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Business that survived
There is little direct evidence that businesses actually closed as a result of the disorder. That 106 businesses owners sued the city for damages indicated the extent of losses from attacks and looting; there is less information on the scale of those losses. The claims in only twenty-six of those suits are reported in the press; they range from $14,215 by Harry Piskin and $14,000 by George Chronis to $146.75 by Michael D'Agostino and $47.40 by Joseph Cohen, with a median claim of $733.13. The city lost the test cases of those suits, so those litigants likely received some damages that would have helped them stay in businesses. The losses of twenty-six other businesses reported in legal records and the press (some of which may have been among the seventy-nine unidentified business owners who sued the city) were less than those of the businesses reported as suing the city, ranging from $10-12 to $1000 (and one with losses of $10,000), with a median loss of $100.
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 how the survey was undertaken is not made clear in the MCCH files in the records of Mayor La Guardia's administration, and other sources do indicate the presence of some businesses not included in the survey, more than 10,000 businesses are identified. In addition, some of the Tax Department building photographs taken between 1939 and 1941are taken from close enough to allow individual businesses to be identified. Forty of the sixty-five addresses reported as having being looted can be identified in those sources; thirty-four stores continued in business after the disorder.