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

Edward P. Flynn, "Communists Inspired Harlem Riots, Survey Shows," New York Evening Journal, March 23, 1935, 5.

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Windows broken in Black-owned businesses (8) At least eight Black-owned businesses had windows broken during the disorder, 11% (8 of 72) of the businesses reported damaged. That proportion is far below the share of Harlem's businesses that had Black owners, 28% (1690 of 5791) in the area from 110th Street to 155th Street, east of Amsterdam Avenue to west of Madison Avenue identified by the MCCH business survey taken after the disorder. The limited scale of that damage fits with stories in the Home News, New York Post, New York Evening Journal, and Afro-American, and Inspector Di Martini's "Report on Disorder" for the Police Commissioner, that the windows of Black-owned businesses were generally not broken. Lieutenant Samuel Battle, New York City's most senior Black police officer, asked in the MCCH's first public hearing on March 30, 1935 if the crowds made any distinction between white-owned and Black-owned stores, insisted that Black-owned businesses did have windows broken, but then qualified the extent of such attacks: "In many cases, if they knew it was colored, they passed the shop up." James Hughes, a twenty-four-year-old Black shoe repairer, who was part of the crowd at West 125th and 8th Avenue around 10 PM, also told a probation officer that those around him were breaking windows "where no colored were employed."

"Fully 30 of the store fronts shattered in Harlem were in Negro establishments," white journalist Edward Flynn claimed 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. Battle's Pharmacy on the northwest corner of 7th Avenue and West 128th Street was mentioned together with the Williams drug store, across 7th Avenue on the southeast corner of 128th Street. "Both of these stores were damaged by the rioters although virtually everyone in Harlem knows who operates them." The third store was the Burmand Realty office at 2164 7th Avenue, two buildings north of the pharmacy. 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 had a sign on its window identifying it as Black-owned, and had no windows broken. If the number of Black-owned stores with broken windows did total thirty, that would amount to approximately 10% of those damaged, a little over one-third of the proportion of Harlem's businesses that were Black-owned. That disproportionate share of the damage does not suggest indiscriminate attacks on store windows.

A claim of more extensive damage to Black-owned businesses, that "forty windows were broken in the exclusively Negro section [of 8th Avenue] north of 130th Street,” did appear in a story published in the New York Herald Tribune. However, that story misrepresented those blocks of 8th Avenue; the MCCH business survey showed they were still predominantly populated by white-owned businesses. The character of the street did change, but from 92.5% (74 of 80) white-owned businesses from 125th to 130th Streets, to 71% (34 of 48) white-owned businesses from 130th to 135th Streets, and 74% (65 of 88) white-owned businesses from 135th to 140th Streets. The one arrest in this area for allegedly breaking windows, of Henry Stewart, involved a white-owned business, a meat market at 2422 8th Avenue, between 130th and 131st Streets. If there were another thirty-nine windows broken in this area, almost all were likely also in white-owned businesses. However, that number seems exaggerated, as Inspector Di Martini's "Report on Disorder" estimated only eighty-five broken windows in total north of 130th Street, in the 32nd Precinct that also covered 7th, Lenox, and 5th Avenues.

The MCCH report did also seek to emphasize that damage was done to Black-owned businesses rather than how many were spared damage. It only implicitly recognized that those on the street chose their targets, casting that behavior as present only early in the disorder, giving way to more indiscriminate violence, cast as more important to understanding the events: "While, of course, many motives were responsible for the actions of these crowds, it seems that as they grew more numerous and more active, the personality or racial Identity of the owners of the stores faded out and the property itself became the object of their fury. Stores owned by Negroes were not always spared if they happened to be in the path of those roving crowds, bent upon the destruction and the confiscation of property." Unmentioned in the report is the countervailing development in which, after the initial attacks on store windows, Black-owned businesses identified themselves with signs. The New York Evening Journal, New York Post, and Afro-American reversed the chronology presented by the MCCH report, locating the damage to Black-owned businesses early in the disorder, until signs appeared identifying "Colored Stores," after which they were no longer attacked. The period of indiscriminate violence posited by the report was also when looting became widespread, according to newspaper narratives of the disorder and reported events. However, there were no reports of Black-owned stores being looted, and the New York Evening Journal and New York Post noted that merchandise had not been taken from them, which they attributed to the signs placed on those businesses.

There is no information on when the eight stores were damaged, so no evidence if they fit the picture provided in the MCCH report. Five of the Black-owned businesses that were reported damaged do not clearly contradict claims that those on the street directed violence at specific targets (there is no information related to Battle's Pharmacy, Burmand Realty, or Gonzales Jeweler). The Manhattan Renting Agency storefront was the office of Everard M. Donald, a twenty-seven-year-old Black real estate broker and owner of a chain of barbers, but also where Hary Pomrinse, a sixty-six-year-old Jewish real estate broker, did business. A similar ambiguity surrounded the ownership of the grocery store that had windows broken, a Peace Market operated by followers of Father Divine, a Black religious leader whose theology and claim to be God in a body drew criticism from Harlem's Black clergy and leaders. The Peace Food Market name and sign would have identified the store as not being a white-owned business, but Divine's Peace Mission had white members in its Harlem ranks, historian Judith Weisenfeld has shown. That interracialism that may have made the store a target; so too might the controversy Divine provoked within Harlem's Black community.

The nature of the damage done to the other three Black-owned businesses reported to have had windows broken offers another manifestation of how confusion over the ownership of stores, rather than disregard for it, produced attacks on stores. After the front windows of the Williams Drug Store facing 7th Avenue were broken, the owner wrote “Colored Store, Nix Jack” on the side windows on West 127th Street. Those windows were not damaged. Two other businesses that a La Prensa reporter recorded as having damaged windows, a billiard parlor and the Castle Inn saloon on Lenox Avenue south of 125th Street, also put up signs, according to another story in La Prensa. That reporter did not appear to understand the intent of the signs, seeing them as an effort to establish a racial divide in the neighborhood, to segregate Black and white residents, and did not relate them to the damage suffered. However, as the reporters could see the signs as well as broken windows, those stores too had been able to prevent extensive damage by identifying themselves as having Black owners. Other businesses also put up signs, and at least three suffered no damage. The success of that strategy suggests that broken windows in Black-owned businesses resulted from ignorance of who owned them, produced perhaps by residents joining crowds that moved beyond the areas where they lived. Edward Flynn, a white journalist writing for the New York Evening Journal, insisted that "virtually everyone in Harlem knows who operates [Battles Pharmacy and Williams drug store]," which nonetheless had windows broken. While he was certainly right about those who lived nearby or passed by that section of 7th Avenue, it is less clear how widely that knowledge would have been shared by those who lived and spent their time in other areas of the neighborhood and found themselves part of crowds moving up the avenue. Although the MCCH business survey found only six other Black-owned drug stores in Harlem, compared to 116 white-owned stores, neither business advertised extensively, nor were pharmacies and drug stores unusual enough to make them widely known to the changing population of the neighborhood who largely frequented drug store chains.
Williams' drug store windows broken The Williams' Drug Store at 2161 7th Avenue, on the southeast corner of West 128th Street and 7th Avenue, had its front windows broken during the disorder. However, no further damage was done to the store because someone painted “Colored Store, Nix Jack” on the side windows, facing 128th Street, according to the Afro-American. The text on the windows appeared in newsreel footage from the day after the disorder. The phrase was painted in each of the two window panes, each word in its own row, so that it took up at least half the window. In the pane on the left, an exclamation mark was painted at the end of the phrase, which did not appear in the right pane. There was no information on the meaning of the phrase "Nix Jack." Roi Ottley, writing in his column in the New York Amsterdam News about the looting during the disorder as targeted white-owned businesses, ended with an echo of that phrase: "THIS IS A COLORED COLUMN, NIX JACK!" Identifying the drug store as a Black-owned business "saved" those side windows. The store windows were likely broken by some of the first groups that came up 7th Avenue from 125th Street after 8:30 PM, or those that followed them around 9:00 PM and 9:30 PM.

The Afro-American mentioned the drug store only because of the sign put up identifying it as a Black-owned; it was one of two examples, with the Monterey Luncheonette, of what the story reported as a widespread practice. The drug store was also identified as having broken windows in a story about Communist activity in Harlem published in the New York Evening Journal. That story mentioned two other nearby Black businesses with broken windows, Battle's Pharmacy across 7th Avenue on the northwest corner of 128th Street and Burmand Realty two stores to north of the pharmacy at 2164 7th Avenue. Those three businesses were included in the story as evidence that there was no racial dimension to the disorder: "Both of these stores were damaged by the rioters although virtually everyone in Harlem knows who operates them." Unmentioned by the reporter was the Cozy Shoppe restaurant directly across 7th Avenue from Williams drug store, on the southwest corner of 128th Street, which also had signs identifying it as Black-owned and suffered no damage to its windows. It appeared to have been the only business on the west side of that block without broken windows. Several businesses were also looted. All the businesses that were damaged were white-owned. Those businesses are not identified in any newspaper lists or stories. An MCCH investigator visited businesses on the west side of the street seeking information about the police shooting of Lloyd Hobbs that occurred on that side of the intersection of West 128th Street. Police arrested Leroy Gillard for allegedly looting a tailor's store near the southwest corner. On the east side, Sam Lefkowitz, the owner of a business at 2147 7th Avenue, was among those who sued the city for damages after the disorder.

No one arrested during the disorder was charged with breaking windows in the drug store. The Williams' drug store appears in the MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935, and the owner was one of the Black business owners interviewed by MCCH staff. The drug store had been open only three months at the time of that interview, so opened just prior to the disorder. The interviewer described it as "a typical soda-fountain, confectionery, & tobacco shop. It is somewhat larger than most, is quite neat & attractively arranged, & includes a newsstand. Carries a full line of cigars, cigarettes, & candy." Asked about his clientele, the owner said it was "Restricted largely to immediate neighborhood, though its location on a main thoroughfare draws some transient trade. Owner states he makes an effort to restrict clientele to those of 'better type.' For this reason he did not sell Frankfurters, certain groups, as he says, tending to 'buy a hot-dog + sit around all day.'" The owner employed only one staff member, a niece. The store was visible in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941.
Battle's Pharmacy windows broken Sometime during the disorder, windows were broken in Battle's Pharmacy at 2156 7th Avenue, on the northwest corner of 128th Street. The only mention of that damage is 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. Battle's Pharmacy was mentioned together with the Williams drug store, across 7th Avenue on the southeast corner of 128th Street. "Both of these stores were damaged by the rioters although virtually everyone in Harlem knows who operates them." Signs were painted on the Williams drug store identifying it as a "colored store," a set of windows that were not broken. The third store was the Burmand Realty office at 2164 7th Avenue, two buildings north of the pharmacy. 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.

Residents of nearby buildings stood on the corner from around 10:00 PM, "looking after people and cops shooting[, and] talking about the riot," as Samuel Pitts put it. The pharmacy windows likely were broken before that time, by the groups who came from 125th Street around 8:30 PM, 9:00 PM, and 9:30 PM. It was unlikely that the windows would have been broken once there was a crowd of residents who knew it was a Black-owned business standing nearby.

No one arrested during the disorder was identified as charged with breaking windows in the pharmacy. The MCCH business survey misidentified Battle's Pharmacy as a white-owned business. Walter Battle's obituary in the New York Amsterdam News identified him as a Black man born in North Carolina, educated at Biddle University and Columbia University, who opened the drug store in 1932. He was named as the pharmacist at the store in a New York Amsterdam News advertisement in 1936. The store was still visible in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941.

Patrolman John McInerney shot and killed Lloyd Hobbs, a sixteen-year-old Black boy, as he ran across West 128th Street toward the pharmacy around 12:45 AM. Four men who testified about the shooting witnessed it from the corner in front of the pharmacy, as part of a crowd watching the disorder on 7th Avenue.
Burmand Realty windows broken Sometime 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.