This tag was created by Anonymous. 

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

Before civil court, April 23

On April 23, as the last case related to the disorder was presented to the grand jury and one of only ten prosecutions of those arrested during the disorder remaining to be decided in the criminal courts, the first cases began to make their way into the civil courts. Attorney Barney Rosenstein filed claims totaling almost $38,000 on behalf of twenty white business owners seeking damages from the city government for losses they suffered as a result of the disorder. The sums claimed ranged from $14,125 for damage to Harry Piskin's laundry to $47.40 for Joseph Cohen's business. Although newspaper stories reporting the filing focused on the seven claims over $1,000, the median claim was $733. Most of the businesses were located on Lenox Avenue or just off the avenue, in the blocks from 125th Street to 130th Street, with just four on 7th Avenue clustered around 127th Street. Nine of the businesses were neighbors. Four of the owners had lived in the same apartment building, neighbors at home as well as in business, relationships that likely led them to file claims together. Only three of the businesses had been among those reported as looted or identified as having been looted by an individual arrested during the disorder. As a group, they did fit with the pattern of stores which were looted, with the sixteen whose business was identified including nine that involved food and drink, five that involved clothing, and two that involved other goods. These cases highlight the neglected details of the property damage in Harlem, revealing its variety and complexity as well as scale.

The claims went first to the Bureau of Law and Adjustment in the Department of Finance, to be assessed by the comptroller. Within a few days, he would summon the business owners to be questioned. In a typical case, based on that information, his office would decide what the city owed. Only when the claimant and the city could not agree on the sum did a claim result in legal proceedings in the city's civil courts.

However, these were not typical claims. Although claims against the city were not unusual, and in fact increasingly common in the the years of the Great Depression, the government's liability for damage resulting from a riot was apparently not well known. Newspaper stories about the claims included details of statute on which Rosenstein based the claims: Section 71 of the General Municipal Law, dating from 1855. It 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. With only a month having passed since the night of the disorder, the claims had clearly been filed before the deadline. Whether the business owners had met the other requirements of the statute were questions that the city's lawyers, the Corporation Counsel, would have to answer.

In the meantime, two months remained in which additional claims could be filed.

This page has paths:

Contents of this tag:

This page references: