This chapter will reform nothing. It was written with no such intent. Its sole function is to inform, and the information should serve as a warning.
Harlem is no place for joy hoppers or joy poppers. Outside of the few white people who have business there and who are familiarly recognized, the sight of a white person in the black precincts brings one of several instant reactions:
If it's a white man "on the make," the Negroes are infuriated, though the dregs of their own women are there to solicit him; if a white woman is seen, she is either a tramp or a nut with a yen for colored men, and though plenty of colored men are willing, Harlem looks on her as a pariah and an intruder; if a white man and wife walk the avenues, looking curiously here and there, they are peepers who regard the Negroes as the zoo visitors do the exhibits in their cages; if white men go to the worst parts of Harlem to get drunk—God help them.
The old days are over. Gawkers and the idly curious who don't know their Harlem may gamble their very lives. Therefore, the gospel of this chapter is: If you haven't legitimate business there—
Stay Away From Harlem!
During the last 12 years and growing every year, there has descended on Manhattan Island like a locust plague an influx of Puerto Ricans.
They arrive now frequently at the rate of 2,000 a month and there are today more than 600,000 natives of the island (one authority calculates 710,000) cramped, some 30 in one cold-water flat, mostly in one section of this great island, the whole of which is much smaller than theirs in area.