Washington Heights is an immigrant-dominated neighborhood with a deep-seated suspicion for government agencies, and convincing locals to file tax returns would be hard. Bodner faced a language barrier—she didn't know much Spanish, the most widely spoken language in the neighborhood. And she was annoyed with tickets she received for trash trapped under her car, and a signage she left outside.
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Charu Sudan Kasturi
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"It was a challenge, but I eventually realized that some communities have a pulse, others don't," Bodner said. "And Washington Heights and Inwood definitely have a pulse."
At a time when reports on the economy rarely bring good news, Washington Heights and Inwood are emerging hubs of economic opportunities and growth. Big companies that ignored the neighborhoods as potential markets in the past are now targeting them for development. Corporate offices are jostling for real estate office footholds with entrepreneurs and professionals from across the city. And the local population is slowly moving from bodegas and mom-and-pop shops to managerial and business jobs that were rare here but are now increasing in the neighborhoods.
The combination of lower rents, an aspiring labor force and a relatively untapped market—at a time companies and individual professions are looking for any economic advantage available—is acting as a catalyst for the change.
But a crunch for office space and repeated "why Washington Heights" questions are also a part of the bargain. And despite the changes, the unemployment rate remains high.
White-collar in Washington Heights
At the nine-storey Inwood Center that occupies an entire block between 213th and 214th streets, and Broadway and 10th Avenue, Jason Miller is witnessing a piece of this transformation every day. On a Friday afternoon, Miller's Blackberry beeped every few seconds, as mid-size firms, entrepreneurs and professionals asked him about office space in the commercial plaza, owned by Edison Properties. Outside his glass-paneled office on the sixth floor, two clients who came late for a meeting waited as he answered calls.
Faced with a massive unmet demand for space, Edison Properties opened up 42 new office space slots at the center early November to add to 91 that are already occupied. But even with the new space, Miller has more clients than he needs.
"We saw a need to build a space for bright, strategic entrepreneurs and here we are, doing great," said Lenny Lazarino, vice president of Edison Properties. The company, Lazarino said, researched the neighborhood, interviewed dozens of residents, business owners and entrepreneurs and even looked for potential competitors. "We did not find anything similar in nature to what we planned for the Inwood Center, which was to be a multi-faceted facility offering a place to store, park, work or operate a retail store under one roof."
Many of their clients were initially from the neighborhood, Lazarino said. But as the center's tenants started talking about the plaza to their friends elsewhere in the city, the prospect of state-of-the-art office facilities at lower rents started drawing clients from other parts of New York City, he said.
