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Danbury Hat store windows broken and looted
The Danbury Hat store was one of the businesses with broken windows identified by the reporter for La Prensa who walked along West 116th Street, up Lenox Avenue, and across West 125th Street to 8th Avenue on the day after the disorder. The business is also likely the storefront that appears in a photograph published in the Decatur Review. Although the caption to that image did not identify the business, hats are visible in the display window, together with the last few letters of the store name on an unbroken section of glass at the bottom of the window: "RY HAT CO." (The only other hat store recorded as having been damaged or looted was Young's Hat store). Two white men pose in front of the damaged store; white bystanders are most likely to be found near West 125th Street, where the Danbury Hat store was located. A large basket sits inside the display window, perhaps a trash bin taken from the sidewalk. The stock just visible behind the basket suggest that the store was not looted.
Despite this damage, the Danbury Hat store was recorded as in business in the second half of 1935 in the MCCH business survey, mistakenly located at 2336 8th Avenue. The Tax Department photograph was taken from too far away to show the presence of the store when it was taken between 1939 and 1941.
Hayes taking a baseball bat from the store was reported in a story about his appearance in the Magistrates Court in the Home News, which gave only the address of the store. The name of the store was confirmed by the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, which recorded the complainant against Hughes as Wilbur Montgomery, living at 951 Woodycrest Avenue. Montgomery was identified in the 1933 City Directory as the manager of Danbury Shoes. He was also recorded as the complainant against David Terry. There are no sources with details of the circumstances of Terry's arrest, only the charges made against him.
Officer Balkin was recorded as the arresting officer of both Hayes and Terry in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, suggesting they were arrested at the same time. When James Hayes appeared he was charged with petit larceny not burglary. That charge did not involve breaking in and entering a store as burglary, only taking merchandise. Magistrate Renaud transferred Hayes to the Court of Special Sessions, where he was convicted and given a suspended sentence. It was Terry who was charged with breaking the store windows. Tried in the Harlem Magistrates Court, he was convicted by Magistrate Renaud, who sentenced him to pay a $500 fine or spend five days in the Workhouse. Terry served the time in the Workhouse, according to the 28th Precinct police blotter.
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This page references:
- "Transcripts of Police Blotter - Precinct 28, March 19 & 20, 1935," MCCH - Juvenile Delinquency - 1935-36, Departmental Correspondence. Box 34, Folder 1 (Roll 171), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945.
- New York Penal Law, § 1298-1299: Petit larceny
- Harlem Magistrates Court docket book
- [Photograph] "Stores Suffer in Harlem Riots," Decatur Daily Review, March 22, 1935, 20.
- City Directory, New York, New York, 1933, 2348 (Ancestry.com).
- "Numerosos Establecimientos Hispanos Apedreados y Saqueados por la Turba," La Prensa, March 21, 1935, 1.