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

Butler's Food Market looted

A business at 1974 7th Avenue, on the southwest corner of West 119th Street, was looted sometime in the disorder. A branch of the white-owned James Butler Food Market chain occupied that location at the time between 1939 and 1941 that the Tax Department photograph was taken, and was likely there at the time of the disorder as chain stores were an established part of the neighborhood's business landscape. (That side of the street is missing from the MCCH Business Survey conducted in the second half of 1935). There were seven branches of the Butler Food Market chain, and nine branches of the white-owned A & P grocery store chain, in the MCCH Business survey from the second half of 1935. While most of the reported looting on 7th Avenue occurred in the blocks closer to West 125th Street, a shoe repair store on the corner diagonally opposite was also reported looted during the disorder, as was a candy store on the intersection to the south of this business.

The address is recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book as that of James Marshall, the complainant in prosecutions against three Black men, Nelson Brock, Reginald Mills and William Grant, all charged with burglary. Although that column of the docket book is headed "Residence" clerks commonly put the address related to the charge in that space rather than the home of the complainant. None of the other sources that mention the men include any information about the location from which they allegedly stole merchandise. All three men appear in the list of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette (but not the list in the New York Evening Journal). Brock and Mills are listed as having also been charged with inciting a riot, suggesting that police alleged they had somehow contributed to others attacking the store. The only information in the list are names. All three men are also in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, which records their alleged crime as "Burglarized store during riot." The docket book identified Officer Redmond of the 28th Precinct as having arrested all three men. Multiple arrests at the same location are rare during the disorder.

Brock, Mills and Grant appeared in Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, charged only with burglary, when Magistrate Renaud remanded them in custody. When they were returned to court on March 25, Magistrate Ford discharged them so they could be rearrested as they had been indicted by the grand jury, and then held them on $1000 bail. No further records mention the outcome of those prosecutions. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter recorded only the discharge on March 25.

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