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Harlem in Disorder: A Spatial History of How Racial Violence Changed in 1935

"106 Shop Owners Ask $116,000 Riot Losses," New York Amsterdam News, July 27, 1935, 1.

In the New York Amsterdam News

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Cases in the civil courts (106) At least one hundred and six claims seeking damages from the city were filed, with sixty-five more suits rejected because they were filed after the three-month window allowed by the statute. Those numbers were consistently reported by multiple newspapers in stories in July, 1935, but appear to have come from Barney Rosenstein, an attorney representing many of those plaintiffs, rather than an official source. The General Municipal Law required claims be filed within three months of the damage, so no additional cases could have been filed after that date. Nonetheless, a higher total, 160 cases, was reported in October, as only a proportion of the total, only those in the Municipal Court, which handled smaller claims. Only a handful of newspapers published that number. The New York Herald Tribune attributed that information to the corporation counsel, an official source, but no other story provided a source. The only indication of how many cases were in the other civil court, the Supreme Court, came in stories about the first trial in that court in March 1936. However, the number came not from an official source but again from Rosenstein, who mentioned fifteen "similar" cases. That number likely only represented cases that involved plaintiffs he represented. As the total of 106 cases was the most widely and consistently reported, it was used as a baseline in this study.

Only twenty-seven businesses are identified in reports of the litigation. None of those businesses had Black owners, and there was no evidence that Black business-owners filed damage claims. All but two of those business were represented by Barney Rosenstein. While several newspapers reported that he represented around half of the 106 cases reported in July, 1935, it is not clear how representative these plaintiffs are of those who filed claims. All but four of the businesses were located on Lenox Avenue, or just off the avenue, in the blocks from 125th Street to 130th Street. Several of those businesses were neighbors: Jacob Saloway, Anthony Avitable, and Manny Zipp at 381 and 383 Lenox Avenue; Jack Stern, Sam Apuzzo, and Michael D'Agostino at 348 Lenox Avenue; Irving Guberman and Samuel Mestetzky at 60 West 129th Street; and Michael D'Agostino and Irving Stekin at 361 and 363 Lenox Avenue. In addition, at least as recently as 1930, four of the business owners, Michael D'Agostino, William Gindin, Jacob Saloway, and Irving Stekin, had lived in 1930 in the apartments above 363 Lenox Avenue, a building anomalous in this area of Harlem in being home to only white residents. Barney Rosenstein represented all those men. Both the business owners not represented by Rosenstein had stores further north on Lenox Avenue, above West 131st Street. There is no evidence of whether their attorneys represented other business owners who filed claims; the New York Herald Tribune claimed that there were other lawyers like Rosenstein with multiple clients, a situation also seen in the aftermath of the racial disorder in Chicago in 1919.

Six insurance companies joined in suits against the city. Royal Insurance was identified as a co-defendant in the trial of William Feinstein's claim in the Municipal Court. It took a position at odds with the city in arguing that a riot had occurred, and thus the company had no liability as their policies excluded that situation. Approximately two-thirds of Harlem’s businesses had insurance according to a widely reported survey of forty-seven companies who paid out $147,315 to replace 697 glass windows broken in 300 stores. But insurance was not available throughout Harlem. One plaintiff, Estelle Cohen, complained to Mayor LaGuardia that she had no way of making up her loss of at least $800 as “we do not carry burglary insurance on account of not being able to get it up in that section,” just south of 132nd Street.

The total of the damage claims filed against the city was reported as $116,000 in July, 1935. Stories in the Daily News, New York World-Telegram, and the New York Amsterdam News, Chicago Defender, and Pittsburgh Courier added that the claims ranged from $2.65 to more than $14,000. The first twenty claims announced in April by Barney Rubenstein made up just under $38,000 of the total, and ranged from $14,125 to $47.40, with a median claim of $733. Stories about the first trial to settle a claim reported a total of $1 million in claims, which some newspapers attributed to the judge and which a small number quoted Mayor La Guardia as saying. No sources noted or explained the jump in the total from what was reported in July. (The New York Herald Tribune had included an estimate of a "Million" in the headline of an early story on the disorder, but other newspaper stories in the immediate aftermath of the disorder had offered lower estimates: for example, around $500,000 according to the Afro-American, "more than $400,000" according to the Associated Press, and "more than $350,000" according to the Pittsburgh Courier. Most newspapers simply reported extensive property damage.) The claims that went to trial in the Municipal Court were for $627.40 and $980.13, and in the Supreme Court, $20,000. The type of business was identified for only sixteen of the twenty-seven claims. Nine of those business involved food and drink, five business involved clothing, and two businesses involved other goods The missing information, together with the small number of identified business, mean little weight can be given to that distribution, but it was in line with the targets of looting during the disorder. In other words, there is no evidence that the owners of particular types of businesses filed claims more often than others.

At least initially, the city's lawyer, the corporation counsel, pursued a strategy of denying all the claims. As a result, the claims had to be resolved in the city's civil courts, the Municipal Court, the venue for smaller claims, and the Supreme Court, the venue for larger claims. Only three trials were reported in the press, two in the Municipal Court in September and October 1935, and one in the Supreme Court in March 1936. The interval between the deadline for filing claims in June and the legal proceedings was likely the result of the full calendar of the courts noted by the New York World-Telegram. Newspaper stories referred to all three trials as test cases, although the New York Times reported that the city's lawyers denied that and insisted they would try all the claims individually on their merits. The cases of William Feinstein's liquor store and Anna Rosenberg's notion store tried in the Municipal Court appear typical of the claims filed after the disorder, other than the fire set in Rosenberg's store. Only two other stores were damaged by fire during the disorder. They were the only two plaintiffs identified in the press not represented by Barney Rosenstein. Charles Garfinkel represented William Feinstein. Anna Rosenberg's attorney was not identified.

The city's liability for damages resulting from a riot, while seemingly not well known, at least among reporters, was clearly established by state law and by judicial decisions that interpreted that law broadly. The legal basis for the claims was a statute enacted in 1855. Section 71 of the General Municipal Law read, “A city or county shall be liable to a person whose property is destroyed or injured therein by a mob or riot for the damages sustained thereby” provided that person did not contribute to the damage, had used all reasonable diligence to prevent damage, notified the authorities of the threat to their property, and brought the action within three months. The manager of Feinstein's store and the owner of a business near Rosenberg's closed store described crowds on the street breaking windows, looting stores, and setting fire despite the presence of police. Rosenstein's clients, based on their testimony to the comptroller before their trials, more explicitly criticized police for providing insufficient protection for their stores, and refusing direct appeals for help. Such failures were not necessary to obtaining damages; they did, however, establish that the business owners and their staff had not contributed to the damage and that the authorities were aware of the riot. This evidence effectively left the city with only one defense, that the events in Harlem had not been a riot. That was the main claim of a motion that the corporation counsel filed after the jury ruled in favor of William Feinstein and awarded him damages. The judge in that trial, Benjamin Shalleck, reserved judgement on that motion so he could research the law; the judge in Rosenberg's trial simply dismissed the city's motion after that jury also ruled in the plaintiff's favor. Shalleck confirmed that position when he published his opinion two weeks later. In the Supreme Court a month later, the corporation counsel advanced a specific definition of a riot that he contended events in Harlem did not fit, and called three senior police officers to give testimony in support of that position. Again, the jury was not persuaded and awarded damages to the seven plaintiffs whose cases Rosenstein presented.

While the city lost all three cases, the damages the jury awarded in the two Municipal Court cases were significantly larger than those later awarded by their counterparts in the Supreme Court. Feinstein's award was $450, 70% of his claim of $627.40. Rosenberg's award was $804, 82% of her insurance company's appraisal of her losses, $980.13. The seven plaintiffs in the Supreme Court collectively received $1,200, only 6% of their $20,000 of claims. That dramatic drop in the awards was not remarked upon or explained in the press, but it could explain the lack of subsequent trials. Awards of that scale could have encouraged the city to settle the other cases.

Events
Claims for damages examined by the Comptroller, July 23 (8) At the end of July, the Daily News, New York Post, New York World-Telegram, New York Sun, New York Evening Journal, and the Black newspapers the New York Amsterdam News, Chicago Defender, and Pittsburgh Courier published stories about claims for damages filed after the disorder. Barney Rosenstein, the white attorney representing about half of the business owners who filed claims, prompted those stories by releasing the testimony that at least seven of his clients gave when they were examined by the comptroller, the first step in the legal process, according to the New York Post. The New York Evening Journal reported simply that the testimony was "made public," and did not mention Rosenstein. (The lawyer represented unions and later worked for the legal arm of the Communist Party, the International Labor Defense, frequent targets of the Hearst press, which may have led the newspaper's editors to omit him. The Daily News and Pittsburgh Courier stories were the only other accounts that omitted mention of Rosenstein.) The other stories did not identify the source of their information.

All the stories reported that 106 claims had been filed for damages totaling $116,000. The Daily News, New York World-Telegram, and the New York Amsterdam News, Chicago Defender, and Pittsburgh Courier added the detail that the sums claimed ranged from $2.65 to $14,000. An additional sixty-five claims had been rejected as they had been filed more than the thirty days after the disorder, the period allowed in section 71 of the General Municipal Law, according to the New York World-Telegram and the New York Amsterdam News. Only the Daily News, New York World-Telegram, Chicago Defender, and Pittsburgh Courier identified six insurance companies as among the plaintiffs, seeking to recover what they had paid to the business owners with policies covering their broken windows — reported earlier as $147,315. The New York World-Telegram, New York Sun, and New York Amsterdam News stories described the city's response, filing a "general denial" of all the claims that meant they would be resolved in court. The claim published in the New York World-Telegram that the full calendar of the court would delay trials until the next year proved accurate only for the Supreme Court: two cases were tried in the Municipal Court, in September and November.

The claims filed by Rosenstein asserted that the police department provided "insufficient protection" to the stores and that the police on the scene were "inefficient in handling the mob," phrases quoted in both the New York Sun and the New York World-Telegram, and paraphrased in the New York Amsterdam News, Chicago Defender, and Pittsburgh Courier. Rather than quoting from the claims, the New York Post story described them as charging "police laxity" and used them as the basis for taunting the city's police: "Where were those tough, hard-boiled cops when a riot broke out in Harlem, March 19? Why did they forget then that swaggering aggressiveness which pickets and soapboxers know so well?" By contrast, taking the other side in the ongoing tension between Mayor La Guardia and the police department, the New York Sun blamed the Mayor's "kid-glove methods" for the failed police response: "While scenes of terror rocked the Negro section during most of the late afternoon and night, Mayor La Guardia persisted in his attitude that things would come out alright, that the police had the situation in hand. His attitude, it was apparent, was responsible for the comparative gentleness with which the situation was handled by the cops." (The Daily News made no mention of the charges against the police, reporting only that the suits "claimed redress as taxpayers from the municipal corporations.")

With the exception of the Daily News, Chicago Defender, and Pittsburgh Courier, the stories quoted testimony from seven business owners. Only Harry Piskin was mentioned in all those stories, in part because he claimed the largest sum for damages, but also because he recounted being refused help by police on three occasions. George Chronis, Manny Zipp, Anthony Avitable, and Irving Stekin each featured in three stories, Benjamin Zelvin in two stories, and Harry Levinson in only one story. The New York World-Telegram provided the most testimony, from six business owners (Avitable, Piskin, Chronis, Zipp, Zelvin, Stekin), with five quoted in the New York Sun (Piskin, Levinson, Stekin, Avitable, Zipp) and New York Post (Chronis, Stekin, Zipp, Avitable, Piskin), and two in the New York Amsterdam News (Piskin and Chronis) and New York Evening Journal (Piskin and Zelvin).

Piskin, Avitable, and Levinson had appeared on the list of twenty filing claims released in April, indicating that group was likely represented by Rosenstein. Chronis, Zipp, Stekin, and Zelvin were among those for whom Rosenstein later filed claims. In all, he represented "more than half" the 106 plaintiffs, according to the New York World-Telegram and Chicago Defender or "about half" according to the New York Post and New York Sun or "many plaintiffs" according to the New York Amsterdam News. A similar pattern of a single law firm filing multiple claims was apparent after the 1919 Chicago riot.

The claims for damages created records of events in the disorder missing from newspaper stories and police and criminal court records. Police made arrests only for looting of Benjamin Zelvin's jewelry store; none of the other looted businesses identified in the press at this time appeared in any other sources.
Before civil court, July 23 On July 23, Barney Rosenstein, one of the attorneys representing business owners, made public the testimony several of his clients had given when questioned by the comptroller. By that time, the three-month deadline set in the statute for filing claims for damages resulting from a riot had passed. Just how many claims had been filed is uncertain. A total of one hundred and six claims was reported by the press at this time, with an additional sixty-five claims rejected as submitted too late. Later newspaper stories would refer to a total of 160 claims for small sums and at least twenty-two claims for larger sums. No official source provided a total number of claims. If the higher numbers were accurate, claims were filed for at least one-third of the estimated 450 businesses damaged during the disorder.

Not only business owners had filed claims against the city. So too did at least six of the insurance companies with whom Harlem's businesses had policies. By this time, claims on those policies had resulted in payments $147,315 to replace 697 glass windows broken in 300 stores, according to a widely reported survey. Business owners had lost merchandise as well as windows, so insurance companies also faced additional, larger claims. However, those policyholders faced almost certain disappointment. Their policies excluded losses suffered as a result of riots. In fact, it was such exclusions that had contributed to the enactment of statutes like Section 71 of New York's General Municipal Law to provide property owners with compensation in those circumstances. The insurance companies who filed claims sought to have the city reimburse them for payments they had made for windows. They would also have been aware that they needed to act to ensure that city's response to the claims did not shift liability back to them.

City officials had decided on their response to the claims by this time: a "general denial," as stories in the New York World-Telegram, New York Sun, and New York Amsterdam News put it. As a result, the claims would be decided by juries in the city's civil courts, the Municipal Court, in the case of smaller claims, and the Supreme Court, in the case of larger claims. A blanket denial clearly relied on the law and involved the city's lawyers, not individual assessments of the sums claimed made by the comptroller. That did not mean that the value of the claims had no bearing on the city's position. The total reported at this time would not have been overly burdensome for the city: $116,000, with individual claims that ranged from $2.65 to $14,000. The later reports of a larger number of claims, however, referred to a dramatically higher total: $1 million. Liability on that scale could not be managed by disputing claims and negotiating reduced settlements: it needed to be avoided. One defense the city could employ to avoid liability was of particular concern to the companies who had insured Harlem's businesses: that the events of March 19 and 20 had not been a riot. If the city's lawyers were to succeed in persuading a jury to take that view, they would not have simply avoided liability but shifted it to insurance companies whose policies would no longer exclude the damage.

However, the question of whether a riot had occurred was not one that came up when the comptroller questioned the business owners represented by Rosenstein. What attracted the attention of the journalists were the business owners' testimony that police had either not made an effort to protect their premises or had been unable to handle the crowds when they did. Henry Piskin tried three times to get police to protect his laundry from being bombarded by rocks and looted. A police officer a block away at the intersection of West 125th Street and Lenox Avenue told him, "Report it--I can't leave my post," according to the New York Post. When he did report it at the 28th Precinct station on West 123rd Street, the response was, "Oh we know all about it." When Piskin complained about not receiving help, a police officer answered, "My life is more important to me than your business is to you." When Anthony Avitable rushed to Harlem on learning of the disorder, and saw crowds breaking into his store and no police nearby, he drove on to the 28th Precinct station to report the looting, the New York Post reported. Officers there said they "couldn't do anything for me," and told him to phone police headquarters. The officer who answered assured Avitable that, "I'll have men there in two minutes." They did not arrive for forty-five minutes. Irving Stekin waited two hours for police to respond after he reported that a stone had been thrown through his store window. The two patrolmen who did arrive "couldn't do anything. The mob was too big for them," according to a report in the New York World-Telegram. Benjamin Zelvin waited half an hour after calling the 28th Precinct for police to arrive to protect his jewelry store. However, that protection proved fleeting. Some time after Zelvin left for home, the officers also left, so police "didn't know anything about" the subsequent looting, the New York World-Telegram reported. Calls to police by staff in George Chronis' restaurant brought no response, leading the two Black staff to leave and the white staff member to lock himself in a washroom while the restaurant was attacked.

That testimony prompted very different reactions in the New York Post and in the New York Sun. The New York Post story used it to taunt the police: "Where were those tough, hard-boiled cops when a riot broke out in Harlem, March 19? Why did they forget then that swaggering aggressiveness which pickets and soapboxers know so well?" By contrast, the New York Sun took the other side in the ongoing tension between Mayor La Guardia and the police department, blaming the Mayor's "kid-glove methods" for the failed police response: "While scenes of terror rocked the Negro section during most of the late afternoon and night, Mayor La Guardia persisted in his attitude that things would come out alright, that the police had the situation in hand. His attitude, it was apparent, was responsible for the comparative gentleness with which the situation was handled by the cops." The Uptown Chamber of Commerce, an organization made up of white owners of larger businesses, had in the immediate aftermath of the disorder leveled a similar charge that police were "pampering" radicals, calling on the mayor to tell the police "that they will be backed to the limit as long as they exercise restraint and display good judgment" in order to dispel the impression that "the police are under wraps when dealing with rioters." At the same time they were condescendingly dismissed the complaints of the "small merchants of Harlem" that the police lacked the ability to control the riot. The Harlem Merchants Association had claimed police were "inadequately equipped to handle the situation" in a telegram sent the day after the disorder appealing to the Governor of New York to send troops.

It would be some time before the business owners would find out how jurors rather than journalists reacted to their testimony. Civil proceedings to resolve their claims threatened to take even more time than the criminal process, in which only two cases resulting from the disorder remained outstanding by this time. The full calendars of the civil courts would likely delay trials until the next year, according to the New York World-Telegram.
Harry Piskin's laundry looted Harry Piskin's laundry at 100 West 126th Street, just off Lenox Avenue, was first the target of stones, according to testimony he gave to the city comptroller reported by the New York Sun. The intersection of West 125th Street and Lenox Avenue, and the blocks of the avenue to the north were the site of multiple acts of violence and attacks on businesses during the disorder, but there is no clear evidence of when crowds would have first arrived at the laundry other than the report that looting of a store at the intersection started around 10:30 PM. It was likely attacks on the laundry began not long after, around 11:00 PM. The stones were eventually followed by a bullet fired into the laundry's show window, Piskin testified, according to the New York Sun. The story quoted an exchange in which the comptroller asked Piskin if he had heard other pistol shots; he answered "plenty." There are no other mentions of guns being fired in attacks on businesses; shooting was instead associated with police responding to looting. As in other stories about the disorder, shooting signified a greater level of violence than stones being thrown. At issue in this case was the police response: the comptroller's next question in the exchange reported by the New York Sun was, "Did [the police] send protection?" Piskin answered, "they did not."

Instead, after the shot at the window, Piskin testified that "they looted his laundry, broke all of his machinery and drove him out of business." George's Lunch, the neighboring business on the corner of West 126th Street and Lenox Avenue, suffered similarly extensive damage. At some point he sought help. He first found a police officer a block away at the intersection of West 125th Street and Lenox Avenue: "Report it--I can't leave my post," the officer told him, according to the New York Post. He continued across town to the police station on West 123rd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues: "Oh we know all about it," was the response there. Later, a police officer responded to Piskin's complaints about the lack of police protection by telling him, "My life is more important to me than your business is to you," testimony reported in the New York Post and New York World-Telegram. Piskin had joined other white merchants in suing the city for damages, so he had an incentive to emphasize police failures. Nonetheless, the extent of the attacks on businesses and violence in this area, and the small number of arrests, most of which came several hours after crowds first arrived on the avenue, add weight to his complaint. No one arrested for looting was identified as taking goods from the laundry.

The only mention of the damage to Piskin's laundry was in newspaper stories about the claims against the city made by white business owners. Piskin was part of the group of twenty who filed the first claims identified by the New York Sun, New York World-Telegram, New York American, and New York Amsterdam News in April and was mentioned again in stories published by the New York Evening Journal, New York Sun, New York Post, New York World-Telegram, and New York Amsterdam News at the end of July, by which time 106 merchants had filed suits. He appeared as an example in those stories likely because he claimed the largest sum for damages, $14,125 (the next largest claim was from the adjacent business, George's Lunch), well above the median reported claim of $733. The city lost the cases that went to trial to resolve the merchants' claims, so it was likely that Piskin received some compensation. Surprisingly, his was not among the seven claims in the first trial in the Supreme Court in March 1936, which involved others from the group identified in April, all represented by the same attorney, Barney Rosenstein. However, the sums the jury awarded in that trial were only a small proportion of the claims, so any award Piskin received was likely insufficient for him to remain in business. The MCCH business survey taken from June to December 1935 did not record a laundry at 100 West 126th Street. The Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941 did not offer a clear view of what business was operating at that address.
George Chronis' restaurant looted George's Lunch, the lunchroom at 319 Lenox Avenue, on the southwest corner of West 126th Street, owned by George Chronis, was open for business when crowds appeared on the street. The intersection of West 125th Street and Lenox Avenue, and the blocks of the avenue to the north were the site of multiple acts of violence and attacks on businesses during the disorder. Crowds likely first broke windows around 11:00 PM, after a group of men robbed Toby’s Men’s shop on the northwest corner of 125th Street and Lenox Avenue at 10:30 PM and before 11:20 PM, when a patrolman arrived at the shoe store a block to the north to find smashed windows and merchandise missing from the display. Chronis told the city comptroller that the lunchroom was staffed by one white and two Black workers that evening, according to a story in the New York Post. The Black men reacted to the disorder by leaving the restaurant, while the white man called the police station house and then locked himself in a washroom. No police responded to his call. Groups continued to sporadically break windows, take merchandise, and occasionally attack whites they encountered on the streets on the blocks of Lenox Avenue north of 125th Street for the next three hours.

Chronis heard about the disorder and tried to get to his business. However, police prevented him from doing so for several hours, the New York Post reported he told the comptroller. It was 1:00 AM by the time that Chronis got to the restaurant. He found his white staff member still locked in the washroom, and the lunchroom "completely demolished," according to the story in the New York World-Telegram. The business next door, Piskin's laundry, was also destroyed. The only mention of the damage to George's Lunch was in newspaper stories about the claims for damages from the city made by white merchants. Chronis was not part of the group of twenty who brought the first suits, but was mentioned in stories published in the New York Post, New York World-Telegram, and New York Amsterdam News at the end of July about hearings before the city comptroller, by which time 106 merchants had filed suits. He appeared as an example in those stories because of the large damages he sought, $14,000, since, as the New York Sun put it, his business was "completely wiped out by looters." Those damages were also likely why Chronis was one of seven claimants in the first trial in the New York Supreme Court in March 1936, identified in the New York Herald Tribune.

Police did make arrests in the vicinity of George's Lunch around the time that they allowed Chronis access, indicating the presence of officers, although not in sufficient numbers to prevent ongoing attacks on businesses. But by then the damage to the restaurant had been done, and no one was arrested for those attacks. The jury awarded damages to all the claimants in the March 1936 trial, but no newspaper stories mentioned the amount awarded to Chronis. It would have been a small fraction of his claim of $14,000, as the largest reported amount was $550 to Irving Stekin. Even if the award to Chronis was close to what Stekin received, it was a dramatically smaller proportion than awarded to any other plaintiff. Surprisingly, it went unmentioned in the newspaper stories about the trial. It was no surprise then that Chronis appeared not to have reopened his business. It was missing from the MCCH business survey in late 1935 and replaced by another store in the Tax Department photograph from 1939–1941.