This page was created by Anonymous.
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 does 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 is 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 is confirmed by the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, which recorded the complainant against Hughes as Wilbur Montgomery, living at 951 Woodycrest Avenue. Montgomery is 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. James Hayes appeared in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, his name misrecorded as Hazel, as charged with burglary, with the note "Broke store window, burglarized store." In line with that entry, he was among those charged with burglary in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. However, when Hayes appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, the charge was recorded as petit larceny not burglary. That charge did not require evidence of breaking in and entering a store as burglary did, indicating a reassessment of the information in the blotter by the time of his arraignment. Magistrate Renaud transferred Hayes to the Court of Special Sessions and held him on $500 bail.
Instead, it appears that it was Terry who was charged with breaking the store windows. In the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book the charge recorded against him when he appeared in March 20 was malicious mischief, an offense involving destruction of property used against the other individuals arrested during the disorder for allegedly breaking windows. Magistrate Renaud held Terry in custody so his case could be investigated. When he was returned to court on March 26, the charge against him was reduced to disorderly conduct, the previous charge crossed out in the docket book, "Red. to" written above it, and the new charge stamped in its place. It is that reduced charge of disorderly conduct that appeared as the charge against Terry in lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. A different charge recorded against him in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, inciting a riot, appears to have frequently been used by police as the initial charge against those arrested during the disorder, and was often replaced by other charges in the Magistrates Court.
As disorderly conduct was a charge that Magistrates had the power to try, Magistrate Ford tried and convicted Terry and fined him $500 or five days in the workhouse. Terry served the time in the workhouse, according to the 28th Precinct Police blotter. The blotter also recorded the outcome of the prosecution of Hayes, five days later, on April 1: tried and convicted by the judges in the Court of Special Sessions, he received a suspended sentence.
This page has tags:
This page references:
- "Transcripts of Police Blotter - Precinct 28, March 19 & 20, 1935," Folder "MCCH - Juvenile Delinquency - 1935-36," Correspondence (Roll 13), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945.
- New York Penal Law, § 404, 407: Burglary in third degree.
- New York Penal Law, § 722-724: Disorderly Conduct
- "Harlem Riot Damage is Figured at Half Million," Afro-American, March 30, 1935, 1, 2.
- "List of Dead And Injured In Riot In New York City," Norfolk Journal and Guide, March 30, 1935, 18.
- "Says Economic Conditions in Harlem Are Bad," Atlanta World, March 27, 1935, 1, 2.
- New York Penal Law, § 1298-1299: Petit Larceny
- New York Penal Law, § 1433: Malicious Mischief
- Harlem Magistrates Court docket book
- "List of Those under Arrest in Harlem Riot and the Charges They Face," New York Evening Journal, March 20, 1935, 3.
- "Numerosos Establecimientos Hispanos Apedreados y Saqueados por la Turba," La Prensa, March 21, 1935, 1.
- "Police Guard Against New Uprising as Mayor Acts to Probe Race Riot," Home News, March 21, 1935 [clipping]
- City Directory, New York, New York, 1933, 2348 (Ancestry.com)