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Businesses that survived (40)
There is little direct evidence that businesses actually closed as a result of the disorder. Indirect evidence of which businesses continued to operate in Harlem after the disorder is provided by the business survey undertaken by the MCCH between June and December 1935. While the survey identified more than 10,000 businesses, other sources do indicate that it did miss some businesses and sometimes incorrectly recorded addresses. In most cases, the owner and the business name were also not recorded, so they cannot be matched to looted businesses with certainty. In addition, some of the Tax Department building photographs taken between 1939 and 1941 are taken from close enough to allow individual businesses to be identified. In other cases the photographs are taken from a distance or angle that does not show the address of the business that was looted.
Forty-six of the sixty-six addresses reported as having being looted can be identified in those sources; forty-one stores continued in business after the disorder. Among that group are seven of the businesses whose owners sued the city for damages after the disorder; five of those owners did go out of business, and in fourteen cases there is no evidence to establish what happened (an additional eighty owners who filed suits are not identified in the sources).