The wrecking ball is coming for the Rev. Al Sharpton\u2019s House of Justice. And since the reverend is often called upon to preach at funerals, I thought I\u2019d ask him to eulogize his storefront church on West 145th Street in Harlem.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to be accessible to the people. We wanted to have a headquarters where people could come whether they were homeless, or whether they were the governor of New York,\u201d Sharpton told me. \u201cYou ain\u2019t got to dress up. Just roll off the streets.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that was the beauty of it. The most prominent preacher in New York didn\u2019t bring politicians to a Midtown highrise, or a glamorous megachurch. Instead, he got Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, Mike Bloomberg, Chuck Schumer and every single other ambitious Democrat in America to come to his ramshackle one-story hall, next to the Kennedy Chicken & Biscuit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what was coming out of that rug,\u201d New York City Council Member Gale Brewer quipped about the dingy digs, where she spent countless hours. \u201cIf you dropped something, you\u2019d just leave it there,\u201d added Ny Whitaker, a Harlem Democratic consultant.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have good memories from the 145th Street site,\u201d Whitaker said. \u201cBut it looked like if you blew a sweet breath at it, it would blow down.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s what\u2019s coming now. The block is getting demolished over the next couple weeks to make way for One45, a development that should bring 1,100 units of housing, one-third of them affordable, on top of street-level retail.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a lot bigger than the humble 250 chairs that filled the House of Justice. But it wasn\u2019t just the seats there, Sharpton said. \u201cWe broadcast live from there on WBLS, the only Black FM station. So we\u2019re talking 50,000-60,000 people. People that listen to a rally vote. So if you\u2019re a politician, you\u2019re not doing me a favor coming by. You\u2019re talking to prime voters. There\u2019s no more prime voters than the gathering at our Saturday morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
But rising stars like our City & State cover model, Chi Oss\u00e9<\/a> and his fellow LGBTQ+ City Council colleagues<\/a> don\u2019t need to worry. Sharpton will give them the mic at his new National Action Network headquarters in a converted firehouse<\/a> on West 124th Street.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019ll be a slightly different feeling, but it\u2019s still on the ground, right? It\u2019s in the neighborhood, and you can roll into the rally,\u201d Sharpton said. Critics used to call him an ambulance chaser. \u201cNow I got a firehouse, so my fire engine can take this ambulance chaser where I need to go.\u201d<\/p>\n