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Koch Department store windows not broken
Henry Koch opened the store in 1891, the first major business in what had until then been a residential area. In 1930, Henry's son William T. Koch had sold the department store, to A. Schaap and Sons, clothing jobbers, the New York Times reported. While that story quoted Koch as obliquely saying that the closing of the store was "but another token of the changed neighborhood," the New York Age more directly stated that as Black residents moved to the area, he showed them an "antagonistic attitude" and the store "became more and more exclusive, catering to the wealthier white residents," losing "so much trade they were forced out of business." The new owners operated it as "the 125th Street Store," which advertisements in the New York Amsterdam News indicate operated at least in part as a discount store, selling the stock of bankrupt businesses.
Morris Weinstein leased the store in 1934, operating it under the Koch name. Shortly before the renovated store opened on June 14, Weinstein announced "a third of his clerical staff will be colored," the New York Age reported. That decision came just as a new wave of picketing and boycotts targeting white-owned businesses on West 125th Street that did not employ Black staff began. Sufi Abdul Hamid and members of his Negro Industrial and Clerical Alliance had begun picketing the Woolworths 5c & 10c store a block west at 210 West 125th Street in mid-May, 1934, making their way on to the pages of the New York Amsterdam News when prominent clergyman Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. was photographed after he joined them two weeks later. Hamid's radicalism prompted an alliance of social and political organizations, fraternal lodges and churches to come together in the Citizens League for Fair Play (CLFP), first targeting Blumstein's Department store with a boycott and picket campaign. Against that backdrop, the New York Age, a staunch proponent of the CLFP, reported Weinstein's decision to hire Black staff as a result of "admitting the justice of the Negro's demand that employment be given qualified Negroes in Harlem stores where the majority of the trade is colored." West Indian writer and social commentator Claude McKay presented Weinstein as motivated more by self-interest, that "the employment of colored clerks might effect not only better relations between white employers and colored consumers, but also bugger business." McKay added the rumor, "never admitted by either side," that Weinstein struck "a secret agreement that the Negro Industrial and Clerical Alliance should boost [Koch's Department store] among the people of Harlem." The New York Age claimed the role of selecting staff for the organizations it supported. One New York Age story, refuting attacks on the tactics of the CLFP by William H. Davies, identified Miller of the African Patriotic League as "the man chosen to select the Negro personell [sic] of Koch's." That organization took a leading role in organizing the pickets for the CLFP campaign. A week later, Vere Johns, a columnist for the New York Age, claimed Rev. Johnson, the leader of the CLFP, and the African Vanguard, helped choose the staff.
After Blumstein agreed to hire Black staff in August 1934, Weinstein more prominently promoted the Black staff of Koch's store. Where the first advertisements for Weinstein's store somewhat generically announced that it was a "New Store; New Deal, New People; New Policy, The Store With a Heart," an August advertisement more directly addressed how different its staffing was to its neighbors on 125th Street, with a banner that read "We Lead For Fair Play! Let Others Follow! There is No Distinction of Race, Creed or Color at H. C. F. Koch & Co." That same month Weinstein told the New York Amsterdam News that the store had fifty-seven Black sales girls, stock men, porters and elevator men in a staff of 125 employees, at least four or five times the proportion of Black employees as any other business on 125th Street that spoke to the reporter. Among the more prominent activities Weinstein undertook to further expand his appeal to Black shoppers was a "Three Day Scottsboro Rally" in November 1934, with a percentage of the sales receipts donated to the defense of the Scottsboro Boys.
In 1937 Koch's store was sold to Samuel Kanter, who reopened it "redecorated, renovated and modernized" in April 1937 as Kanter's Department Store, a promotional story in New York Amsterdam News reported. He expected "to create more and better jobs for the people in the community," Kanter told the newspaper, going on to say "at the present time, I am in favor of employing at least twenty-five percent Negro help, perhaps more." The store does not appear to have promoted its Black staff to the same extent Weinstein had, as when a new wave of protests began in 1938, a spokesman contacted the New York Amsterdam News "seeking to clarify any mis-apprehension as to the number of Negro employees in their store." The list provided to the newspaper identified nearly thirty Black staff, "most of whom were employed in the same capacities as others." It is Kanter's Department store that was photographed by the Tax Department between 1939 and 1941.
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This page references:
- Probation Department Case File, 26461 (1935) (New York City Municipal Archives)
- [Advertisement] "We Lead for Fair Play!" New York Amsterdam News, August 4, 1934, 2.
- "Numerosos Establecimientos Hispanos Apedreados y Saqueados por la Turba," La Prensa, March 21, 1935, 1.
- Claude McKay, Harlem: Negro Metropolis (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1940), 192.
- "Negro Clerks To Be Employed in New Koch Department Store Which Reopens on June 13," New York Age, June 9, 1934, 1.
- "Everythign Will Zoom in Harlem When Kanter's Hold Its Opening," New York Amsterdam News, April 17, 1937, 4.
- "Leaders Comment on Riot," New York Age, March 30, 1935, 1.
- "Wm. H. Davis Claims Credit for Negro Clerks in 125th St.," New York Age, June 9, 1934, 1.
- [Photograph] "Minister Pickets," New York Amsterdam News, May 26, 1934, 1.
- [Advertisement] "Your Store Is Open--Make It Your Headquarters!" New York Amsterdam News, June 16, 1934, 5.
- "Negro Harlem Terrorized," Daily Worker, March 21, 1935, 1, 2.
- [Advertisement] "125th St. Store-Formerly Koch's Department Store: Another Scoop: We Purchased Louis Saks' Store," New York Amsterdam News, November 8, 1933, 3.
- "Mayor LaGuardia, Rabbi Wise and Others Endorse Koch's Scottsboro Sales Rally," New York Amsterdam News, November 10, 1934, 1.
- "Kanter's Department Store Aids Job Drive," New York Amsterdam News, April 20, 1938, 3.
- "125th Street: "After the Boycott--What? All Harlem Awaits Answer," New York Amsterdam News, August 11, 1934, 9.
- "Harlem's Pioneer Department Store Sold; Koch's Began Trade Invasion of 125th Street," New York Times, August 22, 1930, 9.