The corner of Fillmore and Girley Streets was once the heart of the ‘West Harlem’, during the heyday of Fillmore’s ‘Jazz District’ in the 1940s and 1950s, home to John Coltrane and Billie Holiday’s base camp. But over the next few decades, a movement of urban renewal devastated the neighborhood full of character and heritage, and in recent decades the corner of Fillmore and Girrey Streets has only been housed below the Fillmore Theater Got a Money Mart check cashing office.
But that check cashing place is out, and a real neighborhood urban renewal is moving in. KPIX reports that a new marketplace called In The Black will be home to 22 black-owned retail small businesses, and the video clip below gives us a sneak peek.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbWU_fjBak
“Our goal is to create intergenerational wealth in the Black community,” Pia Harris, the “pusher” of In The Black and director of economic development for the San Francisco Housing Development Corporation, told SF Standard. “We chose the name ‘In the Black’ because it’s an idiom that means profit rather than liability, but it’s also a celebration of the beauty and resilience of Blackness.”
The corporate lineup that will be represented at In The Black is coming together; clothing brand CIK Apparel above will be there, plus Belle Noire accessories seen below, and more to be announced.
Naturally, In The Black will open on the corner of Fillmore and Geary Streets on Black Friday after Thanksgiving.
In The Black opens Friday, November 25 at 1567 Fillmore Street (Geary Street), 10am-7pm daily