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"Hospital Admissions, 19-20 March 1935," Subject Files, Box 167, Folder 5 (Roll 76), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
1 2020-09-25T17:41:02+00:00 Anonymous 1 7 plain 2022-09-04T02:24:52+00:00 AnonymousSixteen of the events included in the hospital records do not appear in any other sources (45%, 16/36 in records). A similar proportion of injuries not related to assaults (45%, 5/11) and injuries related to assaults (44%, 11/25) appear only in the hospital records. By comparison, a smaller proportion of the injuries and assaults reported in newspapers appear only in a single source, 30% (11/37), but a greater proportion of injuries, 66%, 6/9 than assaults, 19%, 5/26 assaults (two additional assaults appear only in a statement to MCCH investigators)
Each item on the list identifies an individual's name, age, and home address (but not their racial identity, which if known is found in other sources), the attending physician's name and hospital affiliation, the nature of the injury and a brief description of the circumstances in which the injury occurred, and usually the outcome of the attendance, either the individual leaving for home or being sent to the hospital.
There are several marked differences between the events that appear in the two documents. Almost all the “Medical Attendances” involve whites: eleven of the thirteen injured are white, and the other two are of unknown race. The only non-white individuals on this list are two arrested men, Paul Boyett and James Smitten, attended at police precincts and then put in cells, and Lyman Quarterman, who was shot and killed, attended at 121st and 7th Avenue. By comparison, only eight of the twenty-three individuals on the “Hospital Admissions” list are white, although nine are of unknown race, and six are non-white. A slightly higher proportion of the events on the “Medical Attendances” list involved assault rather than injuries suffered in other circumstances, 77% (10/13) compared to 65% (15/23) on the “Hospital Admissions” list.
Unsurprisingly, Harlem Hospital staff attended most of the individuals on the lists: ten of the thirteen callouts involved ambulances from Harlem Hospital, and eighteen of the twenty-three attended by physicians. Seven other hospitals also appear: physicians from the other major hospitals in the Harlem area attended four individuals, one at Sydenham Hospital and three at Knickerbocker Hospital. As Sydenham Hospital was the closest hospital to Kress’ store, and to the events on Seventh Avenue south of 125th Street, it is surprising that it does not appear more often on the lists (although Harlem’s Black newspapers did report a number of instances in the 1930s when the hospital allegedly refused treatment to black residents). Individual cases were also attended at five other hospitals, including three some distance from Harlem that seem unlikely to have sent ambulances to the riot area (in two of those cases the men involved lived well outside Harlem, in the direction of the hospitals). All the patients attended by staff from the hospitals well outside Harlem were white.
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- 1 2022-09-03T21:02:16+00:00 Anonymous Records of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia Anonymous 8 plain 2022-10-02T19:37:40+00:00 Anonymous
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2020-02-24T21:39:32+00:00
Injured [not in assaults] (21)
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2022-09-27T20:34:02+00:00
The twenty-one injured individuals that are not linked to an assault or arrest are a mix of those reported as being hurt by flying glass and those reported without any explanation of the circumstances in which they were hurt. The injured had similar conditions to those assaulted. Head wounds made up the largest group, as was the case with those assaulted. Relatively more of the injured suffered wounds to the hands and legs than those assaulted, and relatively fewer wounds to the face. Nonetheless, the severity of their wounds is similar to those assaulted. The information is partial, available for only forty of the seventy-three injured (29 of 53 assaulted, 11 of 21 injured), and on first glance suggests relatively fewer severe wounds among the injured, with only 18% (2 of 11) sent to hospital after being attended by physicians compared with 31% (9 of 29) of those assaulted. However, five of those assaulted sent to hospital had gunshot wounds; of the remaining group, only 20% (4 of 20) were sent to hospital (these numbers exclude the two arrested men who were injured).
Five injuries are reported as lacerations caused by glass, terms that made clear they had not occurred in assaults. Those who threw objects at stores and passing cars and buses often emerged from the crowds that filled the sidewalks and streets during the disorder, leaving bystanders little opportunity to distance themselves from the windows and the shattered glass produced by those attacks. On the other hand, this group of injured could have been involved in those attacks, or in subsequent looting, which required moving through broken glass, or could have received the lacerations in assaults.
Similarly, two others of those counted here as injured appear in some sources as victims of assault, but the weight of evidence is against that picture. The New York Evening Journal and New York American reported that eighteen-year-old Nathaniel Powell had his nose cut off, with the New York American specifying that a razor had been used. However, as the New York Post, Daily News, and most importantly the hospital record all simply reported cuts to his nose and face, those stories of an attack are likely another example of the white press falling back on tropes of racial violence rather than a reliable account of what happened to Powell. Similarly, Stanley Dondoro suffered a gunshot wound, but there is clear evidence that police shot him accidentally when pursuing James Thompson.
For the remaining thirteen counted as injured, there is no information as to cause or the circumstances of the injury. Some of these individuals could have been injured when knocked off their feet in the crowds on Harlem’s streets, a circumstance captured in several photographs of the disorder, including the most widely circulated.
Most of this group of injured received their wounds around the heart of the disorder, in the blocks around 125th Street, but there are a cluster along Lenox Avenue up as far north as 132nd Street. This area saw the most extensive attacks on stores and looting; it was also relatively close to Harlem Hospital, which was located on Lenox Avenue between 136th and 137th Streets. The two injuries outside this area, Giles Jackson hurt by flying glass at West 116th Street and 7th Avenue and Nathaniel Powell cut on the nose on Lenox Avenue between 116th and 117th Streets, also occurred in an area that saw significant amounts of looting and broken windows. The map also reveals that the injured lived relatively close to where they got hurt; only Clara Crowder came from as far away as some of those arrested for looting (although that group also included some from close to the site of their arrest). That proximity could indicate that this group of the injured were bystanders, parts of the crowds drawn to the streets from their homes by the disorder but not participating in it.
Three woman are among the twenty injured. One, Clara Crowder, is anomalous. A white clerk at Kress’ store, Crowder fainted when the crowd inside Kress' store knocked merchandise off displays as police cleared the store so it could be closed. The other injured women, of unknown race, appear to have been part of the crowds on Harlem’s streets. Photographs of the crowds show women scattered among the men. Most of those injured are not identified by race; of the five that are, the white individuals were injured in anomalous situations. In addition to Crowder fainting in a store, Dondoro was accidentally shot by police, while the third white individual, Salvatore Nicolette, suffered a fractured skull in unspecified circumstances.
The evidence of these events is very fragmentary. Twelve of the twenty-one cases are mentioned in only one source: six cases appear only in hospital records; and four cases appear only in a single list in the New York Post. Given the inconsistency of the details the newspapers published about individuals, this limited evidence likely contains errors.
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2020-02-25T17:59:47+00:00
James Thompson killed & Detective Nicholas Campo shot
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2022-06-30T20:20:33+00:00
Around 5.30 AM James Thompson, a nineteen-year old Black man, was shot and killed by Detectives Campo and Beckler.
The officers claimed that while driving on 8th Avenue they heard breaking glass in a damaged grocery store on the southwest corner of West 127th Street. Investigating, they interrupted Thompson allegedly looting the grocery store, a branch of the James Butler chain at 2391 8th Avenue, which was across the street from his home at 301 West 127th Street. Press reports offered a variety of different accounts of what happened next. The New York American, Home News, New York Herald Tribune, and New York Post reported a gun battle between the officers and Thompson, during which he was shot in the chest and Officer Campo in the hand. The New York Evening Journal sensationally reported an even larger gunfight in which "other rioters" returned the officers shots. The New York World-Telegram reported a struggle between Thompson and Campo, during which Thompson was shot; the officer then dropped his gun, causing it to go off and a bullet to hit his fingers. The New York Amsterdam News reported, several days later, that the officer’s gun went off accidentally, hitting Thompson.
The arrest report and police blotter make no mention of Thompson having a gun or struggling with the officers, merely colliding with Campo as he tried to flee the building, causing Campo’s gun to go off. As Thompson fled both officers fired at him, apparently hitting him in front of his home as he stumbled down the street. Campo and Beckler's shots also struck a white man, Stanley Dondoro, walking on the west side of 8th Avenue, in the leg. The Home News and New York Post added the detail that the bullet had passed through the trousers of a man with Dondoro without injuring him. A note at the end of the hospital admission records indicated that Thompson died at Harlem Hospital at 9:30AM, four hours after the shooting, a time of death that led to him being listed as the only fatality of the disorder in newspapers published on March 20. Campo appeared in lists of the injured published by the New York Evening Journal, New York Post, New York American.
Police investigated the shooting after the disorder, according to the records gathered by the MCCH. A police blotter record of Captain Mulholland’s investigation identified the detectives as responsible for shooting Dondoro, specifying that Campo had shot twice at Thompson and his partner Detective Beckler had shot three times, as well as twice in the air, a warning to stop that was required police practice. One of the bullets struck Thompson in the chest, killing him. The blotter also recorded Captain Mulholland’s conclusion that Campo sustained his injury “in proper performance of police duty and no negligence on the part of the aforesaid detective contributed thereto." Campo and Becker also appear to have not been disciplined or charged for killing Thompson. Asked in reference to the killing of Thompson and other Black men killed during the disorder in a hearing of the MCCH, “Has anyone been arrested, charged with using deadly weapons with which these men were killed?", Captain Rothengast replied, "Some of the detectives were exonerated."
Although the World-Telegram story reported Thompson as saying at the hospital that “he was hungry, “that others were stealing, anyway,” and that he was “long out of work,” there is no record of an admission in the report of the police investigation. It did include an interview with Thompson’s aunt. She reported hearing from Thompson’s landlady that he had brought home canned goods during the disorder, with the implication that he had been looting prior to the shooting. However, she also reported that he worked at a barber’s shop, in contradiction of the admission reported in the World-Telegram.
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2020-02-26T14:46:34+00:00
Herman Young assaulted
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2021-04-29T16:20:35+00:00
Around 1.00AM, Herman Young, a fifty-three-year-old Austrian-born white man who had lived in Harlem for twenty years was cut on the head by flying glass after a stone was thrown through the glass door of his Lenox Avenue hardware store. Young and his wife Rose had come from their apartment above the store after hearing smashing glass. Rose went to the store first, turning on the lights in the store and front windows. On the stoop, she encountered a man, who called her names and punched her on the shoulder. He then tried to push past her into the store, but encountered her husband on the other side of the door. According to Young, the man cursed at him - "You Goddam Jew I am going to kill you if you don’t get out of here” -- and then smashed the glass in the door. Rose testified that the man used a piece of pipe; Herman said he used "some instrument." Police later reported a stone had been thrown through the door. Rose said she saw glass hit Herman; the stone may also have hit him.
Young appears in lists of the injured published by the New York Post (mistakenly identified as a Patrolman) and the Home News, and among those recorded as attended by physicians from Harlem Hospital, likely in the emergency room. All three sources describe the injury as a laceration of the scalp, with the hospital record adding the detail that it resulted from being hit with a stone, and the report of the arrest adding that Young had been cut by flying glass. The other details appear in the District Attorney's case file, which includes notes on statements by Herman and Rose Young, an arresting officer, and the man arrested for the assault and his wife. (Another man, James Williams, was later arrested for looting the store; the affidavit in his case makes no mention of Young being assaulted by a man, instead recording that he had come downstairs to find four men in the store stealing merchandise).
Isaac Daniels, a twenty-nine-year-old black man was arrested and charged with throwing the rock. According to notes in the District Attorney's case file, when Young was having his wound stitched at Harlem Hospital around 1:30AM, Daniels came in for treatment. Young identified him as the man who assaulted him, and an officer at the hospital arrested him. Young said he could identify Daniels as he had stared at him through the glass in the store door for several minutes.
Questioned in a lineup at the Manhattan Police HQ, Daniels denied throwing the stone at Young, and said he had been in the area because he was coming home. Daniels, a native of Georgia who had come to New York City in 1928, lived with his wife only a few blocks from Young's store, at 73 W. 130th St. Later, at his trial, he added the detail that he had gone out to buy cigarettes. His wife said that he had gone to the movies, and was listening to the radio at home at 1 AM, when Young was attacked; notes in the District Attorneys case file say that neither statement was true without indicating the basis for that claim.
Daniels was one of the first of those arrested to appear in the Magistrates Court on March 20, charged with felonious assault. The Home News reported he was back in the court two days later, one of three men returned to have their original charges dismissed so they could be rearrested and new charges brought (which is likely why Daniels appears in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter as having been discharged). The indictment in the District Attorney's case file has a charge of first degree assault, with intent to kill, struck out, leaving a charge of second degree assault, with intent to cause bodily harm, suggesting that prosecutors reduced the charge after obtaining details of what happened. Indicted for assault, Daniels was one of the handful of individuals tried for alleged offenses during the disorder. On April 9, the District Attorney's case file recorded that a jury acquitted him of the charge of assault, likely because of questions over Young's identification of him.
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2020-03-11T21:18:25+00:00
Detective William Boyle assaulted
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2022-07-12T18:49:21+00:00
Detective William Boyle, a twenty-nine-year-old white officer, was allegedly assaulted "while attempting to rescue an unknown white man being assaulted at scene of riot,” according to the record of the ambulance that attended him. Dr Sayet of Harlem Hospital treated Boyle at the 28th Precinct on West 123rd Street, where he was based, at 9.15 PM, indicating that that assault took place sometime earlier, around 9.00 PM. The "scene of riot" where the alleged assault occurred was likely the block of 125th Street between 8th and 7th Avenues, where the disorder was concentrated around 9.00 PM. Two alleged assaults on white men on 125th Street around that time could be the incident in which Boyle was assaulted. Both men are described as being assaulted by groups of "unknown colored men" in Hospital Admission records, Maurice Spellman on the corner of 8th Avenue and Morris Werner on the corner of 7th Avenue. Those locations fit the details in Boyle's Medical Attendance record better than the location at which a story in the New York Times put the assault, the rear of Kress' store on West 124th Street. Boyle is one of three officers listed as injured after "a barrage of missiles fell on the ranks of the police who had caught up with the crowd" after it moved from the front of the store. However, that clash occurred around two hours before Boyle attended by an ambulance. Ambulances treated the two other officers on that list, Patrolman Michael Kelly and Detective Charles Foley, around two hours before Boyle was treated, although they received treatment at the scene, while Boyle was attended at the 28th Precinct. The story also mistakenly located Harry Gordon's alleged assault on Patrolman Young at the rear of this store around the same time, rather than in front of the store around forty-five minutes before police clashed with crowds at the rear of the store. No sources mention an attack on a white man at the rear of Kress' store.
The Medical Attendance record described Boyle's injury as "contusions and abrasions of left ankle." He also appeared on lists of the injured published by the New York American, Daily News, New York Post, New York Herald Tribune and New York Evening Journal, in addition to the story in the New York Times and a story in the Daily Mirror. All but the Daily Mirror reported Boyle's injury as cuts to the left ankle, or "deep cuts" in the case of the New York Herald Tribune and New York Post. Both those lists and the stories in the New York Times and Daily Mirror included the information that Boyle had been hit by an object, a "rock," "hurled stone," "flying brick" and "thrown rock" respectively. The injury was not serious enough for Boyle to be taken to hospital; he "remained on duty," according to the Medical Attendance record. The Daily Mirror alone mistakenly reported that Boyle had "received a fracture of the left leg" and been "removed to Harlem Hospital." It seems likely given Boyle's injury that the unknown white man that he intervened to protect was the target of missiles rather than being beaten. As a detective, Boyle would not have been in uniform at the time.
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2020-04-09T17:59:07+00:00
Clarence London shot
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2022-04-18T17:23:02+00:00
Sometime shortly before 1 AM, Clarence London, a thirty-four-year-old Black man was shot in the leg while walking on the street near 7th Avenue. London lived in north Harlem, at 676 St Nicholas Avenue, so was far from home when shot, likely drawn to the disorder around 125th Street at some point in the evening. Dr Payne attended London at Harlem Hospital at 1.00 AM.
The location of the shooting is recorded in hospital admission records as West 122nd Street and 7th Avenue, while reports in the New York Times and New York Herald Tribune put it three blocks north, at 125th Street and 7th Avenue. Both locations saw multiple acts of violence during the disorder, including an assault on a white man, John Eigler, at 122nd Street around the time London was shot also attended by an ambulance from Harlem Hospital. The assault is mapped at 125th Street as that is where the weight of the evidence puts it.
The New York American reported London had been “shot by an unidentified man” but offered no other details. Other newspapers simply listed him as “shot.” The hospital records further obscured the circumstances by describing London as “wounded.” His wound was consistently reported as in the right leg, although the Home News did report it was in the left leg.
The New York American, New York Post, Home News, New York Herald Tribune, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and New York Times all identified London as a Black man; only the New York Daily News and New York Evening Journal did not specify his race. Four of the six other individuals shot and wounded in the disorder were Black men; the others were one man of unknown race, and one white police officer. Given the evidence of both looting and the police response to it at the time, and the lack of any evidence that Black individuals on the streets during the disorder used guns, London was likely hit by shots fired by police – as were the other men reported as shot and wounded.
No one was arrested for shooting London, as was the case with all of those shot and wounded (Detective Campo’s alleged assailant was shot and killed).
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2020-03-11T21:40:24+00:00
Morris Werner assaulted
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2022-07-12T18:09:30+00:00
Morris Werner, a fifty-six-year-old white man, was attacked on the southwest corner of 125th Street and 7th Avenue “by several unknown colored men,” according to the hospital admission record. Dr White attended Werner at the Vanderbilt Clinic in Presbyterian Hospital on West 168th Street at 9.30 PM, so he was assaulted earlier, likely around 9.00 PM. The alleged assault could have occurred even earlier, given that the hospital was more than forty blocks north of the scene of the assault and Werner's home, at 537 West 127th Street.
Werner was allegedly attacked early in the disorder, when it was still centered on Kress’ store. Around this time a crowd reportedly broke through the police perimeter around the store, and two other white men alleged they were attacked by Black men around this time: William Kitlitz in front of Kress’ store, and Maurice Spellman at 125th Street and 8th Avenue. All those men lived west of Harlem, relatively close to where they were attacked, so were likely regular visitors to 125th Street, to shop, seek entertainment or access public transport, on this evening caught up in the disorder. The area around 125th Street and 7th Avenue would continue to be the location of struggles between police and crowds until around 10:30 PM, and alleged assaults on white individuals for at least the next three hours, with three men and two women reportedly targeted.
Dr White treated Werner for a "stab wound," with no mention in the hospital admission record of where that wound was located. Werner then left for home, indicating that the injury was not serious enough to require admission to the hospital. The use of a knife in this assault was unusual; there was only one other stabbing in the fifty-four reported assaults in the disorder, the alleged attack on Edward Genest, distinguishing this violence from what occurred at other times. In the rest of 1935, knives were a favored weapon of those committing acts of violence, used in two thirds of the incidents prosecuted as cases of felony assault.
The hospital admission record is the only evidence of the assault on Werner. That he was not included in lists of the injured may mean he did not make a report to police. No one else injured in the disorder was recorded as having been treated at the Vanderbilt Clinic, which was well outside the borders of Harlem and some distance from Werner's home. It may be that the violence saw calls to ambulances from further afield than usual. Spellman, allegedly assaulted at around the same time was attended at a closer hospital, Sydenham Hospital at 123rd Street and Manhattan Avenue, near his home. Murphy and Kitlitz were allegedly assaulted in locations where they attracted police, who made arrests, creating legal records and helping those men appear in newspaper lists of the injured, and in Murphy’s case, newspapers stories. Werner, like Spellman, may have been caught up in the crowds, and to have received medical treatment without attracting police attention.
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2020-08-20T20:55:23+00:00
Alice Mitchell injured
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2022-04-18T19:51:06+00:00
Alice Mitchell was at the intersection of Lenox Ave and West 129th Street when she was “cut by falling glass,” according to a hospital admission record. The twenty-one-year-old woman of unknown race lived only a few buildings west on 129th Street, an area of black residents, so may have been a bystander drawn by the noise on Lenox Avenue at this time, when a number of incidents of looting took place. Dr Payne attended Mitchell at Harlem Hospital, half a dozen blocks north on Lenox Avenue, at 1.30 AM according to a hospital record, so she was likely injured sometime around 1.00 AM. Another person, Hugh Young, was also injured by flying glass at the same place, and attended by Payne at the same time. They may have been transported in the same ambulance.
The hospital record described Mitchell's injury as a "laceration of wrist." Mitchell also appeared in only two lists of the injured, those published by the Daily News and New York Evening Journal. Both reported different injuries, lacerations to the face and neck in the Daily News, and to the head in the New York Evening Journal. Others injured by flying class suffered wounds to their legs (2), hands (1), and in the case of Hugh Young, to the head. After being seen by the physician, Mitchell went home, her injury evidently not serious enough for her to be sent to the hospital. None of the sources recorded Mitchell's race.
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2020-03-17T13:33:36+00:00
James White assaulted
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2022-04-19T19:20:38+00:00
James White, a twenty-nine-year-old Black man, was injured in "an altercation with an unknown white man at 129th Street and Lenox Ave,” Harlem Hospital staff recorded in the admission records. Dr Payne attended White at Harlem Hospital, seven blocks north on Lenox Avenue, at 3.30 AM, so he was likely assaulted sometime around 3.00 AM. Two other men of unknown race, Jack Ponder and Thomas Brown, suffered injuries at the same place and were treated by Dr Payne at the same time. This location was at the heart of an area of Lenox Avenue that saw extensive looting after midnight. White lived six blocks south of where he was assaulted, at 104 West 123rd Street.
The hospital record described White's injury as a "laceration of scalp." He left for home after treatment, rather than being admitted to the hospital, indicating that it was not a serious injury. White's absence from police and court records, and from newspaper lists and stories, indicates that he did not make a report to police.
While the hospital admission record did not include information regarding White's race, that it specified that the man who assaulted him was a white man" suggests that White himself was a Black man. He was one of only twelve Black men reported assaulted during the disorder, and the only assault explicitly attributed to a white man. The white men in the area at that time were likely to be police officers, including plainclothes detectives, and storeowners; firefighters had been on Lenox Avenue several hours earlier, with at least some photographers given the published images of those men fighting fires, but there is no evidence either group remained there at the time was assaulted or that other white men and women were in the area this late in the disorder.
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2020-03-09T18:16:03+00:00
Alice Gordon assaulted
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2022-04-19T20:31:55+00:00
03/19/1935 23:45
Alice Gordon, a thirty-four-year-old white woman, was "assaulted by several unknown colored men at 117th St. and 7th Ave," according to hospital admission records. Dr. Adams from the Knickerbocker Hospital on Convent Ave and West 131st Street attended Gordon at 11.45 PM, so she was likely assaulted around 11.15 PM. William Burkhard alleged he had been assaulted nearby, on West 118th Street between 7th Avenue and Lenox Ave, a few minutes earlier, and broken windows and looting to the east, on West 116th Street and on Lenox Avenue, indicate crowds moving through the area. Rocks were also thrown at the car in which Patricia O'Rourke traveled on a nearby stretch of 7th Avenue.
The hospital admission records describe Gordon's injury as "laceration of face." The injury was not serious enough for Gordon to be admitted to hospital, and after treatment she left for home, 72 Sound Rd., Rye, 20 miles north of where she had been assaulted. There is no mention of why Gordon was in Harlem.
The hospital admission records were the only source that mentioned Gordon. While those records did not include information about an individual's race, the description of her attackers as "colored men" indicate that Gordon was a white woman. -
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2020-04-09T17:35:02+00:00
Victor Fain shot
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2022-04-18T22:39:13+00:00
Victor Fain, a nineteen-year-old Black man born in South Carolina, was shot in “some unknown manner during [the] disorder” at 128th Street & 7th Avenue, according to a hospital admission record. Dr Payne attended Mitchell at Harlem Hospital, on Lenox Avenue and 136th Street, at 2.30 AM, so he was likely shot sometime around 2.00 AM. The shooting was the last reported assault on 7th Avenue, and one of last of the disorder. After midnight violence had moved up 7th Avenue from 125th Street, including the shooting of Clarence London at 125th Street, but switched to Lenox Ave after 1 AM.
As this shooting was not part of a cluster, and there is no information on the circumstances, it is possible Fain was shot by police patrolling the streets in radio cars and emergency trucks seeking to control looting – as was Lloyd Hobbs at the same corner an hour and a half earlier, and James Thompson on 8th Avenue three hours later. Fain was shot some distance from his home: he lived fifteen blocks to the south, at 315 West 113th Street, in a section on the southern margins of Harlem mostly occupied by whites and Puerto Ricans (although some time later in 1935 he relocated to the heart of the neighborhood, lodging at 208 West 141st Street, where he still resided at the time a census enumerator called on April 30, 1940).
The hospital record described Fain as having been shot in the left ankle. All the newspaper lists of the injured, in New York American, Home News, Daily News, New York Post and New York Evening Journal, and a story in the New York Times, agree on his injury, an unusual consistency that likely reflects that he was admitted to the hospital after being attended.
The hospital record did not identify Fain’s race, but newspapers did. The lists of the injured in the New York American, Home News and the story in the New York Times include his race; the lists of injured in the Daily News, New York Post and New York Evening Journal do not. Four of the six other men shot and wounded in the disorder were black, one of unknown race, and one white police officer.
No one was arrested for shooting Fain, as was the case with all of those shot and wounded (Detective Campo’s alleged assailant was shot and killed).
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2020-08-14T19:41:17+00:00
Thomas Brown injured
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2022-04-19T18:50:54+00:00
Thomas Brown, a twenty-year-old man of unknown race was injured in “some unknown manner” at Lenox Avenue and 129th Street, according to hospital admission records. Dr Payne attended Brown at Harlem Hospital, seven blocks north on Lenox Avenue, at 3.30 AM, so he was likely injured sometime around 3.00 AM. Jack Ponder was also injured, and James White, a Black man, assaulted, at the same place and treated by Payne at the same time. Outbreaks of looting and violence occurred on the blocks of Lenox Avenue north of 125th Street from about 1.30 AM. Brown lived only five blocks north, at 504 Lenox Avenue, so could have been part of the crowds of bystanders drawn by the noise and activity.
The hospital admission records and the lists of the injured in the New York Post and New York Evening Journal agree that Brown suffered a lacerated forehead. Six of those injured (30%) suffered similar head wounds. After being seen by Dr Payne, Brown went home, his injury evidently not serious enough for him to be admitted to the hospital.
Brown appeared only in the hospital records, which did not record information about his race.
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2020-08-20T20:56:13+00:00
Nathaniel Powell injured
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2022-04-18T21:44:31+00:00
Nathaniel Powell, a nineteen-year-old Black man suffered cuts to his nose and left wrist on Lenox Avenue between 116th and 117th Streets “in some unknown manner,” his hospital admission recorded. Dr Payne attended Powell at Harlem Hospital, twenty blocks north on Lenox Avenue, at 1.00 AM, in the hospital record, so he was likely injured sometime around 12.15 AM, given how far the location was from the hospital. At some point during the disorder this area saw windows broken and some looting, in the blocks of Lenox Avenue around 116th Street, but no other injuries were reported. The closest violence occurred to the west, around 7th Avenue and 116th Street. Like many of those injured, Powell was close to home when hurt, only two blocks south of the address where he resided, 69 West 118th Street, suggesting he may have been a bystander attracted by the noise and crowds.
While the hospital record recorded Powell’s injuries as "laceration of nose and left wrist," the Daily News described them more broadly as cuts about the face, and the New York Post shifted the injury to his foot. The New York Evening Journal and New York American reported a more dramatic wound, that Powell’s nose had been cut off, with the American sensationally describing his nose as “severed by [a] razor.” That account cast Powell as a victim of assault, with a weapon that whites associated with Blacks. While the hospital record provided no details of the circumstances of the injury, given that none of the other newspapers suggest an assault, the American listing seems an example of the white press falling back on tropes of racial violence rather than a reliable account of what happened to Powell. Descriptions of his nose being cut off likely stem from the seriousness of the cuts; after Payne attended Powell, he was admitted to the hospital, one of only eleven among the injured known to have been treated in that way (11 of 42, 26%).
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2020-04-09T17:57:19+00:00
Wilmont Hendricks shot
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2022-04-19T16:10:54+00:00
Wilmont Hendricks, a twenty-five-year-old Black man, was shot on Lenox Avenue near 128th Street. Dr Payne attended Hendricks at Harlem Hospital, eight blocks north on Lenox Avenue, at 1.30 AM, the hospital staff recorded, so he was likely injured sometime around 1.00 AM, not around 2.00 AM, as a New York Times story reported. No details survive of the circumstances of Hendricks’ injury: the hospital record noted that he had been shot in “in some unknown manner,” while newspapers only reported he had been shot. There was considerable disorder on the blocks of Lenox Avenue north of 125th Street around this time, including other assaults and looting. The outbreak of looting led police to begin shooting more indiscriminately than earlier in the disorder, and it is likely that Hendricks was shot by police.
After being seen by Dr Payne, Hendricks' injury was sufficiently serious for him to be admitted to the hospital, and to still be there a day later, according to the New York Herald Tribune. While the hospital recorded his wound as being in his left shoulder, only the list of injured in the Home News echoed that report. The lists in the New York American, New York Post, Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide instead locating the gunshot in his chest, and the lists in the Daily News and New York Evening Journal, and story in the New York Times reporting it was in in his back.
The hospital record did not identify Hendricks' race, but the newspaper lists in the New York Post, Home News, New York American and New York Evening Journal did. Four of the six other men shot and wounded in the disorder were black, one of unknown race, and one white police officer. When he was shot Hendricks was some distance from his home at 214 West 146th Street, which was almost twenty blocks to the north on 146th Street.
No one was arrested for shooting Hendricks, as was the case with all of those shot and wounded (Detective Campo’s alleged assailant was shot and killed).
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2020-04-09T18:40:36+00:00
William Holland injured
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2022-04-19T15:41:19+00:00
William Holland a 46-year-old man, was “struck by an unknown object” at 125th Street and Lenox Avenue, according to a hospital admission record. Dr Payne attended Holland at Harlem Hospital, eleven blocks north on Lenox Avenue, at 1.40 AM, so he was likely injured sometime around 1.10 AM. Looting had broken out on Lenox Avenue north of 125th Street around this time, producing other outbreaks of violence. Holland lived four blocks to the south, at 175 West 121st Street, so may have been drawn to the intersection by the crowds and noise.
The hospital record described Holland's injury as a "laceration of scalp." He did not appear in any of the lists of those injured published by the press. The injury was not severe enough to require Holland be admitted to hospital, so he left for his home. The hospital record did not include information on Holland's race.
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1
2020-08-20T20:54:31+00:00
Giles Jackson injured
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2022-04-19T18:33:08+00:00
Giles Jackson, a thirty-three-year-old man, was struck on the leg by “falling glass” around 3.00 am on March 20. An unnamed physician from nearby Beth Israel Hospital attended Jackson at West 116th Street and 7th Avenue, but the hospital record identified the injury as having occurred “in some unknown place.” Several incidents of broken windows and looting around that intersection and further east down West 116th Street and two blocks north on 7th Avenue would have sent glass flying. Car windows smashed by objects thrown at vehicles driving up 7th Avenue would also have produced flying glass. Injuries from flying glass make up 25% of the injuries not related to assaults that appear in sources, the largest group after head injuries.
Jackson’s injury did not require he be taken to the hospital; after the physician attended him he “left for home.” He gave a home address four blocks south of where the ambulance treated him, at 33 West 112th Street, a Puerto Rican area. The hospital record, the only source in which Jackson appears, did not identify his race. (Census and draft records did identify a Black man born in Virginia named Giles Jackson of the correct age living in Harlem at this time, but he was a roomer who moved frequently, and cannot be placed at this address in 1935). -
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2020-04-09T18:53:50+00:00
Emma Brockson assaulted
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2022-04-18T18:13:53+00:00
Emma Brockson, a twenty-six-year-old woman of unknown race, was allegedly assaulted at 7th Avenue and 125th Street. At least five other assaults and the fatal shooting of Andrew Lyons took place at that intersection during the course of the disorder. Dr Millfrank treated her at Knickerbocker Hospital at 12.35 AM, for injuries to her left hand "received when assaulted by some unknown person or persons." It is not clear if an ambulance brought Brockson to the hospital or whether she made her own way. The Knickerbocker Hospital was located west of 7th Avenue, at ?. Given the time she was at the hospital, the alleged assault on Brockson likely took place around midnight. After being attended by the doctor, Brockson left for her home. She lived only two blocks to the west of where the alleged assault took place, on 126th Street.
The hospital record is the only evidence of the assault. They did not contain information on a patient's race. That Brockson did not appear in any of the lists of the injured or assaulted published in the press suggests that she did not make a report to police. Around midnight, there would have been police on at least some of the corners of West 125th Street and 7th Avenue, as a cordon had been thrown up around the block of 125th Street to the west, and officers were guarding Herbert's Jewelry store on the northeast corner. -
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2020-03-11T21:39:06+00:00
Maurice Spellman assaulted
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2020-09-25T19:42:27+00:00
Maurice Spellman a twenty-six-year-old white man, reported being “struck by a number of unknown colored men” at 125th Street and 8th Avenue around 9pm. The attack left him with cuts to his right eye, which he had treated at Sydenham Hospital. After being attended by Dr Karlen, Spellman left for his home, at 511 West 127th Street, a white neighborhood three blocks west of where he was assaulted.
Spellman was attacked early in the disorder, when it was still centered on Kress’ store, putting him in the midst of the crowd. Blacks targeted at least three other white men around this time. William Kitlitz reported being attacked by James Smithies in front of Kress’ store and Timothy Murphy a few blocks west of Spellman’s location by a group of men at around the same time, and Morris Werner by another group, half an hour later at 125th St and 7th Avenue, the other end of the block on which Kress’ stood. All these men lived west of Harlem, relatively close to where they were attacked, so were likely regular visitors to 125th Street, to shop, seek entertainment or access public transport, on this evening caught up in the disorder.
The hospital admission record is the only evidence of the assault on Spellman. The attacks on Murphy and Kitlitz were assaulted in locations where they attracted police, who made arrests, creating legal records and helping those men appear in newspaper lists of the injured, and in Murphy’s case, newspapers stories. Werner, like Spellman, appears to have been caught up in the crowds, and to have sought medical attention without attracting police attention. Neither man was attended at Harlem Hospital in the heart of the black neighborhood, but rather at hospitals to the west: Spellman at Sydenham Hospital at 123rd Street and Manhattan Avenue, near his home; and Werner at the Vanderbilt Clinic on West 168th Street. -
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2020-03-11T21:28:58+00:00
George Anton assaulted
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2022-07-12T17:28:03+00:00
George Anton, a forty-four-year-old white man, was assaulted by “several unknown colored men” on 7th Avenue between 126th and 127th Streets, according to a hospital admission record. Dr Reed of the Fifth Avenue Hospital attended Anton at 10.45 PM, so the alleged assault likely occurred around 10.15 PM. The location was at the northern end of a cluster of alleged assaults around 7th Avenue and 125th Street early in the disorder, when crowds first began to move beyond 125th Street. Anton lived at the opposite end of Manhattan, 73 Washington Street. There is no information on why he was in Harlem.
The hospital record described Anton's injury as “laceration of right hand, abrasion of head and right knee.” Although more extensive than most of those described in the admission records, they were not serious enough for Anton to be admitted to hospital. After treatment he left for home. Anton does not appear in police or court records, or in newspaper stories or lists, indicating that he did not make a report to police.
While the hospital records did not include information on an individual's race, the language specifying that his alleged attackers were "colored men" and the location of his home indicate that Anton was a white man. -
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2020-03-11T21:32:46+00:00
John Eigler assaulted
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2022-04-18T21:15:41+00:00
John Eigler, a forty-five-year-old man, was walking on 7th Avenue at 122nd Street, only a few feet from his home at 163 West 122nd Street, when he was "struck by an unknown object...thrown by some unknown colored men," according to a hospital record. Dr Payne attended Eigler at Harlem Hospital, fourteen blocks north on Lenox Avenue, at 1.00 AM, in the hospital record, so he was likely injured sometime around 12.30 AM. Fred Campbell’s car had been hit by rocks at the same time and place as he drove up 7th Avenue.
The hospital record described Eigler's injury as a "laceration of scalp." He did not appear in any of the lists of the injured published in the press. After being seen by the physician, Eigler went home, his injury evidently not serious enough for him to be admitted to the hospital.
The hospital records did not include information on Eigler's race. However, his identification of his alleged assailants as "colored" suggests that he was a white man. The block of 122nd Street east of 7th Avenue where Eigler lived was in transition in the 1930s, from mostly white and Puerto Rican residents in 1930 to all black residents by 1940.
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2020-08-20T20:56:36+00:00
Hugh Young injured
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2022-04-18T20:01:27+00:00
Hugh Young was at the intersection of Lenox Ave and West 129th Street when he was cut by “flying glass,” according to a hospital record. A twenty-three-year-old man of unknown race, he lived a block north, on the corner of Lenox Avenue and West 130th Street, an area of black residents. He may have been a bystander drawn by the noise on Lenox Avenue at this time, when a number of incidents of looting took place. Dr Payne attended Young at Harlem Hospital, half a dozen blocks north on Lenox Avenue, at 1.30 AM according to a hospital record, so he was likely injured sometime around 1.00 AM. Another person, Alice Mitchell, was also injured by flying glass at the same place and treated by Dr Payne at the same time. They may have been transported in the same ambulance.
The hospital record described Young's injury as "lacerations of face." Young does not appear in any of the lists of the injured published by newspapers, unlike Alice Mitchell. Others injured by flying class suffered wounds to their legs (2), hands (1), and in one other case, to the head. After being seen by the physician, Young went home, his injury evidently not serious enough for him to be admitted to the hospital. The hospital records did not record race.