"Help Me Howard" Visits HKI

Since its inception in 1995, CW11’s "Help Me Howard" segment has helped hundreds of individuals, families and businesses who have benefited from Howard Thompson’s intervention and exposes.

Howard Thompson of CW11’s “Help Me Howard” recently visited Dr. Ernest Hyman at the Harlem Karate Institute to investigate the matter involving the decades-old institution’s possible shut-down due to the landlord’s eviction.

“People who study the martial way are not in it for the money.  It’s a way of life for them.  They provide so much to others in the way of spiritual and physical conditioning,” stated Howard during the show.

For the past 27 years, Dr. Hyman’s dojo has been located on 2234 Third Avenue between 121st and 122nd Street in East Harlem.  Because of the dojo’s beauty, effervescence, and vivacious energy, Dr. Hyman’s dojo was chosen out of dozens to be the venue for The McDonald’s Mighty Kids’ commercials,  which now run on Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and other major networks.  Scenes from the classic movie, The Last Dragon starring Taimak, were filmed at the establishment.  In addition to the dojo, Dr. Hyman has a fully functional fitness center on the premises, where he assists individuals who have health and obesity problems.  Dr. Hyman’s famous “Platinum Hall’ ballroom is also on the site.  Platinum Hall is well known as the starting point for break dancing and one of the original rap venues and urban culture birthplaces.  Back in the 1980s, kids would come to Platinum Hall after school to get into break dancing battles as an alternative to violent gangbanging.  Platinum Hall was the main meeting place where such legends as Afrika Bambaataa, Doug E. Fresh, and many other legends from the birth of Hip Hop gathered.

“All of the agencies that deal with the youth are being weeded out and I guess I’m next on the list,” stated Dr. Hyman.

While no one is portraying the landlord is a bad guy and understanding that he has a right to make money, it is unfortunate that Dr. Hyman is joining the long list of business owners that are being forced out of Harlem as a result of gentrification. 

Howard “Help Me Howard” Thompson visited the landlord, Khedouri Associates, LLC to see what he had to say about the issue.  Khedouri had no comment except that the case is in litigation.

Thompson asked Dr. Hyman if he was angry with the landlord.  Dr. Hyman’s response: “Martial arts training doesn’t teach me to be angry at people because when you’re angry, you create negative energy within yourself, so you hurt yourself more than you hurt the person you’re angry at.”

Help Me Howard’s coverage of the Harlem Karate Institute plight aired on Channel 11 News at 10:00 pm on Monday February 26, 2007.

Mr. Thompson asked anyone who knows of a space or anyone who would like to help Dr. Hyman to send him an e-mail to [email protected] or call his hotline at 212-210-2490.

Since its inception in 1995, CW11’s “Help Me Howard” segment has helped hundreds of individuals, families and businesses get justice and in many cases, THEIR MONEY BACK, as a result of Howard Thompson’s intervention and shocking exposes.  Howard Thompson relentlessly goes after offenders of people who have been wronged and very effectively, through his own methods, “persuades” those offenders to do the right thing. 

Howard Thompson recently won his first Emmy Award for best Business/Consumer Program Series from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS).


Brenda Jeanne Wyche, Advocate for Solutions and Results, is Managing Editor for The Black Star News and Harlem Business News, CEO of Winning Strategies & Associates and Director of Public Relations for The Phenomenal Women Group.  If you have a solution, contact
[email protected] .  Maybe we’ll talk.

To subscribe to or advertise in New York’s leading Pan African weekly investigative newspaper, please call (212) 481-7745 or send a note to [email protected]
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