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Jack Garmise's cigar shop looted
Both crowds and police arrived in the area of the cigar store not long after Garmise closed it. Store windows were broken on the opposite corner, and along West 116th Street to the east, and Giles Jackson was injured by flying glass in the area of the intersection. Around 1.45 AM the cigar store became a target. Patrolmen Kalsky and Holland of the 28th Precinct saw a group of people around the store, and then a milk can thrown through the plate glass windows. In the Magistrate Court affidavit, Kalsky alleged that he saw Thomas Jackson, a thirty-four-year-old Black driver throw the milkcan. Jackson denied thowing anything at the store, or being part of an attack on it, when question by a Probation officer. Instead, he claimed he had been walking along the street to visit a friend on West 116th Street when he had become caught in a crowd moving toward the store, and someone in the crowd had been pushed him through the smashed window. Throwing an object would have been more difficult for Jackson than most in the crowd; after an accident in 1930, his left arm had been amputated above the elbow. Kalsky also alleged he saw Jackson reach his hand through the smashed window and take merchandise from the display. Garmise reported pipes, clocks, watches, razors and other goods worth about $100 were stolen. Neither the affidavit nor the Probation Department Investigation specify what, if any, of that merchandise was found on Jackson. Kalsky told a Probation officer that as he approached, Jackson threw “some of the merchandise” back in the window. That phrasing suggests Jackson may not have had any merchandise on him when Kalsky arrested him, as does his later agreement to plead guilty to unlawful entry, rather than petit larceny, as others arrested for looting who made plea bargains did. However, the New York Daily News report of Jackson's appearance in the Court of General Sessions to plead guilty, and the New York Times report of his sentencing, attributed all $100 of the stolen goods to Jackson. (The only other newspaper story to include details, the report of the sentencing in the New York Age, mentioned only that Jackson had admitted throwing a milk bottle through the store window).
The other officer, Holland, arrested a second man, Raymond Easley, a twenty-one-year-old Black man. He allegedly took cigars from the store window, according to a report in the Home News, wording that suggests the officers reported seeing him reaching into the window and found cigars in his possession. Holland also found that Easley was carrying a razor. (Easley is not mentioned in the affidavit in the District Attorney’s case file in which he and Jackson are co-defendants, nor is there an examination of him. The only document in the case file referring to Easley is a criminal record; he had no previous prosecutions). Two arrests at the same incident of alleged looting was unusual during the disorder, suggesting that the officers were closer to the store than in other instances, perhaps only having to cross West 116th Street rather than 7th Avenue.
While the appearance of the two patrolmen clearly stopped the group attacking the store, the broken window made it easier for others to take more merchandise. (A reporter for La Prensa who walked by the store the day after the disorder all its windows were demolished). Police guarded only a small number of damaged businesses during the disorder, but the Garmises’ store had the advantage of being near a major intersection, close to the commercial blocks of West 116th Street, an obvious place for police to be stationed. At 3:00 AM, just over an hour after the arrests of Thompson and Easley, when the level of disorder was diminishing, Officer Charles Necas allegedly saw Robert Tanner, a seventeen-year-old Black student, put his hand through the broken window and take a pipe, according to the Magistrates Court affidavit. Necas then arrested Tanner. That Tanner allegedly took a single pipe suggests that there was little merchandise in the window at that time, that most of the looting had occurred earlier. Tanner lived on West 116th Street only three buildings west of 7th Avenue, at 218 West 116th Street. There is no mention of a crowd.
The Garmises’ total loss of $100 of merchandise is well below the damage in stores whose interiors were looted, suggesting that only the window displays may have been looted. The Garmises are not among those identified as suing the city for damages for failing to protect their business. Unlike many other businesses, they did not have insurance for their store windows, they told a Probation officer, but as part of the United Cigar chain, they did have burglary insurance. However, they could collect that insurance only if the disorder was not a “riot,” an unlikely determination after the city lost in the civil courts. Nonetheless, the Garmises were able to remain in business. The MCCH business survey found a United Cigar Store in the same building (although it misidentified the address as 1910 not 1916 7th Avenue). In 1940, Jack Garmise listed the store as his place of employment in his draft registration. The Garmises had opened the store and moved to Manhattan sometime after 1930; the family appeared in the 1930 and 1920 censuses living in the Bronx, with Russian-born Emmanuel working in linen supply and as a laundry salesman. They were still at 1974 5th Avenue in the 1940 census.
Thomas Jackson (whose name was technically Thomas Dean, but who used his stepfather's last name), Raymond Easley and Robert Tanner all appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20. Magistrate Renaud sent all three to the Grand Jury on the charge of burglary, and Easley also to the Court of Special Sessions charged with carrying a dangerous weapon, a misdemeanor. While Jackson and Tanner were indicted, and then agreed to plead guilty, Easley had the charges against him dismissed. There is no evidence to explain that decision. Neither the 28th Precinct Police Blotter or the District Attorney’s case file recorded the outcome of his prosecution for carrying a razor. Judge Donellan sentenced Jackson to six months in the workhouse; and Judge Nott sentenced Tanner to the New York City Reformatory, in line with his age.
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This page references:
- "Transcripts of Police Blotter - Precinct 28, March 19 & 20, 1935," Folder "MCCH - Juvenile Delinquency - 1935-36," Correspondence (Roll 13), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945.
- Harlem Magistrates Court docket book
- "Continue Inquiry At Courthouse As Three Men Are Sentenced To Workhouse For Riot Activities," New York Age, April 13, 1935, 1, 2.
- District Attorney's Closed Case Files, 203994 (1935) (New York City Muncipal Archives).
- District Attorney's Closed Case Files, 203995 (1935) (New York City Municipal Archives).
- Probation Department Case File, 26454 (1935) (New York City Muncipal Archives).
- "Police Guard Against New Uprising as Mayor Acts to Probe Race Riot," Home News, March 21, 1935 [clipping]
- "3 Negroes Sentenced For Looting in Riot," New York Times, April 9, 1935, 44.
- "3 Admit Harlem Riot Robberies," New York Daily News, March 28, 1935, 16.
- US Census, 1930, Enumeration District 3-539, Sheet 3B, Bronx, New York, New York (Ancestry.com).
- US Census, 1920, Enumeration District 192, Sheet 2B, Bronx, New York, New York (Ancestry.com).
- US Census, 1940, Enumeration District 31-1502, Sheet 1B, Manhattan, New York, New York (Ancestry.com).
- "NUMEROSOS ESTABLECIMIENTOS HISPANOS APEDREADOS Y SAQUEADOS POR LA TURBA," La Prensa, March 21, 1935, 1.
- Draft Registration Cards for New York City, 1940-1947, Records of the Selective Service System, Record Group 147, National Archives and Records Administration (Ancestry.com)