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• 1 2021-10-14T12:37:29+00:00 Monterey Luncheonette windows not broken 57 plain 2024-06-02T01:28:30+00:00 Sometime during the disorder, the message "This is a Store Owned by Colored" appeared on the window of the Monterey Luncheonette at 2339 7th Avenue, on the southeast corner of West 137th Street, according to a story in the Afro-American. That message was likely painted on the window, as the story reported a similar message on the windows of Williams' drug store, rather than being on a sign, such as those that appeared in Winnette's Dresses. As in those cases, the windows on which the message was painted were not broken during the disorder.
  
  
  
  The Afro-American journalist implied that putting the message on the restaurant was more a matter of playing it safe than a response to direct threats. "Even the nationally-known Monterery Luncheonette thought it safe to inform the rovers" that the store had Black owners, he wrote. While reports of disorder were certainly far fewer in number in the blocks of 7th Avenue north of 135th Street than in those closer to 125th Street, there were some incidents: a white-owned tailor's shop south of the restaurant at 2310 7th Avenue, and a white-owned shoe repair located to the north, at 2360 7th Avenue, had windows broken. Looting, however, was not reported. Far more of the businesses north of West 135th Street had Black owners than in the blocks to the south, making the area less likely to attract those seeking to attack white businesses. As the Afro-American reporter implied in labeling the Monterey Luncheonette "nationally-known," the restaurant was widely known to have Black owners, so less likely than most of those businesses to be mistakenly targeted, even by "rovers" from other parts of Harlem. Crowds likely began to appear on the street in this area around 11:00 PM, when groups began to come down Lenox Avenue from around 135th Street, the first reports that of violence that did not involve people who had come from 125th Street,
  
  The basis for the venue's notoriety was captured by the note an investigator added to its record in the MCCH business survey taken in the last half of 1935: “One of the better restaurants in Harlem. Frequented by the better type of person. Mr Bruce is part owner of establishment." Opened in October 1930, the Monterey Luncheonette advertised itself as "The Most Beautiful Place in Harlem." A promotional article in the New York Amsterdam News described a "French-flake black and Persian rose marble" counter with fourteen seats, "green and rose walls" and "very modern chandeliers, decorated with airplanes." In 1932 a grill room was added in the basement, "a picturesque and comfortable place where respectable people may dine and dance in an agreeable atmosphere," a story in the New York Age reported. Advertisements for the new venue were more effusive, describing the Monterey Grill as "Harlem's Newest Modernistic Rendezvous," "Conceived, designed and decorated in a decorative motif to please the most fastidious and exacting clientele." According to the New York Age, that design featured furnishings "done in blue and peach tiling with polished black marble tables and seats, upholstered with dark blue leather," walls decorated with paintings, and a polished floor. There were seven booths, and a staff of twenty men, when an MCCH investigator interviewed Bruce sometime in the second half of 1935. In 1937, Bruce and Duncan further expanded the Monterey, adding a basement cabaret and renovating and enlarging the dining room, according to a report in the New York Age. The regular appearance of the Monterey in the society news and gossip columns of both of Harlem's Black newspapers indicated its success in attracting Harlem's elite. Customers also included "a large proportion of the sporting element of the community," a MCCH investigator noted, but they were "seldom offensive however and high standard is maintained."
  
  The profile of the owners, particularly Herbert Bruce, helped draw customers. Born in 1900 in the West Indies, Bruce arrived in Harlem in 1914. Census enumerators recorded him working as a hotel porter in 1920, a hotel bellman in 1925, and as a redcap at Pennsylvania Station in 1930, alongside Miles Duncan, who became his partner in the Monterey Luncheonette. In those years he was active in Harlem's athletic and social clubs, with the Alpha Physical Culture Club and St. Mark's Catholic Boys Club among those listed by his supporters for the New York Amsterdam News. He drew on those associations to organize social events such as a benefit for the Red Caps Scholarship fund at the Alhambra Theater in 1929. After opening the restaurant Bruce became active in Democratic Party politics. In 1935, after the disorder, he was elected the leader of the 21st District, the first Black Democratic Party district leader in New York City.
  
  The Monterey became most widely known in 1939, when Bruce literally split it in two, even sawing the counter and bar in half, to take his share of the fittings, a story reported in both Black newspapers like the New York Age and New York Amsterdam News (with photographs), and white publications like the New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, and Daily News. Bruce arrived at the venue just before 4:00 AM with a crew of around twenty men and had removed his share to a warehouse over an hour before Duncan arrived at 8:30 AM. He alleged to the New York Amsterdam News that Duncan and their landlord, Richard Wheaton, attempted to force him out of the business by refusing to include him on a new lease. Wheaton and his mother Dora owned several buildings on 7th Avenue, purchased by Dora and her husband, prominent Harlem lawyer J. Frank Wheaton, in the early days of Black Harlem. Duncan told the New York Amsterdam News that he and Richard Wheaton did subsequently form a partnership to operate the Monterey, but less than two months later the newspaper reported that Wheaton had taken sole control. When photographed by the Tax Department between 1939 and 1941, the business operating at 2339 7th Avenue was "Dick Wheaton's Bar."