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

Conrad Schmidt music shop windows broken

Conrad Schmidt music shop at 213 West 125th Street had windows broken during the disorder. Opposite the W. T. Grant department store, the music shop was four buildings from the intersection of West 125th Street and 7th Avenue, on the block of West 125th Street where police clashed with crowds gathered in front of Kress' store.

Windows were broken in large numbers of businesses on this block of West 125th Street. Two newspapers reported very extensive damage. "Practically every store window on the block had been shattered by 10 PM, according to the Home News. That damage was both less extensive and took longer in the New York Herald Tribune story: "By midnight one or more windows had been smashed in almost every storefront" on that block between 7th and 8th Avenues (although in another mention of that damage in the story it had been done by 8 PM). The music shop was one of a small number of businesses identified as having broken windows by the New York Herald Tribune and New York American (but was missing from the Daily Mirror, which otherwise mentioned the same businesses). No reason was given in those stories for why that mix of businesses was singled out. They were not just the largest stores, although the Blumstein and McCrory's department stores were included, together with the W. T Grant 5 & 10c store in the New York American. The United Cigar store spanned several storefronts on the corner on West 125th Street and 7th Avenue, but the other stores, the Willow Cafeteria, Young's Hats, and Scheer's clothing store, did not have similarly large displays. All the stores identified by these newspapers were located between Kress' store at 256 West 125th Street and 7th Avenue, so may have been as far as groups who broke through the police cordon at 125th and 7th Avenue at around 9:00 PM reached. The music shop was also one of the nineteen businesses on this block with broken windows listed by a reporter for La Prensa who walked along West 125th Street on the day after the disorder. That list included businesses west of Kress' store. Other stores on the block might also have been damaged; the La Prensa reporter concluded his list by noting he had not included others as they had only suffered minor damage ("y otras mas que por ser los danos ocasionados relativamente pequeños no creimus de interes catalogar entre los establecimientos ya mencionados").



Only the New York American provided an address for the Conrad Schmidt music shop. It also appeared at that address in the MCCH business survey as a white-owned business in the second half of 1935, but was not in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941 in which a liquor store occupied the location (a liquor store shared the address with the music shop in the MCCH business survey). In 1937, Frances Kraft Reckling, who identified herself as a former staff member, advertised a music shop in the New York Amsterdam News located across the street, above the Woolworth's store at 210 West 125th Street.

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