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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).
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2020-04-09T18:04:11+00:00
De Soto Windgate shot
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2022-04-18T17:41:20+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. Only five other events in the disorder occurred north of 135th Street, none within six blocks of this shooting. Three of those events were also assaults, two on white men on 8th Avenue north of 145th Street before midnight, and shots fired at police at 138th Street and Lenox Avenue at 5 AM. An equally small number of events occurred off the avenues, on cross streets, as this shooting did. Aside from assaults in front and behind Kress’ store, there are only two assaults, south of 125th Street.
There is no information on the circumstances of the shooting. Windgate lived at the opposite end of Harlem at 7 East 114th Street, a section mostly occupied by Puerto Ricans and whites. He may have come north to frequent one of the theaters on West 145th Street; the Roosevelt was on the corner of 7th Avenue. Or he may have been visiting friends. There is no evidence of any disorder nearby that might have attracted his attention or brought police into the area. So while the other black men shot and wounded in the disorder seem likely to have been hit by police shooting in response to looting that does not seem to have been the case with Windgate. Given the location and limited evidence, there is some question about whether this shooting is part of the disorder.
The shot hit Windgate in the abdomen (only the New York Post located the wound elsewhere, in his right shoulder), and was serious enough for him to be admitted to Harlem Hospital – and be included in the list of those “near death” in the New York American, Afro-American, Atlanta World, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and 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.” His injury is different from others shot in the disorder; only one is hit in the abdomen, with the remainder suffering injuries to the legs or hands.
Being admitted to Harlem Hospital might explain Windgate’s consistent appearance in newspaper lists. However, he does not appear in the hospital records provided to the MCCH.
Windgate does appear in another record gathered by the MCCH, information extracted from 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 assault on a white man, Julius Narditch, by a group pf black men at 8th Avenue and 147th Street, the assault on Thomas Suarez on 134th Street and the injury of Herbert Holderman on 132nd Street.
The police record does not identify Windgate’s race, but newspapers do. The New York American, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Home News, New York Daily News, New York Post, New York Times and New York Sun all include his race; the New York Herald Tribune and New York Evening Journal do 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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2022-04-18T19:54:50+00:00
Around 1.20AM, 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 looting on the blocks north of Lenox Ave north of 125th Street around 1.30AM.
Holderman, like Mitchell and Young, was treated by Dr. Payne at Harlem Hospital, likely in the emergency room. He does not appear in the hospital records, but 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 disagree on his injury; the New York Post recorded it as laceration of his hands, the Daily News and New York Evening Journal of 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 hospital.
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2020-04-09T18:36:30+00:00
Thomas Suares assaulted
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2022-04-18T22:07:54+00:00
Around 1:15AM, 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 looting occurred on Lenox Avenue as far north as where Suares was hit, so it seems likely he was assaulted in the context of that violence, perhaps caught between a crowd and their target.
Dr Payne of Harlem Hospital attended Suares, to treat an injury that the New York Evening Journal reported as lacerations of his right leg. The wound was not serious enough for Suares to be admitted to hospital; instead he left for home after treatment.
The New York Evening Journal was the only newspaper that included Suares appears in its lists of those injured in the disorder. The list identified only his age, address and injury. The circumstances of the alleged assault are recorded only in the book of aided cases from the 32nd Police Precinct. That report that included only four incidents, all occurring in the northern area of the disorder as the precinct’s district began at 130th Street. Neither source identified Suares' race, but he was recorded 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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2020-09-25T19:30:40+00:00
At 11.30pm, as he walked on 8th Avenue at 147th Street, Julius Narditch was “jumped” by three black men. The 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 does not appear in the hospital records obtained by the MCCH).
The alleged assault on Narditch is one of only two events north of 145th Street, the other an assault on Max Newman across the street at 2774 8th Avenue an hour earlier. Given that there are only four other events north of 135th Street (including a shooting), there is some question about whether the assaults on Narditch and Newman are actually part of the disorder, in the sense that their assailants were part of crowds moving up from 125th Street or brought out on to the street by the disorder.
Narditch appears in lists of the injured published in the New York Evening Journal, New York Post, New York Daily News, New York American and New York Herald Tribune. Only the Herald Tribune mentions that he was assaulted by a group of men. The New York American attributes the cuts on his face to stabbing, but there is no mention of weapons in the police report. Only two of the fifty-three assaults in the disorder involved knives, a striking contrast with the extensive use of knives in violence at other times in 1935. The New York American report seems likely to reflect assumptions from those larger patterns.
Narditch also appeared in a record gathered by the MCCH, information extracted from the Aided Cases book of the 32nd Precinct, based on West 135th Street. Procedures required police to record all incidents reported to them in that book. The entry makes no mention of stabbing. Only three other cases appear in the 32nd Precinct book for the period 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.