THE AFRO-AMERICAN REALTY COMPANY GILBERT OSOFSKY FROM HARLEM: THE MAKING OF A GHETTO (1963) NOT UNTIL PHILIP PAYTON ORGANIZED HIS REALTY COMPANY WAS HARLEM OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED AS A COHESIVE COMMUNITY. PAYTON WAS A CLEVER BUSINESSMAN AND A VISIONARY WHO KNEW A HOT PIECE OF PROPERTY WHEN IT FELL INTO HIS HANDS. GILBERT OSOFSKY PROBES THE BEGINNING OF HARLEM METICULOUSLY, CULLING PRECIOUS GEMS OF HISTORY FROM MILES OF RESEARCH. Payton''s activities in Harlem real estate reached a high point in 1904 with his founding of the Afro-American Realty Company. The company had its genesis in a partnership of ten Negroes organized by Payton. This partnership specialized in acquiring five-year leases on Harlem property owned by whites and subsequently renting them to Negroes. In 1904, Payton conceived of reorganizing this small concern into a regular real estate corporation, capable of buying and constructing homes as well as leasing them. The company, incorporated on June 15, 1904, was permitted to "buy, sell, rent, lease, and sub-lease, all kinds of buildings, houses.
lots, and other.real estate in the City of New York." It was capitalized at $500,000 and authorized to issue 50,000 shares at ten dollars each. Ten of the eleven original members of the all-Negro Board of Directors subscribed to five hundred shares each. The company began with an estimated capital of $100,000.[see note 1] The Afro-American Realty Company was founded with high hopes of success--hopes which proved unfounded. At first, the corporation seemed to have sound financial backing and the support of eminent members of the Negro community. "The personnel of the Board of Directors of the company is bound to commend it to the respect, trust and confidence of even the most skeptical of our race," its prospectus stated.
"Most of them are men who have made a success in their individual lives and are well-known in New York City for their ability, worth and integrity.[see note 2] Early company transactions were profitable and tended to verify Payton''s optimistic judgments. In 1904, for instance, the Afro-American Realty Company sold three of its newly acquired houses on West 135th Street to a white real estate concern, the Hudson Realty Company. Hudson Realty proceeded to evict its Negro tenants in order to replace them with whites. Payton, in turn, "blocked the game" by buying two other houses on the same street and evicting the white tenants in them. Within a short time, he was able to repurchase the original three (at 40, 42 and 44 West 135th Street), "filling the houses with Afro-Americans." These first highly publicized transactions boosted the reputation of the Realty Company. They "gave great publicity to the existence of the Afro-American Realty Company," the New York Age concluded in 1905.
[see note 3] Payton did not let the company rest on its laurels. To attract financial support from the Negro working class he advertised regularly in the Negro press and promised the average investor much more than he was able to fulfill later. (The prospectus offered profits of seven to ten percent, but the weekly advertisements omitted the seven).[see note 4] Investment would not only yield "Tempting Profit," Negroes were told, but it was also their obligation to support an enterprise which would help end "relentless race prejudice": "To-day is the time to buy, if you want to be numbered among those of the race who are doing something toward trying to solve the so-called ''Race Problem,''" it was argued. The anticipated success of the company would become a symbol of Negro business acumen and would end racial segregation in urban housing: "A respecting, law-abiding Negro will find conditions can be so changed that he will be able to rent, wherever his means will permit him to live," the Prospectus maintained. Race prejudice would be turned into "dollars and cents" for Negroes, not whites.[see note 5] Although public reports showed stocks being sold rapidly, privately the company found it necessary to hire a salesman to drum up business at a commission of twenty percent. And stocks were sold, usually to individuals who could afford only a few shares at a time.
[see note 6] The Realty Company promised the world and delivered little. It had hopefully been incorporated for fifty years, but folded after four. During its short and hectic existence it was racked with internal dissension. In four years there were three major reorganizations of its Board of Directors and officers. James C. Thomas and James E. Garner severed connections with the company in its first year. Wilford H.
Smith was later influential in bringing suit against Payton for fraud. The final reorganization, in 1906, left Payton as president and general manager. It was formal recognition of the power he had wielded since the founding of the corporation. NOTES 1. "Certificate of Incorporation of the Afro-American Realty Company filed and Recorded June 15, 1904" (New York City Hall of Records). 2. The Afro-American Realty Company, Prospectus (New York, 1904), 7 (original in New York City Hall of Records 3. E.
F. Dycoff, "A Negro City in New York," 949-50; New York Age, December 21, 1905; L. B. Bryan, "Negro Real Estate in New York" (WPA research paper, Schomburg Collection), 2-3. 4. See the New York Age in 1905 and 1906 for advertisements. 5. Prospectus, 3-7.
6. Fred R. Moore to Emmett J. Scott, December 27, 1905. Washington. Papers, Box 29. A JOURNEY TO GREATNESS: THE LIFE AND MUSIC OF GEORGE GERSHWIN DAVID EWEN (1956) During his early years, George Gershwin (1898-1937) lived with his family and on his own at several locations in Harlem. For him the environment was brimming with energy and musical verve, which fueled his creative juices.
David Ewen has written one of the more engrossing studies of Gershwin''s genius and his early years in Harlem. George responded with an instinctive sympathy to music whenever he came into contact with it. He was about six years old when, strolling along 125th Street, he stopped outside a penny arcade and heard Anton Rubinstein''s "Melody in F" on an automatic piano. "The peculiar jumps in the music held me rooted," he later recalled. "To this very day, I can''t hear the tune without picturing myself outside that arcade.standing there barefoot and in overalls, drinking it all in avidly." One day, during the same period, while roller skating in Harlem, he heard jazz music outside Baron Wilkins Club, where Jim Europe and his band performed regularly. The exciting rhythms and raucous tunes made such an impression on him that he never forgot them.
From then on he often skated up to the club and sat down on the sidewalk outside to listen to the music. He later told a friend that his lifelong fascination for Negro rags, blues, and spirituals undoubtedly began at this time; that Jim Europe''s music was partially responsible for his writing works like "135th Street" and parts of Porgy and Bess. There were other musical associations. When he was about seven or eight he attended two free concerts at the Educational Alliance on East Broadway. A year later he was the victim of a puppy-love affair with a little girl of the neighborhood; what attracted him to her was the way she sang. There were excursions to the local penny arcades where, at the drop of a penny, automatic machines would disgorge recorded music through rubber ear tubings. The idea for "Swanee" was born during a lunch at Dinty Moore''s. Irving Caesar and Gershwin had met to discuss new ideas for songs.
Caesar suggested that they write a one-step in the style of "Hindustan," then in vogue. "Let''s use an American locale," Caesar suggested. And Gershwin added: "Just like Stephen Foster did in ''Swanee River." It did not take them long to agree on the subject of Swanee River. They kept on discussing the idea and allowing it to acquire a definite shape, as they rode atop a bus to Gershwin''s apartment--then located at 520 West 144th Street, in the Washington Heights section of New York. By the time they reached there, much of the song was clear in the minds of both composer and lyricist. They went to the piano in the living room to work out the details. At the moment, in the adjoining dining room, which was separated by drawn portieres, a poker game was in progress.
At first the poker players were annoyed at the disturbance caused by George''s playing and Caesar''s singing as they worked on their song. One of the cardplayers called out, "Can''t you two work some other time?" But as the song began assuming a recognizable form and personality--and the process had taken less than half an hour--and after Gershwin had played it through several times, the cardplayers became interested. The game was momentarily stopped. Papa Gershwin improvised an obbligato for the melody by whistling through tissue paper in the teeth of a comb. When immediate deadlines had to be met, George sometimes fled from the frenetic activity that always seemed to be a part of the Gershwin household, by renting a room in a nearby hotel. He had begun this practice when the family lived on 110th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, which always overflowed with relatives and friends, and continued it at 103rd Street. But since his intimate circle usually followed him to his hotel room and brought with them the tumult and the shouting, his isolation was ephemeral. Mostly Gershwin could be found on that fifth floor.
Here he had his favorite piano, a Steinway (two others were in the family living quarters downstairs), his books, and music, and the precious mementos of his career. The walls were lined with photographs of famous people affectionately inscribed to him, together with his favorite portraits of great composers.