Straight Out of Harlem, Inc. (SOH) was the sole creative outlet among retail stores and bodegas in Sugar Hill. When it opened in 2005, the SOH storefront was an integral part of the community, addressing its broader needs by producing public programs, exhibitions, and salons that explored contemporary cultural issues, and by promoting and selling the work of more than 250 local and global artists who created functional and wearable art. Unfortunately, by 2009 the recession deepen and store after store closed and by the summer of 2009 SOH, like so many other entrepreneurial ventures in the neighborhood, SOH closed its storefront, shut down by escalating, prohibitive rent, and a consumer base decimated by rising unemployment. For the past five years Janet Rodriguez, SOH proprietor, has devoted her time and expertise to empowering underemployed, creative individuals and training unskilled workers with limited access to higher education and few opportunities for employment. SOH's new on-line shopping site features some of the creative entrepreneurs Janet has worked with in the past five years, as well of artists who sold their wares at SOH and others.