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

Liggett's Pharmacy windows broken (Lenox Avenue)

The Liggett's Pharmacy at 296 Lenox Avenue, on the southeast corner of West 125th Street, was one of the businesses in a list of those with broken windows made by a reporter for La Prensa who walked along West 116th Street, Lenox Avenue and West 125th Street on the day after the disorder. In the case of this store, the reporter added the detail that all store windows facing north, on West 125th Street, had been smashed. The drug store appeared in a list of stores the reporter "found to have broken windows" as they walked north on Lenox Avenue from West 116th Street. After identifying several locations that suffered damage between 115th and 119th Streets, the reporter listed no damaged buildings until a laundry at 277 Lenox Avenue, in the block to the south of the drug store, and the Lenox Empire Grill and Victoria Pharmacy across the street in the same block as the Liggett's Pharmacy. It was possible some stores suffered minor damage in the intervening blocks of Lenox Avenue; the La Prensa reporter concluded his list by noting he had not included others as they had only suffered minor damage ("y otras mas que por ser los danos ocasionados relativamente pequeños no creimus de interes catalogar entre los establecimientos ya mencionados"). However, there are no other reported events on those blocks during the disorder. Few businesses were located in that area. The first windows were likely broken around 10:30 PM or 11:00 PM, when crowds who had come from 7th Avenue along 125th Street began attacking businesses on the blocks of Lenox Avenue to the north. The businesses with broken windows in the blocks to the south of the store were likely attacked around 11:00 PM.

No other sources mentioned this drug store, and no one arrested during the disorder was identified as breaking the business' windows. The MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935 did not record any businesses at 296 Lenox Avenue, but this branch of Liggett's Pharmacy chain can be seen in the Tax department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941.

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