The gentrification train keeps roaring its way up to Harlem and Morningside Heights, or should we say "SoCo."

Today Curbed posted two items that spell trouble or progress, depending on your point of view. W Hotel's parent company Starwood is building a branch of its new Aloft brand on Frederick Douglass Bpulevard and 124th Street. Aloft Harlem is slated to open in June 2010 next to an old carriage house that perhaps not coincidentally was long-rumored to be the site of a W hotel before it was recently converted to lofts.

And if the 125th Street rezoning, a luxury boutique hotel chain, and Columbia's expansion were not enough to seal upper Manhattan's fate, brokers have coined a pretentiously trendy name to attract young people to the nabe: "SoCo."  read more »