Chapter I: MAKE CIGARS 59 West 133d Street, New York

Havana and Domestic Cigars Box Trade a Specialty

------------------------------------------------------------------

VACUUM CLEANING

By the NEW YORK CAREFUL CLEANING BUREAU

(Cleaners and Renovators for Particular People)

MEANS COMPETENT WORKMEN
AND SATISFIED PATRONS

We clean anything from a rug to a private house. Anything--by the hour, the day, the job or contract. Drop a card to

12 WEST 135th STREET

------------------------------------------------------------------

OSCAR SCHEIN

Manufacturer of

FINE HAVANA CIGARS

=Ferdinand de Alba and La Panilla Brands a Specialty
Salesroom and Factory, Lenox Ave. and 127th St.
Branches: 504 Lenox Ave., 1488 Broadway=
Telephone 662 Harlem

------------------------------------------------------------------

=Wilson House= Neatly Furnished Rooms
F. C. HOLMES, Proprietor 261-263 West 54th St., New York

=TELEPHONE 3067 COLUMBUS=

------------------------------------------------------------------

THE INSTANT RELIEF ASSOCIATION
Incorporated.

COMMERCIAL TRUST BUILDING, JERSEY CITY, N. J.
A Sick, Accident and Death Benefit.
J. W. WATKINS, Secretary, 1931 BROADWAY, N. Y.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Telephone Ten Years with
7189 Morningside DR. JAMES A. BANKS Dr. D. C. White
_Dentist_
Porcelain, Crown and Pure Nitrous-Oxide
Bridge Work a Specialty Gas Administered
204 WEST 133D STREET, NEW YORK

------------------------------------------------------------------

Can’t See Well? See Me

when your eyes feel painful, hot, uncomfortable and grow weary while reading, writing, sewing or looking at near objects, letters run together while reading and become blurred.

Eyes examined by me and fitted with glasses accurately made never grow weary, but are perfectly comfortable. You may not like to wear glasses, but do you like headaches, red eyes and wrinkles better? Scientific examinations of the eyes for defective eyesight is my specialty.

=Dr. R. G. ADAMS, Optometrist=
Physical Eye Specialist
=16 West 124th Street. New York City, N. Y.=

------------------------------------------------------------------

Only Colored Dairy Lunch in New York

=Rose’s Dairy Lunch=
=J. W. ROSE, Proprietor=

34 WEST 135TH STREET
NEW YORK CITY
BETWEEN FIFTH AND LENOX AVENUES

NEAT, CLEAN AND
QUICK SERVICE

Open Day and Night

Everything Strictly First Class and Up to Date

------------------------------------------------------------------

NYANZA DRUG CO.
(Incorporated.)

=35 W. 135th ST., NEW YORK CITY=

=CAPITAL STOCK, $15,000=
Shares $5.00

Write for information. The best paying investment ever offered our people.

------------------------------------------------------------------

NYANZA PHARMACY

is the only colored Drug Store in New York City, and the purpose of the Corporation is to establish chains of stores, carrying Drugs and everything incidental to the Drug business. It is really the indisputable duty of every self-respecting member of the race to give it his support.

=AGENTS WANTED EVERYWHERE=

------------------------------------------------------------------

$100,000 STOCK ISSUE
TO BUILD AN
=Auditorium in Greater New York=
CONTAINING

=Reception, Concert and Banquet Halls, Modern Offices and Lodge Rooms=

This proposition is bound to succeed, because it is giving the people what they want.

We are offering
=10,000 Shares at $10 Each, Par Value=
Stock sold in blocks to suit the investor on easy terms.

The capital already in hand and the rapid increase of business means the realization of the Auditorium. This enterprise assures each investor Safety of Capital and Growth of Income. Call or write for further particulars.

=I. L. MOORMAN, Mgr., 83 W. 134th St.=

------------------------------------------------------------------

ALLEN’S CLEANING ESTABLISHMENT

=800 Eighth Ave.=,
Bet. 48th and 49th Sts.

Telephone Bryant 2535

=LADIES’ AND GENTLEMEN’S CLOTHING CLEANED=

Valet service, pressing, scouring, dyeing, repairing and altering neatly done. Suits sponged and pressed while you wait. Hats cleaned, blocked and retrimmed. Goods called for and delivered.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Does This Interest You? High-Grade Work at Reasonable Prices

============================
ROBERT N. WOOD

=Printer=

202 EAST 99th ST., NEW YORK
============================

TELEPHONE 6667 LENOX

WE BOTH MAKE MONEY IF YOU DEAL WITH ME

------------------------------------------------------------------

STANDARDIZE
============================ WITH THE ============================
L. C. Smith & Bros.
Typewriter

The DuPont Powder Company of Wilmington, Del., the most prominent manufacturers of explosives for Government and private use in the world, purchased on a single order--

=521 L. C. Smith & Bros.=
=Typewriters=

To Standardize their equipment, _acting on unanimous recommendation of a board_ of five of their mechanical engineers, to whom all competing makes were submitted.

It will pay you to standardize your typewriter equipment with the L. C. Smith & Bros. Typewriter for the same reason that decided this shrewd, hard-headed business corporation--superior merit of the machine!

And the reason holds good whether you use _one_ typewriter or _five hundred_.

_Write To-day for the Free Book._

=L. C. SMITH & BROS. TYPEWRITER CO.=

SYRACUSE, N. Y., AND ALL LARGE CITIES

------------------------------------------------------------------

Do You Want
a Position?

Best Places
Best Families

The New York and New Jersey Industrial Exchange, through its Employment Agency Department, furnishes more Colored Help to the leading families in the city and in the suburban towns than any other medium in New York.

It is located in the acknowledged best section of the city, being in the Henry Phipps’ Model Tenements for Colored Families. No other Exchange is so well patronized by the foremost families, many of whom have never employed Colored Help before.

Our demand for competent Southern Help exceeds the supply many times over. Call and register. No charge. Bring your references. We can place you in a good position. If inconvenient to pay our required office fee, you are at liberty to take advantage of our Credit System. This new feature has proven extremely beneficial to many worthy persons seeking employment.

----------------------------------------------
N. Y. & N. J. Industrial Exchange
237-239 West 63d Street
Telephones 5016-4546 Columbus

------------------------------------------------------------------

Cosmopolitan Automobile School

The aim of the School will be to give its students a sufficient knowledge of the theory and practice of Automobile and Automobiling to enable them to meet the emergencies that constantly arise to make those who complete the course competent to run machines, take them apart and assemble them properly, and to make such repairs as may be necessary and possible on the road.

TUITION--Six weeks’ course, including Shop and Road Work, $25; installments if you wish, payable $5 on enrollment and $20 by the completion of the fourth week.

SHOP WORK--Consists of naming all the parts of the automobile, taking the engine and the rest of the automobile apart and putting them together again properly, and making such repairs as may be necessary and possible.

ROAD WORK--When the shop work is complete the student takes up the operating and handling of cars on the road until he is competent.

If there is any special information which you desire respecting the course or opportunities in the automobile business we shall be glad to hear from you.

COSMOPOLITAN AUTO CO. of New York
Telephone 803 Columbus School: Hotel Macao, 213 West 53d St.
LEE A. POLLARD, Mgr.

------------------------------------------------------------------

The New York Negro as a Tenant

Every Negro resident of New York City prior to the year 1900 remembers too well the great difficulty always experienced in trying to find anything like a decent place to live. Never before this time was the question of “How much rent shall we pay?” anything like as important as “Where can we live?”

The Negro as a tenant was wanted nowhere except in the very poorest section of the city and there only in such houses as were so run down that even the poorest of whites refused to longer occupy them. In these houses Negroes were crowded together without any regard for their health or morals. Here they were bullied and even insulted by independent landlords, who were very careful to do little or nothing for their erstwhile not wanted tenants except to squeeze from them every dollar of rent possible.

This was a “condition, not a theory,” that we faced when in October, 1900, we opened our office as the first Negro Real Estate Agents in New York City, making a specialty of the management of colored tenement property. Our very best friends all told us that we were attempting the impossible, that we could not succeed, that we would starve in our undertaking. For the first year and a half they proved to be prophets indeed. Our many disappointments, heartaches and actual sufferings during this period would fill a book and read like a romance. Every one could tell us how we could NOT make it, but none how we could.

We were real estate agents making a specialty of the management of colored tenement property for nearly a year before we actually succeeded in getting a colored tenement to manage. Our first opportunity occurred in West 134th Street as a result of a dispute between two landlords. To “get even” one of them turned his house over to us to fill with colored tenants. We were so very successful in renting and managing this house that, after a time, we were able to induce other landlords in whose houses vacancies had occurred due to the opening of this house for colored people, to make the change and give us their property to manage.

This was the beginning of the turning over to Negro tenants of one of the very best sections of Manhattan Island and in no part of the city are there any better built or more modern tenements for any class of people than are now occupied by Negroes in this section. By opening for colored tenants first a house in one block, and then a house in another, we have finally succeeded in securing for the colored people of New York over 250 first-class flats and private dwellings in a fine section of the city, conveniently located as to transportation facilities, etc.

To this extent our ambition has been gratified. There is, however, more work to be done in another direction before we shall be entirely satisfied with the condition of the Negro tenancy in this great city. We feel that our personal experience both as a Negro tenant and a landlord has peculiarly fitted us for the work. Dr. Booker T. Washington in his latest book, “The Negro in Business,” says: “_Mr. Payton has had an opportunity during this time to learn something of the condition under which colored tenants live, sometimes are compelled to live, in New York. Stranger than all else, he was, as he has confessed to me, several times put out of houses, bag and baggage, for inability to pay his rent. He has thus been able to see how an ejectment suit looks from both the point of view of tenant and of landlord._”

There is every reason why colored tenement property should be managed by Negro agents. From them, the tenant may be certain of receiving more real interest, sympathy and respect. Were the Negroes to demand it to-day, at least 90 per cent. of the colored tenements in this city could be controlled by agents of their own race. This would not only be of benefit to the tenant but to the entire race.

Tell your landlord that you prefer to have your rent collected by a Negro agent. In this manner you will be aiding your people in their struggle for commercial advancement. You owe it to your race to do this.

=DESIRABLE APARTMENTS FOR DESIRABLE TENANTS=

=Philip A. Payton, Jr., Company=

=New York’s Pioneer Negro Real Estate Agents=
=BROKERS--APPRAISERS=

67 West 134th St., New York City
TELEPHONES 917-918 HARLEM

------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcriber’s Note:

This book is a reprint edition provided by Arno Press, A Publishing and Library Service of the New York Times, New York, 1969.

Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been left unchanged. Misspelled words were not corrected.

Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like this_; those in bold are surrounded by equal marks, =like this.= One footnote has multiple anchors; it was moved to the end of the section in which the anchors occur. Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside down, missing or partially printed letters, were corrected. Final stops missing at the end of sentences and abbreviations were added.