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

Mrs. Salefas' delicatessan looted

Mrs. B. Salefas was in her "corner two-window delicatessen store" at Lenox Avenue and 123rd Street on March 19 when objects struck and shattered the windows. As glass flew around the store, she sheltered in a rear storeroom. Interviewed the next day, Salefas told Edna Ferguson of the Daily News:

It broke my heart to abandon my store, but what could I do all alone? Every time I peeked out from in back a shower of bricks greeted me. They got away with about $100 worth of food and all my beautiful dishes I was saving for prizes.

The newspaper story was the only source to mention the looting of Salefas' store. Of the four stores mentioned in that story, only one appeared in any other source. There was no information on the time of the attack on the delicatessen other than the vague statement that Salefas was trapped "when the trouble started." That she was in the store suggested that it was still open, so the windows were likely broken before midnight. Attacks on Morris Towbin's haberdashery on the corner of 125th Street and Lenox Avenue started around 10:30 PM, and stores on the two blocks south of 125th Street across Lenox Avenue from Salefas' store had windows broken sometime during the disorder, likely starting around 11:00 PM. Police made no arrests in this area, perhaps because there were far fewer businesses than in the blocks to the north. The presence of police may also have limited activity. The New York Evening Journal mentioned that Patrolman William Clements was "on guard duty" outside a grocery store at West 123rd Street and Lenox Avenue at some point during the night, when B.Z. Kondoul encountered him as he fled down 122nd Street from 7th Avenue. His presence could also have contributed to the relatively limited value of Salefas' losses. No one among those arrested for looting was identified as taking goods from this business.



The location of Salefas' store cannot be precisely established. There are businesses on only the northeast corner of the intersection. No business at that corner appeared in the MCCH business survey. None of the stores visible in the Tax Department photographs from 1939-1941 was a delicatessen. However, the signage of the partially visible store at 27 West 123rd Street included "Groceries and Vegetables" that make it a possible location. The store on the corner itself had a stretch of windows along West 123rd Street that could produce the "crossfire of missiles" described in the story, but it appeared too large to be a delicatessen that could be staffed by one person. It was more likely the branch of the James Butler grocery chain mentioned in the New York Evening Journal account of the later assault on B. Z. Kondoul. The jewelers next to that store on Lenox Avenue in the Tax Department photograph had windows either side of the door and may have taken the place of the delicatessen some time after the disorder.
 

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