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

"Cops Not on Job, Say Harlem Suits," New York Post, July 23, 1935 [clipping].

In the New York Post

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12:00 AM to 12:30 AM Around midnight, gunshots rang out more frequently as the violence of the police response to the disorder intensified. Some of that shooting came as police encountered and tried to disperse the crowds in the two areas where disorder was concentrated at this time, Lenox Avenue north of 125th Street and 7th Avenue south of 125th Street.

On Lenox Avenue around 132nd Street, the staff in William Feinstein’s liquor store who had been watching the violence for an hour heard an increase in police gunfire that made them decide it was no longer safe to remain. David Schmoockler, the manager, and an unnamed Black employee locked the doors, closed the iron gates that protected the storefront, and left Harlem. Lawyers for the city would later criticize the men for not first moving the merchandise in the window to the rear of the store. The judge in that trial saw the men’s situation differently, accepting that they had been too scared by the escalating violence to spend any longer in the store.

Schmoockler and his coworker were not the only people observing the disorder who perceived an increase in police violence and use of guns around midnight. So too did several white journalists. Gunfire that had been episodic in the preceding hours became more constant. White journalists variously attributed police shooting to the increased violence of participants in the disorder, the need to protect white men and women from attack, and the outbreak of widespread looting, while the Afro-American’s correspondent portrayed it as a response to the increasing number of police being injured. Only more widespread looting was actually evident on Lenox Avenue at the time. It took little for police to feel justified in shooting at Harlem’s residents, so individuals taking items rather than simply damaging businesses was enough to increase the shooting. In the context of looting, police officers also became more willing to use their guns in efforts to disperse crowds on the street. Increasingly indiscriminate shooting made it more likely that bystanders would be hit by bullets, a situation all too familiar to Harlem residents.

The spread of looting reflected the variety of circumstances in which it had begun to take place. By midnight, sustained attacks on businesses had done enough damage to make merchandise in the window displays accessible to those who were on the streets. More often than earlier in the disorder, windows were broken so items could be taken immediately. As window displays were emptied of merchandise, those seeking items they needed ventured inside businesses. Individuals climbed through smashed windows to access merchandise on shelves inside or, less often, broke down doors and walked in. Doing so required more willingness to break the law and involved more risk of arrest as it took more time and offered little chance to escape if police arrived. In some cases, those who went inside threw merchandise out on to the street, making it available for others to take more easily and with less risk than reaching into windows.

As participants in the disorder moved out of range of police guns and more of the neighborhood’s most desperate residents came to the street from their homes to the east, it was perhaps around this time that attacks on businesses and looting began to spread north of this area, into blocks in the heart of Black Harlem around 135th Street. A branch of the Wohlmuth clothing store chain at 477 Lenox Avenue near West 134th Street, a chain grocery store near 135th Street, and Philip Jaross’ tailor’s shop between 136th and 137th Streets would all be looted. However, the violence around 135th Street was less extensive than in the blocks below 130th Street. Police estimated that only eighty-five broken windows in total were damaged north of 130th Street on 8th, 7th, Lenox, and 5th Avenues combined. There were crowds of people in the streets on those blocks; twenty-eight of the thirty-two arrests north of 130th Street resulted in charges of disorderly conduct. All those businesses reported to have been looted contained items of which many of Harlem's residents were in need: food and clothing.

Some of the violence seen around 131st Street now manifested further south. A fire was started in Harry Lash’s 5c & 10c store on the corner of 130th Street around midnight. Display windows were smashed the length of the store that faced West 130th Street, as well as on the Lenox Avenue side, and much of their contents taken. Arnold Ford, a nineteen-year-old Black man, joined others entering the store and "helping himself to some merchandise." Untroubled by police, he took "soap, garters, thread and notions" with a value of $1.15. Although Lash would ultimately put the value of the merchandise taken from the store at $1,000, photographs taken the next day showed large quantities of items still on shelves inside the store. The fire was on the West 130th Street side of the building, and firefighters extinguished it before it did much damage. Nonetheless, photographers and newsreel cameras all arrived in time to capture images of the flames. Police would also have converged to respond to the fire and manage the crowds drawn by it and the presence of the firefighters. They likely also arrested the only person charged with taking merchandise from the store, Milton Ackerman, a twenty-four-year-old Black man. He lived nearby on West 130th Street, midway down the block east of the store, so probably was among the residents who had come to Lenox Avenue in response to noise and rumors. Officer Brown must have claimed to have seen him in the store as he charged Ackerman with burglary for taking two rolls of paper and some napkins worth 13 cents in total. While a grand jury did indict him for that offense, indicating that police presented some evidence, a judge later dismissed the indictment, raising the possibility that Ackerman had not actually been a participant in the attacks on the store. Instead, he may have been among those on the street near the store, arrested either by mistake or as part of efforts to clear the streets, as had happened on earlier on 7th and 8th Avenues.

Other arrests of residents in the vicinity of damaged and looted businesses with apparently little regard to whether they participated in the violence were occurring in the blocks south of Lash’s store. Police efforts to control the violence there, as around West 132nd Street, appeared to only temporarily disperse groups who quickly reformed nearby and shifted their attention to different targets. Those participants in the violence were emerging from and returning to the groups of spectators on the street, at least some of whom followed groups moving up and down the avenue rather than remaining in one place as Samuel Pitts and Marshall Pfifer did on 7th Avenue, adding to the disorder on the streets. Businesses in the area consequently suffered episodic attacks, accruing damage and losing merchandise across a period of several hours. At least some officers responded as their colleagues had earlier by somewhat indiscriminately arresting those in the vicinity of damaged and looted businesses. That is what happened around this time at the Romanoff drug store at 375 Lenox Avenue, on the corner of West 129th Street a block south of Lash’s store. An unidentified police officer arrested three men, Oscar Austin, a twenty-nine-year-old Black man, and two twenty-four-year-old Black men, Jacob Bonaparte and Sam Nicholas, and charged them with attempted burglary. That charge fit circumstances in which he had seen the men reaching into the store windows or inside the store but had not found any merchandise in their possession. However, that was not what the men had been doing, as the charge was changed to disorderly conduct when they appeared in court and was then rejected outright by the magistrate who acquitted them. Austin, Bonaparte, and Nicholas were spectators, not participants in the disorder, residents of West 128th Street and West 124th Street who had remained close to home as they followed events on Lenox Avenue.

Even as police intervened to stop the attacks on some businesses, other groups attacked and looted nearby stores without any impediment. Anthony Avitable saw crowds "just breaking into my store" at 381 Lenox Avenue on the block north of the Romanoff drug store as he drove over the 138th Street bridge. He had heard about the disorder in Harlem around midnight and was on his way from his home in the Bronx. Seeing no police near his store, he drove on to the 28th Precinct Station on West 123rd Street and at 12:30 AM report the looting. Officers there said they "couldn't do anything for me," and that he should contact police headquarters. When Avitable called, "a police officer at headquarters told him over the phone: "I'll have men there in two minutes." It would be forty-five minutes before they arrived. Avitable would be one of the white business owners who later sued the city for damages for failing to protect them from the disorder.

Further south in the block between 125th and 126th Streets, police made multiple arrests that suggested there were more officers there around midnight than elsewhere on Lenox Avenue. Officer Anthony Barbaro, at least, was standing on the southeast corner of West 126th Street just after midnight. Undeterred by his presence, a group of people gathered in front of the Rex Drug store across 126th Street at 318 Lenox Avenue. Barbaro then claimed he heard two men call out, "Com[e] on gang, here's two more windows, let's break them." After throwing stones that shattered glass in the windows, the group ran north up Lenox Avenue. Barbaro gave chase. He was almost certainly joined by some other officers, as he alone would not have been able to apprehend the two alleged members of the group arrested two buildings north of the drug store, Leon Mauraine, a twenty-two-year-old Black window washer, and David Smith, a twenty-two-year-old Black clerk. Around ten minutes later, when a group of about thirty people gathered across the street in front of the Temple Grill & Restaurant at 317 Lenox Avenue, another patrolman, Alfred Tait, was nearby. After he allegedly heard Bernard Smith, a thirty-nine-year-old Black interior decorator shout to the group, "We will get these two windows here," throw two stones that broke the restaurant’s windows, and then call, "You fellows get the others," Tait moved to intervene. While his arrest of Smith halted this group’s attacks on the restaurant, it did not prevent them from moving on to break windows in nearby businesses.

Among the businesses that continued to be attacked notwithstanding the arrests were George’s Lunch and Piskin’s laundry on West 126th Street on the opposite side of Lenox Avenue to where Officer Barbaro had been standing. Police struggling with attacks around the intersection would have begun to fire their guns more indiscriminately, so it was likely around this time that a stray bullet went through the laundry window. At that point, Piskin decided to seek help from the police. While he had heard “plenty” of pistol shots before then without feeling the need to leave the laundry, a bullet actually hitting the window evidently represented an escalation in violence that made it too dangerous to remain. Next door, the white staff member in George’s Lunch remained locked in the washroom. Over the next hour or so, people made their way inside both businesses; in the following hours, the machinery in the laundry was broken and the furniture in the restaurant was demolished in attacks against white property that went beyond looting. Piskin’s efforts to get police protection against those attacks was to no avail. He did find an officer a block away at the intersection of West 125th Street and Lenox Avenue: "Report it — I can't leave my post," was the patrolman’s response. So Piskin then went to the 28th Precinct on West 123rd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues. He received no more help than Anthony Avitable had. "Oh we know all about it," was the response there. When Piskin complained about the lack of police protection, another officer told him, "My life is more important to me than your business is to you." Unsurprisingly, the laundry owner would join with Avitable in suing the city for damages.

Not only Piskin went without aid as police struggled to contain the violence around West 126th Street. So too did August Miller, a fifty-six-year-old white handyman, who collapsed near the intersection of 126th Street and Lenox Avenue sometime soon after Smith’s arrest. Miller had emerged from the subway station at 125th Street not long before, having traveled from the building in the Bronx where he lived and worked. It was a taxi-driver rather than police who went to his aid, transporting the unconscious man to the Joint Diseases Hospital, which was closer than Harlem Hospital. Miller died three days later without regaining consciousness long enough to describe what had happened to him. While the physician who examined Miller diagnosed a possible skull fracture, an injury the more sensational white press was quick to attribute to a beating by “rioters,” the medical examiner who later conducted an autopsy concluded that he had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, “a natural cause [of death], nothing suspicious.” If violence was not directly responsible for Miller’s death, it does seem likely that the stress of being in the midst of the noise and crowds of the disorder contributed to some degree to him suffering a stroke at that time. Given those circumstances, August Miller is counted among those who died during the disorder.

A block west, a woman was attacked, likely in a continuation of the violence some groups of residents targeted at white individuals they encountered on Harlem’s streets. Twenty-six-year-old Emma Brockson’s race was not identified in the hospital record of her treatment for injuries to her left hand "received when assaulted by some unknown person or persons." However, she lived on West 126th Street just west of St Nicholas Avenue, on the boundary of an area largely populated by white residents. At the heart of the commercial district on 125th Street, the intersection with 7th Avenue was heavily trafficked by white shoppers and theater patrons, and consequently the site of recurring violence against white men and women before and after Brockson was assaulted. As elsewhere in Harlem, the presence of police in the area guarding damaged businesses and keeping crowds away from the Kress store did not prevent violence nor did it enable officers to intervene and make arrests when it broke out.

As well as pedestrians, the groups looking to direct violence at white men and women on 7th Avenue targeted the vehicles traveling on the street, a variant of the disorder not seen in other areas of Harlem. At the same intersection with 118th Street where a group had attacked Mario Pravia’s candy store around 11:30 PM, a rock or bottle thrown at a passing car shattered one of its windows, sending glass flying into the face of a passenger, Patricia O’Rourke, a thirty-year-old white woman. She was on her way home to the West Bronx with her two sisters. Harlem was not the destination of most of those driving on 7th Avenue. As the major artery in and out of the city, it brought white individuals into the disorder and delivered them to those looking for targets for violence. The cuts on O’Rourke’s eyes, forehead, and cheeks caused the driver of the car to divert to Harlem Hospital. When she emerged from the hospital sometime later with a bandaged head and a fur coat over her shoulders, O’Rourke attracted the attention of a Daily News photographer. When her image appeared on the front page it was captioned “A Girl Victim.” On 8th Avenue, where there was likely less traffic traveling under the elevated railway line, it was passing police vehicles that had objects thrown at them. Patrolman Harry Whittington, a thirty-five-year-old white member of Emergency Squad 9 was hit by a rock as the emergency truck passed West 123rd Street. While the identity of passengers in cars and buses would not always have been known to those who threw objects at them, that was not the case with police vehicles. Moreover, Whittington was likely riding on the outside of the truck as most of the crew did. He would certainly have been the intended target of the rock that hit his leg, providing a reminder that even as looting became widespread there were Harlem residents whose violence remained directed at police and the white authorities with power over life in Harlem.

Objects being thrown at passing cars were not the only incidents of violence on 7th Avenue around West 118th Street. Around midnight, Charles Saunders, a twenty-four-year-old Black unemployed elevator operator left the room at 1967 7th Avenue that he shared with his wife, Anna Gregory, to buy cigarettes. When he reached the street, Saunders saw the crowd gathered around Ralph Sirico’s shoe repair store to the north just past 119th Street at 1985 7th Avenue. Going to investigate, he saw shoes and hats being thrown out of the broken windows on to the street. Saunders joined others outside the store in picking up some of that merchandise, in his case a pair of shoes, and then turned back towards his home. However, the crowd around the store had also attracted the attention of Detective Jeremiah Juross, one of the police officers patrolling the avenue in radio cars. As he pulled over, the crowd in front to the store scattered. Juross claimed he saw Saunders jump out of the store window and flee down the street. The detective caught up with him and arrested Saunders for looting. Despite what Juross claimed to have seen, C. T. Berkeley, who was part of the crowd around the store, insisted that Saunders was not one of the two men who had been inside.

The arrests of three Black men for looting the branch of the Butler grocery store chain across the intersection from Sirico’s store might also have occurred around this time, perhaps after some of those on the street crossed 7th Avenue to avoid the police arresting Saunders. Multiple arrests required several officers, notwithstanding Patrolman Redmond being recorded as having apprehended all three men. Thirty-two-year-old Nelson Brock and nineteen-year-old Reginald Mills lived nearby, while thirty-year-old William Grant lived some distance uptown. The combination of local residents and visitors pointed to the mix of people on 7th Avenue, some of whom were moving to take merchandise from businesses as they became more damaged.

Violence was also reported for the first time on Lenox Avenue around the commercial district on West 116th Street. That was a very different neighborhood from the other sites of the disorder with a mix of mostly Puerto Rican, Spanish-speaking residents, white residents, and Black residents. Around 40% (75 of 194) of the businesses on West 116th Street between 8th Avenue and 5th Avenue had Hispanic owners when surveyed in the second half of 1935. There had been no violence in this area prior to 10:00 PM, when the businesses began to close. After midnight, a group of Black men and women took the trash cans in front of the San Antonio Market at 71 West 116th Street and threw them at the window on the right side of the store front, apparently watched by local residents who described the events to staff when the store reopened. After smashing all the glass out of the window, they took about $10 of groceries. Unlike in other areas, the store apparently did not suffer repeated attacks or looting over an extended time. Menswear stores in the two blocks to the south on Lenox Avenue that had windows broken may have been attacked around this time, perhaps by the same group. However, no clothing was taken from the window display of the southernmost of those businesses, Mario Gonzalez's Menswear Store at 86 Lenox Avenue. While local residents also described this attack to the store’s owners when they returned, there were no similar reports that established whether the menswear store at 112 Lenox Avenue had been looted or simply had windows broken.

The racial politics of Harlem predisposed Hispanic observers to identify the group who attacked these businesses as made up of Black individuals. In keeping with their general stance, Puerto Rican leaders sought to distance their community from the violence and any hostility it generated in white New Yorkers rather than align themselves with the grievances and protests of their Black neighbors. That it was a Puerto Rican boy who was the subject of the rumors that spurred the disorder was not known until it was over. No accounts of the disorder identified Puerto Ricans among the groups attacking white men and women and white-owned businesses elsewhere in Harlem, but most were viewing the disorder through a racial lens that would not have registered their presence. (Charles Romney, who was a somewhat unreliable source given his repeated efforts to put himself at the center of the MCCH investigation, did describe people talking in Spanish among those at 125th Street and 7th Avenue around 7:30 PM saying that were "going to get into this because a boy was murdered by police.”) On the other hand, that groups who avoided looting Black-owned businesses chose to target those with Hispanic owners indicated the opposite side of those tensions. At least some of the Black participants in the violence targeted their Hispanic neighbors as they did white business owners whom they saw as exploiting and discriminating against them. The extent of the division and misunderstanding between the residents of this area was evident in the response of a Puerto Rican journalist to two Black-owned businesses who followed the practice of putting up signs identifying the race of their owners. Rather than recognizing those signs as a form of protection against attacks meant for white-owned businesses, the journalist read them as a refusal to serve white and Hispanic customers.

Exactly where those who attacked the San Antonio Market came from, whether they were local residents or had come from 125th Street, is unknown in large part because police made no arrests in this area. Police would be on Lenox Avenue a few blocks to the north at West 118th Street, two hours later, and on 7th Avenue at its intersection with West 116th Street after that. However, there is no evidence that police patrolled West 116th Street. White and Black journalists also did not go to 116th Street; nor later did the members of the MCCH and their investigators. Their collective absences left the matter of how the presence of Hispanic residents and businesses complicated the racial violence of the disorder, and the full reach of the violence, addressed only in the Puerto Rican press.
Claims for damages examined by the Comptroller, July 23 (8) At the end of July, the Daily News, New York Post, New York World-Telegram, New York Sun, New York Evening Journal, and the Black newspapers the New York Amsterdam News, Chicago Defender, and Pittsburgh Courier published stories about claims for damages filed after the disorder. Barney Rosenstein, the white attorney representing about half of the business owners who filed claims, prompted those stories by releasing the testimony that at least seven of his clients gave when they were examined by the comptroller, the first step in the legal process, according to the New York Post. The New York Evening Journal reported simply that the testimony was "made public," and did not mention Rosenstein. (The lawyer represented unions and later worked for the legal arm of the Communist Party, the International Labor Defense, frequent targets of the Hearst press, which may have led the newspaper's editors to omit him. The Daily News and Pittsburgh Courier stories were the only other accounts that omitted mention of Rosenstein.) The other stories did not identify the source of their information.

All the stories reported that 106 claims had been filed for damages totaling $116,000. The Daily News, New York World-Telegram, and the New York Amsterdam News, Chicago Defender, and Pittsburgh Courier added the detail that the sums claimed ranged from $2.65 to $14,000. An additional sixty-five claims had been rejected as they had been filed more than the thirty days after the disorder, the period allowed in section 71 of the General Municipal Law, according to the New York World-Telegram and the New York Amsterdam News. Only the Daily News, New York World-Telegram, Chicago Defender, and Pittsburgh Courier identified six insurance companies as among the plaintiffs, seeking to recover what they had paid to the business owners with policies covering their broken windows — reported earlier as $147,315. The New York World-Telegram, New York Sun, and New York Amsterdam News stories described the city's response, filing a "general denial" of all the claims that meant they would be resolved in court. The claim published in the New York World-Telegram that the full calendar of the court would delay trials until the next year proved accurate only for the Supreme Court: two cases were tried in the Municipal Court, in September and November.

The claims filed by Rosenstein asserted that the police department provided "insufficient protection" to the stores and that the police on the scene were "inefficient in handling the mob," phrases quoted in both the New York Sun and the New York World-Telegram, and paraphrased in the New York Amsterdam News, Chicago Defender, and Pittsburgh Courier. Rather than quoting from the claims, the New York Post story described them as charging "police laxity" and used them as the basis for taunting the city's police: "Where were those tough, hard-boiled cops when a riot broke out in Harlem, March 19? Why did they forget then that swaggering aggressiveness which pickets and soapboxers know so well?" By contrast, taking the other side in the ongoing tension between Mayor La Guardia and the police department, the New York Sun blamed the Mayor's "kid-glove methods" for the failed police response: "While scenes of terror rocked the Negro section during most of the late afternoon and night, Mayor La Guardia persisted in his attitude that things would come out alright, that the police had the situation in hand. His attitude, it was apparent, was responsible for the comparative gentleness with which the situation was handled by the cops." (The Daily News made no mention of the charges against the police, reporting only that the suits "claimed redress as taxpayers from the municipal corporations.")

With the exception of the Daily News, Chicago Defender, and Pittsburgh Courier, the stories quoted testimony from seven business owners. Only Harry Piskin was mentioned in all those stories, in part because he claimed the largest sum for damages, but also because he recounted being refused help by police on three occasions. George Chronis, Manny Zipp, Anthony Avitable, and Irving Stekin each featured in three stories, Benjamin Zelvin in two stories, and Harry Levinson in only one story. The New York World-Telegram provided the most testimony, from six business owners (Avitable, Piskin, Chronis, Zipp, Zelvin, Stekin), with five quoted in the New York Sun (Piskin, Levinson, Stekin, Avitable, Zipp) and New York Post (Chronis, Stekin, Zipp, Avitable, Piskin), and two in the New York Amsterdam News (Piskin and Chronis) and New York Evening Journal (Piskin and Zelvin).

Piskin, Avitable, and Levinson had appeared on the list of twenty filing claims released in April, indicating that group was likely represented by Rosenstein. Chronis, Zipp, Stekin, and Zelvin were among those for whom Rosenstein later filed claims. In all, he represented "more than half" the 106 plaintiffs, according to the New York World-Telegram and Chicago Defender or "about half" according to the New York Post and New York Sun or "many plaintiffs" according to the New York Amsterdam News. A similar pattern of a single law firm filing multiple claims was apparent after the 1919 Chicago riot.

The claims for damages created records of events in the disorder missing from newspaper stories and police and criminal court records. Police made arrests only for looting of Benjamin Zelvin's jewelry store; none of the other looted businesses identified in the press at this time appeared in any other sources.
Businesses that did not survive (5) The white-owned newspapers the New York Sun and the New York Evening Journal, the Black-owned Afro-American and the Spanish-language publication La Prensa reported that businesses in Harlem might close as a result of the disorder. The New York Sun implied that racial conflict motivated such decisions: "It is reported that many white merchants of the Harlem district have signified their intention of leaving the neighborhood just as soon as they can arrange for the disposition of their stocks." La Prensa reported a similar sentiment, that "it is impossible to continue doing business in areas that are exposed to racial outbursts and radical controversies." The statement in the New York Evening Journal was speculation linked to the losses suffered: "The looting of stores reached such proportions that small merchants feared they would be thrown into bankruptcy." The Afro-American's correspondent offered a similar assessment: "[Many businesses] probably will never open again because their owners are bankrupt as a result of the looting of stores and lack of insurance to cover the losses."

A similar claim was made by Barney Rosentein, the attorney representing more than half of the 106 business owners who sued the city to recover losses they suffered during the disorder. "Many of his clients, Mr Rosenstein said, were completely wiped out by the wave of robberies which followed the beginning of the riots," the New York World-Telegram reported. The New York Sun reported the same claim without attributing it to Rosenstein. In newspaper stories about their suits against the city, only five business owners are identified as saying that they had gone out of business due to the damages they suffered. This group included the two owners who made the largest claims for damages, Harry Piskin ($14,125) and George Chronis ($14,000), and the owners who made the fourth and seventh largest claims, Harry Levinson ($4,805) and Irving Stekin ($2,068). The remaining owner, Manny Zipp, claimed only $721 in damages, below the median claim of $733.13 for the twenty-six owners identified in newspaper stories. Piskin and Chronis both told the city comptroller that extensive damage to their stores had put them out of business. Piskin said "they looted his laundry, broke all of his machinery and drove him out of business," the New York Sun reported, while Chronis said his lunchroom had been "completely demolished," according to the New York World-Telegram. Zipp and Levinson emphasized lost merchandise. Zipp told the city comptroller "everything in his store was taken," forcing him out of business, in a story in the New York Post, while Levinson said the "mob cleaned out" his store, forcing him to retire, the New York Sun reported. In Stekin's case, no explanation was given; a story in the New York Sun simply said he was not in business anymore.

Indirect evidence of what happened to other businesses can be found in the MCCH business survey undertaken between June and December 1935 and the Tax Department building photographs taken between 1939 and 1941. However, the survey and photographs do not provide certain or comprehensive evidence. While the survey identified more than 10,000 businesses, other sources do indicate that it did miss some businesses and sometimes incorrectly recorded addresses. In most cases, the owner and the business name were also not recorded, so they cannot be matched to looted businesses with certainty. In addition, some of the Tax Department building photographs taken between 1939 and 1941 are taken from a distance or angle that does not show the storefront of the address that was looted.

Twenty-one additional business owners who sued the city are identified in newspaper stories, seven of whom continued to operate their businesses after the disorder, appearing in the MCCH business survey and/or the Tax Department building photographs. Those businesses reported damages ranging from $453.90 to $1,273.90, lesser amounts than all but one of the businesses that closed. Those sources do not offer information on the remaining fourteen businesses identified as the subject of damage suits. Four of those owners claimed damages higher than those that remained in business: Samuel Mestetzky claimed $5,860.50; Irving Guberman claimed $3,967; Benjamin Zelvin claimed $2,685; and Sam Lefkowitz claimed $1,610.64. The scale of those damages makes it possible that these men may also have gone out of business.

The losses for twenty-six additional businesses reported in legal records and the press were, with one exception, less than those of the businesses reported as suing the city, ranging from $10-12 to $1,000 (and one with losses of $10,000), with a median loss of only $100. Nineteen of those businesses reopened after the disorder; there is no information on the other seven businesses.

In addition to the twenty-six business owners identified as suing the city, an additional eighty others also filed suits. Some of those businesses may be among those who appeared in legal records. There is no information on the scale of the damage they suffered, so no indication of whether any likely did not reopen.

In total, nearly ninety percent (40 of 45) of the businesses reported as having being looted that can be identified in the sources reopened after the disorder.
Before civil court, July 23 On July 23, Barney Rosenstein, one of the attorneys representing business owners, made public the testimony several of his clients had given when questioned by the comptroller. By that time, the three-month deadline set in the statute for filing claims for damages resulting from a riot had passed. Just how many claims had been filed is uncertain. A total of one hundred and six claims was reported by the press at this time, with an additional sixty-five claims rejected as submitted too late. Later newspaper stories would refer to a total of 160 claims for small sums and at least twenty-two claims for larger sums. No official source provided a total number of claims. If the higher numbers were accurate, claims were filed for at least one-third of the estimated 450 businesses damaged during the disorder.

Not only business owners had filed claims against the city. So too did at least six of the insurance companies with whom Harlem's businesses had policies. By this time, claims on those policies had resulted in payments $147,315 to replace 697 glass windows broken in 300 stores, according to a widely reported survey. Business owners had lost merchandise as well as windows, so insurance companies also faced additional, larger claims. However, those policyholders faced almost certain disappointment. Their policies excluded losses suffered as a result of riots. In fact, it was such exclusions that had contributed to the enactment of statutes like Section 71 of New York's General Municipal Law to provide property owners with compensation in those circumstances. The insurance companies who filed claims sought to have the city reimburse them for payments they had made for windows. They would also have been aware that they needed to act to ensure that city's response to the claims did not shift liability back to them.

City officials had decided on their response to the claims by this time: a "general denial," as stories in the New York World-Telegram, New York Sun, and New York Amsterdam News put it. As a result, the claims would be decided by juries in the city's civil courts, the Municipal Court, in the case of smaller claims, and the Supreme Court, in the case of larger claims. A blanket denial clearly relied on the law and involved the city's lawyers, not individual assessments of the sums claimed made by the comptroller. That did not mean that the value of the claims had no bearing on the city's position. The total reported at this time would not have been overly burdensome for the city: $116,000, with individual claims that ranged from $2.65 to $14,000. The later reports of a larger number of claims, however, referred to a dramatically higher total: $1 million. Liability on that scale could not be managed by disputing claims and negotiating reduced settlements: it needed to be avoided. One defense the city could employ to avoid liability was of particular concern to the companies who had insured Harlem's businesses: that the events of March 19 and 20 had not been a riot. If the city's lawyers were to succeed in persuading a jury to take that view, they would not have simply avoided liability but shifted it to insurance companies whose policies would no longer exclude the damage.

However, the question of whether a riot had occurred was not one that came up when the comptroller questioned the business owners represented by Rosenstein. What attracted the attention of the journalists were the business owners' testimony that police had either not made an effort to protect their premises or had been unable to handle the crowds when they did. Henry Piskin tried three times to get police to protect his laundry from being bombarded by rocks and looted. A police officer a block away at the intersection of West 125th Street and Lenox Avenue told him, "Report it--I can't leave my post," according to the New York Post. When he did report it at the 28th Precinct station on West 123rd Street, the response was, "Oh we know all about it." When Piskin complained about not receiving help, a police officer answered, "My life is more important to me than your business is to you." When Anthony Avitable rushed to Harlem on learning of the disorder, and saw crowds breaking into his store and no police nearby, he drove on to the 28th Precinct station to report the looting, the New York Post reported. Officers there said they "couldn't do anything for me," and told him to phone police headquarters. The officer who answered assured Avitable that, "I'll have men there in two minutes." They did not arrive for forty-five minutes. Irving Stekin waited two hours for police to respond after he reported that a stone had been thrown through his store window. The two patrolmen who did arrive "couldn't do anything. The mob was too big for them," according to a report in the New York World-Telegram. Benjamin Zelvin waited half an hour after calling the 28th Precinct for police to arrive to protect his jewelry store. However, that protection proved fleeting. Some time after Zelvin left for home, the officers also left, so police "didn't know anything about" the subsequent looting, the New York World-Telegram reported. Calls to police by staff in George Chronis' restaurant brought no response, leading the two Black staff to leave and the white staff member to lock himself in a washroom while the restaurant was attacked.

That testimony prompted very different reactions in the New York Post and in the New York Sun. The New York Post story used it to taunt the police: "Where were those tough, hard-boiled cops when a riot broke out in Harlem, March 19? Why did they forget then that swaggering aggressiveness which pickets and soapboxers know so well?" By contrast, the New York Sun took the other side in the ongoing tension between Mayor La Guardia and the police department, blaming the Mayor's "kid-glove methods" for the failed police response: "While scenes of terror rocked the Negro section during most of the late afternoon and night, Mayor La Guardia persisted in his attitude that things would come out alright, that the police had the situation in hand. His attitude, it was apparent, was responsible for the comparative gentleness with which the situation was handled by the cops." The Uptown Chamber of Commerce, an organization made up of white owners of larger businesses, had in the immediate aftermath of the disorder leveled a similar charge that police were "pampering" radicals, calling on the mayor to tell the police "that they will be backed to the limit as long as they exercise restraint and display good judgment" in order to dispel the impression that "the police are under wraps when dealing with rioters." At the same time they were condescendingly dismissed the complaints of the "small merchants of Harlem" that the police lacked the ability to control the riot. The Harlem Merchants Association had claimed police were "inadequately equipped to handle the situation" in a telegram sent the day after the disorder appealing to the Governor of New York to send troops.

It would be some time before the business owners would find out how jurors rather than journalists reacted to their testimony. Civil proceedings to resolve their claims threatened to take even more time than the criminal process, in which only two cases resulting from the disorder remained outstanding by this time. The full calendars of the civil courts would likely delay trials until the next year, according to the New York World-Telegram.
Anthony Avitable's grocery store looted Anthony Avitable's grocery store at 381 Lenox Avenue was closed when crowds appeared on Lenox Avenue. That section of Lenox Avenue was one in which businesses suffered extensive damage with looting beginning around 11:30 PM. Around midnight, Avitable got news of the disorder in Harlem and drove back from the Bronx. He told the city comptroller that as he drove over the 138th Street bridge he saw crowds "just breaking into my store," the New York Sun reported. Seeing no police near the store, he drove on to the 28th Precinct Station on West 123rd Street and at 12:30 AM reported the looting, according to the New York Post. Officers there said they "couldn't do anything for me," and that he should contact police headquarters. When Avitable called, "a police officer at headquarters told him over the phone: 'I'll have men there in two minutes.'" They took forty-five minutes to arrive. Avitable's store likely suffered more damage in the violence around 1:00 AM, when Alice Mitchell and Hugh Young were injured by flying glass. No one arrested during the disorder was charged with looting this store.

Avitable joined one hundred and five other white business owners in suing the city for damages suffered by their stores during the disorder. The only mentions of his business are in newspaper stories about those suits. Those stories located his store at 383 Lenox Avenue. A second storeowner who sued the city, Manny Zipp, was also reported as having a grocery store at 383 Lenox Avenue by the New York Sun, New York Post, and New York World-Telegram. Photographs of 383 Lenox Avenue show only one business at that address, the Savoy Food Market, but there was a grocery store next door, with a Krasdale sign, at 381 Lenox Avenue, that appears to be the store that Avitable owned (the Krasdale company were wholesalers in 1935, not store operators). While the New York Sun identified Anthony Avitable as the owner of the Savoy Food Market, the New York Post and New York World-Telegram identified him only as the owner of a separate grocery store. He appeared separately from the Savoy Food Market in the New York Sun and New York Amsterdam News stories about those who brought the first twenty suits.

Zipp had only been in business for three days. Newsreel footage from the day after the disorder shows a banner reading "Grand Opening" hanging over the entrance to the Savoy Food Market (in the Daily News photograph discussed below that a piece of dark fabric has been hung to obscure that banner, or perhaps the banner has simply been reversed). Zipp also reported that his losses, $721 compared to the $537 claimed by Avitable, forced him out of business. It was the Savoy Food Market that went out of business; there was a different store at 383 Lenox Avenue in both the MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935, and the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941. The grocery store with the Krasdale sign, Avitable's business, did appear in both the MCCH business survey and the Tax Department photograph. He may have been helped by damages paid by the city. One of the claimants awarded damages in the March 4, 1936, trial in the New York Supreme Court listed in the New York Herald Tribune was a grocer at 381 Lenox Avenue. However, the story identified the owner as Louis Berenson. That could be an error as no one of that name appears in any other source related to the disorder.

An unpublished image taken by a photographer for the Hearst newspapers, and a similar image published in the Daily News, captured the clean-up on the section of Lenox Avenue containing Avitable's store the morning after the disorder. The windows are missing, and both the display and the shelves within the store are empty. Some goods appear to have been thrown on to the street; a man is clearing debris with a shovel. Zipp's Savoy Food Market, and Jacob Saloway's cigar store on the corner, also have no windows and empty displays and shelves. Saloway joined Avitable and Zipp in suing the city.
Irving Stekin's grocery store looted When someone on Lenox Avenue threw "the first stone" at the windows of Irving Stekin's grocery store at 371 Lenox Avenue, he called police, according to the New York Sun report of his suit against the city. There was no mention in the newspaper stories of when that stone was thrown, but it was likely sometime soon after 11:00 PM, when Louis Levy left his dry goods store across the street at 374 Lenox Avenue, seemingly unconcerned about crowds on the street, and perhaps around 11:30 PM, when Benjamin Zelvin closed his jewelry store at 372 Lenox Avenue, next to Levy's business, and, like Stekin, called police to protect it from attack. Stekin waited two hours before a police car containing two officers arrived in response to his call, a detail reported in the New York Sun, New York Post, and New York World-Telegram. There was no mention of what Stekin did in the interim; but he could have done little to prevent people damaging and looting his store given the size of the crowds, so most likely retreated to the rear rooms to avoid injury. When they arrived, the police officers fared no better. Stekin told the city comptroller that "The police didn't do anything. They couldn't do anything. The mob was too big for them," according to a report in the New York World-Telegram. He had joined other white merchants in suing the city for damages on the basis that police had not protected businesses, so he had an incentive to emphasize police failures. Nonetheless, the extent of the attacks on businesses and violence in this area, and the small number of arrests, most of which came several hours after crowds first arrived on the avenue, add weight to his complaint. Michael D'Agostino's business at 361 Lenox Avenue was looted, while the South Harlem Rotisserie at 365 Lenox Avenue and the laundry at 367 Lenox Avenue had windows broken. Across the street, Levy and Zelvin's businesses at 372 and 374 Lenox Avenue were also looted. No one among those arrested for looting was identified as taking goods from this store.

The Pathe newsreel included footage of 371 Lenox Avenue taken the day after the disorder that shows the sign identifying it as a "Cut Rate Grocery," as the New York Post reported, not a stationery store as the New York Sun and New York World-Telegram had labeled Stekin's business. Both windows and the door have been blocked off with large planks of wood, and appeared to have been completely smashed. It is not possible to see the extent of damage within the store. A white man smoking a cigarette stands in front of the door, perhaps the thirty-six-year old Russian-born Stekin, facing the crowd walking along the sidewalk. The only details of the damage to Stekin's store was in newspaper stories about the civil suits against the city brought by white merchants. Stekin was not part of the group of twenty men who brought the first suits, but was mentioned in stories published at the end of July, by which time 106 merchants had filed suits. He appeared as an example because of the large sum of damages he sought, $2,068, as a result of which, the New York Sun reported, Stekin "is not in business anymore." Or at least not at that location. He also sued for damages to a second unspecified business, at 363 Lenox Avenue, four buildings to the south of the grocery store, according to the New York Times, where he was still in business when he registered for the draft in 1942. In 1930, the federal census records that Stekin had lived above the store at 363 Lenox Avenue, a building anomalous in this area of Harlem in being home to only white residents. The six other households included three headed by men who owned stores in Harlem later looted during the disorder. All three men joined Stekin in suing the city, William Gindin, Jacob Saloway, and Michael D'Agostino. There was no evidence of whether Stekin still lived there in 1935; Gindin at least had relocated to another building on Lenox Avenue by the time of the disorder.

After the city lost the civil case that went to trial to test the merchants' case, Stekin's actions for damages were one of seven cases taken to the Supreme Court to determine the city's liability. The damages claimed in those cases totaled $20,000, according to a report in the New York Times; Justice Shientag awarded a total of only $1,200. Stekin received the largest award, although newspaper stories disagreed on the amount. The New York Times identified the award as $550 for damages to both the stationery store and the business at 363 Lenox Avenue that he had valued at more than $2,000, while the New York Amsterdam News identified the award as $700. While the New York Times reported that the city would appeal the decisions, there was no evidence that happened. Consistent with the New York Sun report that Stekin was no longer in business at 371 Lenox Avenue after the disorder, the MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935 recorded a Black-owned "Stationery Store & Religious Supplies" business at that address. That store too appeared to have gone out of business, as the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941 shows a grocery store at 371 Lenox Avenue.
Manny Zipp's grocery store looted Manny Zipp's grocery store at 383 Lenox Avenue was looted during the disorder. There are no details of those events other than Zipp's statement to the city comptroller that "everything in his store was taken," forcing him out of business, as the New York Post reported it. He had been operating the store for only three days. That section of Lenox Avenue was one in which businesses suffered extensive damage and looting beginning around 11:30 PM; the intersection likely saw particularly extensive violence around 1:00 AM when Alice Mitchell and Hugh Young were injured by flying glass. No one among those arrested for looting was identified as taking goods from this store.

Zipp was one of seven business owners mentioned in stories published in the New York Post, New York Sun, and New York World-Telegram on July 23 that described testimony to the comptroller from white businessmen suing the city for damages based on the failure of police to protect their stores. He was not in the list of those who brought the first twenty suits published earlier in the New York Sun and New York Amsterdam News, but included in that list was the Savoy Food Market. Newsreel footage from the day after the disorder showed a banner reading "Grand Opening" hanging over the entrance to the Savoy Food Market, fitting with Zipp's account of having opened his store only three days earlier (in the photograph discussed below, a piece of dark fabric had been hung to obscure that banner or perhaps the banner had simply been reversed). While the New York Sun identified Anthony Avitable as the owner of the Savoy Food Market, the New York Post and New York World-Telegram identified him only as the owner of a grocery store at 383 Lenox Avenue. Photographs of 383 Lenox Avenue show only one business at that address, but there was a grocery store next door, with a Krasdale sign, at 381 Lenox Avenue. That appeared to be the store that Avitable owned; the Krasdale company were wholesalers in 1935, not store operators. Avitable appeared separately from the Savoy Food Market in the New York Sun and New York Amsterdam News stories about those who brought the first twenty suits. Avitable also ultimately claimed a lesser amount of damage than Zipp, $537 compared to $721, which did not seem enough to have been enough to wipe out a business. It was the Savoy Food Market that went out of business, fitting with Zipp's story. There was a different business than the Savoy Food Market at 383 Lenox Avenue in both the MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935, and the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941. The grocery store with the Krasdale sign did appear in both the MCCH business survey and the Tax Department photograph.

Zipp's claim of $721 was close to the median reported claim for damages of $733. An unpublished image taken by a photographer for the Hearst newspapers, and a similar image published in the Daily News, captured the clean-up on the section of Lenox Avenue containing the Savoy Food Market. To its left was the grocery store that must be Avitable's business, with the Krasdale grocery chain sign visible. The market's windows had been smashed and the display emptied. Some goods appear to have been thrown on to the street; a man was clearing debris with a shovel. Another man can be seen through the window inside the store; that may be Avitable cleaning up. The two other businesses visible beyond the market also had no windows and empty displays and shelves. Jacob Saloway, who owned the cigar store on the corner, as well as Avitable, also sued the city for damages.

The three newspaper stories all reported the storeowner's name differently: the New York Sun called him "Manny Zipp," the New York Post reported his name as "Manning Zipp," and the World-Telegram "Manny Vitt." The name used here, Manny Zipp, combines the most frequently repeated elements of those variations.
Harry Piskin's laundry looted Harry Piskin's laundry at 100 West 126th Street, just off Lenox Avenue, was first the target of stones, according to testimony he gave to the city comptroller reported by the New York Sun. The intersection of West 125th Street and Lenox Avenue, and the blocks of the avenue to the north were the site of multiple acts of violence and attacks on businesses during the disorder, but there is no clear evidence of when crowds would have first arrived at the laundry other than the report that looting of a store at the intersection started around 10:30 PM. It was likely attacks on the laundry began not long after, around 11:00 PM. The stones were eventually followed by a bullet fired into the laundry's show window, Piskin testified, according to the New York Sun. The story quoted an exchange in which the comptroller asked Piskin if he had heard other pistol shots; he answered "plenty." There are no other mentions of guns being fired in attacks on businesses; shooting was instead associated with police responding to looting. As in other stories about the disorder, shooting signified a greater level of violence than stones being thrown. At issue in this case was the police response: the comptroller's next question in the exchange reported by the New York Sun was, "Did [the police] send protection?" Piskin answered, "they did not."

Instead, after the shot at the window, Piskin testified that "they looted his laundry, broke all of his machinery and drove him out of business." George's Lunch, the neighboring business on the corner of West 126th Street and Lenox Avenue, suffered similarly extensive damage. At some point he sought help. He first found a police officer a block away at the intersection of West 125th Street and Lenox Avenue: "Report it--I can't leave my post," the officer told him, according to the New York Post. He continued across town to the police station on West 123rd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues: "Oh we know all about it," was the response there. Later, a police officer responded to Piskin's complaints about the lack of police protection by telling him, "My life is more important to me than your business is to you," testimony reported in the New York Post and New York World-Telegram. Piskin had joined other white merchants in suing the city for damages, so he had an incentive to emphasize police failures. Nonetheless, the extent of the attacks on businesses and violence in this area, and the small number of arrests, most of which came several hours after crowds first arrived on the avenue, add weight to his complaint. No one arrested for looting was identified as taking goods from the laundry.

The only mention of the damage to Piskin's laundry was in newspaper stories about the claims against the city made by white business owners. Piskin was part of the group of twenty who filed the first claims identified by the New York Sun, New York World-Telegram, New York American, and New York Amsterdam News in April and was mentioned again in stories published by the New York Evening Journal, New York Sun, New York Post, New York World-Telegram, and New York Amsterdam News at the end of July, by which time 106 merchants had filed suits. He appeared as an example in those stories likely because he claimed the largest sum for damages, $14,125 (the next largest claim was from the adjacent business, George's Lunch), well above the median reported claim of $733. The city lost the cases that went to trial to resolve the merchants' claims, so it was likely that Piskin received some compensation. Surprisingly, his was not among the seven claims in the first trial in the Supreme Court in March 1936, which involved others from the group identified in April, all represented by the same attorney, Barney Rosenstein. However, the sums the jury awarded in that trial were only a small proportion of the claims, so any award Piskin received was likely insufficient for him to remain in business. The MCCH business survey taken from June to December 1935 did not record a laundry at 100 West 126th Street. The Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941 did not offer a clear view of what business was operating at that address.
George Chronis' restaurant looted George's Lunch, the lunchroom at 319 Lenox Avenue, on the southwest corner of West 126th Street, owned by George Chronis, was open for business when crowds appeared on the street. The intersection of West 125th Street and Lenox Avenue, and the blocks of the avenue to the north were the site of multiple acts of violence and attacks on businesses during the disorder. Crowds likely first broke windows around 11:00 PM, after a group of men robbed Toby’s Men’s shop on the northwest corner of 125th Street and Lenox Avenue at 10:30 PM and before 11:20 PM, when a patrolman arrived at the shoe store a block to the north to find smashed windows and merchandise missing from the display. Chronis told the city comptroller that the lunchroom was staffed by one white and two Black workers that evening, according to a story in the New York Post. The Black men reacted to the disorder by leaving the restaurant, while the white man called the police station house and then locked himself in a washroom. No police responded to his call. Groups continued to sporadically break windows, take merchandise, and occasionally attack whites they encountered on the streets on the blocks of Lenox Avenue north of 125th Street for the next three hours.

Chronis heard about the disorder and tried to get to his business. However, police prevented him from doing so for several hours, the New York Post reported he told the comptroller. It was 1:00 AM by the time that Chronis got to the restaurant. He found his white staff member still locked in the washroom, and the lunchroom "completely demolished," according to the story in the New York World-Telegram. The business next door, Piskin's laundry, was also destroyed. The only mention of the damage to George's Lunch was in newspaper stories about the claims for damages from the city made by white merchants. Chronis was not part of the group of twenty who brought the first suits, but was mentioned in stories published in the New York Post, New York World-Telegram, and New York Amsterdam News at the end of July about hearings before the city comptroller, by which time 106 merchants had filed suits. He appeared as an example in those stories because of the large damages he sought, $14,000, since, as the New York Sun put it, his business was "completely wiped out by looters." Those damages were also likely why Chronis was one of seven claimants in the first trial in the New York Supreme Court in March 1936, identified in the New York Herald Tribune.

Police did make arrests in the vicinity of George's Lunch around the time that they allowed Chronis access, indicating the presence of officers, although not in sufficient numbers to prevent ongoing attacks on businesses. But by then the damage to the restaurant had been done, and no one was arrested for those attacks. The jury awarded damages to all the claimants in the March 1936 trial, but no newspaper stories mentioned the amount awarded to Chronis. It would have been a small fraction of his claim of $14,000, as the largest reported amount was $550 to Irving Stekin. Even if the award to Chronis was close to what Stekin received, it was a dramatically smaller proportion than awarded to any other plaintiff. Surprisingly, it went unmentioned in the newspaper stories about the trial. It was no surprise then that Chronis appeared not to have reopened his business. It was missing from the MCCH business survey in late 1935 and replaced by another store in the Tax Department photograph from 1939–1941.
Looting with staff or owners present (12) When the disorder began in early evening, many stores in Harlem were still open for business, as a number remained open until late evening. As a result, some of the men and women working in those stores were present when they were attacked and looted (most around West 125th Street, where the disorder began, but others further away). Some of those in stores initially tried to move merchandise from display windows to prevent it from being taken. Both Jack Sherloff and Max Greenwald had to give up those efforts in the face of objects being thrown at the windows. More often stones thrown at the store windows kept those inside away from the storefront, driving them to hide in the rear rooms or to flee the building entirely before anyone actually entered the store. Mrs. Salefas fled flying glass from shattered windows to hide in a rear storeroom. Harry Piskin remained while stones were thrown through the windows of his laundry, but left when someone shot a bullet into the store. A white staff member in Chronis’ restaurant hid in the washroom, while two Black workers left the store. Four staff from the Greenfield auto equipment store fled the building into the rear yard after a group of men came through a broken window. Mario Pravia and his wife, Irving Stekin, and clerks in Estelle Cohen’s store and Young’s hat store watched from the store as stones smashed the glass and goods were taken from window displays. Louise Thompson also recounted looking in a grocery store on West 124th Street and 7th Avenue that "was dark, all of the windows were broken and all I could see was a man peeking out from the back." Such accounts highlight that the objects thrown at stores cleared the way for looting not just by providing a means of entering the store but by ensuring there was no one inside to protect the merchandise.

In only two instances were owners and staff apparently directly involved in merchandise being taken, circumstances that amounted to robbery rather than burglary. Morris Towbin alleged that Edward Larry and seven others came into store and threatened him and a clerk with knives as they attacked and looted the store, then forced them into the store basement. A second man, Louis Tonick, one of the ten white men arrested during the disorder, was also charged with robbery, but there is no information regarding the location or details of those events.

Irving Stekin waited two hours before a police car containing two officers arrived in response to his call for help, a detail reported in the New York Sun, New York Post, and New York World-Telegram. When they arrived, he told the city comptroller that "The police didn't do anything. They couldn't do anything. The mob was too big for them," according to a report in the World-Telegram. Others working in stores received no help at all from police. The white worker in Chronis’ restaurant phoned police before hiding; no one responded to his call. Estelle Cohen phoned both the police station and police headquarters after the staff member inside her store called her; she wrote to Mayor La Guardia that their responses was “that all the men were out and that all windows were being smashed." Harry Piskin left his laundry to go in search of police; neither the officer he found on post at a nearby corner nor an officer at the police stationhouse on West 123rd Street would come to the store. (Benjamin Zelvin waited for police to arrive before leaving his store, but those officers clearly did not remain to guard the business as he seemed to have expected as it was looted later in the disorder.)

While almost all the white businessowners in Harlem lived outside the neighborhood, some did return to their closed businesses when they learned of the disorder. Herman Young was one of the few white storeowners who lived in Harlem, above his store; he came downstairs when he heard glass smashing and interrupted a group of men looting his hardware store. His arrival likely prevented that group from taking much merchandise, but Young was hit by a rock and taken to Harlem Hospital (likely leaving his damaged store exposed to looting by others, as his total loss of $500 is far more than the four men could have taken). After a call from a clerk in the store, Estelle Cohen sent someone, likely her sons, to board up the damaged windows of her store. That barrier did not prevent subsequent looting. George Chronis also likely received a call from his staff, but police prevented him from getting to his lunchroom until 1 AM, to find it completely destroyed and a white staff member still hiding. Anthony Avitable also arrived too late to protect his food market, seeing crowds attacking the store as he drove across the 138th Street bridge from the Bronx just after midnight, so went directly to the police station rather than to his business. It still took forty-five minutes for police to arrive at the business. Herbert Canter, who owned a pharmacy at 419 Lenox Avenue, arrived there at 11 PM, earlier than Chronis and Avitable and may have been more successful in protecting his business. He testified in the Municipal Court trial of Anna Rosenberg's suit for damages about what he saw on Lenox Avenue after he arrived, but there is no mention of damage to his store.

Black storeowners had more success than their white counterparts in protecting their stores from attack and looting. Several posted signs in their stores reading “Colored,” “Black,” and “This Store Owned by Colored,” according to the Afro-American, that caused crowds to pass them by. A Chinese storeowner who tried to emulate that tactic apparently did not have the same success, as the New York Herald Tribune reported that after he posted a sign reading “Me colored too,” his store windows were broken. Some of the Black storeowners who wrote signs may have been open for business when the disorder reached them, or could have returned to closed businesses, which they could do more readily than white storeowners as most lived in Harlem (Fred Campbell did not).