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

Fires (4)

Fires broke out in three stores during the disorder. Two of those stores were adjacent, Anna Rosenberg’s notion shop at 429 Lenox Avenue and a hardware store at 431 Lenox Avenue. An additional fire was allegedly set on the roof of 5 West 131st Street. The New York Evening Journal reported fires in two buildings (it is likely that the New York Evening Journal treated the fires in the adjacent stores as a single fire, but as two different businesses were effected it is treated here as two fires), the New York Herald Tribune and Daily Worker a fire in one building, and the Home News, New York Daily News, New York Times, and New York World-Telegram referred generally to fires in several stores, offering no details. The Black-owned Philadelphia Tribune appears to have repackaged the New York Evening Journal account, and the Afro-American published a photograph of a fire-damaged store. Other Black newspapers made no reference to fires. Nor did the MCCH report. The roof-top fire was mentioned only in the Home News and the Daily Worker, perhaps because it occurred on the margins of the disorder. Newspapers attributed the fires to members of the crowds on the street during the disorder, but only the New York Herald Tribune described how one of the fires started.

Relatively close to each other, on two blocks of Lenox Avenue between West 130th Street and West 132nd Street, the stores were located in an area that saw extensive looting, attacks on stores and violence. The fires broke out within a period of around an hour, beginning with the notion and hardware stores after 11 PM followed soon after midnight by Lash's store. All three stores were also looted. Only the New York Daily News photograph captions linked the fires to looting: "Fire was set by rioters after they looted place" in the case of Lash's store; and a more elaborate account for the image of the other stores: "It is but a step from looting to incendiarism. Here's a fireman tacking a blazing tailor shop at 420 Lexington Ave., fired after it was looted."

The roof fire is in the same area, a block east of Lenox Avenue, at 5 West 131st Street. A Home News reporter explained that fire as “one method by which the mobs stirred up excitement." It was produced, the story claimed by stacking "great heaps of newspapers on the roofs of buildings," which, "when ignited, led those in the streets to believe spectacular fires were in progress and many fire alarms were sounded.” An eyewitness offered a different explanation to the Daily Worker, that the fire was a distraction not an incitement: “This was done, I suppose, to draw the attention of the police force and riot squads from Lenox Avenue where they had concentrated their forces and were attacking the Negroes.” False alarms and the sounds of fire engines are mentioned in [several newspapers], which might indicate that other roof fires were lit, or simply that calls were made to the Fire Department.

Firefighters quickly attended the fires, likely because the nearest firehouse was only a few blocks to the north, at 104 West 135th Street, one building west of Lenox Avenue. Press photographers took images of firefighters efforts to extinguish two of the fires. A New York Daily News photograph shows smoke coming out of the hardware store window and doors at 431 Lenox Avenue, and firefighters on the scene fighting the fire. One is swinging an axe at the display window, while a second firefighter stands behind him. A third firefighter is just inside the store, his boots visible beneath the smoke. In the original photograph, cropped from the published version, a hose runs across the photograph to the right, in the direction of Rosenberg's notion store at 429 Lenox Avenue. An Acme photograph also published in the New York Daily News and New York Herald Tribune shows flames in the last section of the Harry Lash’s 5 & 10c store window on West 130th Street. Firefighters can be seen crouched in front of the window (they were cropped out of the version published in the New York Daily News). They appear to have quickly extinguished the fire; the visible fire damage is limited to the area immediately around the rear windows.

The “prompt arrival of firemen prevented the spread of the flames and the damage from the fires was not great,” according to a Home News reporter. However, fighting the fires was not straightforward, according to the New York Herald Tribune and New York Evening Journal, which described clashes between crowds and police and firefighters. “A gang of thirty-five Negroes” set fire to Lash's 5 & 10c store on the corner of Lenox Avenue and West 130th Street, in the New York Herald Tribune story (which like most newspapers misidentified the store as Raffer's Radio Shop based on the large sign visible in photographs of the building). A crowd then “tried to prevent a policeman from sounding an alarm. "Let it burn!" they shouted. When the firemen came they hindered them, too, bustling about the hydrants and shoving hose lines about. At last the firemen threatened to turn the water on them instead of the fire and they dispersed.” Some of those details also appear in the New York Evening Journal , but it collapsed the two fires together: “As detectives and uniformed men closed in on crowds surrounding the burning buildings, they met with resistance. "Let them burn. Let them burn." The shout was taken up by hundreds, and it was not until firemen threatened to turn hoselines on the rioting men and women that they dispersed.” [Fires not close enough for a single crowd, and more police and larger crowd involved in NYEJ, with “Let them burn” repeated so is more prominent]. [AA caption for photograph of damaged store interior also mentioned clashes between firefighters and crowds, in this version resulting in the firefighters being driven away] The New York Evening Journal linked fires to increased police violence, with the decision to fire bullets at police coming after fires set: "The police, working under directions of their highest commanders, were under orders to withhold fire unless necessary, but when the two incendiary fires were started, one at 429 Lenox Ave. and the other at Lenox Ave. and 130th St., bullets flew." The Philadelphia Tribune repeated that claim as part of its repackaging of the information in the New York Evening Journal.  Multiple other reports link police begin to shoot to the outbreak of looting rather than the fires.

Further photographs were taken the next day, showing the damage resulting from the fire. The exteriors of Anna Rosenberg’s notion store and the adjacent hardware store appear in two photographs, and there is an image of the interior of each store. A fire adjuster for Rosenberg’s insurance company, Royal Insurance, put the damage to her store at $980.13. As the insurance policy did not cover riots, Rosenberg was among the businessowners who sued the city to recover their losses. A jury in the Municipal Court awarded Rosenberg $804, confirming the extent of the damage done by the fire. There are no details of the damage to the hardware store.

Fire damage to Lash’s store appears less extensive, better fitting the Home News reporter’s assessment that “damage from the fires was not great.” Only one small section of the store, the windows on West 130th Street furthest from Lenox Avenue, looked to be burned. However, the rest of the store was significantly damaged. Display windows that ran the length of the side of the store on West 130th Street, as well as those facing Lenox Avenue, can be seen smashed. In addition to the damage, Lash reported the loss of $1000 of merchandise. His insurers too refused to pay, he told a Probation Department investigator. He is not among the twenty-five named business-owners who sued the city seeking damages that insurance did not cover, but may have been one of the eighty-nine not named.

Fire-damaged stores attracted press attention out of proportion to their numbers; only three of approximately 300 buildings damaged in the disorder caught fire. A mention in the New York World-Telegram highlighted the impact of that emphasis: “The charred interiors of several shops in which fires broke out added to the appearance of a war-ravaged town.” Burned buildings offered a dramatic, ultimately exaggerated, picture of damage resulting from the disorder. Fires became more prominent in subsequent racial disorders. More were set in Harlem in 1943, but not the dramatic fires given prominence in coverage of the disorder in Watts in 1965. Harlem’s built environment ultimately meant setting fires could harm residents as much, if not more, than white business-owners. Beyond West 125th Street, multiple floors of apartments sat above businesses. Fatalities reported in four fires in Harlem at other times in 1935 made clear the risks of setting fires in stores in those buildings.
 

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