One evening I happened to be sitting in one of the private reception rooms of the Harlem Y. W. C. A. There was a great commotion in the adjoining room, a great coming in and going out. It seemed as if every girl in the Y. W. C. A. was trying to crowd into that little room. Finally the young lady I was visiting went to investigate. She was gone for about fifteen minutes. When she returned she had on a new hat, which she informed me, between laughs at the bewildered expressions on my face, she had obtained from a “hot man” for two dollars. This same hat, according to her, would cost $10 downtown and $12 on 125th Street.
I placed my chair near the door and watched the procession of young women entering the room bareheaded and leaving with new head gear. Finally the supply was exhausted and a perspiring little Jew emerged, his pockets filled with dollar bills. I discovered later that this man was a store keeper in Harlem, who had picked up a large supply of spring hats at a bankruptcy sale and stating that it was “hot stuff” had proceeded to sell it not openly in his store, but sub rosa in private places.
There is no limit to the “hot man’s” supply or the variety of goods he offers. One can, if one knows the ropes, buy any article of wearing apparel from him. And in addition to the professional “hot man” there are always the shoplifters and thieving store clerks, who accost you secretly and eagerly place at your disposal what they have stolen.
Hence low salaried folk in Harlem dress well, and Seventh Avenue is a fashionable street crowded with expensively dressed people, parading around in all their “hot” finery. A cartoonist in a recent issue of one of the Negro monthlies depicted the following scene: A number of people at a fashionable dance are informed that the police have come to search for some individual known to be wearing stolen goods. Immediately there is a confused and hurried exodus from the room because all of the dancers present were arrayed in “hot stuff.”
This, of course, is exaggerated. There are thousands of well-dressed people in Harlem able to be well-dressed not because they patronize a “hot man,” but because their incomes make it possible. But there are a mass of people, working for small wages, who make good use of the “hot man,” for not only can they buy their much wanted finery cheaply, but, thanks to the obliging “hot man,” can buy it on the installment plan. Under the circumstances, who cares about breaking the law?
VII. THE NEGRO AND THE CHURCH
The Negro in America has always supported his religious institutions even though he would not support his schools or business enterprises. Migrating to the city has not lessened his devotion to religious institutions even if it has lessened his religious fervor. He still donates a portion of his income to the church, and the church is still a major social center in all Negro communities.
Harlem is no exception to this rule, and its finest buildings are the churches. Their attendance is large, their prosperity amazing. Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal, Catholic, Presbyterian, Seventh Day Adventist, Spiritualist, Holy Roller and Abyssinian Jew—every sect and every creed with all their innumerable subdivisions can be found in Harlem.
The Baptist and the Methodist churches have the largest membership. There are more than a score of each. St. Phillips Episcopal Church is the most wealthy as well as one of the oldest Negro churches in New York. It owns a great deal of Harlem real estate and was one of the leading factors in urging Negroes to buy property in Harlem.
There are few new church buildings, most of them having been bought from white congregations when the Negro invaded Harlem and claimed it for his own. The most notable of the second-hand churches are the Metropolitan Baptist Church at 128th Street and Seventh Avenue, Salem M. E. Church at 129th Street and Seventh Avenue, and Mt. Olive Baptist Church at 120th Street and Lenox Avenue. This latter church has had a varied career. It was first a synagogue, then it was sold to white Seventh Day Adventists and finally fell into its present hands.