In 1880, I turned my attention to Harlem where nearly all the brownstone and brick houses that had been built in the seventies were in the hands of mortgagees, and where the owners of the old frame houses were thoroughly discouraged and could see little hope in the future. Nearly all of Harlem was for sale. I bought plots of three to five adjoining houses at a time, and quickly resold them at small profits. This activity stopped when President Garfield was shot. The suspense during his illness caused a complete cessation, so I, too, rested until October, 1885. I was then worth only $27,000, and as a large part of that was represented by my interest in the Celluloid Piano Key Company, I had but little working capital. My brother-in-law, William J. Ehrich, agreed to operate with me in real estate, he to contribute $40,000 capital and I to do the work. All profits, after paying him interest, were to be divided equally. At that time my mother lived on One Hundred and Twenty-sixth Street in a house I had purchased, a 17-foot brown-stone house with a pleasant yard which she personally transformed into a delightful little garden. In my frequent visits there I became impressed with the prospective importance of One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street. It was the first broad street north of Forty-second that ran from river to river, and I foresaw its future value, particularly of the block between Seventh and Eighth avenues. It seemed to me like the neck of a funnel into which the entire neighbouring population was daily poured to reach the Elevated station at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street and Eighth Avenue. Ehrich and I concluded to secure some property on this block. The first that we obtained was the lease of seven lots for which, at the beginning, we paid the annual rental of $4,000. We still own this leasehold, and the gross rental now is $44,500. We subsequently purchased the adjoining plot of five lots, improved the same, and were delighted when we were enabled to sell it to the Knickerbocker Real Estate Company among whose stockholders were Solomon Loeb, of Kuhn, Loeb & Company; Henry O. Havemeyer, John D. Crimmins, and John E. Parsons, at a price which netted us a profit of $100,000. This was in 1899. Subsequently, I repurchased this plot jointly with my partners, Lachman & Goldsmith, for $250,000, and within two years thereafter sold it to Mr. Louis M. Blumstein for $425,000. This was the most profitable, but not the only transaction we had on this street. With various associates I owned, at one time or another, one half of the property on the south side of that block, so that I made good use of my early judgment as to its future value. Our operations on One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street were not confined to that block alone. We had also purchased various plots between Fifth and Sixth avenues and, with a friend, I had collected a plot of eight lots between Lexington and Fourth avenues. This made Oscar Hammerstein one of my customers.