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

Harry Farber's stationery store looted

Around 1:45 AM, Patrolman Raymond Early of the 40th Precinct was standing on Lenox Avenue at 130th street when he allegedly saw Carl Jones, an eighteen-year-old Black man, pick up an object from the street and throw it through the window of the stationery store of Harry Farber and his son Morris at 391 Lenox Avenue. Early told a probation officer that he ran across the street and arrested Jones as he was putting his hands in the window and removing some merchandise. Jones, who lived several blocks to the north, in a furnished room at 84 West 134th Street, admitted that he smashed the window, but denied trying to steal any merchandise from the window. However, given that Early had some distance to cover (the Tax Department photograph is taken from across Lenox Avenue, on one of the corners the patrolman could have been standing), Jones evidently did not immediately flee after the window smashed. The probation officer investigating Jones appears to have sought another motive for Jones' attack other than theft, recording that Jones "had been a regular customer of the complainant's store, but denies that he had any personal grievance against the complainant." The explanation the probation officer settled on was that Jones had become "imbued with the mob psychology prevalent at the moment," echoing the conclusion of Dr. Charles Thompson after examining Jones in the Court Psychiatric Clinic.



The arrest of Jones did not save the Farbers' store from looting. After Early took him into custody, and likely to the 28th Precinct station, others attacked the store, smashing additional windows and taking around $300 of merchandise. The probation officer described the time of Jones' arrest as "when the recent Harlem riot was at its height." There is evidence of other attacks on stores on this block of Lenox Avenue, and blocks to both the north and south around this time. The storeowners had insurance, so the window broken by Jones was replaced without cost to them. They appear to have been able to remain in business; a white-owned stationery store appears at 391 Lenox Avenue in the MCCH Business survey. (The Harlem Magistrate's Court docket book listed the storeowner's name as Maurice Lifarb, not Morris Farber as in the Probation Department investigation report, and the store at 391 Lenox Avenue, not 389 Lenox Avenue as in the Probation Department investigation report. Given that the survey did not record a business at 389, and a stationery store at 391, the store has been located at the later address.)

Morris Farber told the probation officer that he wanted "the leniency of the Court be extended to [Jones]." The District Attorney's case file for Jones is missing, producing some confusion about his prosecution. There are no newspaper reports of subsequent appearances in court. He was arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, with the docket book recording the charge as attempted burglary. Magistrate Renaud discharged him on March 25 as he had already been indicted by Dodge's grand jury. Jones later pled guilty to unlawful entry and was sentenced to the Workhouse for four months.

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