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

"Harlem Merchants File Riot Claims," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 23, 1935, 2.

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Estelle Cohen's clothing store looted The windows of the Norman Toggery store at 437 Lenox Avenue, near West 132nd Street, were smashed during the disorder, and the goods on display stolen. The only information on the attack on the store is a letter the store's white owner, Mrs Estelle Cohen wrote to Mayor La Guardia on March 21, 1935. A Black salesman was present in the store when the windows were broken. He could do nothing to prevent the looting, but did telephone Cohen at her home in Washington Heights, 605 West 170th Street. She then called the police precinct and police headquarters, writing with clear frustration that "all the satisfaction I got was that all the men were out and that all windows were being smashed." Given that the store was still open, the attack likely came sometime soon after 11.00 PM, when staff in nearby stores either side of Norman Toggery reported a crowd gathered around Lenox Avenue and West 132nd Street. Herbert Canter, who owned a pharmacy at 419 Lenox Avenue, saw "a "mob" carrying bricks, stones and bottles, as well as canned goods march down the street shouting, "Down with the whites! Let's get what we can," and hurling missiles through the windows, in testimony in the Municipal Court reported by the New York Herald Tribune. A block north, David Schmoockler, the manager of William Feinstein’s liquor store at 452 Lenox Avenue, also saw a crowd of around thirty people. Between 11.00 PM and midnight he watched as the crowd "created disturbances, hurled various missiles, broke store windows, set fire to some stores, pillaged others, and in general damaged property of various merchants in the locality," according to Justice Shalleck's summary of his testimony in the Municipal Court. A little over an hour later, Feinstein's liquor store was attacked by a crowd of thirty to forty people.

What Cohen wanted, she wrote La Guardia was "police protection at all times. I have my sons in that store, and am a widow; business is very hard besides and I don't wish them to lose their lives." Lacking that protection during the disorder, Cohen had the storefront boarded up, perhaps sending her sons. However, the boarded-up window failed to protect the inside of the store, Cohen wrote:
...they came back and broke through the windows again and smashed the cases and took the goods out. The shirts were taken off the forms, which showed that they had ample time to work. The floors were scattered with glass and goods all trampled up.
No one arrested for looting is identified as having stolen goods from the store. Cohen estimated her losses as at least $800. A little over a month later, when the New York Sun reported that she had joined nineteen other merchants in filing suit against the city government, she claimed $1219.77 in damages (the New York Times, Home News and Brooklyn Daily Eagle did not name any of the claimants; the New York American did not name Cohen). Unlike some other storeowners, Cohen did not have burglary insurance, "on account of not being able to get it up in that section." Given that the city lost the civil actions reported in the press, it is likely that Cohen received some compensation for the losses. She does seem to have been able to remain in business. The Toggery shop is included in the MCCH business survey, with the investigator recording that the store had been there for three years, managed by "Mr Thomas and a friend," and had "a neat display of ties, hats and shirts in window." The store also appears in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941.