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

Chock Full O'Nuts restaurant windows broken

A branch of the Chock Full O'Nuts restaurant chain at 200 West 125th Street was one of the businesses in a list of those with broken windows made by a reporter for La Prensa who walked along West 116th Street, Lenox Avenue, and West 125th Street on the day after the disorder. After walking north on Lenox Avenue from West 116th Street, the reporter turned left on West 125th Street, walking west toward Kress' store where the disorder originated. The list included an unnamed restaurant on the west corner of 125th Street and Seventh Avenue ("Restaurant, esquina oeste de la calle 125 y Séptima Ave.") The La Prensa reporter would not have been referring to the northwest corner of 7th Avenue and 125th Street, as a branch of the United Cigar chain was located there. The MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935 included a white-owned restaurant at 200 West 125th Street that was a branch of Chock Full O'Nuts. Louise Thompson mentioned the "Nut Store" on the southwest corner of 125th Street and 7th Avenue in recounting her movements during the disorder to the MCCH hearing. She referred to it as a landmark that located where her group was standing and as a business she went into later that evening. A store entrance with a triangular pediment that was a feature of Chock Full O'Nuts luncheonettes was visible under the Hotel Theresa in the Tax department photograph of the corner taken between 1939 and 1941. The windows were likely broken during the clashes between police and crowds at the corner from around 8:30 PM to 10:30 PM.



The businesses on the other three corners of the intersection also had windows broken during the disorder. The United Cigar store and Herbert's Blue Diamond Jewelry store on the northeast corner were guarded by police and protected from looting, while Regal Shoes on the southeast corner was reported looted. Police trying to clear people from West 125th Street around Kress' store to the west had pushed people toward this intersection, creating large crowds, some of whom broke away and threw objects at the windows of stores on 7th Avenue. After 9:00 PM, Emergency trucks were stationed at the intersection as part of the perimeter Inspector McAuliffe ordered police to establish around the main business blocks of the street, from 8th to Lenox Avenues, from 124th to 126th Streets, according to stories in the New York Times, Daily Mirror, New York Herald Tribune, and Pittsburgh Courier. The presence of such large numbers of police did appear to have resulted in only isolated looting of stores on the corners and the two surrounding blocks of West 125th Street even if it came too late to protect store windows.

No one arrested during the disorder was identified as breaking the business' windows. The store was still in business when the Tax department photograph was taken between 1939 and 1941.

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