Big Harlem Retailers Need to Support the Black Press

The newly opened Harlem Furniture, on 125th Street between 5th and Lenox Avenues, is repeating the same mistake its predecessor, Bargain World, made. That mistake is failure to advertise in the black press. Both businesses however willingly advertised in the New York Daily News. Bargain World had been in that location for several decades and never saw fit to place a full-page ad in the Amsterdam News, which is just down the street.
I browsed through the pages of several recent issues of the Am/News and the New York Beacon and found ads from Con Edison, Macy's, HSBC, Wal-Mart, and radio station WWRL. Absent were ads from Harlem Furniture, New York Sport Clubs, Starbucks, Citibank, Raymour and Flanagan (another furniture retail outlet), among other businesses that have set up shop in the black community and expect its residents to patronize them. But these establishments neglect to support the black media that have served the black community longer than many of these businesses have been in existence. They need to be made aware of this woeful oversight. Black people don't only read the mainstream tabloids.