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"Harlem: Survey - Census Tracts #223-24 (28)," 1935, Roll 80, Subject Files, Office of the Mayor, Fiorello H. La Guardia records (New York City Municipal Archives).
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2021-11-16T21:28:42+00:00
Manhattan Renting Agency window broken
91
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2024-06-03T13:45:20+00:00
The Manhattan Renting Agency at 385 Lenox Avenue had its window broken during the disorder. An ash can was still sitting in the smashed window of the business the day after the disorder in an unpublished image taken by a photographer for the Hearst newspapers and a similar image published in the Daily News. That section of Lenox Avenue was one in which businesses suffered extensive damage and looting beginning around 11:30 PM; the intersection with West 129th Street immediately to the south likely saw particularly extensive violence around 1:00 AM when Alice Mitchell and Hugh Young were injured by flying glass.
A sign identifies "H[ary] Pomrinse" as the proprietor, a sixty-six-year-old Jewish man who lived outside Harlem on the Upper West Side. The office was also used by Everard M. Donald, a twenty-seven-year-old Black businessman. A sign advertising rooms rented by him was visible on right hand edge of the photograph that gave his address as 385 Lenox Avenue, and a fragment of his name -- "NALD" -- remained in the window to the right of section smashed by the ashcan. Visible inside the office was a poster for the Sunshine Barber Shops, a chain of barbers that an advertisement in 1934 identified was owned by Donald. The poster was more clearly visible in a close-up view of the ashcan in the window in newsreel footage, which also showed the outline of the "DO" missing from Donald's name on the glass.
Almost all the stores on this block of Lenox Avenue had windows broken during the disorder; all three of the other businesses in the photograph are more severely damaged than the real estate office and have been looted. A cigar store, Anthony Avitable's Krasdale grocery store, and Manny Zipps' Savoy Food Market all contained the kind of items on which looting focused, unlike a real estate office. They were also white-owned businesses whereas the real estate office was shared by a white-owned business and a Black-owned business. The MCCH business survey taken after the disorder recorded the office as a white-owned business, but identified E. M. Donald as the owner. He was one of the Black business-owners interviewed by MCCH staff conducting the business survey. By the time Tax Department photograph was taken between 1939 and 1941 "E. M. Donald" had replaced Manhattan Renting Agency on the sign at 385 Lenox Avenue.
Hary Pomrinse reported his occupation as "real estate" for the first time in 1925, in the New York State Census. Before then, from 1915 to 1920 and perhaps earlier, he owned and managed a liquor store identified in the 1915 City Directory as the Ideal Wine & Liquor Store at 35 West 129th Street, living with his family above the store at least from 1915, and at the end of the block, at 2100 5th Avenue, in 1920. In 1920, Black residents made up almost all the population of that block. When Pomrinse shifted to working in real estate, he also moved out of Harlem, to West End Avenue on the Upper West Side, moving progressively further downtown, from number 915 in 1925, to number 697 in 1930 and number 260 in 1940. Only hints survive of what his real estate work involved — advertisements in the New York Age for the Manhattan Renting Agency offering five to six room apartments and private houses in the first months of 1933, and then an announcement of his wife selling 541 Lenox Avenue (a five-story building with two storefronts, between 137th and 138th) in 1936. E. M. Donald was the broker on that sale, further evidence of the men's business relationship. By 1939 or 1940, when the Tax Department photograph was taken, Pomrinse stopped using the office at 385 Lenox Avenue. In the 1940 Federal census his occupation is recorded as "own property" not "Real Estate."
Everard MacFalcon Donald appears to have taken sole occupancy of the office at 385 Lenox Avenue some time after the disorder. He had arrived in Harlem from the West Indies in 1910, aged two years, according to the 1930 Federal census. In 1928, Donald became the owner of the first of his Sunshine Barber Shops, according to an advertisement in the New York Amsterdam News. That "original store" was at 107 West 135th Street, the MCCH business survey notes on another shop at 547 Lenox Avenue record. Donald's occupation is recorded as proprietor of a barber shop in the 1930 Federal census. His father, Cleaver Donald, was also recorded as the proprietor of a barber shop in the 1930 census, having been a longshoreman in 1920. By 1931, Donald operated at least one additional barber shop, at 397 Lenox Avenue (although reported as 395 Lenox Avenue when he secured the lease), and by December 1934, he advertised four Sunshine Barber Shops, with additional locations at 409 and 547 Lenox Avenue. Notes in the MCCH business survey described the barber shop at 409 Lenox Avenue as “modern and orderly,” and the shop at 547 Lenox Avenue as “very neatly arranged.” Donald told an interviewer from the MCCH in 1935 that he felt “that his barber shops should do much more business than they do, and attributes this to failure of clientele to realize advantage of paying a few cents more for their service with the assurance of clean apparatus & surroundings.” "Negroes," he claimed, “do not appreciate finer things."
However, by the second half of 1935, Donald's “more important business,” according to the notes from his interview with the MCCH, was “in real estate and apartment house management.” That work involved “making collections & seeing that apartments are kept in condition & tenants complaints answered.” That part of his business overlapped with Pomrinse. In this work too, Donald reported problems with other Black residents of Harlem. “Encounters greatest difficulty with Negro tenants in the houses which he manages," the interviewer recorded him as saying, because "they resent having another Negro collect their rents, & often move out for that reason.” Despite those issues, Donald established himself in the real estate profession in the years after 1935, elected as a vice-president of a new organization, the Harlem Real Estate Board, launched in 1938, the New York Age reported, “for the benefit of real estate brokers attempting to retain management of properties in Harlem to give employment to Negroes.” Donald did also open a fifth Sunshine Barber shop at 433 Lenox Avenue sometime between 1935 and 1939, when it appears in an advertisement. When he married Geneva Dyer, a Texas-born beautician, in May 1940, Donald was living at 580 St Nicholas Avenue and gave his occupation as “Real Estate Broker.” A month later, Donald was arrested for allegedly taking rents he had collected on behalf of a property owner. While there is no evidence of the legal outcome of that arrest, Donald appears to have stopped working in real estate. His occupation was recorded as owner of the Sunshine Barber Shops, and his workplace as 397 Lenox Avenue, one of those shops, not the office at 385 Lenox Avenue, when he registered for the draft four months later. The number of shops he operated may also have been reduced: while the barber shops at 107 West 135th Street and 433 Lenox Avenue appear in Tax Department photographs taken between 1939 and 1941, those at 409 and 547 Lenox Avenue do not. By 1943, Donald was once again working in real estate, identified as the broker in the sale of a property on West 131st Street. -
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2021-08-21T17:27:46+00:00
Frendel's meat market windows broken and looted
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2024-06-02T02:08:45+00:00
Some time during the disorder, the windows of Frendel's meat market at 2360 8th Avenue were broken. Officer Carrington of the 32nd Precinct arrested Emmet Williams, a twenty-eight year-old Black man, for allegedly breaking the store window, and Theodore Hughes, a twenty-two-year-old Black man, for allegedly taking two pieces of salt pork from the store window, according to a story in the New York Herald Tribune and a list in the New York American. Located between West 126th and West 127th Streets, the store was in the midst of the blocks of 8th Avenue on which there are reports of violence during the disorder: the arrest of James Hayes for allegedly looting the Danbury Hat store at 2334 8th Avenue near 125th Street; the arrest of Rose Murrell for breaking windows in a grocery store three buildings to the north; the arrest of Thomas Babbitt for taking soap from Thomas Drug store a block north; and at the very end of the disorder, the arrest of Jean Jacquelin for looting at 128th Street and police shooting and killing James Thompson after allegedly finding him looting a grocery store across the street from the meat market. The businesses on the blocks of 8th Avenue north of 125th Street were almost entirely white-owned when the MCCH business survey was taken in the second half of 1935.
Hughes was among the first of those arrested in the disorder to appear in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20. Sent to the Court of Special Sessions by Magistrate Renaud, Hughes was held on $500 bail. There is no evidence of the outcome of his trial. Williams appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court directly after Hughes, with the same complainant, and Magistrate Renaud also sent him to the Court of Special Sessions, with the same bail. There is also no evidence of the outcome of his trial.
The store continued in business after the disorder. The complaint in the Magistrate's Court was made by Leo Halberg, a white butcher who worked in the store and lived at 1767 Fulton Avenue in the Bronx, who was still employed at the store when he registered for the draft in 1942. He gave the name of his employer as "Frendel Inc." The MCCH business survey records a white-owned "Pork (Meat) Market" at 2360 8th Avenue and a store with signs indicating that it is a meat market is visible in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941. A photograph of the meat market, with a sign reading "Frendel Market," accompanied a New York Amsterdam News story about rationing in Harlem in 1943. By then the store was owned by (Sigmund) Fred Garb, a Jewish refugee from Austria, and his wife Claire, who identified a cousin named "S. Frendl" when they arrived in the United States in 1939. Twice, in 1941 and again in 1943, Fred Garb was convicted of fixing their scales to cheat customers. -
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2021-10-14T12:34:19+00:00
Williams' drug store windows broken
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2024-05-29T02:44:33+00:00
The Williams' Drug Store at 2161 7th Avenue, on the southeast corner of West 128th Street and 7th Avenue, had its front windows broken during the disorder. However, no further damage was done to the store because someone painted “Colored Store, Nix Jack” on the side windows, facing 128th Street, according to the Afro-American. The text on the windows appeared in newsreel footage from the day after the disorder. The phrase was painted in each of the two window panes, each word in its own row, so that it took up at least half the window. In the pane on the left, an exclamation mark was painted at the end of the phrase, which did not appear in the right pane. There was 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 white-owned businesses, ended with an echo of that phrase: "THIS IS A COLORED COLUMN, NIX JACK!" Identifying the drug store as a Black-owned business "saved" those side windows. The store windows were likely broken by some of the first groups that came up 7th Avenue from 125th Street after 8:30 PM, or those that followed them around 9:00 PM and 9:30 PM.
The Afro-American mentioned the drug store only because of the sign put up identifying it as a Black-owned; it was one of two examples, with the Monterey Luncheonette, of what the story reported as a widespread practice. The drug store was also identified as having broken windows in a story about Communist activity in Harlem published in the New York Evening Journal. That story mentioned two other nearby Black businesses with broken windows, Battle's Pharmacy across 7th Avenue on the northwest corner of 128th Street and Burmand Realty two stores to north of the pharmacy at 2164 7th Avenue. Those three businesses were included in the story as evidence that there was no racial dimension to the disorder: "Both of these stores were damaged by the rioters although virtually everyone in Harlem knows who operates them." Unmentioned by the reporter was the Cozy Shoppe restaurant directly across 7th Avenue from Williams drug store, on the southwest corner of 128th Street, which also had signs identifying it as Black-owned and suffered no damage to its windows. It appeared to have been the only business on the west side of that block without broken windows. Several businesses were also looted. All the businesses that were damaged were white-owned. Those businesses are not identified in any newspaper lists or stories. An MCCH investigator visited businesses on the west side of the street seeking information about the police shooting of Lloyd Hobbs that occurred on that side of the intersection of West 128th Street. Police arrested Leroy Gillard for allegedly looting a tailor's store near the southwest corner. On the east side, Sam Lefkowitz, the owner of a business at 2147 7th Avenue, was among those who sued the city for damages after the disorder.
No one arrested during the disorder was charged with breaking windows in the drug store. The Williams' drug store appears in the MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935, and the owner was one of the Black business owners interviewed by MCCH staff. The drug store had been open only three months at the time of that interview, so opened just prior to the disorder. The interviewer described it as "a typical soda-fountain, confectionery, & tobacco shop. It is somewhat larger than most, is quite neat & attractively arranged, & includes a newsstand. Carries a full line of cigars, cigarettes, & candy." Asked about his clientele, the owner said it was "Restricted largely to immediate neighborhood, though its location on a main thoroughfare draws some transient trade. Owner states he makes an effort to restrict clientele to those of 'better type.' For this reason he did not sell Frankfurters, certain groups, as he says, tending to 'buy a hot-dog + sit around all day.The owner employed only one staff member, a niece. The store was visible in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941. -
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2021-05-04T21:48:40+00:00
Irving Stekin's grocery store looted
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2024-06-03T14:14:33+00:00
When someone on Lenox Avenue threw "the first stone" at the windows of Irving Stekin's grocery store at 371 Lenox Avenue, he called police, according to the New York Sun report of his suit against the city. There was no mention in the newspaper stories of when that stone was thrown, but it was likely sometime soon after 11:00 PM, when Louis Levy left his dry goods store across the street at 374 Lenox Avenue, seemingly unconcerned about crowds on the street, and perhaps around 11:30 PM, when Benjamin Zelvin closed his jewelry store at 372 Lenox Avenue, next to Levy's business, and, like Stekin, called police to protect it from attack. Stekin waited two hours before a police car containing two officers arrived in response to his call, a detail reported in the New York Sun, New York Post, and New York World-Telegram. There was no mention of what Stekin did in the interim; but he could have done little to prevent people damaging and looting his store given the size of the crowds, so most likely retreated to the rear rooms to avoid injury. When they arrived, the police officers fared no better. Stekin told the city comptroller that "The police didn't do anything. They couldn't do anything. The mob was too big for them," according to a report in the New York World-Telegram. He had joined other white merchants in suing the city for damages on the basis that police had not protected businesses, so he had an incentive to emphasize police failures. Nonetheless, the extent of the attacks on businesses and violence in this area, and the small number of arrests, most of which came several hours after crowds first arrived on the avenue, add weight to his complaint. Michael D'Agostino's business at 361 Lenox Avenue was looted, while the South Harlem Rotisserie at 365 Lenox Avenue and the laundry at 367 Lenox Avenue had windows broken. Across the street, Levy and Zelvin's businesses at 372 and 374 Lenox Avenue were also looted. No one among those arrested for looting was identified as taking goods from this store.
The Pathe newsreel included footage of 371 Lenox Avenue taken the day after the disorder that shows the sign identifying it as a "Cut Rate Grocery," as the New York Post reported, not a stationery store as the New York Sun and New York World-Telegram had labeled Stekin's business. Both windows and the door have been blocked off with large planks of wood, and appeared to have been completely smashed. It is not possible to see the extent of damage within the store. A white man smoking a cigarette stands in front of the door, perhaps the thirty-six-year old Russian-born Stekin, facing the crowd walking along the sidewalk. The only details of the damage to Stekin's store was in newspaper stories about the civil suits against the city brought by white merchants. Stekin was not part of the group of twenty men who brought the first suits, but was mentioned in stories published at the end of July, by which time 106 merchants had filed suits. He appeared as an example because of the large sum of damages he sought, $2,068, as a result of which, the New York Sun reported, Stekin "is not in business anymore." Or at least not at that location. He also sued for damages to a second unspecified business, at 363 Lenox Avenue, four buildings to the south of the grocery store, according to the New York Times, where he was still in business when he registered for the draft in 1942. In 1930, the federal census records that Stekin had lived above the store at 363 Lenox Avenue, a building anomalous in this area of Harlem in being home to only white residents. The six other households included three headed by men who owned stores in Harlem later looted during the disorder. All three men joined Stekin in suing the city, William Gindin, Jacob Saloway, and Michael D'Agostino. There was no evidence of whether Stekin still lived there in 1935; Gindin at least had relocated to another building on Lenox Avenue by the time of the disorder.
After the city lost the civil case that went to trial to test the merchants' case, Stekin's actions for damages were one of seven cases taken to the Supreme Court to determine the city's liability. The damages claimed in those cases totaled $20,000, according to a report in the New York Times; Justice Shientag awarded a total of only $1,200. Stekin received the largest award, although newspaper stories disagreed on the amount. The New York Times identified the award as $550 for damages to both the stationery store and the business at 363 Lenox Avenue that he had valued at more than $2,000, while the New York Amsterdam News identified the award as $700. While the New York Times reported that the city would appeal the decisions, there was no evidence that happened. Consistent with the New York Sun report that Stekin was no longer in business at 371 Lenox Avenue after the disorder, the MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935 recorded a Black-owned "Stationery Store & Religious Supplies" business at that address. That store too appeared to have gone out of business, as the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941 shows a grocery store at 371 Lenox Avenue. -
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2021-11-21T20:18:50+00:00
Laundry window broken
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2024-06-03T14:21:22+00:00
A laundry at 367 Lenox Avenue had its window broken during the disorder. The Chinese owner had tried to protect his store by emulating Black business owners in putting a sign in his window identifying it as not a white-owned business. Where the signs that appeared on Black-owned stores read "Colored Store," “Colored,” “Black,” and “This Store Owned by Colored,” the Chinese laundryman's sign read "Me Colored Too." It failed to deter one or more people in the crowds on the street from smashing the window. None of those arrested for breaking windows during the disorder were charged with targeting this store.
Together with the damage done to Hispanic-owned businesses on and around West 116th Street, the windows broken in the laundry highlight both that Harlem's business sector was composed of more than just the Black and white owners mentioned in newspaper stories, and that the crowd's targets during the disorder were not limited to businesses owned by whites. While several Hispanic-owned businesses were among those reported damaged or looted during the disorder, this laundry is the only Chinese-owned business mentioned in the sources. However, the information on the Hispanic-owned businesses was found only in La Prensa; no Chinese-language publication that reported on the disorder has been found. Chinese-owned laundries and restaurants were an established and pervasive presence in Harlem. The MCCH business survey taken in the second half of 1935 recorded 209 Chinese-owned businesses (3.5%, 209 of 5971), including 176 laundries and twenty-three restaurants dispersed throughout the area from 110th to 155th Street, from east of Amsterdam Avenue to the west of Madison Avenue.
None of the four Black-owned businesses recorded as being on this block in the MCCH business survey — a beauty parlor next door and a tailor four buildings north, and a candy store and grocery store across the avenue to the south at 360 Lenox Avenue — are reported to have put signs in their windows, so where the laundry owner got his inspiration from is uncertain. Several white-owned businesses around the laundry reported being looted. Irving Stekin, who owned a grocery store one buildings north of the laundry complained that the crowds in the area were too large for police on the scene to control, according to a report in the New York World-Telegram. His store, at 371 Lenox Avenue, and another he owned at 363 Lenox Avenue, and Michael D'Agostino's business at 361 Lenox Avenue were all looted, as were stores at 372 and 374 Lenox Avenue across the street. The South Harlem Rotisserie at 365 Lenox Avenue, like the laundry, only had windows broken. Attacks on businesses in this area likely began around 11:30 PM.
The laundry and its sign were reported by the Associated Press and in the New York Herald Tribune and Daily News as a vignette separate from the stories they published about the events of the disorder. In this form, it was presented as a joke at the expense of the Chinese laundryman. The New York Herald Tribune's story read:
An additional layer of racist language was added to the story in the Daily News, with the proprietor becoming "the oriental boss ironer," the "futile" trick becoming "wily," and the laundryman hanging out the sign becoming "the clever (or so he thought) laundryman." Louise Thompson also mentioned the sign in her memoir as a joke, "a humorous side" to the disorder in the first transcription and "an ironically humorous incident" in the edited version. Similarly, Langston Hughes mentioned the sign as a "touch of humor" in his biography of Lt. Battle; based on the interview notes, Battle himself did not mention the sign.The proprietor of a Chinese laundry at 367 Lenox Avenue resorted to a futile trick yesterday to protect his shop from Harlem rioters. His Negro neighbors hung signs bearing the word "Colored" in their store windows on reports that the rioters would not molest places occupied by Negroes. The laundryman hung out a large placard inscribed "Me colored too." Someone promptly smashed his window.
Two other sources mention the laundry and its sign without treating it as a joke, seemingly having missed the context of the information as they also departed from the account in other details and omitted the address of the business. “A Chinese laundryman pasted a placard inscribed 'Me colored, too,' and two Negroes immediately shattered his window,” the New York World-Telegram reported in a story that shifted the events to the night after the disorder. A story in the Black-owned Indianapolis Recorder folded the laundry into its discussion of signs being put up to identify Black-owned businesses, and reported that the sign in the laundry has the same result as those in Black-owned businesses: "His place was not touched." As this is the only source presenting that version of the events, the laundry is treated here as having broken windows.
The laundry appears in the MCCH business survey taken from June to December 1935, and is visible later, between 1939 and 1941, when the Tax Department photograph of the building was taken.
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1
2021-08-31T16:00:45+00:00
Romanoff Drug store looted
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2024-05-29T21:34:59+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, the Romanoff Drug Store at 375 Lenox Avenue, on the southwest corner of West 129th Street, was looted. J. Romanoff of 375 Lenox Avenue was recorded as the complainant when Oscar Austin, a twenty-nine-year-old Black man, Jacob Bonaparte, a twenty-four-year-old Black man, and Sam Nicholas, a twenty-four-year-old Black man, were arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court. The docket book entry was the only source that mentioned the drug store. The business was located on a block that saw multiple stores attacked. Irving Stekin's grocery store at 371 Lenox Avenue, another business he owned at 363 Lenox Avenue, and Michael D'Agostino's business at 361 Lenox Avenue were all looted, as were stores at 372 and 374 Lenox Avenue across the street. The South Harlem Rotisserie at 365 Lenox Avenue and the laundry at 367 Lenox Avenue only had windows broken. Attacks on those stores likely began around 11:30 PM, with the three men arrested some time later.
The same officer from the 28th Precinct arrested all three men, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book; the clerk's handwriting is too messy to decipher his name. After being arrested for burglary, all three men were charged with disorderly conduct, an offense not used in cases of alleged looting or breaking windows. The changed charge suggested that they had been in crowds the vicinity of the store but police had no evidence that they participated in looting or attacking the store. The three men lived close enough to the store to have been among the groups of spectators watching events. Jacob Bonaparte lived in the block of West 128th Street between Lenox and 7th Avenues. Oscar Austin lived on the same street, just west of 7th Avenue, and Sam Nicholas lived four blocks south, on West 124th Street, also west of 7th Avenue. When the men appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, Magistrate Renaud acquitted them. While the acquittals indicated that there was no evidence linking the men to any disorder, the initial charges do suggest that the store was looted.
The damage the drug store suffered was apparently enough for the owner to join other Harlem business owners who sued the city seeking damages. While not identified in reporting of the progress of those actions, "Herbert M. Romanoff, pharmacist" was named as one of the seven claimants awarded damages in the New York Supreme Court on March 4, 1936, in a story published in the New York Herald Tribune. Whatever damage the Romanoff Drug Store suffered did not prevent it continuing to operate. It appeared in the MCCH business survey in the second half of 1935, and was visible in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941. -
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2021-08-21T21:30:13+00:00
Thomas Cut Rate Drug store looted
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2024-06-01T03:18:51+00:00
Some time during the disorder, Thomas Babbitt, a forty-two-year-old Black man, allegedly took two cases of soap from the window of the Thomas Cut Rate Drug store at 2374 8th Avenue, on the northeast corner of West 127th Street. He did not smash the window. A Home News story described Babbitt as having "stolen two cases of soap from a drug store window"; the 28th Precinct police blotter included a less ambiguous description, that he "Put hand though Window. Stole merchandise." Detective Balkin of the 5th Division arrested Babbitt, according to the Harlem Magistrate's Court docket book; at some time in the disorder he also arrested James Hayes for allegedly looting the Danbury Hat store two blocks to the south, near 125th Street. The attack on the Thomas drug store was one of the northernmost reports of disorder on 8th Avenue; further uptown were the arrests of Jean Jacquelin at 128th Street, in possession of goods he allegedly took from a store on 7th Avenue, and Henry Stewart for allegedly breaking a window in a meat market at 2422 8th Avenue, between 130th and 131st Streets. Police shot and killed James Thompson on corner diagonally opposite the drug store at the end of the disorder. Police made three other arrests in the block south of the drug store, of Emmet Williams and Theodore Hughes, for allegedly breaking windows and looting a meat market, and Rose Murrell, for breaking windows. There is no evidence of when any of those events occurred. The businesses on the blocks of 8th Avenue north of 125th Street were almost entirely white owned when the MCCH business survey was taken in the second half of 1935.
Babbitt appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, charged with petit larceny, not burglary. That change was likely made because of a lack of evidence that he had broken the store window and entered the store to steal merchandise. Magistrate Renaud transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions, where the judges convicted Babbitt and sent him to the Workhouse for ten days.
Abraham Thomas, living at 1262 43rd Street in Brooklyn, is the complainant recorded in the docket book. Notwithstanding his last name, the forty-five-year-old white man appears to have been a staff member rather than owner of the store. In both the 1930 and 1940 census, Thomas gave his occupation as "drug clerk," and his employer as Thomas Pharmacy in his draft registration in 1942 (business owners recorded themselves as self employed). Further evidence that the store remained in business after the disorder comes from the MCCH business survey, which recorded a white-owned drug store, "Cut Rate Drug Store," at 2374 8th Avenue, and the Tax Department photograph, in which the store is visible. -
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2021-05-04T22:34:38+00:00
Irving Stekin's store looted
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2024-06-03T21:01:36+00:00
Irving Stekin's store at 363 Lenox Avenue was looted during the disorder. The thirty-six-year-old Russian-born Stekin also owned a grocery store in the same block, at 371 Lenox Avenue; it too was looted. He was in that second store when a stone was thrown through its window, and waited two hours for police to come to protect the business. Stekin may have remained there after officers arrived as he later reported that they could not stop the damage and looting. Alternatively, he could have observed events from an apartment above the store at 363 Lenox Avenue; he had lived in the building in 1930, the federal census recorded.
Attacks on 363 Lenox Avenue likely began around 11:00 PM or 11:30 PM. This block saw extensive attacks on white businesses during the disorder. Michael D'Agostino's business at 361 Lenox Avenue was looted, while the South Harlem Rotisserie at 365 Lenox Avenue and the laundry at 367 Lenox Avenue had windows broken. Across the street, businesses at 372 and 374 Lenox Avenue were also looted.
Stekin's business at 363 Lenox Avenue may have been a stationery store. The New York Sun and New York World-Telegram mistakenly identified his store at 371 Lenox Avenue as a stationery store, perhaps as a result of confusing which of his two businesses operated at which address. The MCCH business survey found two white-owned businesses at 363 Lenox Avenue in the second half of 1935, a stationery store and a delicatessan. In 1930, the federal census recorded that the apartments in 363 Lenox Avenue were anomalous in this area of Harlem at that time in being home to only white residents. In addition to Stekin, the six other households included three headed by men who owned stores in Harlem later looted during the disorder: William Gindin, Jacob Saloway, and Michael D'Agostino. All three men joined Stekin in suing the city for damages. While Gindin at least had relocated to another building on Lenox Avenue by the time of the disorder, Stekin may still have lived at 363 Lenox Avenue in 1935 (he resided somewhere other than the address on 128th Street that was recorded as his home in the 1940 census).
The looting of 363 Lenox Avenue was not mentioned in the newspaper stories about business owners suing the city published at the end of July, in which Stekin described the attack on his grocery store and the failure of police to protect his business. After the city lost the civil case that went to trial to test the merchants' case, Stekin's actions for damages were one of seven cases taken to the Supreme Court to determine the city's liability. Stories on the case identify Stekin because he received the largest award, for damages to both his stores, although newspaper stories disagreed on the amount. The New York Times identified the award as $550 for damages to both the grocery store and the business at 363 Lenox Avenue, while the New York Amsterdam News identified the award as $700. While the New York Times reported that the city would appeal the decisions, there is no evidence that happened. No one among those arrested for looting was identified as taking goods from this store.
Stekin had sought $2,068 for damage to the grocery store and an unspecified amount for 363 Lenox Avenue. The New York Sun reported he was "not in business anymore" in describing the damage to the grocery store; that statement did not appear to have applied to the store at 363 Lenox Avenue. When Stekin registered for the draft in 1942 he still owned and worked at that business, which his wife Lillian told an enumerator for the 1940 census was a grocery store (which is what appears in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941). He may have changed the nature of that store after his grocery store at 371 Lenox Avenue went out of business. Certainly, by the time the Tax Department photograph of the building was taken the sign on the business read 'Irving's Cut Rate Groceries." By the time of the 1940 census he had moved to the edge of Harlem; the enumerator recorded him living at 400 West 128th Street, on the west side of St. Nicholas Park. By 1942 Stekin had moved further from the neighborhood, to 621 West 169th Street in Washington Heights. -
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2022-02-08T20:35:15+00:00
Battle's Pharmacy windows broken
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2024-05-29T15:29:42+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, windows were broken in Battle's Pharmacy at 2156 7th Avenue, on the northwest corner of 128th Street. The only mention of that damage is in a story in the New York Evening Journal focused on Communist activities in Harlem. In arguing that "the riot [was] conducted on the best Communist lines," the reporter pointed to how "the Negro merchant's property was destroyed as well as that of the white." Three Black-owned businesses close together on 7th Avenue that had windows broken were identified in the story. Battle's Pharmacy was mentioned together with the Williams drug store, across 7th Avenue on the southeast corner of 128th Street. "Both of these stores were damaged by the rioters although virtually everyone in Harlem knows who operates them." Signs were painted on the Williams drug store identifying it as a "colored store," a set of windows that were not broken. The third store was the Burmand Realty office at 2164 7th Avenue, two buildings north of the pharmacy. Not mentioned in the New York Evening Journal story was the Cozy Shoppe restaurant at 2154 7th Avenue across the street from Williams drug store which also had a sign on its window identifying it as Black-owned, and had no windows broken.
Residents of nearby buildings stood on the corner from around 10:00 PM, "looking after people and cops shooting[, and] talking about the riot," as Samuel Pitts put it. The pharmacy windows likely were broken before that time, by the groups who came from 125th Street around 8:30 PM, 9:00 PM, and 9:30 PM. It was unlikely that the windows would have been broken once there was a crowd of residents who knew it was a Black-owned business standing nearby.
No one arrested during the disorder was identified as charged with breaking windows in the pharmacy. The MCCH business survey misidentified Battle's Pharmacy as a white-owned business. Walter Battle's obituary in the New York Amsterdam News identified him as a Black man born in North Carolina, educated at Biddle University and Columbia University, who opened the drug store in 1932. He was named as the pharmacist at the store in a New York Amsterdam News advertisement in 1936. The store was still visible in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941.
Patrolman John McInerney shot and killed Lloyd Hobbs, a sixteen-year-old Black boy, as he ran across West 128th Street toward the pharmacy around 12:45 AM. Four men who testified about the shooting witnessed it from the corner in front of the pharmacy, as part of a crowd watching the disorder on 7th Avenue. -
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2021-11-21T18:32:21+00:00
South Harlem Rotisserie window broken
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2024-06-03T14:27:15+00:00
South Harlem Rotisserie at 365 Lenox Avenue had its window broken during the disorder. A central section of the window was smashed, leaving intact the street number and the text "South Harlem" and portions of the letters making up "Rotisserie." A white man in the store looks through the window, directly at the camera, in footage in the Pathe newsreel from the day after the disorder. A sign showing prices is in the window, and another man inside the store is visible through the intact door, suggesting that the store may not have been looted. No other sources mention the damage to the store, and no one arrested during the disorder was charged with breaking the window.
Irving Stekin, who owned a grocery store three buildings north of the restaurant, complained that the crowds in the area were too large for police on the scene to control, according to a report in the New York World-Telegram. His store, at 371 Lenox Avenue, featured in the same Pathe newsreel as the South Harlem Rotisserie. That grocery store, and another owned by Stekin at 363 Lenox Avenue, and Michael D'Agostino's business at 361 Lenox Avenue were all looted, and suffered more extensive damage and losses than the restaurant, as did stores at 372 and 374 Lenox Avenue across the street. The laundry next to the South Harlem Rotisserie at 367 Lenox Avenue, like the restaurant, only had windows broken. Attacks on those businesses likely started around 11:30 PM.
The white-owned restaurant was recorded at this address in the MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935. The Tax Department photograph of the building shows the South Harlem Rotisserie lettering in the window, underneath a Roast Chicken sign. -
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2021-11-22T02:29:40+00:00
Cleaners & Dyers window broken
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2024-06-03T21:25:11+00:00
A Cleaners & Dyers store at 347 Lenox Avenue had its window broken during the disorder. Almost all of the left of the two panes of glass making up the window has been smashed, as well as about a third of the panel to the right. Only the first two and last two letters of the store name remain — "CL" and "RS." The store name and street number appear in a square sign hanging over the street, in the top left of footage in the Pathe newsreel from the day after the disorder. Clothing hanging on two tiers of bars are visible in the store, behind the counter, suggesting that the store may not have been looted. No other sources mention the damage to the store, and no one arrested during the disorder was charged with breaking the window.
This store was located in the middle of a block of Lenox Avenue that saw multiple businesses damaged and looted, although none reported in the five buildings north of 347 Lenox Avenue. On the south side of the Cleaners & Dyers, an unknown store at 345 Lenox Avenue partially visible on the left edge of the footage in the Pathe Newsreel also had windows broken. To the left of that store, at 343 Lenox Avenue, Sol Weit and Isaac Popiel's grocery store was looted. On the northwest corner of West 127th Street, the drug store at 339 Lenox Avenue had windows broken, and flying glass injured William Brown. Just around the corner on West 127th Street, a candy store was looted. A reporter for the Afro-American who apparently walked up this side of Lenox Avenue from 125th Street to 128th Street, which included the block on which this store was located, counted twenty-two windows broken in the approximately forty businesses on that stretch of the street.
The white-owned Cleaners & Dyers store is recorded as still at 347 Lenox Avenue in the MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935. By the time the Tax Department photograph of the address was taken, between 1939 and 1941, the storefront was vacant, with signs of construction work being done. -
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2021-11-21T17:11:10+00:00
Unclaimed laundry store windows broken
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2024-05-29T15:13:54+00:00
An unclaimed laundry store at 2145 7th Avenue had its windows broken during the disorder. Much of the bottom half of the window was shattered, but the intact glass featured the street number and most of the store name - "UNCLAIMED L...NDRY." Two smiling white woman posed behind the window, in the store, for a photographer crouched outside, in footage in the Universal newsreel from the day after the disorder. While no merchandise was visible in the window, there was no evidence of whether the store was looted. No other sources mentioned the damage to the unclaimed laundry store, and no one arrested during the disorder was charged with breaking the store windows.
Most of the stores across 7th Avenue on the west side of this block had windows broken around 9:00 PM, but the unclaimed laundry store's window was likely broken around 9:45 PM. That was when officer Edward Doran arrested Leroy Brown after allegedly seeing him throw a tailor's dummy through the window of the store next door, 2147 7th Avenue, and urge a group of other people to "Go right along and get the other windows." While Doran arrested Brown, the group continued north up 7th Avenue, breaking more store windows. That adjacent store was later looted, as were those on the other side of 7th Avenue.
The white-owned unclaimed laundry store was recorded at this address in the MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935. The Tax Department photograph of the building was taken from too far away to identify the business at the address between 1939 and 1941.