Tourists flock but business sags at Harlem’s Shabazz Market
Originally published August 30, 2017
Business is slow, Umaru Jalloh complains. It gets slower and slower every year. Jalloh, a 52-year-old from the African nation of Guinea, shrugs and leans back in his beach chair, set amidst the chaotic array of West African jewelry and kitschy t-shirts that hang from racks or sit in piles in front of his stall at the Malcolm Shabazz Harlem Market. He says he is worried, even if he doesn’t look it. He stretches out his legs, obstructing the walkway. It’s not a problem — even on a sunny summer Saturday, foot traffic is sparse.
It’s a common complaint here among the mostly West African shopkeepers who sell kufis and kaftans and cell phone accessories at this central Harlem bazaar. Billing itself as a “Community Business Incubator,” the market has provided a reliable living for many in this area, known as Petit Senegal. Vendors pay little rent, which is subsidized by the Malcolm Shabazz Mosque, and for years there was a reliable base of customers as the neighborhood filled with newcomers from Senegal, Mali, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea-Conakry — all looking for familiar products from home not available in the United States. In recent years, however, rising rents and changing immigration patterns have dimmed the francophone West African flavor of the neighborhood. Business has slowed, even as the burgeoning Harlem tourism trade has brought double-decker busses full of gawkers through the market’s minareted gates.
Jalloh has run his shop here — a 12-foot stretch near the market’s entrance — since he arrived in New York in 2005. His family remains in Guinea. It is a massive family — three wives and enough children that he won’t venture a guess at an exact number. He shrugs and laughs. “Many, many, many children.” He says he needs to be in New York to support them.
Jalloh reasonbly expected to live the rest of his life as a wealthy man. It was not to be.
Jalloh is from the Fula ethnic group of North Africa. Only rich men born into the culture can afford three bride prices and the cost of maintaining such a large family. That a man with three wives is operating a stall in this market betrays Jalloh’s familiarity with changing financial fortunes. Indeed, he grew up in a family of status. His father’s wealth was in the form of cattle, which they kept on their land in the savannas of the Mamou region, north of Sierra Leone. As the son of a prominent family, he did not have a profession outside of attending to his family’s affairs, and never attended school beyond a religious education. But with his large inheritance, Jalloh reasonably expected to live the rest of his life as a wealthy man. It was not to be.
Around 2001, political violence spilled over the border from Sierra Leone. While no one from Jalloh’s family was killed in the conflict, he woke up one morning to find that insurgents had stolen or slaughtered nearly all of his cattle. Suddenly, he had little wealth, but many mouths to feed. ‘Many, many, many.”
By selling some of his remaining cattle and exploiting family connections, Umaru left his family behind and flew to New York. The Shabazz Mosque didn’t ask questions about visas, nor did the people who hired him to drive or perform other odd jobs. For 12 years he has been able to send enough money home to provide for his many dependents as his wives tend to his herd. Most years, he makes enough money to return home for a month.
As for his long-term prospects here at the market, Jalloh has more immediate concerns. In a few days it will be Eid-al-Adha. With a little luck, he will be able to afford a good goat for his family to sacrifice back in Guinea.
