The Waterbury Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1917-1946, 1934-03-27
IN
New. York
BY PAUL HARRISON

cial democracy, Harlem is as diff
ferent from the rest of Gotham as
well, as black from white. May
be there is no other place in the
world where money means less,
and where such high premium
is put on intellectual and profess
sional attainment.
For example, there is one wom-
an society leader, a college gradu-
ate, whose husband Is doorman at
a small hotel off Broadway. And
another who herself works as a
telephone operator in a downtown
office. And at any Sunday after
noon cocktail party on Harlem 8
Sugar hill there are almost sure to
be porters and ch0uffeurs and ele-
vator operators. Once away from
their mental jobs there are many
such youngsters who can don Phi
Beta Kappa keys and talk about
Mencken.
You'd think a Harvard graduate
and former college professor ought
to be able to live in some degree
of affluence. Yet Augustus Gran
vile Dill is obliged to combine a
lot of enterprises to get along. He
has, for one thing, a book shop;
yet he sells so few books that most
of the space in his little store Is
occupied by concert grand piano.
He exhibits paitings and etchings
done by other Negroes, and once
in a blue moon collects a small
commission on a sale. An accom-
plished organist. he collects fee
each Sunday for playing in DR. John
Haynes Holmes Community church
downtown. And yet most of his
income Is derived from taking telA
ephone messages for people of the
neighborhood who can't afford
phones in their homes or shops.
Cultural Leader
In spite of this catch-as-catch-
can existence, Dill is one of the
foremost cultural, and therefore
social leaders of Harlem. He has
discovered and aided dozens of tai
ented artists and authors and musi-
clans, and presents the latter in
bi-monthly musicals in his shop.
subscription price for the whole
series is so cents, and all the
money goes to the performers. Dill
himself is race-proud but person
ally modest. In conversation he
may say, when I left school IN
Massachusetts, but never
When l graduated from Harvard
in 1908 =.
The walls of the shop are liter
ally covered with photos and trib-
utes from the greatest Negro fig
ures in arts and letters and educa-
tion-James Weldon johnson, Paul
Laurence Dunbar, w. E. B. Du-
bois, Claude Mckay, Langston
Hughes, Roland Hayes, Jules Bled-
soc, Harry T. Burleigh Composer
of Spiritually, w. c. Handy (St
Louis Blues), Hall Johnson-and
scores of others. Among the ar
lists are H. o. Tanner, who Is in
ternationally known, Aaron Doug
las, w. e. Scott, E.. Simms Camp
bell you've seen his stuff in ma
tional magazines), and Meta Fuller
and Augusta Savage, sculptors. 7
''Dickty" and "Hinkty"
There is, however, a shallow
stratum of "dickty" Negroes who
live on "Strivers' Row" and have
chauffeurs for their cars and SER
wants for their homes. A few doc-
tors and lawyers among theme but
mostly real estate men, such as
are the richest people In Harlem
since A'Lelia Walker moved to In
dianapolis. A'Lelia inherited the
hair. Strengthening fortune of her
mother, Madame G. j. Walker.
Sugar Hill, on the western
heights of Harlem, also has been a
"hinkty'' district since Jules Bled-
soc led migration there. And
farther up on Seventh avenue Is
another exclusive section--an en-
tire square block occupied by the
Paul Lawrence Dunbar apartments,
a Rockefeller project. No buffet
fats here, or bawdy rent parties
either, but neat cubicles occupied
by the intelligentsia and as yet I'M
visited by Carl Van Vechten. Besse
Bruce, Fannie Hurst's- secretary, Is
one of the residents. and her faith
er-in-law, r. @. Bruce, one-timc
superintendent of several schools
in Washington, manages the devel-
opment.
Van vechten my the way, isn't
around Harlem any more. The
black belt was shocked by his
'.Nigger Heaven, not because of
any essential inaccuracy, butsrather
| because the figures in 1t were too
thinly yelled by faction. Almost
all white writer's are looked upon
with suspicion, with perhaps the
sole exception of Julia Peterkin.
author of Bright Skin" and Scar
let Sister Mary, the Pulitzer prize
year Miss Peterkin comes north to
pleasure herself In Harlem. And
Harlem turns out to treat her as
purity az II kin.