Department of History

The Fieldston School .

Inventing Gotham

Black Metropolis

The fight I am making has got to be made sooner or later and I see no better time than now.

- Philip Payton, 1905

Colored man makes a specialty of managing colored tenements; references; bond. Philip A. Payton, Jr., agent and broker, 67 West 134th.

- ad for Payton in white real estate journals

My first opportunity came as a result of a dispute between two landlords in West 134th Street. To ‘get even’ one of them turned his house over to me to fill with colored tenants. I was successful in renting and managing this house, and after a time I was able to induce other landlords to... give me their houses to manage.

- Philip Payton

You had better cause the Liberians to be notified of his approach that they might get out their padlocks, and nail down everything that’s lying loose.

-An acquaintance of Payton’s upon hearing of his planned trip to Liberia

If, as I told [Payton], we could show that we ere housing [black residents] at a nominal rent, and the rents were very much lower than those charged by white people, then perhaps [Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Villard] might look into it.

-Payton partner Fred Moore on why white benefactors refused