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

Empire Grill windows broken

The Empire Grill at 281 Lenox Avenue was one of the businesses in a list of those with broken windows made by a reporter for La Prensa who walked along West 116th Street, Lenox Avenue and West 125th Street on the day after the disorder. The restaurant appeared in a list of stores the reporter "found to have broken windows" as he walked north on Lenox Avenue from West 116th Street. After identifying several locations that suffered damage between 115th and 119th Streets, the reporter listed no damaged buildings until a laundry at 277 Lenox Avenue, which was across 124th Street from the restaurant. It is possible some stores suffered minor damage in the intervening blocks of Lenox Avenue; the La Prensa reporter concluded his list by noting he had not included others as they had only suffered minor damage ("y otras mas que por ser los danos ocasionados relativamente pequeños no creimus de interes catalogar entre los establecimientos ya mencionados"). However, there were no other reported events on those blocks during the disorder. Few businesses were located in that area.



The first windows were likely broken around 11:00 PM, when the crowds that had come to Lenox Avenue along 125th Street began to attack businesses in the the blocks to the north. As happened on 8th Avenue and 7th Avenue, some groups also went south. Windows were broken in the nearby Victoria Pharmacy, and in the branch of the Liggett's Pharmacy on the southeast corner of 125th Street, as well as the nearby laundry.

No other sources mentioned this restaurant, and no one arrested during the disorder was identified as breaking the business' windows. The MCCH business survey recorded the white-owned Lenox Empire Grill as still in operation when an investigator visited between June and December 1935. A bar and grill was also visible in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941.

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