Black America's most significant cultural movement got a boost from a shrewd real estate investor who literally opened the door for many who wanted to be part of a community that would leave an indelible mark on U.S. history.

In the early 1900s, before the Harlem Renaissance lit up New York with a cultural explosion, a barber-turned-property investor Philip A. Payton Jr. prevented the mass eviction of black tenants and helped paved the way for Harlem's growth.

"I just simply was not making any money. My wife was doing sewing, a day's work or anything else she could get to do to help me along. All of my friends discouraged me. All of them told me how I couldn't make it, but none of them, how I could. They tried to convince me that there was no show for a colored man in such a business in New York," Payton wrote about his exploits, according to the online version of Issues and Views an 18-year old publication advocating self-help and business enterprise for black Americans.

The New World's Dutch immigrants originally settled the area north of Manhattan's Central Park in the mid 1600s as Nieuw Haarlem (named for Haarlem, Holland) where farmers plowed verdant crop land in the flat, eastern section and the higher western district sprouted the lavish estates of well-known families, including the Delanceys, Bleekers, Rikers and Beekmans.

By the 1830s, economic decline left many farms abandoned and estates auctioned as the "Township of New Harlem" became home to those seeking cheap property and housing, and a refuge for newly-arrived immigrants many of them Irish, according to the New York City Department Of Housing Preservation and Development.

After the Civil War and into the late 1890s, the growth of transportation systems sent railway spurs into Harlem and gave rise to speculative development of single-family row houses, tenaments, and luxury apartment homes. By the early 1900s, little vacant land remained in Harlem and the over developed real estate market crashed as whites refused to pay exorbitant rents.

Payton, born in 1876 in Westfield, MA initially followed in the footsteps of his father who was a barber (his mother was a hair dresser) and later studied unsuccessfully for a year at Livingstone College in Salisbury, NC. He continued cutting hair and beards in New York City until 1900 when he landed a job in real estate and found his calling.

His first attempt at real estate with a partner in a modest Manhattan office failed miserably leaving Payton with little more than 15 cents a day for lunch and a commute.

Undaunted, Payton managed to land a job as property manager charged with filling high-cost vacancies whites refused to rent, but blacks managed to afford by taking in roomers. Payton gained fame as being able to fill otherwise unrentable apartments.

"I managed to secure charge of another house after a while, and we moved in there. Seemingly, this was the turning point in my business career. Things began to pick up. I began to get charge of more houses. One fine day I made a deal that netted me nearly $1,150. I could hardly believe it true. My wife refused to credit it, until I showed her the checks. From that time things grew better," Payton wrote, according to Issues and Views.

"I bought the flat house in which I was living. I bought two more flats and kept them five months when I sold them at a profit of $5,000. I bought another, kept it a month, and made $2,750, another and made $1,500, another and made $2,600, and so on. In all, I have owned, from time to time, nine five-story flats and five private houses, or, in other words, I have had title to $250,000 worth of New York realty," Payton wrote before opening a real estate company of his own.

In 1904, Payton, 28, founded the investor-funded Afro-American Realty Company, initially to save a number of buildings on West 135th Street where black tenants were to be evicted and replaced by white residents. Attempts to lease the buildings failed so his company acquired two of buildings, effectively ending the eviction efforts, according to Juliet E. K. Walker's The History of Black Business in America.

The company's holdings ultimately expanded to 20 buildings and along with Payton's own holdings, the two controlled more than $1 million in New York real estate -- sizable real estate assets for the era and nothing to sneeze at in Harlem today.

"Thus began the migration of middle class Blacks to Harlem," according to the New York City Department Of Housing Preservation and Development.

With that migration came more than 100,000 blacks creating the melting pot of black culture and class that would be known as the Harlem Renaissance -- a hot bed for writers, artists, actors and musicians which also spawned the black political clout of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The History of Black Businesses in America says before the Renaissance would fully blossom, however, a 1907 recession led to unemployment, the inability of many tenants to pay rent and job scarcity that prevented Afro-American from attracting new tenants and paying its mortgages.

The Afro-American company dissolved in 1908 amid suits alleging fraud and book cooking.

Former Afro-American salesman became leading real estate agents who helped start a trend that left the community's black churches as dominant property owners.

Payton continued his real estate success until 1917, when as the Payton Apartments Corp., he purchased six Harlem apartment buildings for a total of $1.5 million.

At only 41, Payton died later that year.

Published: February 21, 2003

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.