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• 1 2020-03-31T20:11:08+00:00 Cases in the civil courts (106) 83 plain 2024-01-28T02:54:37+00:00 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

• 1 2022-12-08T21:33:30+00:00 Claims for damages examined by the Comptroller, July 23 (8) 58 plain 2024-01-29T17:40:42+00:00 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.