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Originally Posted by Segun
Is there still Black wealth in the neighborhood, a la Millionnaires Row and Sugar Hill? I don't know what's really going on in Harlem today. I would think with some of those ultra wealthy benefactors who put money in the community, there would be someone who lives there, but I don't know.
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Harlem has black wealth, which never left (Strivers Row, Hamilton Heights, Mt. Morris Park and Sugar Hill), but the bulk of professional blacks have been in Brooklyn and Queens since the 50's. I suspect Bed Stuy had (and has) more black wealth than Harlem ever had, and SE Queens has had considerable black wealth since the late 50's or so.
Re. Harlem's racial breakdown, I suspect the decennial numbers are pretty inaccurate in 2018. Keep in mind that Harlem's white population has basically been tripling in recent decades, so 2020 will be very different from 2010. Also, the posted numbers are only for Central Harlem. West and East Harlem haven't been plurality black in decades. There's still a decent black population uptown, but it's pretty geographically constrained, with Dominicans pushing in from the North, and white gentrifers from every other direction.
But Harlem will always have a black population, though, not just for cultural reasons, but due to rent control and public housing. It would take easily 100 years for Central Harlem to lose its identity.
Keep in mind there are still working class Italians in the Village and Puerto Ricans in the East Village, a half century after those neighborhoods became ridiculously expensive. Hell, there are rent controlled Puerto Ricans and Irish in Midtown, still, in the few remaining rent-controlled side-street tenements, sharing streets with billionaires.