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"Aided Cases (Riot), Pct. Correspondence, 19 April 1935," Subject Files, Box 167, Folder 5 (Roll 76), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
1 2020-09-25T19:25:30+00:00 Anonymous 1 12 plain 2023-09-26T03:26:37+00:00 AnonymousThis page has tags:
- 1 2023-07-05T20:55:35+00:00 Anonymous Investigations of the events of the disorder Anonymous 33 plain 2023-12-15T02:53:04+00:00 Anonymous
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2020-04-09T18:04:11+00:00
De Soto Windgate shot
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2023-10-30T01:33:18+00:00
At 1:15 AM, “some unknown person” shot a twenty-four-year-old Black man named De Soto Windgate as he walked along West 144th Street between Lenox and 7th Avenues. The shooting was one of only two reported incidents associated with the disorder north of West 138th Street, and one of only a handful of events that might have occurred away from the avenues on residential cross streets.
There was no information on the circumstances of the shooting. There was no evidence of any disorder in which he might have participated, that might have attracted his attention or have brought police into the area. Windgate lived at the opposite end of Harlem at 7 East 114th Street, a section mostly occupied by Puerto Rican and white residents. He may have come north to patronize one of the theaters on West 145th Street; the Roosevelt was on the corner of 7th Avenue. Or he may have been visiting friends. Given the location and limited evidence, there was some question about whether this shooting was part of the disorder.
Windgate appeared in the Aided Cases book of the 32nd Precinct, based on West 135th Street. Procedure required police to record all incidents reported to them in that book. Only three other cases appear in the 32nd Precinct book for the period of the disorder, the alleged assault on a white man named Julius Narditch by a group of Black men at 8th Avenue and West 147th Street, the assault on Thomas Suarez on West 134th Street near Lenox Avenue, and the injury of Herbert Holderman near Lenox Avenue and West 132nd Street. Police appeared to have included his name in the list of those injured during the disorder they released to the press. Windgate was included in the list of those “near death” in the New York American, Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal’s list of the “dying.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle and New York Herald Tribune simply described his condition as “serious.” Those reports said the bullet hit Windgate in the abdomen causing a wound serious enough for him to be admitted to Harlem Hospital. However, he did not appear in the hospital records gathered by the MCCH.
The police record did not identify Windgate’s race, but the newspaper stories did. The New York American, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Home News, New York Daily News, New York Post, New York Times, and New York Sun all included information about his race; the New York Herald Tribune and New York Evening Journal did not. Four of the six others shot and wounded in the disorder were Black men, one of unknown race, and one white police officer. No one was arrested for shooting Windgate, as was the case with all of those shot and wounded. (Detective Campo’s alleged assailant was shot and killed.)
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2020-08-20T20:53:49+00:00
Herbert Holderman injured
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2023-10-30T04:07:08+00:00
Around 1:20 AM, Herbert Holderman was “cut by flying glass when some unknown persons broke windows of stores” on Lenox Avenue at 132nd Street. Alice Mitchell and Hugh Young were also injured by flying glass three blocks south around 1:00 AM, as part of an outbreak of violence on the blocks of Lenox Avenue from West 125th Street as far north as West 134th Street.
Holderman, like Mitchell and Young, was treated by Dr. Payne at Harlem Hospital. He did not appear in the hospital records, only in the 32nd Police Precinct book of aided cases. Three newspaper lists of the injured also included Holderman, but the only information that they provided on his identity was his home address, 73 East 128th Street, an area of mixed Black and white residences on the eastern boundary of Harlem. The police record did not specify where Holderman was cut. The lists disagreed on where he had been cut. The New York Post reported it as his hands, while the Daily News and New York Evening Journal reported it was his face. He was one of four of those injured with wounds to the hands (20%). After being attended by a physician, Holderman went home, indicating the wound was not serious enough to require him to be admitted to the hospital.
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2020-04-09T18:36:30+00:00
Thomas Suares assaulted
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2023-11-08T02:36:20+00:00
Around 1:15 AM, twenty-seven-year-old Thomas Suares, a Black man walking on West 134th Street near Lenox Avenue, was "struck by a milk bottle which some unknown person threw at him," he told police. He lived only a block to the east, at 12 West 134th Street, the heart of Black Harlem, but near the northern boundary of the disorder. Around this time outbreaks of violence spanned the blocks of Lenox Avenue from West 125th Street to where Suares was hit. He was likely assaulted in the context of that violence, perhaps caught between a crowd and a business they targeted.
Dr. Payne of Harlem Hospital treated Suares' injury, which the New York Evening Journal reported as lacerations of his right leg. The wound was not serious enough for him to be admitted to hospital; instead he left for home after treatment.
The New York Evening Journal was the only newspaper that included Suares in its lists of those injured in the disorder. The list identified only his age, address, and injury. The circumstances of the alleged assault were recorded only in the book of aided cases at the 32nd Police Precinct. The precinct's district began at 130th Street. There were only four incidents in that book that occurred during the disorder. Neither the newspaper story nor the book identified Suares' race. However, he did appear in the 1930 census schedules, living with a cousin on 5th Avenue, just around the corner from his address in 1935.
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2020-03-11T21:36:29+00:00
Julius Narditch assaulted
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2023-11-28T02:50:26+00:00
At 11:30pm, as Julius Narditch, a thirty-four-year-old white man, walked on 8th Avenue near 147th Street, three Black men allegedly "jumped" him. His struggle with the men left him with head injuries and lacerations to his face and hands. A doctor from Knickerbocker Hospital attended Narditch, who was then taken to Harlem Hospital (although he did not appear in the hospital records obtained by the MCCH). Narditch lived at 400 West 128th Street, west of Harlem. No explanation was provided for why he was in a Black neighborhood, although many of the businesses on the avenue were white-owned. He may have come from the elevated train station on 8th Avenue and 145th Street.
The alleged assault on Narditch was the only event in the disorder north of 145th Street. Given that there were only four other events north of 135th Street (including a shooting), it was not certain that the assault was actually related to the events at the Kress store and to the south, in the sense that the assailants had been on 125th Street or been brought out on to the street by the disorder. Narditch was included in the one of the lists of the injured distributed to journalists, likely by police, published in the New York Evening Journal, New York Post, Daily News, New York American, and New York Herald Tribune. He likely was on that list because as he had reported the assault to police it was recorded in the Aided Cases book of the 32nd Precinct. Procedures required police to record all incidents reported to them in that book. Those records were among the material gathered by MCCH investigators. The other three other cases that appeared in the book for the period of the disorder all occurred closer to the other events of the disorder: the shooting of De Soto Windgate on West 144th Street between 7th and Lenox Avenues; the assault on Thomas Suarez on 134th Street; and the injury of Herbert Holderman on 132nd Street.
Only the New York Herald Tribune mentioned that multiple assailants attacked Narditch. The New York American attributed the cuts on his face to stabbing, but there was no mention of weapons in the police record. Only two other assaults in the disorder involved knives, a striking contrast with the extensive use of knives in violence at other times in 1935. The mention in the New York American likely reflected assumptions from those larger patterns.
No one was arrested for the assault on Narditch.