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

Alice Gordon assaulted

Alice Gordon, a thirty-four-year-old white woman, was "assaulted by several unknown colored men at 117th St. and 7th Ave," according to hospital admission records. Dr. Adams from the Knickerbocker Hospital on Convent Ave and West 131st Street attended Gordon at 11.45 PM, so she was likely assaulted around 11.15 PM. A few minutes later, William Burkhard would allegedly be assaulted nearby, on West 118th Street between 7th Avenue and Lenox Avenue.

The hospital admission records described Gordon's injury as "laceration of face." The injury was not serious enough for Gordon to be admitted to hospital. After treatment she left for home, 72 Sound Rd., Rye, twenty miles north of where she had been assaulted. There was no mention of why Gordon was in Harlem. A number of businesses closed at 10:00 PM or 10:30 PM, so she may have just left work. Or Gordon could have been a patron of one the theaters or other entertainments on West 116th Street. The hospital admission records were the only source that mentioned Gordon. While those records did not include information about an individual's race, the description of her attackers as "colored men" indicated that Gordon was a white woman.

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"Hospital Admissions, 19-20 March 1935," Subject Files, Box 167, Folder 5 (Roll 76), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).