LA FORTALEZA COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

OVERVIEW:

“La Fortaleza” is a business and economic development project conceived and developed collaboratively with El Barrio/East Harlem based arts/cultural institutions & organizations, small businesses, community stakeholders and neighborhood investors. 

It re-brands, protects and defends El Barrio/Spanish Harlem against persistent negative portrayals and gentrification by using Latino art and cultural assets to economically revitalizing the community. It recognizes the historical role of the Boricua (Puerto Rican) community as founders of El Barrio/ Spanish Harlem and acknowledges the influence and contribution of working class immigrants that are the impetus for change, growth, and development by introducing new languages, cultures, artistic expressions, and small businesses. 

SOLUTION:

La Fortaleza's model focuses on converting East 116th Street, the neighborhood's 2nd largest commercial corridor, into a creative hub for artistic and cultural entertainment & small businesses. We'll open galleries, artist’s workshops, performance and rehearsal spaces, and peripheral businesses like artist supply stores, Cafes and restaurants.

PARTNERSHIPS:

The 2012 summer season the assistance of four Columbia University/Kenneth Cole Fellows worked to map landmarks, art-friendly venues, and public art locations of El Barrio. They also conducted an inventory of businesses and buildings located on the 116th Street business corridor (also known as Puebla York); the information will be use to create a data base as the foundation to develop strategies to regenerate El Barrio/Spanish Harlem. In 2013, we had another four students from Mexico refine the previous year’s internship into a user-friendly web site.

RATIONALE:

La Fortaleza targets urban neighborhoods like El Barrio/Spanish Harlem that are undergoing the same experiences with gentrification and local development that we are experiencing today. In particular, we are targeting the Latino Art & Culture assets in these neighborhoods with the goal of demonstrating how these assets can bring the diverse Latino communities together to utilize art and culture as economic development tools to improve the well-being of the community in order to stem the gentrification tide.

By doing so, we want to bring more attention to the arts & culture communities of different cities as being viable means for sustainable economic growth and social development in the urban inner-city landscape organized to resist gentrification.

Another need and interest of Latinos is the sense of permanence and ownership of communities in areas previously disregarded, neglected, and abandoned, the urban cities communities. Targeted by developers and property speculators for the purpose of creating upscale & luxury apartment houses and homes to draw new urban dwellers as property owners, into the neighborhoods as investors in real property rather than as homesteaders.