field Observation Participants. Due to current times with COVID-19, our research group was unable to go out into the field and do a thorough observation. Instead, an observation was conducted of a part of a recorded event of Harlem Tenants in 2007 before the rezoning plan was passed. This conference was recorded and posted on YouTube by a Mr. DeBar. This event happened because this council was holding a conference spread across multiple days and this was the first day out of the eight. This conference was all based on gentrification and the impact that it has had on Harlem residents. It was held at St. Ambrose church and was hosted by Nellie Hester Bailey. The purpose of choosing this one event out of hundreds of events based on gentrification was the fact that this conference was based on the tenants perspective of gentrification. The main speakers of this conference were Bill Noble, a Harlem resident and television producer, Robert Fitch, author of “The assasination of New York,” and many other tenants who are a part of this association. There are many events and meetings that are only based on politicians’ perspectives but this event really goes into the depths of how these tenants have been impacted by the gentrification in Harlem. 

Interview Participants. We reached out to several interview participants but none of them responded in the time of this study. We reached out to members of Community Board 10, Shatic Mitchell, the District Board Manager and Juanita Anderson, the Community Assistant because they directly worked with the region of Central Harlem in which our study was focused on. Two other participants we reached out to were Delsenia Glover and Safiya Mann, both being Council Members of the Community Board 10 for the housing committee. They were considered to be interview participants as they dealt with the residential side of Central Harlem and advocated for affordable housing. Another participant we reached out to was Karen Dixon Executive Director of Harlem Dowling and she is also part of the land use committee of Community Board 10. Bill Perkins, a Council Member for the 9th District of the New York City Council, was another interview participant reached out to by our research team. He was considered for an interview mainly because of his presiding over Central Harlem, which is the scope of our study, and his background as a lifelong resident of Harlem known for his community activism, giving him experience with our topic of gentrification. The following participant was also reached out, Sungwoo Lim, Division of Epidemiology, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Dr. Lim along with many other professionals in the field of mental health have written many great pieces of work discussing the impact of gentrification on residents of a community like Harlem. Lance Freeman, Urban Planning program at Columbia GSAPP. Similarly, was another professional reached out to. Dr. Freeman educates many of his students at Columbia University on the impacts that gentrification has had on many people in New York City and has written many pieces of work as well discussing this matter. Another possible professional that was going to be interviewed was Linda Diem Tran, ​Department of Health Policy and Management, Fielding School of Public Health. Dr. Tran like Dr. Freeman and Dr. Lim has written articles on the subject of gentrification and how it impacts residents’ mental and physical health. 

Survey Participants. The survey was administered electronically via a google form. Our participants were Harlem residents and were chosen through a convenient sampling. The survey was participant self administered as the participants recorded their own responses. The survey was shared through various social media accounts like Facebook and Instagram of each member of the research group. The participants had to be over 18 years old and a Harlem resident to qualify for this survey.  The purpose of this survey was to evaluate if and how residential gentrification affects tenants. Thirteen people participated in the survey. The survey was conducted from November 28th to December 3rd. 

Materials

The materials used in this field report included the internet used to conduct research on residential gentrification in Harlem and to seek out interviewees. Class notes were also used to improve on survey questions and explore potential interviewees that could’ve contacted. Online tools such as google forms to create the survey and social media platforms to share it were also used.

Procedure

Field Observation Methods. There were many meetings and events to choose from when it came to the impact of these residents. The way this event was discovered and the process by which it was chosen is as follows. The group decided to use the source of YouTube since many educational events and important meetings are usually posted on this site. Then, the group proceeded onto using the search engine and typed “ Harlem residents meetings on gentrification”. The reason why these words were typed into the search engine was because the purpose of the research is to discuss the impacts on these residents of Harlem due to gentrification. There are many videos uploaded from the perspective of politicians and council members but the research at hand is focused more on Harlem residents which this conference accomplished.

Interview Methods. In an attempt to conduct interviews google searches were made to identify possible interviewees such as members of the Community Board 10, individuals who advocated for tenants that were influenced by gentrification, or have done research on gentrification. Emails were then sent out to these potential interviewees. If there were no responses within a few days, other methods such as contacting them through telephone calls or texts were attempted for a greater possibility.

 Survey Methods. There were twelve questions included in the survey. These included dichotomous, multiple choice, rating scale, and opened ended questions. These survey questions were created to be, specifically, for tenants and clearly indicated as such at the beginning. They were kept short to prevent the participants’ refusal and would take no longer than a few minutes. These questions were developed with the purpose of evaluating if and how residential gentrification affects tenants. The survey was made on google forms and was conducted on various Harlem community pages on Facebook. The surveys were conducted from November 28th to December 3rd.

Limitations. Due to these unprecedented times with COVID-19 this presented many problems to our research as we were unable to interview any professionals as we liked. Many of the professionals that were reached out to were too occupied with overload of work due to the pandemic. As well as going outside and interviewing people in person is more complicated now because people should stay 6 feet from each other and that makes it difficult to interview someone. Thus not making the argument being presented as strong as it can be. Having multiple interviews would have strengthened the point that there is a negative impact that occurs to these victims because multiple professionals would have been speaking on the matter. Another complication that was endured was not gathering many residents to survey. This really ties back to the first complication because many are very busy with their jobs and cannot do a zoom call. In addition, many are not willing to put their health at risk and their families just to be surveyed. A final limitation would be the fact that more sources could have been used to support the argument. The more sources read and quoted the more support is added to the argument being discussed in this research.