Wikipedia:Peer review/Philip A. Payton, Jr./archive1

Philip A. Payton, Jr.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because it is a long time (years!) Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias requested article which I feel it has the potential to make it to GA, and eventually FA. (It was a successful DYK a few days ago.) It's the biography of "the Father of Harlem", a real estate entrepreneur generally considered responsible for making Harlem black; as part of WP:CSB I am working to make such under-represented subjects more visible in Wikipedia. Especially say whether I should add more information about the times, such as the history of Harlem before and after Payton personally.

Thanks, GRuban (talk) 13:27, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

General:

• I did a general copyedit. Feel free to revert anything you don't like.
• I added {{Infobox Person}} since I didn't see another one that fit. Check the parameters to see if any more can be filled in. Also, in the absence of a definite death date, I had to use {{death year and age}}. {{death date and age}} would be better if you have the exact date of death.
• Not sure if the MOS gives any guidance as to the use of "black" vs. "African-American". Both are used in this article; I suspect it's preferable to use one or the other consistently. I ran into this with "Indian" vs. "Native American" in several articles.
• The section titles are a little odd. The second one is "Real estate", but the next one is "The Afro-American Realty Company", which is still real estate. Should that be a subheading? The next heading is "After the Afro-American", which kind of implies that the Afro-American Realty thing was the highlight of his career. That doesn't seem to me to be the case, considering that company failed and got him sued. Consider some alternative heading-subheading titles.

• I think it was the highlight of his career, not as much in the sense of being the most successful point of his career, but the most notable point of his career. It was the first real estate company targeting blacks, and possibly the first black-owned real estate company, certainly in Harlem, probably in the northeast. Payton broke new ground with this company. That's why Nail & Parker was important, because it was an example of the black RE companies which came after him. N&P was even more successful, being one of the most successful RE companies in New York City, even when compared to white-owned companies, but it wasn't the first. Sort of like Barry Bonds won MVP 7 times, but by that time it wasn't such a big deal, while Jackie Robinson only won it once, but that he did it first made it more important. But I see I need to say that explicitly, which means I need to find sources that say that explicitly.

Lead:

• Obviously, this will need to be longer, even to acheive GA. See James Fisher Robinson for the shortest lead I've ever gotten past GAC.
• The title "Father of Harlem" is not cited in the lead, and the title cited in the text is "the father of his Negro community." Those are very different. They either need to be consistent or, if both were used, cite both and make sure both are mentioned in the body of the article. The lead should not introduce information not contained in the body.
• You might also include in the lead that the properties he rented to African-Americans were previously rented by whites. Here and in the body, it could be helpful to provide a little context about why this was a big deal, although you obviously want to avoid going too far off-topic.

Early life:

• Do we have both his parents' names (obviously, the father was Philip A. Payton, Sr.)? If so, the second sentence would read more smoothly with them included, even if they aren't notable in their own right.
• Payton was the second child. Do we know whether the sister or one of the brothers was older? Again, it might help refine that second sentence or may even spawn another sentence.
• "His father insisted that the children learn a trade, and so trained him in the family profession twice a week after school." This sentence needs some work, particularly the part I've bolded. Also, you might want to forgo the phrase "the family profession" and just say he trained him to be a barber. How did he train him twice a week? Without knowing, the fact that it was twice a week seems a little meaningless.
• "a full-fledged barber" As opposed to what? Can you be a partial barber? Did he get some kind of barber's license? Was this an unusually young age at which to become a barber?
• Do we know what kind of injury Payton sustained in football? It might help us understand what kinds of effects lingered for a year afterward.
• Why didn't Payton go back to college after he healed from injury? If both brothers went to Yale, money doesn't seem to have been an issue, and it seems like education was important to the family. Why didn't the brothers go to Livingstone College, since their father was a friend of the college's founder? Do we know?
• What was the name of the normal school when Payton's sister attended there?
• "when he decided to make more of himself" This is colloquial. Did he want more money? An upgrade in prestige? What provoked the change in attitude? Why New York City?
• "worked as a department store picture and weighing machine attendant" What is a "picture and weighing machine attendant"? Or is it two separate jobs? If so, I don't know what either one of them do. Are there relevant wiki-links that can help?
• Why are his salaries important to note?
• Did he work all these jobs simultaneously or in succession? How long did he do each one? If he left one for the other, do we know why he decided to change jobs?
• "he got the idea of going into the real estate business on his own" Maybe "he got the idea of starting his own real estate business". Did some specific event trigger the idea?

Real estate:

• "Payton and a partner" Who is the partner? We assume that his last name was Brown; do we know his full name? How did he know Payton? Was he also African-American?
• "In June 1901, Payton married." This really seems misplaced as it is. Maybe consider renaming the first section "Early life and family" and placing it there instead, although it will be slightly out of chronological order that way. Also, we don't have the wife's name until much later in the article. It needs to be here, complete with her maiden name, if available. How did they meet? Did they have any children?
• "The business was unsuccessful" How? Why? Why did Payton continue the business if it was so unsuccessful?
• "the spring of 1901" The MOS discourages this kind of dating, since spring in the Northern Hemisphere is a different time of the year than it is in the Southern Hemisphere. If we can get at least a month, it would be best, but in the absence of this, if we could say "early 1901" or "mid-1901" with some certainty, that would be an improvement.
• "At the low point" This is a little editorial. Find a way to avoid it.
• "Paytons were evicted from an apartment house he had been managing, for being unable to pay their rent." The rest of the article seems to suggest that evictions were pretty arbitrary at this point in history, but when I hear eviction, I immediately think of not being able to pay the rent, so that phrase may be unnecessary. Alternatively, you might reword this part so that the death of the pets and the eviction are separate thoughts. They seem to be at vastly different places on the importance and severity scales. Where did they go after the eviction?
• "I knew that if I made one good sale I could make enough to keep me going for a year. I came so near making a good sale so many times that I knew I was bound to hit it before long." I like this quote, but consider making it a breakout quote, with {{Quote box}} or something like it. As it is, it kind of interrupts the narrative.
• "Soon after this, though, business improved." Why? If this is to be attributed to one of the reasons in the next couple of paragraphs, just delete it, get on to those paragraphs, and move the next sentence after the discussion of how he got his big break.
• Speaking of that, "first break" is a little colloquial. You might change it to discuss the "event that changed his financial fortunes" or that "spawned his future success" or something like that.
• "Yet other sources" Do we know who those sources are? Can we at least list one or two of them?

The Afro-American Realty Company:

• "with the help of other affluent blacks" Who were these other affluent blacks? Were that affiliated with Payton before, or were they drawn in by his ads and prospectus?
• "in the heart of Harlem". Colloquial.
• "Eventually, Hudson sold the original three buildings back to the Afro-American at a large loss." Why? What turned the tides in favor of Payton's company?
• The second paragraph in this section is far and away the most interesting part of the article to me. I think it is ripe for expansion with more details, as I expect it was heavily-covered in the local press.
• "in Harlem neighborhoods never until then "invaded" by black tenants" I realize "invaded is probably a quote from some source and included to reflect the attitudes of the times, but I think it would be better to use a more neutral term, foregoing the quote and allowing you to simplify the "never until then" construct, which is awkward itself.
• "occasioning near panic among neighboring owners." Statements like this are why some measure of context is required. Non-Americans may not understand why the reaction was so severe.
• "the prospectus was fraudulent" Was the overstatment of the company's initial worth the only basis for this claim? Was this the sole reason for Payton's conviction? Are details of the trial available, including Payton's proffered defense?
• "the courts ruled in favor of the plaintiffs for investments, damages, and legal costs" I assume this refers to the award made to the plaintiffs. I understand damages and legal costs, but not investments in this context. Does this mean they were compensated for the difference between their actual return on investment and what they thought they should have received or what? Do we know what the total monetary worth of the award was? Were there additional consequences for Payton such as jail time or probation?

After the Afro-American:

• "Payton continued to buy and manage Harlem real estate for black tenants" In spite of his conviction? Was he not personally tarnished? If so, why did people keep doing business with him?
• "founding the Philip A. Payton Jr. Company" When?
• "known for its PAP logo" Why was the logo notable? Do we have an image of it? If the company was started pre-1923, the logo should be public domain.
• "He even ventured outside the city to Long Island." I know what this means, but as written, it might just mean he took a trip to Long Island. You need to make it clearer that he began dealing in real estate in Long Island. How did he get into that? Was he as successful there? Did he engage in the same kinds of practices to promote black residency there? If so, did it provoke the same reaction as it did in Harlem?
• "John E. Nail and Henry G. Parker, former directors of the Afro-American Realty Company, founded their own company, Nail & Parker Real Estate, in 1907; it eventually became one of the most successful in New York." This seems tangetially relevant to Payton, at best. Unless there is some more direct connection to him, like this firm becoming one of his competitors, I'd suggest leaving it out.
• "By 1914, The Outlook wrote that three-quarters of the black population of New York City, including all blacks of prominence, lived in Harlem". Compared to what? If we knew some previous statistics on where NYC's black population lived before, or how quickly the population shift occurred, this would be more meaningful.
• "The entire street was white in 1900" Reword to make it clear that the street's residents were white, not the street itself. I know it should be obvious, but it'll read better with this change.
• "Payton closed his largest deal in July 1917, a sale of 6 apartment houses for over $1 million, the largest sale of housing for blacks to that time." This kind of comes out of nowhere. What circumstances led up to the deal? Who did he sell the houses to? Were there race-based stipulations on the deal? How much bigger was it, in terms of monetary worth, than a typical real estate transaction?
• "The black population in Harlem had reached 50,000 or even 70,000." This seems to me to be more related to the previous paragraph, unless the big real estate deal brought it about in some way. Also, who provided those statistics? Why is there uncertainty? A difference of 20,000 people is huge when you are only talking about 50,000 to 70,000 people total.
• "Payton died of liver cancer a month later" Do we know if this was expected? Had he been suffering with cancer for a while, or was it a sudden thing?
• "His younger brother Edward S. Payton, who had served as vice-president of Afro-American Realty, had passed even earlier, in 1912, at the age of 30." Again, this seems pretty tangential. Even if it's meant to show that folks in his family died young, this one data point isn't enough to demonstrate that.
• Did his wife outlive him? Did she take over the business? Did it go to his children (if they had children)? The company only operated for five years after his death. Given that it seemed to be doing pretty well just prior to his death, was it mismanaged by its new leadership?
• Is anything named after Payton? If he is considered "the Father of Harlem" and was involved heavily in real estate, surely they named a street, a building, a park, or something after the guy. Maybe his tactics in evicting white tenants were so unpopular that attempts to honor him were resisted; do we know?

Overall, this is an interesting article, and I think it has great potential to be a GA soon. Many of the questions I've asked may not be answerable in the short term without significant additional research, but the details will need to be beefed up considerably for it to reach FA, assuming there are extant sources that will facilitate that. I'll watch this page for a few days to see if you need any follow-up from me. I enjoyed doing this review, but the amount of time it takes reminded me why I don't do many of them! Acdixon (talk · contribs · count) 17:36, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you so much! Those are excellent comments, I'll have to do research to answer many of them, even most; you did the minor copyedits yourself. Tell you what - if you want, you don't have to watch this page, and I'll drop a note on your talk page when I've done as many as I can do, or otherwise need your help. Very appreciated. --GRuban (talk) 18:27, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

That'll work. Just drop me a {{tb}} on my talk page if you need me to respond to anything. Good luck at GAC. Takes forever to get a review these days. Acdixon (talk · contribs · count) 18:38, 17 October 2011 (UTC)