By Lynnette M. Booker
When Carlos Swepson launched Boulevard Bistro in late March, he aimed to distinguish himself from the homogeneous food scene in Central Harlem by improving the quality of life for Harlem residents by serving comfort food prepared with the best organic ingredients.
BLVD Bistro is not your traditional soul food restaurant in Central Harlem with crowded tabletops and cluttered décor, instead, tucked away in a historic brownstone on the corner of 121st Street and Lenox Ave, it resembles a lofty boutique with minimalist atmosphere decked with dark wood furnishing featuring a cobblestone patio with verdant charm.
“This is something I built for the community, I had the community in mind when I opened it,” said Swepson, “You’re getting the service that you are in a comfort food place but it’s almost like polished but not yet stuffy like fine dining, that’s one thing that separate me.”
Central Harlem, which runs from 96th Street to 142nd Street, is currently experiencing gentrification. According to State of New York City’s Housing and Neighborhoods 2013 Report, black occupancy dropped below 60 percent in year 2012.
“Gentrification you can’t stop and that is one of the biggest misconceptions that people think you can stop it,” said Swepson, “This was bound to happen and it is a hard pill for people to swallow.”
“There is no problem with the Machine, says Swepson, “just a problem with misconception of gentrification.”
He refers to collective of economic engines entailing large-scale developers, city capital investments, and state and corporate members as the Machine. The integral components of what he refers as the Machine plays an important role in advancing gentrification, a word that most developers find inappropriately used, like Curtis Archer, president of Harlem Community Development Corporation (HCDC).
“I will not use the word gentrification, I am for redevelopment,” he said, “economics is clear and simple that is what’s driving this.”
These engines require a demand by a neighborhood’s potential stores and restaurant entrepreneurs like Swepson, to secure stability in their investments to attract a higher class income of people to live nearby.
With an array of new black owned dining options circulating on Lenox Ave, they are the drivers of social change. Despite this perception, Swepson does not see it this way, “it is a process that cannot be stopped and why would anyone want to, when it is improving the neighborhood,” he said.
With a continuum of achievements, Swepson, 44, has been in the restaurant industry for 25 years, receiving a Culinary Arts and Restaurant Management degree from Art Institute of New York. Then onto a prestigious internship under Jean-Georges Vongerichten, a renowned French chef. Now achieving to develop a name for himself in Harlem as a savvy businessman and restaurateur by making an impact on the community by supporting the local businesses.
Cultivating a business relationship in Harlem is very important to Swepson. He cares for the welfare of the residents and businesses in the neighborhood. He cares what residents eat. By working with local businesses to sustain his convictions, Swepson subscribes to a locavore philosophy: he is interested in providing food that is locally produced within the vicinity of Harlem.
The farm-to-table concept is a new way to preparing soul food, “with organic produce and in-house fresh ingredients.” For instance, Swepson orders his meat from Harlem Shambles, a local neighborhood boutique butcher shop, and he orders his produce from Corbin Hill, a farm share that provides communities direct access to produce.
After decades of disinvestment, the Machine is vitalizing the idea of what a great neighborhood should be in Harlem, “now Harlem commercial amenities that people wants,” said Archer.
Harlem Community Development Corporation is a private organization that attracts small businesses like BLVD Bistro to redevelop abandon neighborhoods. Not to gentrify the neighborhood.
Yet with great amenities comes great cost and due to the cost of amenities, it engenders fear in long-time residents of being displace.
“People were displaced a long time ago, the city owned 65 percent of buildings and land,” Archer said.
Both Archer and Swepson aim to improve the quality for all Harlem residents.
“I am for improving the quality for Harlem rights, not for new, not for old but for all,” Archer said.
For Swepson, choosing Harlem was easy, “Harlem is such a true Black city and I know it had to be in a place where people love you, it had to be in a location where people got it,” he said.
“The biggest misconception is that because you are at a low-income, you don’t deserve options,” Swepson says,“ a family that works hard and maybe on a low-income, he still wants to take his wife out to eat, he may not do it every week but he still wants to do it. So why can’t I provide that?”
Harlem patronage is a major them at BLVD Bistro. The Harlem restaurant inundated with open space includes several artworks paying homage to Harlem, including one shape-cut wood of James Baldwin (a novelist) in the front area of the restaurant, two, of an oil canvas stroked with inspirational quotes hanging on the wall in the foyer of the restaurant.
“A lot of changes that I see aren’t changes I see as a business owner but changes I have seen has been patronizing Harlem.”
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