Times: Harlem Turning White!

How to put this? "For nearly a century," says the Times, "Harlem has been synonymous with black urban America..." Yes, go on. "But the neighborhood is in the midst of a profound and accelerating shift..." Yes, what? "In greater Harlem... blacks are no longer a majority of the population -- a shift that actually occurred a decade ago, but was largely overlooked."

And there's a picture of a white guy with his kid.

Reading further down, we see that in greater Harlem ("from East 96th Street and West 106th Street to West 155th Street"), "Other" has outstripped the black population -- this Other presumably mostly comprising Hispanic Harlemites, whose numbers are "up 27 percent since 2000" in "central Harlem" ("north of 110th Street between Fifth and St. Nicholas Avenues").

The accompanying graph shows Other's fairly steady ascendancy, with "White" #3, tailing up in the past few years. But Hispanics don't figure much in the story.

"Since 2000, the proportion of whites living [in central Harlem] has more than doubled," says the Times, "to more than one in 10 residents." Gentrification is discussed, as is the "rising tide of rents." "North to Harlem is one of the last options," says "the only white member of Community Board 10." A source acknowledges that "white newcomers have sometimes been greeted ambivalently." Etc.

Given the paper's readership, we can understand the ofaycentrism. But couldn't they find one Puerto Rican to talk to?