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

Hugh Young injured

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 at 1:30 AM according to a hospital record, so he was likely injured sometime after 1:00 AM. Alice Mitchell, a twenty-one-year-old Black women who like Young lived nearby 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 did not appear in any of the lists of the injured published by newspapers, unlike Alice Mitchell. 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. Young's residence in an area almost entirely populated by Black New Yorkers is strong evidence that he was a Black man.

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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).