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

"False Report Held Cause of Harlem Race Riot," Pittsburgh Courier, March 23, 1935, 1.

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Windows broken (72) A window in the S. H. Kress 5 & 10c store being hit by an object and breaking began the disorder. Objects thrown at the windows of stores, mostly those with white owners, was the most prevalent event in the following hours, with at least 300 businesses damaged. Such attacks were unfamiliar from the racial disorder of previous decades. Business and residential property had been the targets of violence, but that property had been Black-owned and damaged or destroyed by white crowds. However, white businesses in Harlem had been the focus of protests against their failure to hire Black workers in the years immediately prior to the disorder, culminating in a campaign by a coalition of Black organizations in 1934. Those efforts involved boycotts and pickets, not breaking store windows. A competing campaign by the Communist Party did extend to smashing windows in the Empire Cafeteria. The potential for picketing to lead to violence, and specifically to a “race riot,” was one of the justifications given by the judge in the New York State Supreme Court who outlawed the tactic in 1934, effectively ending the boycott campaign for the hiring of Black workers. That sentiment was echoed after the disorder by Black columnist Theophilus Lewis in the New York Amsterdam News, a critic of the boycott movement: "There was a time, during the peak of the boycott movement, when a slight indiscretion by a policeman, a white salesgirl or a colored shopper who defied the boycott would have started an outburst quite as serious as the recent disorder. The feeling of race antipathy, perhaps not intended by the leaders of the boycott, has remained pent up in the community waiting for a spark to set it off." The turn to breaking windows as a final resort was captured by Gill Horton, a Black former cabaret owner quoted by Joseph Mitchell in the New York World-Telegram after the disorder. "I didn’t throw no rocks," he reportedly said. "I broke my last window when I was going on 10. Of course, if I was pushed a little I might let loose a few bottles and brickbats, but nobody pushed me yet.” Many others in Harlem clearly had been pushed. When James Hughes, a twenty-four-year-old Black shoe repairer returning home, found himself in a crowd at 8th Avenue and West 125th Street, he heard people saying, "Let's break windows," he later testified in court.

Historians Cheryl Greenberg and Larry Greene have argued that decision had the opposite effect to what the judge intended, shutting off an outlet for discontent and protest, and leaving Harlem’s residents with fewer alternatives to violence. The events in front of Kress’ store before someone threw the object that broke one of its windows replicated and recapitulated those tensions. Three men had been protesting the store employees’ treatment of Lino Rivera by walking in front of the store with banners — picketing. Police officers arrested the group, shutting down those means of protest. On this occasion, unlike earlier protests, members of the crowd attacked the store.

The objects thrown at store windows were most often described as rocks or stones, and less often as bricks — the objects recovered from the windows of Herbert’s Blue Diamond jewelry store displayed by a clerk for a Daily News photographer the day after the disorder. All those objects could be found around Harlem. An employee of the Blackbird Inn told a reporter for the New York Post that much of that material came from the island that ran down the middle of 7th Avenue, where stones and debris left after the paving of the street had been dumped. Other larger objects found on the street were sometimes used: ashcans and trashcans. (The tailor’s dummy allegedly thrown through Sam Lefkowitz's store window likely came from another damaged store.) In a handful of cases, the missiles were objects more likely brought from home — bottles, clubs, and hammers — or items individuals happened to have with them, such as umbrellas (there was rain on the night of the disorder). At least two windows in looted stores were allegedly kicked in.

While newspaper reports routinely described store windows as “smashed,” the extent of the damage they suffered varied. A single object generally broke and created a hole in a window rather than shattering it entirely, as is evident in a photograph published in the Daily News that shows a white police officer and a white store manager speaking through a hole in an unidentified shoe store. To remove most or all of the glass from a display window took more than one object, which usually meant more than one person, depending obviously on the size of the window. Stores on West 125th Street, particularly the department stores and those that wrapped around the corners of the intersections with 8th, 7th, and Lenox Avenues had far larger windows than the smaller businesses on the avenues themselves. More extensive damage to windows appears to have been associated with looting, and may have occurred when groups or individuals returned to stores with broken windows to take merchandise. A section of Lenox Avenue in a photograph published by the Daily News shows that variety of damage: closest to the camera is a rental agency with a hole in its window, which still contained the ashcan that created it, that does not appear to be looted; to its left are two grocery stores and a cigar store whose windows are almost entirely gone, and whose contents have been taken. The sources do not offer a clear picture of the extent of the damage to the stores identified as having broken windows but not as looted. The reporter for La Prensa who listed thirty-five businesses with broken windows on Lenox Avenue, West 125th Street, and 8th Avenue, ended their list by alluding to an unspecified number of other stores not on the list that suffered relatively little damage compared with those listed. There are no details for just under half of those identified (33 of 69) in the sources; of the remainder, fragmentary information suggests fourteen businesses could have been suffered limited damage.

Efforts to damage stores may also have extended to destroying merchandise by throwing it into the street, on a night when it rained. The Afro-American most directly reported that practice, in which “the goods was dragged in the wet sidewalk and destroyed.” The New York Times and Atlanta World reported goods taken out of windows and “strewn” and “scattered” on the sidewalk without mention of the intention. So too did Betty Willcox, who told a New York Evening Journal that on West 125th Street, "I saw that the windows of all the stores around there had been shattered and the goods thrown all over the place." Merchandise on the street, however, could also have been a byproduct of looting rather than attacks on businesses, thrown or carried out of stores so they could be taken — as seemed to be the case in a photograph of a damaged grocery store published in the New York Evening Journal. Some of those arrested during the disorder denied "breaking the store windows" and instead insisted "that they had picked the articles up from the street after others had thrown them out of the stores," according to a story in the New York Sun (which dismissed those claims as an effort to avoid responsibility).

When objects broke windows, glass went flying, hitting individuals on at least five occasions. All those reported injuries came after 1:00 AM, so during the period when most of the reported looting took place, and in the areas where that looting was concentrated, on Lenox Avenue from 127th Street to 130th Street and on 7th Avenue and 116th Street. Evidence about the circumstances of those injuries is fragmentary, brief details in lists and hospital records rather than discussions in stories. One record explicitly linked the injuries to windows being broken in stores. In the 32nd Police Precinct book of aided cases, Herbert Holderman was listed as “cut by flying glass when some unknown persons broke windows of stores.” "Flying glass” and “falling glass” were the reported causes of the four other injuries. That glass could have come from smashed windows in cars and buses driving on Harlem's streets, which also had objects thrown at them, although such attacks were reported only on 7th Avenue. Those injuries could also have been the result of throwing objects at windows or climbing or reaching into broken windows to take merchandise. However, crowds of bystanders were on Harlem's streets throughout the disorder, on sidewalks close enough to stores to be hit by glass when someone broke store windows. One storeowner, Herman Young, was also injured by glass from a window broken by a stone.

The seventy-two businesses identified in the sources as having broken windows, and the additional sixty stores looted as well as damaged, amount to around 30% of the total number estimated to have had windows broken. Newspaper stories offered a range of initial assessments of the damage. By noon on March 20, the New York Plate Glass Service Bureau, “whose member companies do 98 per cent of the glass insurance business in the city,” told a reporter for the New York Post that 110 clients had reported broken glass, a fraction of the expected total damage. Other newspapers published totals for the number of windows broken, not stores effected: “at least 130 costly plate gas windows,” according to the New York American; 200 plate-glass store windows according to the New York Times, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Chicago Defender, and Norfolk Journal and Guide; and “more than 250 windows” according to the New York Herald Tribune, 300 windows in the Afro-American, and “more than 1,000 panes of glass” in the New York Post. Inspector Di Martini offered an "approximate number of windows broken" that totaled 624 in his "Report on Disorder" to the police commissioner on March 20, with the disclaimer that the "extent of property damage cannot be estimated at this time." A later survey of forty-seven insurance companies by the National Bureau of Casualty and Surety Underwriters, reported by the New York Times and Pittsburgh Courier, combined the two counts, reporting claims for 697 plate glass windows in 300 businesses, amounting to two-thirds of the broken windows. With the uninsured glass included, the total damage would have been just over 1,000 windows in around 450 businesses.

“Breakages were most numerous on 125th street, near Seventh avenue,” according to that survey, but also occurred in an area that extended “from 114th to 143rd streets, between Fifth and Eighth Avenues. Several thousand businesses were located in that area, the MCCH business survey found, so attacks away from 125th Street were clearly less extensive. The "approximate number of windows broken" Inspector Di Martini reported to the police commissioner on March 20 was broken down by precincts, with almost all (86%, 538 of 624) located in the 28th Precinct, south of 130th Street. Newspapers stories consistently identified West 125th Street as the most damaged area, with the New York Age specifying the two blocks from 8th to Lenox Avenues, and the New York Herald Tribune identifying the block between 8th and 7th Avenues, on which Kress’ store was located. Those general descriptions are in line with the events which are reported in the sources, which are concentrated on that block, with fewer on the block between 7th and Lenox Avenues. Those blocks were where the disorder originated, and the largest crowds gathered; where Harlem’s largest stores were located; and where all the businesses were white-owned. Beyond 125th Street, newspaper stories presented different pictures of the extent of the area in which windows were broken. As neither the police department nor the MCCH appear to have collected details of the damage, as would happen after the racial disorder in Harlem in 1943, that variation might reflect the limits of what individual reporters investigated or, in the case of very wide areas, a lack of investigation. Only the Daily News identified an area as extensive as the insurance survey, from 110th to 145th Streets. The New York Evening Journal and New York Herald Tribune only encompassed as far south as 120th Street, and as far north as 138th Street. Two newspapers focused only on 7th Avenue, the Pittsburgh Courier reporting smashed windows from 116th to 140th Streets, and the Daily Mirror only from 120th to 125th Streets. The Black newspaper’s area fits the reported events, and suggests an investigation throughout Harlem; the white newspaper included only a portion of that area, the blocks closest to 125th Street. Eighth Avenue attracted special attention in the New York Herald Tribune, which reported “windows broken in virtually every other store and glass covering the sidewalk” from 124th Street to 130th Street, and less damage in the blocks further north. Lenox Avenue, where the reported events are concentrated, drew particular attention only from the Afro-American, which offered the only specific count, that “In the three blocks from 125th to 128th Street, west side Lenox Avenue, there were twenty-two windows broken.” The Times Union offered the vaguest area, "for blocks around the five and ten cent store two-thirds of shop windows had been smashed." The tendency to draw the boundaries at 120th Street, together with inattention to West 116th Street by both the Black and white press, effectively left Spanish-speaking areas of Harlem out of discussions of the disorder.

The businesses reported with windows broken differed from those reported as targets of looting. (Of the seventy-two stores with broken windows, three are unknown, three were vacant, and five were later looted, leaving sixty-one that are identified.) Clothing stores of various types and businesses involving miscellaneous goods (which included department stores, which sold a variety of goods, including clothing but generally not food) were the largest groups; the food stores that made up the largest group of those looted were the smallest portion of those with broken windows. Those different patterns suggest that those who returned to damaged stores to take merchandise, or turned to looting, focused on what they needed, not on the wider range of stores that had been targets earlier in the disorder.

When objects were thrown at windows beyond Kress' store, their targets were initially other businesses on West 125th Street, where all the stores had white owners. As groups moved away from 125th Street, they continued to focus their attacks on white-owned businesses. Five Black-owned businesses were among those identified as having windows broken, a number far below their presence in the neighborhood. Posting signs that identified a business as Black-owned appears to have stopped attacks and prevented windows from being broken. No Black-owned businesses are among those later looted. In addition to Black businesses, there were two white-owned businesses specifically identified as not being damaged in the disorder. Koch's department store was well-known for having hired Black staff. A group of Black boys reportedly protected the other store.

Arrests for allegedly breaking windows were reported for only 24% (17 of 72) of the businesses that suffered damage, a smaller proportion than for looted stores (as no one was arrested for the first broken window in Kress' store, the store appears among those cases in which no arrests were made even though an arrest was made for allegedly breaking a window after another attack over four hours later). The twenty-six individuals arrested for breaking windows were identified either because they were charged with malicious mischief, an offense involving damage to property, or by details of what police alleged they had done recorded in legal records or reported in the press. For five individuals arrested for breaking windows there is no information about their alleged targets; some of those four men and one woman may have been charged with breaking windows in stores for which there was no reported arrests. Three of those arrested were women, and one a white man, similar numbers as among those arrested for looting, but twice the proportion of those arrested. Police do not appear to have made arrests during the first hours of the disorder, when windows were broken on West 125th Street as they struggled to keep crowds from Kress' store and off the streets. The arrests that were made in that area came around 10:30 PM. Leroy Brown's arrest on 8th Avenue at 9:45 PM was during that early phase of violence. The handful of other arrests where the time is known occurred on 7th Avenue and Lenox Avenue when reported looting intensified, thirty minutes either side of midnight.

Courts treated breaking windows less severely than other activities during the disorder, in large part because the value of damaged windows was only sufficient to make a charge of malicious mischief, a misdemeanor. Most store windows cost less than $100 to repair, well below the $250 required for the crime to be a felony. Only the five men also charged with inciting others to violence were sent to the grand jury, just over a third of the proportion of those arrested for looting, and the grand jury sent all those men to the Court of Special Sessions to be prosecuted for misdemeanors. Similarly, magistrates transferred nine men and one woman directly to the Court of Special Sessions and adjudicated eleven cases, discharging Viola Woods and convicting nine men and one woman of disorderly conduct.
Lino Rivera grabbed & Charles Hurley and Steve Urban assaulted 163 plain 2023-11-07T18:36:37+00:00
When Charles Hurley, a floorwalker, and a Kress' store detective confronted Lino Rivera, an unemployed sixteen-year-old Puerto Rican boy, about stealing a pocketknife in Kress’ store, and started pushing him out of the store, the boy bit the hands of Hurley and a white window dresser who came to their aid, Steve Urban. After initially indicating that they wanted Rivera charged with assault, the two men ultimately did not ask police to arrest him. The incident is treated here as an assault as the New York Evening Journal, New York Post, New York American, and Daily News listed the two men among the injured.

As the incident between Rivera and the store staff triggered the disorder, it was widely reported in the press and investigated by the MCCH. This analysis relies on testimony given in MCCH public hearings as that was by far the most complete and detailed evidence. Newspaper narratives varied in detail, consistently reporting only that a boy had been grabbed by store staff for taking merchandise, and later released, but omitting most other details. Several white newspapers also published separate stories based on statements made by Rivera at the West 123rd police station during the disorder or at his home the next day that included additional details of why he was in the store and his encounter with the store staff but not of subsequent events in the store.

Rivera had begun the day by taking the subway to Brooklyn, in pursuit of job as an errand boy, he told reporters for the New York American and New York Herald Tribune. Finding the job already filled, he returned to Harlem. Getting off the subway at West 125th Street, Rivera decided to go to a show or movie at one of the theaters that lined the street, perhaps at the Apollo Theater opposite Kress' store, as a story in the New York Evening Journal claimed. When the show ended, Rivera went into Kress' store, a detail also reported in the New York Sun. He said he did so because he had "nothing to do," according to the New York Post, "just to look around I guess," according to the New York World-Telegram, "to walk through to 124th Street," according to the New York American, and "to take a short cut home," according to the New York Herald Tribune.

Testifying in a public hearing of the MCCH, Hurley, a twenty-eight-year-old white resident of the Bronx, said he was with the store manager Jackson Smith in an office overlooking the rear of the store when he saw Rivera take a pocketknife from a counter around 2:30 PM. Calling down to the store detective, he pointed out Rivera and then headed to the floor himself. Rivera later admitted to reporters that he did take the knife, after it "caught his eye," according to the New York Post or "attracted" him according to the New York World-Telegram and New York American, or because it "matched a fountain pen set he had," according to the New York Herald Tribune. (The New York Sun mistakenly reported that it was chocolate that Rivera had taken.) When Rivera denied having the knife, Hurley took it from the boy’s pocket. Both Rivera and Hurley testified that the men started to push him out of the store. According to Hurley, near the front door Rivera became scared and started to lash out at them. Rivera reportedly told journalists from the New York World-Telegram, New York Post, and New York Evening Journal that he had told the men he could walk out on his own, and tried to shake free of their hold, "really started fighting" when, as he also testified in a MCCH hearing, Hurley said, "Let's take him down the cellar and beat hell out of him.” Hurley denied making that statement; he told the MCCH hearing that he held Rivera around his shoulders while the store detective tried to calm the boy. As a struggle developed, another store employee, Steve Urban, a thirty-nine-year-old white window dresser, also grabbed hold of Rivera, according to Hurley. Once the group was through the front door and into the store's vestibule, a recessed area of the street surrounded by display windows, the store detective went to get a Crime Prevention Bureau officer. That police agency provided an alternative to having children arrested; its officers instead undertaking investigations of their conditions in order to refer them to social agencies to better prevent “juvenile delinquency.” Kress store staff turned most of the boys they caught shoplifting over to the Crime Prevention Bureau, according to Hurley, and had police arrest only one or two a week.

Sometime after the store detective left, Rivera bit both Hurley and Urban on the hands and wrist while "trying to get away," he told a public hearing, reportedly explaining to journalists from the New York World-Telegram and New York Post that "I didn't want a licking." The struggle in the vestibule attracted the attention of Patrolman Donahue, who was the nearest of several police officers on West 125th Street at the time (identified in some newspapers as a traffic officer and by Rivera in a MCCH hearing as a mounted patrolman). Donahue took Rivera back into the store, to near the candy counter at the front, to get away from a curious crowd gathering on 125th Street, and sent an officer to get an ambulance to provide treatment for Hurley and Urban. (He told the MCCH hearing that the officer was his partner Keel, or another patrolman named Walton; the call log records the man's name as Miller, who was later identified by the store manager as a Black officer.) The telephone call to Headquarters was logged at 2:30 PM, followed by one from Police Headquarters to Harlem Hospital at 2:35 PM, with the ambulance bringing Dr. Sayet recorded in the hospital records as having arrived at 2:40 PM. Those records provide better evidence of the timing of the incident than Donahue’s testimony that he witnessed the struggle at 2:15 PM. Soon after the ambulance arrived, the manager, Jackson Smith, came to the front of the store, he testified in a public hearing, after being told a crowd had gathered by a staff member. Informed that a Crime Prevention Bureau officer had been called, Smith decided there was “nothing further for him to do,” and he returned to his office. A few minutes later Alfred Eldridge, a Black Crime Prevention Bureau officer, arrived. Usually the store staff would have turned Rivera over to Eldridge, who would have taken Rivera with him. However, on this occasion Hurley and Urban told Eldridge they wanted the boy arrested and charged with assault. Hurley told a public hearing he had gone to the rear of the store before Eldridge arrived, and did not want Rivera arrested, but the officer was clear that he spoke with both Hurley and Urban. The store manager similarly told a later public hearing that “Hurley wants to press charges for biting.” Eldridge could not take Rivera with him if he was arrested: “The job and purpose of our bureau is not to arrest a child," the told the MCCH hearing. He telephoned his superior, and told him that “the 5 & 10 wanted the boy arrested.” In response that officer told him to “let the patrolman take care of it due to the fact that he was first on case.” So after about twenty-five minutes at Kress, around 3:15 PM, Eldridge left the store.

However, Eldridge testified he later found out that soon after he left, “the store officials changed their mind.” Donahue simplified those events in the public hearing, testifying that “The boy was not arrested, but was taken through the basement to 124th Street and sent home.” He did not mention Eldridge or who reversed the decision to arrest Rivera. Hurley’s self-interested statement that he did not want him arrested made Urban responsible. Urban himself was not among those who testified before a MCCH public hearing. It does seem that it was Urban who Donahue said was with him when he released Rivera; the officer referred to him not by name but as “the window dresser.” They took Rivera out the rear rather than on to 125th Street as there was a crowd in front of the store and Donahue “didn’t want to start something,” he told a public hearing. He was clearly anxious enough about the situation in the store to ignore another option that Eldridge had given him, “that in the event that Kress Store did not want to press charges, that the boy could be handed over to us for supervision,” according to the Crime Prevention Bureau officer’s testimony. After releasing Rivera on to 124th Street, Donahue left the store, at around 3:30 PM. Many of the fifty or so mostly Black women shopping in the store observed these events, after their attention had been attracted by the struggle between the two men and Rivera, and the appearance of an ambulance. None of these women testified in a public hearing. A Black man named L. F. Cole told a MCCH public hearing that he saw Rivera being taken to the basement by two men. As they had not seen Rivera leave the store, groups of women concerned to find out what had become of him remained in the store until Smith closed it and police pushed them out sometime around 5:00 PM or 5:30 PM.

Bites are a relatively minor injury, and the hospital record indicates that both men received treatment at the scene and were not taken to the hospital. Hurley did still have a scar when he testified at a MCCH public hearing on April 20. Hays examined it, announcing that “I should say enough [of a scar] to indicate there was a bite,” adding in response to a question from the audience that he saw four teeth marks.” Only one other individual in the disorder was described as having been bitten, Arthur Block, a Black man. He appeared among lists of the injured in only three publications, with no details provided of the circumstances in which he was assaulted.

The significantly less detailed narratives of what happened between Rivera and the store staff published in newspapers largely reflected what Inspector Di Martini told a journalist working for the Afro-American and others in front of the store around 7:30 PM: "A boy stole some little article here this afternoon. The manager caught him, grabbed him by the arm, and was taking him in the back when a woman screamed. The crowd gathered. The manager did not press charges, and let the boy go home through the back.” (Di Martini’s information at that time came only from interviewing Jackson Smith and Hurley, as both Donahue and Eldridge were off duty and would not learn of the disorder until the next day.) Missing from his narrative was Rivera biting the men, a detail that was also missing from stories in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, New York World-Telegram, New York Evening Journal, and Daily Worker. However, the assault was mentioned in the New York American, Home News, New York Sun, New York Herald Tribune, New York Times, Daily News, New York Post, Atlanta World, New York Age, Philadelphia Tribune, Pittsburgh Courier, La Prensa, and in Time magazine and the New Republic. Only the New York American, Daily News, and New York Herald Tribune included language that gave a particular slant to the assault. The New York American and Daily News describing Rivera as “hysterical” in his response to being grabbed by Hurley and the store detective, while the New York Herald Tribune labelled him pugnacious. The New York Age reported that “someone” had hit Rivera, the New York Herald Tribune and Brooklyn Daily Eagle that Hurley or Urban “slapped him," or “slugged him” according to the Pittsburgh Courier, with the New York Age mistakenly reporting that he was being treated at Harlem Hospital. That story was in a special edition of the New York Age published in the midst of the confusion early in the disorder. Two stories, in the New York American and New York Sun, had Rivera leave the store rather than being released. A story in The New Republic by white journalist Hamilton Basso included dialogue, almost certainly invented, between Rivera and the two men who grabbed him and comments from a crowd around him (Basso also mixed up the sequence of events inside and outside the store after Rivera's release).
- Lino Rivera grabbed & Charles Hurley and Steve Urban assaulted (Part 2)
- Lino Rivera grabbed & Charles Hurley and Steve Urban assaulted in secondary sources
Kress 5, 10 & 25c store front windows broken Around 6:15 PM, a step was set up on the sidewalk in front of the Kress 5, 10 & 25c store. A Black man climbed up, spoke briefly to the crowd of about 100 gathered there, and then had Daniel Miller, a twenty-four-year-old white man, take his place on the step. As Miller began to speak, someone threw an object through one of the store windows. A second object quickly followed, smashing another window, according to the New York Times and New York Sun. Different objects are identified as having smashed the store window. A bottle was the most common, identified in the New York Times and Home News, and more precisely a milk bottle in the New York Sun and a whiskey bottle in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and by a police inspector quoted in the Afro-American. The Daily News identified the object as a brick, as did the New York Sun in the case of the second object, while Louise Thompson described it as a stone. The MCCH report opted to simply say "a missile" hit the window. These are all everyday objects, likely close to hand on 125th Street, other than the whiskey bottle. A whiskey bottle fit with portrayals of those who attacked white businesses as hoodlums and played to racist stereotypes about African Americans, as was evident in the appearance of this detail in a list of brief items headlined "Highlights on the Harlem Front." Picketing of white-owned businesses on 125th Street by Black organizations in 1934 had not resulted in any broken windows; concern about what had become of the boy arrested at Kress' may have caused this crowd to react differently. There may also have been members of groups affiliated with the Communist Party in the crowd; when those groups picketed the Empire Cafeteria in 1934, they did break windows.

After the windows were broken, police officers moved in to arrest Miller and push people away from the store, most of whom ran across 125th Street to the opposite sidewalk. No one was arrested for breaking the window. Harry Gordon was arrested soon after trying to speak to the crowd on 125th Street east of Kress' store. A few minutes later, around 6:45 PM, three men began picketing in front of Kress' store. They too were soon arrested by police. Three to five police radio cars, an emergency [riot] truck, and six mounted policemen struggled to keep people from the store. No further objects appear to have been thrown at Kress' store front windows at this time. Soon after West 125th Street was cleared, around 7 P.M., people pushed on to 8th Avenue saw a hearse stop behind the store on West 124th Street, triggering rumors it had come to pick up the body of the boy who had been arrested, and a rush to the rear of the store that saw windows there broken.

Sustained and extensive attacks on stores on 125th Street came sometime after those rear windows were broken. Another brick hit Kress' front windows around 10:40 PM, allegedly thrown by William Ford, who then called for others on the street to attack police. Louise Thompson described a group breaking though the police cordon around 125th Street to break all but a few windows in the store, in the context of an exaggerated claim about the extent of smashed windows, and Kress' store does appear on the list of businesses with broken windows compiled by a La Prensa reporter who walked down 125th Street. But a reporter for the Afro-American wrote that the store "suffered very little loss on the front." The store manager, Jackson Smith, confirmed that later in a public hearing of the MCCH. Of the eighteen windows facing 125th Street and in the vestibule, only four were damaged. Repairs to the front of the store next day appeared to have focused on only two sections of the store window on the right side of the left entrance, in a photograph published in the New York American, and on the left side of the right entrance, where a ladder can be seen in Universal newsreel footage. Those repairs cannot have taken long. A photograph of Kress' store published in the Daily News on March 21 showed intact store windows guarded by two police officers. A sustained police presence during the disorder appeared to have protected the front of the store. That was the opinion of Channing Tobias, the fifty-three-year-old Black secretary of the Colored Division of the National Council of the YMCA, who told E. Franklin Frazier that "I guess it was because police were on guard" that Kress' store "got only a small window smashed." Police established a cordon in front of the store after it closed. Officers were still there around 10 PM, when Detective Henry Roge was hit by a rock while standing in front of the store, and after a window was broken at 10:40 PM, there were officers able to arrest William Ford. Later in the evening, the police cordon extended to cover 125th Street from 8th Avenue to Lenox Avenue, with Kress' store remaining at its center, and as the base for police responding to the disorder.

A window being smashed as a speaker began to address a crowd in front of Kress' store featured in narratives in the New York Times, New York Sun, and Home News. Only the New York Times and New York Sun mentioned the second object and smashed window. A broken window, without reference to a speaker, is reported by the Daily News, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, New York Age, and Pittsburgh Courier. No mention of a window in Kress' store being smashed at the beginning of the disorder appears in the narratives published in the New York Herald Tribune, New York Evening Journal, New York American, Daily Mirror, and New York Post, and the Afro-American reported only the damage visible the next day. In the MCCH public hearings, Inspector Di Martini, Patrolman Moran, Jackson Smith, the store manager, and Louise Thompson all discussed how the window was broken. In the MCCH's final report, the arrests of Miller and Gordon police made in the aftermath of the window being broken were included as examples of "actions on the part of the police [that] only tended to arouse resentment in the crowd."

The Kress 5, 10 & 25c store appeared in the MCCH business survey taken in the second half of 1935 and was still visible in the Tax Department photograph from 1939–1941.
Black-owned business signs (6) Six businesses were identified as having signs in their windows identifying them as Black owned. Stories in both white and Black newspapers presented such signs as a more widespread part of the disorder and as a key reason why Black-owned businesses were generally spared from damage and not looted. On placards and directly on windows with whitewash or soap were written “Colored,” "Black," and “This Store Owned by Colored,” the Afro-American reported. Three of the identified businesses fitted those generalizations, with a reporter for La Prensa describing signs that read "Colored" on a billiard hall and the Castle Inn on Lenox Avenue, and a sign reading "This is a Store Owned By Colored" in the Monterey Luncheonette reported by the Afro-American. Three other stores reportedly used a variation on those signs. Seven signs identifying a store named “Winnette’s Dresses” as a “Colored Store” are visible in both a photograph of an arrest taken during the disorder published in the Daily News, and a photograph taken the morning after the disorder showing a group of Black boys in front of the store published in the Afro-American.

The sign on the Williams's drug store used the same phrase, "Colored Store" with the additional phrase "Nix Jack," repeating the combination twice on its side windows. There is 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 at white-owned businesses, ended with an echo of that phrase: "THIS IS A COLORED COLUMN, NIX JACK!" The Cozy Shoppe customized the phrase to fit its name, rendering it as "Colored Shoppe." The Home News reporter departed from those descriptions, apparently confusing the nature of the signs displayed. Explaining how it was that "Most of the damage was done to shops which were known to be operated by white persons," the reporter claimed, "The colored persons who owned stores protected their shops against vandalism by picketing their establishments. They carried signs stating that the store was operated by colored people." No other sources mention pickets in front of Black-owned stores. There was no mention of signs being displayed in store windows in the Daily Mirror, New York American, New York Sun, or in Harlem's Black newspapers, the New York Age and New York Amsterdam News, or in the MCCH Report.

Signs appeared in Black-owned businesses as a response to windows being broken in nearby stores, providing material evidence that those throwing objects at windows chose their targets rather than being an irrational "mob." In some stories, those attacks were indiscriminate until signs appeared; other stories leave open the possibility that the signs reflected store owners' sense of the targets of those throwing objects at windows. "The mob made no choice, at first, of victims," in the most elaborate story, in the New York Evening Journal. "And then one colored man who owned a small restaurant pasted a sign in the window. It bore one word: 'Colored.' The mob passed him by and when others saw how the 'miracle' was worked, signs flashed up in store windows throughout West Harlem. Those owned by Negroes, in most cases, were not broken into." The dismissive tone of the story was typical of that newspaper's treatment of Black subjects; attributing the posting of signs to an individual and the protection from damage that resulted to a "miracle" diminished the decisions those on the streets made about what stores to target that Black store-owners recognized. By contrast, the Black reporter for the Afro-American, emphasized “Stores owned by colored persons in the rioting area had to rush improvised signs reading ‘Colored, “Black,” “This Store Owned by Colored," but cast the signs as based on an understanding of the intentions of those attacking stores, created "in order to be spared in the rain of bricks, whiskey bottles, and other missiles."

Briefer mentions in other newspaper stories generally echoed that framing. Among Black newspapers, the Norfolk Journal and Guide went furthest in emphasizing that Black-owned businesses initially were damaged: "Some Negro establishments were among the 200 which lost their plate-glass windows and had the window contents looted. Finally, some Negro stores in the affected area...had to resort to self preserving signs such as 'Colored' 'Owned by Colored' and 'Black.'" The Philadelphia Tribune ambiguously alluded to earlier attacks, while also erroneously expanding the violence to homes, reporting "Risks to live became so grave Tuesday night that Negroes put up signs on their stores and homes to indicate 'colored' lived there." Signs are simply presented as a response in the Indianapolis Recorder, "As the swarms of rioters swooped down upon the business district breaking store windows and stealing merchandise signs saying 'Colored Store' went up." Among white newspapers, those brief mentions emphasized the lack of damage to businesses that put up signs, without reference to what had happened earlier. Two such mentions came in additional stories in the New York Evening Journal. "The mob wrath in most instances touched no windows whose proprietors had had opportunity to scribble 'colored' in white chalk on the glass," wrote Joseph Mickler. Robert D. Levit similarly noted, "They carefully left unmolested those store which displayed hastily constructed signs with the word 'Colored.'" The story in the New York Post included a similar description, that "Many Negro storekeepers scrawled on their windows, with soap, the word 'colored' and the heat of the mob was never sufficient to cause the Negroes to attack their own." While stories in the Daily News did not mention signs, they appeared in the background of a photograph of two police officers making an arrest, drawing a mention in the caption: "On the dress store window are signs proclaiming it to be a ‘colored shop,’ to protect it from the raiding marauders."

Two more stories, in the New York Times and New York World-Telegram, described signs in windows the next day rather than during the disorder. Those signs may have gone up after the disorder, as storeowners became aware of details of the previous night's violence, or the white reporters may not have seen those signs during the disorder. The latter seems more likely. The signs in Winnette’s Dresses photographed after the disorder had been present, and photographed, during the disorder; likewise the sign on the Cozy Shoppe window filmed after the disorder was also reported during the disorder. In both the New York Times and New York World-Telegram stories, not only Black owners put up signs. "Negro proprietors had large white-washed signs on their windows announcing that 'This shop is run by COLORED people,'" the New York Times reported, adding, "Several white store owners took the cue and covered their windows with signs announcing that 'This store employs Negro workers.'" The previous year, the boycott campaign had tried to expand the number of stores with Black staff. Newspaper stories offered contradictory claims about whether such businesses were attacked during the disorder: the New York Post and Pittsburgh Courier reported they were spared, the Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide reported they were among those damaged.

A further set of store-owners' responses are included in the New York World-Telegram. "On every Negro store in Harlem today there were signs bearing this legend, 'Colored Store.' One said:-'Do not break this window. This is colored.'" Also, "There are many Chinese restaurants in Harlem, and they have placed similar signs on their windows. Chain stores have filled their windows with empty pasteboard boxes. Others have nailed boards across their windows." The only other mentions of Chinese-owned businesses as targets of attacks were of a single Chinese laundry posting a sign reading "Me Colored Too," reported by the Associated Press, in the New York Herald Tribune and Daily News (two newspapers that otherwise did not mention signs in their stories on the disorder), and in Time Magazine. That sign captured the issue raised by attention to those businesses: how did those attacking white-owned businesses regard those from other ethnic groups. The New York World-Telegram story implied that Chinese-owned businesses, of which there were 209 (3.5%, 209 of 5791) dispersed throughout Black Harlem, were not attacked, that those on the streets during the disorder agreed their owners were "colored too." Newspaper stories in the New York Herald Tribune, Daily News, and New York World-Telegram about the laundry contradicted that view, reporting that the business' windows were broken after the sign was displayed. However, there are no other reports of damaged or looted Chinese-owned stores. By contrast, La Prensa reported several Hispanic-owned businesses that suffered damage and looting, and no mention that such stores sought to identify themselves as a "colored store." The final response described by New York World-Telegram offered further recognition among storeowners of who the violence targeted. Rather than signs identifying why they should be spared from attack, white-owned stores barricaded their windows, seeking to prevent damage from objects that would be thrown at them.
Police establish perimeter around Kress' store After Inspector Di Martini returned to 125th Street around 7:00 PM, he called for police reinforcements. A New York Evening Journal story celebrated the response as “the most remarkable 'military' feat in the history of the department.” That portrayal was certainly how the police department would have sought to present the deployment. However, the arrival of additional officers appears to have taken longer than the story allowed, and to have been focused on establishing a perimeter around Kress’ store. The piecemeal arrival of reinforcements made that a protracted process. As police struggled to keep crowds away from Kress' store, those clashes served to disperse crowds along the avenues rather than stopping the violence. Unable to prevent windows being broken in businesses on 125th Street, police had to guard damaged stores, limiting the officers who could be deployed on the avenues. Guards appear to have prevented looting; they did not stop additional windows being broken. After crowds broke through on to 125th Street around 10:30 PM, there are only two further incidents in that area during the remaining disorder, an alleged assault on a woman and a shooting, both at the intersection of 125th Street and 7th Avenue. Although other incidents whose timing is unknown may have occurred during that time, the evidence suggests that police perimeter held through that period.

The New York Evening Journal story lauding the police response reported “a small army of 700 police was beating back the rioters” on 125th Street between 8th and 7th Avenues. That number likely reflected the total deployment rather than the force that set up the perimeter around Kress’ store. It was in line with the number Di Martini reported to the police commissioner were in Harlem after midnight and fell between the totals reported by newspapers, with the 1,000 officers mentioned by the Daily Mirror at one extreme, and the 500 officers reported by the Home News and New York Herald Tribune representing the other end of the range. While the officers coming from beyond the local precincts went initially to 125th Street, Lt. Battle later told Langston Hughes that the reserve officers from Harlem's precincts went to their stations, on West 123rd Street and West 135th Street. Some of those officers may have been sent directly to other areas of Harlem, particularly those who arrived later in the evening.

The perimeter established by police extended from 8th to Lenox Avenues, and from 124th to 126th Streets, according to stories in the New York Times, Daily Mirror and Pittsburgh Courier, the only sources that described police deployments. While Inspector Di Martini had summoned the reinforcements, the newspapers credited that deployment to Deputy Chief Inspector McAuliffe, who commanded uniformed police in the borough of Manhattan, and would have taken over from Di Martini when he arrived around 9:00 PM. The department’s emergency trucks attracted the most attention in newspaper stories, presented as the anchors of the police cordon. Six emergency trucks were stationed at the intersection of West 125th Street and 7th Avenue in the strategy reported by the New York Times, Daily Mirror, and Pittsburgh Courier. Emergency trucks were more dispersed according to the New York Herald Tribune; two at West 125th and 7th Avenue, one at West 125th and Lenox Avenue, and one at West 127th and 7th Avenue.

The Emergency Services Division had succeeded the police department’s Riot Battalion in 1925. Each truck had a crew of eight officers and, in addition to rescue equipment, carried a Thompson machine gun, three Winchester rifles, and a Remington shotgun, as well as a tear gas gun, for use against "disorderly crowds." The twenty-two trucks in the department in 1935 were dispersed throughout the city. While the two located closest to 125th Street arrived relatively quickly, additional trucks would have taken significantly longer. Squad #6 was based on East 122nd Street, and had been involved in clearing shoppers from Kress’ store earlier. Squad #5, based on Amsterdam Avenue, arrived around 7:15 PM, according to Patrolman Eppler. The New York Evening Journal identified trucks as coming from Kingsbridge in the Bronx and from Coney Island at the southern end of Brooklyn, the latter apparently arriving later: “It slithered perilously over wet streets but arrived in time for its crew to get into action.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle identified another squad from Brooklyn, Squad #16 from Herbert Street, as having crashed returning from Harlem, at 1:00 AM (a time when there was still significant disorder). Thompson did not mention the trucks. Neither did trucks appear in any of the published photographs of the disorder. Some of their crew did, identifiable because the rifles they carried — described as “riot guns” in newspapers stories and photograph captions — caused them to stand out from other police. They did not, however, have a machine gun that needed to be “set up,” as the Afro-American reported: each truck instead carried a single hand-held "Tommy gun." Nor were the trucks equipped with enough of those weapons for all the crew to have one. And there are no reports that they used tear gas. Those weapons prompted several newspapers to use martial language in stories about the squads’ activities. The New York Evening Journal story on the police reinforcements described Harlem as a “seething battleground,” and the police as “beating back the rioters in a savage and organized attack.” An emergency truck from the Bronx “leaped off the machine and tore into a crowd of window smashers” (perhaps at Herbert’s jewelry store at 125th Street and 7th Avenue, where another New York Evening Journal story described a similar scene). The Daily Mirror described emergency trucks as "being sent to the battle zone."

The other evidence of the presence of emergency trucks placed them in less warlike roles. Newspaper photographs show their crew among the officers who guarded damaged stores. A patrolman with a riot gun stands in front of Herbert’s jewelry store on northeast corner of 125th and 7th Avenue in a photograph published in the Burlington Free Press. Stories in the New York Evening Journal and New York Herald Tribune described police with riot guns guarding the store (the Daily News, New York American, and Home News described the officers simply as patrolmen). Another patrolman with a riot gun was photographed on the corner across 7th Avenue from the jewelry store. The image published in the New York Evening Journal is narrowly focused on the officer, whereas another version of that image published in the Daily Mirror shows a Black man walking past him, and the image published in the Daily News shows several Black men and women walking by on the sidewalk, evidence of the continued presence of people around 125th Street. Two additional patrolmen, one visibly carrying a rifle, stand in front of Sherloff’s jewelry store, just a few buildings north of the intersection, in an AP photograph published in the Los Angeles Times. Taken together, the images suggest that the crew of at least one Emergency Truck guarded stores at the intersection. Captain Rothengast, Patrolman Moran, and Patrolman Eppler told the MCCH that they also guarded other stores on 125th Street, including Kress’ store. A photograph published in the Daily News shows a patrolman talking through a broken window with a man inside a store on 125th Street. Again, Black men and women are visible in the background on the sidewalk in the background, their presence indicating that police had not closed the streets.

The police perimeter appears to have focused on keeping crowds off 125th Street, not individuals and small groups. In addition to those visible in photographs, Captain Rothengast described seeing "groups of people in 125th Street – no more than 250" when he arrived at Kress’ store around 8:30 PM. A story in the Home News also reported that “In an effort to keep traffic moving, police permitted pedestrians to walk through 125th St. The sidewalks on both sides of the street were crowded.” Patrolmen Moran and Eppler testified that at least some of those people approached police guarding Kress' store asking about the boy beaten in the store, encounters also described by a reporter for the Afro-American. Allowing individuals to walk along 125th Street was not incident-free: around 8:30 PM, a white man was allegedly beaten in front of Kress’ store, with police arresting James Smitten for committing the assault. About twenty minutes later, police arrested Frank Wells for breaking a window in the Willow Cafeteria. Just before 10:00 PM, Detective Roge was hit by a rock in front of Kress’ store and another patrolman injured at 124th Street and 7th Avenue. At the same time, Louise Thompson described larger groups being pushed back by police. She told a MCCH hearing she saw "one policeman throw his billy into the crowds while the mounted police were riding them down” at the corner of 125th Street and 7th Avenue between 8:00 PM and 9:00 PM, a scene similar to that captured by a photograph published in the Daily News. There is no evidence of where that photograph was taken, but a second photograph of police dispersing a group of Black men and women, the most widely reproduced photograph of the disorder, was taken at 125th Street and 7th Avenue according to the caption. It shows the island that that divided the north and south lanes on the roadway, which contained trees and were surrounded by the barriers like those visible in the photograph. A group of men and women are scattering in response to a uniformed patrolman moving toward them. One man is bent over; the caption describes him as falling down. He may also have been pushed down or hit by the patrolman; another man obstructs the view of what has happened between the two men. (One version of the caption claimed that the photographer was hit by a rock soon after taking the image, which might explain why the patrolman was trying to move the crowd.)

One of the Black men killed during the disorder, Andrew Lyons, sustained a fractured skull "during the thick of a melee at 125th street and Seventh avenue," according to the New York Amsterdam News, or a block further west at 125th Street and Lenox Avenue according to the Times Union. Police clubs may have been responsible for those injuries, but the doctors who treated Lyons recorded that had been too groggy to tell his roommate or anyone else how he had been injured. No sources mentioned police firing revolvers or rifles to try to disperse the crowds.

On at least two occasions large crowds appear to have broken through the police perimeter. Louise Thompson told a MCCH hearing that around 9:00 PM a crowd broke through on to 125th Street. The Home News also reported that incident. Store windows were broken, Young's hat store looted, and two white men and a white police detective allegedly assaulted around that time. A second crowd broke through around 10:30 PM, resulting in more windows being broken and a white man allegedly being assaulted, and police arresting four Black men.

Most of the incidents on 125th Street before 10:30 PM did not result in arrests, likely because police were heavily outnumbered by crowds and constrained by the responsibility of guarding stores. Only at Kress’ store it seems were enough officers stationed to make arrests: there arrests were made not just around 10:30 PM but also just before 10:00 PM and at 8:30 PM. There are no arrests among those with known times in the period between the arrest of the picketers in front of Kress’ store at 6:45 PM and arrests on 125th Street between 8:30 PM and 9:00 PM. There are approximately a dozen arrests made at unknown times and places that might have occurred during this time, but it is more likely that police were too outnumbered to make arrests, as Lt. Battle later told Langston Hughes. While an arrest for breaking windows was made just before 9:00 PM, police made no arrests for the assaults and broken windows reported when a crowd broke through soon after.

The police perimeter appears to have held after 10:30 PM. Sometime before then, no later than 10:00 PM, and likely as early as between 8:30 PM and 9:00 PM, groups had moved on from 125th Street to attack businesses on 8th Avenue and 7th Avenue, and later, Lenox Avenue. In response, police began to disperse across Harlem, driving along those streets in radio cars and taking up positions on street corners and guarding damaged stores. Exactly when the first police were sent beyond 125th Street is not clear. The first arrest made away from 125th Street, on West 127th Street between St. Nicholas and 8th Avenues around 9:00 PM, appears to have been made by a patrolman on his way to 125th Street rather than being deployed elsewhere in Harlem. The arrest of Leroy Brown around 9:45 PM on 7th Avenue between 127th and 128th Streets is clearer evidence of a spreading police presence.

With the MCCH giving limited attention to this period of the disorder, witnesses who testified at their hearings did not provide the details they do of the earlier police response. Newspaper reporters and photographers were on 125th Street during this time, so would have seen some of these events and been able to obtain information from police. Inspector Di Martini spoke with a group of reporters, including one from the Afro-American during this time. At the same time, those reporters would have had a limited view. The block was too long for those at one intersection to see the details of what was happening at the other intersection, or even for those at Kress' store to clearly see the nearby intersection with 8th Avenue. At the corner of 125th Street and 7th Avenue the Afro-American's reporter saw only "little knots of people on the corner"; "once he walked on, however, he found high police officials and the first detail of 500 extra policemen rushed to the area" and "a large number of people between Seventh and Eighth Avenues." It is unsurprising then that newspaper stories offer only general and fragmented accounts of this period of the disorder. Information on specific events comes from legal records, which are limited largely to the period around 10:00 PM when police made arrests, and narrowly focused on the actions of a single arresting officer.
Looting without arrest (38) No one was identified as being arrested for looting just over half of the businesses identified in the sources. There are eighteen individuals arrested for looting for whom there is no information about their alleged targets; some of those men may have been charged with taking goods from stores for which there was no reported arrests. There are also twenty-one men charged with disorderly conduct in the Magistrates Court for which there is no information about their alleged actions. They may have been initially arrested for looting and then had the charges against them reduced when police could not produce evidence that they had taken property rather than been part of crowds around looted businesses. However, only 6% (3 of 50) of those accused of looting were ultimately charged with disorderly conduct (the charges brought against ten of those arrested for looting are unknown).

That evidence supports the claim that police were unable to protect businesses made in multiple newspaper stories and by business owners who sued the city for damages, as well as in the MCCH report. Once the crowd around Kress’ store broke into smaller groups sometime after 9:00 PM, police were unable to clear the streets or contain all those groups. Irving Stekin told the city comptroller that the two police officers who eventually responded to his call to protect his store "couldn't do anything. The mob was too big for them," according to a report in the New York World-Telegram. When police did disperse crowds, they simply reformed, according to the New York Herald Tribune, New York World-Telegram, Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the MCCH Report. A more pointed image of that futility, in which police dispersed crowds only to see them gather again on the opposite side of the street, was described in the Afro-American and by business owners who testified in the Municipal Court. An alternative account in the Daily News presented crowds not as elusive but as "too scattered" to be controlled. As a result, rather than being ineffective, police were absent from the scene of some attacks on businesses. Business owners who sued the city for damages made that complaint. No police officers came to protect the stores of Harry Piskin, Estelle Cohen, and George Chronis despite Piskin approaching police officers on the street and them all visiting or calling the local stationhouse.

The absence of police from some parts of Harlem resulted in part from a decision to concentrate them elsewhere. Reported police deployments focused on West 125th Street. Inspector McAuliffe used the reserves sent to Harlem after 9:00 PM to establish a perimeter around the main business blocks of the street, from 8th to Lenox Avenues, from 124th to 126th Streets, according to stories in the New York Times, Daily Mirror, and Pittsburgh Courier, the only stories that described police deployments. Six emergency trucks were stationed at the intersection of West 125th Street and 7th Avenue in that strategy. Each truck had a “crew of 40 men and [was] equipped with tear gas and riot guns,” according to the Daily Mirror. Emergency trucks were more dispersed according to the New York Herald Tribune; two at West 125th and 7th Avenue, one at West 125th and Lenox Avenue, and one at West 127th and 7th Avenue. Armed patrolmen guarded Herbert’s Blue Diamond Jewelry store on the northeast corner of that intersection as well as other businesses with broken windows in this area. The Daily News noted that guarding “windowless stores” handicapped police without referring to which stores received that protection. This scale of police presence is likely why only one business on West 125th Street — Young’s hat store — was among those reported looted despite at least twenty-three other stores having their windows broken. (The New York Evening Journal did report that "the rioting Negroes swarmed into stores. First the Woolworth "five and ten" then McCrory's and then the department store right and left in both sides of the street,” but as no other sources reported such looting, that claim was apparently a product of the sensationalization and exaggeration that marked that publication's stories about the disorder.)

Beyond West 125th Street, the police relied on radio cars patrolling the avenues and limited numbers of uniformed police and detectives in plainclothes moving through the streets. The New York Times reported that an emergency truck was stationed at West 130th Street and Lenox Avenue, in the heart of the blocks that saw the most reported looting. Police made eighteen arrests on Lenox Avenue between 125th and 135th, but clearly lacked the numbers to guard damaged stores or prevent crowds from forming as they did around West 125th Street. Similarly, police arrested three men for looting Jack Garmise's cigar store on 7th Avenue near West 116th Street, indicating the presence of uniformed officers and detectives, but their activity apparently did not extend to the blocks of West 116th Street to the east or the adjacent blocks of Lenox Avenue where Hispanic-owned businesses predominated. Two stores were reported looted in that area, and at least another eleven had windows broken, a reporter from La Prensa found, without an arrest being made during the disorder. The police were not alone in their inattention to that area. Several newspapers drew the boundary of the disorder north of West 116th Street: crowds only went as far south as 120th Street according to the New York World-Telegram, New York Herald Tribune, New York Evening Journal, and Daily Mirror, and as far south as 118th Street according to the Home News. (The Daily News and Afro-American did report crowds as far south as 110th Street.)
Police find Lino Rivera Sometime during the disorder, police tried to locate Lino Rivera so they could show that he had not been killed or beaten. Chief Inspector Seely ordered the boy be located, according to the New York Times, which indicated that those efforts started after 9:00 PM when senior officers took charge of the police response. However, the Daily News, New York Herald Tribune, Home News, New York Times, Times Union, and Afro-American newspapers simply reported that police searched for Rivera throughout the night. They were unable to find him because the home address they had was incorrect: 272 Morningside Avenue rather than 272 Manhattan Avenue. (The New York Age story written early in the disorder included the incorrect address.) The Daily News reported that “the mistake was made” when Eldridge gave the address to an officer at the West 123rd Street station over the telephone — not that he had misrecorded the address as the New York Herald Tribune reported or that Rivera had given a false address as the Home News reported. According to Louise Thompson, a group of women who had tried to locate Rivera at the beginning of the disorder also had the wrong address, although one on the correct street: 410 Manhattan Avenue. Joe Taylor, the leader of the Young Liberators, also heard a rumor that Rivera lived at 410 Manhattan Avenue and went to investigate around 7:30 PM.

At 1:30 AM, Officer Eldridge was woken at his home on Whitlock Avenue in the Bronx by a telephone call telling him to report to the Chief Inspector at the West 123rd Street station, he told a hearing of the MCCH. The police officers who had been at the Kress store, Eldridge and Patrolman Donohue, had gone off duty at 4:00 PM. Until he was woken, Eldridge thought Rivera had been arrested and was unaware of what was happening in Harlem. He was able to go directly to Rivera’s home, arriving around 2:00 AM. He found him asleep, according to his testimony. The boy had not been there all night, as initially reported in the New York Evening Journal and New York Sun, but had gone out around 9:00 PM. Rivera had a cup of coffee and returned home after about twenty-five minutes because he "saw there was a lot of trouble around,” the New York World Telegram and Times Union reported. Rivera said Eldridge told him people thought he was dead, the New York World Telegram and New York Herald Tribune reported.

Eldridge took Rivera to the West 123rd Street station. Only the New York Sun described Rivera as “blubbering and frightened.” Rivera told a reporter for the New York World Telegram that he was at the station for about half an hour. During that time, police questioned him, he spoke with reporters and was photographed with Lt. Battle and Officer Eldridge. Newspaper stories that quoted his statements mentioned that he spoke to two different officers, Kear, according to the Daily News, and Captain Oliver, according to the New York Evening Journal and New York Sun. Battle told the MCCH that he asked Rivera “if he had been hurt by anyone and had he been arrested.” The New York Evening Journal, New York Post, New York Sun, and New York American published separate stories about Rivera’s statements. The Daily News, New York Herald Tribune, and Atlanta World appended his statements to larger stories on the disorder. Reporters also interviewed and photographed Rivera at his home later on March 20. The New York World Telegram, New York Herald Tribune, and La Prensa published separate stories based on those interviews, while the New York Times included Rivera in a larger story.

Inspector Di Martini took credit for having Battle appear in the images. “It was my idea to get Lieut. Battle to pose with the boy and get the picture into the streets as soon as possible,” he told a hearing of the MCCH. Battle said the reason Rivera posed with him was “for the moral effect.” Not made explicit in either statement was that having the boy photographed with a Black police officer added to the credibility of the image and cut across the racial divisions expressed in the disorder. “A lot” of pictures were taken, Rivera told a MCCH hearing, but only six different published images have been identified. An Associated Press photo that showed Battle seated with his arm around Rivera, who was standing, was published in the New York Times, New York Post, New York Herald Tribune, and New York Sun. Rivera was only 4 feet 8 inches tall according to the New York Herald Tribune, so that pose put the two on the same level. Their height difference was visible in an image of them standing in the same pose taken by an International Photo Agency photographer. That difference was further emphasized in the photograph of this pose published in the Daily Mirror in which Battle is looking down at Rivera. (The Daily Worker took offense at Battle having "his arm protectively around" Rivera as the "Harlem masses...know that Battles would kill a worker on the slightest excuse.") Photographs taken by the International Photo Agency and Daily News revealed that Eldridge was on the other side of Rivera in both poses. Eldridge did not have an arm around Rivera, as Battle did, so was detached from their grouping. A second Black officer added to message Di Martini wanted to send. However, Battle was in uniform and well known as the senior Black police officer in New York City, while Eldridge was in plainclothes, a suit and tie, and not a public figure. It was likely on that basis that some photographers and editors decided not to include Eldridge. An ANS photo showed Rivera and Battle standing surrounded by white reporters, looking at a camera to their left. Where the other photographs showed Rivera unharmed, in contradiction of the rumors circulating in Harlem, the ANS image presented him as telling his story. Rivera, dressed in a leather jacket, is smiling in all the photographs. Photographed at home later that day, Rivera wore a suit and tie because he said his mother suggested he “dress for the picture." In the image published in the New York Evening Journal, he shows a pensive expression rather than smiling. (The New York Times reporter who visited Rivera at home described him as "a dejected figure," "overwhelmed by the fact that his desire for a ten-cent knife had precipitated the riot and resultant bloodshed.")

If the primary purpose of finding Rivera was to show that he was alive and unharmed, his appearance at the police station also brought some consistency to reports about the identity of the boy who had been in Kress' store. Louise Thompson heard from the women she spoke to in Kress' store that a "colored boy" aged ten to twelve years had been beaten. The signs carried by the Young Liberators who picketed the store an hour or so later referred to a "Negro child" and the leaflets their organization distributed an hour later later described a "12 year old Negro boy." The first newspaper stories published appear to have relied on those rumors and leaflets in describing the boy; with neither Eldridge nor Donohue still on duty, police apparently did not have more precise information until Rivera was found. The New York American mentioned a "colored boy" and a "10-year-old Negro boy," the Daily News a 12-year old "colored boy," the New York Evening Journal a 15-year-old "Negro boy," the Daily Mirror a "little colored boy," the Home News a "young colored boy," and the New York Sun a "Negro boy." Early stories in some Black newspapers featured similar descriptions, a "small Negro boy" in the Norfolk Journal and Guide and a 10-year-old "colored boy" in the Indianapolis Recorder on March 23. Other stories in Black newspapers simply referred to the boy's age not his race: a 16 year old boy in the Atlanta World on March 21, a 12-year-old boy in the New York Age, a 14-year-old boy in the Chicago Defender, and a 16 year old boy in the Afro-American and Pittsburgh Courier on March 23. Newspapers published on March 20 after police found Rivera identified him as a 16-year-old Puerto Rican, in the New York Post and New York World-Telegram, or a "Puerto Rican youth" in the New York Herald Tribune and Times Union. The New York World-Telegram pointed to the differences between Rivera and the boy of the rumors by putting Negro in quotation marks when reporting the rumors and the text of the Young Liberators leaflet. By contrast, the New York Times referred to a 16-year-old "Negro boy" even after Rivera had been found, as did the New York Sun and New York Evening Journal. While the New York Times did eventually identify Rivera as Puerto Rican when he appeared in the Adolescents court after the disorder, the New York Evening Journal continued to describe Rivera as "Negro," while the New York Sun made no mention of his race. Those newspapers' persistent use of "Negro" may have been intended to convey that Rivera was dark-skinned; the New York American described him in those terms, as a "dark-skinned 16-year-old Porto Rican" in a story reporting an interview with the boy in his home, while the Brooklyn Daily Eagle described him as a "Negro born in Porto Rico." Editions of the other newspapers published after Rivera was found, including the Black newspapers, simply switched to identify him as Puerto Rican. (Historian Lorrin Thomas argued that the New York Amsterdam News "failed to identify Rivera as Puerto Rican, referring to him instead as a 'young Negro boy,'" but did not provide a citation. The March 23 issue of that newspaper is missing the news sections, but the March 30 issue identified Rivera as a "16-year-old Puerto Rican youth.")

Police found Rivera too late for his appearance to impact the disorder, although it may have contributed to the violence not continuing the next evening. However, the delays in locating him fed rumors that he was not in fact the boy grabbed in Kress’ store. Reflecting questions raised in hearings, the MCCH report noted that, “The final dramatic attempt on the part of police to placate the populace by having the unharmed Lino Rivera photographed with the Negro police lieutenant Samuel Battle only furnished the basis for the rumor that Rivera, who was on probation for having placed a slug in a subway turnstile, was being used as a substitute to deceive people.” After members of the MCCH met with Mayor La Guardia soon after their appointment, on March 22, the New York Herald Tribune and New York Sun both reported that “some” of them said that many in Harlem did not believe that Lino Rivera was the boy who had been caught in the Kress store. (Stories about the meeting in the New York Times, New York Post, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and Daily Worker included no mention of those comments.) An Afro-American journalist reported the rumors before the first hearing of the MCCH: “At the present time Harlem is divided into those who has been presented by the police as the boy in the case, is not the boy who was beaten in the store. They declare that Lino is being paid off to be the scapegoat and a camouflage....The AFRO reporter has run scores of tips about the boy who actually stole the knife, or a bag of jelly-beans, as it was first given out. Everything so far has run up a blind alley. One clue to the real boy is that all during the riot he was referred to as a 12-year-old boy, but became a 16-year-old one with the finding of Lino Riviera." The New York Age hinted at those rumors when it described Rivera as “believed to have been the cause of the whole affair.” Writing in The New Masses, Louise Thompson reported that a man and woman who had been in the store said Rivera was older and taller than the boy they saw. Other publications did not raise the issue. However, as the Afro-American journalist predicted, questions about Rivera were raised in a hearing of the MCCH. In the first hearing, Police Lieutenant Battle was asked, "Is there any evidence that would indicate that Rivera is not the boy? There has been such rumor." He simply answered, "No." L. F. Cole, a thirty-year-old Black clerk who had been in the Kress store, also testified that he had "no doubt" that Rivera was the boy he had seen taken away by police. The question was raised again at the third hearing on April 20. Mention that he had been on parole after being caught putting slugs in a subway turnstile prompted an interjection from "Mrs. Burrows": "My impression is that this boy is not the boy. We have testimony here that he got into trouble before March 19th, 1935. They had a boy under supervision. This is not the boy. They got a boy through these people and this is the boy they presented." Hays, chairing the hearing, pushed the ILD lawyers for evidence that another boy was beaten in the store. They had found none nor could they establish that Rivera had received lenient treatment. A month later, Jackson Smith, the store manager, confirmed in the subcommittee's final hearing that Rivera was the boy he saw from the office, with Donohue and again outside the grand jury room after the disorder. After listening to several questions trying to undermine the certainty of that identification, Hays announced "there is no question about it." Given the lack of evidence to the contrary, there is no reason to think Rivera was not person grabbed in the store. The shoppers who saw him in the store could have assumed he was younger, given his height. Similarly, seeing that he was dark-skinned, they could have assumed he was a Black rather than Puerto Rican.
Windows not broken (7) Seven businesses were reported as not having their windows broken. The absence of damage drew attention because of claims that violence had been directed only at white-owned businesses rather than being an indiscriminate attack on property in Harlem. Stories in the Home News, New York Post, New York Evening Journal, and Afro-American made the claim that the windows of Black-owned businesses were generally not broken. The newspapers linked Black-owned businesses being spared to the appearance of signs identifying them in store windows. "It was significant that almost no windows of Negro-owned or Negro-staffed stores were broken," the white New York Post reporter wrote. "Many Negro storekeepers scrawled on their windows, with soap, the word "colored" and the heat of the mob was never sufficient to cause the Negroes to attack their own." Attacks on stores were initially indiscriminate in the account published in the New York Evening Journal, as "the mob made no choice, at first, of victims," "And then one colored man who owned a small restaurant pasted a sign in the window. It bore one word: 'Colored.' The mob passed him by and when others saw how the 'miracle' was worked, signs flashed up in store windows throughout West Harlem. Those owned by Negroes, in most cases, were not broken into." The Black reporter for the Afro-American similarly portrayed the crowd as less controlled and less discriminating. “Stores owned by colored persons in the rioting area had to rush improvised signs reading ‘Colored,' 'Black,' 'This Store Owned by Colored,' in order to be spared in the rain of bricks, whiskey bottles, and other missiles. At that, several colored establishments suffered." That description appears to have reflected the reporter's treatment among the crowds on the street, whose "ring leaders," he complained, "were ready to jump on the reporters of 'the Uncle Tom press' as they would on many whites.” The mention in the Home News appears to have confused the nature of the signs displayed. Explaining how it was that "Most of the damage was done to shops which were known to be operated by white persons," the reporter claimed "The colored persons who owned stores protected their shops against vandalism by picketing their establishments. They carried signs stating that the store was operated by colored people." No other sources mention pickets in front of Black-owned stores.

The official police account of the disorder, likely reflecting information shared with journalists, did not mention Black-owned businesses being attacked. Instead, in a “Report of Disorder” to the police commissioner, Inspector Di Martini, the commanding officer of the Sixth Division, described the “vandals who continued to break windows on 125th Street, Seventh Avenue, Lenox Avenue, 8th Avenue, Fifth Avenue” as targeting “stores occupied by whites.” However, the MCCH initially concluded that the violence against businesses was indiscriminate: the "Subcommittee which Investigated the Disturbances of March 19th" reported on May 29, 1935, "Nor is it true that stores owned by Negroes were spared. There is no evidence of any program or leadership of the rioters." The final MCCH Report was less definitive, but argued that any discrimination displayed by those on the streets faded over time. "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." That chronology is the reverse of the narrative in the stories in New York Post and Afro-American, in which the appearance of signs stopped attacks on Black-owned businesses.

Four of the businesses reported with undamaged windows displayed signs identifying them as Black-owned, in line with the chronology offered in the press rather than that in the MCCH Report. The Monterey Luncheonette, Winnette’s Dresses, and the Cozy Shoppe did not suffer any damage. In the case of the Cozy Shoppe, all five white businesses on the same block of 7th Avenue had windows broken and merchandise taken, evident in newsreel footage and information gathered by MCCH investigator James Tartar. Less detailed information is available on the block of Lenox Avenue where Winnette’s Dresses was located, but two white-owned stores were reported looted, and multiple other white-owned businesses were damaged or looted in the blocks to the north and south. While there were only two reported white-owned businesses with windows broken near the Monterey Luncheonette, it was located further north, on 7th Avenue and West 137th Street, an area north of West 135th Street where there were few white-owned businesses: only 8 of 24 businesses on the block on which the restaurant was located, and only 10 of 38 and 6 of 29 businesses on the blocks occupied by the damaged white-owned businesses. The fourth business, the Williams drug store, did suffer broken windows in its storefront facing 7th Avenue, but the windows facing West 128th Street, on which someone painted “Colored Store, Nix Jack” were not broken. The drug store was across 7th Avenue from the Cozy Shoppe, in an area where white businesses were significantly damaged and looted.

Three additional businesses reported as undamaged were white-owned. The Koch Department store and the Empire Cafeteria had both not been attacked, according to newspaper stories, because they had hired Black employees in 1934 during the boycott movement. White-owned businesses that employed Black staff drew some general attention in newspaper descriptions of attacks on businesses, distinguished from the businesses targeted for attack. The only white newspaper to make that distinction, the New York Post, reported "It was significant that almost no windows of Negro-owned or Negro-staffed stores were broken." The Pittsburgh Courier likewise reported that when "window smashing" extended beyond West 125th Street, "Most of it [was] directed against stores not employing colored clerks" (with no mention of Black-owned businesses). Two other Black newspapers reported the opposite situation, although with a qualification. "Many white business houses which employ colored help in high positions were pillaged, " according to the Afro-American, and "Those employing Negroes in high positions were not spared," according to the Norfolk Journal and Guide. Just which businesses the stories referred to is uncertain. One possibility is that "high positions" referred to salespeople, rather than the porters and cleaners more commonly employed by white-owned businesses. Those positions had been the focus of the boycott movement in 1934. A survey by the New York Age a month after the disorder, likely not an accurate picture of the situation at the time of the disorder as there are reports of stores moving to hire Black staff after the disorder, found only 101 Black clerical staff in 134 stores (with the larger chain stores generally refusing to provide information). Harlem's Black newspapers made no mention that stores employing Black staff were not damaged, other than the New York Age publishing the interview in which the manager of Koch's asserted that his store was undamaged. The Empire Cafeteria hired Black staff after a campaign by the Communist Party, and its condition after the disorder is only reported in their newspaper, The Daily Worker. Although the story fitted the Party's efforts to show they had support from Harlem's Black residents, it is unlikely they would have made a claim that could so easily be checked unless it was true. It seems more likely that only they had any reason to give particular attention to that business.

The state of the other white-owned business identified as undamaged had nothing to do with its staff. Stan Katz's business was reported to have been protected rather than spared. A group of Black "boys" stood in front of the shop, "shouting to passing crowds that he was a friend of the Negroes," according to the New York Post. Neither of the two newspaper stories that mention the shop made clear if or how the boys knew the store owner.
Windows broken without arrest (54) No one was identified as being arrested for breaking windows in 75% (54 of 72) of the businesses identified in the sources (as no one was arrested for the first broken window in Kress' store, the store appears among those cases in which no arrests were made even though an arrest was made for allegedly breaking a window after another attack over four hours later). There are four individuals arrested for breaking windows for whom there is no information about their alleged targets; some of those three men and one woman may have been charged with breaking windows in stores for which there were no reported arrests. So could the twenty-one men charged with disorderly conduct in the Magistrates Court for which there is no information about their alleged actions, although only just over one in four of those accused of breaking windows were charged with that offense.

There are significantly more businesses with broken windows for which no one was charged than businesses that were looted, 75% (54 of 72) compared with 55% (37 of 67). Most of those stores were on and around West 125th Street, the area where the disorder began, and likely suffered damage during the time when small numbers of police struggled to control crowds that had gathered in front of Kress' store. Three arrests on West 125th Street, of Frank Wells, Claude Jones, and William Ford, came after police reinforcements arrived. The reported arrests on Lenox Avenue around West 125th Street for which there is information on timing, of John Kennedy Jones, Bernard Smith, and Leon Mauraine and David Smith, came after midnight, when businesses in that area began to be looted. Another cluster of businesses with broken windows for which no one was arrested was on West 116th Street and the blocks of Lenox Avenue around it. That lack of arrests could indicate the absence of police in that area, which also was ignored in the English-language press. Those damaged businesses were only reported in La Prensa, with the arrest of Jackie Ford two days after the disorder for allegedly breaking a window in a store at 142 Lenox Avenue also mentioned in the New York Post and New York World-Telegram. Several newspapers drew the boundary of the disorder north of West 116th Street: crowds only went as far south as 120th Street according to the New York World-Telegram, New York Herald Tribune, New York Evening Journal, and Daily Mirror; and as far south as 118th Street according to the Home News. (The Daily News and Afro-American did report crowds as far south as 110th Street).

The low proportion of arrests supports the claim that police were unable to protect businesses made in multiple newspaper stories and by business owners who sued the city for damages, as well as in the MCCH report. Once the crowd around Kress’ store broke into smaller groups sometime after 9:00 PM, police were unable to clear the streets or contain all those groups. When police did disperse crowds, they simply reformed, according to the New York Herald Tribune, New York World-Telegram, Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the MCCH Report. An alternative account in the Daily News presented crowds not as elusive but as "too scattered" to be controlled. As a result, rather than being ineffective, police were absent from the scene of some attacks on businesses. Business-owners who sued the city for damages made that complaint. No police officers came to protect the stores of Harry Piskin, Estelle Cohen, and George Chronis despite Piskin approaching police officers on the street and them all visiting or calling the local stationhouse.

The absence of police from some parts of Harlem resulted in part from a decision to concentrate them elsewhere. Reported police deployments focused on West 125th Street. Inspector McAuliffe used the reserves sent to Harlem after 9:00 PM to establish a perimeter around the main business blocks of the street, from 8th to Lenox Avenues, from 124th to 126th Streets, according to stories in the New York Times, Daily Mirror, and Pittsburgh Courier, the only stories that described police deployments. Beyond West 125th Street, the police relied on radio cars patrolling the avenues and limited numbers of uniformed police and detectives in plainclothes moving through the streets.
United Cigar store windows broken The United Cigar store on the northwest corner of West 125th Street and 7th Avenue had its windows broken during the disorder. All the businesses to the west of the store on West 125th Street in that building had windows broken; the Minks Haberdashery, Young's Hats, Savon Clothes store, General Stationery & Supplies store and the Willow Cafeteria. Only Young's Hats was reported looted. Businesses on the other corners had windows broken during the disorder; Regal Shoes on the southeast corner was also reported looted, while Herbert's Blue Diamond Jewelry store and the branch of the Chock Full O'Nuts restaurant chain on the southwest corner only had windows broken. Police trying to clear people from West 125th Street around Kress' store to the west had pushed the crowd toward this intersection, creating large crowds, some of whom broke away and threw objects at the windows of stores on 7th Avenue. After 9:00 PM, emergency trucks were stationed at the intersection, as part of the perimeter Inspector McAuliffe ordered police to establish around the main business blocks of the street, from 8th to Lenox Avenues, from 124th to 126th Streets, according to stories in the New York Times, Daily Mirror, New York Herald Tribune, and Pittsburgh Courier. The presence of such large numbers of police does appear to have resulted in only isolated looting of stores on the corners even if it came too late to protect store windows.

Across 7th Avenue from the United Cigar store, police officers armed with rifles stood guard in front of Herbert's Blue Diamond Jewelry store after the display windows were smashed. Patrolmen may also have guarded the cigar store; while there is no mention of their presence in newspaper stories, the Daily News published a photograph of an officer with a rifle guarding a store on West 125th and 7th Avenue with stock visible in the window that fits a cigar store but not any of the businesses on the other corners. One of the captions refers to the business as a drug store, but none of the business identified on the corners of the intersection are drug stores. Damage to the store window is visible to the left of the patrolman, two holes in the glass, in the original version of the image in Getty Images. Only a small section of the window is visible, so there may be more damage.

The New York Herald Tribune, Daily Mirror, and the New York American included the cigar store among the seven businesses on West 125th Street between 8th Avenue and 7th Avenue that they identified as having windows broken, without giving the store's address. The store is also 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, up Lenox Avenue, and then west on West 125th Street on the day after the disorder. They gave the store's address as 2100 7th Avenue.

No one arrested during the disorder is identified as breaking the business' windows. The MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935 did record the white-owned store at 2100 7th Avenue, and it is visible in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941.
Andy Florist store window broken The Andy Florist store on the "corner of Eighth Ave" is 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. After walking north on Lenox Avenue from West 116th Street, the reporter turned left on West 125th Street, walking west toward 8th Avenue. Based on the route the reporter took and the addresses of the other businesses in the list around the florist, the corner referred to is 8th Avenue and West 125th Street, and likely the southeast corner as there is evidence for businesses on the other corners, and all the damaged stores mentioned in La Prensa are on the eastern side of 8th Avenue. The Liggett drug store on the northeast corner of 8th Avenue and West 125th is also in the reporter's list. The Lazar department store is on the southwest corner, at 300 West 125th Street. The other corners are neither mentioned in reporting on the disorder nor appear in the MCCH business survey. There is a Tax Department photograph of the northwest corner, 2329 8th Avenue, taken between 1939 and 1941, that shows a cigar store, a business likely to have been present in 1935. Two vacant stores in the same building as the florist on the southeast corner of 8th Avenue are also listed by the reporter as having broken windows, 2324 8th Avenue and 2320 8th Avenue. It is possible that other stores around this corner suffered only minor damage; 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").

In the first hours of the disorder, crowds around Kress' store on West 125th Street moved down 8th Avenue to 124th Street, to the rear of the store. Later, after 9:00 PM, Inspector McAuliffe ordered police to establish a perimeter around the main business blocks of the street, from 8th to Lenox Avenues, and from 124th to 126th Streets, according to stories in the New York Times, Daily Mirror, New York Herald Tribune, and Pittsburgh Courier. The presence of such large numbers of police does appear to have resulted in only isolated looting of stores around the corners of 8th Avenue and West 125th Street, even if it came too late to protect store windows. Only the Danbury Hat store north of 125th Street, next to the Liggett's drug store, was reported as being looted.

No other newspapers mention the florist or identify stores with broken windows at this intersection. The businesses identified in the New York Herald Tribune, New York American, and Daily Mirror as having windows broken were east of Kress' store, near the intersection with 7th Avenue rather than 8th Avenue. No reason is given in those stories for why that mix of businesses were singled out. No one arrested during the disorder is identified as breaking the business' windows.
Chock Full O'Nuts restaurant windows broken A branch of the Chock Full O'Nuts restaurant chain at 200 West 125th Street 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. After walking north on Lenox Avenue from West 116th Street, the reporter turned left on West 125th Street, walking west toward Kress' store where the disorder originated. The list included an unnamed restaurant on the west corner of 125th Street and Seventh Avenue ("Restaurant, esquina oeste de la calle 125 y Séptima Ave.") The La Prensa reporter would not have been referring to the northwest corner of 7th Avenue and 125th Street, as a branch of the United Cigar chain was located there. The MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935 included a white-owned restaurant at 200 West 125th Street that was a branch of Chock Full O'Nuts. Louise Thompson mentioned the "Nut Store" on the southwest corner of 125th Street and 7th Avenue in recounting her movements during the disorder to the MCCH hearing. She referred to it as a landmark that located where her group was standing and as a business she went into later that evening. The windows were likely broken during the clashes between police and crowds at the corner from around 8:30 PM to 10:30 PM.

The businesses on the other three corners of the intersection also had windows broken during the disorder. The United Cigar store and Herbert's Blue Diamond Jewelry store on the northeast corner were guarded by police and protected from looting, while Regal Shoes on the southeast corner was reported looted. Police trying to clear people from West 125th Street around Kress' store to the west had pushed people toward this intersection, creating large crowds, some of whom broke away and threw objects at the windows of stores on 7th Avenue. After 9:00 PM, Emergency trucks were stationed at the intersection as part of the perimeter Inspector McAuliffe ordered police to establish around the main business blocks of the street, from 8th to Lenox Avenues, from 124th to 126th Streets, according to stories in the New York Times, Daily Mirror, New York Herald Tribune, and Pittsburgh Courier. The presence of such large numbers of police did appear to have resulted in only isolated looting of stores on the corners and the two surrounding blocks of West 125th Street even if it came too late to protect store windows.

No one arrested during the disorder was identified as breaking the business' windows. There was no Tax Department photograph of the southwest corner of West 125th Street and 7th Avenue taken between 1939 and 1941. A store entrance with a triangular pediment that was a feature of Chock Full O'Nuts luncheonettes was visible in the photograph of 202 West 125th Street, but no details of the store can be made out.
Arrow Sales store windows broken The Arrow Sales 5 & 10c store at 2318 8th Avenue is 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. After walking north on Lenox Avenue from West 116th Street, the reporter turned left on West 125th Street and walked west to 8th Avenue and looked a block north and a block south of that intersection. The Arrow Sales store is midway down the block between 125th and 124th Streets. Three other stores in the building just north of this address on the southeast corner are also identified by the La Prensa reporter as having broken windows: Andy's Florist on the corner and vacant stores at 2324 8th Avenue and 2320 8th Avenue. Police arrested Viola Woods for allegedly smashing the windows of a a third vacant store at 2314 8th Avenue, to the south of this store. It is possible that other stores in this area suffered only minor damage; the La Prensa reporter concluded their list by noting they 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").

In the first hours of the disorder, crowds around Kress' store on West 125th Street moved down 8th Avenue to 124th Street, to the rear of the store. Later, after 9:00 PM, Inspector McAuliffe ordered police to establish a perimeter around the main business blocks of the street, from 8th to Lenox Avenues, from 124th to 126th Streets, according to stories in the New York Times, Daily Mirror, New York Herald Tribune, and Pittsburgh Courier. The presence of such large numbers of police does appear to have resulted in only isolated looting of stores around the corners of 8th Avenue and West 125th Street, even if it came too late to protect store windows. Only the Danbury Hat store north of 125th Street was reported as being looted.

No other sources mention Arrow Sales, and no one arrested during the disorder is identified as breaking the business' windows. The MCCH business survey does include the white-owned business, which it described as an "Independent 5 & 10c store" at this address. Advertisements announcing the opening of the store appear in the New York Age on November 10 and November 17, 1934, the latter noting it had a staff of four Black women and two Black men. The Tax Department photograph shows a one-story building constructed after 1935.
Danbury Hat store windows broken and looted Some time during the disorder, the windows of the Danbury Hat store at 2334 8th Avenue were broken, likely allegedly by David Terry, a twenty-eight-year-old Black man, and, around the same time, James Hayes, a sixteen-year-old Black youth, allegedly took a baseball bat from the store window. There are no clear details of the circumstances of the damage to the store or the men's arrest. Police had pushed the crowds that gathered in front of Kress' store to the intersection of 125th Street and 8th Avenue early in the disorder, and groups of people remained in the area for several hours. Nearby stores on either side of the hat store had windows broken: the Liggett's drug store chain to the south, on the northeast corner of 125th Street; and a seafood restaurant to the north at 2338 8th Avenue. Neither store was among those reported looted. Other isolated reports of looting and arrests on 8th Avenue occurred further north, around 127th and 128th Streets.

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.

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 brought against him.

Officer Balkin was recorded as the arresting officer of both Hayes and Terry, 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 that he allegedly did not break the store windows.

Instead, it appears that Terry allegedly broke the store windows. In the Harlem Magistrates Court he was charged with malicious mischief, an offense involving destruction of property used against the other individuals arrested during the disorder for allegedly breaking windows. IN court that charge was reduced to disorderly conduct, the previous charged crossed out, "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. The charge recorded against him in the 28th Precinct Police blotter was inciting a riot, which police appear to have frequently used as the initial charge against those arrested during the disorder, and was often replaced by other charges in the Magistrates Court.

Police pushed the crowds that gathered in front of Kress' store to the intersection of 125th Street and 8th Avenue early in the disorder. Later, after 9.00 PM, Inspector McAuliffe ordered police to establish a perimeter around the main business blocks of the street, from 8th to Lenox Avenues, from 124th to 126th Streets, according to stories in the New York Times, Daily Mirror, New York Herald Tribune and Pittsburgh Courier. The presence of such large numbers of police does appear to have resulted in only isolated looting of stores around the corners of 8th Avenue and West 125th Street, even if it came too late to protect store windows. This was the only store looted in this area. Other isolated reports of looting and arrests on 8th Avenue occurred further north, around 127th and 128th Streets.

Magistrate Renaud transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions and held him on $500 bail. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter, which also recorded the charge against Hayes as burglary and misspelled his name as Hazel, is the only source for the outcome of that proceeding: a conviction and suspended sentence. Hayes lived at 476 West 141st Street, on Black Harlem's northwest boundary, further from the location of his arrest than most of those caught in the disorder, most of whom lived south of 125th Street or near Lenox Avenue south of 135th Street.
Busch Kredit jewelry store windows broken The Busch Kredit jewelry store at 128 West 125th Street is 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. After walking north on Lenox Avenue from West 116th Street, the reporter turned left on West 125th Street, walking west toward Kress' store where the disorder originated. The store is simply identified as "Bush Kredit" in La Prensa.

The jewelry store is midway along the block. That he recorded no stores with broken windows until that store suggests that fewer stores suffered damage in this block of West 125th Street than the block to the west. It is possible some other stores in this block suffered minor damage; 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 are no other reported events of any kind on this section of the block, only on the corner and blocks of Lenox Avenue to the north. That was likely due to the presence of police. Inspector McAuliffe did order police to establish a perimeter around the main business blocks of the street, from 8th to Lenox Avenues, from 124th to 126th Streets, after 9:00 PM, according to stories in the New York Times, Daily Mirror, and Pittsburgh Courier, taking in this area. An emergency truck was stationed at the intersection of West 125th Street and Lenox Avenue at some point during the disorder, the New York Herald Tribune reported. Harry Piskin found police stationed at the intersection, officers who would not leave that location.

No other sources mention this store, and no one arrested during the disorder is identified as breaking the business' windows. The MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935 did record the white-owned business, and it is visible in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941, as is a painted sign advertising the store on the side of the taller building to the west.
Shoe store windows broken A shoe store at 2100 7th 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. After walking north on Lenox Avenue from West 116th Street, the reporter turned left on West 125th Street, walking west toward Kress' store where the disorder originated. The shoe store was in the building on the corner of West 125th Street and 7th Avenue, next to the United Cigar store on the corner. While all the stores in the building facing West 125th Street also had their windows broken, the shoe store was the only business in the building on 7th Avenue reported as damaged.

Businesses on the other corners had windows broken during the disorde. Regal Shoes on the southeast corner was also reported looted, while Herbert's Blue Diamond Jewelry store and the branch of the Chock Full O'Nuts restaurant chain on the southwest corner only had windows broken. Police moving people on West 125th Street away from the Kress' store to the west had pushed the crowd toward this intersection. The large crowd that resulted included some groups who moved away and threw objects at the windows of stores on 7th Avenue. After 9:00 PM, emergency trucks were stationed at the intersection, as part of the perimeter Inspector McAuliffe ordered police to establish around the main business blocks of the street, from 8th to Lenox Avenues, from 124th to 126th Streets, according to stories in the New York Times, Daily Mirror, New York Herald Tribune, and Pittsburgh Courier. The presence of such large numbers of police did appear to have resulted in only isolated looting of stores on the corners even if it came too late to protect store windows. The first windows in the shoe store windows were likely broken around 8:45 PM, when windows were reported broken in Jack Sherloff's jewelry store a few doors to the north on the same side of 7th Avenue and merchandise taken despite Sherloff jumping into the display and throwing merchandise back into the store in an effort to keep it out of the hands of those on the street.

No other sources mentioned the shoe store, and no one arrested during the disorder was identified as breaking the business' windows. It did appear as a white-owned business in the MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935, but was not visible in the Tax Department photograph.
Hobbs dress shop windows broken Hobbs dress shop at 150 West 125th Street 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. After walking north on Lenox Avenue from West 116th Street, the reporter turned left on West 125th Street, walking west toward Kress' store where the disorder originated. The dress shop was near the intersection with 7th Avenue.

That the reporter recorded only one store with broken windows before the dress shop, the Busch Kredit jewelry store at 128 West 125th Street, suggests that fewer stores suffered damage in this block of West 125th Street than the block to the west. It is possible some other stores in this block suffered minor damage; 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"). That was likely due to the presence of police. Inspector McAuliffe did order police to establish a perimeter around the main business blocks of the street, from 8th to Lenox Avenues, from 124th to 126th Streets, after 9:00 PM, according to stories in the New York Times, Daily Mirror, and Pittsburgh Courier. Emergency trucks were stationed near the dress shop, at the intersection of West 125th Street and 7th Avenue, according to the New York Times, Daily Mirror, and Pittsburgh Courier, and one at West 125th Street and Lenox Avenue, according to the New York Herald Tribune. Each truck had a “crew of 40 men and [was] equipped with tear gas and riot guns,” the Daily Mirror reported.

No other sources mentioned this store, and no one arrested during the disorder was identified as breaking the business' windows. The MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935 did record the white-owned business, but it was not visible in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941.
Sylvia Dress shop windows broken Sylvia Dress shop at 162 West 125th Street is 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. After walking north on Lenox Avenue from West 116th Street, the reporter turned left on West 125th Street, walking west toward Kress' store where the disorder originated. The dress shop is one building from the intersection with 7th Avenue. The reporter noted broken windows in the Regal Shoes store on the corner; that store was looted, according to other sources.

That the reporter recorded another dress store with broken windows just west of the dress shop at 150 West 125th Street, and only one other damaged business further west, the Busch Kredit jewelry store at 128 West 125th Street, suggested that fewer stores suffered damage in this block of West 125th Street than the block to the west. It is possible that some other stores in this block suffered minor damage; the La Prensa reporter concluded his list by noting that 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"). That was likely due to the presence of police. Inspector McAuliffe did order police to establish a perimeter around the main business blocks of the street, from 8th to Lenox Avenues, from 124th to 126th Streets, after 9:00 PM, according to stories in the New York Times, Daily Mirror, and Pittsburgh Courier. Emergency trucks were stationed near the dress shop, at the intersection of West 125th Street and 7th Avenue, according to the New York Times, Daily Mirror, and Pittsburgh Courier. Each truck had a “crew of 40 men and [was] equipped with tear gas and riot guns,” the Daily Mirror reported.

No other sources mention this store, and no one arrested during the disorder is identified as breaking the business' windows. The MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935 did not record any business at the address, and the storefront appears vacant in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941.
Vacant store windows broken (2320 8th Avenue) A vacant store at 2320 8th Avenue is 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. After walking north on Lenox Avenue from West 116th Street, the reporter turned left on West 125th Street, and walked west to 8th Avenue and looked a block north and south of that intersection. The empty store is midway down the block between 125th and 124th Streets. Andy's Florist on the southeast corner of West 125th Street and another vacant store at 2324 8th Avenue in the same building just north of this address are also identified as having broken windows in La Prensa. In addition, the Arrow Sales 5 & 10c store at 2318 8th Avenue on the south side of the vacant store is listed as having broken windows. Police arrested Viola Woods for allegedly smashing the windows of a a third vacant store at 2314 8th Avenue. It is possible that other stores in this area suffered only minor damage; 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").

In the first hours of the disorder, crowds around Kress' store on West 125th Street moved down 8th Avenue to 124th Street, to the rear of the store. Later, after 9:00 PM, Inspector McAuliffe ordered police to establish a perimeter around the main business blocks of the street, from 8th to Lenox Avenues, from 124th to 126th Streets, according to stories in the New York Times, Daily Mirror, New York Herald Tribune, and Pittsburgh Courier. The presence of such large numbers of police does appear to have resulted in only isolated looting of stores around the corners of 8th Avenue and West 125th Street, even if it came too late to protect store windows. Only the Liggett drug store on the northeast corner was reported as being looted.

No other sources mention the vacant store at this address, and no one arrested during the disorder is identified as breaking the business' windows. The Tax Department photograph shows a one-story building constructed after 1935.
Vacant store windows broken (2324 8th Avenue) A vacant store "on 125th Street and Eighth Avenue" ("esquina norte de la Octava y 125") is 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. After walking north on Lenox Avenue from West 116th Street, the reporter turned left on West 125th Street, and walked west to 8th Avenue and looked a block north and south of that intersection. The vacant store was not located on any of the corners themselves: a branch of the Liggett drug store chain on the northeast corner and Andy's Florist on the southeast corner appear in the reporter's list; an Optima cigar store on the northwest corner, and the Lazar department store on the southwest corner appear in the MCCH business survey and Tax Department photographs. The La Prensa reporter listed damaged buildings on the east side of 8th Avenue both north and south of 125th Street, but this vacant store appears with those on the south, so is likely 2324 8th Avenue, which is recorded in the MCCH business survey as an "Empty store." (Police arrested Viola Woods for allegedly smashing the windows of a vacant store at 2314 8th Avenue, but that address is closer to 124th Street than 125th Street).

In the first hours of the disorder, crowds around Kress' store on West 125th Street moved down 8th Avenue to 124th Street, to the rear of the store. Later, after 9:00 PM, Inspector McAuliffe ordered police to establish a perimeter around the main business blocks of the street, from 8th to Lenox Avenues, from 124th to 126th Streets, according to stories in the New York Times, Daily Mirror, New York Herald Tribune, and Pittsburgh Courier. The presence of such large numbers of police does appear to have resulted in only isolated looting of stores around the corners of 8th Avenue and West 125th Street, even if it came too late to protect store windows. Only the Danbury Hat store north of 125th Street was reported as being looted.

No other sources mention the vacant store at this address, and no one arrested during the disorder is identified as breaking the business' windows. The Tax Department photograph shows a one-story building constructed after 1935.
Seafood restaurant windows broken The seafood restaurant at 2338 8th Avenue is 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. After walking north on Lenox Avenue from West 116th Street, the reporter turned left on West 125th Street, and walked west to 8th Avenue and looked a block north and south of that intersection. In La Prensa the business is identified as a fish shop ("pescadería"), likely because the reporter saw the "Sea Food" sign that hung over the pavement visible in the Tax Department photograph. Also visible in that photograph is the "Lunch" sign in the store window. The MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935 fits with that sign, recording the businesses as a white-owned lunchroom. The La Prensa list included two other businesses on the block to the north with broken windows: the branch of the Liggett's Drug Store chain on the corner; and the Danbury Hat store at 2334 8th Avenue (partially visible on the far right of the Tax Department photograph).

Police pushed the crowds that gathered in front of Kress' store to the intersection of 125th Street and 8th Avenue early in the disorder. Later, after 9:00 PM, Inspector McAuliffe ordered police to establish a perimeter around the main business blocks of the street, from 8th to Lenox Avenues, and from 124th to 126th Streets, according to stories in the New York Times, Daily Mirror, New York Herald Tribune, and Pittsburgh Courier. The presence of such large numbers of police does appear to have resulted in only isolated looting of stores around the corners of 8th Avenue and West 125th Street, even if it came too late to protect store windows. Only the Liggett Drug Store on the northeast corner was reported as being looted. Other isolated reports of looting and arrests on 8th Avenue occurred further north, around 127th and 128th Streets.

No other sources mention the seafood restaurant, and no one arrested during the disorder was identified as having broken the business' window.
Lino Rivera grabbed & Charles Hurley and Steve Urban assaulted (Part 2) 6 plain 2023-11-07T18:45:33+00:00
Until police found Rivera, newspapers described the boy caught shoplifting as a younger Black child, in line with the rumors and leaflets circulating in Harlem. Louise Thompson heard from the women she spoke to in Kress' store that a "colored boy" aged ten to twelve years had been beaten. The signs carried by the Young Liberators who picketed the store an hour or so later referred to a "Negro child," while the leaflets their organization distributed another hour later later described a "12 year old Negro boy." The first newspaper stories repeated those descriptions. The New York American mentioned a "colored boy" and a "10-year-old Negro boy," the Daily News a 12-year-old "colored boy," the New York Evening Journal a 15-year-old "Negro boy," the Daily Mirror a "little colored boy," the Home News a "young colored boy," and the New York Sun a "Negro boy." Early stories in some Black newspapers featured similar descriptions, a "small Negro boy" in the Norfolk Journal and Guide and a 10-year-old "colored boy" in the Indianapolis Recorder on March 23, or simply referred to the boy's age, not his race, a 16-year-old boy in the Atlanta World on March 21, a 12-year-old boy in the New York Age, a 14-year-old boy in the Chicago Defender, and a 16-year-old boy in the Afro-American and Pittsburgh Courier on March 23. Newspapers published on March 20 after police found Rivera identified him as a 16-year-old Puerto Rican, in the New York Post, New York World-Telegram, and Brooklyn Daily Eagle or a "Puerto Rican youth" in the New York Herald Tribune, Times Union, and Brooklyn Citizen (although later in that story Rivera was referred to as a "Negro"). (The New York World-Telegram also pointed to the differences between Rivera and the boy of the rumors by putting Negro in quotation marks when reporting the rumors and the text of the Young Liberators leaflet.) By contrast, the New York Times referred to a 16-year-old "Negro boy" even after Rivera had been found, as did the New York Sun and New York Evening Journal. While the New York Times did eventually identify Rivera as Puerto Rican when he appeared in the Adolescents court after the disorder, the New York Evening Journal continued to describe Rivera as "Negro," while the New York Sun made no mention of his race. Those newspapers' persistent use of "Negro" may have been intended to convey that Rivera was dark-skinned; the New York American described him in those terms, as a "dark-skinned 16-year-old Porto Rican" in a story reporting an interview with the boy in his home, while the Brooklyn Daily Eagle described him as a "Negro born in Porto Rico." Editions of the other newspapers published after Rivera was found, including the Black newspapers, simply switched to identify him as Puerto Rican. (Historian Lorrin Thomas argued that the New York Amsterdam News "failed to identify Rivera as Puerto Rican, referring to him instead as a 'young Negro boy,'" but did not provide a citation. The March 23 issue of that newspaper is missing the news sections, but the March 30 issue identified Rivera as a "16-year-old Puerto Rican youth.")

Stories in the New York Evening Journal, Home News, La Prensa, and Daily Worker misidentified Hurley and Urban as store detectives. None mentioned the store detective, Smith, perhaps because he was not bitten and therefore not identified in any official records. He may also have been confused with Jackson Smith, the store manager. Many stories gave the manager a larger role than he played, involved in grabbing Rivera and making the decision to release him with Rivera in this office. That expanded role came at the expense not only of the store detective but also the police. Only the Daily News, and a vague statement in the New York Post story of what Rivera said mentioned that officers were at the store. The Daily News included only Eldridge, misidentifying him as the officer who released Rivera. Rivera said “two policeman came in” after he bit the men, the New York Post reported. The New York Evening Journal, Daily News, Atlanta World, and Philadelphia Tribune stories quoting Rivera omitted that statement.

Several newspaper stories included a Black woman interceding or screaming when the store staff grabbed Rivera, which some accounts claimed precipitated broader disorder. The statements of those on the scene suggest any outcry came when Donohue and Urban took Rivera into the basement. Rivera testified in the public hearing that a woman screamed “They’re going to take him down the cellar and beat him up!” While Hurley made no mention of that scream, L. F. Cole, a thirty-year-old Black clerk, did testify that when he saw Donohue and Urban taking Rivera to the basement “a woman made a statement that the boy had been struck.” Cole's choice not to describe the woman as screaming suggests the possibility that the woman simply called out, with the gendered language of the press rendering any shouting by a woman as a scream. "They're beating that boy! They're killing him!" were the “screams” reported by the New York Evening Journal. Speeding up events, the New York American, New York Post, and Atlanta World, and the New Republic, describe the woman as running into the street, screaming "Kress beat a colored boy! Kress Beat a colored boy!" according to the New York American. The New York Sun made this response collective: “Emotional Negro women shouted that the boy was being beaten and this information was quickly relayed to the curious crowds which had gathered in front of the store.” Rather than reacting, the woman intervened in the narrative presented in Home News and La Prensa, and was pushed aside by Hurley, after which she screamed.

Margaret Mitchell was identified as the woman who reacted to Rivera being grabbed in the New York Evening Journal, Home News, Philadelphia Tribune, and La Prensa (and later in stories about those arrested in the New York Amsterdam News, Afro-American, New York Post, and New York Times). Here journalists with a truncated timeline of events were assuming that as she was arrested in Kress’ store it must have been when Rivera was grabbed. However, Donahue told the public hearing he had not made an arrest, and none of the store staff mentioned an arrest at this time. The circumstances of Mitchell's arrest recorded by police, the testimony of Louise Thompson, and the New York Sun story suggest that it took place after the store was closed, as police tried to clear out the women who remained inside, with an officer named Johnson making the arrest. Similarly, in describing customers struggling with Hurley and Urban or attacking displays as Rivera was taken away, the narratives of the New York Sun, La Prensa, and the Home News collapsed together events that took place at different times. Testimony in the public hearings identified that struggle as coming later, when Kress’ manager decided to close the store and police cleared out those inside.

Several newspapers also published statements by Rivera made either at the West 123rd Street station after Eldridge, awoken at 1:30 AM, had located him and brought him to a police station around 2:00 AM, or in his home the next day that provided more details of what happened before and when he was grabbed than the broad narratives. The New York Evening Journal, New York Herald Tribune, Daily News, New York Post, New York Sun, Atlanta World, and Philadelphia Tribune quoted Rivera at the police station describing biting the men and the threat to beat him that had precipitated that struggle. In an ANS agency photograph of Rivera standing with Lt. Battle taken at that time, journalists can be seen taking notes. It’s not clear if they questioned Rivera directly, or recorded answers he gave to police officers: the Daily News reported his statements as told to Deputy Chief Inspector Frances Kear, the New York Evening Journal and New York Sun reported he talked to Captain Richard Oliver, and the New York Herald Tribune quoted Eldridge rather than Rivera. The New York Evening Journal story also mentioned the reporter speaking with Rivera. The New York World-Telegram and New York Herald Tribune published stories quoting statements made by Rivera at this home later on March 20; a New York American story combined statements from the station and at his home. The information that before entering Kress', Rivera had gone to Brooklyn looking for work, having left high school six months earlier, that his mother needed help because his father was dead, was reported in the interviews published in the New York American and New York Herald Tribune. His father's death was also reported in La Prensa and the Brooklyn Citizen. Only the New York Herald Tribune, New York Evening Journal, and New York Sun reported that Rivera went to a show after returning from Brooklyn. Only La Prensa reported that Rivera had a job when he first left school. That interview with Rivera in his home focused on emphasizing his lack of responsibility for the disorder and willingness to try to pacify the crowds had he been asked, and contained no details of what had happened in the store as he did not want to talk about them. That focus was in line with La Prensa's concern to distance Puerto Rican residents from the disorder. Rivera gave an account of what happened in the store again when he appeared in the Adolescents Court on March 23 for inserting slugs in a subway turnstile before the disorder, in answer to questions from the magistrate.

The MCCH public hearings elicited more details of the assault, with Rivera, the two police officers, and Hurley all testifying, together with Jackson Smith, the store manager. Provided in five separate hearings spread over nearly six weeks, that testimony described the roles of Officers Donahue and Eldridge, which were missing from the initial newspaper reports. Few newspapers included these new details in their stories about the hearings. The most extensively reported hearing was the first, on March 30, in which Donahue testified. A majority of newspapers highlighted Donahue’s decision to release Rivera through the rear of the store rather than in view of concerned customers as a mistake, with several reporting that Donahue had admitted that mistake. However, the hearing transcript did not include such a statement. Instead, it was Edward Kuntz, one of the ILD lawyers in the audience, who offered that assessment while questioning the officer. After Donahue testified that crowds on 125th Street caused him to take Rivera into the store, Kuntz commented, “If you had let the boy go at that time there would not have been any excitement.” Eldridge and Hurley did not testify until three weeks later, and Jackson Smith until two weeks after that, when they were not given any attention in the briefer newspaper stories about those hearings.