D-FOB-Freehland 36 INTER-STATE TATTLER The gothic-inspired building on the southwest corner ...
meta name="generator" content="Created with GLUON WebXPress 5.2" />
INTER-STATE TATTLER The gothic-inspired building on the southwest corner of 135th and Adam Clayton Powell, for years a boarded-up shell, has undergone a thorough scrubbing in honor of its new tenants: IHOP and Thurgood Marshall Academy (a middle and high school). Its arched facade has been preserved due to historical significance: For decades, the famous jazz club Smalls' Paradise stood here. Less known is that from 1925 to 1932 the building was also home to the Inter-State Tattler, one of the most fascinating newspapers ever to hit New York streets.
Inter-State Tattler was the Jet of its day, a weekly "pictorial" that specialized in theater, sports, politics, society coverage andmost famouslygossip. According to Chris Albertson's 1972 Bessie Smith biography, "Look out for Snelson" was a common phrase in Harlem during the late 20s. It referred to the efforts of the Tattler's publisher, Floyd Snelson, to go after dirt. Take this tidbit from the "Town Tattle" column (written by "I. TELONYOUE") of March 6, 1925: "When it comes to drawing lines of demarcation, Baltimore girls are quite famous, whether the line pertains to women or men it is all the same. Page Mary Jane Well Martha, you are happy, as Mary has gone away."
The omission of last names was already irrelevant (Harlem in the 20s being such a tight-knit community), but "I. TELONYOUE" gave up even that precaution in his/her column of February 27, 1925:
"[Why] Must Dickie Wells scuffle for the ole herb every night?" and "[Why] Must Johnny Brown follow the white line?"
The paper's frankness went beyond homosexuality and drug use; it was also ahead of its time in addressing racial inequality. In his "Around the Town" column of January 14, 1932, reporter Ted Yates described his experience at the out-of-town opening of a new show, Harlem Scandals: "We didn't like the idea of sitting 'way [sic] upstairs but the usher informed us that it was a paramount policy. That is, the policy of the Paramount Theatre, Newark, N.J.for sepians."
When it turned to national issues, the paper, which was also distributed in the South, could be strikingly perceptive. An editorial appearing in the March 20, 1925 issue criticized the years-long attempt to erect a Confederate memorial in Stone Mountain, GA: "[T]he devotion with which they cling to 'the lost cause' will always prevent [the South] from becoming nationalized We had no love for the Southern Confederacy when it was alive and we have none for it now that it is dead. Being dead, it should be decently buried."
History has given credence to the Tattler's point about the South clinging to "the lost cause": The Confederate monument was finally completedin 1972. o