Led Black (00:01)
What up everyone, welcome to another episode of the Uptown Voices podcast. It's me, Le Black, and my brother, Octavio Blanco. And we have another great guest this week. It's my good friend for a long time, Michael Palma Mir who's the executive director of the West Harlem Arts Alliance. I think one of the best photographers of town, if I'm being honest, and just a long time uptown person. Michael, how you doing, brother? How's it going?

Michael Palma Mir (00:25)
I'm doing great, man. I'm glad to be here with you guys.

Led Black (00:28)
Where are you right now? Like, looks interesting.

Michael Palma Mir (00:31)
Well, we are at the Innovation Triangle, West Harlem. This is basically an empty retail space at the Tasty Lab building of Janus Properties, and we're activating the space. We've been here for about two and a half months, and we're doing all sorts of art activities for artists and arts organizations who live and who come from right here in West Harlem.

Led Black (00:54)
Where are you exactly at? 126?

Michael Palma Mir (00:56)
⁓

Yeah, we're at 450 West 126th Street, is right in between Amsterdam and I guess the street over here. It starts out as Convent Avenue, but then it turns into Morningside Avenue.

Led Black (01:08)
And I happened to go to an event, I think it was the week prior. It was amazing. You had people ice skating, like art. It was this beautiful activation. What was that? What was that event?

Michael Palma Mir (01:14)
Yeah!

Well,

that was our opening, our sort of official opening, even though we've been in the space for a while before then. And yeah, we were ⁓ fortunate enough to have performing on that evening, New York, Ice Theater of New York, and they did something very interesting, which we thought was very novel, which was they were ice skating in the summertime.

Led Black (01:38)
It was amazing. It was blown away.

Michael Palma Mir (01:39)
and on

something called polyflow, think it is, which is sort of like artificial ice.

Led Black (01:46)
That's funny, so it is the innovation triangle. So it is the, yeah, what I'm saying. So there's innovation there, which is pretty cool. Yeah, it was. So what else is happening this summer? I mean, summer's ending, but I you got events geared up, right? So what's going on?

Octavio Blanco (01:46)
What?

Michael Palma Mir (01:48)
No, it is at the innovation triangle, know, yeah, right here. ⁓ yeah, it was very innovative to skate during the summertime on Polyflow, yes. It was a very interesting thing to watch.

Yeah,

I mean we've been performing and having events here practically every weekday and weekend. Ongoing at the space we have two exhibitions, a 20 year old exhibition called Manhattanville, Hidden in Plain Sight, which is about the history of this area where we are right now. You know West Harlem

is basically three neighborhoods, right? Hamilton Heights, Manhattanville, and Morningside Heights. And Manhattanville is sort of like the saddle between of the three neighborhoods. And this is where we are. This is where Manhattanville is. And this is where the Innovation Triangle is. The Innovation Triangle is actually a new name for the area coined by the developers in recognition of the fact that they rehabilitated a lot of the buildings here precisely

for innovative technology, especially in the area of biotechnology.

Led Black (03:00)
Really, that's fascinating. Tell us a little bit more about that.

Michael Palma Mir (03:04)
Well, we're in what used to be the old tasty cake building where they used to make tasty bread. I don't know if you remember growing up having slices of Wonder Bread.

Led Black (03:16)
Remember Wonder for sure, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Wow.

Michael Palma Mir (03:16)
Are you Tasty Bread Yeah, well it was made right here, among many

other things. The factory itself was too old to rehabilitate it, so they knocked it down and they put this new building here, and with the intent of bringing new industry to the area, basically towards innovative technology. so that's what, this is where we are, right across the street from us is the old Malt House, which has also been rehabilitated.

and geared and ready to accept new tenants who are sort of very have a sort of vision and forward thinking workforce development trajectory with respect to you know whatever new innovative technology that's coming around the corner that we can all be a part of.

Led Black (04:00)
So I think it's really cool that they're the space also, like they're letting you use the space to highlight, you know, really what's happening uptown. think that's really, really cool.

Michael Palma Mir (04:08)
Yeah, we're

activating the space and we're bringing a lot of foot traffic to the area and we're also featuring as part of the project of being here, we got a small SBS grant which stands for Small Business Services from New York City to also feature local businesses and so we're featuring about 15 to 16 local businesses, mostly restaurants but also bakeries.

other types of businesses that service the area in order to, as people come to the site to, after they're here for a while to maybe go out to one of these places to have dinner or lunch or a cup of coffee.

Led Black (04:45)
Makes sense. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You got one last question. I'm sorry. No, no, go ahead. Cause mine goes somewhere else. So go ahead. My bad. Go ahead.

Octavio Blanco (04:49)
Yeah, get in there, get in there, no worries.

no, was just wanted to know, because I'm always interested in the business angles. How do you feature the business? A business gets in touch with you, and you'll provide it with some signage or partnership? And to let folks know that, OK, great.

Michael Palma Mir (05:08)
Yep, Absolutely, yeah.

It is, we provide wayfinding from our site to the local businesses. We have an interactive map on our website, whaanyc.org.

And if you go to hit on Innovation Triangle, you'll see the moniker Arts, Culture, and Commerce. And if you go to the Commerce section, you'll see an interactive map where people can way find their way from Innovation Triangle to all these local area businesses. also we feature them in all our material here. And anytime we have an event here.

For example, on the opening night we had Charles Pan Fried Chicken. I don't know, Led, if you had enough opportunity to eat some of that. It was really good. It very tasty. So far we featured them, Manas. We had here the new Raising Cane shop that's opening up right here on 111th Street and Broadway, as well as many other organizations.

Led Black (05:47)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's pretty famous.

Michael Palma Mir (06:03)
But not only businesses, restaurants and like, also, probably as importantly, we have our West Harlem Wall of Fame, which features up to 27...

local West Harlem arts organizations and their businesses too. They're in here trying to make ends meet and try to provide a service for the residents here in West Harlem. And so we have a West Harlem ⁓ Wall of Fame, is ostensibly posters outside along the Innovation Triangle building that we're in, the Tasty Lab building, whereby when you walk by, you get a sense of the place.

Led Black (06:19)
Right.

Octavio Blanco (06:19)
Yeah.

Michael Palma Mir (06:40)
There's a little description about the organization and there's a QR code that if you're interested, you can go straight to their website and learn more about these organizations. These are wonderful organizations in West Harlem. For example, like the Children's Arts Carnival, Sugar Hill Children's Museum of Art and Storytelling, Dance Theater of Harlem, Harlem School of the Arts, Harlem Stage, Hispanic Society. I mean, we have 27 organizations.

unique and particular to West Harlem that we're featuring. so this is, we like to consider them our alliance members. We are the West Harlem Arts Alliance and they are sort of our alliance members. And it's part of our mandate to feature local arts artists, arts organizations, as well as the arts in general in West Harlem. So this is part of the, what we're doing here at the Innovation Triangle. There is stuff happening outside, as well as stuff happening inside.

Octavio Blanco (07:37)
That's awesome. That's awesome.

Led Black (07:37)
Yeah, that's a

perfect segue to what want to ask. So tell us about the West Harlem Arts Alliance. What is it? What is its reason for being? How long you've been around?

Michael Palma Mir (07:46)
Sure.

Well, we're a branch banking new organization. And by that I mean we're in our third full year of programming. And although we've been around for about four and a half years, know, it takes a little while to get all the paperwork ready and set up.

But we are a sort of creature of the community benefits agreement that West Harlem has with Columbia University with respect to their development of the Manhattanville, what they call the Northern Campus. And so as a benefit to the community, there are many things that were done in order to ameliorate the fact that the use of public domain was...

used by Columbia University to build a northern campus and in that respect they had to have a sort community benefits agreement and we're just one aspect of that community benefit agreements that they agreed to develop in partnership or I should say through the West Harlem Development Corporation and you know the West Harlem Development Corporation, we know them as WHTC. It took 13 years to

Led Black (08:44)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Michael Palma Mir (08:52)
finally get this going, but finally I was tapped to to found it and to organize it and to run it at least in these first few years. And we hit the floor running, man. And so for the last three years we've been doing a lot of activities in the community. Our mission is to support the arts, the artists and the arts organizations right here in West Harlem. And this is what we've been doing. We do that in many different ways.

We do it through workshops with for artists technical assistance workshop with artists. You may know a little bit something about that lead We do a summer jazz series in recognition of the leg the great legacy that Harlem has in our culture through jazz as well as activation retail spaces just like the innovation triangle the tasty lab building last year we were at the old A&P ⁓

store on the Hamilton Place Corridor right next to Montefiore Park and we activated that space for two months. This project is a much deeper project, it's a bigger project. We're not only on the outside of the space, or rather not only at the window front of the stores, but we're also actually inside the space and you can see that right behind me. I don't know if I can...

Led Black (10:08)
It's beautiful space.

It's a beautiful space. It's massive.

Michael Palma Mir (10:10)
Woo!

Octavio Blanco (10:12)
wow, yeah, it's very big.

Michael Palma Mir (10:14)
It's pretty big. It's about, I would say, 18,000 square feet of space here that we're activating. We have exhibition space. We have spaces for five resident artists. And we have a performing arts space, which is right behind me.

Led Black (10:19)
It's massive.

Octavio Blanco (10:29)
Now is this a permanent space or is this like a pop-up space? What's the plan?

Michael Palma Mir (10:32)
No, this is yeah, yeah,

this is not a permanent space we couldn't in our

I guess while the streams afford 18,000 square feet, although I wish we could. Now we're just activating the space in order to bring attention to this part of West Harlem. Like I said, last year we were in Hamilton Heights. This year we're in Manhattanville. Hopefully next year we might be in Morningside Heights. But just to bring attention to this area, to bring a little life back into Manhattanville, right down the block from here is the Northern Campus, Columbia University Northern Campus, as well as Dinosaur

Barbecue and Dear Mama restaurant and a whole host of places right up the block here is Maison Harlem. the place is is

as the exhibition that we have here indicates, it's sort of hidden in plain sight. And so what we're trying to do is sort of unhide it, so to speak, and bring some foot traffic and make it a happening place. And so far we've been very successful. Most of our activities here have been booked to the guilds. We were operating at capacity here, and we have a lot of fun stuff coming up soon too.

Octavio Blanco (11:41)
Can I ask you something? You mentioned as the Arts Alliance, as the West Harlem Arts Alliance, that you're a part of this alliance of other art groups in Harlem, because Harlem is so rich with art. What is the gap that West Harlem Arts Alliance is filling? Is it a community sort of...

Gap, it a gap for individual artists? ⁓ Is it a gap for representation for these art organizations? Is it all three of those things? Describe a little bit about the interplay between West Harlem Arts Alliance, local artists, and the local arts groups.

Michael Palma Mir (12:26)
Sure, sure. I think I would characterize it as, you know, we have our storied cousin here in central Harlem and there's a wonderful organization run by Voser Rivers. It's called the Harlem Arts Alliance. And a while back ago in East Harlem, we had the Association of Hispanic Arts, AHA, in East Harlem. They're no longer around.

And let us you know in northern Manhattan you have NOMA, the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance. And so there was this gap, right? This gap between East Harlem, Central Harlem, and Northern Manhattan, which is what? West Harlem. It was an area that wasn't served as much in sort of taking advantage of the resources that were available to Harlem in general. And so the West Harlem Arts Alliance, we're sort of

Led Black (12:58)
That's right.

Michael Palma Mir (13:20)
laser focus here in our three communities, right? What are those communities? Hamilton Heights, Manhattanville, where we are right now, and Morningside Heights, which roughly runs between 110th Street to 157th Street from St. Nicholas to Riverside Drive. And so what we try to do is focus our energies right here in support of the artists who live, work, and play here, the arts organization who do...

and like I mentioned earlier, have 27 of them right here in West Harlem. And the arts in general, any sort of arts project. And we also like to promote the legacy of the arts that come from the greater Harlem community, right? So we feature in our sort of music festival. We're in our third annual music festival right now. And our last performance of the year is going to be at Morningside Park on September 13th after 29.

weekend performances all summer long, highlighting jazz, which is one of the greatest cultural legacies that Harlem has to offer, not only our area, but the whole United States and the world for that matter.

Led Black (14:14)
Wow.

Octavio Blanco (14:24)
the world really.

Led Black (14:26)
You know, I wanna say

Michael, that like, I couldn't think of a better person for that role that you're in than you, you know what mean? it's sometimes, I guess you're fortunate that your role matches who you are. You're a long time uptown person. You've been around forever. Like, tell us about your personal history uptown.

Michael Palma Mir (14:45)
Well, I was born and bred right here in West Harlem, right down the hill from City College. So was my father. My father was born and bred here in West Harlem. He graduated from PS43, which is just a few blocks away from here. And I went to school at Annunciation, graduated from there, went to Cardinal Hayes High School. A little shout out to my Bronx, my Bronx friends. The X.

Led Black (15:06)
The X!

Michael Palma Mir (15:09)
Bronx strong and

then I want to graduate from Columbia from ⁓ rather Cardinal Hayes High School. went to Columbia University and I'm twice graduated from there. I have a master's in fine arts from Columbia University and I've been working in the arts field mostly in theater for most of my career and more recently and mostly as a fundraiser, right? Writing grants, but also producing.

And so I was tapped by the West Ham Development Corporation along with two other wonderful individuals, Michael Unthank and Josephine Benitez to start this organization. And once we started it, was clear they wanted me to run it. And so I've been doing that since I would say just about 2023, started in 2023.

And we've been going like gangbusters since then.

Octavio Blanco (15:57)
What's one of the big highlights that you've had in your short, I mean it's only short, short, like you've been doing so much, there's been so much activity. What do you recall from your work that you can highlight for us?

Michael Palma Mir (16:10)
Well, aside from the volume of things that we do, the thing that I get the most satisfaction from, and stealing a little bit of the mantra from the West Harlem Development Corporation is solutions through collaborations. And the part that I like the best about what I'm doing and what really

excites me about work and doing the work and especially here in West Harlem is working with all the amazing and great cultural organizations that are right here and artists that are right here in West Harlem. And so this has given me, for me, from a personal point of view, one of my greatest satisfactions. Programmatically, I would say it would be our West Harlem Summer Jazz Festival, which has grown from

four performances a summer to now 29 performances a summer in West Harlem parks. These are free concerts that we offer to to West Harlem in St. Nicholas Park, Morningside Park, Jackie Robinson Park and Montefiore Park.

And we do that, as I mentioned, in collaboration with Harlem Late Night Jazz and the great Dakota Pippins, as well as with New York City Parks and the park manager there, Tapashi Narain. And so this is one of our sort of marquee programs, but also being here at the Innovation Triangle,

has offered us a lot of opportunity to work with local artists and arts organizations. And so for example now we're featuring Tomomori from Children's Arts Carnival, Rafael Aluna, Paul Deo, Jerry, I forget, Jerry, I think it's Jerry White, who is here with us. And so this is,

I'm sorry, Jerry West. And it's just fun to work with these artists here and collaborate them and highlight the artistry that exists right here in West Harlem by featuring them here. We also have ⁓ two exhibitions here, ongoing exhibitions, and they were originally curated by local historians, Eric K. Washington, who he's a fantastic guy.

Led Black (18:18)
Yeah, Eric is awesome.

Michael Palma Mir (18:21)
and we just recently had a panel discussion with him and he was being interviewed by another West Harlem historian, John T. Reddick. And so this is a wonderful opportunity working here at the Innovation Triangle. It's been very satisfying to me because it's offered us the best opportunity to highlight and feature the arts right here in West Harlem.

Led Black (18:44)
It feels really full circle too, right? It feels really like, you know, you're, again, like when I go back to that, like you're the man for the job. You're the, you know, you're the person for the job. And I'm sure you must feel that sometimes.

Octavio Blanco (18:44)
That's awesome.

Michael Palma Mir (18:57)
Well, you know, if you live long enough in one place, you get to know everybody, right? And everybody gets to know you. And so that has helped me tremendously.

and sort of ⁓ working here at WHAA and if you want to say the success that we've had is when we look to work with area organizations, artists and the arts in general, it really helps to know the people in your own community and that they know you and you sort of have a certain level of trust and certain level of recognition and respect for each other's work and what we do.

right here in the community. so to a large degree, yeah, it has come full circle and hopefully the circle will continue.

Octavio Blanco (19:42)
Yeah, to me it's amazing to hear your family history in the area and the fact that you were born and raised, educated, and that now you live there. Do you live in the area? Or I actually made that assumption. ⁓

Led Black (19:42)
I like that, love that.

Michael Palma Mir (19:58)
yeah, yeah, I live, I live

in an HDFC in the area. That means I not only rent, but I'm a homeowner in the area. You know, during the turbulent seventies ⁓ financial crisis, the city went to, we had an opportunity to buy our building from the city and that's exactly what we did. Many of us realized that if you didn't own where you live,

you probably wouldn't be here for very much longer. could even see down the road the way the whole area was going with respect to gentrification and things like that. And so we bought our building. I have an apartment there. I live in an HDFC. It's a special kind of housing cooperative. And so my stake in the community is not only due to the fact that I grew up here and I was educated here, but I live here.

and I have roots here and I have a home here. So it's very different, right?

Led Black (20:52)
Right.

Octavio Blanco (20:52)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, it's a huge ⁓ topic for our show. We've done now three, I think three episodes devoted to housing in upper Manhattan. And we've had organizations who are trying to bring the concepts of land trust, HDFC, things like that into the community. So it's incredible to see incarnate the effect that that can have on families and

Led Black (20:55)
Yeah.

Octavio Blanco (21:20)
neighborhoods so you know more power to you and to your family for for for being here and for making that making that work it's amazing.

Michael Palma Mir (21:22)
Sure.

Led Black (21:23)
That's right.

Michael Palma Mir (21:27)
Yeah,

When you're a homeowner, you have a greater stake in the community than if you were an absentee landlord, right?

Led Black (21:35)
Right.

Michael Palma Mir (21:35)
And so

HDFCs and you know, I was one of the founders of the HDFC coalition, which is an organization that helps promote HDFCs throughout the city. And you know, once you have, once you're a homeowner in the community, you care for it a lot more, right? It's where you live. It's where you have your home. It's where you raise your family. And so to that extent, HDFCs and this type of housing has been an anchor.

for community development in West Harlem. And I don't know if you remember the history of West Harlem and the way it was in the late 70s and then the wild 80s and 90s. And I'd like to say that the sort of community development and improvement that has happened in West Harlem over the years, especially in the most recent years, has largely been due to the fact that HDSEs exists.

and that the people in the community are homeowners in the community.

Octavio Blanco (22:30)
Yeah, yeah.

Led Black (22:31)
Can

you talk a little bit about ⁓ Montefiore Square Park and your connection or your family's connection to that park? Because a of people don't know.

Michael Palma Mir (22:38)
Sure, sure. Well, we're really going back to a while back into maybe the late 80s, early 90s when, you once you have a home, once you have a building that's yours, you know, what good is it to you?

if you take care of your building but you don't also take care of your neighborhood. So once you're in an HDSE, a co-op, in your homeowner, you begin to project out into the community. You have a nice apartment, you have a nice building, then you say, well, let's have a nice neighborhood. And so to that extent, when my mother would sit, when she retired, she would sit at her windowsill as most retired people are apt to do in our sort of community.

and look out and she saw right across the street from her window Montefiore Park. And it was at that moment, it was a fallen park. It was filled with drug dealers and drug addicts and all sorts of nefarious activities. And so she wanted to do something about it. So she started the Montefiore Park Neighborhood Association. She sort of activated everybody in the community to clean up the park, to work with local city agencies to provide help to those who needed help.

to work with the NYPD, to get rid of the bad actors, and really turn things around at Montefiore Park so much so that it became a safe enough park to do activities, especially arts activities, especially cultivation activities. And so when my mom passed away, she sort of left the mantle of the responsibility of the park, not only to me, but

many other folks in the neighborhood, coincidentally, other shareholders and other HDFCs in the area. And we began to not only take care of the park, not only clean it, but also program in the park. And for us, was a...

easy decision to say let's do some art activity here right here in the park to keep it activated. So much so that we were able to apply for the plaza program, the DOT plaza program, and what that did was ostensibly de-map a side of Montefiore Park and expanded the park almost doubling it in size so that now what we have instead of having sort of a gated park

We have a sort of open park where we can do continue our arts programming, where area folks can see the park as a real amenity for the community, a place to relax, to hang out, to enjoy the day, especially seniors. Sometimes they can't go to nearby parks because, you know, where we are, it's very hilly, right? And it's very hard for them to...

to go to those parks. And so they come right to Montefiore Park. We have lovely benches. And so they hang out there all day and enjoy the cool summer breeze and have a good time. Not only the Montefiore Park Neighborhood Association, but WHAA more recently has started to aggressively do a lot of programming in the park to activate it. Of course, coming out of COVID, there were a lot of challenges in the area. And so some of that...

Led Black (25:45)
you

Michael Palma Mir (25:46)
activity that you know my mom fought or tried to ameliorate back in the early 90s that came back during COVID you know and so we're trying to address those issues with city agencies now it's like the myth of Sisyphus you know we're rolling that boulder back up the hill and we're getting the people the help that the help they need and NYPD once again is taking care of the bad actors and in order to help

Led Black (26:01)
Right.

Michael Palma Mir (26:11)
the ambience of the park and to get people to come to the park, we're doing a lot of art programming there so that people can feel it's a safe place to be.

Octavio Blanco (26:21)
That's awesome. That's inspirational because actually, I don't know if you know this, just recently the New York Times ran a story about this small park near 180th Street and Cabrini called the Dolphin Park. It's a small pocket. Yeah, right by us. But one thing that...

Led Black (26:34)
Yeah, it's right by us. Yeah, yeah, I saw that.

Michael Palma Mir (26:36)
Yeah.

Octavio Blanco (26:39)
you know, I didn't realize until today actually, is that there is a grassroots movement. My co-op and some other co-ops in the area are in conversation with Port Authority, which is the owner of that park, to take over the park and be responsible as volunteer organizations to manage that park and to... So there's news to come on that park right here in my...

my co-op right here on 179th Street, we're gonna be involved in some other co-ops on 181st Street, et cetera, are also gonna be involved. So what you're saying is so true. We're projecting over into the neighborhood, trying to do something that's good. And like I said, it's so inspiring to see somebody like you, Michael, with a lifetime of advocacy, with a lifetime living and loving your neighborhood, making it better.

So, you know, more power to you. ⁓ Also, I want to say just the Tomo Mori. I'm a big fan of Tomo Mori. She's an excellent artist. You know, she's wonderful, wonderful person and wonderful artist.

Michael Palma Mir (27:36)
Yeah.

Led Black (27:43)
She's amazing, yeah.

Michael Palma Mir (27:47)
That's her work right there. I don't know if you can see it. We're sort of far away from it. But she's among many things a fabric artist as well. And she has this sort of ropes hanging against the wall, which is ⁓ very intricately installed. And she's been one of the highlights of our time here.

Octavio Blanco (27:51)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. She's an incredible artist. She works in paint. She melds paint and metal and glass. It's fantastic. So it's really wonderful what you're doing. I can't wait to go and check out her exhibits there. She lives there and her family is up here. So yeah, I'm a big fan.

Michael Palma Mir (28:22)
Bye!

Yeah, yeah, and Rafaela Luna, she's an amazing artist. She's been featured in many galleries up here in northern Manhattan, in Noma, you know, and her work's sell. Paul Dayo is very much celebrated here in Harlem, and he has...

Led Black (28:31)
Rafaela Luna is amazing too, she's amazing.

Yeah, he's a hood legend. Yeah,

he's a Harlem legend.

Michael Palma Mir (28:46)
Yeah, he's a legend.

guy's a legend. J. Wes is a very well-known artist and he brings his crew here and helps us activate the space as well. And so I think we're doing exactly what we're supposed to be doing here. and Sage Gallin. I don't want to forget Sage Gallin. Sage Gallin is a wonderful artist and his work sells and he is really very, not only one, he's very prolific. And in the time that I've been here,

we've been here actually, I should say, he's created like four new works of art, two of which have sold and are now in the corporate headquarters somewhere downtown. And so he's been a wonderful, wonderful late addition to the artists that we're featuring here and we're so glad he's here. He lives literally two blocks away from the Innovation Triangle.

Octavio Blanco (29:33)
That's so incredible. It's something that we've talked about. It's ⁓ commerce, you know, and I'm so glad to hear that. You you're bringing attention to artists, but you're also creating a place where commerce can take place so that these artists can make a living doing their art.

Led Black (29:33)
You know

Michael Palma Mir (29:49)
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. lot of the artists here. Rafaela Luna is selling now. Paul Deo is in Stratosphere as well as ⁓ Jay West is. And Tomo Mori as well. mean, these are all...

They're sort of mid-career artists, they're getting the recognition they're due. They're West Harlem artists, and they're selling. And I think one of things we like to do is say, we have arts right here in West Harlem, and we have damn good artists here as well.

Led Black (30:20)
And it's funny, because we do have like this kind of pantheon of art organizations that you're now one, you know, one part of that. And, but because we have so many artists, the arts are alive uptown, right? Why is that? Why you think that's the case, Michael?

Michael Palma Mir (30:33)
Yeah.

Well, you know, there have been a lot of resources ⁓ put into the area, you know, with the empowerment zone and with Columbia University coming in, the community benefits agreement. I think it's an unstoppable fact of life that when you're in North Manhattan, in a community that's allowed to grow, allowed to

have a rich and rewarding life living here as a working class basically residents to also express themselves.

And I think that for a very long time, Upper Manhattan, not just West Harlem, but Central Harlem, East Harlem, Washington Heights, and Inwood, we've been very depressed here with respect to the city not allocating the resources it should be for the area. And I'm talking about 60s, 70s, and maybe even 80s. But I think that since then, there's been a very conscious effort to...

provide the resources and the services up here that we need. I think that there have been enlightened administrations and organizations, community-based organizations that have fought for it. the first nonprofit here in Harlem, the very first nonprofit was Centro Civico Cultural Dominicano.

which is hard to wrap your head around. It was the very first non-profit here in West Harlem. It's a wonderful organization that has been in our community providing not only artistic services but civil services for our community. And so once we're given the resources, I mean there is no end to what we can do here in Northern Manhattan and especially here in West Harlem. Led you know that for a fact. know, working, coming more from...

Washington Heights and Inwood. you know, Central Harlem has really led the way in many respects going back to the Harlem Renaissance. And they have a much more storied history, but even then, even for the longest while, Central Harlem was suffering. And thanks to, you know, enlightened legislators who were able to get the resources for us to, starting with maybe with the empowerment zone in Central Harlem and building up community there.

Led Black (32:14)
Mm-hmm.

right.

Michael Palma Mir (32:39)
you know that has sort of like an infectious trajectory and so that's started developing East Harlem and then North Manhattan, Howe Washington Heights, inward and now we sort of coming in a little late but we're here now, West Harlem.

Led Black (32:53)
Right.

Doing good work, too, for real.

Michael Palma Mir (32:57)
Yeah, yeah.

Octavio Blanco (32:57)
Yeah,

yeah, real good work. And what I think is also one of the themes that we've noticed and that we want to

give oxygen to is the ⁓ idea that we need to look at our concerns and our needs and our neighborhoods from the perspective of abundance and not from the perspective of scarcity. And I think that for too long, you know, we've been maybe indoctrinated into thinking about things as scarcity. You know, we're like, if I get this, then these folks aren't getting this. But what I'm seeing, what I'm seeing in our community, what I'm

Michael Palma Mir (33:17)
Exactly.

Octavio Blanco (33:31)
through the work that you're doing is that there is an abundance of resources and we just need to communicate and get each other on the same page so we can all benefit from that and now you're benefiting from that too. Do you see that as well? Do you see that there's more of a need to shift our point of view to one of abundance rather than scarcity?

Michael Palma Mir (33:43)
Cheers. Cheers.

Well, to tell you the truth, whether there are resources, and by that I mean financial and physical space and things like that, irrespective of that, the resource of artistic

talent, not only artistic talent, but a whole multitude of talents that exist up here is always going to shine through. It's always going to break through. Whether or not the money is there, whether or not I'm here or the West Harlem Arts Alliance is here or HAA or NOMA, you're always going to have our community of people and we are one of the most culturally diverse areas of all of New York, maybe outside of Jackson Heights Queens.

Led Black (34:31)
Right.

Michael Palma Mir (34:32)
And I think that has boded well for the community and our resources and our riches really do not come from the fact that agencies providing resources. They already exist here in the human talent that we have here in West Harlem and Northern Manhattan. What was needed is support. And I think that's what NOMA does. This is what we do and this is what Rosa Rivers at the Harlem Arts Alliance does.

We want to support and encourage the abundance of artists and artistic talent that already exists here. We didn't discover it, we support it. It was always here, you know. Now we're celebrating it, we're putting a spotlight on it, and we're giving voice to a venue, I should say, to the artists. And believe me, there are a lot of arts organizations here who've been doing it for years. I mentioned Centro Civico, they started in 1965.

Led Black (35:06)
Right.

And speaking of artists.

Michael Palma Mir (35:26)
Children's Arts Carnival has been here since then too. Harlem School of the Arts, Dance Theater of Harlem, Harlem Stage, know, these are organizations who are in the trenches, know, and yeah, absolutely.

Led Black (35:26)
Bye.

Right, doing the work.

And speaking of artists though, I have to reiterate, you are really one of my favorite uptown photographers, right? Like you have such an eye. I usually could tell one of your pictures like, ⁓ that's a Michael, you know, that's a Michael, you know what mean? No, hold on, you gotta get your credit for this. Cause I wanna talk about you right now. How long have you been a photographer? it goes back? So you must have some amazing stuff. mean, the vaults must be amazing.

Michael Palma Mir (35:47)
Thank you, thank you, thank We have great photographers up here too. don't want anybody to think we have... ⁓

Yeah,

one of my passions is document the cultural life here in West Harlem, which is something that I do and I've been doing for the last 30 years. I mean, when I started out, it was just film, right? It was like, you know, role film. It wasn't even digital. And working in theater, I had the opportunity to ⁓ take lot of photos of lot of theatrical...

Led Black (36:15)
Wow.

Michael Palma Mir (36:25)
productions by some of the greatest Spanish language theater in New York City including Repertorio Español, Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, Intara Theater, and many more. And so I've been blessed in being able to document that part of my artistic trajectory. But also I love taking photographs right here in West Harlem. And there are many other great photographers here as well.

Led Black (36:50)
They are, they are.

Michael Palma Mir (36:51)
I can rattle off a few if you want, I think one of the things that I want to do here at the West Harlem Arts Alliance, we haven't done it yet, but I think we want to do it very soon. think you and I have a pending conversation about this, having a featured photo exhibition right here in West Harlem, celebrating those very same West Harlem photographers.

Led Black (37:02)
Yes, we have a pending conversation. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Octavio Blanco (37:13)
I can't wait to see that.

Led Black (37:13)
Yeah, there's a lot of great uptown

photography, West Harlem specifically, so yeah, for sure.

Michael Palma Mir (37:17)
Yeah, yeah.

Octavio Blanco (37:18)
Can't wait to see that. I?

You know, I think that there's incredible work that's being done, but there's also challenges for artists and for individuals in Uptown. mean, we talked about housing and the price of people are getting are getting priced out. Although, you know, Uptown Manhattan still to a certain extent is a place where where artists can can live and work, whereas other parts of the city are. It's becoming very, very challenging. What are some of those challenges?

Michael Palma Mir (37:46)
Yeah, I am.

Octavio Blanco (37:47)
and how do we maintain it so that Uptown can remain a place where artists can thrive?

Michael Palma Mir (37:53)
Well, I'll tell you one of the biggest challenges that I can see is space. And I'm not talking about, you know, ⁓ space for where artists can live. know, West Harlem has one of the highest concentrations of artists precisely because it was an affordable place where you can bring up a family, right? And a lot of artists do live up here for that reason.

And the reason why our activation last year was called West Harlem Where Art Lives was sort of underscoring the fact that, West Harlem is where a lot of artists live, right? And so this is where art lives. But one of the main challenges is space. And what I mean by that are venues or places where we can showcase our artists here. And it's very, very difficult.

Led Black (38:27)
Right.

Michael Palma Mir (38:40)
you know, they're either very, very small or very, very big, like the United Palace, right? Too big, you know, or very, very small venues. And so there really isn't anything in between where we can really exhibit, highlight, or have a big enough venue for it to make economic sense to do long runs or presentations or much bigger exhibitions.

And so I think that one of the promises of the Community Benefits Agreement is that WHAA, through the auspices of the CBA and Columbia University and to a large degree Community Board 9 and the West Harlem Development Corporation, we will be getting a space about 5,000 square feet. And I'm not saying that that's going to be the solution to the challenge, but it's going to be a start. And I'm hoping that in the future,

as development happens and hoping that our local electeds can always allocate or keep in mind the need for space to create, to rehearse, to perform right here in West Harlem. You know, when I was growing when my father was growing up in this area.

Almost in every ten blocks there was a dance hall, was a theater, there was a movie theater, there was a theater theater, performing arts theater. I mean, back in those days, right, you didn't have TV and so the arts was sort of built into the community. These venues and spaces were built in purposely in the area. But you know...

Led Black (39:53)
Bye.

you

And you plus,

really couldn't really welcome downtown that much either in lot of places too.

Michael Palma Mir (40:11)
Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly, exactly. Well, that

all disappeared, you know, after the 60s, 70s, that all disappeared. We don't have one movie theater. We had no art galleries, very little performing arts space except, you know, the ones and some of these sort of legacy organizations. And, you know, we had to find space, you know, we're in a brownstone, we're in an old church, we're in the corner of an unused building on City College, you know. And so...

And that's one of the main challenges I see is the need for space. Space to create, space to rehearse, space to perform.

Led Black (40:50)
It's made to exhibit as well. Yeah, it makes sense

Octavio Blanco (40:51)
Yeah, and...

Michael Palma Mir (40:53)
Yeah.

Octavio Blanco (40:53)
And what

led, this is what you say all the time, and I think it's 100 % spot on. You nail it every time you mention it, but we've got to shift our view from art being like a nice to have to recognizing the importance of art and that it's a need to have in our communities. It's a necessity. And explain a little bit, Michael, because you just described something from your dad's era, but can you explain, can you expound a little bit onto

So

why is art so important for a healthy community?

Michael Palma Mir (41:27)
Well, I mean, I think it's essential. I think it's like water, air, food, you know, it gives you sustenance. Probably as important is what the arts does for a growing family, a growing child, and how the arts expands the mind, how it expands the mind for anybody really, how it exercises this muscle in between the two ears.

And I think in order for anybody, especially a young child growing up to become a well-rounded individual, it's not just reading, writing, and arithmetic. It's also being able to express yourself, being able, especially if you have a very artistic inclination, to be able to tell your stories to our stories right here in the communities where we live.

and to stand and say, presente, know, we are here, this is us, you know, this is our culture, this is who we are as a people, as a neighborhood, as New Yorkers. And so that's essential. I mean, you can't do that without art, I don't think.

Led Black (42:33)
That's a great point. one thing, Octavio, you may not know about Michael on top of all these things, he's also a hawk uncle. He's a hawk uncle. had like a hawk. Explain, Michael. Explain, Michael.

Michael Palma Mir (42:41)
yeah.

Octavio Blanco (42:43)
Wait, what is that? What is a hawk, uncle?

Michael Palma Mir (42:47)
Well, this

was during COVID when the streets were very quiet and I had a red-tailed hawk nest on my fire escape.

Normally, I don't think they would because the area is so bustling, but because it was COVID, the streets were very quiet. And so they thought they were coming into a nice quiet neighborhood. And for about three years and three generations of nesting there. Now, they only nest for a few months. They don't live in the nest. They live in the area. And they're very territorial. And so during COVID...

I sort of documented and wrote little stories about what I was observing and more as a way to keep my friends in the area informed about what's happening instead of them calling me every day and getting on the phone and talking about it. So I did a bunch of, it's all on Instagram, you can see it on my Instagram account, but I didn't think it would get the kind of notoriety that it did, not only within my own community, but...

Octavio Blanco (43:33)
Ha ha ha ha!

Michael Palma Mir (43:48)
citywide, citywide across the United States. So much so that I got a little article out of it in the New York Times, which was very generous of them. I guess it must have been a slow news day or news year. But it was a lot of fun doing that, documenting the lives and just getting into the wonderment of nature. know, growing up in West Harlem during the 70s and 80s,

Octavio Blanco (43:59)
Ha

Michael Palma Mir (44:14)
You know, this was really a concrete jungle. was like hardly any green trees or grass, hardly any of that on Broadway. thanks to, again, a lot of community development efforts and investment finally into the area.

getting clean water and implementing a lot of sustainability policies, know, nature started coming back. And so for me to have a red-tailed hawk was like, you know, like looking at a little mini dinosaur, which is, I guess what they actually are, they're sort of the distant relatives of the ancestors of the dinosaurs. And so it was just wonder, it was a wonderment to me to see that happen right on my fire.

Octavio Blanco (44:45)
You

Michael Palma Mir (44:59)
and to enjoy the fact that, you know, nature is coming back to Upper Manhattan in a big way, thanks to a lot of wonderful things happening in the area to protect them and to make it inviting for them to come back.

Led Black (45:14)
And Octavio, Michael has this picture that looks like the Hulk is about to kill him and run to his window. It's like the Hulk is like, And it's the best picture ever. It was in our exhibit, the Gramm Uptown. Tell me about that picture. What happened? And you have to, we have to post that. It's such a great picture.

Michael Palma Mir (45:20)
Yeah.

Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Octavio Blanco (45:26)
Amen.

Yeah.

Michael Palma Mir (45:32)
Yeah,

know, them being on the fire escape doesn't ⁓ really exempt them from seeing me as a threat, you know, because they're basically parents taking care of their kids. And, you know, I have other windows that I sometimes have to peek my head out for whatever X, Y reason, but they're always right there, like two windows down on the fire escape, and they look at me, and sometimes I forget they're there. And so...

Led Black (45:43)
Right.

Michael Palma Mir (45:58)
One day I stuck my head out and I saw that they were there and I remembered I put my head back, closed the screen. Didn't close the window, just the screen.

And the hawk just came right on the windowsill. And as they always do when they feel threatened, they lift up their wings. And so when I saw that happen, and he was just sitting there for a while just saying, hey, you stay there. Don't come out. Don't poke your head out. I just grabbed a very quick picture. And that's the picture that was in the exhibition.

Led Black (46:31)
That was on your phone

or with your camera?

Michael Palma Mir (46:33)
No, that was my camera. I always have my camera by the window, you know, to take whatever happens. So it was a great capture and a great moment. have to tell you though, it really scared the bejesus out of me when he landed up there. I mean, when you look at the picture, you'll see why, but I tell you what, when he first landed there, I fell back. I fell back because...

Led Black (46:36)
What a capture.

Yeah.

Octavio Blanco (46:44)
I'm sure.

Michael Palma Mir (46:52)
You know, they're pretty big birds. They're like, I don't know, about that big. And you know, when it lands on your windowsill, you're like literally that close to it, and they're so aggressive that, you know, it's kind of scary. And I fell back, but as soon as I sort of my senses, I grabbed my camera, took a very quick picture. Yeah.

Led Black (46:53)
They're big, they're huge, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Thank God you did. Because you feel the menace. You feel

the power. It's like I'm not happy right now and I want to protect my territory. So I really enjoyed the whole Hawk thing. I really was like I was living through that. I really enjoyed it. Especially during the pandemic when we were forced to stay home. I remember that and also the banging on the pots at 7 p.m. That was kind of special.

Michael Palma Mir (47:18)
No. No.

Yeah, exactly.

Octavio Blanco (47:34)
Yeah, banging on the pots

Michael Palma Mir (47:34)
Yeah, yeah.

Octavio Blanco (47:35)
was, I loved that. You know, speaking of the pandemic.

It's been taken society, not just New York, I think society in general, it's taken us some time to recover from the pandemic. think just recently there's been statistics showing that people are now going back into the office at the same rate as pre-pandemic. ⁓ Being that you're so, I would say, in touch with the community,

Michael Palma Mir (48:00)
on

Octavio Blanco (48:05)
Where do you see West Harlem's recovery from the pandemic? Is West Harlem making a strong recovery? Does it still need a little bit more oomph? How has West Harlem evolved since the pandemic? Because I do think that our society has evolved quite a bit.

Michael Palma Mir (48:25)
Yeah, to tell you the truth, I think we're lagging. And there are a lot of telltale signs of that. There are still many empty storefronts. Many, many retail businesses are struggling, although I think some are faring better than others. I think it's forced a little bit of a paradigm shift with respect to the kinds of retail outlets we have in the area.

Led Black (48:40)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Palma Mir (48:49)
What's going away very quickly are the small mom and pop bodegas and being replaced by big box stores, same thing with restaurants. And there are some lingering challenges to the community with respect to people who are affected by mental illness, drug addiction. And unfortunately, what has come back because of that is drug dealing.

And so I see a resurgence in the sale and use of crack cocaine in the area, which I thought we turned the corner on before the pandemic and we were sort of well on our way to get past that. But it's come back with a vengeance and unfortunately.

Led Black (49:33)
Specifically

specifically crack Mike. I they were doing mostly heroin in the streets now

Michael Palma Mir (49:37)
It's a combination of both, actually. I think it's heroin and crack. Although, more immediately in my neighborhood, or my block, or even to a certain degree Montefiore Park, it's mostly crack cocaine. And it's a terrible thing to see, you know, because I go out in the morning, very early in morning, like six or seven o'clock in the morning, and people out there are like zombies. They really are like...

Led Black (50:01)
Yeah, it feels like deja vu. It feels like deja vu a little bit. Like we've been here before.

Michael Palma Mir (50:02)
I could look at it forever. Pardon me? Yeah, yeah, this

is what I mean, that myth of Sisyphus where you're sort of, that stone came right back down the hill and now we're rolling it back up the hill. And what we're trying to do as a community is get the people the help they need, get them out of that cycle of addiction and that cycle of,

taking things from like Walgreens and Duane Reade and selling it out in the street so they can get the habit and sort of stopping that. And then also working with city agencies to do something about the bad actors, the ones who are actually keeping those folks in that vicious cycle. And so, I think those challenges still exist from COVID.

I think the city has been trying to do something even more recently about it with the quality of life initiative that the NYPD has started since last month or so. Some of the things that we're doing here with the Innovation Triangle and with SPS is trying to get support for our local businesses here in the area. Hopefully what that means is that...

More stores will open, more stores that fit within an economic model that could lead to their success and that will service the area. But it seems like every time we move forward, we take two steps forward, we take one step back. And certainly this current administration that we have is not really helping the situation here with respect to at the federal level.

Led Black (51:39)
Not yet. Yeah. Yeah,

the fact, yeah. Yeah. Well, how do you deal with that? Like, how do you, how as, how do you know? Yeah. But the stones are much harder to bring up that hill when you have, you know, the tyrant in power.

Octavio Blanco (51:44)
I thought we were going to get through an episode without talking about this I guess we can't.

Michael Palma Mir (51:56)
Yeah, it's not really very helpful actually and it's very debilitating and you know one of the things that we do at WHAA is advocate for enlightened political position on especially with respect to supporting

local organizations of color, for example, and the loss of the NEA has been very devastating for our community. It's been devastating for me this past year, losing NEA funding with one of our cultural sponsors, which made us have to pivot and do something different. And so...

There are many organizations in our community that was reliant on NEA funding. And that's lost, that's gone. I don't think, yeah, yeah. And I don't think the current economic policy is.

Led Black (52:36)
Mm-hmm.

Classic theater, Harlem lost some money as well.

Michael Palma Mir (52:46)
is really helping our community either and certainly the very aggressive stance against people of color, especially in an immigrant community that we're in right now, I don't think that's being very helpful at all.

Led Black (52:59)
Yeah, I agree. I agree. I think Uptown, because we are such an immigrant community, I think we're going, we have to get ready for what's coming, I think.

Octavio Blanco (53:00)
Yeah.

Michael Palma Mir (53:09)
Yeah, who knows? They say Chicago is going to receive some sort of intervention and who knows, we may be next. Who knows? It's hard for me to imagine that that happened. My friends and my families and many family members fought and war against this type of fascist tendencies and now it's...

Octavio Blanco (53:10)
⁓ certainly.

Yeah, mean, certainly we're in the crosshairs.

Michael Palma Mir (53:30)
How is it that it's come home to roost? I really don't understand that. But I think that hopefully things will change and with the change for the better.

Octavio Blanco (53:38)
Yeah, well that's absolutely, yeah.

Led Black (53:38)
Yeah, plus we've through

so much already, I think in certain ways where we're ready, know, we're not at full, no one's fully ready for the onslaught, but I think because you, among other people, have made it happen with very little, I think that we're better prepared than most, I should say.

Michael Palma Mir (53:55)
Well,

we're very resilient. there's anything that Harlem is, especially Upper Manhattan, especially the people up here, we're very, very resilient people. And it's going to take a little bit more than ⁓ a dictator in Washington to curtail what we have to do here in order to help our lives be better or as good as anywhere else in the United States. And so with or without their help, we're going to get by.

Octavio Blanco (54:19)
Yeah, and I want to remind you, Michael, which you probably don't need reminding, and you, Led, which you also don't need reminding, but also the audience, if you're watching, I do want to remind you guys to the mantra that I think has developed throughout our 16 episodes. I think this is episode 16, which is that community is the answer. Community is the answer. And Michael, you are part of that

Led Black (54:41)
Yep.

Michael Palma Mir (54:42)
Yeah.

Octavio Blanco (54:47)
bedrock that is forming, nurturing and pushing forward the community so that we can be ready and that we can recover when we have challenges like whether it's fascism or whether it's a global pandemic or whether it's an addiction, ⁓ scourge of addiction in the streets. The fact of the matter is that if we can unite as a community, then that's what's going to save us. And, Led, you've been all about community. That's why I

Michael Palma Mir (54:59)
Sure.

Yeah.

Led Black (55:07)
you

Octavio Blanco (55:14)
wanted to partner with you in this because I respect your work in the community so, so much. And Michael, I think for sure you're making sure that the community can respond to these things.

Michael Palma Mir (55:20)
Thank you.

I will say it takes a village, right? It's not just me. It's a whole bunch of really wonderful and amazing people. 50 of them, for example, sit on the community board. But certainly, if I can give a shout out to our council member who really helps out a lot.

Obviously the West Harlem Development Corporation has been the facilitator of the funds that are coming through the CBA to target and help support community especially here in West Harlem. And also for developers like Janus Property who really has the community in mind when they try to

bring into the area innovative technology and innovative industry to help community development. I think, and that's Janus Properties right here, where we are at the Innovation Triangle. So it really does take a community, as you say, a community. And it's not just one person, it's a whole slew of people who are like-minded. We share the same values, we have the same values.

and we're all very, very deeply concerned about where we live.

Led Black (56:33)
Michael, this has been such a great interview, man. I know you for a long time, but I learned a lot from this interview. Where can people reach the West Harlem Arts Alliance? What's the socials? Give us all that stuff.

Michael Palma Mir (56:44)
Sure, well I'm not a social person as far as online social goes as you are led but I will tell you that our website is whaanyc.org. You can go online and see all the wonderful activities that we're doing throughout the year especially right here at the Innovation Triangle West Harlem. On Instagram it's whaanyc.

and in Facebook it's the West Harlem Arts Alliance, Michael Palma West Harlem Arts Alliance. And so I mean right now these are the outlets that we're in. I don't think we even have an X account or a threads account. I totally think we're working on it. Maybe LeD, you're gonna help me with that maybe a little bit.

Led Black (57:28)
I've never seen it. I've looked for it. I don't think I've seen it, no.

Whatever you need, brother,

whatever you need, for sure. Michael, thank you for your time, and this was a great interview. It's been a pleasure talking to you, brother.

Octavio Blanco (57:34)
Hahaha!

I love it.

Michael, you didn't think you were gonna be

able to talk for an hour. It's 58 minutes now. Yeah, you see?

Led Black (57:44)
I told you.

Michael Palma Mir (57:46)
Wow, you're right, it tickles very fast.

Octavio Blanco (57:48)
It goes by, it goes by quickly. And thank you so much for participating and you know, check out our, check out our podcast. We've spoken to a lot of really great community folks who are doing incredible things from the arts to politics, to, to housing. Just, we really want to point the spotlight on people in the community that are doing great. And obviously, if you know of anybody and audience, if you know of anybody, please do, you know, hit us up. We're very active on.

Led Black (57:48)
Yeah, yeah.

Michael Palma Mir (57:50)
Yeah, yeah. Thank you.

Octavio Blanco (58:14)
Instagram and on on TikTok actually so you know look us look us up and ⁓ you know if you have people that you want to recommend that should be highlighted please let us know we'd be happy to take a look so Michael thank you thank you so much for being a part of this and lead as always

Led Black (58:30)
Michael, thanks again, brother. Thank

Michael Palma Mir (58:30)
Thank you. Thank you guys. You guys are

Led Black (58:33)
you. Spread

Octavio Blanco (58:33)
As always, you're the man. You're the man.

Michael Palma Mir (58:34)
great.

Led Black (58:34)
love is the uptown way. All