Just off of Manhattan Avenue near Morningside Park. New steel and glass + old brick. The bay windows fan out like an accordion. The new owners put up extra space with a garden on the roof. I’m pretty sure it’s a single unit townhouse. They would have cost a small fortune not many years ago, now costing triple that, I’m sure.

This is what parts of Harlem are beginning to look like. The residential architecture is interesting, and I like these kinds of design decisions. Unlike the large condo towers up and down the boulevards, these more diminutive renovations do not overwhelm the old buildings.

The positive flip side to this gentrification story is that the tony restaurants and shops up Frederick Douglas and other major boulevards are racially integrated, unlike any other place I’ve seen in the city. Harlem’s changing. I hope it holds onto its own.