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

Christopher Hayes, The Harlem Uprising: Segregation and Inequality in Postwar New York City (New York: Columbia University Press, 2021), 193.

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In the Supreme court on March 4, 1936 (7) Four months elapsed after Judge Shalleck upheld the verdict awarding damages to William Feinstein before any further damage claims went to trial, in the Supreme Court, not the Municipal Court, on March 4, 1936. Seven cases were decided at the trial, with the jury awarding a total of $1200 in damages. The Supreme Court heard larger claims, but as only two of the seven business owners filed claims larger than those of Feinstein and Rosenberg tried in the Municipal Court, it appears these cases were tried in that court because they were grouped together. What the seven plaintiffs had in common was their attorney: Barney Rosenstein, the lawyer at the center of newspaper stories about filing claims in April and July 1935. He was mentioned in stories in the New York Post, New York Amsterdam News, and California Eagle (the last a Black newspaper). The number of cases and total awards were reported in stories in New York Times, New York Post, New York Herald Tribune, Daily News, and New York Amsterdam News, and beyond the city, in the Chicago Tribune, and California Eagle. The total was mistakenly reported as $2000 in a brief story in the Pittsburgh Courier, while a similarly brief Afro-American story did not mention a total.

The largest award, to Irving Stetkin, did feature in the stories in the Pittsburgh Courier and Afro-American, and in the New York Times, New York Post, New York Herald Tribune and New York Amsterdam News. That Stetkin's claim involved damage to two stores was mentioned in all those stories other than the Pittsburgh Courier. The jury awarded him $550 according to the New York Times and New York Herald Tribune, $700 according to the New York Post and New York Amsterdam News, and $500 according to the Pittsburgh Courier. Stetkin's award was contrasted with the smallest award in some of those stories, which was to Michael D'Agostino, of $70 for two stores according to the New York Times and New York Herald Tribune, and of $25 for one store according to the New York Post and New York Amsterdam News.

What the store owners had claimed was mentioned only in the New York Times and New York Herald Tribune, as $20,000 in total, with the Afro-American saying Stetkin has claimed a total of $3000 for his two stores and the New York Times and New York Herald Tribune a total of $2000. If the total was accurate, the awards were for a significantly lower proportion of the claims than in the verdicts against Feinstein and Rosenberg: only 6% in total and 27.5% for Stetkin if award was $550 of $2000 or 23% if it was $700 of $3000, rather than 70% for Feinstein and 82% for Rosenberg. Newspaper stories in July 1935 had reported Stetkin claimed $2068 for a single store, so the larger sum may be the most accurate. Newspaper stories in April 1935 had reported D'Agostino claimed damages of $146.75 for one store and $196.25 for another, a total of $343. An award of $70 for the two stores amounted to 20% of those claims. All seven storeowners were identified in the New York Herald Tribune, but the story gave no information on either the claims or awards of the other five plaintiffs. Three are among those identified in stories in April 1935. Saloway's claim was $676 and the claim for George's lunch, owned by George Chronis, was $14,000. While Berenson was not mentioned in those stories, the business at that address was, with Anthony Avitable as the owner. If that was business referred to in the story, the damages claimed were $537. All the claims mentioned in the press total $18,566, leaving $1444 for the claims by Schwartz and Romanoff. Given the sums claimed by D'Agostino, Saloway and Avitable, the reported claims fit with the total claimed in the cases at trial being $20,000. It is striking that none of the stories mentioned the $14,000 claim for damages to George's Lunch resulting in an award of less than the $700-$550 that Stetkin received. If the dramatically reduced proportion of the claims the jury awarded is taken into account, then the trial does not seem to be the straightforward loss for the city that the press reported it to be. Certainly, further awards at those levels would not impose the burden on the city predicted after the earlier trials.

A different Corporation Counsel lawyer defended the city in this trial, Matthew Troy rather than Aaron Arnold. Troy also appears to have made a different argument than Arnold, which he supported with testimony from police witnesses who had not been called in the previous trials. That his approach was new would fit with the description of the trial as a "test case" in the Daily News, Chicago Tribune, and Afro-American notwithstanding two other trials have occurred. In continuing to assert the city's position that a riot had not taken place, Troy argued “a riot is a concerted uprising and the disorders in Harlem did not answer that description,” according to the New York Post. The New York Amsterdam News and California Eagle also reported similar phrases were part of the city's defense, "no concerted movement of the mob" in the later story and "no concentrated uprising" in the former story. The city's assertion that there had not been a riot appeared without any details of the basis of the claim in the New York Times, and Chicago Tribune. No mention was made of the arguments in the New York Herald Tribune, Daily News, Afro-American and Pittsburgh Courier. Nor did any story refer to Judge Shalleck's arguments for dismissing the city's claim in his decision in the Feinstein case.

Troy had First Deputy Police Commissioner Harold Fowler, Inspector John Seery and Deputy Inspector John Di Martini testify in support of the city's defense, according to the New York Post, New York Amsterdam News and California Eagle. Their evidence did not persuade the jury, who likely held to their own understanding of a riot. Efforts to convince them that riot had a different meaning in civil court than criminal court would have run up against the use of the label riot to describe events in Harlem in the press.

As in the previous trials, the Corporation Counsel said that the city would appeal, according to the New York Times and Afro-American, and "probably appeal" according to the New York Herald Tribune. Most of the damage claims still had to be resolved at this time. While the New York Post and New York Amsterdam News referred to pending suits totaling $1 million, as had stories about Feinstein's earlier trial, the New York Times, New York Herald Tribune and Chicago Tribune mentioned fifteen "similar" cases awaiting trial in the Supreme Court. The later story attributed that information to Rosenstein, which suggests it referred to plaintiffs that he represented. Twenty store owners had appeared on the list he circulated to the press in April 1935.

There is no evidence, however, that any further claims went to trial or that the city appealed the verdicts in this trial. Given that this was the city's third loss at trial, which both New York Post and New York Herald Tribune noted, and that the jury awarded relatively small sums, city officials may have decided to settle the other claims.

Nor is there any evidence that efforts were made to amend the General Municipal Law to reduce or remove the city's liability for riot damage. However, in 1942, that section of the statute was suspended as part of the War Emergency Act. As a result, the law was not in effect when racial disorder broke out in Harlem in 1943. Notwithstanding the suspension, the New York Times reported 800 claims were filed against the city for $4 million of damages, evidence that the litigation in 1935 had increased awareness of the statute and likely had resulted in additional awards of damages beyond those in the three trials. Barney Rosenstein was again among the attorneys involved in those actions, and in trying to find a way around the suspension. He took a claim to the Appeals court to test the city's liability; the judges ruled in 1945 that the Act prevented the award of damages, as the New York Supreme Court had a year earlier. City officials had been confident of that outcome, historian Dominic Capeci has shown. The suspension was not lifted at the end of the war, but instead incorporated into the New York State Defense Emergency Act of 1951 that provided for civil defense administration, and renewed into the 1970s. Consequently, the city was also protected from liability for damage from the racial disorder in Harlem in 1964. Nonetheless, at least thirty-eight claims were again filed, the New York Amsterdam News reported, despite recognition that the statute was suspended. The city's press did not report the fate of those claims, nor did the one historical study of the 1964 racial disorder that mentioned them, Christoper Hayes' The Harlem Uprising.