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

"2d Damage Suit Lost by City in Harlem Rioting," New York Herald Tribune, October 16, 1935 [clipping].

In the New York Herald Tribune

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Fires (4) Fires broke out in three stores during the disorder, all located on the two blocks of Lenox Avenue between West 130th Street and West 132nd Street. Two of those stores were adjacent, Anna Rosenberg’s notion shop at 429 Lenox Avenue and a hardware store at 431 Lenox Avenue. The third store, Lash's 5 & 10c store, was a block to the south at 400 Lenox Avenue. That area of Lenox Avenue saw extensive looting, attacks on stores, and violence. An additional fire was allegedly set on the roof of 5 West 131st Street, a block to the east in an area that saw few reported events during the disorder.

The fires broke out within a period of around an hour, beginning with the notion and hardware stores after 11:00 PM followed soon after midnight by Lash's store. All three stores were also looted. Only photograph captions in the Daily News linked the fires to looting: "Fire was set by rioters after they looted place" in the case of Lash's store; and a more elaborate account for the image of the other stores: "It is but a step from looting to incendiarism. Here's a fireman tacking a blazing tailor shop at 420 Lexington Ave., fired after it was looted." Looting and damaging a business by setting it on fire were not necessarily as continuous as the caption presented: alleged looters generally took items they needed, such as food and clothing; setting fire to a store offered no similar benefit. Instead fires fitted with breaking windows and other attacks that targeted white-owned businesses.

The New York Evening Journal reported fires in two buildings (it is likely that its story treated the fires in the adjacent stores as a single fire, but as two different businesses were affected, it is treated here as two fires), the New York Herald Tribune and Daily Worker a fire in one building, and the Home News, Daily News, New York Times, and New York World-Telegram referred generally to fires in several stores without offering details. The Black-owned Philadelphia Tribune appeared to have repackaged the New York Evening Journal account, and the Afro-American published photographs of fire-damaged stores not referred to in its stories about the disorder. Other Black newspapers made no reference to fires. Nor did the MCCH report. The roof-top fire was mentioned only in the Home News and the Daily Worker, perhaps because it occurred on the margins of the disorder. Those stories attributed the fires to members of the crowds on the street during the disorder, but only the New York Herald Tribune described how one of the fires started.

Firefighters attended the fires, likely from Fire Engine 59 located at 180 West 137th Street, near the intersection with 7th Avenue. Their efforts to extinguish the fires were captured by press photographers. A Daily News photograph showed smoke coming out of the hardware store window and doors at 431 Lenox Avenue, and firefighters on the scene fighting the fire. One is swinging an axe at the display window, while a second firefighter stands behind him. A third firefighter is just inside the store, his boots visible beneath the smoke. In the original photograph, cropped out of the published version, a hose runs across the photograph to the left, in the direction of Rosenberg's notion store at 429 Lenox Avenue. A photograph of the same scene published in the Home News had that hose running to the left in the foreground and another hose going into the hardware store, and three firefighters in the doorway with their backs to the camera. An ACME agency photograph also published in the Daily News and in the New York Herald Tribune showed flames in the last section of Harry Lash’s 5 & 10c store window on West 130th Street. Firefighters can be seen crouched in front of the window (they were cropped out of the version published in the Daily News). No other people are visible in the photographs, which are focused on the burning stores.

Fighting the fires was not straightforward, according to the New York Herald Tribune, New York Evening Journal, and Afro-American, which described clashes between crowds and police and firefighters. “A gang of thirty-five Negroes” set fire to Lash's 5 & 10c store in the New York Herald Tribune story. A crowd then “tried to prevent a policeman from sounding an alarm. 'Let it burn!' they shouted. When the firemen came, they hindered them, too, bustling about the hydrants and shoving hose lines about. At last the firemen threatened to turn the water on them instead of the fire and they dispersed.” Some of those details also appeared in the New York Evening Journal, but its story collapsed the two fires together: “As detectives and uniformed men closed in on crowds surrounding the burning buildings, they met with resistance. 'Let them burn. Let them burn.' The shout was taken up by hundreds, and it was not until firemen threatened to turn hoselines on the rioting men and women that they dispersed.” An entire block separated the two locations, too far for a single crowd to be involved. Both the number of police and the size of the crowd are larger in the New York Evening Journal story, which repeats the crowd's alleged chant, “Let them burn," giving it more prominence. Where the New York Herald Tribune characterized the crowd as having "hindered" firefighters with actions that seem to involve individuals pressing forward to see the fire getting in their way, the New York Evening Journal characterized the crowd's behavior as "resistance." Those differences and characterizations are in keeping with how that publication sensationalized and exaggerated the actions of Black crowds. The brief photograph caption in the Afro-American mixed elements of the two stories: it followed the New York Herald Tribune in characterizing the crowd as having "hindered" firefighters, but coupled it with the struggle presented by the New York Evening Journal in claiming that "rioters" "fought them away.”

The New York Evening Journal story went on to link the fires to increased police violence, with the decision to fire bullets at crowds being made in response to fires being set: "The police, working under directions of their highest commanders, were under orders to withhold fire unless necessary, but when the two incendiary fires were started, one at 429 Lenox Ave. and the other at Lenox Ave. and 130th St., bullets flew." The Black-owned Philadelphia Tribune repeated that claim as part of its repackaging of the information in the New York Evening Journal. Multiple other reports instead linked police beginning to shoot at crowds rather than in the air to the outbreak of looting rather than to the fires.

Photographs taken the next day showed the damage resulting from the fire. The exteriors of Anna Rosenberg’s notion store and the hardware appeared in an Associated Press photograph and a photograph published in the Daily Mirror. No glass remained in its display window, partially visible in the left side of the photograph, which had been emptied of merchandise. Damage to the exterior wall below the window could be the result of the fire. Inside the store was an L-shaped counter on which a range of different goods are stacked; there may be some damaged items on the ground but neither the ceiling nor the shelves and counter show the fire damage visible in the hardware store to the right. A fire adjuster for Rosenberg’s insurance company, Royal Insurance, put the damage to her store at $980.13, according to the New York Herald Tribune. As the insurance policy did not cover losses from riots, Rosenberg was among the business owners who sued the city to recover their losses. A jury in the Municipal Court awarded Rosenberg $804, confirming the extent of the damage done by the fire.

No such details exist regarding damage to the hardware store, only the images of its exterior and three photographs of its interior, one in the Afro-American mistakenly identified as the notion store, a second also in the Afro-American identified as the hardware store, and the third in the Daily News. All three images featured the table in the center of the store visible in photographs of the exterior, which distinguished it from the notion store, and show damaged merchandise strewn throughout the store, material hanging from the ceiling visible in the foreground that is likely damage produced by the fire, as well as the burned out display window visible in the photograph of the firefighters at work. Burned shelves and merchandise and fire damage to the table in the center of the store were visible on the left of the photograph in the Afro-American that identified the business as a hardware store. A pile of debris in front of the store visible in the Associated Press photograph appeared to be a combination of material from the ceiling and the display windows. The second exterior image showed a white man boarding up the damaged display window.

Fire damage to Lash’s store appeared less extensive, in keeping with the Home News reporter’s assessment that “damage from the fires was not great.” Only one small section at the rear of the store, on West 130th Street furthest from Lenox Avenue, looked to be burned in an Associated Press photograph. However, the rest of the store appeared significantly damaged. Display windows that ran the length of the side of the store on West 130th Street, as well as those facing Lenox Avenue, appeared smashed. In addition to the damage, Lash reported the loss of $1,000 of merchandise. His insurers too refused to pay, he told a Probation Department investigator. He was not among the twenty-five business owners named as suing the city seeking damages for what their insurance did not cover but may have been one of the eighty-nine not named.

The fire on the roof of 5 West 131st Street received less mention in the press with no reference to any damage it did. A Home News reporter explained that fire as “one method by which the mobs stirred up excitement." It was produced, the story claimed, by stacking "great heaps of newspapers on the roofs of buildings," which, "when ignited, led those in the streets to believe spectacular fires were in progress and many fire alarms were sounded.” An eyewitness offered a different explanation that the fire was a distraction, not an incitement, in the story in the Daily Worker: “This was done, I suppose, to draw the attention of the police force and riot squads from Lenox Avenue where they had concentrated their forces and were attacking the Negroes.” False alarms and the sounds of fire engines are mentioned in several newspapers which might indicate that other roof fires were lit, or simply that calls were made to the fire department.

Fire-damaged stores attracted press attention out of proportion with their numbers given that only three of approximately 300 buildings damaged in the disorder caught fire. A mention in the New York World-Telegram highlighted the impact of that emphasis: “The charred interiors of several shops in which fires broke out added to the appearance of a war-ravaged town.” Burned buildings offered a dramatic, ultimately atypical, picture of damage resulting from the disorder. Fires became more prominent in subsequent racial disorders. More were set in Harlem in 1943, but not the dramatic fires given prominence in coverage of the disorder in Watts in 1965. Harlem’s built environment ultimately meant setting fires could harm residents as much, if not more, than white business owners. Beyond West 125th Street, multiple floors of apartments sat above businesses. Fatalities reported in four fires in Harlem at other times in 1935 made clear the risks of setting fires in stores in such buildings.
Events
Hardware store looted and set on fire Sometime during the disorder, the hardware store at 431 Lenox Avenue was looted. Between 11:00 PM and midnight the store was set on fire. So too was the business to the store's left, Anna Rosenberg's notion store at 429 Lenox Avenue. Herbert Canter, who owned the pharmacy several stores to the south, at 419 Lenox Avenue on the corner of West 131st Street, arrived at 11:00 PM to try and protect his business. He remained until 5:00 AM, and testified in the Municipal Court in the trial of Rosenberg's suit for damages from the city that he saw the fire but not who started it. What Canter did report seeing was "a "mob" carrying bricks, stones, and bottles, as well as canned goods, march down the street shouting, "Down with the whites! Let's get what we can," and hurling missiles through store windows. A block north, David Schmoockler, the manager of William Feinstein’s liquor store at 452 Lenox Avenue, also saw a crowd of around thirty people. Between 11:00 PM and midnight he watched as they "created disturbances, hurled various missiles, broke store windows, set fire to some stores, pillaged others, and in general damaged property of various merchants in the locality," according to Justice Shalleck's summary of his testimony in the Municipal Court. A similar narrative of how the store was looted and set on fire was provided in the caption to a photograph from the International News Photo agency taken the next day: "A store at 431 Lenox Avenue was put to the torch after rioters had smashed its windows with missiles and had helped themselves to stock in the windows and the store itself. The interior of the shop was a shambles after rioters had passed, and firemen had extinguished the fire." The photograph was not taken at the time of those events, so the source or reliability of the narrative was uncertain. Another fire reported during the disorder was set just after midnight a block to the south at 400 Lenox Avenue. Firefighters would have been able to get to the stores relatively quickly from the firehouse at 180 West 137th Street. No one arrested for looting was identified as having stolen goods from the store.

A Daily News photograph showed smoke coming out of the store window and doors, and firefighters on the scene fighting the fire. One was swinging an axe at the display window, while a second firefighter stood behind him. A third firefighter was just inside the store, his boots visible beneath the smoke. In the original photograph, cropped from the published version, a hose ran across the photograph to the right in the direction of Rosenberg's notion store. A photograph of the same scene published in the Home News had that hose running to the left in the foreground and another hose going into the hardware store, and three firefighters in the doorway with their backs to the camera. The caption on that photograph misidentified it as a tailor's shop at 429 Lenox Avenue. Two different captions for the Daily News photograph also misidentified the location. The published image is reported as a "tailor shop at 420 Lexington Ave," an address well outside Harlem. The original version from the newspaper's photo morgue (which can be viewed at Getty Images) located the store at 420 Lenox Avenue. The Tax Department photographs of that building make clear that the address was incorrect: those storefronts sit above or below street level accessed by stairs (those buildings also featured in one of Berenice Abbott's 1936 photographs of New York City, which can be viewed in the New York Public Library Digital Collections). Across the street, however, the stores had street level entrances. The Tax Department photograph cataloged as 429 Lenox Avenue showed a six-story building with four store fronts, two either side of the door leading to the apartments on the upper floors. In the MCCH business survey, the beauty salon to the left was listed as 425 Lenox Avenue and the jewelers as 427 Lenox Avenue. The store to the right of the door would therefore be 429; the Hoisery sign visible in the Tax Department photograph confirms that it was Rosenberg's notion store, as hoisery was a name often used for notion stores. The photograph of the store on fire included a portion of the building to the right that matches the windows that would be 431 Lenox Avenue in the Tax Department photograph. (The MCCH business survey, as it did on occasion, jumbled the addresses of the stores next to the jeweler, putting the hardware store at 429 not 431 Lenox Avenue and the stationary store next to it at 431 not 433 Lenox Avenue, and left out Rosenberg's store).

Burned shelves in the window and further inside the store and damaged merchandise were visible in the photograph of the fire. Another Daily News photograph showed the damaged interior of the store the morning after the disorder, and a white man and woman, presumably the owner and his wife, assessing the damage. Boards covering the destroyed windows and the missing glass in the door are visible behind them, together with a white man who appeared to be boarding up the store. Material hanging from the ceiling highlights the damage from the fire. Damaged merchandise covered the floor and the display table in the middle of the store, while the shelves to the right of the couple were still full of stock. Again, the address was misidentified in the caption, this time as 429 Lenox Avenue. However, in the background, the store window can be seen to the left of the door, so on the right from the street side. The Tax Department photograph showed that the doors to the two storefronts are side-by-side, so the store with the window to the right is 431 Lenox Avenue, not 429 Lenox Avenue. The same smashed goods and shelves still full of merchandise were visible, with boarded-up windows and fire damage in the background, in a similar photograph of the damaged store interior published in the Afro-American. The caption to that image identified the business as a hardware store. Two white men stood in the store, the same man in a coat and hat as in the New York Daily News photograph, and a man in a suit and tie. More of the store to the left of the men was visible, showing that the shelves on the wall and the left side of the table in the center have been burned. The fire apparently did not reach much further than the front of the table. A third photograph of the interior, also published in the Afro-American, provided the opposite view, from the door into the store, and showed shelves without any apparent fire damage (the caption gives the store address as 431 Lenox Avenue but misidentified the business as a notion store). The clashes between firefighters and the crowd on the street mentioned in the caption to that photograph were reported by stories in other newspapers as happening at Lash's store a block to the south, not the hardware store.

Two other photographs showed the damaged exterior of the store and the adjacent notion store at 429 Lenox Avenue after the disorder. In an Associated Press photograph, published in the New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, and Afro-American, smashed display windows and doors could be seen in both stores, together with debris piled in front of the hardware store, likely a combination of material from the ceiling and the display window. Notwithstanding the damage to the windows, both stores appeared to still contain significant amounts of merchandise. A police officer and a Black man stood to one side, in front of the distinctive sign of the business to the right of the hardware store seen in other photographs. Patrolmen were stationed outside a number of damaged businesses the day after the disorder so featured in photographs of other locations. The Black man seemed to be posing for the camera, likely at the request of the photographer. A second photograph, published in the Daily Mirror, showed a man on a ladder boarding up the hardware store windows, matching the man and repairs seen in the background of the photograph of the interior damage. (None of the captions to these photographs gave a precise location for the business beyond it being on Lenox Avenue.)

Notwithstanding the damage evident in the photographs, the presence of a hardware store at this address in the MCCH business survey suggested that the store continued to operate in the months after the disorder. The name of the business operating when the Tax Department photograph was taken, between 1939 and 1941, was not visible; the sign did appear to be the one visible in the photograph of the firefighters taken in 1935.
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
Anna Rosenberg's notion store looted and set on fire Anna Rosenberg closed her notion store at 429 Lenox Avenue before the disorder reached it. When she returned the next morning, she found the store "in ruins," according to testimony she gave in the Municipal Court reported by the New York Herald Tribune: "most of the merchandise was either destroyed or stolen and the plate glass window had been shattered." As well as being looted, the store had been set on fire. So too was the hardware store to the store's right, at 431 Lenox Avenue. While fires set in stores often accompanied looting, particularly in later racial disorders, only one more was reported, at 400 Lenox Avenue, a block to the south. No one arrested for looting was identified as having stolen goods from Rosenberg's store.

The fire was started sometime between 11:00 PM and midnight. Herbert Canter, who owned the pharmacy five doors down from the notion store, at 419 Lenox Avenue, arrived at 11:00 PM to try and protect his business. He remained until 5:00 AM, and saw the fire but not who started it, according to the reports of his testimony in the Home News and New York Herald Tribune. What Canter did report seeing was "a mob" carrying bricks, stones, and bottles, as well as canned goods march down the street shouting, "Down with the whites! Let's get what we can," and hurling missiles through windows. A block north, David Schmoockler, the manager of William Feinstein’s liquor store at 452 Lenox Avenue, also saw a crowd of around thirty people. Between 11:00 PM and midnight, he watched as the crowd "created disturbances, hurled various missiles, broke store windows, set fire to some stores, pillaged others, and in general damaged property of various merchants in the locality," according to Justice Shalleck's summary of his testimony in the Municipal Court. The fire a block south at 400 Lenox Avenue was started just after midnight. A little over an hour later, Feinstein's liquor store was attacked by a crowd of thirty to forty people.

Photographs of firefighters attempting to put out the fire in the hardware store next door to the notion store offered further evidence of the fire at the notion store. Cropped from the version published in the Daily News, but visible in the original photograph, a hose runs in the direction of Rosenberg's notion store to the left, indicating a fire in that direction. (The captions to both versions provided an incorrect address for the location. Details in the image identified it as 431 Lenox Avenue.) A photograph of the same scene published in the Home News also included that hose running to the left in the foreground. In addition, two photographs taken the next day focused on the hardware store captured glimpses of the damage to the exterior of the notion store. Part of the storefront appeared on the left of an Associated Press photograph, with no glass and merchandise in its display window. Damage to the exterior wall below the window could be the result of the fire. Inside the store is an L-shaped counter on which a range of different goods are stacked (which distinguished the notion store from the hardware store next to it, which had a central display table). There may be some damaged items on the ground, but neither the ceiling nor the shelves and counter showed the fire damage visible in the store to the right. The whole storefront appeared in a second photograph, published in the Daily Mirror, to the left of a man on a ladder boarding up the hardware store windows. Unfortunately, details are not visible in the microfilm copy of the image.

Rosenberg had a policy covering her store with Royal Insurance. Their fire adjuster's appraisal put the cost of the damage at $980.13. However, the insurance policy did not cover damage resulting from a riot. As a result, Rosenberg joined other white merchants in suing the city for damages on the basis of the failure of police to protect their businesses. The New York Herald Tribune reported Royal Insurance was "a co-defendant with the city in the case," although the basis for the claim against the city was that a riot had taken place, at odds with the basis for an insurance claim. Defending the city, Aaron Arnold, an assistant corporation counsel, denied that a riot had taken place and maintained that the fire was unrelated to the disorder. The jury did not agree; they awarded Rosenberg $804.

The attacks on Rosenberg's store were mentioned only in stories about the Municipal Court trial in the New York Herald Tribune, Home News, New York American, and Times Union, with the later two stories not reporting any testimony, and obliquely in captions to the photographs.

Given that the court award covered the bulk of her losses, Rosenberg likely was able to remain in business after the disorder. The MCCH business survey did not include a notion store at 429 Lenox Avenue in the second half of 1935, but instead white-owned hardware and grocery stores. However, based on the Tax department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941, the investigator appeared to have mixed up addresses, as happened for other blocks in the survey, locating the hardware store at number 429, not 431 Lenox Avenue and the stationary store next to it at number 431, not 433 Lenox Avenue. Visible in the photograph was a hoisery store — a name often used for notion stores — that seems likely to be Rosenberg's business, still operating, at 429 Lenox Avenue.
William Feinstein's liquor store looted Around 11:00 PM, David Schmoockler, the manager of William Feinstein’s liquor store, saw a crowd of about thirty people gather near Lenox Avenue and West 132nd Street, according to Justice Shalleck's summary of the testimony he gave in the Municipal Court. Located at 452 Lenox Avenue, the store was in the middle of the block between West 132nd St and West 133rd Street. On the other side of West 132nd Street, Herbert Canter, who owned the pharmacy at 419 Lenox Avenue, testified in another Municipal Court trial that he also saw the crowd, which he described as a "mob" carrying bricks, stones, and bottles, as well as canned goods, march down the street shouting, "Down with the whites! Let's get what we can," and hurling missiles through the windows, according to the New York Herald Tribune. For the next hour, Schmoockler watched as the crowd "created disturbances, hurled various missiles, broke store windows, set fire to some stores, pillaged others, and in general damaged property of various merchants in the locality," Shalleck wrote. Canter also saw a fire at Anna Rosenberg's notion shop at 429 Lenox Avenue, which extended to the neighboring hardware store. At some point police arrived but could not control the crowd. Officers "discharged their revolvers in an attempt to disperse the crowd," according to Shalleck's summary, and sometimes "succeeded in driving the participants from one side of the street, but they would then rush to the other side and back again, all the while continuing their destructive acts." The New York Times story on the Municipal Court trial reported this testimony simply as Schmoockler having “seen rioting in the neighborhood” that scared him and a "Negro helper" not mentioned in Shalleck's summary, omitting details about the crowd and its struggles with police.

By around midnight, the disorder and gunfire had become frightening enough to Schmoockler and the Black staff member that they "locked the doors, closed the [iron] gates" and left the store, according to Shalleck's summary. A later story in the New York Times that mentioned Shalleck's decision reported that the men left “when police began shooting about midnight” and omitted details of the lead-up to that decision. The Magistrate’s Court affidavit began with the store being closed without any mention of the context, and mistakenly had him leaving at 9:30 PM rather than midnight. What the manager should instead have done when faced with this disorder, lawyers defending the city implied in cross-examination reported by the New York Times, was move stock out of the windows and put it beyond the reach of looters, as Max Greenwald and Jack Sherloff did, and notify the mayor, sheriff or county of the attack on his property, an argument reported and dismissed by Justice Shalleck.

A crowd remained in the area after Schmoockler and his helper left. Around 1:15 AM, "a group of from thirty to forty persons smashed the windows" of Feinstein's store, pilfered bottles of whiskey and demolished the store front," according to the New York Herald Tribune report of testimony by "witnesses for Mr Feinstein" in the Municipal Court. Justice Shalleck and the New York Times mentioned the time of the attack, and the same details, although the newspaper story misattributed the testimony to Feinstein. It is not clear who the witnesses were; the store manager had left over an hour earlier, and police officers were unlikely to be testifying against the city. Both newspaper stories and Judge Shalleck's summary noted that police still had not controlled the crowd. Given that the store's iron gate had to be broken before the windows could be smashed, the attack would have taken more time and sustained, noisy violence than most, despite the number of people involved. Even with that opportunity to respond, police did not arrive until the crowd had largely finished looting the store, and made only one arrest. Around 1:20 AM, according to the Magistrate's Court affidavit, Officer Nathaniel Carter allegedly saw several men leaving the store carrying bottles. He arrested one of those men, Louis Cobb, a thirty-eight-year-old Black laborer, with one bottle of gin and two bottles of whiskey in his possession. Cobb lived on the next block, at 473 Lenox Avenue. His arrest was not mentioned in either the justice's decision or any of the newspaper stories about the attack on Feinstein's store. The damaged liquor store in a photograph published in the New York World-Telegram is almost certainly Feinstein's store. The caption mentions an iron grill that was torn down as well as smashed windows, and the storefront matched the Tax Department photograph.

Schmoockler put the total losses at around $1,000 in the Magistrates Court affidavit. Feinstein later filed a claim for $627.40 in damages from the city, according to the Home News and New York American. He was not among the twenty business owners identified as the first to file claims identified by the New York Sun. Nonetheless, after the city opted to deny all the claims, Feinstein was the first of the 106 plaintiffs who filed claims after the disorder to go to trial, effectively making him the test case. As a result, much of the newspaper stories on the trial focused on the legal basis for damages. No details of what happened to Feinstein’s store were included in stories in the Home News, New York American, New York Herald Tribune, and New York World-Telegram. The jury awarded him $450. Two months later, Justice Shalleck upheld that award in a decision reported in the New York Times and New York Herald Tribune. The award of damages likely helped Feinstein stay in business. A white-owned liquor store was found at 452 Lenox Avenue both by the MCCH business survey in the second half of 1935 and in the Tax Department photograph taken in 1939–1941.

Louis Cobb appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrate's Court on March 20 charged with burglary. However, the affidavit making the complaint against him was not taken until March 25. In the interim, Magistrate Ford held Cobb without bail. An annotation in the docket book dated March 21 recorded "no bail in absence of record" suggesting police had not been able to produce his criminal record. Magistrates reaffirmed the denial of bail when Cobb's criminal record was eventually produced. He had been charged six times since 1920, for burglary, robbery, drug possession, homicide, procuring, and possession of a firearm, resulting in two sentences to the state prison at Sing Sing, two terms in the penitentiary and a sentence in the Workhouse, and two sentences for violating parole. The grand jury did not indict Cobb, instead transferring him to the Court of Special Sessions to be tried for petit larceny. That decision likely reflected the lack of evidence of him breaking into the store, and the value of the three bottles of liquor Officer Carter allegedly found on him; $7, according to the Magistrate's Court affidavit, well short of the $100 threshold for a prosecution for the felony of grand larceny. There was no evidence of the outcome of the case.
Estelle Cohen's clothing store looted The windows of the Norman Toggery store at 437 Lenox Avenue, near West 132nd Street, were smashed during the disorder, and the goods on display stolen. The only information on the attack on the store was a letter the store's white owner, Mrs. Estelle Cohen, wrote to Mayor La Guardia on March 21, 1935. A Black salesman was present in the store when the windows were broken. He could do nothing to prevent the looting, but did telephone Cohen at her home in Washington Heights, 605 West 170th Street. She then called the police precinct and police headquarters, telling La Guardia with clear frustration that "all the satisfaction I got was that all the men were out and that all windows were being smashed." Given that the store was still open, the attack likely came sometime soon after 11:00 PM, when staff in nearby stores either side of Norman Toggery reported a crowd gathered around Lenox Avenue and West 132nd Street. Herbert Canter, who owned a pharmacy at 419 Lenox Avenue, saw "a mob" carrying bricks, stones, and bottles, as well as canned goods, march down the street shouting, "Down with the whites! Let's get what we can," and hurling missiles through the windows, in testimony in the Municipal Court reported by the New York Herald Tribune. A block north, David Schmoockler, the manager of William Feinstein’s liquor store at 452 Lenox Avenue, also saw a crowd of around thirty people. Between 11:00 PM and midnight he watched as the crowd "created disturbances, hurled various missiles, broke store windows, set fire to some stores, pillaged others, and in general damaged property of various merchants in the locality," according to Justice Shalleck's summary of his testimony in the Municipal Court. A little over an hour later, Feinstein's liquor store was attacked by a crowd of thirty to forty people.

What Cohen wanted, she wrote La Guardia, was "police protection at all times. I have my sons in that store, and am a widow; business is very hard besides and I don't wish them to lose their lives." Lacking that protection during the disorder, Cohen sent someone to the storefront to board up the windows after they were smashed and the merchandise taken from the display. However, the boarded-up window failed to protect the inside of the store, Cohen wrote:
...they came back and broke through the windows again and smashed the cases and took the goods out. The shirts were taken off the forms, which showed that they had ample time to work. The floors were scattered with glass and goods all trampled up.
No one arrested for looting was identified as having stolen goods from the store. Cohen estimated her losses as at least $800. A little over a month later, when the New York Sun, New York World-Telegram, and New York Amsterdam News reported that she had joined nineteen other merchants in filing suit against the city government, she claimed $1,219.77 in damages. Unlike some other store owners, Cohen did not have burglary insurance, she wrote, "on account of not being able to get it up in that section." Given that the city lost the trials on such claims reported in the press, it was likely that Cohen received some compensation for the losses. She did seem to have been able to remain in business. The Toggery shop was included in the MCCH business survey; the investigator recorded that the store had been there for three years, managed by "Mr Thomas and a friend," and had "a neat display of ties, hats and shirts in window." The store also appeared in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941.
In the Municipal court on October 16 (1) Anna Rosenberg's claim for damages was resolved in the Municipal Court almost a month after the trial of William Feinstein's claim. She owned a notion store, on Lenox Avenue a block south of Feinstein's liquor store, that was looted and set on fire. Who represented her is unknown, but she was not one of the business owners identified as clients of Barney Rosenstein. The city was represented by Aaron Arnold, the same corporation counsel lawyer who had appeared in the Feinstein trial. The trial took place before Judge Rosalsky and a jury, who awarded her $804. What Rosenberg claimed is unknown, but the award was 82% of her insurance company's appraisal of her losses, $980.13. Both the total award and proportion of the claim were greater than the jury verdict in the Feinstein case, likely because of the fire in Rosenberg's store. If that was the case, it represented less of a precedent than the first trial, as only two other businesses were reportedly set on fire.

The trial of the second damages claim appeared to have attracted fewer newspaper stories than the first trial. Only the New York Herald Tribune, Home News, New York American, Times Union, and New York Age published an account of the trial, with the latter three stories not reporting any testimony. All the stories mentioned the $804 award to Rosenberg. The insurance appraisal appeared only in the New York Herald Tribune and Home News.

Royal Insurance, with whom Rosenberg had a policy, was also mentioned as a party to the case by the New York Herald Tribune, Home News, and Times Union. The three stories described Royal Insurance as co-defendant with the city, but the basis for the liability of the two parties as at odds: if the disorder was a riot, the city was liable under the General Municipal law, but the insurance company was not, as its policies excluded riots. When lawyers for Royal Insurance argued that a riot had caused the damage, Arnold "denied that there had been riots in the legal meaning of the term," according to the New York Herald Tribune and Home News, and asserted that it was a coincidence that the fire in the store occurred on the date of the disorder. Those stories described Arnold responding to the arguments of the insurance company by asking for a mistrial, and later filing a motion to have the verdict set aside. Neither story specified the grounds for the motion; the Times Union reported the argument that the fire's timing was a coincidence as the grounds. Whatever its basis, Rosalsky denied the motion.

Evidence in the form of testimony from two witnesses was described by the New York Herald Tribune and Home News. Anna Rosenberg provided details of the damage done to her store during the disorder, but not how it had occurred as she had not been present at the time. Evidence of the circumstances of the damage came from the testimony of Herbert Cantor, who owned a pharmacy five doors from Rosenberg's notion store. He had not seen the fire started, but described crowds throwing objects through windows and carrying merchandise he assumed was stolen.

The number of claims still pending in court was mentioned in the New York Herald Tribune, Home News, New York Age, and New York American The first three stories reported 160 cases pending in the Municipal Court alone (claims for large sums were tried in the Supreme Court), with only the New York Herald Tribune attributing that number to Arnold, the corporation counsel lawyer, together with his description of those cases as "mostly for small sums." That total is larger than the 106 cases reported in July. There was no explanation for the discrepancy. By contrast, the New York American reported 104 other claims pending, which fits the number from July. The story gave no source for that information, which may have derived from the earlier information rather than Arnold.
In civil court on October 16 A month after the trial of William Feinstein's claim, before Judge Shalleck had published his decision on the city's motion to set aside the verdict, a second claim for damages was decided in the Municipal Court. The plaintiff who appeared on October 16, Anna Rosenberg, was, like Feinstein, not one of those identified earlier in the press nor was she represented by the attorney who filed those claims, Barney Rosenstein. She owned a notion store at 429 Lenox Avenue which had suffered damages that her insurer, the Royal Insurance Company, had appraised at $980.13. Rosenberg's lawsuit also sought payment of damages from the company, which had refused her claim on the grounds that the policy excluded losses resulting from a riot. That position put Royal Insurance at odds with the city as their defense shifted liability to the city. The Assistant Corporation Counsel who represented the city, Aaron Arnold, had also appeared in the trial of Feinstein's claim.

Like Feinstein, Anna Rosenberg had not been in her store when it was attacked. She had closed the business before crowds arrived in the area. Her testimony in the trial was therefore limited to the details of the damage done. Evidence of the cause of the damage was provided by Herbert Cantor, who owned a pharmacy five doors from Rosenberg's business. After learning of the disorder in Harlem on the evening of March 19, he had rushed to protect his store, arriving around 11:00 PM. He watched crowd "carrying bricks, stones and bottles, as well as canned goods march down the street," Cantor testified," shouting, "'Down with the whites! Let's get what we can,'" and hurling missiles through windows." Feinstein's store manager had described a similar crowd around his liquor store, which was a block north of Rosenberg's business. Cantor saw a fire break out in the notion store sometime between 11:00 PM and midnight, but could not see who started it. Missing from the reported testimony was any mention of the police, whether they were absent or ineffectual in controlling the crowd. Instead, the presence of the Royal Insurance Company appeared to have focused the attention of journalists at least on the question of whether a riot had occurred.

Attorneys for Royal Insurance argued that riot caused the damage to Rosenberg's business, while Arnold denied that a riot in the legal meaning had occurred and argued that outbreak of the fire at the time crowds were in the area was a coincidence. When attorneys for the insurance persisted in rejecting the city's position, as the New York Herald Tribune put it, Arnold called for a mistrial in response to insurance arguments. Judge Rosalsky rejected that motion. No other testimony was reported on behalf of Rosenberg, Royal Insurance, or the city.

This jury, like their predecessors in the trial of Feinstein, awarded damages to Rosenberg in the sum of $804, 82% of the insurance valuation of damage, in the process of imposing liability on the city rather than the Royal Insurance company. Arnold filed a motion to set aside the verdict, as he had in Feinstein's trial. Judge Rosalsky, unlike Judge Shalleck, simply denied the motion, perhaps aware that his colleague was already drafting an opinion on the law that would be applied to this case as well — and to the 160 claims that Arnold said were pending in the Municipal Court, "mostly for small sums."
Crowd at Lenox Avenue between West 132nd and West 131st Streets At 11:00 PM, Herbert Canter, who owned a pharmacy at 419 Lenox Avenue, on the northwest corner of West 131st Street, arrived to try and protect his business. He remained until 5:00 AM, according to stories about his testimony in a damages suit in the Municipal Court in the New York Herald Tribune and Home News. During that time, Canter saw "a "mob" carrying bricks, stones, and bottles, as well as canned goods, march down the street shouting, "Down with the whites! Let's get what we can," and hurling missiles through windows. A block north, David Schmoockler, the manager of William Feinstein’s liquor store at 452 Lenox Avenue, also saw a crowd of around thirty people. Between 11:00 PM and midnight, he watched as the crowd "created disturbances, hurled various missiles, broke store windows, set fire to some stores, pillaged others, and in general damaged property of various merchants in the locality," according to Justice Shalleck's summary of his testimony in the Municipal Court. Anna Rosenberg's notion store at 429 Lenox Avenue and the adjacent hardware store at 431 Lenox Avenue, on the same block as Canter's pharmacy, were set on fire, likely during this time. On the other side of the notion store, Gonzales' jeweler's store at 427 Lenox Avenue had windows broken. The fire a block south at 400 Lenox Avenue was started just after midnight. A little over an hour later, Feinstein's liquor store was attacked by a crowd of thirty to forty people.

The crowd Canter saw was further north than other reports of calls urging crowds to violence on West 125th Street and on 7th and Lenox Avenues within two blocks of 125th Street. It was also the only incident for which there were details that was not linked to an arrest. What was shouted to the crowd was different from the calls made to other crowds. Those calls allegedly focused on breaking windows or attacking police. While Cantor observed this crowd breaking windows, the second phrase he reported — "Let's get what we can!" — implied looting, which is what did occur in these blocks of Lenox Avenue possibly on a larger scale than elsewhere in Harlem. The first phrase shouted at the crowd identified whites as targets; mention of whites otherwise featured only in calls focused on police. But what was shouted was quite different from the calls to "Kill the whites," which only one journalist for New York Evening Journal reported. "Down with the whites" was a threat to property and power, not life.