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It's Amateur Night at the Apollo Theatre, and a parade of aspiring black stars is getting ready to face one of the toughest crowds in show business.
Apollo audiences have seen it all over the years: Jazz divas like Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan, a kid named Stevie Wonder, a mystery group called the Jackson 5. But tonight there's something different on stage: a white teenager who leaps out of the crowd to join in a hip-hop dance contest.
As he shakes and rolls, a powerful, impromptu chant rocks the room: "White man in the house!" (chuka-boom) "White man in the house!" The boy gets a generous round of applause when he returns to his seat, flashing a victory sign. But outside, on the busy streets of Harlem, the mood is not always so welcoming.
For the first time in decades, there is white corporate money flowing into the community, fueling a development boom that marks the first major economic investment in Harlem since the riots of the late 1960s. More than $550 million in public and private funds are bankrolling the arrival of a Disney store, Cineplex Odeon Theatres, HMV record store, Old Navy, Starbucks and other retail giants on 125th Street, the neighborhood's main artery. Slowly, a neighborhood that has been stifled by crime, drug use and persistent urban blight is beginning to share in the economic growth that has lifted more affluent urban areas across the rest of America.
City planners report signs of a similar economic resurgence, while not as intense, in the black neighborhoods of Atlanta, Kansas City, Dallas, Atlantic City, Oakland, Minneapolis and other communities. The change is driven by a dawning realization that, for all their problems, these communities could become retail gold mines for hungry corporate investors. It marks a significant turnaround for many American neighborhoods--and a prime example of the kind of investment that President Clinton has been touting all week on a tour of impoverished areas.
In Harlem, the signs of growth are everywhere: Pathmark, a national chain, recently opened the area's first modern supermarket on 125th Street. The neighborhood's first mall, the $65-million Harlem USA complex, will open in the fall, featuring prominent retail chains and a Magic Johnson Enterprises multiplex theater. Investors representing...