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

James Tartar, "Survey made of neighboring storekeepers of the Greenfield Tire and Supply Store," (April 20, 1935), "Harlem, Mayor's Commission on Conditions in," Box 25, Folder 19, Arthur Garfield Hays Papers (Princeton University)

Arthur Garfield Hays Papers

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The MCCH investigation of the shooting of Lloyd Hobbs continues James Tartar, the MCCH's investigator, described two charges as the focus of the MCCH's effort to "get the facts" about the shooting:
1. Patrolman John F. McInerney deliberately shot Lloyd Hobbs without provocation
2. That Lloyd Hobbs was charged with burglary in order to justify the policeman's claim that he was forced to shoot in order to effect an arrest
Although Hays expected all three police witnesses to answer those charges on April 20, only Patrolman Watterson and Detective O'Brien testified. While no explanation was offered at the hearing for Patrolman McInerney's absence, Tartar recorded that the officer had been "granted a sick leave." Hays required that he be at the next hearing as his absence “gave the public a bad impression,” according to the Home News, but his leave extended until at least June 7, after the subcommittee final hearing, so he never testified publicly. The testimony of his partner, Patrolman Watterson, did not entirely answer the first charge about which the MCCH sought facts. He had not left the patrol car. While he had seen a man come out of the automobile store window with items in his hand, he could not identify him as Hobbs. McInerney told him it was Hobbs. Watterson heard his partner call out to the men outside the store to stop, but did not see what happened after that. He was reversing the patrol car to follow McInerney and the men as they ran north on 7th Avenue. He turned the car into 128th Street, and then saw his partner standing over Hobbs and a horn and socket set on the ground next to the boy. Contradicting the police reports, he testified that objects were not thrown at him and McInerney until after his partner shot the boy, when a crowd began to gather. Watterson then grabbed his rifle, leveled it at the crowd and told them to come no further while McInerney loaded Hobbs into the patrol car.

Watterson's testimony was cut short when Hays took exception to heckling from an audience member, who had called out, "Will the dog bark a little louder, please?” Hays had warned, in his letter to Dodge after the grand jury's decision, that, "One of the most ominous features which emerges from the evidence we have taken appears to be a lack of confidence the people of Harlem have in the police, and their feeling that Negroes cannot expect justice." The hecking, hissing and booing with which the audience reacted to the police witnesses that appeared in public hearings as the MCCH investigation of the killing continued bore out that warning.

While Watterson did not return to the stand after Hays adjourned the hearing to regain order, Detective O'Brien later appeared to testify about his investigation of the shooting of Hobbs. He was questioned about the items that Hobbs had allegedly stolen, which were not recorded in the police blotter or the report sent from the 28th Precinct to Commissioner Valentine that Tartar had obtained. O'Brien testified that while McInerey mentioned the stolen items when they spoke at the hospital immediately after Hobbs was shot, he did not actually see them until the patrolman brought them to the District Attorney's office on April 1. ILD lawyers questioning the detective seized on that twelve day interval to suggest McInerney could have obtained the horn and socket set after he shot the boy to justify his actions. Hays asked for the items to be fingerprinted to see if Hobbs had actually touched them.

After the hearing, Tartar made further attempts to identify eye-witnesses and "to get information concerning the whereabouts of the stolen items." An interview with ADA Price confirmed that McInerney brought the horn and socket set to the DA's office on April 1st, while a visit to the Property Clerk's office at Police headquarters revealed that those items were not delivered there until April 8, 1935. That meant that the patrolman had those items in his possession for nineteen days after the shooting. Hays questioned O'Brien about that information at the subcommittee's final hearing on May 18, to which the detective brought the horn and socket set. O'Brien said he did not know when they had been turned in, but countered that they were described in the arrest record. As Tartar later explained to E. Franklin Frazier, who led the MCCH's research, the arrest record was a book containing a form that was filled in as the next record keeping step after a summary was entered into the police blotter, the record the MCCH investigator had seen. O'Brien had made no mention of the arrest record in his previous testimony or the reports he filed as part of his investigation. He also testified that no fingerprints had been found on the items - or more precisely, that only smudges had been found.

Three additional eye-witnesses also testified in the MCCH hearing on May 18. Tartar reported that they had been found as a result of a survey of the neighborhood, implying that he had found them. However, at the hearing, Clarence Wilson testified that he had obtained the addresses of two witnesses from Lawyer Hobbs. One, John Bennett, did not respond when called on, but Wilson encountered another man who was an eye-witness, Marshall Pfifer, when looking for Joseph Hughes, the second witness. Hughes was too sick to attend the hearing, so Wilson recounted what he had seen. Warren Wright, the third man, provided no details of how he had been found. All three men told the same story as Malloy, Moore and Pitts had in the earlier hearing: Hobbs was not carrying anything and McInerney had not called out for him to stop before shooting him. Wright and Hughes saw those events from different perspectives than the earlier witnesses: Wright was at the entrance to the apartments above 2150 7th Avenue, south of the automobile supply store, while Hughes was in 201 West 128th Street, toward which Hobbs was running when McInerney shot him. (Pfifer was on the same corner across 128th Street from the store as Malloy, Moore and Pitts, and, like the later man, had been there since around 10:00 PM). Around April 20, Tartar also interviewed the owners of the businesses on the same block as the automobile supply store, to obtain information on when their windows were broken and what losses they suffered, providing some support for the testimony that the automobile supply store's windows were broken before Hobbs arrived offered by Pfifer, as well as Malloy and Moore.

The audience for the results of the MCCCH's continued investigation was clearly not simply the public. Hays informed the hearing on May 18 that Commissioner Valentine had told him the police department was still investigating the case, a reference to exchange of letters between the men on May 2 and May 3. Hays' letter made clear that even before the new witnesses testified, he felt that the "large number of witnesses" who had testified proved that Hobbs had not been looting notwithstanding the grand jury's response to their evidence. During the hearing, Williams raised that efforts were being made "to get this case to go to the Grand Jury" again, which likely included ILD lawyers. Hays responded that the case was "now being taken up with the District Attorney."
James Tartar's Investigation of the killing of Lloyd Hobbs On April 1, Hays wrote to the MCCH's secretary, Eunice Carter, telling her to have the Hobbs family attend the next hearing, on April 6, and to "have our investigators find out all they can about [the Hobbs case]." Carter assigned the investigation to James Tartar, one of the staff who had sought witnesses to the causes of the disorder the previous week. The thirty-year-old Black former shipping clerk was an investigator for the Department of Public Welfare who lived on the western boundary of Harlem, at 448 West 151st Street. Born in Tennessee, he had lived in North Carolina at the time of the 1920 census, moving later to Ohio, where he worked as a secretary and married in 1924. The family was living in New York City by 1926, and at 759 St Nicholas Avenue in 1930. As a Black Harlem resident, Tartar reinforced the Black presence on the MCCH and would have received a less hostile reception from residents than the white police detective investigating the shooting. At the same time, his occupation put him among the upper ranks of the Black population, different from most of the witnesses he interviewed.

The records of Tartar's investigation should have been in the files of the MCCH in the Records of Mayor La Guardia, but were retained by Arthur Garfield Hays, for whose subcommittee he investigated the shooting, and E. Franklin Frazier, who led the MCCH's research. Several reports by Tartar from his early investigations are filed in the Hays Papers. A narrative summary of his investigation and the case are in the Frazier Papers. Tartar also testified in the MCCH hearing on April 7 about his investigation up to that point. He mentioned details of the investigation in correspondence with Frazier after the MCCH investigation was completed.

In the week leading up to the MCCH hearing on April 7, Tartar interviewed the Hobbs family "as the first source." He recorded statements by Russell and his mother. Notes from undated conversations appear in another document, describing Lloyd's funeral, their belief that Lloyd would not have committed a burglary, and the information Lawyer Hobbs had received from Howard Mallloy and Arthur Moore about what they had witnessed. The funeral took place on April 2, those conversations took place after that date. Tartar was also assigned to do a "Social and Economical History of the Hobbs Family," submitting a page and a half summarizing the family's origins in Virginia and life in New York City.

Tartar contacted the two eye-witnesses identified to him by Lloyd's father, Howard Malloy and Arthur Moore. He met with the men at 213 West 128th Street, the apartment building in which they both lived, and recorded "their story." That document is dated April 5, but Tartar's signature is dated April 4. Both dates provided sufficient time for the MCCH staff to organize the men's presence at the hearing on April 7.

A second strand of the investigation included Tartar gathering information from a variety of law enforcement sources. His records include notes on a series of interviews conducted on April 2. He spoke with ADA Saul Price, who told him he "that the officer had not been exonerated, due to the fact that he was waiting to hear the story from the Hobbs family, particularly Russell Hobbs." An interview with the police department's ballistic expert produced no information as he had not received the bullet that hit Lloyd. Tartar's visit to Harlem Hospital was more successful, as Dr. Steinholz shared the boy's chart, which the investigator copied. Sometime during the week he also visited the 28th Precinct, and recorded the contents of the police blotter, where officers recorded a summary of an arrest. Lieutenant Greenberg read him that material as at that time there was no definite understanding between the Commission and the Police Department with regards to taking transcripts of confidential police records, he later informed Frazier. That information appears in the records in the Hays Papers; however, there was no record of the interview with Inspector Di Martini that he mentioned in his testimony to the MCCH hearing on April 7. At that time he made a copy of a report by the commander of the 28th Precinct, Captain George Mulholland, "The shooting of prisoner by Patrolman," submitted to Commissioner Valentine on March 30, immediately after the death of Lloyd Hobbs. Tartar's notes did mention the report as being incorporated in his records but it was not in the files in the Hays Papers (a transcription appeared in the transcript of the MCCH hearing on April 20). Tartar was among those who testified at the MCCH's April 6 public hearing, recounting his interview with ADA Price and introducing a copy of the report from the 28th Precinct to Commissioner Valentine so Hays could have details in it contradicted by Russell Hobbs and the three eye-witnesses, Malloy, Moore and Samuel Pitts.

Hays announced plans to continue hearing evidence about the killing of Lloyd Hobbs at his subcommittee's next public hearing, in two weeks. However, those plans were overtaken by grand jury hearing on April 10, which led Hays to focus on having witnesses who appeared before the grand jury testify in a public hearing. The only further investigation Tartar did before the April 20 hearing was to interview the owners of the businesses on the same block as the automobile supply store, and draw a sketch of the storefronts on the block, to obtain information on when their windows were broken and what losses they suffered. Both those documents are dated April 20, the day of the MCCH hearing. The information they contained provided some support for testimony that the automobile supply store's windows were broken before Hobbs arrived, by Malloy and Moore on April 20 (and by another eye-witness, Marshall Pfifer, on May 18).

After the hearing on April 20, Tartar made further attempts to identify eye-witnesses and "to get information concerning the whereabouts of the stolen items." An interview with ADA Price confirmed that McInerney brought the horn and socket set to the DA's office on April 1st, while a visit to the Property Clerk's office at Police headquarters revealed that those items were not delivered there until April 8, 1935. That meant that the patrolman had those items in his possession for nineteen days after the shooting. There are no records of those investigations in Hays' files; Tartar mentioned them in his narrative summary. Hays relied on Tartar's investigation when he questioned Detective O'Brien about where the horn and socket set had been when the officer produced them at the MCCH public hearing on May 18.

Three additional eye-witnesses also testified in the MCCH hearing on May 18. Tartar reported that they had been found as a result of a survey of the neighborhood, implying that he had found them. However, at the hearing, Clarence Wilson testified that he had obtained the addresses of two witnesses from Lawyer Hobbs at the request of a member of the MCCH. One did not respond when called on, but Wilson encountered another man who was an eye-witness, Marshall Pfifer, when looking for John Bennett, the second witness. Bennett was too sick to attend the hearing, so Wilson recounted what he had seen. Warren Wright, the third man, provided no details of how he had been found.

The evidence heard at the May 18 hearing was presented to the grand jury on June 10. Tartar claimed a prominent role in ADA Saul Price's decision to re-examine the case in the narrative of his investigation. After being notified by inspector Di Martini that he was resubmitting the case to the District Attorney, Tartar attended the conference in the District Attorney's office about the case and and by his own account, "after much argument," "convinced the District Attorney that the new witnesses would testify to new facts and that they should be heard." Tartar also accompanied Detective O'Brien to serve subpoenas on the four witnesses whose testimony was heard on May 18, an arrangement set up by Hays. After hearing from Bennett, Hughes, Pfifer and Wright, Price agreed to take the case to the grand jury again. Tartar himself also testified in the grand jury hearing. He told the grand jury that McInerney had not handed in the allegedly stolen items until April 8 and that police records indicated that "no loot had been found on the person of Lloyd Hobbs. Tartar clearly spoke to journalists from the New York Age and the Afro-American about his testimony, as it featured in the stories that those Black newspapers published about the grand jury decision.

Tartar recounted that he urged Inspector Di Martini to hold such an investigation after the grand jury decision. In fact, such a hearing had already been planned, in the aftermath of the decision of the first grand jury. Tartar, with E. Franklin Frazier, attended the hearing when it took place, on June 14. The account in his narrative summary was the only source of information on the hearing, which went unreported in the press.
Greenfield Auto Equipment store looted Around 9.00 PM, Louis Eisenberg and three of his staff finished up putting new merchandise and sign cards in the store windows of Greenfield Auto Equipment, at 2150 7th Avenue, and began cleaning up inside the store. They "heard a terrific crash at the front door and saw angry crowd surging into the store," he told the MCCH in a private interview. Eisenberg and his staff fled out the rear of the store, and on to the street, where they hailed a cab to take them away from the crowd. The timing of that escape varied in different sources. In police records, Eisenberg and his staff fled out a rear window, into the back yard of the store, where they remained until around 11.30 PM. Only then did they avoid the "mob" on the street by jumping in a passing taxi. In his interview with the MCCH, Eisenberg described going from the yard to the neighboring "tailor shop" (actually a cleaning store) and hailing a cab from there. There was no mention of spending time in the yard in the interview, and from the cab he saw only one broken window, which suggested that he and his staff left soon after fleeing the store. That statement contradicted Eisenberg's statements to James Tartar, an investigator for the MCCH, that five windows were broken between 8.30 PM and 9.00PM. Tartar also recorded information from the white owners of four of the six other occupied stores on this block of 7th Avenue, between West 127th Street and West 128th Street, who reported windows broken sometime between 8.45 PM and 11.00 PM. The owner of the cleaning store neighboring Eisenberg's store specified that the windows in the auto equipment store were broken before those in his store, four of which were targeted between 8.45 PM and 9.30 PM.

The time that the windows were broken was early enough in the evening that most of the neighboring stores would still have been open for business, or at least still staffed, as Greenfield Auto Equipment had been. That all the neighboring storeowners interviewed by Tartar could give a time when people threw objects that broke their store windows indicates they were present. The Black-owned Cozy Shoppe at 2154 7th Avenue, on the corner of 128th Street, was undamaged; someone from that store had written "Colored Shoppe" on the store window. Tartar included the "Cozy Shop" on his drawing of the block, together with a Black-owned beauty parlor to the left of the auto equipment store, but neither appear in his list of looted businesses, suggesting the beauty parlor may also have been undamaged.

The storeowners also provided the value of the stock stolen from their stores. Eisenberg put the value of stock stolen from his store at $850; when he reported the theft to police he provided a two-page list of merchandise without information on its value. While Eisenberg's account of men rushing into his store implied that goods were stolen as soon as the window was broken, the more fragmentary responses Tartar recorded from the other store owners suggested that looting may have happened later, as more general narratives in the press related. The owner of the saloon on the corner of West 127th Street, the Harlem Grill, reported one window broken around 9.00PM, and two more at least an hour later. Crowds smashed windows in stores on the opposite side of the street apparently without looting them around 9.45 PM, when a police officer arrested Leroy Brown for urging a group of people to follow his lead after he threw a tailor's dummy through a window. Whenever the looting started, by around 11.00 PM, when Howard Malloy passed the store, all the goods in the display window had been taken, he told Tartar in an interview on April 5. On March 20, Detective O'Brien visited the store and reported that he found "five (5) windows of the store broken and merchandise strewn about the floor and window. Also noted that the street in the immediate vicinity was littered with broken glass, bricks, stones and other heavy objects."

Information on the Greenfield Auto Equipment store, and those store neighboring it, appeared in the records of the MCCH because of what happened after the looting, or at least after the looting had started. Around 12.55 AM, two police officers in a squad car traveling south on 7th Avenue reported hearing smashing glass, and seeing Lloyd Hobbs, a sixteen-year-old Black student standing in the store window passing merchandise to a crowd of people on the street. They stopped their car and Patrolman McInerney chased after the crowd. As Hobbs ran across west across 128th Street McInery shot the boy in the back. Although the officers transported him to Harlem Hospital, Hobbs died on March 30. He and his younger brother had been at a show at the Apollo Theater until 12.30 AM, when they emerged to find "general disorder and many broken windows." Russell told Tartar that they wanted to "see and hear what was going on," so walked along 125th Street and up 7th Avenue, passing a crowd in front of Eisenberg's store at the time the police car arrived. Both boys denied Lloyd had looted the store; they had simply joined the crowd in running when the police car stopped, and McInerny had shot Lloyd without warning when he split from the group and turned west on 128th Street, back in the direction of the family home. Three Black eye-witnesses, including Howard Malloy, confirmed that account. Police insisted Hobbs had stolen goods from the store, but they did not produce the items they claimed to have found on him - a horn and socket set - until several weeks after the shooting. The grand jury twice declined to indict McInnery for shooting Hobbs, accepting his claim that it was a justifiable homicide. The MCCH did not agree, and Hobbs became a central part of their report on the events of the disorder.

No other people were arrested or charged with looting the Greenfield Auto Equipment store, or the other stores on this block of 7th Avenue. Eisenberg "was on the point of closing after the riot but was persuaded to stay on," he told a MCCH investigator who visited the store on June 25. He had been in business for sixteen years, with a staff of four, two of whom were Black men. A white-owned auto supply store was recorded in the MCCH business survey taken in the second half of 1935 (mistakenly located at 2152 7th Avenue rather than 2150 7th Avenue). By 1939, however, the store was gone, with a billiard parlor in its place in the Tax Department photograph.
Cozy Shoppe windows not broken Sometime during the disorder, "Colored Shoppe" was written in white on the window of the Cozy Shoppe at 2154 7th Avenue, on the southwest corner of 128th Street. That wording was reported in a story in the New York Post, and is visible in newsreel footage shot on 7th Avenue in front of the cleaning company two shopfronts to the south looking toward the Cozy Shoppe. The New York Evening Journal described alternative wording, "Colored Tea Shoppe," adding the sarcastic commentary that the owners had been "consistent even in the midst of the riot," "the need for speed apparently not making for simplified spelling" [i.e., shop rather than shoppe]. Both newspapers identified the business as the "Cozy Tea Shoppe," but the signage visible on the windows in the newsreel footage reads "Cozy Shoppe," with "Tea Room" in the windows running across the top of the entrance doors. The MCCH business survey and the drawing of the block by MCCH investigator James Tartar both recorded the business name as "Cozy Shop."

Both the New York Evening Journal and New York Post stories reported that the business suffered no damage, which the newsreel footage confirms. It shows both windows of the Cozy Shoppe intact and no debris in front of the store, in contrast to the two stores to the restaurant's south visible in the image, Lazar's cigar store and K. Percy's tailor and cleaning store. The glass is gone from the window to the right of the cigar store's entrance, and parts of the display are hanging out over the street, suggesting its contents have been taken, while a large hole is visible in the window to the left. The one visible window of the cleaning store closest to the camera is also missing a large section, with debris scattered on the street in front of it. The other three white-owned businesses in this block of 7th Avenue suffered similar damage and loss of merchandise. Unlike those five businesses, neither the condition of the Cozy Shoppe nor the other Black-owned business, a beauty parlor, was recorded in the survey undertaken by MCCH investigator James Tartar gathering information on police shooting Lloyd Hobbs on 128th Street just west of the intersection, suggesting that the beauty parlor was also undamaged. Across 7th Avenue from the Cozy Shoppe, the Black-owned Williams drug store did have windows broken, but those which had "Colored Store, Nix Jack!" written on them. So too did the Black-owned Battle's Pharmacy across 128th Street from the restaurant at 2156 7th Avenue.

The MCCH business survey misrecorded the address of the Cozy Tea Shoppe as 2158 7th Avenue, on the north rather than south side of 128th Street (there are several other mistakes and businesses missing from the MCCH survey for this block). The shop owners were part of the group of Black business-owners interviewed by MCCH staff conducting the business survey. The investigator described the Cozy Shoppe as "a moderate-sized restaurant, containing booths and tables for 30 people, & counter chairs for 8 or 9 more. It is quite clean, attractively furnished, & quality of food & service is high." The business had opened at this address six years ago, with three owners and five staff.

The business at 2154 7th Avenue in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941 has signwriting on the windows in a different style than appeared in the newsreel footage but must still be the Cozy Shoppe, as the restaurant appears in an advertising story in the New York Age in 1949.
Preparation for the Public Hearing on April 20 No Secretary's report by Eunice Carter providing an overview of the work of the MCCH staff was found for any week after March 30-April 5. The investigative work being done has to be reconstructed from correspondence in the Records of Mayor La Guardia and the Hays Papers, and from reports by James Tartar, the lead investigator for the subcommittee, which are also spread across those two collections.

Roberts announced April 20 as the date of the hearing at the MCCH meeting on April 12. The sources contained no mention of why the interval before the next hearing was two weeks rather than one week as had been the case with the previous hearing. Hays was absent from both the April 12 meeting and the April 19 meeting, so may have been out of town or otherwise committed on April 13.

After learning that the killing of Lloyd Hobbs had been presented to the grand jury on April 10, and dismissed, Hays exchanged letters with District Attorney Dodge about what evidence had been presented. The three eye-witnesses who had testified in the hearing on April 6 had clearly persuaded Hays that the shooting was not justified, as he committed to having the police witnesses testify in a public hearing now that the legal proceeding over and Dodge's instructions about what police officers could say in a public hearing did not prevent that testimony.

McInerney's partner, Patrolman Watterson, and the detective who investigated the shooting, John O'Brien, both appear on a list of eleven police officers in the Hays Papers. That list appears to be officers from which the MCCH wanted to hear testimony and was likely prepared before the April 20 hearing. Tick marks appear next to the four officers who appeared in that hearing, Watterson and O'Brien, Detective McCormick, the stenographer who recorded a statement by Lloyd Hobbs at Harlem Hospital, and Patrolman Kaminsky, who testified about the death of August Miller. Two officers on the list had already appeared at a public hearing: Patrolman Donahue, who had released Lino Rivera, and Patrolman Eppler, who had arrested Frank Wells, but been unable to testify about that case. The other police officers on the list did not testify in a public hearing. Patrolman Murphy was identified as a witness in the death of Andrew Lyons, and Patrolman MacKenzie, as a witness in the cases of Cornelius, Ford and Jones. Detective Johnson, was the officer who arrested Margaret Mitchell in the Kress store, according to a note from Lieutenant Battle in the Hays papers. There was no annotation about the cases about which the remaining two officers, Patrolmen Havilini and Kinstrey, had evidence.

A document dated April 13 in the Records of Mayor La Guardia suggests that a visit to the MCCH by Mrs Nora Ford, the mother of William Ford, may have been responsible for Patrolman Mackenzie appearing on the list of police witnesses. She came to "lodge a complaint against the police department" related to his arrest by Mackenzie for breaking windows in the Kress store. The document recorded no details of her complaint, nor do any of the records if Ford's arrest and prosecution mention any complaint. There are no records of an investigation of the complaint by the MCCH.

Hays did respond to one other complaint, from Gerald Hamilton on behalf of an unnamed Black woman who had been assaulted by an Italian baker during a dispute over him giving her a counterfeit coin who the magistrate refused to punish. Hays requested that the woman come to the hearing on April 20.

It appeared that those two complaints were not the only cases of "police brutality" about which the MCCH learned at this time. Villard reported to the MCCH meeting on April 19 that there were "far too many cases" to hold hearings on them all. Neither Nora Ford's complaint nor the one submitted by Hamilton would be part of the hearing on April 20, and were likely among those the subcommittee planned to investigate in some other way (later specified as having lawyers from the Harlem Lawyers' Association investigate). The MCCH had its investigator, James Tartar, gather information about the cases it had identified after the previous hearing.

Tartar's reports record that in this two week period he interviewed the storekeepers on the block where Lloyd Hobbs was shot, gathered records from the 23rd Precinct about the cases of Thomas Aiken and Edward Laurie, and interviewed Aiken and the aunt of James Thompson, the other Black man known to have been killed by police during the disorder. The interview with Aiken was dated April 19, and the other reports were dated April 20, so may not have been complete before the hearing on that date. Some copies were annotated "Memo to Mr Hays" and dated May 1, suggesting that Eunice Carter compiled them for Hays after the hearing on April 20. In that case, he may not have had this material for the hearing.
Alfonso Principe's saloon looted Around 9:00 PM, an object thrown from the street broke the first window in the Harlem Grill, a saloon at 2140 7th Avenue, the manager, Louis Fata, told James Tartar, an investigator for the MCCH. Over an hour later, between 10 and 11:00 PM, more objects thrown at the saloon broke two more windows. At some point in the evening, individuals went further into the business, stealing "about $700" of stock, Fata estimated. Further examination clearly revealed fewer losses, as when the owner Alfonso Principe filed a claim for damages, he asked for only $453.90, according to the New York Sun and New York Amsterdam News. Tartar also recorded information from the white owners of four of the other six occupied stores on this block of 7th Avenue, between West 127th Street and West 128th Street. They reported windows broken sometime between 8:45 PM and 11:00 PM, and stock losses ranging from $33 at the cigar store at 2154 7th Avenue, $200 at the grocery store next to the saloon at 2140 7th Avenue, and $150 at the cleaning company at 2152 7th Avenue, to $850 at the auto equipment store at 2152 7th Avenue. None of those neighboring storeowners were among the twenty-seven identified as suing the city for failing to protect their businesses, but an additional eighty-five who brought suits were not identified. The Black-owned Cozy Shoppe at 2154 7th Avenue, on the corner of 128th Street, was undamaged; someone from that store had written "Colored Shoppe" on the store window. Tartar included the "Cozy Shop" on his drawing of the block, together with a Black-owned beauty parlor to the left of the auto equipment store, but neither appear in his list of looted businesses, suggesting the beauty parlor may also have been undamaged.

When crowds that had been focused on the block of West 125th Street housing Kress' store began moving to other parts of Harlem, the blocks immediately north on 7th Avenue were among their first targets. The saloon sat on the corner of 7th Avenue and West 127th Street, so only two blocks from where the disorder began. As they had on West 125th Street, people threw objects at the windows of white stores, at whites on the streets, and around 11:00 PM, at a passing Fifth Avenue Company bus, and later looted stores. The time the crowds appeared was early enough in the evening that most of the stores would still have been open for business, or at least still staffed, as the saloon apparently was. That all those interviewed by Tartar could give a time when people threw objects that broke their store windows indicates they were present. Someone was also present in the Cozy Shoppe to write on its window that it was a "Colored Shoppe." It is not clear if the white business were occupied when they were looted. Tartar recorded the value of the stock stolen from their stores, suggesting that looting may have happened some time after windows were broken, as more general narratives in the press relate. Crowds smashed windows in stores on the opposite side of the street apparently without looting them around 9:45 PM, when a police officer arrested Leroy Brown for urging a group of people to follow his lead after he threw a tailor's dummy through a window. No one arrested for looting is identified as having stolen goods from the saloon.

James Tartar investigated the Harlem Grill, and those businesses neighboring it, because of what happened after the looting, or at least after the looting had started. Around 12:55 AM, two police officers in a squad car traveling south on 7th Avenue reported hearing smashing glass, and seeing Lloyd Hobbs, a sixteen-year-old Black student standing in the store window passing merchandise to a crowd of people on the street. After they stopped their car and chased after the crowd, one, Patrolman McInerny, fatally shot Hobbs. Hobbs and witnesses at the scene said he had been passing b,y not taking goods from the store. The only other sources that mentioned the Harlem Grill are the New York Sun and New York Amsterdam News stories about the first group of business owners to sue the city (which gave the address of the business not its name). By the time the city comptroller heard testimony from those who had filed claims, 106 owners had sought damages. Principe was not among those whose testimony appeared in newspaper stories about that proceeding, nor did he appear in any of the reported court cases to resolve those claims.

The claim for $453.90 in losses was less than the median reported claim of $733. The city lost the court cases, so Principe likely was awarded some amount of damages, but based on those cases it was only a small proportion. However, it appears he was able to remain in business. The Harlem Grill appeared in both the MCCH business survey conducted in the second half of 1935, and in the Tax Department photograph of 2140 7th Avenue taken in 1939-1941.
Mr Lazar's cigar store looted Around 9.30 PM, an object thrown from the street broke a window in Lazar's cigar store at 2154 7th Avenue, the owner told James Tartar, an investigator for the MCCH. By 10.30 PM, objects thrown at the store had broken two more windows. Newsreel footage shot on 7th Avenue in front of the cleaning company to the south of the cigar store looking toward the corner showed the glass gone from window to the right of the store's entrance, whose contents appear to have been taken, and a large hole in the window to the left. Lazar's losses totaled $33, Tartar recorded. He also spoke to the white owners of four of the other six occupied stores on this block of 7th Avenue, between West 127th Street and West 128th Street. They reported windows broken sometime between 8.45 PM and 11.00 PM, and stock losses ranging from $150 at the cleaning company at 2152 7th Avenue, $200 at the grocery store at 2140 7th Avenue, $700 at the saloon next to the grocery store at 2140 7th Avenue, to $850 at the auto equipment store at 2150 7th Avenue. The Black-owned Cozy Shoppe on the right side of the cigar store was undamaged; someone from that store had written "Colored Shoppe" on the store window. Tartar included the "Cozy Shop" on his drawing of the block, together with a Black-owned beauty parlor to the left of the auto equipment store, but neither appeared in his list of looted businesses, suggesting the beauty parlor may also have been undamaged. Lazar was not among the twenty-seven owners identified as having sued the city for failing to protect their businesses, but an additional eighty-five owners who brought suits were not identified. Tartar recorded "losses" rather than "stock losses" in the case of the cigar store, raising the possibility that only Lazar's windows were damaged, rather than the store being looted. However, one window visible in the newsreel appeared to have items taken from it, with parts of the display hanging out over the street.

The times that the windows were broken was early enough in the evening that most of those stores would still have been open for business, or at least still staffed, as the cigar store apparently was. That all those interviewed by Tartar could give a time when people threw objects that broke their store windows indicated that they witnessed the attacks. Someone was also in the Cozy Shoppe to write on its window that it was a "Colored Shoppe." It was not clear if the white business were occupied when they were looted. Tartar recorded the value of the stock stolen from their stores, suggesting that looting may have happened some time after windows were broken, as more general narratives in the press relate. Crowds smashed windows in stores on the opposite side of the street apparently without looting them around 9.45 PM, when a police officer arrested Leroy Brown for urging a group of people to follow his lead after he threw a tailor's dummy through a window. No one arrested for looting is identified as having stolen goods from the store.

James Tartar's survey was the only source that mentioned the grocery store. His investigation was related to what happened after the looting, or at least after the looting had started. Around 12.55 AM, two police officers in a squad car traveling south on 7th Avenue reported hearing smashing glass, and seeing Lloyd Hobbs, a sixteen-year-old Black student standing in the window of the auto equipment store at 2150 7th Avenue passing merchandise to a crowd of people on the street. Hobbs and witnesses at the scene said he had been passing by not taking goods from the store. After stopping their car, one of the officers, Patrolman John McInerny, chased after the crowd and fatally shot Hobbs.

It was not clear if Lazar was able to remain in business. The MCCH business survey did not record any stores at 2154 7th Avenue, but given that the survey located the Cozy Shoppe at 2158 7th Avenue, instead of 2154 7th Avenue, the white-owned stationary store recorded as being at 2156 7th Avenue may have been Lazar's business. The nature of the businesses at 2154 7th Avenue was not visible in the Tax Department photograph taken in 1939-1941.
K. Percy's tailor and cleaning store looted Around 8.45 PM, an object thrown from the street broke a window in the N. Y. Cleaning and Dyeing Company store at 2152 7th Avenue, the owner Mr. K. Percy told James Tartar, an investigator for the MCCH. By 9.30 PM, more objects thrown at the store had broken three more windows. At some point in the evening, individuals went further into the business, stealing $150 of stock. Newsreel footage shot on 7th Avenue in front of the cleaning company shows the window to the right off the door missing a large section, with debris scattered on the street in front of it (the rest of the store is out of shot). Tartar also recorded information from the white owners of four of the other six occupied stores on this block of 7th Avenue, between West 127th Street and West 128th Street. They reported windows broken sometime between 8.45 PM and 11.00 PM, and stock losses ranging from $33 at the cigar store at 2154 7th Avenue, $200 at the grocery store at 2140 7th Avenue, $700 at the saloon next to the grocery store at 2140 7th Avenue, to $850 at the auto equipment store at 2150 7th Avenue. The Black-owned Cozy Shoppe at 2154 7th Avenue, on the corner of 128th Street, was undamaged; someone from that store had written "Colored Shoppe" on the store window. Tartar included the "Cozy Shop" on his drawing of the block, together with a Black-owned beauty parlor to the left of the auto equipment store, but neither appear in his list of looted businesses, suggesting the beauty parlor may also have been undamaged. Percy was not among the twenty-seven identified as suing the city for failing to protect their businesses, but an additional eighty-five who brought suits were not identified.

When crowds that had been focused on the block of West 125th Street housing Kress' store began moving to other parts of Harlem, the blocks immediately north on 7th Avenue were among their first targets. As they had on West 125th Street, people threw objects at the windows of white stores, at whites on the streets, and around 11.00 PM, at a passing Fifth Avenue Company bus, and later looted stores. The time the crowds appeared was early enough in the evening that most of the stores would still have been open for business, or at least still staffed, as the saloon apparently was. That all those interviewed by Tartar could give a time when people threw objects that broke their store windows indicates they were present. Someone was also present in the Cozy Shoppe to write on its window that it was a "Colored Shoppe." It is not clear if the white business were occupied when they were looted. Tartar recorded the value of the stock stolen from their stores, suggesting that looting may have happened some time after windows were broken, as more general narratives in the press relate. Crowds smashed windows in stores on the opposite side of the street apparently without looting them around 9.45 PM, when a police officer arrested Leroy Brown for urging a group of people to follow his lead after he threw a tailor's dummy through a window. No one arrested for looting is identified as having stolen goods from the store.

James Tartar's survey is the only source that mentions Percy's store. His investigation was related to what happened after the looting, or at least after the looting had started. Around 12.55 AM, two police officers in a squad car traveling south on 7th Avenue reported hearing smashing glass, and seeing Lloyd Hobbs, a sixteen-year-old Black student standing in the window of the auto equipment store at 2150 7th Avenue passing merchandise to a crowd of people on the street. After they stopped their car and chased after the crowd, one, Patrolman McInerny, fatally shot Hobbs. Hobbs and witnesses at the scene said he had been passing by not taking goods from the store.

It appears that Percy was able to remain in business. Although the MCCH business survey does not include a store at this address, a tailor and cleaning store appears in the Tax Department photograph of 2152 7th Avenue taken in 1939-1941.(Tartar's sketch of the block in 1935 identified Percy's business as a tailor, while the newsreel footage shows a sign advertising prices for cleaning).
J. P. Bulluroff's grocery store looted Around 8.45 PM, an object thrown from the street broke a window in J. P. Bulluroff's grocery store at 2140 7th Avenue, he told James Tartar, an investigator for the MCCH. By 10 PM, more objects thrown at the store had broken two more windows. At some point in the evening, individuals went further into the business, stealing $200 of stock. Tartar also spoke to the owners of four of the other six occupied stores on this block of 7th Avenue, between West 127th Street and West 128th Street. They reported windows broken sometime between 8.45 PM and 11.00 PM, and stock losses ranging from $33 at the cigar store at 2154 7th Avenue, $700 at the saloon next to the grocery store at 2140 7th Avenue, $150 at the cleaning company at 2152 7th Avenue, to $850 at the auto equipment store at 2150 7th Avenue. Bulluroff was not among the twenty-seven identified as suing the city for failing to protect their businesses, but an additional eighty-five who brought suits were not identified. The Black-owned Cozy Shoppe at 2154 7th Avenue, on the corner of 128th Street, was undamaged; someone from that store had written "Colored Shoppe" on the store window. Tartar included the "Cozy Shop" on his drawing of the block, together with a Black-owned beauty parlor to the left of the auto equipment store, but neither appear in his list of looted businesses, suggesting the beauty parlor may also have been undamaged.

When crowds that had been focused on the block of West 125th Street housing Kress' store began moving to other parts of Harlem, the blocks immediately north on 7th Avenue were among their first targets. As they had on West 125th Street, people threw objects at the windows of white stores, at whites on the streets, and around 11.00 PM, at a passing Fifth Avenue Company bus, and later looted stores. The time the crowds appeared was early enough in the evening that most of the stores would still have been open for business, or at least still staffed, as the saloon apparently was. That all those interviewed by Tartar could give a time when people threw objects that broke their store windows indicates they were present. Someone was also present in the Cozy Shoppe to write on its window that it was a "Colored Shoppe." It is not clear if the white business were occupied when they were looted. Tartar recorded the value of the stock stolen from their stores, suggesting that looting may have happened some time after windows were broken, as more general narratives in the press relate. Crowds smashed windows in stores on the opposite side of the street apparently without looting them around 9.45 PM, when a police officer arrested Leroy Brown for urging a group of people to follow his lead after he threw a tailor's dummy through a window. No one arrested for looting is identified as having stolen goods from the store.

James Tartar's survey is the only source that mentions the grocery store. His investigation was related to what happened after the looting, or at least after the looting had started. Around 12.55 AM, two police officers in a squad car traveling south on 7th Avenue reported hearing smashing glass, and seeing Lloyd Hobbs, a sixteen-year-old Black student standing in the window of the auto equipment store at 2150 7th Avenue passing merchandise to a crowd of people on the street. After they stopped their car and chased after the crowd, one, Patrolman McInerny, fatally shot Hobbs. Hobbs and witnesses at the scene said he had been passing by not taking goods from the store.

It appears that Bulluroff was able to remain in business. A grocery store, the Harlem Market, appears in the Tax Department photograph of 2140 7th Avenue taken in 1939-1941, with Bulluroff's name visible on the awning in the photograph of 2142 7th Avenue. (However, the MCCH business survey identifies the grocery store at 2140 7th Avenue as a black-owned business named the Economy Grocery Store).