Harlem in Disorder: A Spatial History of How Racial Violence Changed in 1935Main MenuREAD ME: Help Navigating This BookIntroductionOn the StreetsIn the CourtsUnder InvestigationThe Mayor's Commission on Conditions in HarlemOver TimeEventsSourcesStephen Robertsona1bf8804093bc01e94a0485d9f3510bb8508e3bfStanford University Press
"Corrections," New York Amsterdam News, July 13, 1932, 1.
12022-02-08T20:44:38+00:00Burmand Realty windows broken11plain2024-06-02T00:38:18+00:00Sometime during the disorder, windows were broken in the Burmand Realty office at 2164 7th Avenue. The only mention of that damage was in a story in the New York Evening Journal focused on Communist activities in Harlem. In arguing that "the riot [was] conducted on the best Communist lines," the reporter pointed to how "the Negro merchant's property was destroyed as well as that of the white." Three Black-owned businesses close together on 7th Avenue that had windows broken were identified in the story. The other two were Battle's Pharmacy at 2156 7th Avenue, two buildings to the south of the office on the northwest corner of 128th Street and Williams drug store across 7th Avenue on the southeast corner. "Both of these stores were damaged by the rioters although virtually everyone in Harlem knows who operates them," the story claimed. Signs were painted on the Williams drug store identifying it as a "colored store," a set of windows that were not broken. Not mentioned in the New York Evening Journal story was the Cozy Shoppe restaurant at 2154 7th Avenue across the street from Williams drug store which also had a sign on its window identifying it as Black-owned, and had no windows broken. The windows were likely were broken by the groups who came from 125th street around 8:30 PM, 9:00 PM, and 9:30 PM. From around 10:00 PM, groups of residents who would have known that the office was a Black-owned business were on the street around Battle's Pharmacy watching the disorder, making it unlikely that the windows was broken after that time.
No one among those arrested during the disorder was charged with breaking windows in the real estate office. The office was recorded in the MCCH business survey taken in the last half of 1935. No signs are visible in the Tax Department photograph to indicate whether the office remained open between 1939 and 1941. The office had been open since at least July 1931, when one of its staff, A. S. Nash, was mentioned in the New York Amsterdam News.
