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

"List of Dead And Injured In Riot In New York City," Norfolk Journal and Gazette, March 30, 1935, 18.

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Charles Alston arrested Near the end of the disorder, at 5 AM on March 20, Charles Alston, Albert Yerber, Edward Loper and Ernest Johnson allegedly opened fire on police stationed at Lenox Avenue and West 138th Street. No police officers were reported injured, but Alston suffered a fractured skull as the men fled police. Trying to escape by leaping from the roof of a six-story-building to the adjoining building, Alston fell to a second-floor ledge. He was a twenty-one-year-old Black man, as was Loper, Johnson was twenty-two years of age, and Yerber twenty years of age. Alston lived northwest of the alleged shooting, on the edge of Harlem at 512 West 153rd Street. The other men also lived west of where they were arrested, within Harlem, Johnson at 206 West 140th St. Loper at 298 West 138th St., and Yerber at 106 Edgecombe Ave. Only a small proportion of those involved in the disorder lived above 135th Street.

Newspaper stories contained few details of the shooting, even as they employed a range of dramatic and emotive language - for example, the New York World Telegram reported a “nest” of snipers “trying to pick off” policemen. Stories in the New York World Telegram and Brooklyn Daily Eagle did offer the name of the officer allegedly targeted by Alston and his companions, Patrolman Jerry Brennan of the Morrisiana station, and the same dramatic account that a bullet whistled past his ear as he stood on post at Lenox Ave and 138th Street. Taking cover, he saw the men on the roof of the six-story building at 101 West 138th. Soon after police reinforcements arrived and rushed to the roof to arrest the men. One other story, in the Home News, identified Brennan, but cast him not as the target of the shooters but as one of the police who responded. In a radio car assigned to the area with his partner Patrolman McGrady, Brennan “heard the shots and sped to the scene. At the radio car's approach the four snipers [standing in the doorway] ran to the roof of the building.” This story provides the key detail that no guns were found on Alston and his companions.

Alston did not appear in court, likely because of his injury, but on March 20 the other three men were charged with disorderly conduct, according to the Washington Heights Magistrates Court docket book. That offense did not involve any violence, reflecting that no guns were found in their possession; instead it focused on the men's presence in the area. It does not appear police had any evidence that Yerber, Loper or Johnson had created any sort of disturbance, as Magistrate Ford released all three men. Given that outcome, it is possible police officers confused where the shots fired at them came from, or perhaps mistook some other noise for gunfire. Without any evidence of an assault in the sources, these events are treated here only as arrests.

Alston’s fall attracted more attention than the shooting. Again the Home News offers the most detail, noting that the leap that Alston had attempted was a distance of seven feet (the New York Post said 6 feet), and that after he landed on the ledge he managed to crawl through the window into an apartment and hid under a bed. His escape bid failed as the occupants of the apartment called police. The Home News report also makes clear that Alston did not appear seriously injured at the time of his arrest. It was at the 135th police station that he collapsed and was found to have a fractured skull, the serious injury noted in less detailed stories and in lists of the injured. (The New York Evening Journal was the only other newspaper to report these details, although it mistakenly reported that the group arrested numbered three not four. The New York Post did report that Alston hid under a bed.)

The New York Daily News published a photograph of Alston's arrest in which he is holding his head, suggesting he did appear injured at that time. The caption published with the photo drew attention to the “clubbed gun” held by the uniformed officer leading Alston a patrol wagon (seeming to suggest that the officer had used the gun butt to hit Alston). It concludes starkly, “He’s dying.” The photo published in the Norfolk Journal and Gazette and New York World-Telegram credited to the International Photo agency and likely taken with the camera visible in the foreground of the New York Daily News photo a few seconds earlier, also clearly shows Alston clutching his head, with marks on his trousers and jacket that may be evidence of his fall. The officer’s clubbed gun is also again visible, together with the night stick of his partner. The full photograph from which the published image is cropped, part of the Bettman Collection digitized by Getty Images, provides a clearer view of those gathered around the building.
Embed from Getty Images

Visible to the right of this group are three black men obscured in the New York Daily News photo, which shows only white men. Given the location of this arrest in the heart of Harlem, at 5AM, the only whites likely to be present would be police detectives in plainclothes and reporters. The photographs are some of the few taken beyond the area around 125th Street. By the time of Alston’s arrest the disorder was over, allowing white pressmen to travel more freely in Harlem than they had earlier, when crowds had attacked them.

The captions accompanying the published cropped versions of the photo in the Norfolk Journal and Gazette and New York World Telegram misidentify Alston as a suspected looter.

The New York American, New York Evening Journal and New York Post include Alston in their lists of the injured, as did the New York Herald Tribune on March 21, and the Black newspapers the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette several days later, all describing the nature of his injuries with no reference to the circumstances in which he suffered them.
Harry Gordon arrested Around 6 PM, Harry Gordon, a twenty-year-old white man was arrested in front of Kress' store on West 125th Street for assaulting Patrolman Irwin Young. Newspaper reports offer a wide variety of contradictory accounts of the circumstances of Gordon's arrest; some identified him as speaking to the crowd, others as caught up when police moved in to arrest the man who was speaking, another white man identified as Daniel Miller. Gordon was charged with grabbing Young's nightstick and hitting him with it. He denied assaulting Young, charging instead that the officer had hit him from behind with the night stick. A witness to the arrest, Louise Thompson, told the MCCH that Gordon did “nothing” while being “brutally beaten by two large Policemen.” Police arrested Miller, two other white men, Samuel Jamison and Murray Samuels, and a black man, Claudio Diabolo at the same time, charging them with inciting the crowd.

After police arrested Gordon, they threw him in a patrol car and drove him to a police station. Interviewed by a Daily Worker journalist a week after the riot, Gordon alleged he was "kicked on the legs and knocked around" before being put in a cell. Police later put four Black men in the cell with him, one who Gordon described as "very badly beaten, his whole face and head swollen terribly, and covered with blood." When police took the group upstairs for questioning, and later fingerprinting, the beatings continued, with police officers calling them "vile, unprintable names" and threatening to shoot them. At the MCCH hearing on May 4, Gordon alleged that police officers continued to beat him around the shins as was being booked. After placing Gordon in a cell, Young allegedly later returned and took him to a room upstairs for a further beating with a club. While being held, Gordon testified, he was not allowed to contact a lawyer or his family and was not fed until he had been in custody for more than twenty-four hours and had been arraigned in the Magistrate's Court. [Does the transcript record him testifying with the same details as reported in the DW?]

Gordon was among the group of around eighty-nine arrested put in a line-up and questioned by detectives in front of reporters downtown at Police Headquarters on the morning of March 20, before being loaded into patrol wagons and taken back uptown to the Harlem and Washington Heights Magistrates Courts. While Gordon stood on the "klieg-lit platform," Captain Edward Dillon questioned him about his role in the disorder, an exchange reported in three newspapers. The briefest mention appeared in the Daily Mirror, which reported the details of the setting, but only that "under the grilling conducted by Acting Capt. Edward Dillon" Gordon declared "I am a student at City College of New York" and "refused to answer further questions." The reporter described Gordon's manner as "defiant." Other reporters conveyed a similar judgment in their portrayals of Gordon. The New York Herald Tribune described him as "a tall, lanky youth [who] thrust one hand in his pocket and struck an orator's attitude" during the questioning; the New York Sun described his pose as "Napoleonic." Neither of those stories mention Gordon identifying himself as a student; they instead quote him as refusing to answer questions until he saw a lawyer; the Sun reported Gordon as saying:
"I have no comment to make until I see my lawyer. I understand that anything I might say would be used against me."

"If you are not guilty why do you want to see a lawyer?" he was asked.

"I know all that," he replied with a wave of his hand "But I won't talk until I see my lawyer."
The Daily Mirror concluded that Gordon, in responding as he did, "had practically declared himself the inciter of the night's rioting" and the leader of the four others arrested at the beginning of the disorder. Gordon himself, testifying at the MCCH hearing, set himself apart, as a passerby who had attempted to urge the crowd to go to the police for information. Inquiries by reporters from the New York Evening Journal found no evidence that Gordon was a City College Student, with the New York Herald Tribune reporting Dean Morton Gottschall did not find him in college records. The New York Evening Journal did confirm that he lived in the Bronx, at 699 Prospect Avenue.

Gordon appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, shortly after the four alleged Communists arrested at the start of the disorder. Only the Daily Mirror included the detail that Gordon said he would produce his own lawyer rather than be represented by the International Labor Defense lawyers who appeared on behalf of the other men. Although the Home News, New York Post, New York World-Telegram, New York Age, and the list published by the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, reported the charge against him as inciting a riot, the charge recorded in the Magistrates Court Docket book was assault; initially felonious assault, but the clerk struck that out and wrote "Red[uced] to Simple Assault misd[emeanor]." The charge of assault was reported by New York American, New York Evening Journal, New York Times and New York Herald Tribune. A second list in the New York Evening Journal, a later story in the New York Herald Tribune, and the New York Amsterdam News, Daily Mirror and New York Sun reported Gordon had been charged with both offenses. The inconsistent reporting may have resulted from confusion about whether Gordon was included alongside the other four alleged Communists in informations charging inciting a riot that the DA obtained from the grand jury (an information was a charge for an offense less serious than a felony, whereas an indictment charged a felony offense). According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, after being arraigned, Gordon and the three white men, Miller, Jamison and Samuels, had been "taken to the District Attorney's office for questioning on possible charges of indictment to riot." The New York Evening Journal and New York Sun announced the first grand jury charges without naming those charged; the New York Herald Tribune and New York Daily News stories distinguished "two informations charging five persons with inciting riot." The Daily Mirror named Gordon and the four other men as those charged. However, Gordon's case proceeded in a different way than those of the men charged with inciting a riot.

Magistrate Renaud remanded Gordon to reappear on the March 25, on a bond of $1000; the magistrate also remanded the other four alleged Communists, but for them set the maximum bail of $2500. Gordon returned to court, at the same time as the other four alleged Communists; while they were discharged so they could be indicted, Renaud remanded Gordon again to appear on March 27, with the New York American reporting "his case, it was said, is being investigated by the Grand Jury." (The only other newspaper to report this appearance was the New York World-Telegram). When Gordon did appear again, Renaud instead transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions, a decision only reported in the New York Amsterdam News, New York Times and New York Herald Tribune. That court had jurisdiction over misdemeanors such as the charge against Gordon. The outcome of his trial is unknown.
Charles Saunders arrested Around 2 AM, as Detective Jeremiah Duross of the 6th Division drove a police car on 7th Avenue, the sound of breaking glass drew his attention to a group of people in front of Ralph Sirico's shoe repair store at 1985 7th Avenue, according to a Probation Department investigation report. The noise was not caused by the store windows being smashed; the superintendent of the apartments above 1985 7th Avenue, Mr C. T. Berkeley, reported two men had done that earlier, between 11.30 PM and midnight. As the detective pulled his car up next to the store, the crowd in front of it scattered. He leapt out of the car and claimed he saw Charles Saunders, a twenty-four-year-old Black unemployed elevator operator jump out of the store window and run down the street. Duross gave chase and arrested Saunders, who he claimed had been drinking and had a fresh cut on his hand, which he implied had resulted from breaking glass in the window.

Saunders offered a different account than Duross, according to the Probation Department investigation report. He lived nearby, in a furnished room at 1967 7th Avenue a block south of the store, with his wife Anna Gregory. Around midnight, Saunders left home to buy cigarettes. Walking toward a crowd in front of Sirico's store, he saw shoes and hats being thrown through the broken window on to the street, where people in the crowd were picking them up. Saunders claimed he followed the lead of those around him, and picked up a pair of shoes, cutting his hand on glass on the street in the process, and headed home. At that point Duross arrested him. Saunders denied having been drinking; the detective said Saunders did not have a pair of shoes in his hands when arrested.

In fact, it seems that Duross did not find anything from the store in Saunders' possession, as none of stolen goods were recovered, according to the Probation Department investigation report. Nonetheless, Saunders appears to have been charged with taking all the goods that the report recorded Sirico said had been stolen: "18 or 20 hats which had been cleaned and blocked by him; about 25 pair of shoes which he had repaired; 5 or 6 pairs of unfinished shoes; one dozen leather soles; two and a half dozen rubber heels and a quantity of polish and shoe laces," with a total value he estimated as $66.75. While the District Attorney's case file is missing, the Probation Department investigation report summarizes the indictment against Saunders as accusing him of taking merchandise worth $66.95. The two newspaper reports of the case are less specific, with both the Home News and Daily Worker reporting the charge as stealing "several pairs of shoes."

Saunders is included in the lists of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, at which time Magistrate Renaud held him on $1000 bail to reappear, an outcome recorded in the docket book and reported only in the Home News. When Saunders was brought back to the court on March 22, detectives presented bench warrants indicating that the District Attorney had already filed an indictment against him. Magistrate Renaud consequently dismissed the charges against Saunders so the detectives could rearrest him, as happened with two other men, James Hughes and Isaac Daniels, an appearance reported in the New York Post. With the District Attorney's file missing, the date the grand jury indicted Saunders is unknown; it would have been several days prior to April 1, when Saunders appeared in the Court of General Sessions to plead guilty to petit larceny. That plea bargain is at odds with the statement in the report that none of the stolen property had been recovered. A district attorney generally offered it to those indicted for burglary after the disorder found with stolen goods in their possession; those found with nothing in their possession, as the Probation Department investigation report implied Saunders was, generally pled guilty to unlawful entry.

Immediately prior to Saunders appearing for sentencing in the Court of General Sessions on April 12, the Probation Department notified the judge of a letter from the Savannah Juvenile Court stating that Saunders' older sister Vable Greatt had offered to provide a home for him in Savannah, Georgia, and the Juvenile Court Probation Department would assist in his supervision, should the judge place him on probation. After a delay, presumably to confirm those arrangements, Judge Nott gave Saunders a suspended sentence and placed him on "indefinite" probation on the condition he go to Savannah (the 28th Precinct Police Blotter recorded only the suspended sentence, not the probation). Of the nine other men sentenced in the Court of General Sessions, only Arnold Ford was also placed on probation. Both men remained under supervision for the maximum period of three years, until 1938.

Saunders told a Probation officer that he had been born in Dublin, Georgia, the youngest of six children. His mother died when he was five years of age, and around that time he and his family moved to Savannah. After leaving school at age thirteen, Saunders did odd jobs and worked with his father, a carpenter. In 1929, his father remarried, and Saunders decided to go to New York City, where his brother Albert and sister Lola lived. After eighteen months living with Albert at 215 Edgecombe Avenue and working as a porter in a barber's shop at West 135th Street and 7th Avenue, ill-health forced him to return to live with his sister in Savannah for six months. Returning to New York City in 1931, Saunders lived with an aunt at 162 West 143rd Street until May 1933, when he met and then moved in with Anna Gregory. The Probation Department investigation report described her as "separated from her husband"; a letter in the file from the Brooklyn Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, to who the Family Court had referred Gregory in 1922, said her husband had abandoned her, leaving the state with funds provided by his mother. Saunders and Gregory were "known as man and wife," the Probation officer reported. In the fluid marriage patterns still practiced in working-class communities such informal relationships were not uncommon but the Probation Department did not recognize them, instead describing Gregory as Saunders' "mistress" and "sweetheart." Dr Charles Thompson of the Court's Psychiatric Clinic also saw a problem in Gregory being ten years older that Saunders, labeling him as immature for looking to her "for direction." In response to questions by a Probation officer, Gregory described Saunders as a good provider and their life as "harmonious."

Gregory worked as a laundress, Saunders in a barber's shop at 142nd Street and 7th Avenue, then part-time for a moving company based at 143rd Street and 7th Avenue, and beginning in September 1934 as an elevator operator at 385 Edgecombe Ave. After living for two years at 268 West 146th Street, the couple moved to 1967 7th Avenue in December 1934. Two months later Saunders lost his job after a dispute with the new building superintendent; the management company fired the superintendent soon after, and told a Probation officer that they saw him not Saunders as at fault. That fitted with the opinions of Saunders' employers and co-workers, which the Probation officer summarized as considering him honest, industrious and dependable; he and Gregory were similarly "well regarded" by their neighbors. The Probation Department investigation report followed Dr Thompson's examination report in attributing his alleged looting to "mob spirit." Thompson explained that concept as being "in company with several others under the influence of prejudice and aggressiveness," in the case of events in Harlem against "a background of racial antagonism, occasioned largely by the present lack of employment." Saunders' sister Vable Greatt explained his alleged looting, according to a letter from the Savannah Juvenile Court, as probably a result of him becoming "pretty well discouraged in his search for work," a "spiritual condition [that] caused him to fall to the temptation to steal."

While a good reputation and steady employment would have helped make Saunders a candidate for probation, Judge Nott's decision appears to have been largely a response to an offer from his sister and Savannah Juvenile Court Probation Department to supervise him. His sister Vable followed through on that offer, sending funds for Saunders' railway fare to Savannah; the Juvenile Court Probation Department did not do their part. Saunders' Probation officer's letters to his Georgia colleagues went unanswered for six months. During this time his only news of Saunders were reports he mailed weekly, using a form and stamps sent to him by the department. Soon after Saunders arrived in Savannah his sister became very sick, causing him to move in with his brother. In perfunctory answers to the questions on the form, he reported being unemployed, and involved in no education or social activities other than attending weekly services at a Protestant church.

As an alternative to the Juvenile Court, the Probation Department secured the help of the Savannah Family Welfare Society. Their worker's investigation in February 1936 solicited a very different picture of Saunders' life in Savannah from his sister and sister-in-law than he provided in his reports. Both complained he "never stayed home at night," was "drunk most of the time" and had become "lazy and shiftless," not willing to "keep a job when given one." The caseworker did not interview Saunders himself. The Probation Department responded by writing directly to Saunders, warning that his behavior was in violation of the terms of his probation, and the judge could take "disciplinary action" against him unless he improved his conduct and made "diligent efforts to obtain employment." They also requested the Savannah Family Welfare Society let Saunders report to them in person. In August 1936, Mrs Mamie Belcher, a caseworker, began countersigning Saunders' reports. The Society reported "no further complaints" about his behavior, which the Probation Department to unambiguously mean Saunders had changed his behavior. In June 1936, Saunders relocated to live again with his sister Vable. It took six more months before he found work, at a box manufacturing company. Nothing else changed in his answers on the report form until after a lapse in reporting in May 1937, when he wrote that he had moved to live with his sister Lois, who had returned from New York City. Only in Saunders' Discharge from Probation did the Probation officer mention that this change in circumstances came after his sister Vable was killed in a car accident. By the end of 1937 Saunders had moved back in with his brother and begun working irregularly as a stevedore.

Throughout his time in Savannah Saunders appears to have remained in contact with Anna Gregory. She came to the Probation Department at the end of 1935 concerned that he had been warned that his sentence could be reviewed if he failed to report regularly and seeking to have him return to the city. When Gregory applied for Home Relief, she described Saunders as her husband, prompting the Emergency Relief Bureau to contact the Probation Department in May 1937, who in turn sought information from Saunders about whether the couple had formally married. In the Discharge from Probation, the Probation officer described Saunders as "discontented as he missed New York, and Mrs Gregory, his mistress," information apparently passed on by the Savannah Welfare Society. Their caseworker also reported in January 1938 that Saunders' sister Lois "was anxious to have Charles return with her to New York." The Probation Department wrote to the Society, to Saunders and to his brother immediately before the end of his probation in April 1938 urging that "his best interests will be served" by remaining in Savannah. They also asked Saunders to advise the department of his plans. He did not reply. There is no evidence of what Saunders chose to do.
Thomas Jackson arrested Around 1.45 AM, Patrolmen Kalsky and Holland of the 28th Precinct saw a group of people around Jack Garmise's cigar store at 1916 7th Avenue, 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 man throw the milkcan. Jackson denied throwing anything at the store, or being part of an attack on it, when question by a Probation officer. Instead, he claimed he was drunk and had been walking along West 116th Street on his way to visit a prizefighter named Leo Williams to collect money he was owed when he had become caught in a crowd moving toward the store. Someone in the crowd then 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 claimed Jackson was sober. He also alleged he saw him reach his hand through the smashed window and take merchandise from the display. He later 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 the district attorney's decision to offer to let him plead guilty to unlawful entry, rather than petit larceny, as others arrested for looting who made plea bargains did. The other officer, Holland, arrested 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 a razor in Easley's possession. (Easley is not mentioned in the affidavit in the District Attorney’s case file in which he and Jackson are co-defendants, nor does the file include 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.

In addition to legal records, Jackson appears in newspaper reports of different stages of the legal process, few of which offered any details. His name is listed among those arrested in the Afro-American, Atlanta World and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. Only the Home News reported his arraignment in the Magistrates Court, and his reappearance to have his bail continued four days later is reported in only the New York Sun. Jackson's appearance in the Court of General Sessions a few days later to plead guilty attracted more coverage, in the New York Daily News, New York Herald Tribune, New York Post, New York Times, and New York Amsterdam News. The New York Times and New York Evening Journal were the only white papers to report his sentencing to six months in the Workhouse two weeks later, information also published in the New York Amsterdam News, New York Age and Afro-American, and recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter.

The Probation Department investigation conducted prior to Jackson's sentencing offers information on his life before his arrest. Born in Manhasset, Long Island, Thomas Dean was five years old when his mother left his father to live with Jonah Jackson. When they married, Thomas took Jackson as his last name. At age ten, Jackson's truancy resulted in his committal to a juvenile asylum in Chauncy for two years. After his release, he returned to live with his mother and finish his schooling in Corona. Soon after leaving school at age sixteen, around 1917, Jackson moved to Manhattan. He found work first for a moving company, and then as a driver for a bottle company on West 35th Street for eight years, before switching to driving a taxi. He told a Probation officer he was twice fined for speeding in 1923, and in 1928 served two days in prison for another traffic offense, offenses that did not appear in his criminal record and did not prevent his ongoing employment. During this time, from around 1920 until 1932, Jackson lived with Rose Repologo, an Italian woman, who the Probation Officer claimed was "an unwed mother who had been a former inmate of St Barnabas House," and who Jackson's sister described as "too good" for him. The couple lived downtown, at 414 West 36th Street, likely when Jackson worked nearby, information only in a second Probation Department investigation in 1940. He also reported being stabbed with a butcher's knife in a fight on West 36th Street in 1924, a detail in the Probation Officer's preliminary investigation not included in the report.

In 1930, Jackson was injured in a street car accident that required the amputation of his left arm below the elbow. Unable to find a job after the injury, Jackson, Repologo and her son were briefly on relief in 1932, by then living at 247 West 115th Street, until the New York Railway paid him $7800 in compensation for his injury. Sometime soon after, Repologo left Jackson. His sister told a Probation officer that after receiving the compensation Jackson "completely ignored" his family and "mistreated" Repologo, as a result of which Repologo left him for another man. The Home Relief Bureau reported Jackson told them that he had deposited $2500 in a bank account in the name of Rose Jackson, and that she had taken the money and disappeared. Early in 1933, Jackson invested $1200 in opening Tom's Confectionary Store in the basement of 270 West 115th Street, down the block from his residence. Setting up a small business was a strategy followed by many other residents of black neighborhoods in the 1930s when faced with unemployment. Jackson also joined many other small business owners in taking the opportunity to participate in Harlem's largest business, numbers gambling. In August 1933 he was convicted for collecting bets on numbers, the result he told a Probation officer in 1940 of having been found in his store with fourteen slips in his possession, sufficient only to result in a fine of $50. By the end of 1933, Jackson's business had failed. A Probation Officer reported the cause as Jackson's "neglect," recording in the preliminary investigation that Jackson claimed his "employees robbed him." The preliminary investigation also notes that the balance of Jackson's compensation payment had been spent on merchandise for the store. Jackson also said "he 'clowned' his way through life and spent most of his money having a 'big time'" in poolrooms, according to the Probation Department Investigation Report.

Soon after being forced to sell his store, Jackson moved in with his half-sister Beatrice Cooper and her family, and applied for Home Relief as part of that household. In 1934 the family lived in a series of apartments on West 118th Street, West 121st Street, and finally outside Harlem on West 99th Street. At the beginning of March 1935, Beatrice's husband John obtained a Work Relief job, and according to the Home Relief Bureau, refused to support Jackson. Jackson and his sister did not get on; a Probation Officer reported that he said that she was "too strict," while she described him as having "treated them with scorn." Relocating back to Harlem, Jackson moved into a furnished room in an apartment at 217 West 121st Street, and then, a day before the disorder, relocated to another at 253 West 121st Street. Unusually for the men arrested for involvement in the disorder, the report from the Psychiatric Clinic offered no explanation for Jackson's participation. Dr Sylvan Keiser described him as a "talkative, cheerful pleasant type of person" "of Average Intelligence."

Information survives on Jackson's life in the five years after his release from the workhouse in 1935 as a result of a subsequent conviction in 1940, which led to him again being investigated by the Probation Department, and that report being added to the file created in 1935. A few days after his release from the workhouse, in October 1935, Jackson was assigned work as a laborer by the Works Progress Administration. That job lasted almost three years, during which time Jackson lived in a furnished room in 154 West 121st Street and then in a rooming house at 2053 7th Avenue. He had little contact with his family; his sister told a Probation Officer that "he has always desired to live alone without restriction." Around 1937 Jackson contracted syphilis, he claimed from a prostitute. In August 1938 Jackson lost his WPA position, according to the Probation Department report, after he returned drunk having left the project without permission and swore at his supervisors and coworkers. A few weeks later, Jackson was arrested for slashing the tire of a taxi, and sentenced to a month in the workhouse. A year later he was back in workhouse, for 90 days, after pleading guilty to perjury and election fraud after being paid to fill in false affidavits related to a primary election. Following his release he worked briefly as an office cleaner and later as a watchman, while receiving relief payments, except for a period when an agent discontinued payments because Jackson supplied false information about his residence. He had left the rooming house for a furnished room in 135 West 119th Street. In October 1940, Jackson was charged with rape. He and two other men allegedly abducted a twenty-nine-year-old Black woman from a bar at West 119th Street and 8th Avenue and took her to his room at 152 West 119th Street, where they assaulted and robbed her. Jackson pled guilty to third degree assault. Examined again in the Psychiatric Clinic, this time Dr. John Cassity found Jackson still an "adjusted personality," although "on a low cultural level in recent months," but also "quite an aggressive individual [who] reacts with violence upon provocation." Judge Jacob Gould Schurman sentenced Jackson to the Penitentiary. He had been released by April 1943, when he registered for the draft, and was living with his sister Dorothy at 37 West 99th Street.
Sarah Refkin's delicatessen looted Around 12.30 AM, Acting Captain Conrad Rothengast of the 6th Detective Division claimed that he heard shots being fired on 7th Avenue near 123rd Street, according to a Probation Department investigation report. Looking around for the source of the shooting he saw a group of men standing in front of the delicatessen at 2067 7th Avenue, owned by Sarah Refkin and managed by Nathan Pavlowitz, a thirty-one-year-old Romanian immigrant living in the Bronx. Approaching the group, he saw Hezekiah Wright, a thirty-six-year-old Black janitor, kick and smash the store's plate glass window, reach in and take four lamps and two jars of food. When Wright saw him, Rothengast alleged he dropped those items and held his hands above his head. The detective somehow interpreted that stance as indicating that Wright was about to attack him, so struck him with his baton before arresting him. The Magistrate Court affidavit included few of those details. In that account, Rothengast simply saw Wright kick in the window and take a quantity of groceries. A Home News report of Wright's arraignment in that court put the value of the goods he allegedly stole at $100. The Probation Department investigation report specified that the items Rothegast alleged Wright tried to steal had a combined value of $11.10, the lamps 90 cents each and the jars of food $3.75 each. Stories in the New York Age and New York Times reporting later stages of his prosecution included the details that he had allegedly stolen "four lamps and a quantity of food," with the latter story misstating the value of those items as "about $8 in all." Pavlowitz, the store manager, estimated that between $50 and $75 of merchandise was missing from the store, according to Probation Department investigation report. He told a Probation officer that he thought people other than Wright had taken those goods, and there were certainly many on the street around this time. The period from roughly 11.30 PM to 12.30 AM saw incidents of violence the length of 7th Avenue below 125th Street. Stones were thrown at Fred Campbell's car and other vehicles, and James Pringle arrested for allegedly urging crowds to attack police in the blocks around the store. Arrests for breaking windows and looting continued to be made for at least another hour after Rothegast arrested Wright.

Wright denied any involvement in the looting of the store when interviewed by a Probation officer. Instead he said he was returning to his home at 155 West 123rd Street, around the corner from the delicatessen, having gone out to buy cigarettes, when he saw the crowd in front of the store. Those men ran when they saw Rothengast approaching; Wright said he stayed where he was as he was not involved in attacking the store.

The lists of those arrested published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal included Wright among those charged with burglary. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, with the docket book and the Home News recording that Magistrate Renaud held him for the grand jury on $1000 bail. The grand jury indicted Wright on March 22, according to his District Attorney's case file. Only two days later Wright agreed to a plea bargain offered by a district attorney, and plead guilty to unlawful entry in the Court of General Sessions. Wright told a Probation officer he pled guilty on the advice of his lawyer, not because he attacked the store. On April 8, Judge Donnellan sent him to the Workhouse for three months, an outcome recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter and reported in the New York Evening News and New York Times on April 9, and in the New York Amsterdam News, New York Age and Afro-American on April 13.

The store appears to have remained in business despite the damage and losses. Refkin had insurance for the store windows, which cost $47.41 to replace according to the Probation Department investigation report (the insurance company unsuccessfully sought to have the judge require Wright to pay them restitution for that cost). A white-owned delicatessen is recorded at 2067 7th Avenue in the MCCH Business survey from the second half of 1935, with the investigator adding the note that it was a "Small, neat store." The business captured in the Tax Department photograph from 1939-1941 is also likely Refkin's delicatessen; while the name is not legible, signage typical of grocery stores can be seen in the window. By then Nathan Pavlowitz was likely no longer the store manager. He told census enumerators in 1930 and 1940 that he was a painter, making his job in the store likely the result of being unable to find such work in the Depression. By the time he registered for the draft in 1942 he was employed as a painter, still traveling from his home at 1225 Boston Road in the Bronx to Harlem, to the Superior Decorating Company based at 271 West 125th Street.
Arnold Ford arrested Around 1.50 AM, Patrolman Louis Frikser arrested Arnold Ford, a nineteen-year-old Black man, on the Third Avenue Bridge, which connected the eastern end of West 130th Street in Harlem with the Bronx. Frikser reported that he had observed Ford "walking across the bridge with a package," according to the details provided in the Probation Department investigation. Ford was likely going home; he lived just three blocks beyond the bridge, at 246 East 136th Street in the Bronx. The package he carried cannot have been large; it contained three cakes of soap, a can of shoe polish, two pairs of garters, six spools of thread, a jar of vaseline and three packets of tea, with a value of $1.15. According to Frikser, Ford admitted being part of a group of men who had entered Harry Lash's 5 & 10c store at 400 Lenox Avenue, five blocks west of the bridge on the corner of West 130th Street, and stolen goods. Later, in court, Ford stated that he had not broken the store windows, but only joined others entering the store and "helping himself to some merchandise." Eighteen months after the disorder, Ford told his Probation officer that he "found the goods in the street."

Patrolman Frikser stopped a second man crossing the bridge from Harlem, Joseph Moore, a forty-six-year-old West Indian carpenter "a few minutes" after Ford, and also arrested him for looting Lash's store. None of the reports of this case detail what caused Frikser to stop Moore or what he found in his possession. Like Ford, Moore was likely returning home; he lived at 248 East 136th Street in the Bronx, a building next door to where Ford resided. But Ford did not know Moore, according to a note in the Preliminary Investigation in his Probation Department file

Only seven other men are identified in the sources as having been arrested away from the stores they allegedly looted, a group making up one third (9/27) of the arrests for which that information is known (27/60).

Police charged both Ford and Moore with burglary in the Harlem Magistrate Court. Subsequently they were indicted by the grand jury and tried in the Court of General Sessions. During the trial on April 1, Ford pled guilty to petit larceny, while Moore was acquitted at the direction of the judge, an outcome for which the Daily Worker gave credit to the International Labor Defence lawyers who appeared for him (that story made no mention of Ford). Eighteen months later, Ford told his Probation officer that he pleaded guilty "because he was told to do so and that as a matter of fact he is not guilty and did not take part in the riot and that he found the goods in the street." The officer described Ford as "brooding over his conviction," suggesting he regretted the plea.

Ford (and Moore) appear in newspaper reports only in the list of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, a list published in the New York Evening Journal, and stories in the Home News and New York Sun. The Home News story included brief summaries of the charges made in the Magistrates Court; in this case, it grouped Ford and Moore together, arrested at the same time for looting the same store, but confused the $1000 of goods stolen reported by Lash in his affidavit before the Magistrates Court for what the men were found carrying, also mistakenly identifying it as clothing. The New York Sun likewise mistakenly alleged the men had stolen $1000 of property, but did correctly identify those goods as "general merchandise," in reporting the men's pleas in the Court of General Sessions, on March 25, after their indictment by the grand jury on March 22.

Of the ten men convicted in the Court of General Sessions as a result of the disorder, judges placed only Ford and Charles Saunders on probation rather than incarcertating them. (the 28th Precinct Police Blotter recorded this outcome as a suspended sentence)Ford remained under supervision under April 1938.

The judge's decision to place Ford on probation likely owed much to the interest shown in him by Dr. Mason Pitman, superintendent of the Colored Orphan Asylum, located north of Manhattan at Riverdale, West 261st Street. Pitman expressed surprise that Ford had been arrested, writing to the Probation Department, "I do not understand why Arnold got into this trouble but I suppose that is something none of us understand, as we have never been put on the spot," and asking for leniency - going so far as to appear at the sentencing hearing. Ford and his younger brother and sister had been placed in the institution in 1927, when a judge committed them as neglected children. His mother Susan had turned to the court saying she had been deserted by her husband, Arnold Josiah Ford, a prominent Black Hebrew rabbi. However, the Big Sisters informed the Probation Department that the couple had divorced, with Josiah marrying again and Susan having children with another man. At the hearing Josiah agreed to contribute to his ex-wife's support but "would not claim the children." (Arnold's social security record identified his father as Donold J Ford, whose name does not appear in the Probation Department file). Ford remained in the Asylum until 1933, spending the last two years at it's boarding home in Jamaica, Queens, before being discharged back into his mother's care. The summary of his records at the Colored Orphan Asylum noted "He was found to be a nice boy in every way and was well liked by all who came in contact with him." Ford and his mother lived together at several addresses before moving to 246 East 136th Street two months before the disorder. Susan worked a few days a week as a domestic servant for a household on West 77th Street, while Arnold occasionally worked as an itinerant bootblack.

During his three years on probation, Ford frustrated the efforts of the Probation Department to supervise and direct his life. He reported far less frequently than required, blaming a lack of carfare for the trip, took up few of his probation officers' suggestions for vocational training, and refused to apply for aid from the Home Relief Bureau because it required answering invasive questions. His mother did not share his objections, as she began receiving Home Relief in September 1935, and cut back her hours of domestic work. Ford did enroll in the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1936, seeking an assignment to one of the rural work relief camps, but was rejected when the medical examination revealed he had a hernia. For several months Ford traveled to Morrisania Hospital for treatment, during which he was bedridden at home for at least two months. Around his illness, Ford briefly worked as an errand boy for a grocery store on Amsterdam Ave and West 79th Street, let go because his employer did not think he was physically able to carry heavy bundles, then two days a week as a cleaner and porter for a synagogue in the Bronx at Gerard Avenue and 161st Street, and then as an errand boy for a millinery firm on West 37th Street. Soon after he got that position in March he moved out of the apartment at 258 East 148th Street that he and his mother had moved to in June 1936, and in with the mother and a cousin of the woman he had married a month earlier, Gwendolyn Jordan, a twenty-year-old housemaid, at 134 3rd Avenue in Brooklyn. He did not pass on that news to his Probation officer, who learned of the marriage from a Home Relief investigator who had visited Ford's mother.

In August 1937 Ford lost his job, fired for making an error in delivering a package. The next month he found a job as a pin boy at Williamsbridge Bowling Alley at 225th Street and White Plains Road, working from 1 PM to 1 AM for two-thirds of his previous wage and requiring a journey of more than eighteen miles. But the next month Ford was again looking for work; when his Probation officer urged him to apply for Home Relief, he recorded Arnold and Gwendolyn as refusing and saying “they did not want to answer so many questions as the Home Relief Bureau wants to know too many personal questions which they refuse to answer and they would feel like slaves to this bureau and they believe that the clients of this bureau are treated like slaves.” Gwendolyn took a similar position on medical care for her pregnancy; when the Probation officer urged her to visit the hospital, she refused, he wrote, “because they ask too many questions and also because free service is no good and that the patients are ill-treated and neglected.” Instead, she planned to have the baby delivered at home by a local physician who the family went to for care, and the couple saved about $40 for the expenses. Tragically, that doctor was not in attendance when Gwendolyn went into labor in December 1937, and the baby presented in breech position. Although an ambulance was called, the child died. The Probation officer's assessment of those events is jarring in its callousness: “It seems that the probationer, his wife and his mother-in-law are ignorant and suspicious people who cannot be advised by anybody.” In the remaining three months of his probation, Ford and his wife continued to live with his mother-in-law, her cousin, and his two adult daughters, pooling their relief payments and wages, with Ford's contribution being what he could make from odd jobs while he looked for work.

In 1940 Ford was living with his wife and their one-year-old daughter, at 863 Home Street in the Bronx, when the census enumerator called. He gave his occupation as porter, but was still without a job, as remained the case when he completed a draft registration card later that year. On the card his address is recorded as 892 Union Avenue in the Bronx, although that address was struck out and replaced successively with four other addresses in the Bronx. A note on the card indicates Ford served in the Navy, receiving an honorable discharge on October 7, 1946.
Ralph Sirico's shoe repair shop looted Between 11.30 PM and midnight, the superintendent of the apartments above 1985 7th Avenue, Mr C. T. Berkeley, reported two men smashed the window of the shoe repair shop in the building, operated by Ralph Sirico, a forty-one-year-old Italian immigrant who lived at 293 East 155th Street in the Bronx, according to a Probation Department investigation report. The period from roughly 11.30 PM to 12.30 AM saw incidents of violence the length of 7th Avenue below 125th Street, with Alice Gordon allegedly assaulted and Mario Pravia's candy store looted south of Sirico's store, and Sarah Refkin's delicatessan looted, stones thrown at Fred Campbell's car and other vehicles, and James Pringle arrested for allegedly urging crowds to attack police in the blocks to the north. That only windows were broken in Sirico's shop appears to be due to the presence of Berkeley, given that he got close enough that he thought he could identify the men if he saw them again. He apparently did not stay at the store. Around 2 AM, as Detective Jeremiah Duross of the 6th Division drove a police car on 7th Avenue, the sound of breaking glass drew his attention to a group of people in front of the shoe repair store. As the detective pulled his car up next to the store, the crowd in front of it scattered. He leapt out of the car and claimed he saw Charles Saunders, a twenty-four-year-old Black unemployed elevator operator jump out of the store window and run down the street. Duross gave chase and arrested Saunders, who he claimed had been drinking and had a fresh cut on his hand, which he implied had resulted from breaking glass in the window. Although there are fewer incidents of disorder reported on 7th Avenue by the time of Saunders' arrest, a crowd had looted Jack Garmise's cigar store four blocks to the south only a few minutes earlier, at an intersection where police were stationed.

Saunders offered a different account than Duross, according to the Probation Department investigation report. He lived nearby, in a furnished room at 1967 7th Avenue a block south of the store, with Anna Gregory. Around midnight, Saunders left home to buy cigarettes. Walking toward a crowd in front of Sirico's store, he saw shoes and hats being thrown through the broken window on to the street, where people in the crowd were picking them up. While there are few accounts of goods being thrown into the street, there are descriptions of merchandise spread over sidewalks and streets, suggesting that some of those who attacked goods destroyed or distributed goods in this manner, rather than taking them themselves. Saunders claimed he followed the lead of those around him, and picked up a pair of shoes, cutting his hand on glass on the street in the process, and headed home. At that point Duross arrested him. Saunders denied having been drinking; the detective said Saunders did not have a pair of shoes in his hands when arrested.

In fact, it seems that Duross did not find anything from the store in Saunders' possession, as none of stolen goods were recovered, according to the Probation Department investigation report. Nonetheless, Saunders appears to have been charged with taking all the goods that the report recorded Sirico said had been stolen: "18 or 20 hats which had been cleaned and blocked by him; about 25 pair of shoes which he had repaired; 5 or 6 pairs of unfinished shoes; one dozen leather soles; two and a half dozen rubber heels and a quantity of polish and shoe laces," with a total value he estimated as $66.75. While the District Attorney's case file is missing, the Probation Department investigation report summarizes the indictment against Saunders as accusing him of taking merchandise worth $66.75. The two newspaper reports of the case are less specific, with both the Home News and Daily Worker reporting the charge as stealing "several pairs of shoes."

Saunders is included in the lists of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. The Harlem Magistrate's Court docket book records his arraignment on March 20, at which time Magistrate Renaud held him on $1000 bail to reappear. When Saunders was brought back to the court on March 22, detectives presented bench warrants indicating that the District Attorney had already filed an indictment against him. Magistrate Renaud consequently dismissed the charges against Saunders so the detectives could rearrest him, an outcome only reported in the New York Post (the District Attorney's file is missing). On April 1, Saunders appeared in the Court of General Sessions to plead guilty to petit larceny. In other cases after the disorder in which defendants did not have goods in their possession when arrested a district attorney generally offered a plea bargain for a different charge, unlawful entry. He appeared for sentencing in the Court of General Sessions on April 12, and then again on April 30, when Judge Nott gave him a suspended sentence and placed him on "indefinite" probation on the condition he go to Savannah to live with his sister (the 28th Precinct Police Blotter recorded only the suspended sentence, not the probation). Saunders spent the maximum period of three years under supervision.

Sirico had insurance that paid the cost of replacing his store windows. The business was included in the MCCH Business survey in the second half of 1935, and Sirico was still operating the store when he registered for the draft in April 1942, giving his first name as Raffaele. He had arrived in New York City in 1919. Sirico appears likely to have been in business in Harlem by the time of the 1930 census, when the census enumerator recorded that he worked in a shop. At that time he lived at 293 East 155th Street in the Bronx, with his wife and four children aged between eight years and fifteen months.
Hezekiah Wright arrested Around 12.30 AM, Acting Captain Conrad Rothengast of the 6th Detective Division arrested Hezekiah Wright, a thirty-six-year-old Black janitor in front of a delicatessen at 2067 7th Avenue. Rothengast claimed that shots being fired on 7th Avenue near 123rd Street drew his attention to a group of men standing in front of the delicatessen at 2067 7th Avenue, owned by Sarah Refkin and managed by Nathan Pavlowitz, according to a Probation Department investigation report. As he approached the group, he allegedly saw Wright kick and smash the store's plate glass window, reach in and take four lamps and two jars of food. Wright then saw him coming towards him, dropped those items and held his hands above his head. The detective somehow interpreted that stance as indicating that Wright was about to attack him, so struck him with his baton before arresting him.

Wright denied any involvement in the looting of the store when interviewed by a Probation officer. Instead he said he was returning to his home at 155 West 123rd Street, around the corner from the delicatessen, having gone out to buy cigarettes, when he saw the crowd in front of the store. Those men ran when they saw Rothengast approaching; Wright said he stayed where he was as he was not involved in attacking the store. Others arrested in the disorder similarly claimed to have been out on errands and mistaken for participants in acts of violence. In Wright's case it was not unusual to be on the streets late at night. He told the Probation Officer that he occasionally went on walks in the late evening, as the long hours of his job kept him occupied until then. The Probation Officer reported nothing that indicated he would have chosen to participate in looting, characterizing him instead as "a quiet, inoffensive type of individual." Dr Walter Bromberg used a similar phrase in the report of his examination of Wright in the Court's Psychiatric Clinic, describing him as "a quiet, cooperative individual," who showed "no evidence of any emotional upset" or "of any aggressive, antisocial personality characteristics." The Probation officer did report that Wright's "moral standards are lax," apparently because his "greatest outlet [was] playing the policy numbers in the hope he will "become lucky" and "hit the numbers." That very widespread activity in Harlem reflected the limited economic opportunities available to the neighborhood's residents at least as much as their morality. Missing from the Probation Department investigation report is the explanation that the Probation officer wrote at the end of the Preliminary Investigation: that Wright was "A victim of mob hysteria who [?] advantages during a tense situation to enrich himself at others expense and by a criminal act." Other psychiatrists had invoked the influence of the mob in reporting their examinations of men arrested in the disorder, and it may be that this Probation officer had been anticipating that it would also appear in Wright's report. When it did not, he may have chosen to omit his comment.

The Magistrate Court affidavit included few of those details. In that account, Rothengast simply saw Wright kick in the window and take a quantity of groceries. A Home News report of Wright's arraignment in that court put the value of the goods he allegedly stole at $100. The Probation Department investigation report specified that the items Rothegast alleged Wright tried to steal had a combined value of $11.10, the lamps 90 cents each and the jars of food $3.75 each. Stories in the New York Age and New York Times reporting later stages of his prosecution included the details that he had allegedly stolen "four lamps and a quantity of food," with the latter story misstating the value of those items as "about $8 in all." As Pavlowitz, the store manager, told a Probation officer, others had taken the other missing merchandise, which he valued at between $50 and $75, rather than $100.

The lists of those arrested published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal included Wright among those charged with burglary. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, with the docket book and the Home News recording that Magistrate Renaud held him for the grand jury on $1000 bail. The grand jury indicted Wright on March 22, according to his District Attorney's case file; three days later Judge Morris Koenig of the Court of General Sessions continued his bail, a step in the legal process documented only by the New York Sun. It took only two more days for Wright to agree to a plea bargain offered by a district attorney; his appearance in court to plead guilty to unlawful entry was reported in the New York Post on March 27, and New York Herald Tribune, New York Daily News and New York Times on March 28, and the New York Amsterdam News on March 30. Wright told a Probation officer he pled guilty on the advice of his lawyer, denying he attacked the store. His sentencing on April 8 was recorded in 28th Precinct Police blotter and again widely reported, in the New York Evening News and New York Times on April 9, and in the New York Amsterdam News, New York Age and Afro-American on April 13. Judge Donnellan sent Wright to the Workhouse for three months.

Wright told a Probation officer he had been in New York City for eight years. Born in Kingston, North Carolina, his family moved at some point to Suffolk, Virginia, and from there to Boston in 1906. Around 1909, his mother became ill with tuberculosis and sought treatment at the Rutland Sanitarium. When she was released after two years, Wright and his five younger siblings returned with her to Suffolk, where her sister helped Wright look after the younger children. His father rejoined the family a year later, Wright worked with him making baskets. When Wright was fourteen years old, his mother died. The Probation investigation included no information about Wright's subsequent life in Virginia other than his statement that he had spent thirty days in jail in 1917 after a fight with a railway detective when a circus arrived in town, and his marriage to Odel Burns in 1923. His World War One Draft registration lists his employment in 1918 as a soda foundation clerk in the Colored YMCA in Hopewell, Virginia.

Around 1927, Wright moved to New York City, likely with his family, as his father and three of his surviving siblings lived in Harlem in 1935, and the other sibling nearby in Newark, New Jersey. His father Charles, who in 1935 lived with his second wife and one of his daughters at 510 Manhattan Avenue, was a Baptist minister at Jerusalem Church. Wright worked for his first five years in the city as a chauffeur for Dr Bernard Zaglin. That work was "irregular," which might explain why the Preliminary Investigation in Wright's Probation Department file also records him working in Haverstraw, sixty miles north of the city on the Hudson River, as a driver hauling bricks for the Excelsior Brick Company in the busy season, the summer of 1931, and sometime prior to that as a painter and in a poolroom, and as a laborer in nearby Iona Island. The Probation Department investigation report presents all Wright's work in Haverstraw as prior to his employment by Zaglin even thought the Preliminary Investigation records the length of his work hauling bricks as May-October 1931. It may be that he lived and worked in Haverstraw prior to moving to Harlem, and returned there periodically.

It was to Haverstraw that his wife Odel went when she left him in 1932, with a man named Charlie Phillips, information in the Preliminary Investigation that the Probation officer omitted from the Investigation Report. Instead, the report explained the couple's "separation" as a result of Wright's "infidelity with Marion Harris," with who he was living at the time of his arrest. As was the case with others whose relationships followed the more fluid marriage patterns of working-class communities, the Probation Department investigation report described the twenty-two-year-old Harris as Wright's "mistress," ignoring the information in the Preliminary Investigation that they had married in April 1933, again in Haverstraw. At that time they were living with one of Wright's cousins at 860 Hunts Point Avenue in the Bronx, rent free as Wright was unemployed after Zaglin decided in October 1932 that he no longer needed a chauffeur.

Wright remained unemployed until July 1933, when he and Harris were employed as janitors at 155 West 123rd Street, a job that came with an apartment in the basement. They still held that position at the time of his arrest, and his employer told a Probation officer he would reemploy Wright when he was released. However, if that happened, Wright did not live in the building. A census enumerator found him at 143 West 113th Street in 1940, where he told her he had been in 1935 (a question in that census), and was employed as the superintendent of an apartment building. He also told the enumerator he was married, but Harris is not recorded in the census schedule. Two years later, when Wright registered for the draft, he was living and working in another building, at 216 West 114th Street. He left blank the line for "Name and Address of Person Who Will Always Know Your address," where men typically included their wife or a parent. His home address is struck out and updated several months later to 143 West 113th Street, his home in 1940.
Frendel's meat market looted Some time during the disorder, the windows of Frendel's meat market at 2360 8th Avenue were broken. Later, Officer Carrington of the 32nd Precinct arrested Theodore Hughes, a twenty-two-year-old Black man, for allegedly taking two pieces of salt pork from the store window, according to a story in the New York Herald Tribune and a list in the New York American. Located between West 126th and West 127th Streets, the store was in the midst of the blocks of 8th Avenue on which there are reports of violence during the disorder: the arrest of James Hayes for allegedly looting a Liggett's drug store on the corner of West 125th Street; the arrest of Rose Murrell for breaking windows in a store three buildings to the north; the arrest of Thomas Babbitt for taking soap from Thomas Drug store a block north; and at the very end of the disorder, the arrest of Jean Jacquelin for looting at 128th Street and police shooting and killing James Thompson after allegedly finding him looting a grocery store across the street from the meat market. The businesses on the blocks of 8th Avenue north of 125th Street were almost entirely white-owned when the MCCH Business survey was taken in the second half of 1935.

Hughes appears in the lists of those charged with larceny published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal and in the New York Daily News. He was among the first of those arrested in the disorder to appear in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20. Sent to the Court of Special Sessions by Magistrate Renaud, Hughes was held on $500 bail. There is no evidence of the outcome of his trial. (Given the location of the market, Hughes should have been taken to the 28th Precinct and appear in their blotter, but he does not. Carrington may have instead taken him to his own precinct, the 32nd.)

The store continued in business after the disorder. The complaint in the Magistrate's Court was made by Leo Halberg, a white butcher who worked in the store and lived at 1767 Fulton Avenue in the Bronx, who was still employed at the store when he registered for the draft in 1942. He gave the name of his employer as "Frendel Inc.." The MCCH Business survey records a white-owned "Pork (Meat) Market" at 2360 8th Avenue and a store with signs indicating that it is a meat market is visible in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941. A photograph of the meat market, with a sign reading "Frendel Market," accompanied a New York Amsterdam News story about rationing in Harlem in 1943. By then the store was owned by (Sigmund) Fred Garb, a Jewish refugee from Austria, and his wife Claire, who identified a cousin named "S. Frendl" when they arrived in the United States in 1939. Twice, in 1941 and again in 1943, Fred Garb was convicted of fixing their scales to cheat customers.
Edward Larry arrested At 1.00 AM Patrolman William Clements observed Edward Larry, a twenty-six-year-old Black laborer traveling in a taxi at West 123rd Street and 7th Avenue. He stopped the taxi, and found that Larry had a box containing eight shirts, with a value of $12. Not satisfied with Larry’s explanation that he had found the shirts on the street at West 129th Street and Lenox Avenue, Clements took him to the 28th Precinct for further questioning. The Magistrates Court affidavit simply described Clement as arresting Larry; the Home News report of Larry's appearance in the Magistrates Court described Clements arresting Larry "as he was about to get into a taxicab with two boxes containing a dozen shirts." The more detailed account in the Probation Department investigation described Clement stopping the cab.

Larry was one of nine men arrested away from the scene of their alleged crime, a group making up one third (9/27) of the arrests for which that information is known (27/60). He was the only one arrested in a vehicle, although a photograph published in the New York Evening Journal indicates that this was not the only instance in which police stopped vehicles. Larry told police he was returning home with the box he had found on the street, to the Salvation Army shelter at 224 West 124th Street, behind Kress' store (some reports listed the address as 218 West 124th Street; the MCCH business survey records that the Salvation Army operated in both buildings). He had lived there for a month, after spending two weeks at the Belmont Hotel on the Bowery, and the previous thirty days in the workhouse serving a sentence for pickpocketing.

At the police station, Morris Towbin saw Larry, and identified him as one of a group of men who had threatened him and robbed his haberdashery store at 101 West 125th Street at 10.30 PM the previous evening. Towbin also identified the shirts in Larry's possession as from his store, part of $2000 of merchandise stolen, $1000 of fixtures destroyed and $226.89 worth of plate glass windows smashed. Towbin's encounter with Larry is described only in the more detailed account in the Probation Department investigation. The Magistrates Court affidavit recorded only that Towbin had identified the shirts, a standard feature of a charge when an individual had not been seen stealing goods, and that he could "positively identify the defendant as one of the men" who had robbed him. In the Police Blotter the charge against Larry is burglary, suggesting that Towbin's identification came after his initial booking, and not before that information was provided to reporters, as the list of those arrested in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the list in the New York Evening Journal both include Larry among those charged with burglary. Towbin's allegation of force changed the charge to robbery, which is the charge made against Larry in the Harlem Magistrates Court. However, there is no mention of force or robbery in the story covering his court appearance in the Home News, or in reports of Towbin's statements as president of Harlem Merchants Association in the New York Daily News and Home News. Nor did police find a knife in Larry's possession, the weapon with which Tobin said he had been threatened. Nor did Larry's history suggest he would have used a weapon; none of his convictions involved the use of force.

When Larry was arraigned in Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, Magistrate Renaud held him without bail for the grand jury, one of only ? arrested during the disorder for which Magistrates did not set bail. Nine days later, on March 29, the grand jury indicted him for Robbery in the first degree. Rather than go to trial, Larry agreed to a plea bargain. On April 5 he appeared in the Court of General Sessions to plead guilty to Attempted Grand Larceny in the second degree, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison rather than up to twenty years, the punishment for Robbery in the first degree. Ten days later, after an investigation by the Probation Department, Judge Nott sentenced Larry to a term of between fifteen months and thirty months in the State Prison. (The 28th Precinct Police Blotter recorded a different sentence of six months to two years, but Probation Department investigation and a response to the Parole Board in the District Attorney's case file both record the longer sentence). That was the longest sentence given to anyone arrested in the disorder, a reflection of the charge, and of Larry’s criminal record. He had been convicted three times for picking pockets in New York City in the three years before the disorder, and most significantly, convicted for grand larceny in West Virginia in 1928. New York's Habitual Offender statute, commonly known as the Baumes Act, required that in cases involving individuals with a previous conviction for a felony that any plea bargain be to a felony and set minimum sentences based on the previous felony conviction.

Larry had been born in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1909. His mother died when he was three years of age, leaving his father, and later stepmother to raise him. In 1921, a year after leaving school at age eleven years to work in a cotton press, Larry left home. In the only response the Probation Department received to the letters they sent inquiring about Larry's history, the Wilmington Public Welfare Commission reported an interview with his half-sister Rose, in which she said he found work in a coal mine in West Virginia. Larry himself told the Probation Department officer G. H. Royal that he first worked briefly for a transportation company, traveling to Providence, Rhode Island, where he spent two months in a fish factory, followed by time on a truck in Far Rockaway, New York, then in a steel mill in Pittsburgh and a coal mine in Carnegie, Pennsylvania. Beginning in 1924, aged fifteen, he began working irregularly for carnival companies that traveled the North in the summer and the South in the winter.

In February 1928, carnival work, or perhaps coal mining, brought Larry to Welch, West Virginia, where he was convicted of grand larceny. The court did not respond to the Probation Department's request for details of the case; Larry told them that he and another man were accused of stealing money from a drunken man in a poolroom (given Larry's record, the theft was likely accomplished by pickpocketing). Sentenced to six years in the State Prison, Larry said he served four years and eight months, which would have seen him released in June 1932. By May 28, 1933, Larry was in New York City; he also said that earlier that month, while working in a carnival, he married Cora Temple, a dancer, in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. In New York City, Larry was arrested for pickpocketing, with the criminal record in the District Attorney's case file specifying "lush," slicing open the pocket of a drunken individual, and sentenced to thirty days in the workhouse. After his release he remained in New York City for at least six months, presumably with his wife Cora, but without a home and relying on charity. According to his half sister, Larry returned to Wilmington in December 1933, and found work as a stevedore until July 1934; he told the Probation Department he did not visit until July 1934, and left his wife there while he looked for work.

Almost as soon as Larry arrived back in New York City, on July 29, police arrested him for pickpocketing, again lush according to the criminal record in the District Attorney's case file. On this occasion he was sentenced to six months in the workhouse. Released in January 1935, it was less than a month before officers from the police pickpocket squad arrested him again, and he spent a further 30 days in the workhouse. In the month between his release and the disorder, he told the Probation Department that he spent a week working on a Salvation Army project in Flushing, Long Island.
Isaac Daniels arrested
Isaac Daniels, a twenty-nine-year old Black man, was arrested for assaulting Herman Young, in his hardware store at 346 Lenox Avenue. After hearing glass smashing, Young and his wife Rose had come downstairs from their apartment to the store, whose windows had been looted and encountered a man on the stoop, trying to come through the door. The man cursed at Young - "You Goddam Jew I am going to kill you if you don’t get out of here” - and then threw a stone that smashed the glass in the door. Both the stone and flying glass hit Young. Taken to Harlem Hospital, Young was being stitched by a doctor when Daniels entered to receive treatment. Young identified him as the man who had assaulted him, and an officer at the hospital arrested Daniels. (Another man, James Williams, was later arrested for looting the store; the affidavit in his case makes no mention of Young being assaulted by a man, instead recording that he had come downstairs to find four men in the store stealing merchandise)

Questioned in a lineup at the Manhattan Police HQ, Daniels denied throwing the stone at Young, and said he had been in the area because he was coming home. Daniels, a native of Georgia who had come to New York City in 1928, lived with his wife only a few blocks from Young's store, at 73 W. 130th St. Later, at his trial, he added the detail that he had gone out to buy cigarettes. His wife said that he had gone to the movies, and was listening to the radio at home at 1 AM, when Young was attacked.
The report of the arrest in the Home News linked Daniels and Young, with the detail that Young had been cut by flying glass. Daniels also appears in lists of those who arrested and charged with assault published in the Afro-American, Atlanta World, Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and New York Evening Journal, none of which include the circumstances which led to his arrest. He also appears in the list of the injured published in the New York Post, one of four men arrested for assault with injuries. In Daniels' case, the list identifies him as having "contusions" on his left arm.

Daniels was one of the first of those arrested to appear in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, charged with felonious assault. The New York Post reported he was back in the court two days later, joining James Hughes and Charles Saunders in being returned to have their original charges dismissed so they could be rearrested and new charges brought (which is likely why Daniels appears in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter as having been discharged, as did James Hughes). The indictment in the District Attorney's case file has a charge of first degree assault, with intent to kill, struck out, leaving a charge of second degree assault, with intent to cause bodily harm. That change suggests that prosecutors reduced the charge after obtaining details of what happened (Young's wife had mentioned that the man who assaulted him had used a piece of pipe, but later reports mention only him throwing a stone). Indicted for assault, Daniels was one of the handful of individuals tried for alleged offenses during the disorder. On April 9, the District Attorney's case file recorded that a jury acquitted Daniels, likely because of questions over Young's identification of him.
August Miller killed Around midnight, August Miller, a fifty-six-year-old white man, suffered a head injury in the midst of a crowd at 126th Street and Lenox Avenue. A cab driver took him to the Joint Disease Hospital, according to the police complaint report. Doctors diagnosed him as suffering a possible skull fracture "received in some unknown manner during disorder," according to hospital records, and admitted him for treatment. Miller appeared in three of the seven newspaper lists of the injured published on March 20, those of the New York Evening Journal, New York Post and New York American, and among those the New York Herald Tribune reported still in hospital on March 21, and listed as injured in the Atlanta World on March 27.

Miller himself never described the circumstances of his injury, dying on March 22 without regaining consciousness. His death was widely reported on March 23, in some cases with information on the how he had been killed. The most direct explanations came in stories published in the New York Herald Tribune, New York Evening Journal, and Times Union, and in the Associated Press story, which reported Miller had been "beaten by rioters." The New York Times and New York Sun did not draw that implication, only going as far as saying Miller was "in the midst of rioters" when injured, while the Brooklyn Daily Eagle even more obliquely said his death came "during the height of the disorders." The New York Post implied he had been assaulted in a different way, noting where he had been injured, and adding "He was one of the half a dozen white men seriously hurt during the disturbance." Lists of those killed in the New York Daily News and stories in Black newspapers the New York Age and New York Amsterdam News, as well as the lists of those killed published in the Afro-American, Norfolk Journal and Gazette and Pittsburgh Courier simply listed Miller's injuries, a fractured skull.

Police investigating the case in the aftermath of the disorder could find no witnesses to establish the circumstances in which he was injured. There is also no information on why he traveled to the neighborhood. Miller lived in the Bronx, some distance from Harlem. His employers did report Miller had been “acting peculiar for some months previous.”

An autopsy performed at the City Morgue on March 23 determined that the cause of death was a cerebral hemorrhage, “a natural cause, nothing suspicious.” Miller was included in lists of those killed in the disorder published on March 23 and 24, and in Black weekly newspapers on March 30, without mention of the autopsy. On March 31 the Home News also included him in its count of those killed in the disorder even while noting that Miller's death "was later found to have been due to heart disease, probably aggravated by exertion and excitement." The New York Daily News, New York American, Daily Mirror, Times Union, the Associated Press, Afro American, and Chicago Defender reported the death of Lloyd Hobbs on March 30 as the fourth death resulting from the disorder without specifying the other three individuals killed. None of those newspapers included Edward Laurie among those killed, so they also still included Miller after the autopsy, along with James Thompson and Andrew Lyons. So too did the New York Herald Tribune, which identified Hobbs as the fifth death resulting from the riot. (The Daily Worker initially reported Hobbs as the fourth death, on April 1, but a week later referred to him as the third death, while the New York Times reported his death without reference to how many others had been killed).
Lyman Quarterman shot At around 10.30 PM, Lyman Quarterman, a thirty-four-year-old Black man, was part of a crowd at 121st Street and 7th Avenue that police were struggling to disperse when he was shot in the abdomen. Around the same time, Anthony Cados, a thirty-four-year-old white man reported being assaulted nearby by "some unknown colored person or persons." While Cados lived approximately ten blocks to the south, Quarterman lived at the other end of Black Harlem, at 306 West 146th Street (in the same area as two of the other Black men shot, Clarence London and Wilmont Hendricks)

It is clear from the newspaper reports that police fired their guns as part of their efforts to disperse the crowd, raising the possibility that an officer shot Quarterman. White newspaper reports discounted that possibility in various ways. Hospital records of the ambulance called to attend Quarterman simply recorded he had a "gunshot wound of the abdomen received when shot by some unknown person at the scene of riot." The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, New York American, Brooklyn Citizen and Daily Mirror, and the Associated Press reported on March 20, and the Chicago Defender on March 23, that Quarterman had died, a mistake the Home News attributed to "many conflicting reports during the night," and the New York Evening News attributed more specifically to a "report having been sent out on the police teletype." By late on March 20 the New York Evening Journal, New York Post and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle listed Quarterman among the injured, as did the Atlanta World on March 27 and the Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette on March 30. He was one of eight men still in hospital on March 21, the New York Herald Tribune reported, and still there as late as April 8 according to the New York Age, but there are no reports that he died.

The New York Herald Tribune, reported that no policeman in the vicinity could remember discharging his revolver, whereas the Times Union said many had, but “only into the air to frighten the mob.” The New York Evening Journal made an oblique reference to shots being fired into the crowd, as the culmination of a narrative justifying police actions as a response to escalating violence, in which officers from the 123rd Street station surrounded by a crowd, first drew their nightsticks “to save their own lives,” and when the crowd armed themselves with baseball bats and clubs, drew their guns and exchanged shots with the crowd. No other newspapers reproduced this narrative.

The New York American simply said Quarterman had been shot by an unknown assailant, the Daily Mirror by a “stray bullet,” and the New York Daily News reported his assailant had escaped, stories which all implicitly assumed the police were not responsible for his death. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle explicitly expressed such an assumption in reporting Quarterman had been shot “presumably by rioters.” The New York Times offered the more open-ended report that “police launched an investigation to determine who fired the fatal shot.” There are no records of such an investigation. Only the Brooklyn Citizen stated directly that “Whether he had been shot by police or other rioters could not be determined.”

Four of the six others shot and wounded during the disorder were Black men like Quarterman, one of unknown race, and one white police officer. As in his case, no one was arrested for any of those shootings (the man with who the police officer struggled, James Thompson, was shot and killed by police).
Louis Cobb arrested Around 1.20 AM, Officer Nathaniel Carter allegedly saw several men leaving William Feinstein's liquor store at 452 Lenox Avenue carrying bottles, according to the Magistrate's Court affidavit. He arrested one of those men, Louis Cobb, a thirty-eight-year-old Black laborer, with one bottle of gin and two bottles of whiskey in his possession. A crowd of thirty to forty people had attacked the closed store a few minutes earlier, according to witness testimony in the Municipal Court reported in the New York Times and New York Herald Tribune, breaking down the iron gate protecting it, then smashing the windows, taking bottles of liquor and damaging the storefront. Feinstein put his losses at $627.40 when he sued the city for failing to protect his business. The three bottles allegedly taken by Cobb amounted to just over one percent of that total, $7.

Louis Cobb appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrate's Court on March 20. However, the affidavit making the complaint against him was not taken until March 25. In the interim, Magistrate Ford held Cobb without bail. An annotation in the docket book dated March 21 records "no bail in absence of record," suggesting police had not been able to produce his criminal record. Magistrates reaffirmed the denial of bail when Cobb appeared repeatedly in court, on March 25, 26 and April 2, when he was finally sent to the grand jury. Those decisions reflected the criminal record eventually produced for him: six charges in New York City since 1920, for burglary, robbery, drug possession, homicide, procuring and possession of a firearm, resulting in two sentences to the State Prison at Sing Sing, two terms in the Penitentiary and a sentence in the workhouse, and two sentences for violating parole. Cobb appears in the list of those arrested and charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the list published in the New York Evening Journal. There are no newspaper reports of his prosecution.

The grand jury did not indict Cobb; on April 10 they instead transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions to be tried for petit larceny. That decision likely reflected the lack of evidence of him breaking into the store required for a charge of burglary, and the value of the three bottles of liquor Officer Carter allegedly found on him, $7, according to the Magistrate's Court affidavit, well below the $100 threshold for a felony charge for larceny. There is no evidence of the outcome of the trial (as Cobb was arrested in the 32nd Precinct, he does not appear in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter that records the outcome of prosecutions in the Court of Special Sessions for people arrested by officers from that command).

Born in Georgia in 1897, Louis Cobb had made his way to New York City some time before January 10, 1920, when a census enumerator found him boarding at 334 53rd Street, in San Juan Hill, the city's major Black neighborhood before the rise of Harlem, and working as a porter. A series of criminal convictions though the 1920s and 1930s offer fragmentary glimpses of Cobb's life in Harlem. Just over two months after the census, his criminal record indicates that police charged Cobb with attempted burglary; he was convicted and sentenced to an indefinite term in the Blackwell Island Penitentiary. He was on parole by February 1921, when police arrested him again for violating the terms of that parole and returned him to the Penitentiary. Released again later that year, within a few months Cobb was in court, charged with robbery. Convicted of second-degree assault, the judge sentenced him to five years in Sing Sing, the state prison. The prison admissions register recorded that Cobb was unemployed at the time of the alleged crime, now living in Harlem at 30 West 135th Street; in a subsequent admission register entry he would attribute his "first crime" to being out of work. According to the admissions register, Cobb was eligible for parole in May 1925. He likely was released around this time, as in November 1925 police arrested him again, this time for a drugs offense, according to his criminal record. The judge sentenced him to another indefinite term in the Penitentiary, but the conviction violated his parole, so Cobb was returned to Sing Sing Prison to serve out his previous sentence.

Likely released in early 1926, Cobb later that year began living with Martha Nelson, who was about ten years his junior. The couple made their home at 8 West 137th Street, in the heart of Harlem. In 1930, Cobb gave his occupation as longshoreman in the 1930 census, but indicated he had not been employed in 1929. He may have been supporting himself in other ways. In May 1929, his criminal record indicates that a magistrate convicted Cobb as a procurer, supplying prostitutes, and sentenced him to sixty days in the workhouse. About five months after his release, in December 1929, police again arrested Cobb, for the murder of Bert Moore, a Black store manger, during a robbery of the candy store at 23 West 138th Street that he managed. The New York Amsterdam News and New York Age published very different accounts of the crime, neither of which explain why Cobb's criminal record indicates he was discharged in 1931 and charged instead with gun possession. The robbery of the store was the third in as many weeks. According to the New York Age, in a story accompanied by a photograph of Moore, Cobb was involved in all those robberies; on the first two occasions, he had an accomplice, John Boyle, who was arrested after the second robbery when Moore managed to subdue him with a baseball bat until police arrived. Cobb then returned on his own to rob the store again and shot Moore as he left. A customer in the store at the time identified Cobb. The New York Amsterdam News reported Doyle [Boyle] as acting alone and captured by Moore and three customers, and did not link Cobb to either previous robbery. After the third robbery, the New York Amsterdam News reported less evidence linking Cobb to the murder: Moore gave police a description before he died, based on which officers arrested Cobb on West 138th Street close by the candy store. The story also reported that police found a gun when they searched Cobb's home, but that his wife claimed it belonged to her, leading to her arrest for gun possession. The New York Amsterdam News a week later reported Cobb's arraignment and his wife's arraignment in separate stories. Neither paper published anything further about the case.

In April 1930, the census recorded that Cobb was in the Tombs Prison; a Magistrate had ordered him held without bail on the murder charge. However, at some point before early 1931 he was released; beginning in February, he worked as a laborer for a coal company, according to the Sing Sing Prison admission register. In April, police arrested him for possession of a revolver; the prison admission register recorded the date of that crime as December 13, 1929, when Cobb was arrested for Moore's murder. Police must have found a way to link Cobb to the gun found in his home that day, but not to Moore's murder; it does not seem that Martha had changed her story, as Cobb still listed her as his wife in the prison admission register. Convicted of gun possession, Cobb was sentenced to seven years in Sing Sing Prison.

Paroled in 1939, rather than returning to Harlem, Cobb settled in Albany, New York, and found work as a presser. He identifies himself as single, and his mother, rather than Martha Nelson, as his next of kin, in the Clinton Prison admission ledger in 1939. In July that year police arrested Cobb for burglary, charging him with stealing a $15 radio, a coat and a vest. The admission ledger recorded that he asserted his innocence, saying he took the property from a friend not knowing it was stolen. Nonetheless, he was found guilty and sentenced to a term of ten to twenty years. The 1940 census records him as an inmate of Clinton Prison. He was not eligible for parole until 1948.
James Hughes arrested Detective Raymond Gill arrested James Hughes just before 10PM, not far from Kress' store on West 125th Street. The detective claimed he had seen the twenty-four-year-old Black man appear from behind the cars parked on the street, look around, and throw the rock that hit his partner, Detective Henry Roge. Gill frisked the twenty-four-year-old man, and found five stones in his pockets; Hughes insisted the stones were to defend himself, and he had not thrown the rock that struck Roge.

Instead, Hughes claimed he had been caught up in the crowd on 8th Avenue as he tried to return to his furnished room on 7th Avenue near 115th Street from 126th St and 8th Avenue. He’d begun his evening with a trip to a barber’s shop on 7th Avenue, before returning home for supper, and then heading out again at 9.30pm to go drinking. When he set out for home, and saw the broken glass and stones on the streets, and heard people calling out “Let’s break windows,” he picked up some rocks for protection. Hughes knew 125th Street well. He worked in Koch’s Department store, a block east of Kress’, as a show repairer, a trade he had learned in Atlanta. He told the Probation officer who interviewed him that he followed the crowd to 125th Street to prevent them breaking the windows in the store in which he worked.

The prosecution of Hughes took a somewhat erratic path through the legal system. Hughes appears in lists of the arrested and charged with assault in the Afro-American, Atlanta World and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in Home News and New York Evening Journal. After he appeared in the Magistrates Court early on March 20, the New York Post reported he was back in the court two days later, joining Isaac Daniels and Charles Saunders in being returned to have their original charges dismissed so they could be rearrested and new charges brought. (The 28th Precinct Police blotter recorded only that the charges against Hughes had been dismissed, not that he had been rearrested). Hughes subsequently pled guilty to misdemeanor assault on March 28, as was reported in the New York Evening Journal, New York Times, and New York American.

When Hughes appeared for sentencing the judge allowed him to withdraw the plea as a result of letter from minister named Haynes received by Mayor’s office and forwarded to the judge. A week later Hughes was tried and quickly convicted of misdemeanor assault. The prosecutor’s notes on the trial suggest that Gill’s testimony stressed that he was certain of his identification of Hughes as the man who threw the rock. A report in the New York Times mentioned other witnesses, that "several" detectives identified Hughes. Against that evidence Hughes could offer only his denial and a series of character witnesses. In response, the prosecutor argued that Hughes “saw plenty of trouble – went right into it.”

Like all those convicted in the Court of General Sessions, Hughes was then investigated by the court’s Probation Department, which compiled a three-page report detailing his family, education, leisure, religious practice and residential and employment histories. Based on his steady employment in both Atlanta and New York City, the quality of his living arrangements, and his lack of a criminal record, the probation officer J. T. Sloane determined Hughes participation in the disorder to be “apparently attributable to the effects of mob psychology upon an ordinarily well-behaved individual of suggestible disposition.” At the sentencing hearing, the judge, perhaps influenced by the Probation Department report, expressed belief that Hughes had thrown the rock at the store window, not Roge, so sentenced him to a term of only three months in the workhouse.

Born in Macon, Georgia, Hughes had only been in the city for fourteen months when arrested. He was 5ft 6 inches, and weighed 145 pounds when arrested. He told the Probation officer J. T. Sloane that he had been raised by a single mother, one of two children she had with a married man, and completed third grade. After Hughes' mother died when he was twelve years old, he went to live with a cousin, a shoemaker, to who he became apprenticed. The Probation officer wrote to another cousin of Hughes in Macon, Fannie Holt, who confirmed those details, and added others that the officer did not include in the report: Both Hughes' father and grandfather were also shoemakers. Hughes moved to Atlanta after his sixteenth birthday, where he found work in the employ of Mr Maslia, at 399 Moreland Street, making $22 a week by 1933. Sometime that year he told his employer that he wanted to go north. By February 1934, Hughes was in New York City, working for French Shoe Repairing Company on 118th Street and Lenox Avenue and living nearby in a furnished room at 101 West 117th Street. After six months, Hughes found a better paying job at Koch's Department Store, increasing his wages from $12 a week to $18 a week. A few months later he moved residences, from 117th Street to another furnished room at 1890 Seventh Avenue, paying $4 a week. His landlady described him as quiet and unobtrusive.

Hughes admitted to a conviction for gambling in Macon, when he was aged fifteen years, which resulted in a fine. He continued to gamble occasionally in Harlem, otherwise spending his time going to the movies. The report from the Court Psychiatric Clinic concluded Hughes was "an average type of individual," who did not show "any abnormal, aggressive or antisocial traits as far as can be ascertained by the interview." In regards to the disorder, the psychiatrist recorded that Hughes gave "a rather rational explanation of his offense."
Morris Towbin's haberdashery store looted Around 10.30 PM, a group of eight men entered Morris Towbin's haberdashery store on the corner of West 125th Street and Lenox Avenue. Towbin and a clerk named Cy Bear were in the store, apparently still open for business despite the crowds around Kress' store and breaking windows in other stores one block away on West 125th Street. In his affidavit in the Magistrates Court Towbin described the men using “force and fear and…threatening to kill” to steal goods from the store with a value of $5000, breaking windows and store fixtures in the process. A Probation Department investigation by G. H. Royal used more sensational language to also describe a robbery, in which “the defendant and a group of hoodlums…brandished knives with which they threatened [Towbin] and his clerk, demolished fixtures and perpetrated other acts of vandalism,” after which they forced the men into the basement of the store. However, the Police Blotter and newspaper reports of the arrest of a man who allegedly took part labeled the event as looting, without mention of threats of violence. The charge recorded in the blotter is burglary not robbery, and it is that charge that is reported in the list in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the list in the New York Evening Journal. The Home News report of the Magistrates Court hearing includes no mention of the force in the affidavit, describing Towbin’s store as looted, the goods carried out, and the windows smashed, and not noting that the charge brought was robbery not burglary. Reporting of Towbin’s statements as president of Harlem Merchants Association after the disorder likewise referred to a looting, with the New York Daily News identifying his store as one “into which hoodlums broke and stole several thousand dollars worth of merchandise,” and the Home News as “one of those wrecked during the disorder.” Moreover, the arrest of the man charged occurred away from the store, and was based on the goods he had in his possession, as in the other arrests for looting away from the scene of the crime. He was not charged with possession of a knife, so did not have the weapon Towbin alleged had been used and provided the legal basis for charging robbery not burglary. Given this evidence, the thefts from the haberdashery store have been categorized as looting, not robbery.

Towbin initially reported losses of $5000, but, after taking an inventory, told the Probation Department officer that only $2000 of goods had been stolen. His insurance paid $1000 for the goods taken from inside the store; the policy did not cover the goods taken from the store window. Another insurance company replaced the smashed plate glass windows, at a cost of $226.89, but the damaged fixtures, Towbin estimated, would cost an additional $1000 to replace. That he was well-insured suggested that Towbin’s business was more established than many of those on Harlem’s avenues. It certainly occupied a prime location, next to an entrance to the 125th Street subway station, through which crowds entered and exited the neighborhood. Towbin’s leadership of the Harlem Merchants Association, an all-white organization established during the picketing of white business on West 125th Street in 1934, also suggests his standing in the white business community. It is not surprising, then, that he remained in business in the years immediately after the disorder.

At 1.00 AM Patrolman William Clements observed Edward Larry, a twenty-six-year-old Black laborer traveling in a taxi at West 123rd Street and 7th Avenue. He stopped the taxi, and found that Larry had a box containing eight shirts, with a value of $12. Not satisfied with Larry’s explanation that he had found the shirts on the street at West 129th Street and Lenox Avenue, Clements took him to the 28th Precinct for further questioning. He was one of nine men arrested away from the store they had allegedly looted, a group making up one third (9/27) of the arrests for which that information is known (27/60).

Towbin was at the police station, where he had gone to report the theft from his store once the group of men fled. It is not clear how he had spent the two and a half hours since the men entered his store; it would have taken some time for a group of men, even if joined by others, to remove $2000 of goods, so he may have been in the basement for much of that time, and given the growing scale of the disorder, he also may have had to wait some time at the 28th Precinct station to report the theft. Regardless, he saw Larry there, and identified him as one of the men who had threatened him, and the shirts in Larry's possession as from his store. That encounter is described only in the more detailed account included in the Probation Department investigation, not the Magistrates Court affidavit. Had Towbin only identified the property Larry would have been charged with burglary; the allegation of force changed the charge to robbery. That the the charge against Larry is recorded in the police blotter as burglary suggests that Towbin's identification came after Larry's initial booking, as police charged others arrested away from looted stores in possession of goods suspected of being stolen with burglary.

Arraigned in Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 and held without bail, Larry was indicted for robbery by the grand jury. Rather than go to trial, he agreed to plead guilty to Attempted Grand Larceny in the second degree. The judge sentenced Larry to a term of between fifteen months and thirty months in the State Prison. That was the longest sentence given to anyone arrested in the disorder, a reflection of the charge, and of Larry’s criminal record, which included three convictions for pickpocketing in the three years before the disorder, and most significantly, a conviction for grand larceny in West Virginia in 1928.
Chain Grocery store looted Some time during the disorder a "chain store at 135th St. and Lenox Ave" was looted, according to a story in the Home News. The store was likely the A & P grocery store at 510 Lenox Avenue, the only chain grocery store near that intersection in the MCCH Business survey. That store was in the six-story building on the northeast corner of the intersection, about four stores north of the corner, just beyond the entrance to the subway station. The white-owned A & P chain had nine grocery stores in Harlem, and James Butler, the other white-owned grocery chain with stores in Harlem, had seven stores, in the MCCH Business survey. The only reference to the looting is a Home News report of the appearance in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court of three Black men, twenty-eight-year-old Raymond Taylor, forty-two-year-old Preston White and fifty-year-old Joseph Payne. White and Payne allegedly smashed the store window and took food. Taylor was arrested "stealing a quantity of groceries." All three men were arrested "in the store." Officer Archbold of the 30th Precinct is recorded as having arrested White and Payne, and Officer D. Conn of the 24th Precinct as having arrested Taylor, in the Magistrates Court docket book. There is no mention of the value of the merchandise the men allegedly stole. Only one other reported event occurred on Lenox Avenue north of West 135th Street, the arrests of Charles Alston, Edward Loper, Albert Yergen and Ernest Johnston for allegedly shooting at police at 138th Street at the very end of the disorder. As on the blocks of Lenox Avenue south of 135th Street, more than three-quarters of the business on the block containing the grocery store were white-owned.

Taylor, White and Payne appeared in the lists of those charged with burglary in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. When they appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20, the charge against them was originally recorded as burglary, with Payne and White denied bail, and Taylor held on bail of $1000. No complainant is listed. The three men returned to the Magistrates Court on March 26, at which point all had the charge against them reduced from burglary to disorderly conduct. Magistrate Ford convicted all three men, and sentenced White and Payne each to five months and twenty-nine days in the Workhouse, and suspended Taylor's sentence. There is no information on why Taylor received a different sentence.

If the looted store was the A & P store at 510 Lenox Avenue, it continued in business after the disorder, appearing in both the MCCH Business survey in the second half of 1935 and the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941.
Thomas Cut Rate Drug store looted Some time during the disorder, Thomas Babbitt, a forty-two-year-old Black man, allegedly took two cases of soap from the window of the Thomas Cut Rate Drug store at 2374 8th Avenue, on the northeast corner of West 127th Street. He did not smash the window. A Home News story described Babbitt as having "stolen two cases of soap from a drug store window;" the 28th Precinct Police Blotter included a less ambiguous description, that he "Put hand though Window. Stole merchandise." Detective Balkin of the 5th Division arrested Babbitt, according to the Harlem Magistrate's Court docket book; at some time in the disorder he also arrested James Hayes for allegedly looting a Liggett's Drug Store two blocks to the south, at 8th Avenue and 125th Street. The attack on the Thomas drug store was the northern-most report of disorder on 8th Avenue other than the arrest Jean Jacquelin at 128th Street, in possession of goods he allegedly took from a store on 7th Avenue. Police shot and killed James Thompson on corner diagonally opposite the drug store at the end of the disorder. Police made two other arrests in the block south of the drug store, of Theodore Hughes for looting a meat market and Rose Murrell for breaking windows. There is no evidence of when any of those events occurred. The businesses on the blocks of 8th Avenue north of 125th Street were almost entirely white-owned when the MCCH Business survey was taken in the second half of 1935.

Babbitt is among those listed as being charged with burglary in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, charged with petit larceny not burglary. That change was likely made because of a lack of evidence that he had broken the store window and entered the store to steal merchandise, and that the allegedly stolen merchandise had a value less than $100, sufficient only for a charge of misdemeanor larceny. Magistrate Renaud transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions holding him on bail of $500. His trial and conviction occurred sooner than was the case with most of those arrested in the disorder sent to that court. On March 22 Babbitt was sentenced to ten days in the Workhouse, an outcome recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter.

Abraham Thomas, living at 1262 43rd Street in Brooklyn, is the complainant recorded in the docket book. Notwithstanding his last name, the forty-five-year-old white man appears to have been a staff member rather than owner of the store. In both the 1930 and 1940 census Thomas gave his occupation as "drug clerk," and his employer as Thomas Pharmacy in his draft registration in 1942 (business owners recorded themselves as self employed). Further evidence that the store remained in business after the disorder comes from the MCCH Business survey, which recorded a white-owned drug store, "Cut Rate Drug Store," at 2374 8th Avenue, and the Tax Department photograph, in which the store is visible.
James Williams arrested Around 2 AM, police arrested James Williams, a twenty-eight-year-old West Indian cook at Lenox Avenue and West 118th Street. He allegedly had in possession a “quantity of hardware” taken from Herman Young’s hardware store at 346 Lenox Ave, ten blocks to north, an hour earlier. It is not clear how Williams was carrying the collection of four pots of different sizes, two pans, a pitcher, two pails, a bread box and a cloth lamp. Young identified those goods as his property. With a combined value of $12.55, they represented only a small portion of the $500 of hardware reported stolen from his store. Williams may have been on route home from Young’s store. For the last two years he had lived a block further south and west at 153 West 117th Street.

There is no mention of what caused the officer to arrest Williams. Young told police that he “was seen taking property from the store,” phrasing that suggests someone other than Young witnessed the theft. Young is unlikely to have been directly involved in the arrest. Half an hour earlier he had been in Harlem Hospital, receiving treatment for a wound to his head received when a man assaulted him during the attack on his store. Williams may be the individual in a photograph of man arrested for looting published in the New York Evening Journal carrying a large bin from which pots and pans are sticking out (the caption does not name the man).

Williams was one of nine men known to have been arrested away from the stores they allegedly looted, one third (9 of 29) of the arrests for which that information is known (29 of 60).

Charged with burglary the morning after the disorder, Williams appears in only the list of those arrested published by the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Globe and Gazette, and in one list published in the New York Evening Journal. The Harlem Magistrates Court Docket Book records him as being remanded to appear again on March 22. He was not brought before a Grand Jury until April 10. They transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions, according to the District Attorney's case file, an outcome that indicates a decision not to charge Williams with burglary, a felony which required evidence of breaking and entering. They likely instead charged him with larceny, for which the goods allegedly found in his possession provided evidence, but had a value of less than $100, only sufficient to support the misdemeanor charge of petit larceny. Tried two days later, on April 12, the judges acquitted Williams, according to the 28th Precinct Police blotter.
Grocery store on West 137th Street looted Sometime during the disorder the grocery store at 1 West 137th Street, close to the northwest corner of 5th Avenue, was looted. That store is visible in the Tax Department photograph of 3 West 137th Street taken between 1939 and 1941. The two stores in the foreground are part of a different building which fronts 5th Avenue, and includes the lunch bar partly visible on the right, and would have had the address 1 West 137th Street, one of which has a sign identifying it as a grocery store. The MCCH Business survey in the second half of 1935 includes only one store at 1 West 137th Street, a black-owned stationary store that is likely the storefront to the left of the grocery store in the Tax Department photograph. The survey identifies the store at 3 West 137th Street, immediately to the left of the triangle on the sign in the Tax Department photograph, as a black-owned grocery store that the investigator described as a "Fairly well supplied store. Has been here 8 years." That is not the grocery store reportedly looted.

When Elva Jacobs, an eighteen-year-old Black woman, appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20 charged with burglary, the Home News added the details that she had "broken a store window at 1 W. 137th St. and taken groceries." No complainant is recorded in the docket book, nor is the name of the storeowner recorded after the disorder by the MCCH investigator. Officer L. W. Adamie of the 46th Precinct arrested Jacobs. He also arrested Courtney March, a thirty-nine-year-old Black man who appeared in court immediately after Jacobs, facing the same charge of burglary. Based on other cases recorded in the docket book that indicates that Marsh was also arrested for looting the grocery store, but he is not mentioned in the Home News story on the arraignments in the court, nor does he appear in the list of those arrested in the disorder published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette in which Jacobs appears (neither of them are in the list published in the New York Evening Journal). Given that absence, and without a complainant recorded in the docket book to confirm a link between the two, Marsh is not included among those arrested during the disorder.

Magistrate Ford remanded Jacobs in custody. When she returned to court the next day, the docket book records that Ford set her bail at $1500. Two days later, on March 23, Jacobs was back in court. This is likely when the charge against her was reduced from felony burglary to unlawful entry; in the docket book the original charge is crossed out and "Red. to unl. entry" written in its place, in a different handwriting than the original charge. The same handwriting records that on this date Ford sent her to the Court of Special Sessions, to be tried for a misdemeanor, reducing her bail to $50. There is no evidence of the outcome of that trial. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter records outcomes for trials in the Court of Special Sessions for the individuals taken there, but the MCCH records do not include the police blotter for the 32nd Precinct, to which Adamie would have taken Jacobs having arrested her north of 130th Street. The prosecution of Marsh followed the same process until March 23, when Magistrate Ford discharged him rather than sending him for trial as he did Jacobs.

No details survive of the scale of damage done to the grocery store. While it is not in the MCCH Business survey, there is a grocery store visible in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941, suggesting the store may have continued to operate after the disorder.
Liggett's Drug Store looted Some time during the disorder, James Hayes, a sixteen-year-old Black youth, allegedly broke the window of a store at 2334 8th Avenue, and took a baseball bat from the window, according to a report of his appearance in the Magistrates Court in the Home News. There is no information on the circumstances of his arrest. The nearby intersection of 8th Avenue and West 125th Street, only a few buildings from Kress' store, saw some of the earliest crowds and violence of the disorder, and a concentration of police, who sought to clear West 125th Street by pushing people on to the avenue. However, there are few other reports of broken windows or looting on 8th Avenue, with most of those attacks on Lenox and 7th Avenues, notwithstanding that almost all the businesses were white-owned.

None of the sources identify the business. It seems likely it was a branch of the Liggett's Drug Store chain, located on the corner of 8th Avenue and West 125th Street. The Tax Department photograph of the corner taken between 1939 and 1941 shows that the drug store window stretched from the corner two thirds of the length of the building that ran from 2330 to 2336 8th Avenue, so would have taken in 2334 8th Avenue. The Liggett's Drug Store is not in the MCCH Business survey, which does not include any stores on the corner of that building, the Bishop Building, only a shoe store at 273 West 125th Street and a bank at 277 West 125th Street, and a hat store and barber at 2336 8th Avenue. Mention of the store in that location in an article in the New York Amsterdam News in 1932 about a man charged with throwing a brick through the store window (with the address given as 281 West 125th Street) and in the caption of a photograph of picketing of the store in 1938 also in the New York Amsterdam News confirms that the drug store was on the corner prior to when the Tax Department photograph was taken between 1939 and 1941.

James Hayes appears among those charged with burglary in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. Hayes appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, where the charge was recorded as petit larceny not burglary. That charge did not require evidence of breaking in and entering a store as burglary did. Magistrate Renaud transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions and held him on $500 bail. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter, which also recorded the charge against Hayes as burglary and misspelled his name as Hazel, is the only source for the outcome of that proceeding: a conviction and suspended sentence. The blotter also added the detail that he broke the window, rather than reaching through an already broken window. Hayes lived at 476 West 141st Street, on Black Harlem's northwest boundary, further from the location of his arrest than most of those caught in the disorder, most of whom lived south of 125th Street or near Lenox Avenue south of 135th Street.
Detective Henry Roge assaulted Just before 10 pm police on 125th Street succeeded in dispersing the crowd in front of Kress’ store, moving them across the street and west on to 8th Avenue. Detective Henry Roge of the West 123rd St Precinct and his partner Raymond Gill were among the police standing in front of the store, watching the crowd, backlit by the lighted store. A rock thrown from the crowd then struck Roge in the head, causing deep cuts to his eye and face. Gill claimed he saw a man appear from behind the cars parked on the street, look around, and throw the rock that hit Roge. At that moment there were no other objects being thrown at stores or police, so Gill was certain that it was that rock that hit his partner, and he was able to keep his eyes on the man who threw it. After chasing him through the crowd, he trapped him among the parked cars. Gill frisked the man, twenty-four-year-old James Hughes, and found five stones in his pockets; Hughes insisted the stones were to defend himself, and he had not thrown the rock that struck Roge.

According to Hughes, he had been caught up in the crowd on 8th Avenue as he tried to return to his furnished room on 7th Avenue near 115th Street from 126th St and 8th Avenue. He’d begun his evening with a trip to a barber’s shop on 7th Avenue, before returning home for supper, and then heading out again at 9.30pm to go drinking. When he set out for home, and saw the broken glass and stones on the streets, and heard people calling out “Let’s break windows,” he picked up some rocks for protection. Hughes knew 125th Street well. He worked in Koch’s Department store, a block east of Kress’, as a show repairer, a trade he had learned in Atlanta. He told the Probation officer who interviewed him that he followed the crowd to 125th Street to prevent them breaking the windows in the store in which he worked.

As Hughes was being arrested, Roge was dealing with his injuries, which were bleeding profusely. A call for medical assistance brought Dr Fabian of the Joint Disease Hospital to attend to the detective. A New York Evening Journal photographer captured several images of a uniformed officer helping a bleeding Roge from the scene (the only images of an injured police officer published). According to the record of medical attendances, Roge remained on duty after being attended by the doctor, but other sources reported that his injury required two stitches, which involved Roge being taken to Harlem Hospital. Probation report records that Roge was on sick leave for 10 days after his injury, making it more likely his injury required him to leave the scene for treatment.

Hughes was tried and convicted of misdemeanor assault. The prosecutor’s notes on the trial suggest that Gill’s testimony stressed that he was certain of his identification of Hughes as the man who threw the rock, against which Hughes could offer only his denial and a series of character witnesses. In response, the prosecutor argued that Hughes “saw plenty of trouble – went right into it.” At the sentencing hearing, the judge expressed belief that Hughes had thrown the rock at the store window, not Roge, so sentenced him to term of only three months in the workhouse.

As with other assaults, the press coverage of this case was fragmented. Roge appeared on the lists of those injured published by white newspapers the New York American (on both March 20 & 21), New York Evening Journal, Home News, New York Daily News, New York Herald Tribune, and New York Post, and in stories in the Daily Mirror. Hughes appeared in lists of those arrested published in the Black newspapers the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the white New York Evening Journal. The two were linked in only three stories, in the New York Times, Home News and Daily Worker. Even when Hughes was tried, producing additional coverage, only two of the five stories mentioned Roge. But that legal process did generate case files in both the DA’s office and the Probation Department which provided details that are available for only a handful of the events of the disorder.
John Henry arrested A police officer arrested John Henry, a sixteen-year-old Black student, together with Oscar Leacock, a twenty-year-old Brazilian laborer, around 2.15 AM, at Lenox Avenue and 126th Street. There is no mention of what prompted Officer Astel to stop the men; the blocks of Lenox Avenue north of 125th Street had been the site of attacks on stores for around two hours before he stopped Henry and Leacock. He reported that he found on them "a quantity of jewelry," which when questioned they admitted taking from Benjamin Zelvin's store at 372 Lenox Avenue. The officer then had the men take him to the store, which was only three blocks north, where they found all the windows broken. Zelvin had locked his jewelry store at 372 Lenox Avenue around 11.30 PM, and did not return from his home in Brooklyn until opening time the next day.

Henry and Leacock were two of nine men known to have been arrested away from the stores they allegedly looted, one third (9/27) of the arrests for which that information is known (27/60).

Henry lived at 313 West 118th Street, near 8th Avenue. Leacock lived at the opposite end of the same street, at 39 West 118th Street, near 5th Avenue. Henry was one of the youngest people arrested during the disorder; James Hayes was also sixteen years of age (two seventeen-year-old men were also arrested, one of who, Robert Tanner, was the only other identified as a student). There is no indication how the he and Leacock came to be together on March 19.

Zelvin later identified the jewelry found on the men as coming from his store. In the charge against Henry and Leacock the value of the jewelry is initially typed as $100, but then struck out and $75 handwritten in its place. The grand jury reduced the felony burglary charge against the men to a misdemeanor, a decision that likely reflected the lack of evidence that the men had broken into the store that a charge of burglary required. Given that they had been arrested with merchandise in their possession, the grand jury likely charged them with petit larceny; a felony larceny charge was not an option as the jewelry they had allegedly taken was worth less than $100. Zelvin appears in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 21 to charge one additional man, a thirty-one-year-old Black man named Henry Goodwin, with burglary. That charge was reduced to petit larceny, suggesting he too had only allegedly taken jewelry worth less than $100.

There is no newspaper coverage of the looting; Henry and Leacock appear only in the four most comprehensive lists of those arrested, published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the New York Evening Journal. The details come from the District Attorney's case file; as the grand jury sent the cases to the Court of Special Sessions, the only information is from the Magistrate Court affidavit. Although arrested together, the men appeared in the Harlem Magistrate Court at different times, Leacock on March 20 with most of those arrested during the disorder, and Henry not until the next day. Despite Officer Astel's report that the men had confessed at the time of their arrest, they pled not guilty in court. Both men appeared again on March 22, when the Magistrate sent them to the grand jury charged with burglary. It was not until April 2 that the grand jury heard their case, sending them to the Court of Special Sessions not the Court of General Sessions. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter recorded that the judges convicted both men. Although they likely were tried and convicted together, Leacock and Henry appeared separately for sentencing. On April 17, Henry was sent to the House of Refuge, a juvenile reformatory on Randalls Island (which would close less than a month later, on May 11). The next day Leacock received a suspended sentence.
Robert Tanner arrested Around 3 AM, Officer Charles Necas of the 28th Precinct reported seeing Robert Tanner, a seventeen-year-old Black student, put his hand in the broken window of Jack Garmise's cigar shop at 1916 7th Avenue and take a pipe, according to the Magistrates Court affidavit. Necas then arrested Tanner. The store window had been broken a little over an hour earlier, when two police officers allegedly saw someone in a crowd throw a milk can. At that time officers arrested two men, Thomas Jackson and Raymond Easley. That Tanner allegedly took a single pipe suggests that there was little merchandise in the window by that time, that most of the $100 of pipes, clocks, watches, razors and other goods that Garmise reported stolen had been taken earlier. While it does not appear that police officers guarded the damaged store, as they did on West 125th Street, it was in a likely location for police to be stationed: on the corner of West 116th Street, the business district south of West 125th Street, and Harlem's busiest avenue. Tanner lived on West 116th Street only three buildings west of 7th Avenue, at 218 West 116th Street. He was likely one of the many Harlem residents drawn to the streets by the disorder. There is no mention of others in the area at the time, but there are a scattering of reported events nearby around this time.

Tanner was one of only two of those arrested identified as a student, along with John Henry, and one of only four under eighteen years of age. His name is in the lists of those arrested for burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the New York Evening Journal. When he was arraigned in the Harlem Magistrate Court on March 20, Magistrate Renaud held him for the grand jury on $1000 bail, according to the Magistrates Court docket book. The Home News published the only report of that appearance, which grouped Tanner with Thomas Jackson, one of the men arrested for the earlier attack on Garmise's shop who the docket book indicates had been arraigned shortly before Tanner. The story mistakenly reversed the timing of the men's alleged crimes described in the legal records, reporting that Tanner smashed a side window an hour before Jackson broke the front window. A grand jury indicted him on a charge of burglary on March 22nd. Three days later the New York Sun reported that Tanner appeared in the Court of General Sessions, at which time he did not offer a plea, unlike the other men who appeared with him, and the judge continued his bail. When he appeared again in the court, he pled not guilty. By April 4, he had agreed to plead guilty to petit larceny, an outcome which went unreported in the press but was noted in the District Attorney's case file and the 28th Precinct Police Blotter. The district attorney offered that plea bargain to most of those indicted for burglary. The blotter provides the only evidence of his sentence, to the New York City Reformatory, as a result of being a youthful first offender.
Arthur Davis arrested Sometime during the disorder, Detective Phillips of the 28th Precinct arrested Arthur Davis, a thirty-six-year-old Black resident of 42 West 126th Street. Davis appeared in the list of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the list published in the New York Evening Journal. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter also recorded the charge against Davis as burglary, with the note "Burglarised store during riot." The Daily Worker more precisely described his alleged offense as "stealing groceries," although that statement may have reflected the story being told by the paper, that the disorder had been an "upsurge of starving Negro workers," rather than details given when Davis was sentenced. There is no complainant listed in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, or named in any of the newspaper stories about Davis' court appearances, so the location he allegedly looted is unknown.

Davis was arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book on March 20 with two other individuals arrested by Detective Phillips, Elizabeth Tai and Herbert Hunter, also charged with burglary, perhaps arrested at the same time and place. Magistrate Renaud remanded all three to appear again in court (he sent two others arrested by Phillips who appeared at the same time charged with malicious mischief, Charles Wright and William Norris, to the Court of Special Sessions). The docket book recorded only Phillips name and precinct; the story in the Daily Worker identified him as a detective. Both the docket book and 28th Precinct Police Blotter gave Davis' age as thirty-six years; both lists and all three newspaper stories gave his age as thirty-two-years.

When Davis appeared in court again, on March 22, Magistrate Renaud convicted and sentenced him. While the docket book records no change in the charge against Davis, stories in the New York Daily News and New York Evening Journal reported he had been convicted of disorderly conduct, not burglary, as had Tai and Hunter. In Tai's case, the docket book does record that the charge had been reduced to disorderly conduct. Only that lesser offense could have been dealt with in the Magistrates Court rather than as a misdemeanor in the Court of Special Sessions or a felony in the grand jury and Court of General Sessions. Had the prosecutor presented evidence Davis had stolen merchandise he would have been charged with either burglary or larceny; the charge of disorderly conduct suggests he may have allegedly broken store windows without taking anything.

Renaud sentenced Davis to pay a fine of $25 or serve five days in the Workhouse, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, as was Tai. He gave Hunter a longer sentence of ten days without the alternative of a fine. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter and stories in the New York Daily News, New York Evening Journal and Daily Worker record his sentence as five days in the Workhouse, making it likely that Davis was unable to pay the fine.
Horace Fowler arrested Around 1:30 AM, Detective George Booker arrested Horace Fowler, a thirty-two-year-old Black laborer who lived at 362 Lenox Avenue, several blocks to the east. The detective allegedly saw Fowler break the window of Nicholas Peet's tailor's shop at 2063 7th Avenue, reach inside, and take several articles of clothing. Fowler did admit stealing the clothing in his possession when Booker arrested him, a man's suit and a lady's coat, according to the Probation Department investigation, but denied "breaking the window or knowing how it was broken." In the Magistrate's Court affidavit, Booker describes Fowler breaking the window with a club. The Probation Department investigation reports Booker as saying that he saw Fowler break the window "by throwing a missile through it." If Fowler smashed the window to gain entry, he had committed burglary; if he did not, he had only committed theft.

Fowler told the Probation Department officer that "he mingled with the crowds on the streets of Harlem following the disturbances and that when he observed the looting taking place, he stole the articles indiscriminately." The Probation Officer's notes suggest the theft was not entirely at random: "fell in with mob - needed a suit." As Detective Booker would have been in plainclothes, Fowler may have been unaware that there were police in the vicinity of the store. Fowler was certainly not the only person to steal goods from the store, and unlikely one of the first. Peet put his total losses during the disorder at $452.25 of secondhand suits, coats and pants, and an addition $133 of suits, overcoats, women's coats and dresses belonging to customers, according to the Probation Department investigation. The items found in Fowler's possession had a value of only $25. It is not clear how much of the other clothing was stolen before Fowler's arrest. It could not all have been in the display windows, so people must have entered the store, which required that the windows be broken. If Fowler had to break a window, that looting was unlikely to have happened before his arrest. However, Peet's store was located only two blocks south of West 125th Street, so crowds would have been on this section of 7th Avenue for several hours by 1:30 AM, making it unlikely that the windows remained intact that long. It is more likely that Peet did not have to break the window, and was following in the wake of other looters.

Fowler appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, charged with burglary. He appears in the list of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, a list published in the New York Evening Journal, and a story in the Home News that included brief summaries of the charges made in the Magistrates Court. Magistrate Renaud held him for the grand jury on $1000 bail. The criminal record provided by the Police Department in the District Attorney’s case file showed no arrests, but the Probation Department found a conviction for disorderly conduct, for loitering in the subway, for which Fowler served five days in the workhouse in 1930. Indicted on April 5, Fowler agreed to plead guilty to petit larceny on April 8. After being investigated by the Probation Department, he returned to the Court of General Sessions on April 22, where Judge Wallace sentenced him to three months in the workhouse, according to both the 28th Precinct Police Blotter and the Probation Department case file.

Born in Cooleemee, North Carolina, Fowler had lived in New York City since around 1930. At the time of the 1920 census he was still living with his mother, stepfather and their seven children in Jerusalem, North Carolina, working as a card hand in a cotton mill (his name misrecorded as Horris). Fowler appears to have left home soon after, working around North Carolina before relocating to Philadelphia around 1924. He told a Probation officer he worked as a porter in two different bakeries and the Baltimore and Ohio station restaurant, details that could not be confirmed in the time available for the investigation.

When Fowler arrived in New York City sometime in 1930, he found work as an assistant janitor in a series of apartment buildings – but likely not immediately. His arrest for loitering in the subway was in February 1930; he also mentioned an unconfirmed arrest for vagrancy in Baltimore a month earlier, when he had traveled from Philadelphia looking for work. In both cases he appears to have been seeking shelter. Work as a janitor came with onsite accommodation, first at 1955 Grand Concourse in the Bronx, then 144 West 144th Street in Harlem, and finally, from October 1931 to January 1933, back in the Bronx at 1756 Taylor Avenue, according to the information he gave the Probation officer. Sometime in 1932, Fowler also began working part-time as a porter at a drug store at 1758 East Tremont Avenue, close to the apartment building where he worked. In January 1933 he suffered a hernia which prevented him from working as a janitor. He subsequently rented a room in the apartment of Walter Stevenson and his family at 362 Lenox Avenue, while continuing to work at the drug store almost seven miles away. The owner told the Probation officer he would be glad to give Fowler on his release, as he considered him “a reliable, industrious and honest person.” His industry extended to his leisure time, much of which he spent attending adult education classes at P.S. 89.

At some point after his release in 1935, Fowler left New York City and returned to Philadelphia. In 1940, a census enumerator found him living in a Salvation Army Men’s Hostel. He had been unemployed for over two months, and reported only four weeks of work in 1939. When Fowler registered for the draft two years later, in 1942, he was still living in Philadelphia, and without a job.
Romanoff Drug store looted Sometime during the disorder the Romanoff Drug Store at 375 Lenox Avenue, on the northwest corner of West 129th Street, was looted. J. Romanoff is recorded as the complainant when Oscar Austin, a twenty-nine-year-old black man, Jacob Bonaparte, a twenty-four-year-old Black man, and Sam Nicholas, a twenty-four-year-old Black man were arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court. The docket book entry is the only source that mentions the drug store. It was located on a block that saw multiple stores reported looted; in only one of those cases is there information on the timing of the attack, just before midnight. Bonaparte lived nearby, in the block of West 128th Street between Lenox and 7th Avenues. Austin lived on the same street, just west of 7th Avenue, and Nicholas lived four blocks south, on West 124th Street, also west of 7th Avenue.

The same officer from the 28th Precinct arrested all three men, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book; the clerk's handwriting is too messy to decipher his name. Austin, Bonaparte and Nicholas are among those listed as being arrested for burglary, the charge used in cases of alleged looting, in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. However, the 28th Precinct Police blotter records the charge as Attempted Burglary, suggesting that they were not arrested with any merchandise in their possession. In the Magistrate's Court all three men were charged with Disorderly Conduct, an offense not used in cases of alleged looting, suggesting the men may have broken the store windows but not attempted to take any merchandise. When the men appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, Magistrate Renaud acquitted them. This outcome might explain why Austin, Bonaparte and Nicholas are missing from the newspaper stories about those arraigned in the Magistrates Court after the disorder. While the acquittals indicate that there was no compelling evidence linking the men to damage done to the store, the initial charges do suggest that the store was looted.

Whatever damage the Romanoff Drug Store suffered did not prevent it continuing to operate. It appears in the MCCH Business survey in the second half of 1935, and is visible in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941.
Paul Boyett arrested Patrolman George Conn arrested Paul Boyett, a twenty-eight-year-old Black garage worker, for assaulting Timothy Murphy, a twenty-nine-year-old white rock driller. Conn had come upon a crowd attacking Murphy on West 127th Street between 8th Avenue and St Nicholas Avenue around 9 PM. After firing his pistol into the air to scatter the crowd, then shooting into the crowd, hitting Boyett, Conn pursued the injured man until he caught up with him in the hallway of his home at 310 West 127th Street.

Taken to the 30th Precinct Station, Boyett received treatment for his wound from a doctor from Knickerbocker Hospital, according to hospital records, before being placed in a cell.

Boyett appears in lists of the injured published in the New York Evening Journal , New York Post, New York Daily News, New York American. and in in a group of those shot reported in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and New York Herald Tribune. He also appears in lists of the arrested published in the Afro-American, Atlanta World, Norfolk Journal and Gazette, New York Daily News, New York American, and New York Evening Journal, and in the 28th Precinct Police blotter.

Boyett appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, charged with felonious assault. The docket book indicates that he was remanded until March 22. Boyett did not appear before the grand jury until April 23, according to the District Attorney's case file records; they indicted him for first degree assault. His trial occurred on May 29. Boyett testified he had been “an innocent onlooker” drawn to the “disturbance," the New York Amsterdam News reported, and “struck no one at that time.” In the confusion as the crowd rushed to leave as police appeared, a bullet hit him. The jury acquitted Boyett, an outcome that indicates they likely found his account persuasive.
Thomas Wijstem assaulted & killed Around 10.30 PM, Thomas Wijstem, a thirty-four-year-old white carpenter, was struck on the head by a rock and knocked unconscious in front of the W. T. Grant store at 226 West 125th Street. By this time the large crowds that had been focused on 125th Street had broken into smaller groups and scattered north and south up the avenues, allowing police to secure the street. Perhaps this lull also drew white spectators, to see the store windows that had been smashed the length of the block. Wijstem only lived a few blocks to the east, at 16 East 127th Street, a racially mixed section close enough to have heard the disorder (most of the other whites assaulted on 125th Street in the early period of the disorder lived west of Kress' store).

Notwithstanding the breakup of the crowds, three of the four brief newspaper accounts of the assault reported that a group of black men attacked Wijstem. While police only made one other arrest in such circumstances, on this occasion they did apprehend a suspect. That outcome is perhaps unsurprisingly given that this block of 125th Street was the headquarters of the police response to the disorder. On the other hand, it is noteworthy that all the police in the vicinity did not prevent the assault.

While many of those injured in the disorder suffered head injuries, Wijstem’s injury was one of the most severe, a fractured skull that rendered him unconscious. As a result, he appears in stories of the disorder and lists of the injured in the New York Evening Journal, New York Daily News, New York American, Home News, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette as a seriously injured ‘unidentified white man.’ The New York Post and New York World-Telegram did finally name him, on March 22, reporting respectively that his neighbors or his brother had identified him. Three months later, a brief story in New York Herald Tribune reported Wijstem had died in Bellevue Hospital without regaining consciousness. However, as the attack on Wijstem led to an arrest and prosecution for assault, he is included among both those assaulted and killed (but not among those injured in assaults).

Police charged Douglas Cornelius, a twenty-two-year old black man, with hitting Wijstem with a rock. Like the man he targeted, Cornelius lived in East Harlem, at 52 East 118th Street, a mixed black and Puerto Rican section. He appears in lists of those arrested for assault in nine papers, but only five of those reports link him to the unidentified man with the fractured skull. But as in the case of Paul Boyett and Charles Alston and his three companions arrested on West 138th St., it appears that police could not prove that Cornelius was actually involved in the assault. After apparently being indicted, the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book recorded the charges against him as having been dismissed.
William Gindin's shoe store looted Around 9.45 PM William Gindin locked up his business, William's Shoe Store at 333 Lenox Avenue, according to the Magistrate's Court affidavit, and presumably went home, to an apartment at 346 Lenox Avenue, across the street a block to the north. Crowds gathered on Lenox Avenue north of West 125th Street and began to smash store windows around 10.30 PM, when a group of men looted Towbin's haberdashery at Lenox Avenue and West 125th Street. Gindin's store was targeted sometime before 11.20 PM; one display window was smashed and a large quantity of merchandise stolen. While police had been unable to protect the store from that attack, Patrolman Nador Herrman allegedly did see Julian Rogers, a thirty-seven-year-old Black auto washer, kick in the other display window at around 11.20 PM, take three odd women's shoes worth $1 each and put them under his jacket. Herrman arrested Rogers about 100 feet from the store, and recovered the shoes, according to the Magistrates Court affidavit. It appears that the store suffered further attacks and looting later in the disorder. Both display windows are smashed and emptied of their contents in the photograph of the store published in the New York World Telegram. Merchandise scattered on the street is also visible. Gindin told a Probation Department investigator that shoes valued at $1200 were stolen during the disorder.

Gindin was one of the twenty white businessowners that the New York Sun identified as suing the city for failing to protect their stores; he claimed $1273.89 in damages, well above the median reported claim of $733. By the time the city Comptroller heard testimony from those bringing suit, 106 owners had sought damages. Gindin is not among those whose testimony appears in newspaper stories about that proceeding, and he is not one of those whose cases went to trial to test the claims. The city lost the test cases, so Gindin likely was awarded some amount of damages. Whatever the award, Gindin was able to remain in business. William's Shoe Store appears in the MCCH business survey from the second half of 1935, and Gindin still owned and operated the store when he registered for the draft in 1942.

Born in Russia in 1894, Ginden was resident in New York City at least by 1917, when he registered for the draft. By 1930, Gindin owned the shoe store, and was one of a small number of white businessowners who resided in Harlem. According to the federal census schedule he lived a block north of his store, at 363 Lenox Avenue. Unusually, all six of the other apartments in that building had white residents, including three households headed by men who owned stores in Harlem later looted during the disorder who joined Gindin in suing the city, Irving Stetkin, Jacob Saloway and Michael D'Agostino. In 1935 Gindin lived at 346 Lenox Avenue, where he would have been a neighbor of Herman Young, who lived above a hardware he owned at that address that was also looted during the disorder. While Young and his wife went to his store when they heard glass smashing and witnessed the looting, Gindin apparently did not head to his store during the disorder. The Magistrates Court affidavit specified that no one was in the store when Rogers stole the shoes. By 1942, while still in business in Harlem, Gindin had moved to the Upper West Side, according to his draft registration.

Rogers was arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, charged with burglary. Magistrate Renaud held him for the grand jury and set bail at $1000. He appears in the lists of those arrested published in Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. None of Rogers' other appearances in court are reported in the press. After being indicted by the grand jury on April 5, the District Attorney's case file indicates that he agreed to plead guilty to petit larceny, and appeared in the Court of General Sessions to do so on April 16. Returned to court for sentencing on April 25, Judge Allen gave Rogers a suspended sentence, recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter.
Andrew Lyons killed Andrew Lyons, a thirty-seven-year-old Black man, died as a result of internal injuries "sustained during the thick of a melee at 125th street and Seventh Avenue." There is no information on when he was injured.

Although that intersection is in the heart of Harlem and the disorder, only stories in the Amsterdam News and Times Union reported the location of Lyons' injury, and he did not appear in any hospital records. (The two sources disagree on the location, with the Times Union put the killing at 125th and Lenox not 125th and 7th Avenue, but as that story also gave a different home address and injury than other newspapers, the killing has been mapped at the address given in the Amsterdam News). Lyons also is not included in any lists of the injured published in newspapers on March 20 and March 21. The first reports of Lyons are those of his death in the New York Post and New York Daily News on March 23, New York Times and an AP story on March 24, and the Atlanta World on March 27. Lyons also appears in lists of those killed in the weekly Black newspapers, the New York Age, Pittsburgh Courier, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette on March 30. The only source that provides any details of the circumstances of Lyons' fatal injury is the Times Union, which described him as having been beaten over the head with a blunt instrument, but is the only source to describe his injury as a fractured skull, casting doubt on that account.

Lyons lived at 147 West 117th Street, a mixed Black and Puerto Rican area south of where he was injured, on a block between Lenox and 7th Avenues. The noise and crowds on 7th Avenue could have drawn him to the disorder.
Carl Jones arrested Around 1.45 AM, Officer Raymond Early arrested eighteen-year-old Carl Jones in front of 391 Lenox Avenue. From across the street he had allegedly seen Jones pick up an object and throw it through the window of the stationary store owned by Harry and Morris Farber located at that address. Early must also have alleged that Jones reached into the window or trying to climb through it, as he charged Jones with attempted burglary, rather than the offense employed when windows were smashed, disorderly conduct. Jones, who lived several blocks to the north, in a furnished room at 84 West 134th Street, admitted that he smashed the window, but denied trying to steal any merchandise from the window. However, given that Early had some distance to cover (across the four lanes of Lenox Avenue), Jones evidently did not immediately flee after the window smashed. The Probation Officer investigating Jones appears to have sought another motive for Jones attack other than theft, recording that Jones "had been a regular customer of the complainant's store, but denies that he had any personal grievance against the complainant." The explanation to Probation Officer settled on was that Jones had become "imbued with the mob psychology prevalent at the moment," echoing the conclusion of Dr. Charles Thompson after examining Jones in the Court Psychiatric Clinic.

Morris Farber told the Probation officer that he wanted "the leniency of the Court be extended to [Jones]." The District Attorney's case file for Jones is missing, producing some confusion about his prosecution. Jones appears in the lists of those arrested during the disorder, as charged with burglary, published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. However, there are no newspaper reports of his subsequent appearances in court. The docket book records that Jones appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, charged with attempted burglary. Magistrate Renaud held him on bail of $1000 and then discharged him on March 25, an outcome also recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter. Jones must have been rearrested and sent to the grand jury after that discharge, as the Probation Department investigation report records him pleading guilty to unlawful entry on March 29, and being sentenced to the workhouse for four months on April 9. The plea bargain the district attorney offered Jones is in line with that offered to others not allegedly found with stolen goods in their possession, as is the sentence. Other offenders around eighteen years of age were sentenced to institutions for youthful offenders, but the Probation Department investigation raised questions about Jones' age that seem likely to worked against such an outcome in his case. While noting that Jones "claims to be 18 years, four months of age," a Probation officer wrote that he "appears to be several years older than he claims." The department was unable to obtain any evidence of his date of birth in the eleven days it spent investigating Jones.

It was not only Jones' statement about his age that the Probation Officer considered unreliable. Jones said he had been born in St Louis, Missouri, leaving at age fourteen to travel to New York City. The only response to the department's inquiries about Jones that appears in his file is a letter dated April 5 from the St Louis Juvenile Court, reporting that the court could find no mention of Jones in its files, nor anyone at the address Jones gave for his father who knew him or his family. A Probation officer was able to confirm that Jones had lived at a furnished room at 84 West 134th Street for six months prior to his arrest, with eighteen-year-old Black woman named Georgia Harris. Jones' statements about his employment proved less reliable. The bakery on East 103rd Street that Jones named as his employer at the time of his arrest did not exist. Prior to that he said he worked for a year at a shoe repair store at 395 Lenox Ave, in the same building as the Farber's store; the owner said Jones had been employed only for several months, about three years earlier. The neckwear manufacturer Jones identified as his employer for nine months had no recollection of him. The Probation officer's frustration with Jones is evident in his conclusion that "the manner in which he has lived during this time is decidedly questionable." He was more direct in the preliminary investigation, scrawling "Liar" across the section of the form relating to manner and "etiology of maladjustment." Dr Charles Thompson's psychiatric examination report did not offer similar assessments. He found Jones neither psychotic nor mentally defective, but merely "an immature youth" of "low average intelligence." The explanation of his alleged crime lay in outside forces: "he seems to have acted together with other individuals under the influence of mob spirit, with no purpose in his action."
Richard Jackson arrested Richard Jackson appears in lists of those arrested for assault in the Black newspapers the Afro-American, Atlanta World and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, with no information on the events that led to his arrest or his alleged victim. A twenty-seven-year-old Black man who lived at 102 West 119th Street, he appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20 charged with the lesser offense of disorderly conduct, not assault. That offense did not involve any violence; instead it focused creating a disturbance of some sort, suggesting being part of a crowd rather than an assault. Disorderly conduct was also a charge that could be adjudicated in the Magistrates Court, where Magistrate Ford convicted Jackson. He sentenced him to just two days in the workhouse or a $5 fine. The New York Age reported his conviction, while the New York Herald Tribune also reported the charge and sentence.
Douglas Cornelius arrested Police arrested Douglas Cornelius, a twenty-two-year old black man, for hitting Thomas Wijstem, a thirty-year-old white carpenter with a rock in front of the W. T. Grant store on 125th Street around 10.30PM. Newspapers reported that a group of men had attacked Wijstem, but police arrested only Cornelius. As Wijstem was knocked unconscious and could not identify himself, he appears in lists of the injured as an "unidentified white man," named only in stories published by the New York Post and New York World-Telegram on March 22. (Three months later, a brief story in New York Herald Tribune reported Wijstem had died in Bellevue Hospital without regaining consciousness).

Like the man he targeted, Cornelius lived in East Harlem, at 52 East 118th Street, a mixed black and Puerto Rican section. He appears in the list of those arrested for assault published in the Afro-American, Atlanta World, Norfolk Journal and Gazette, but he is linked to the unidentified man with the fractured skull only in a story in the New York Times, a list of the arrested in the New York Evening Journal, and lists of the injured in the New York Herald Tribune, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and Home News.

After being one of the last arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, Cornelius is charged with felonious assault. Magistrate Renaud held him until March 25 on bail of $1000, according to the docket book. When he appears again, Magistrate Ford dismisses the charge against him dismissed as he had been indicted by the grand jury. The 28th Precinct Police blotter simply listed the charges as "Dism[issed]," as it did with other men dismissed in the Magistrates Court so they could be indicted. However, there is no case file for Cornelius in the District Attorney's records, and no other information on the outcome of his prosecution.
Arthur Merritt arrested About 1.30 AM, Officer George Nelson of the 15th Precinct was “on duty” near Sol Weit and Isaac Popiel's grocery store at 343 Lenox Avenue when he saw a group of about five people gathered around the store, he later told a Probation officer. As he watched, Arthur Merritt, a forty-two-year-old Black painter, allegedly broke the store window with a hammer. The group then climbed through the windows and took 126 pounds of butter, 90 dozen eggs, eight cartons of cigarettes, a ham and other food products, as well as $14 from the cash register. By the time Nelson got to the store, the group had run back out, according to the Magistrate's Court affidavit; he told a Probation officer he arrested Merritt “a short distance away.” He found two cans of beans, a can of mile and a can of tuna in Merritt's possession, as well as a hammer. Those details of what was allegedly found on Merritt are not included in the affidavit, although that evidence is crucial to the charge made against him. Notes on the affidavit do record the total stock lost, with calculations that seem to be an effort to establish the value of that stock.

Merritt denied looting the store or participating in the disorder, telling a Probation officer he was on his way home after visiting his sister, Pauline. She lived at 108 West 130th Street; he lived at 134 West 121st Street. Both address were between 7th and Lenox Avenues, so his route home could have taken him down Lenox Avenue. He would been walking through the blocks north of 125th street that saw the most extensive reported looting of the disorder, much of which occurred around the time Nelson arrested him. As Merritt was the only one of the group Officer Nelson claimed he saw that was arrested, it is likely he was on his own or with another officer. That Nelson saw the attack on the store without being able to prevent it suggests he was some distance away, most likely on one of the corners of Lenox Avenue and West 127th Street, allowing some possibility that he misidentified Merritt among the crowds milling about.

Arthur Merritt appeared in the Harlem Magistrate’s Court on March 20. He appears in the list of those arrested in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the list in the New York Evening Journal. His criminal record showed an arrest for grand larceny in 1920, which resulted in a suspended sentence, so he was held without bail. Returned to the court on March 22, he was held for the grand jury, an appearance reported in the Daily Worker, New York Daily News, and New York Evening Journal. After being indicted on April 9, he agreed to plead guilty to Petit Larceny on April 12. Ten days later, Judge James Garrett Wallace sentenced him to three months in the workhouse, an outcome recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter as well as the Probation Department case file.

Born in New Jersey, Merritt had lived in Harlem for fifteen years, likely arriving after his discharge from the US Army in 1919. His Probation Department case file provides fragmentary information on his life. He had married twenty-one-year-old Blanche Morris two months before arriving in the city, in Newport News, Virginia, where he was stationed. Blanche had a six-year-old son, Charles. At the beginning of 1920, Merritt started work as a porter for Weingarten Bros., at 151 West 30th Street, living at 434 Lenox Avenue. After nine months he lost that job after being caught stealing dresses from his employers; twenty-four dresses worth $700 were found in a trunk in his apartment, but he allegedly stole clothing worth $2000. No other details of the circumstances are recorded by the Probation officer, but Merritt and his wife pled guilty to Petit Larceny and received a suspended sentence, a lenient punishment for a theft of that scale. The Probation Investigation records May 1922 as the date of arrest, but based on the criminal record that appears to be the date the couple were discharged from Probation. There is no mention that they had jobs during those years, but their first daughter was born in 1922.

Around 1923, Merritt began working as a painter, and as a janitor at 1027 Avenue St John in the Bronx until 1926, living in the building, according to the Probation Department case file. However, the family appears in the 1925 New York State census living at 906 Intervale Avenue, in a large household that now included three children, and also Arthur's sister and brother-in-law, and two of Blanche's brothers, aged nineteen and twenty years. After the janitorial job ended, Merritt, his wife and children relocated first to 200 West 128th Street, and then to 109 West 144th Street, where a census enumerator found them in 1930.

Later in 1930, Arthur and Blanche separated, a result of his heavy drinking, according to the Probation Department investigation. For three years, the three children lived with Merritt, in apartments at 2170 7th Avenue for two years and then 34 West 132nd Street. He worked sporadically as a painter for a contractor based at 160 East 116th Street. However, in 1932 he was discharged as they had insufficient work for him. Several months later Merritt found work for a real estate agent, but it was seasonal. By the beginning of 1934 he was evicted from his apartment after falling two months behind in the rent, and became unable to support his children. Found to be neglected children, they were put in their mother's care, after which Merritt appears to have had limited contact with them and did not contribute to their support. He moved to a furnished room at 112 West 113th Street, leaving after a year for the room at 134 West 121st where he lived at the time of the disorder. Merritt remained in Harlem, and estranged from his family, after the disorder. When he registered for the draft, he gave his sister's address as his home, and an employer in the Bronx.
Joseph Wade arrested
At about 2.45 AM, Officer William Leahy of the 28th Precinct allegedly saw Joseph Wade, a twenty-four-year-old Black "candy boy" coming out of Frank De Thomas' candy store at 101 West 127th Street. Leahy noted that store's windows were broken, but not that he had seen Wade break them. When Leahy arrested Wade, he found several toy pistols worth sixty cents in Wade's possession, according to the Magistrate's Court affidavit, or $70 of goods, according to later reports of Wade's sentencing in the New York Age and New York Times. For the last month, Wade had lived near the other end of the same block of West 127th Street as the store was located, at 148 West 127th Street.

Wade was clearly not the only person to have looted the store, as DeThomas claimed $745.25 in losses. He was among the twenty white store-owners to bring the first suits against the city for failing to protect their businesses identified in the New York Sun.

Wade appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, when Magistrate Renaud ordered him held for the grand jury without bail. While only ? of those charged after the disorder were denied bail, Wade's criminal record featured three convictions since 1926, including one for unlawful entry resulting from a charge of burglary. That conviction in December 1926 was followed by a second arrest for burglary in April 1931 for which Wade was discharged. Two months later he was convicted of gun possession. Finally, in October 1933, Wade pled guilty to attempted second degree assault, having been charged with rape. As a result, he spent around two years in prison in the nine years before the disorder: two indeterminate terms for the first two convictions, and a year in Sing Sing Prison for the final conviction. The New York Age reported Wade had been paroled in December 1934, only three months before the disorder (a detail not mentioned by any other newspaper).

The grand jury indicted Wade for burglary on March 22, and five days later he appeared in the Court of General Sessions having agreed to plead guilty to the lesser offense of petit larceny. The Probation Department would have conducted an investigation before Wade's sentencing, but as he had been convicted previously in the Court of General Sessions, that report would have been put in the file created then, likely in 1926. On April 8, Judge Donnellan sentenced him to six months in the workhouse, a decision reported in the press as well as recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter.

There are more reports of the progress of Wade’s prosecution than most looting cases. He appears not only in the lists of those arrested published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal, and the Home News story on proceedings in the Harlem Magistrates Court. The New York Sun also reported his return to the Magistrates Court on March 25 to have his bail decision continued. At least five papers - New York Amsterdam News, New York Herald Tribune, New York Daily News, New York Post, New York Times - reported Wade’s appearance in the Court of General Sessions to plead guilty. The New York Times and New York Evening News, and three Black newspapers, the Afro-American, New York Amsterdam News and New York Age, also reported his sentencing eleven days later.

Wade had lived in New York City since at least 1920, when he and his mother Marie appear in the federal census, living with his father's brother at 262 West 124th Street. According to the census, he was born in New York City, but the Sing Sing Prison Inmate Admission Register recorded Charleston, South Carolina as his birthplace, and that of both his parents. Exactly when the family moved to New York City is uncertain; the register entry recorded Wade as having lived there for eleven years, so since around 1922, but the census indicates he had been in the city at least two years earlier. The Admission Register contains other fragmentary details of Wade’s life before the disorder. His father apparently died around 1923, when Wade was thirteen years old. He remained in school until he was sixteen years old; his first arrest and conviction must have occurred around the time he left school. He was born in according to the register, and he gave his age as twenty-four years in the Magistrate’s Court, but the census schedule records his age as ten years in 1920, putting his birthday in 1910. He must have given that earlier date when arrested in 1926, as he was not prosecuted in the juvenile court as he would have been if under sixteen years of age. As a youthful first offender, he was sent to the New York City Reformatory in January 1927. Released later that year, he began working as a porter at the Alhambra Theater. It appears that Wade’s arrest and conviction for gun possession in June 1931 cost him that job. Now aged around twenty-one-years old, he was sentenced to another indeterminate sentence, this time in the Penitentiary.

Wade served no more than eighteen months, as he started work as a porter for Sam Rosen of 216 West 125th Street around January 1933, according to the Sing Sing Prison Inmate Admission Register. By October, 1933, he lived at 109 West 129th Street; his mother Marie lived at 226 West 124th Street. That month Wade was charged with rape. The Admissions Register includes a section to record “Criminal Acts attributed to;” Wade’s entry is “Lived with girl,” suggesting that the charge may have been statutory rape, for sexual acts with a girl under eighteen years of age, the age of consent in New York in 1933. (Both the plea bargain and the sentence are in line with how courts handled such cases). Although sentenced to a minimum term of fifteen months, the Admissions Register recorded that he was eligible for parole after one year, on December 28, 1934. The report of his sentencing in the New York Age indicates he was released at the time.
Jean Jacquelin arrested At 5.40 AM, in one of the final events of the disorder, Officer Dimao arrested a twenty-eight-year-old white chauffeur named Jean Jacquelin at the corner of West 128th Street and 8th Avenue. Jacquelin allegedly was carrying two ladies coats, values at $20 each, and two pairs of trousers, valued at $5 each. There is no mention of what caused Dimao to arrest him, but the clothing was likely bulky enough that it attracted the officer's attention; Morris Sankin later identified it as coming from his tailor's store at 200 West 128th Street, the opposite end of the block from where Dimao arrested Jacquelin.

Jacquelin was one of nine men known to have been arrested away from the stores they allegedly looted, one third (9/27) of the arrests for which that information is known (27/60).

Jacquelin would not have had to travel far to Sankin's store. He lived at 222 West 128th Street, a four story apartment building ten buildings west of the store. He had only lived there for a month. That block was home to Black residents, making it an unusual address for Jacquelin, one of only ten white men arrested in the disorder. There were areas occupied by white residents nearby, on West 126th Street and several blocks south of West 125th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues.

The evidence that Jacquelin was white comes from the Harlem Magistrate's Court docket book. It is the only legal record that collected information on an individual's race. The Magistrate's Court examination recorded only birthplace. So too did the Police Blotter. Jacquelin may have been Canadian. His birthplace is recorded as Nova Scotia in the Magistrate's Court examination, but as the United States in both the docket book and the 28th Precinct Police Blotter (although the blotter also mistakenly identifies Jacquelin as a woman). He had been in New York City since at least 1932, when his criminal record shows he was arrested for assault with a knife, an incident that does not seem to have involved significant violence as the charge was reduced to disorderly conduct, for which the Magistrate convicted him but gave him a suspended sentence. No newspapers reported Jacquelin's race. He appears in the list of those arrested published by the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette and the list published by the New York Evening Journal (both of which misspelled his first name as Kean). He also appears in the Home News story on hearings in the Magistrate Court, his first name reported as Gene, with Leroy Gillard, a forty-six-year old Black man also charged with burglary of Sankin's store, but arrested earlier, at 10.10PM, at the store. The story reported that they stole all $800 of clothes taken from Sankin's store, rather than the clothing allegedly found on them.

Jacquelin appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, immediately after Gillard. The Magistrate sent Jacquelin to the grand jury, along with Gillard. On April 5, the grand jury determined that both men should only be charged with a misdemeanor not felony burglary, likely petit larceny in Jacquelin's case as the clothing he had allegedly taken had a value of less than $100, so too little for a charge of grand larceny. Sent to the Court of Special Sessions, he appeared before the judges on April 11, according to the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, when they dismissed the charges against him.
John Vivien arrested Around 11 PM, Officer Peter Naton of the 28th Precinct claimed he saw John Vivien, a twenty-seven-year-old Black laborer, each through the smashed window of Regal Shoes and take a pair of shoes from the display. Edward Wittleder, the assistant manager, had closed the store, on the corner of West 125th Street and 7th Avenue, at 10 PM, before it was damaged, according to his Magistrate's Court affidavit. However, he would have known that it was likely to be attacked. By that time store windows had been smashed the length of the block of 125th Street to the west, between 7th and 8th Avenues. Police trying to clear people from the street had pushed them toward the intersection on which Regal Shoes sat, creating large crowds, as well as concentrating the officers and riot control trucks there. After 10 PM, small groups had begun to attack businesses north and south of the intersection on 7th Avenue and further east on 125th Street. When Naton (and Officer Redmond, according to the Criminal Record) arrested Vivien, he claimed he found shoes which Wittleder identified as coming from the store in Vivien's possession. They had a value of $5.50, according to the affidavit. (Naton made two other arrests around this time, of John King fifteen minutes two blocks south on 7th Avenue at West 123rd Street, and James Pringle, at 11.30 PM back to the intersection of 7th Avenue and West 125th Street)

Vivien lived at 483 Manhattan Avenue, two blocks west of Regal Shoes, near the corner of West 120th Street, on margins of the Black neighborhood. He is listed among those arrested and charged with burglary in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and New York Evening Journal, his name, misspelled Vivian. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, where Magistrate Renaud held him for the grand jury on bail of $1000. It was not his first time in court; he had been arrested for robbery in 1929, a charge dismissed by a Magistrate according to his Criminal Record. The Home News reported those proceedings, also misspelling his name Vivian; the remainder of his prosecution is recorded only in legal records and police records. Vivien appeared before the grand jury on April 4, according to his District Attorney's case file; they sent him to the Court of Special Sessions rather than indicting him. That outcome indicates a lack of evidence that he had broken into the store, a requirement for a charge of burglary; the charge Vivien instead faced was likely petit larceny, a misdemeanor, as the value of the items he had taken were well below the $100 required for a charge of felony theft. The judges in that court then convicted him and suspended his sentence, an outcome recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter.
De Soto Windgate shot At 1. 15 AM “some unknown person” shot a twenty-four-year-old black man named De Soto Windgate as he walked along West 144th Street between Lenox and 7th Avenues. Only five other events in the disorder occurred north of 135th Street, none within six blocks of this shooting. Three of those events were also assaults, two on white men on 8th Avenue north of 145th Street before midnight, and shots fired at police at 138th Street and Lenox Avenue at 5 AM. An equally small number of events occurred off the avenues, on cross streets, as this shooting did. Aside from assaults in front and behind Kress’ store, there are only two assaults, south of 125th Street.

There is no information on the circumstances of the shooting. Windgate lived at the opposite end of Harlem at 7 East 114th Street, a section mostly occupied by Puerto Ricans and whites. He may have come north to frequent one of the theaters on West 145th Street; the Roosevelt was on the corner of 7th Avenue. Or he may have been visiting friends. There is no evidence of any disorder nearby that might have attracted his attention or brought police into the area. So while the other black men shot and wounded in the disorder seem likely to have been hit by police shooting in response to looting that does not seem to have been the case with Windgate. Given the location and limited evidence, there is some question about whether this shooting is part of the disorder.

The shot hit Windgate in the abdomen (only the New York Post located the wound elsewhere, in his right shoulder), and was serious enough for him to be admitted to Harlem Hospital – and be included in the list of those “near death” in the New York American, Afro-American, Atlanta World, and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the New York Evening Journal’s list of the “dying.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and New York Herald Tribune simply described his condition as “serious.” His injury is different from others shot in the disorder; only one is hit in the abdomen, with the remainder suffering injuries to the legs or hands.

Being admitted to Harlem Hospital might explain Windgate’s consistent appearance in newspaper lists. However, he does not appear in the hospital records provided to the MCCH.

Windgate does appear in another record gathered by the MCCH, information extracted from the Aided Cases book of the 32nd Precinct, based on West 135th Street. Procedures required police to record all incidents reported to them in that book. Only three other cases appear in the 32nd Precinct book for the period of the disorder, the assault on a white man, Julius Narditch, by a group pf black men at 8th Avenue and 147th Street, the assault on Thomas Suarez on 134th Street and the injury of Herbert Holderman on 132nd Street.

The police record does not identify Windgate’s race, but newspapers do. The New York American, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Home News, New York Daily News, New York Post, New York Times and New York Sun all include his race; the New York Herald Tribune and New York Evening Journal do not. Four of the six others shot and wounded in the disorder were Black men, one of unknown race, and one white police officer.

No one was arrested for shooting Windgate, as was the case with all of those shot and wounded (Detective Campo’s alleged assailant was shot and killed).
Harry Farber's stationary store looted Around 1.45 AM, Patrolman Raymond Early of the 40th Precinct was standing on Lenox Avenue at 130th street when he allegedly saw Carl Jones, an eighteen-year-old Black man, pick up an object from the street and throw it through the window of the stationary store of Harry Farber and his son Morris at 391 Lenox Avenue. Early told a Probation officer that he ran across the street and arrested Jones as he was putting his hands in the window and removing some merchandise. Jones, who lived several blocks to the north, in a furnished room at 84 West 134th Street, admitted that he smashed the window, but denied trying to steal any merchandise from the window. However, given that Early had some distance to cover (the Tax Department photograph is taken from across Lenox Ave, on one of the corners the patrolman could have been standing), Jones evidently did not immediately flee after the window smashed. The Probation Officer investigating Jones appears to have sought another motive for Jones attack other than theft, recording that Jones "had been a regular customer of the complainant's store, but denies that he had any personal grievance against the complainant." The explanation to Probation Officer settled on was that Jones had become "imbued with the mob psychology prevalent at the moment," echoing the conclusion of Dr. Charles Thompson after examining Jones in the Court Psychiatric Clinic.

The arrest of Jones did not save the Farbers' store from looting. After Early took him into custody, and likely to the 28th Precinct station, others attacked the store, smashing additional windows and taking around $300 of merchandise. The Probation Officer described the time of Jones' arrest as "when the recent Harlem riot was at its height." There is evidence of other attacks on stores on this block of Lenox Avenue, and blocks to both the north and south around this time. The storeowners had insurance, so the window broken by Jones was replaced without cost to them. They appear to have been able to remain in business; a white-owned stationary store appears at 391 Lenox Avenue in the MCCH Business survey. (The Harlem Magistrate's Court docket book listed the storeowner's name as Maurice Lifarb, not Morris Farber as in the Probation Department investigation report, and the store at 391 Lenox Avenue, not 389 Lenox Avenue as in the Probation Department investigation report. Given that the survey did not record a business at 389, and a stationary store at 391, the store has been located at the later address).

Morris Farber told the Probation officer that he wanted "the leniency of the Court be extended to [Jones]." The District Attorney's case file for Jones is missing, producing some confusion about his prosecution. Jones appears in the lists of those arrested during the disorder, as charged with burglary, published the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. However, there are no newspaper reports of his subsequent appearances in court. He was arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, with the docket book recording the charge as attempted burglary, and that Magistrate Renaud held him on bail of $1000 and then discharged him on March 25, an outcome also recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter. Jones must have been rearrested and sent to the grand jury after that discharge, as the Probation Department investigation report records him pleading guilty to unlawful entry on March 29, and being sentenced to the workhouse for four months on April 9. The plea bargain the district attorney offered Jones is in line with that offered to others not allegedly found with stolen goods in their possession, as is the sentence. Others of the same age, such as John Henry and Robert Tanner, did receive sentences to institutions for youthful offenders, but the Probation Department report noted that Jones appeared "several years older than he claims." Given the investigator's inability to confirm his date of birth, and the unreliability of much of the other information Jones provided, the judge may have decided he to treat him as older than he claimed.
Aubrey Patterson arrested Sometime during the disorder, Officer Baumann of the 11th Precinct arrested Aubrey Patterson, a twenty-one-year-old Black man who lived at 81 East 113th Street. Baumann charged him with burglary, with a note in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter recording that Patterson "Burglarised store during riot." Patterson is named in the list of those arrested for burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the list in the New York Evening Journal. No one is recorded as the complainant against him in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, and there is no evidence of the location of the business that he allegedly looted.

By the time Baumann brought Patterson to the 28th Precinct, the cells in the station house on West 123rd Street were already full with others arrested during the disorder. Police transported Patterson and eighty-nine others to Police Headquarters; even there the cells were insufficent, with some held in the Photographic Gallery, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. On the morning of March 20, police put this group in a line-up and detectives questioned them in front of reporters before they were put into patrol wagons and taken back uptown to the Harlem and Washington Heights Magistrates Courts. Two newspapers quoted Patterson's responses. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle did so to make fun of him: ""I don't want to extricate myself from any guilt," said Aubert Patterson, colored, of 83 E. 113th St. Manhattan, in explaining (amid laughter) why he didn't want to discuss the charge of burglary against him." The New York Herald Tribune and New York Sun by contrast, quoted Patterson answering questions, although only the New York Sun reported the questions: ""Are you a citizen?" Capt. Dillon asked this prisoner, who had identified himself as Aubrey Patterson, of 83 East 113th Street. "I am a citizen of this great metropolis," replied Patterson. I was born in this metropolis on 132d Street." "What do you do for a living?" "I do laboring in the daytime and I go to school at nighttime."" The story framed that exchange by denigrating Patterson as having "assumed a pompous air when questioned by Acting Capt. Dillon and gave off oratory to reply to most of the questions." The New York Herald Tribune did not offer any similar judgement but did add that Patterson was "a light-skinned Negro" (The only other individual quoted in stories about the line-up was Harry Gordon, one of the white men arrested at the start of the disorder).

In the Harlem Magistrates Court, prosecutors charged Patterson with Disorderly Conduct, not Burglary. That charge likely indicates that police had no evidence that he had either entered a store or taken merchandise, so could not charge him with Burglary or even Attempted Burglary, or with Larceny. Magistrate Renaud remanded him in custody on $100 bail. When Patterson appeared in court again, on March 25, Magistrate Ford discharged him, an outcome also recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter.
Leroy Gillard arrested Officer Irwin Young alleged that around 10.10 PM, he "saw the window of the [Morris Sankin's tailor's] store being broken" and then saw a forty-six-year-old unemployed Black man named Leroy Gillard go into the store through the broken window and emerge with two suits of clothing, each valued at $25. The phrasing of the affidavit implies that Gillard did not break the window, suggesting there may have been others there at the time who escaped arrest. Certainly more clothing was stolen, to the value of $800, than Gillard allegedly had in his possession. The affidavit left those possibilities open by including the stock phrasing that Gillard's alleged crime was committed "while acting in concert with a number of others not yet arrested."

Sankin's store was set back from 7th Avenue and the crowds that moved up it around 9 PM, in a single story structure located between the rear of the five story building on the corner of West 128th Street and 7th Avenue and the first of a block of eight three story brownstone apartment buildings that stretched for roughly a quarter of the block. Gillard may not have come to the store from 7th Avenue as he lived at 208 West 128th Street, just four buildings west of the store. It is likely Officer Young was on the corner of 7th Avenue and West 128th Street, as police tended to take up positions on intersections. Young had been involved in the arrest of the protesters in front of Kress' store four hours earlier, during which he was allegedly assaulted by Harry Gordon.

Leroy Gillard appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, immediately before Jean Jacquelin, a twenty-eight-year-old white chauffeur arrested near the end of the disorder, at 5.40 AM, allegedly in possession of two ladies coats, values at $20 each, and two pairs of trousers, valued at $5 each, identified by Morris Sankin as also coming from his store. As Sankin had not returned to his store until 8.00 AM that morning, its contents would have been accessible through the broken window throughout the disorder. Jacquelin had been arrested away from the store, at the 8th Avenue end of West 128th Street, and like Gillard, lived on the same block as the store. A story in the Home News reported that the two men stole all $800 of clothing taken from Sankin's store, rather than the items worth $100 allegedly found on them.

Gillard appears in more newspapers than most of those arrested for looting. That is likely because police arrested him early in the disorder, so would have been able to provide his name to reporters for several hours. The New York Herald Tribune singled out Gillard as "the first arrest for alleged looting" during the disorder, describing the arrest as taking place inside the store (misspelling his last name as Gilliard as all the newspapers but the Home News did). As well as appearing in the Home News story, the list of those arrested and charged with burglary published by the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette and the list published by the New York Evening Journal, he was included in a list in an earlier edition of the New York Evening Journal (which mistakenly listed the charge against him as disorderly conduct), a list in the New York American, and a list in the New York Daily News (which mistakenly identified him as a white man in one edition).

The Magistrate sent both Gillard and Jacquelin to the grand jury. On April 5, the grand jury determined that Gillard should only be charged with a misdemeanor not felony burglary, sending him to the Court of Special Sessions. They disposed of Jacquelin's case in the same way. Those decisions indicate a lack of evidence that the men had broken into the store, a requirement for a charge of burglary. That likely left a charge of larceny for taking the clothing; as those items were valued at less than $100, the men could only be charged with petit larceny. According to the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, on April 11, the judges dismissed the charges against Jacquelin. It took almost two more weeks before Gillard was tried, on April 23, when the judges convicted him and sentenced him to the workhouse for three months.
Nicholas Peet's tailor's store looted Around 1:30 AM, Detective George Booker allegedly saw Horace Fowler, a thirty-two-year-old Black laborer, break the window of Nicholas Peet's tailor's shop at 2063 7th Avenue, reach inside, and take several articles of clothing. In the Magistrate's Court affidavit, Booker describes Fowler breaking the window with a club. The Probation Department investigation reports Booker as saying that he saw Fowler break the window "by throwing a missile through it." It also reports that Fowler denied "breaking the window or knowing how it was broken." Fowler did admit stealing the clothing in his possession when Booker arrested him, a man's suit and a lady's coat, valued at $8.25 in the affidavit, but at $25 by Peet in the Probation Department investigation.

Peet put his total losses during the disorder at $452.25 in secondhand suits, coats and pants, and an addition $133 worth of suits, overcoats, women's coats and dresses belonging to customers, according to the Probation Department investigation. It is not clear how much of that stock was stolen before Fowler's arrest. It could not all have been in the display windows, so people must have entered the store, which required that the windows be broken. If Fowler had to break a window, that looting was unlikely to have happened before his arrest. However, Peet's store was located only two blocks south of West 125th Street, so crowds would have moved there long before 1:30 AM, making it unlikely that the windows remained intact that long. It is more likely that Peet did not have to break the window, and was following in the wake of other looters.

Peet is not identified as having joined other white merchants in suing the city for failing to protect his business. None of those identified came from the area in which his store was located, but around eighty of those who brought suits were not identified. Peet did have insurance for his store windows, which paid $30 for their replacement, according to the Probation Department investigation; there is no mention of other insurance. Regardless, Peet was able to remain in business; the MCCH survey found a white tailor's store at 2063 7th Avenue in the second half of 1935, and Peet identified himself as still in business at that address when he registered for the draft in 1942. Born in Cyprus, he had arrived in New York City in 1929, from England. When he started the process to become a US citizen in November 1934, he lived at 12 West 123rd Street, two blocks east of his store, with his German-born wife Martha, who he had married in 1933. By 1937, when he filed his naturalization petition, the couple had moved two blocks south, to 9 Mt Morris Park, remaining in the enclave of white residences bordering Mt Morris Park. The 1940 census found Peet had moved out of Harlem, to 425 West 125th Street; they stayed on the west side when they moved again before 1942, to 435 West 123rd Street, their address when Peet registered for the draft.

Fowler appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20. He appears in the list of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, a list published in the New York Evening Journal, and a story in the Home News that included brief summaries of the charges made in the Magistrates Court. Magistrate Renaud held him for the grand jury on $1000 bail. Indicted on April 5, Fowler agreed to plead guilty to Petit Larceny on April 8. After being investigated by the Probation Department, he returned to the Court of General Sessions on April 22, where the judge sentenced him to three months in the workhouse.
James Smith arrested Sometime during the disorder, Officer C. G. Weiler of the 32nd Precinct arrested James Smith, a seventeen-year-old Black man. Smith appeared in the lists of those arrested in the disorder charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal, and in the New York Daily News. By the time that Smith appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20, the charge against him had been reduced to Disorderly Conduct. That change suggests that police did not have any evidence that Smith had taken any merchandise, or had been trying to take merchandise, but only that he had allegedly broken the window of a store that was looted. The New York American reported that Smith had been charged with Disorderly Conduct.

Magistrate Ford convicted Smith and sentenced him to six months in the Workhouse, an outcome recorded in the docket book and reported in the New York Herald Tribune and later in the New York Age.

There is considerable variation in Smith's age and home address in as reported in the press. The docket book recorded him as seventeen years of age and living at 125 West 123rd Street, near the heart of the disorder. The New York Evening Journal and New York Daily News reported that home address, but Smith as eighteen years of age. The New York Herald Tribune and New York Age reported Smith was forty-eight years of age, living at 112 West 136th Street, while the New York American reported his age as twenty-six years and his home as 158 West 123rd Street. Based on the docket book, the stories could not refer to anyone else who appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20 other than James Smith.
Rivers Wright arrested Police arrested Rivers Wright, a twenty-one-year-old Black man for allegedly being part of a group of black men who attacked an unnamed white man at 125th St and Lenox Avenue at some point in the disorder. Wright lived at 2137 7th Avenue, a block west and two blocks north of the site of the alleged assault, and in the heart of the disorder.

Only one story provides any details of the circumstances of his arrest. The Home News reported on March 21 that Wright was arrested "after he and a number of others are said to have attacked a white man at 125th St and Lenox Ave." Wright appears in lists of those arrested during the disorder in the Afro-American, Atlanta World, Norfolk Journal and Gazette, New York American, New York Evening Journal, and New York Daily News. His sentencing several days later is also reported in the Afro-American, New York Age, New York Daily News, and New York Times.

Among the first arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, Wright was charged with disorderly conduct, not assault, as was the case with half of those arrested for assault. That offense did not involve any violence; instead it focused creating a disturbance of some sort, suggesting being part of a crowd rather than an assault. Disorderly conduct was also a charge that could be adjudicated in the Magistrates Court, where Magistrate Renaud convicted Wright and remanded him for sentence on March 23. On that date, Magistrate Renaud sent him to the Workhouse for 10 days.
Lawrence Humphrey arrested Around 12.40 AM, Officer Rock of the 28th Precinct arrested Lawrence Humphrey, a thirty-five-year-old Black laborer, near Jacob Solomon's grocery store at 2100 5th Avenue, on the corner of West 129th Street. He claimed to have seen six men run out of the store, which had been closed since 9 PM. Humphrey was the only one of those men Rock arrested; he allegedly had a 50 pound bag of rice worth $2.50 in his possession, according to a note written on the Magistrate's Court affidavit. When Solomon returned to his store around 7 AM he found the door and windows broken and approximately $100 of groceries missing.

Lawrence Humphrey (misspelled Humphries) is listed among those arrested and charged with burglary in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, a proceeding reported only in the Home News, together with its outcome. It was not Humphrey's first appearance in the court. He had been arrested and charged with robbery in 1927; a grand jury dismissed the case, according to his Criminal Record. Magistrate Renaud held Humphrey for a grand jury on bail of $1000. There are no newspaper reports on the subsequent steps in his prosecution. His District Attorney's case file records that the grand jury sent him to the Court of Special Sessions rather than indicting him and sending him to the Court of General Sessions. Their decision to charge him with a misdemeanor rather than a felony likely reflected the low value of the goods allegedly found in his possession. According to the 28th Precinct Police Blotter (which also misspelled his name Humphries) the judges found Humphrey guilty and on April 17 sentenced him to thirty days in the Workhouse.
Milton Ackerman arrested Officer Brown of the 40th Precinct arrested Milton Ackerman, a twenty-four year old Black man, some time during the disorder. According to the New York Times, Ackerman was charged with "taking two rolls of paper, worth 5 cents, and 8 cents' worth of napkins from a Lenox Avenue store." Harry Lash is recorded as the complainant in the Harlem Magistrate's Court docket book, so it seems likely Lash's store at 400 Lenox Avenue was the location referred to in the story. Ackerman lived at 33 West 130th Street, only a few buildings east of that store and Lash's other store in Harlem was at 2530 8th Avenue, near the corner of West 135th Street, not on Lenox Avenue. There is no mention of where or when police arrested Ackerman.

Ackerman appears in the lists of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, and was held until March 25. When he returned to the Magistrate's Court the charges against him were dismissed as he had been indicted by the grand jury, and he was held on $1000 Bail. Three days later he appeared in the Court of General Sessions, an appearance reported only in the New York Times. Judge Donnellan dismissed the indictment and released him. Neither that story nor the 28th Precinct Police blotter provided any explanation for the judge's decision.
Theodore Hughes arrested Some time during the disorder, Officer Carrington of the 32nd Precinct arrested Theodore Hughes, a twenty-two-year-old Black man, for allegedly taking two pieces of salt pork from the window of Frendel's meat market at 2360 8th Avenue, according to a story in the New York Herald Tribune and a list in the New York American. Those are the only sources that provide any details of the charges against Hughes. Located between West 126th and West 127th Streets, the store was in the midst of the blocks of 8th Avenue on which there are reports of violence during the disorder: the arrest of James Hayes for allegedly looting a Liggett's drug store on the corner of West 125th Street; the arrest of Rose Murrell for breaking windows in a store three buildings to the north; the arrest of Thomas Babbitt for taking soap from Thomas Drug store a block north; and at the very end of the disorder, the arrest of Jean Jacquelin at 128th Street for looting and police shooting and killing James Thompson across the street from the store. Hughes lived at 50 Old Broadway, on the Upper West Side near West 131st Street, beyond the boundaries of Black Harlem. Given that he was arrested on the western boundary of the disorder, he may have come to the neighborhood from his home.

Hughes appears in the lists of those charged with larceny published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal and New York Daily News. The charge of larceny rather than burglary fits with the circumstance that he did not break the store window mentioned in the New York American. He was among the first of those arrested in the disorder to appear in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20. Sent to the Court of Special Sessions by Magistrate Renaud, Hughes was held on $500 bail. There is no evidence of the outcome of his trial. He is one of the few who appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court who was not mentioned in the Home News story on March 21 that provides brief details of the charges against those arrested in the disorder. Given the location of the market, Hughes should have been taken to the 28th Precinct and appear in their blotter, but he does not. Carrington may have instead taken him to his own precinct, the 32nd, on West 135th Street.

There is some conflicting information about Hughes' racial identity in the sources. The list published in the New York Daily News identified him as white; however, that list misidentified several of the other people arrested in the disorder as white. The Harlem Magistrate's Court docket book, the one official source that included Hughes, recorded his race as "B[lack]."
Amie Taylor arrested Officer Harmon of the 18th Division arrested Amie Taylor, a twenty-one-year-old Black butcher, near Mario Pravia's candy store at 1953 7th Avenue around 11.30 PM. Harmon and at least one other police officer, Detective Harry Wolf of the 28th Precinct, reported seeing Taylor throw a stone at the store window and take merchandise from the window display. Wolf appears as a witness on the Magistrates Court affidavit and an arresting officer with Harmon on Taylor's criminal record. Taylor was also not alone; "about 5 others" threw stones at the store and took merchandise at the same time, while Pravia and his wife watched from inside, but police managed to arrest only Taylor. Harmon allegedly found eighteen packets of chewing gum, valued at three cents each, in his possession.

The New York Evening Journal identified a different officer as making the arrest, Deputy Chief Inspector John Ryan, in a vignette within the paper’s narrative of the disorder:
Deputy Chief Inspector John Ryan, in charge of all Manhattan detectives, figured in another incident in which police were forced to draw their revolvers, although no shot was fired. While speeding to the trouble zone, Ryan saw a group of men looting a store at 1952 Seventh ave. The detective chief, with his chauffeur, swung into action and attempted to round up the thieves. there was a terrific battle, but Ryan emerged from it with Amie Taylor, 21, as his prisoner.
No other sources support that account. The story's framing of the incident in relation to the force used by police does direct attention to the unremarked upon means by which police made arrests. The New York Evening Journal was one of several white newspapers that claimed that police showed restraint in responding to the disorder, and did not shoot at crowds until the after midnight, when looting became widespread. If police drew their revolvers but did not fire them in this "terrific battle," they likely used the gun butts as clubs, as they are in several photographs taken during the disorder.

Crowds had moved down 7th Avenue from West 125th Street around 10 PM. This event was the first this far south on the avenue. Taylor may have come from the opposite direction. He lived south of the store, at 1800 7th Avenue, next to Central Park, in an area home to Black, white and Spanish speaking residents. Taylor's first name caused confusion about his identity. In the 28th Precinct Police Blotter the name is "Annie," and he is identified as female, information likely responsible for Annie also being used in the list of those arrested in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the list in the New York Evening Journal. While the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book identifies Taylor as male, the clerk recorded the name as Annie on his examination, and on the back of the Magistrates Court affidavit, where it is struck out and Amie written underneath.

When Taylor appeared in Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 charged with burglary, Magistrate Renaud remanded him to appear again on March 22. Reporters from the New York Daily News, New York Evening Journal and Daily Worker were in court when Taylor appeared again; the Daily Worker somehow misreported his name as Annie. Renaud sent Taylor to the grand jury, who on April 3 transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions, which as it adjudicated misdemeanors, means they must have reduced the charge from burglary to an offense such as unlawful entry, petit larceny or disorderly conduct. Two weeks later, on April 17, the judges acquitted Taylor, according to the Police Blotter. Given the low value of the what Taylor allegedly stole – a total of 54c – it would not have been surprising to see him receive a minor punishment; but to acquit him the judges would have had to find fault with the evidence against him provided by Officer Harmon and Detective Wolf. The sources are silent on what alternative account of events Taylor offered, but others arrested in the disorder claimed to have been bystanders mistakenly grabbed by police trying to pick offenders out of crowds. It could also be that prosecutors could not prove that the chewing gum found on Taylor had been taken from the store; it was a common enough item, in a large but not inexplicable quantity, that he could have obtained it legitimately elsewhere.
Julian Rogers arrested Around 11:20 PM, Patrolman Nador Herrman allegedly saw Julian Rogers, a thirty-seven-year-old Black auto washer, kick in a display window in William Gindin's shoe store at 333 Lenox Avenue. Rogers then took three odd women's shoes worth $1 each and put them under his jacket. Herrman arrested Rogers about 100 feet from the store, and recovered the shoes, according to the Magistrates Court affidavit. Gindin had closed his store around 9.45 PM. Not long after, crowds gathered on Lenox Avenue north of West 125th Street and began to smash store windows, and around 10.30 PM a group of men looted Towbin's haberdashery at Lenox Avenue and West 125th Street. By the time Rogers allegedly stole from Gindin's store the other display window had already been smashed and "a large quantity of merchandise stolen," the patrolman told the Probation officer investigating the case. Gindin claimed $1273.89 in damages, well above the median reported claim of $733, as part of a group of twenty white businessowners who sued the city for failing to protect their stores identified by the New York Sun.

Rogers was arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, charged with burglary. Magistrate Renaud held him for the grand jury and set bail at $1000. He appears in the lists of those arrested published in Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. None of Rogers' other appearances in court are reported in the press. After being indicted by the grand jury on April 5, the District Attorney's case file indicates that he agreed to plead guilty to petit larceny, and appeared in the Court of General Sessions to do so on April 16. Returned to court for sentencing on April 25, Judge Allen gave Rogers a suspended sentence, recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter. A consideration in that decision was may have been the Probation officer's conclusion that there was "no evidence that [Rogers] was a member of any group which participated in the riot;" instead "he was swayed by the behavior of the mob and that when he saw a general invasion of stores, he resorted to the same practice." Unusually, the Probation Department file indicated that Rogers was not placed on probation, as was generally the case for those given a suspended sentence.

The Probation Department's investigation gathered few details of Rogers' life. He did not provide the information they required for their analysis of his history and personality. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, around 1898, Rogers claimed no recollection of his parents as he had been raised by various relatives since he was infant; nor could he give the Probation officer the name of the school he attended. When Rogers was sixteen years old, he left the uncle with who he had been living, and traveled around the country. In 1917 he said he enlisted in the US Army, but was diagnosed with syphilis and discharged after six months. Around 1926, he arrived in New York City. During his nine years in the city, Rogers claimed to have lived in various furnished rooms and lodging houses, but gave no specific addresses, and likely spent at least some of the time homeless, as he was at the time of the disorder. For two months before his arrest, he slept in a garage at 332 East 122nd Street, without the owner being aware. For around a year Rogers had worked roughly one day a week washing cars at the same garage.

Almost a year before the disorder, police arrested Rogers for failing to leave a street corner when directed to by an officer. Convicted in the Magistrates Court, he received a suspended sentence. The Probation officer reported that Rogers spent considerable time on street corners, congregating with "neighborhood idlers," and "engag[ing] in petty gambling, with chance acquaintances."

The decision not to place Rogers on probation could have resulted from difficulty of supervising a man without a job, home or family in the city. There is also a possibility that Rogers deliberately withheld information to keep the white authorities at arms length. The Probation officer investigating him could not decide: "he is either unable or unwilling to give definite information concerning his antecedents, and the facts of his domestic life are unobtainable,...and his means of subsistence, for the most part, is open to question."
Isreal Riehl's Unclaimed Laundry store looted Sometime during the disorder, Lamter Jackson, a twenty-four-year-old Black man, allegedly through a rock that shattered the window of a store selling unclaimed laundry at 1 West 131st Street, and then took a bag of laundry from the store, according to the report of his appearance in the Magistrates' Court published by the Home News. Officer Jackson of the 32nd Precinct arrested Jackson, according to the Magistrates Court docket book. There are no other details of those events in the sources. There is only one other looting in this area, two blocks south on 5th Avenue, and no other reported events during the disorder. A block west, Lenox Avenue saw multiple lootings and assaults, but there were far more business on that street than on this area of 5th Avenue.

Although the store is identified as at 1 West 131st Street, the business is likely the white-owned unclaimed laundry store the MCCH Business survey identified at 3 West 131st Street (the survey includes no businesses at 1 West 131st Street). The building was on the northwest corner of 131st Street and 5th Avenue, photographed as 2140 5th Avenue by the Tax Department. On West 131st Street the next building is number 5, so 3 West 131st Street would be in that building. The awnings visible in the Tax Department photograph on the left side of the building would be over the store.

Jackson is listed among those charged with burglary in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the New York Evening Journal. He appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20, charged with petit larceny not burglary. That charge suggests a lack of evidence he had broken in and entered a store to take merchandise. Isreal Riehl was listed as the complainant, so was likely the owner of the store. Magistrate Ford sent him to the Court of Special Sessions and held him on $100 Bail. As Jackson was arrested north of 130th Street and processed by the 32nd Precinct, and sent directly to the Court of Special Sessions, there are no surviving police or legal records of the outcome of his prosecution.

The business seems likely to have survived the disorder, but there is no evidence that definitively links the store visited by investigators compiling the MCCH Business survey to that looted during the disorder.
Elizabeth Tai arrested Sometime during the disorder, Detective Phillips of the 28th Precinct arrested Elizabeth Tai, a twenty-eight-year-old Black resident of 1654 3rd Avenue. Tai appeared in the list of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the list published in the New York Evening Journal. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter also recorded the charge against Tai as burglary, with the note "Burglarised store during riot." The Daily Worker more precisely described her alleged offense as "stealing groceries," although that statement may have reflected the story being told by the paper, that the disorder had been an "upsurge of starving Negro workers," rather than details given when Tai appeared for sentencing. There is no complainant listed in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, or named in any of the newspaper stories about Tai's court appearances, so the location she allegedly looted is unknown. Her home was some way from Harlem, on the east side of Central Park between 92nd and 93rd Streets.

Tai was arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book on March 20 with two other individuals arrested by Detective Phillips, Arthur Davis and Herbert Hunter, also charged with burglary, perhaps arrested at the same time and place. Magistrate Renaud remanded all three to appear again in court (he sent two others arrested by Phillips who appeared at the same time charged with malicious mischief, Charles Wright and William Norris, to the Court of Special Sessions). The docket book recorded only Phillips name and precinct; the story in the Daily Worker identified him as a detective.

When Tai appeared in court again, on March 22, Magistrate Renaud convicted and sentenced her. The docket book recorded that the charge had been reduced to disorderly conduct, the original charge crossed out, and stories in the New York Daily News and New York Evening Journal reported she had been convicted of disorderly conduct, not burglary, as had Davis and Hunter. Only that lesser offense could have been dealt with in the Magistrates Court rather than as a misdemeanor in the Court of Special Sessions or a felony in the grand jury and Court of General Sessions. Had the prosecutor presented evidence Tai had stolen merchandise she would have been charged with either burglary or larceny; the charge of disorderly conduct suggests she may have allegedly broken store windows without taking anything. She is one of only three women charged with looting in the disorder.

Renaud sentenced Tai to pay a fine of $25 or serve five days in the Workhouse, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, as was Davis. He gave Hunter a longer sentence of ten days without the alternative of a fine. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter and stories in the New York Daily News, New York Evening Journal and Daily Worker record her sentence as five days in the Workhouse, making it likely that Tai was unable to pay the fine.

Tai is the name recorded in the docket book, and in the lists published in Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the New York Evening Journal. It is recorded differently in other sources less reliable than the legal record: as Tae in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, as Pae in the New York Daily News and New York Evening Journal and as Cay in the Daily Worker. If it was recorded correctly by the court clerk, Tai is a common last name among Chinese living overseas, suggesting that Elizabeth was married to a Chinese man. Given the unusual last name, the arrested woman may be the Elizabeth Tai who died in Harlem Hospital on April 20, 1945. She had been born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1905, and was a widow at the time of her death, with her husband's name transcribed as Hawley Tai. This Elizabeth Tai had been a domestic worker, and lived at 124 West 135th Street at the time of her death.
Elva Jacobs arrested Sometime in the disorder, Officer L. W. Adamie of the 46th Precinct arrested Elva Jacobs, an eighteen-year-old Black woman, and charged her with burglary for allegedly having "broken a store window at 1 W. 137th St. and taken groceries," according to a story in the Home News. At a subsequent court appearance the prosecutor reduced the charge against Jacobs to unlawful entry, an offense used when there was not evidence that she had taken any merchandise. However, that charge does suggest that Jacobs had done more than break a window, as the charge in that circumstance would likely have been disorderly conduct. Most likely, Adamie had allegedly seen or found her in the grocery store. Like almost all of those arrested for looting on the eastern boundary of Harlem north of 130th Street, Jacobs lived relatively near the store. Her home was at 56 West 142nd Street, between 5th Avenue and Lenox Avenues, five blocks north of the store, which was just off 5th Avenue.

The only information on the circumstances of the arrest is the statement in the Home News, reporting Jacobs' arraignment in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20. It is possible that Adamie arrested a second person for looting the store, and that Jacobs had been part of a larger group. He is recorded in the docket book as the officer who arrested Courtney March, a thirty-nine-year-old Black man who appeared in court immediately after Jacobs, facing the same charge of burglary. Like her, he lived north of the store, but further away, at 263 West 152nd Street, Based on other cases recorded in the docket book that indicates that Marsh was also arrested for looting the grocery store, but he is not mentioned in the Home News story on the arraignments in the court, nor does he appear in the list of those arrested in the disorder published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette in which Jacobs appears (neither of them are in the list published in the New York Evening Journal). Given that absence, and without a complainant recorded in the docket book to confirm a link between the two, Marsh is not included among those arrested during the disorder.

Magistrate Ford remanded Jacobs in custody. When she returned to court the next day, the docket book records that Ford set her bail at $1500. Two days later, on March 23, Jacobs was back in court. This is likely when the charge against her was reduced from burglary to unlawful entry; in the docket book the original charge is crossed out and "Red. to unl. entry" written in its place, in a different handwriting than the original charge. The same handwriting records that on this date Ford sent her to the Court of Special Sessions, which adjudicated misdemeanors such as unlawful entry, reducing her bail to $50.

There is no evidence of the outcome of that trial. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter records outcomes for trials in the Court of Special Sessions for the individuals taken there, but the MCCH records do not include the police blotter for the 32nd Precinct, to which Adamie would have taken Jacobs having arrested her north of 130th Street. The prosecution of Marsh followed the same process until March 23, when Magistrate Ford discharged him rather than sending him for trial as he did Jacobs.
Sol Weit and Isaac Popiel's grocery store looted At about 10:00 PM, Sol Weit closed the grocery store at 343 Lenox Avenue that he co-owned with Isaac Popiel, according to a Probation Department investigation. About 1.30 AM, Officer George Nelson of the 15th Precinct was “on duty” nearby when he saw a group of about five people gathered around the store. Then Arthur Merritt, a forty-two-year-old Black painter, allegedly broke the store window with a hammer. The group climbed through the windows and stole 126 pounds of butter, 90 dozen eggs, eight cartons of cigarettes, a ham and other food products, as well as $14 from the cash register. By the time Nelson got to the store, the group had run back out, according to the Magistrate's Court affidavit; he told a Probation officer he arrested Merritt “a short distance away.” He found two cans of beans, a can of milk and a can of tuna in Merritt's possession, as well as a hammer. (The details of what was allegedly found on Merritt are not included in the affidavit; the Probation officer included them in the report of his investigation). Merritt denied looting the store or participating in the disorder, telling a Probation officer he was on his way home after visiting his sister, Pauline. She lived at 108 West 130th Street; he lived at 134 West 121st Street. Both address were between 7th and Lenox Avenues, so his route home could have taken him down Lenox Avenue.

Weit and Popiel’s store was in the area of Lenox Avenue north of 125th street that saw the most extensive reported looting of the disorder, most of which occurred around the time the store was looted. That was late enough in the disorder, and at least an hour and a half after widespread lotting began, that police were on the street, but not in sufficient numbers to protect stores or make arrests on a significant scale. As Merritt was the only one of the group Officer Nelson saw that was arrested, it is likely Nelson was on his own or with another officer. Weit lived in Harlem, on 5th Avenue between 118th and 119th streets, ten blocks south and east of store, according to the Magistrate's Court affidavit, but apparently did not return to the store during the disorder.

Appearing in the Magistrate’s Court, Weit put the value of the stolen stock at $100. When he appeared before the grand jury three weeks later, he offered the more precise total of $126.02, according to the Probation Department investigation. Questioned by a Probation officer a week or so after that testimony he revised the total again, to $167.86. Unusually, neither the Magistrate’s Court affidavit nor the Probation Department investigation placed a value on the goods found on Merritt, but they were clearly a small fraction of that loss. Insurance paid $48.69 to replace three broken windows, according to the Probation Department investigation. Weit and Popiel are not among the storeowners identified as suing the city for failing to protect their business, so there is no indication if they received any award of damages. Nonetheless, the store remained in business. The MCCH business survey found a white-owned grocery store at the address in the second half of 1935, and the store is visible in the Tax Department photograph taken in 1939-1941. In 1942, Isaac Popiel identified himself as still the owner of the store in his draft registration, by which time he was living at 1047 Faile Street in the Bronx. Sometime soon after the disorder Weit also made the Bronx his home. A census enumerator found him at 1976 Vyse Avenue, which he said was also his address on April 1, 1935.

Arthur Merritt appeared in the Harlem Magistrate’s Court on March 20. He appears in the list of those arrested in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the list in the New York Evening Journal. His criminal record showed an arrest for grand larceny in 1920, which resulted in a suspended sentence, so he was held without bail. Returned to the court on March 22, he was held for the grand jury, an appearance reported in the Daily Worker, New York Daily News, and New York Evening Journal. After being indicted on April 9, he agreed to plead guilty to Petit Larceny on April 12. Ten days later, Judge James Garrett Wallace sentenced him to three months in the workhouse, recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter as well as the Probation Department case file.
Frederick Harwell arrested Sometime during the disorder, Officer Murphy arrested Frederick Harwell, a nineteen-year-old Black man, for allegedly having "Burglarised store during riot," according to the 28th Precinct Police Blotter. There is no evidence identifying the store. Harwell appears in the list of the names of those arrested for burglary in Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the list in the New York Evening Journal, which added his age and home address. No complainant is recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. Harwell lived at 2075 8th Avenue, between West 137th and West 138th Street.

Harwell appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, and was held on bail of $1000. When he returned to the court on March 22, the clerk crossed out the charge of burglary in the docket book and wrote "Red[uced] to Pet[it] Larceny," recording a decision the prosecutor would have made, and Magistrate Renaud sent Harwell to the Court of Special Sessions for trial, reducing his bail to $500. The amended charge suggests that police did not have evidence that Harwell had broken into a store, only evidence that he had taken merchandise. However, that trial did not take place. Almost two months later, on May 13, Harwell was released, according to the 28th Precinct Police Blotter. That outcome indicates a lack of evidence against Harwell; commonly that resulted from a failure to locate a witness.

The docket book and newspaper lists record the name as Harwell; the blotter records it as Horwell. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter has his address at 2578 8th Avenue; the New York Evening Journal has him living at 2175 8th Avenue.
Joseph Moore arrested Around 1.50 AM, Patrolman Louis Frikser arrested Joseph Moore, a forty-six-year-old West Indian carpenter, on the Third Avenue Bridge, which connected the eastern end of West 130th Street in Harlem with the Bronx. Frikser charged that Moore had been part of a group of men who had entered Harry Lash's 5 & 10c store at 400 Lenox Avenue, five blocks west of the bridge on the corner of West 130th Street, and stolen goods. None of the reports of this case detail what caused Frikser to stop Moore or what he found in his possession. Moore was likely returning home; he lived just three blocks beyond the bridge, at 248 East 136th Street in the Bronx.

"A few minutes" earlier Frikser had observed Arnold Ford, a nineteen-year-old Black man "walking across the bridge with a package," according to the details provided in the Probation Department investigation of Ford. Ford was also likely going home; he lived in a building next to Moore's residence, at 246 East 136th Street in the Bronx. The package he carried cannot have been large; it contained "soap, garters, thread and notions" with a value of $1.15. According to Frikser, Ford admitted he had stolen goods from Harry Lash's 5 & 10c store, joining others entering the store and "helping himself to some merchandise," but denying breaking the store windows. But Ford did not know Moore, according to a note in the Preliminary Investigation in his Probation Department file.

Only seven other men are identified in the sources as having been arrested away from the stores they allegedly looted, a group making up one third (9/27) of the arrests for which that information is known (27/60).

While the 28th Precinct Police Blotter recorded the charge against Moore as "Acc'd stolen goods during the riot" not "Burglarized store during riot" as in Ford's case, police charged both Moore and Ford with burglary in the Harlem Magistrate Court. The first charge suggested Moore had not obtained whatever goods he had allegedly stolen directly from the store, a version of events not mentioned anywhere else. Subsequently they were indicted by the grand jury and tried together in the Court of General Sessions. During the trial on April 1, Moore was acquitted at the direction of the judge, an outcome for which the Daily Worker gave credit to the International Labor Defense lawyers who appeared for him (that story made no mention of Ford, who pled guilty to petit larceny). The story gave no indication of the basis of the successful defense, noting only that the attorneys "had riddled the framed-up case against the worker." The involvement of the ILD suggests Moore may have had ties to the Communist party; the only others arrested during the disorder they represented were the men who picketed Kress' store.

Moore (and Ford) appear in newspaper reports only in the list of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, a list published in the New York Evening Journal, and stories in the Home News and New York Sun. The Home News story included brief summaries of the charges made in the Magistrates Court; in this case, it grouped Moore and Ford together, arrested at the same time for looting the same store, but confused the $1000 of goods stolen reported by Lash in his affidavit before the Magistrates Court for what the men were found carrying, also mistakenly identifying it as clothing. The New York Sun likewise mistakenly alleged the men had stolen $1000 of property, but did correctly identify those goods as "general merchandise," in reporting the men's pleas in the Court of General Sessions, and those of four others charged with third degree burglary, on March 25, after their indictment by the grand jury on March 22.

Moore had arrived in the United States from Barbados in 1917, perhaps initially living in Pennsylvania, as the 1930 Census reported his eldest daughter had been born there around 1920. By around 1926, he and his family were in New York City as another daughter is listed as having been born there. In 1930 the census enumerator recorded Moore living in an apartment at 213 West 142nd Street with his wife Olive, three daughters and a son, working as a carpenter for building contractors, but unemployed at that time, April 3. At some point between 1930 and his arrest in 1935 the family relocated to the Bronx, and were still at the same address when a census enumerator called on April 2, 1940. Moore's eldest daughter, twenty years old by this time, is not part of the household, but Moore and his wife had two more children, both boys. Still working as a carpenter, Moore was now employed by the Parks Department.
Raymond Easley arrested Around 1.45 AM, Patrolmen Kalsky and Holland of the 28th Precinct allegedly saw a group of people around the cigar store at 1916 7th Avenue, and then a milk can thrown through the plate glass windows. The officers got to the store in time for Kalsky to arrest Thomas Jackson, a thirty-four-year-old Black driver who he charged had thrown the milk can, and Holland to arrest Raymond Easley, a twenty-one-year-old Black man, he charged had taken cigars from the store window, according to a story in the Home News. Holland also found that Easley was carrying a razor. 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.

Easley is not mentioned in the affidavit in the District Attorney’s case file in which he and Jackson are co-defendants, nor does the file contain an examination of him. The only document in the case file referring to Easley is a criminal record; he had no previous prosecutions. Other than the story about his arraignment in the Magistrates Court in the Home News, Easley only appears in the list of those arrested published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the list published in the New York Evening Journal, and a report on his return to the Magistrates Court in the New York Herald Tribune.

Easley and Jackson (whose real name was Thomas Dean) both appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, but took different paths through the legal system. Magistrate Renaud held both for the grand jury on charges of burglary; he also sent Easley to the Court of Special Sessions on the charge of carrying a dangerous weapon, a misdemeanor offense, for having the razor in his possession. Both appeared in court again on March 27, but while Jackson pled guilty to unlawful entry in the Court of General Sessions, Easley was back in the Magistrate's Court, having the burglary charges against him dismissed. The New York Herald Tribune, the only newspaper to report on those proceedings, added that Easley was rearrested, but there is no evidence of other charges being brought against him or why the burglary charge was dismissed. The report may have been referring to the dangerous weapon charge. Neither the 28th Precinct Police Blotter or the District Attorney’s case file, which record the dismissal, include any information on that prosecution.
Louis Tonick arrested Sometime during the disorder, Officer Cusberita [?] of the 28th Precinct arrested Louis Tunick, an eighteen-year-old white man who lived at 1052 Bryant Avenue in the Bronx. The charge against Tunick recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter is robbery, with the note "Robbed store during riot," while he is named as one of those charged with burglary in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the list in the New York Evening Journal. Robbery required taking merchandise from someone, while burglary required taking merchandise from an unoccupied store. Tunick is also recorded as charged with robbery in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, with John Masdaym of 237 West 111st Street as the complainant and likely victim of the robbery. In this case the address does appear to be Masdaym's residence, as there are no business identified on the street in the MCCH Business survey. There is no evidence of the location of the store in which the robbery took place.

Tunick is one of only ten men identified as white arrested during the disorder; he and Jean Jacquelin were the only members of that group arrested for looting. His identity is recorded as white in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book and in the list published in the New York Evening Journal. Neither the 28th Precinct Police blotter nor the the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Gazette include information on an individual's race. While Jacquelin lived in Harlem, at 222 West 128th Street on the same block as the business he allegedly looted, Tunick lived in the Bronx, well beyond the neighborhood's boundaries.

Tunick appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20. Like Edward Larry, the only other person charged with robbery after the disorder, Tunick was held without bail by Magistrate Renaud. The Magistrate continued that custody when Tunick returned to court on March 25, and again on March 28. When Tunick appeared in a court on April 1, Renaud dismissed the charges against him, an outcome also recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter. That the Magistrate released Tunick indicates a lack of evidence rather than evidence only of taking merchandise or damaging a store, which would have resulted in reduced charges. In other cases it was the inability to locate a complainant that led to the discharge of defendants.

While the docket book records the name as Tonick, the newspaper lists record it as Tunick, and the 28th Precinct Police blotter as Tonisle (the later an error made when the blotter was transcribed for the MCCH). A man named Louis Tonick of the correct age appears in census schedules in 1930 and 1940 living at different addresses in the Bronx. The child of Russian immigrants who worked as a fruit peddler, he lived with his parents and four siblings in 1930. By 1940 his three older sisters are no longer recorded in the household, which includes only his parents, Louis and his (twin?) brother, and an uncle who also worked as a peddler. Tonick was unemployed at the time of that census and also when he registered for the draft in 1943.
Oscar Leacock arrested Officer Astel of the 25th Precinct arrested Oscar Leacock, a twenty-year-old Brazilian laborer, together with John Henry, a sixteen-year-old Black student, around 2.15 AM, at Lenox Avenue and 126th Street. There is no mention of what prompted Officer Astel to stop the men; the blocks of Lenox Avenue north of 125th Street had been the site of attacks on stores for around two hours before he stopped Leacock and Henry. He reported that he found on them "a quantity of jewelry," which when questioned they admitted taking from Benjamin Zelvin's store at 372 Lenox Avenue. The officer then had the men take him to the store, which was only three blocks north, where they found all the windows broken. Zelvin had locked his jewelry store at 372 Lenox Avenue around 11.30 PM, and did not return from his home in Brooklyn until opening time the next day.

Leacock and Henry were two of nine men known to have been arrested away from the stores they allegedly looted, one third (9/27) of the arrests for which that information is known (27/60).

Leacock lived at 39 West 118th Street, near 5th Avenue. Henry lived at the opposite end of the same street, at 313 West 118th Street, near 8th Avenue. Henry was the youngest person arrested during the disorder. There is no indication how the he and Henry came to be together on March 19. Leacock lived in an area that housed a mix of Black and Spanish-speaking residents. In the Harlem Magistrate's Court docket book he is recorded as Black; in his examination in the court he gave his birthplace as Brazil, making him one of the very few among those arrested who was not identified as born in the United States or the West Indies (the transcription of the 28th Precinct Police blotter recorded his birthplace as the United States, but also misspelled his name as Ossor Leasode).

Zelvin later identified the jewelry police reportedly found on the men as coming from his store. In the charge against Leacock and Henry the value of the jewelry is initially typed as $100, but then struck out and $75 handwritten in its place. The grand jury reduced the felony burglary charge against the men to a misdemeanor, a decision that likely reflected the lack of evidence that the men had broken into the store that a charge of burglary required. Given that they had been arrested with merchandise in their possession, the grand jury likely charged them with petit larceny; a felony larceny charge was not an option as the jewelry they had allegedly taken was worth less than $100. Zelvin appears in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 21 to charge one additional man, a thirty-one-year-old Black man named Henry Goodwin, with burglary. That charge was reduced to petit larceny, suggesting he too had only allegedly taken jewelry worth less than $100.

There is no newspaper coverage of the looting; Leacock and Henry appear only in the four most comprehensive lists of those arrested, published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the New York Evening Journal, among those charged with burglary. The details come from the District Attorney's case file; as the grand jury sent the cases to the Court of Special Sessions, the only information is from the Magistrate Court affidavit. Although arrested together, the men appeared in the Harlem Magistrate Court at different times, Leacock on March 20 with most of those arrested during the disorder, and Henry not until the next day. Despite Officer Astel's report that the men had confessed at the time of their arrest, they pled not guilty in court. Both men appeared again on March 22, when the Magistrate sent them to the grand jury. It was not until April 2 that the grand jury heard their case, and sent them to the Court of Special Sessions not the Court of General Sessions. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter recorded that the judges convicted both men. Although they likely were tried and convicted together, Leacock and Henry appeared separately for sentencing. On April 17, a judge sent Henry to the House of Refuge, a juvenile reformatory on Randalls Island (which would close less than a month later, on May 11). The next day a judge gave Leacock a suspended sentence.
Thomas Babbitt arrested Some time during the disorder, Detective Balkin of the 5th Division arrested Thomas Babbitt, a forty-two-year-old Black man, for allegedly taking two cases of soap from the window of the Thomas Cut Rate Drug store at 2374 8th Avenue, on the northeast corner of West 127th Street. Babbitt is not alleged to have smashed the window. A Home News report of his appearance in the Magistrates Court described Babbitt as having "stolen two cases of soap from a drug store window;" the 28th Precinct Police Blotter included a less ambiguous description, that he "Put hand though Window. Stole merchandise." Balkin also appears in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book as the officer who arrested James Hayes for allegedly looting a Liggett's Drug Store two blocks to the south, at 8th Avenue and 125th Street, some time during the disorder. Babbitt lived at 321 West 136th Street, a block west of 8th Avenue, so may have been drawn to the noise and crowds on the avenue in the early evening of March 19. All five of the men and women arrested by police on 8th Avenue lived either west of the avenue or in the block between 8th and 7th Avenues.

Babbitt is among those listed as being charged with burglary in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, charged with petit larceny not burglary. That change was likely made because of a lack of evidence he had broken into the store and entered it to steal merchandise, and because the allegedly stolen merchandise had a value of less than $100, the requirement for a felony grand larceny charge. Magistrate Renaud transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions holding him on bail of $500. His trial and conviction occurred sooner than was the case with most of those arrested in the disorder sent to that court. On March 22 Babbitt was sentenced to ten days in the Workhouse, an outcome recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter.

The man arrested during the disorder may be the Thomas Babbitt who a census enumerator found at 108 West 133rd Street on April 8, 1940. That man was the same age, and had been in Harlem in 1935. Born in Massachusetts, he was working on a farm in Williamsburg, South Carolina in 1917 when he registered for the draft. After serving in France in World War One, he was transported back to Hoboken, New Jersey in 1919, after which he appears to have made his home in New York City. In 1940 he listed his occupation as junk dealer.
James Wrigley assaulted At 12.45am, forty-nine-year-old James Wrigley, a white security guard from Teaneck, New Jersey, suffered a serious head injury. Several newspaper reports identified Wrigley as an employee of the Holmes Protective Agency, which apparently provided private police officers (security guards) for one or more of the stores on 125th Street.

Press reports offered conflicting accounts of how he came to be injured that put the case in different categories of assault. As only the New York Times provides a specific time for the assault on Wrigley, and a detailed account of his injuries, Wrigley has been categorized as having been hit by rocks. The paper’s story included Wrigley among the victims of “stone-throwers,” “struck by a stone at 126th Street and Seventh Avenue, receiving cuts about both eyes and a serious head injury, possibly a concussion of the brain.” The Home News likewise cast him as “another victim of the rock hurlers,” but then proceeded to report Wrigley was “set upon by several colored men [and] beaten into unconsciousness before he was able to draw his gun.” The New York Evening Journal also reported Wrigley had been “seized and beaten,” an attack that apparently did not draw attention as the story went on recount that “Radio patrol cars found him lying on the pavement, unconscious, suffering from concussion of the brain.” The New York Daily News, which published no details of the assault, is the only other publication to report Wrigley was found unconscious in an alley. The AP reporter’s brief summary opted for this second narrative, reporting that Wrigley had been attacked by a gang. The New York American, New York Daily News, New York Post, New York Evening Journal, and Home News only included Wrigley in their lists of the injured. He also appeared in lists of the injured in the Afro-American, Atlanta World, and Norfolk Journal and Gazette. Wrigley's injury was apparently serious enough that he was one of the eight men that the New York Herald Tribune reported as still in hospital on March 21.

The area where Wrigley was struck down saw a cluster of assaults on whites throughout the disorder, including other civilians and police hit by rocks, as well as crowds breaking windows and looting. Those hit by objects commonly suffered head injuries, as Wrigley did, although no others are reported as having been knocked unconscious.
Philip Jaross' Tailor's shop looted Sometime during the disorder, Philip Jaross' Tailor's shop at 531 Lenox Avenue, between West 136th and West 137th Street. Jaross is recorded as the complainant in the prosecution of Earl Davis, a twenty-six-year-old Black man, for Petit Larceny in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court. There is no mention of this event in any other sources. It is the northernmost reported looting of the disorder, one of a small number of events north of West 135th Street. A charge of petit larceny suggests that Davis was not alleged to have broken the store window or otherwise gained entry to the building, just to have stolen merchandise of low value.

Davis is among those named as charged with petit larceny in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette (he is not in the list published in the New York Evening Journal). When Davis appeared in court on March 20, Magistrate Ford held him for the Court of Special Sessions, on bail of $100. There is no record of the outcome of that prosecution.

The investigator for the MCCH Business survey noted that Jaross' Merchant Tailors was a "Store operated by two Jewish men. Carry a cheap line of tailor made clothes. Been here 3 1/2 years." Its presence in the survey indicates that it continued to operate after the disorder, and was still doing so when the Tax Department photographed the building between 1939 and 1941.
Nelson Brock arrested Sometime during the disorder, Officer Redmond of the 28th Precinct arrested Nelson Brock, a thirty-two-year-old Black man, likely near 1974 7th Avenue, on the southwest corner of West 119th Street. The charge Redmond made against Brock recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter is burglary, together with the note "Burglarized store during riot," indicating that he had allegedly looted a business. There are no details of circumstances of the arrest in the other sources. Redmond arrested two other Black men, Reginald Mills and William Grant, in relation to the same location, also charging them with burglary, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. Brock and Mills are also identified as having been charged with inciting a riot in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette (but not the list in the New York Evening Journal). That charge requires others to have been involved in the looting, and suggests that police alleged Brock and Mills had somehow contributed to the group attacking the store. However, burglary is the only charge brought against them in the Harlem Magistrates Court.

The address recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book for James Marshall, the complainant in the prosecutions against three Black men, is likely the location of the looted store. Although that column of the docket book is headed "Residence" clerks commonly put the address related to the charge in that space rather than the home of the complainant. A branch of the white-owned James Butler Food Market chain occupied that location at the time between 1939 and 1941 that the Tax Department photograph was taken, and was likely there at the time of the disorder as chain stores were an established part of the neighborhood's business landscape. (That side of the street is missing from the MCCH Business Survey conducted in the second half of 1935). Brock lived at 219 West 121st Street, just west of 7th Avenue two blocks north of 1974 7th Avenue. He could have been drawn to the street by the noise and crowds on 7th Avenue after 10 PM.

Brock, Mills and Grant appeared in Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, when Magistrate Renaud remanded them in custody. When they were returned to court on March 25, Magistrate Ford discharged them so they could be rearrested as they had been indicted by the grand jury, and then held them on $1000 bail. No further records mention the outcome of those prosecutions. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter recorded only the discharge on March 25.
James Smitten arrested Around 8.30PM, police arrested James Smitten, a twenty-five-year-old Black man, for allegedly beating William Kitlitz, a white mail clerk, in front of Kress' store as police struggled to control crowds on 125th Street that had begun to smash store windows.

At 8.45PM a doctor from Harlem Hospital attended Smitten in the 28th Precinct station house to treat lacerations of scalp “which he received in some unknown manner,” according to the hospital records. Those injuries could have come in a struggle with Kitlitz, or at the hands of police, as was the case with a number of those arrested during the course of the disorder. Smitten remained at the precinct after treatment. Other than that hospital record, there is no other evidence of Smitten's injury; he does not appear in any newspaper's list of the injured.

Smitten’s arrest occurred early enough on March 19 that he was charged with assault and arraigned that evening, in the Night Court, one of only three of those arrested who appeared in court prior to March 20 (the two others were Claude Jones and Leo Smith). The New York Herald Tribune reported Magistrate Capshaw remanded him for investigation until Saturday, but there is no record of the outcome of his legal proceedings.

Only two sources connect Smitten and Kitlitz. The hospital record identifies Smitten as having been arrested for assaulting Kitlitz. Only the story in the New York Herald Tribune describes the assault, but mistakenly identifies Smitten as Smith. In addition, Smitten appears in lists of those arrested for assault in the Afro-American, Atlanta World, Norfolk Journal and Gazette, New York Evening Journal, and New York Daily News (Another man named James Smith was arrested during the disorder, for robbery. Smith lived at a different address than Smitten, and is younger, but is confused with Smitten and given Smitten’s address in reports in the New York American and New York Daily News).
Wilmont Hendricks shot Around 1.30 AM, Wilmont Hendricks, a twenty-five-year-old Black man, was shot on Lenox Avenue near 128th Street. He was some distance from his home, which was almost twenty blocks to the north on 146th Street. No details survive of the circumstances of Hendricks’ injury: the hospital record noted that he had been shot in “in some unknown manner,” while newspapers only reported he had been shot. There was considerable disorder on the blocks of Lenox Avenue north of 125th Street around this time, including other assaults and looting. The outbreak of looting led police to begin shooting more indiscriminately than earlier in the disorder, and it is likely that Hendricks was shot by police.

An ambulance attended Hendricks, whose injury was sufficiently serious for him to be taken to the hospital, and to still be there a day later, according to the New York Herald Tribune. While the hospital recorded his wound as being in his left shoulder, only the list of injured in the Home News echoed that report, with the lists in the New York American, New York Post, Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Gazette instead locating the gunshot in his chest, and the lists in the New York Daily News, New York Evening Journal, and story in the New York Times reporting it was in in his back.

The hospital record did not identify Hendricks' race, but the newspaper lists in the New York Post, Home News, New York American and New York Evening Journal did. Four of the six other men shot and wounded in the disorder were black, one of unknown race, and one white police officer.

No one was arrested for shooting Hendricks, as was the case with all of those shot and wounded (Detective Campo’s alleged assailant was shot and killed).
Raymond Taylor arrested Officer D. Conn of the 24th Precinct arrested twenty-eight-year-old Raymond Taylor some time during the disorder for "stealing a quantity of groceries from a chain store at 135th St. and Lenox Ave," according to a story in the Home News. The store was likely the A & P grocery store at 510 Lenox Avenue, the only chain grocery store near that intersection in the MCCH Business survey. The only reference to the looting is a Home News report of the appearance in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court of Taylor and two other Black men three Black men, forty-two-year-old Preston White and fifty-year-old Joseph Payne. White and Payne allegedly smashed the store window and took food. All three men were arrested "in the store." Officer Archbold of the 30th Precinct, not Officer Conn, is recorded as having arrested White and Payne in the Magistrates Court docket book. There is no mention of the value of the merchandise the men allegedly stole. Only one other reported event occurred on Lenox Avenue north of West 135th Street, the arrests of Charles Alston, Edward Loper, Albert Yergen and Ernest Johnston for allegedly shooting at police at 138th Street at the very end of the disorder. Taylor lived at 2228 5th Avenue, a block east of the grocery store.

Taylor, White and Payne appeared in the lists of those charged with burglary in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. When they appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20, the charge against them was originally recorded as burglary, with Payne and White denied bail, and Taylor held on bail of $1000. The Home News mistakenly reported different bail decisions for Taylor and Payne: $500 for Taylor and $1500 for Payne. No complainant is listed in the docket book.

The three men returned to the Magistrates Court on March 26, at which point all had the charge against them reduced from burglary to disorderly conduct. That change is recorded in the docket book in the same handwriting as the outcome of the case, a quite different hand than the original entry. Magistrate Ford convicted all three men, and suspended Taylor's sentence while sending White and Payne each to the Workhouse for five months and twenty-nine days. There is no information on why Taylor received a different sentence.
Jacob Bonaparte arrested Sometime during the disorder, an officer from the 28th Precinct arrested Jacob Bonaparte, a twenty-four-year-old Black man (the clerk's handwriting in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book is too messy to decipher the officer's name). The arrest likely occurred near the Romanoff Drug Store at 375 Lenox Avenue, on the northwest corner of West 129th Street. J. Romanoff of that address is recorded as the complainant when Bonaparte is arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court.

Just what Bonaparte allegedly did is uncertain. He appears among those listed as being arrested for burglary, the charge used in cases of alleged looting, in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. However, the 28th Precinct Police blotter records the charge against him as Attempted Burglary, suggesting that he was not arrested with any merchandise in his possession. In the Magistrate's Court, Bonaparte was charged with Disorderly Conduct, an offense not used in cases of alleged looting. Such a charge suggests that he may have allegedly broken the store windows but not attempted to take any merchandise. However, Magistrate Renaud acquitted Bonaparte, indicating that there was no compelling evidence linking him to whatever damage was done to the store (the 28th Precinct Police blotter recorded that Bonaparte was discharged). The Romanoff Drug store was located in the midst of the area of Lenox Avenue that saw multiple arrests and reports of looting and violence, likely after midnight. Bonaparte may have been among the crowds drawn to the street by the noise. He lived 123 West 128th Street, midway down the block between Lenox and 7th Avenues, relatively close to the store.

J. Romanoff was also the complainant in the case of Oscar Austin, a twenty-nine-year-old Black man, and Sam Nicholas, a twenty-four-year-old Black man, botharrested by the same police officer, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. Both men's prosecution followed the same pattern as that of Bonaparte, ending in acquittal. They lived a little further from the store than Bonaparte, Austin at 204 West 128th Street, just west of 7th Avenue, and Nicholas at 224 West 124th Street.
Lamter Jackson arrested Sometime during the disorder, Officer Jackson of the 32nd Precinct arrested Lamter Jackson, a twenty-four-year-old Black man, for allegedly throwing a rock that shattered the window of a store selling unclaimed laundry at 1 West 131st Street, and then taking a bag of laundry from the store. The only source of details of the event is the report of Jackson's appearance in the Magistrates' Court published by the Home News. Officer Jackson is identified as the arresting officer in Magistrates Court docket book. Lamter Jackson lived at 78 West 135th Street. There are multiple lootings and assaults on the stretch of Lenox Avenue between his home and the laundry store, noise and crowds which could have brought Jackson on to the streets. Several other men arrested in this area - Lawrence Humphrey, Carl Jones, Raymond Taylor, and Preston White, likewise lived in the blocks of 135th-132nd Streets between Lenox and 5th Avenues.

Jackson is listed among those charged with burglary in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the New York Evening Journal. Both those lists flip his name, identifying him as Jackson Lamter; the Home News and the docket book record him as Lamter Jackson. He appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20, charged with petit larceny not burglary. That charge did not require the evidence of breaking in and entering a store to take merchandise that burglary did. Magistrate Ford sent him to the Court of Special Sessions and held him on $100 Bail. As Jackson was arrested north of 130th Street and processed by the 32nd Precinct, and sent directly to the Court of Special Sessions, there are no surviving police or legal records of the outcome of his prosecution.
Salvatore Nicolette injured Salvatore Nicolette, a thirty-two-year-old white resident of the Bronx, suffered a fractured skull during the disorder. There is no information on how, when or where he was injured. As with a number of those listed only as having been injured, Nicolette had similar head injuries to those who had been assaulted and could himself have been attacked.

Nicolette appears only in the lists of the injured published by the New York American, New York Herald Tribune and New York Post, and the lists of the “Critically Injured” or those “Near Death" published in the Black newspapers the Afro-American, Atlanta World, and Norfolk Journal and Gazette. Only the New York Herald Tribune identifies Nicolette as white, in a list of “Five Negroes and three white men [who] were still in Harlem Hospital” on March 21. However, he does not appear in records of those admitted to hospital.
Butler's Food Market looted A business at 1974 7th Avenue, on the southwest corner of West 119th Street, was looted sometime in the disorder. A branch of the white-owned James Butler Food Market chain occupied that location at the time between 1939 and 1941 that the Tax Department photograph was taken, and was likely there at the time of the disorder as chain stores were an established part of the neighborhood's business landscape. (That side of the street is missing from the MCCH Business Survey conducted in the second half of 1935). There were seven branches of the Butler Food Market chain, and nine branches of the white-owned A & P grocery store chain, in the MCCH Business survey from the second half of 1935. While most of the reported looting on 7th Avenue occurred in the blocks closer to West 125th Street, a shoe repair store on the corner diagonally opposite was also reported looted during the disorder, as was a candy store on the intersection to the south of this business.

The address is recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book as that of James Marshall, the complainant in prosecutions against three Black men, Nelson Brock, Reginald Mills and William Grant, all charged with burglary. Although that column of the docket book is headed "Residence" clerks commonly put the address related to the charge in that space rather than the home of the complainant. None of the other sources that mention the men include any information about the location from which they allegedly stole merchandise. All three men appear in the list of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette (but not the list in the New York Evening Journal). Brock and Mills are listed as having also been charged with inciting a riot, suggesting that police alleged they had somehow contributed to others attacking the store. The only information in the list are names. All three men are also in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, which records their alleged crime as "Burglarized store during riot." The docket book identified Officer Redmond of the 28th Precinct as having arrested all three men. Multiple arrests at the same location are rare during the disorder.

Brock, Mills and Grant appeared in Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, charged only with burglary, when Magistrate Renaud remanded them in custody. When they were returned to court on March 25, Magistrate Ford discharged them so they could be rearrested as they had been indicted by the grand jury, and then held them on $1000 bail. No further records mention the outcome of those prosecutions. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter recorded only the discharge on March 25.
James Hayes arrested Some time during the disorder, Detective Balkin of the 5th Division arrested James Hayes, a sixteen-year-old Black youth, for allegedly breaking the window of a store at 2334 8th Avenue, and taking a baseball bat from the window, according to a report of his appearance in the Magistrates Court in the Home News. Although none of the sources that mention Hayes identify the business, other references identify it as branch of the Liggett Drug Store chain. There is no information on the circumstances of his arrest. The nearby intersection of 8th Avenue and West 125th Street, only a few buildings from Kress' store, saw some of the earliest crowds and violence of the disorder, and a concentration of police, who sought to clear West 125th Street by pushing people on to the avenue. However, there are few other reports of broken windows or looting on 8th Avenue, with most of those attacks on Lenox and 7th Avenues, notwithstanding that almost all the businesses on 8th Avenue were white-owned.

James Hayes is named among those charged with burglary in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, where the charge was recorded as petit larceny not burglary. That charge did not require evidence that Hayes had entered the store to take the bat, as a charge of burglary did. Magistrate Renaud transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions and held him on $500 bail. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter, which also recorded the charge against Hayes as burglary and misspelled his name as Hazel, is the only source for the outcome of that proceeding: a conviction and suspended sentence given on April 1. The blotter also added the detail that he broke the window, rather than reaching through an already broken window. The Home News reported only that "he is said to have stolen a baseball bat from a store window." The article also gave his age as seventeen years, while the blotter and the list in the New York Evening Journal gave his age as sixteen years (the list published in the Black newspapers did not include age or home address). The age in the Magistrates Court docket book is difficult to decipher, appearing to be "10," but is likely a hastily written "16." He was one of the youngest arrested during the disorder, together with John Henry, also aged sixteen years.

Hayes lived at 476 West 141st Street, on Black Harlem's northwest boundary, further from the location of his arrest than most of those caught in the disorder, most of whom lived south of 125th Street or near Lenox Avenue south of 135th Street.
Oscar Austin arrested Sometime during the disorder, an officer from the 28th Precinct arrested Oscar Austin, a twenty-nine-year-old Black man (the clerk's handwriting in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book is too messy to decipher the officer's name). The arrest likely occurred near the Romanoff Drug Store at 375 Lenox Avenue, on the northwest corner of West 129th Street. J. Romanoff is recorded as the complainant when Austin is arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court.

Just what Austin allegedly did is uncertain. He appears among those listed as being arrested for burglary, the charge used in cases of alleged looting, in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. However, the 28th Precinct Police blotter records the charge against him as Attempted Burglary, suggesting that he was not arrested with any merchandise in his possession. In the Magistrate's Court, Austin was charged with disorderly conduct. Such a charge suggests that he may have allegedly broken the store windows but not entered the store or taken any merchandise. However, Magistrate Renaud acquitted Austin, indicating that there was no compelling evidence linking him to whatever damage was done to the store (the 28th Precinct Police blotter recorded that Austin was discharged). The Romanoff Drug store was located in the midst of the area of Lenox Avenue that saw multiple arrests and reports of looting and violence, likely after midnight. Austin may have just been among the crowds drawn to the street by the noise. He lived relatively close to the store, at 204 West 128th Street, just west of 7th Avenue.

J. Romanoff was also the complainant in the cases of two twenty-four-year-old Black men, Jacob Bonaparte and Sam Nicholas arrested by the same police officer, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. Their prosecution followed the same pattern as that of Austin, ending in acquittal. Bonaparte lived even closer to the store than Austin, at 123 West 128th Street, midway down the block between Lenox and 7th Avenues, while Nicholas lived further away, on West 124th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues.
Sam Nicholas arrested Sometime during the disorder, an officer from the 28th Precinct arrested Sam Nicholas, a twenty-four-year-old Black man (the clerk's handwriting in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book is too messy to decipher the officer's name). The arrest likely occurred near the Romanoff Drug Store at 375 Lenox Avenue, on the northwest corner of West 129th Street. J. Romanoff of that address is recorded as the complainant when Nicholas is arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court.

Just what Nicholas allegedly did is uncertain. He appears among those listed as being arrested for burglary, the charge used in cases of alleged looting, in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. However, the 28th Precinct Police blotter records the charge against him as Attempted Burglary, suggesting that he was not arrested with any merchandise in his possession. In the Magistrate's Court, Nicholas was charged with Disorderly Conduct, an offense not used in cases of alleged looting. Such a charge suggests that he may have allegedly broken the store windows but not attempted to take any merchandise. However, Magistrate Renaud acquitted Nicholas, indicating that there was no compelling evidence linking him to whatever damage was done to the store (the 28th Precinct Police blotter recorded that Nicholas was discharged). The Romanoff Drug store was located in the midst of the area of Lenox Avenue that saw multiple arrests and reports of looting and violence, likely after midnight. Nicholas may have been among the crowds drawn to the street by the noise. He lived at 224 West 124th Street, midway down the block between 7th Avenue and Eighth Avenue, five blocks south of the store.

J. Romanoff was also the complainant against Oscar Austin, a twenty-nine-year-old Black man, and Jacob Bonaparte, a twenty-four-year-old Black man, both arrested by the same police officer, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. Both men's prosecutions followed the same pattern as that of Nicholas, ending in acquittal. They lived closer to the store, on West 128th Street.
Preston White arrested Officer Archbold of the 30th Precinct arrested forty-two-year-old Preston White some time during the disorder for smashing the store window and taking food from "a chain store at 135th St. and Lenox Ave," according to a story in the Home News. The store was likely the A & P grocery store at 510 Lenox Avenue, the only chain grocery store near that intersection in the MCCH Business survey. The only reference to the looting is a Home News report of the appearance in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court of White and two other Black men, twenty-eight-year-old Raymond Taylor and fifty-year-old Joseph Payne. Like White, Payne allegedly smashed the store window and took food, whereas Taylor was arrested for "stealing a quantity of groceries." All three men were arrested "in the store." While Officer Archbold also arrested Payne, Officer D. Conn of the 24th Precinct is recorded as having arrested Taylor in the Magistrates Court docket book. There is no mention of the value of the merchandise the men allegedly stole. Only one other reported event occurred on Lenox Avenue north of West 135th Street, the arrests of Charles Alston, Edward Loper, Albert Yergen and Ernest Johnston for allegedly shooting at police at 138th Street at the very end of the disorder. White lived at 26 West 134th Street, a block south and east of the grocery store.

White, Payne and Taylor appeared in the lists of those charged with burglary in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. When they appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20, the charge against them was originally recorded as burglary, with White and Payne denied bail, and Taylor held on bail of $1000. The Home News mistakenly reported different bail decisions for Taylor and Payne: $500 for Taylor and $1500 for Payne. No complainant is listed in the docket book.

The three men returned to the Magistrates Court on March 26, at which point all had the charge against them reduced from burglary to disorderly conduct. That change is recorded in the docket book in the same handwriting as the outcome of the case, a quite different hand than the original entry. Magistrate Ford convicted all three men, sending White and Payne to the Workhouse for five months and twenty-nine days, and suspending Taylor's sentence. There is no information on why Taylor received a different sentence.
Earl Davis arrested Sometime during the disorder, Officer William Butler of the 18th Precinct arrested Earl Davis, a twenty-six-year-old Black man. The arrest likely took place near 531 Lenox Avenue as that is the address listed for the complainant against him in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court, Philip Jaross. Although that column of the docket book was for the complainant's residence, clerks commonly instead recorded the address of looted or damaged stores. The address, on the block between West 135th and West 136th Streets, opposite Harlem Hospital, was the location of Jaross' Merchant Tailors, which the MCCH Business survey described as a "Store operated by two Jewish men. Carry a cheap line of tailor made clothes. Been here 3 1/2 years."

Davis is among those named as charged with petit larceny in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette (he is not in the list published in the New York Evening Journal). A charge of petit larceny suggests that Davis was not alleged to have broken the store window or otherwise gained entry to the building, but rather to have stolen merchandise of low value. There is no mention of this event in any other sources. It is the northernmost reported looting of the disorder, one of a small number of events north of West 135th Street. Davis lived at 110 West 127th Street, between Lenox and 7th Avenues, to the south of the store.

When Davis appeared in Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20, Magistrate Ford held him for the Court of Special Sessions, on bail of $100. There is no record of the outcome of that trial.
Albert Allen arrested Sometime during the disorder, Albert Allen was arrested and charged with Burglary. Allen's name appears among those charged with Burglary in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette. However, Allen does not appear in the list published in the New York Evening Journal (which included an person's age, race and address), the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, the docket book of either Magistrates Court or any newspaper stories, and there is no evidence of the location of the business that he allegedly looted.

That lack of information is also the case with eight other men who appear only in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, seven of who were charged with Petit Larceny. The absence of this group from the blotter could mean they were arrested in the 32nd Precinct, whose blotter records do not appear to have been obtained by the MCCH. That they did not appear in court could mean that police questioned and released them the next day.
Loyola Williams arrested Sometime during the disorder, Loyola Williams, a twenty-eight-year-old Black woman who lived at 301 West 130th Street was arrested and charged with burglary. Williams' name appears among those charged with burglary in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette and the list in the New York Evening Journal, which also included her age, race and address. However, Williams does not appear in 28th Precinct Police Blotter, the docket book of either Magistrates Court or any newspaper stories, and there is no evidence of the location of the business that she allegedly looted. That is also the case with nine men who appear only in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette. The absence of this group from the blotter could mean they were arrested in the 32nd Precinct, whose blotter records do not appear to have been obtained by the MCCH. That they did not appear in court could mean that police released them after questioning them the next day.

In the case of Loyola Williams, it is also possible that whoever compiled the list mistakenly recorded the name of another Black woman arrested during the disorder, Viola Woods, who was identified as Viola Williams in several sources. Both women were twenty-eight-years of age and resided at 301 West 130th Street. Both Loyola Williams and Viola Williams appear in the list published in Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, with Viola Williams charged with Malicious Mischief. Viola Williams also appears in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter with the same age and address, where a note records her alleged offense as using her umbrella to break a store window. It is possible given the charges brought against others arrested in the disorder that that woman would also have been charged with burglary on the basis that was her goal in breaking the window. In the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, the name of the woman charged with Malicious Mischief is recorded as Viola Woods not Viola Williams.
Herbert Hunter arrested Sometime during the disorder, Detective Phillips of the 28th Precinct arrested Herbert Hunter, an eighteen-year-old Black resident of 56 West 126th Street. Hunter appeared in the list of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the list published in the New York Evening Journal. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter also recorded the charge against Hunter as burglary, with the note "Burglarised store during riot." The Daily Worker more precisely described his alleged offense as "stealing groceries," although that statement may have reflected the story being told by the paper, that the disorder had been an "upsurge of starving Negro workers," rather than details given when Hunter was sentenced. There is no complainant listed in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, or named in any of the newspaper stories about Hunter's court appearances, so the location he allegedly looted is unknown.

Hunter was arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book on March 20 with two other individuals arrested by Detective Phillips, Elizabeth Tai and Arthur Davis, also charged with burglary, perhaps arrested at the same time and place. Magistrate Renaud remanded all three to appear again in court (he sent two others arrested by Phillips who appeared at the same time charged with malicious mischief, Charles Wright and William Norris, to the Court of Special Sessions). The docket book recorded only Phillips name and precinct; the story in the Daily Worker identified him as a detective.

When Hunter appeared in court again, on March 22, Magistrate Renaud convicted and sentenced him. While the docket book records no change in the charge against Davis, stories in the New York Daily News and New York Evening Journal reported he had been convicted of disorderly conduct, not burglary, as had Tai and Davis. In Tai's case, the docket book does record that the charge had been reduced to disorderly conduct. Only that lesser offense could have been dealt with in the Magistrates Court rather than as a misdemeanor in the Court of Special Sessions or a felony in the grand jury and Court of General Sessions. Had the prosecutor presented evidence Hunter had stolen merchandise he would have been charged with either burglary or larceny; the charge of disorderly conduct suggests he may have allegedly broken store windows without taking anything.

Renaud sentenced Hunter to serve ten days in the Workhouse, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, 28th Precinct Police Blotter and stories in the New York Daily News, New York Evening Journal and Daily Worker.Tai and Davis received shorter sentences, five days in the workhouse or a fine of $25 according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book.
Unidentified man or woman assaulted Police arrested Richard Jackson for an assault about which no details survive of the alleged victim or the circumstances of the violence. Jackson appears in lists of those arrested for assault in the Black newspapers the Afro-American, Atlanta World and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, which included only his name and the charge. He appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20, recorded in the docket book as charged with the lesser offense of Disorderly Conduct, not assault, and identified as a twenty-seven-year-old Black man who lived at 102 West 119th Street, . Magistrate Ford convicted Jackson, but sentenced him to just two days in the workhouse or a $5 fine. The New York Age reported his conviction, while the New York Herald Tribune also reported the charge and sentence.
Joseph Payne arrested Officer Archbold of the 30th Precinct arrested fifty-year-old Joseph Payne some time during the disorder for smashing the store window and taking food from "a chain store at 135th St. and Lenox Ave," according to a story in the Home News. The store was likely the A & P grocery store at 510 Lenox Avenue, the only chain grocery store near that intersection in the MCCH Business survey. The only reference to the looting is a Home News report of the appearance in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court of Payne and two other Black men, twenty-eight-year-old Raymond Taylor and forty-two-year-old Preston White. Like Payne, White allegedly smashed the store window and took food, whereas Taylor was arrested for "stealing a quantity of groceries." All three men were arrested "in the store." While Officer Archbold also arrested White, Officer D. Conn of the 24th Precinct is recorded as having arrested Taylor in the Magistrates Court docket book. There is no mention of the value of the merchandise the men allegedly stole. Only one other reported event occurred on Lenox Avenue north of West 135th Street, the arrests of Charles Alston, Edward Loper, Albert Yergen and Ernest Johnston for allegedly shooting at police at 138th Street at the very end of the disorder. Payne lived at 28 East 128th Street, on Harlem's eastern boundary and far further from the grocery store than Taylor or White.

Payne, White and Taylor appeared in the lists of those charged with burglary in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. When they appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20, the charge against them was originally recorded as burglary, with Payne and White denied bail, and Taylor held on bail of $1000. The Home News mistakenly reported Payne as younger, twenty-three years-of-age, and different bail decisions for Payne and Taylor: $1500 for Payne and $500 for Taylor.

The three men returned to the Magistrates Court on March 26, at which point all had the charge against them reduced from burglary to disorderly conduct. That change is recorded in the docket book in the same handwriting as the outcome of the case, a quite different hand than the original entry. Magistrate Ford convicted all three men, sending Payne and White to the Workhouse for five months and twenty-nine days, and suspending Taylor's sentence. There is no information on why Taylor received a different sentence.
Jack Williams arrested Sometime during the disorder, Jack Williams was arrested and charged with Petit Larceny. Williams' name appears among those charged with Petit Larceny in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette. However, Williams does not appear in the list published in the New York Evening Journal (which included an person's age, race and address), the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, the docket book of either Magistrates Court or any newspaper stories, and there is no evidence of the location of the business that he allegedly looted.

That lack of information is also the case with eight other men who appear only in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette. The absence of this group from the blotter could mean they were arrested in the 32nd Precinct, whose blotter records do not appear to have been obtained by the MCCH. That they did not appear in court could mean that police questioned and released them the next day.
Leo Cash arrested Sometime during the disorder, Leo Cash, a twenty-five-year-old Black man who lived at 235 West 120th Street, was arrested and charged with Burglary. Cash's name appears among those charged with Burglary in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the list published in the New York Evening Journal (which included his age, race and address). He does not appear the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, the docket book of either Magistrates Court or any newspaper stories, and there is no evidence of the location of the business that he allegedly looted.

That lack of information is also the case with eight other men who appear only in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, seven charged with Petit Larceny, and one woman who appeared in that list and the list in the New York Evening Journal as Cash did. The absence of this group from the blotter could mean they were arrested in the 32nd Precinct, whose blotter records do not appear to have been obtained by the MCCH. That they did not appear in court could mean that police questioned and released them the next day.
William Grant arrested Sometime during the disorder, Officer Redmond of the 28th Precinct arrested William Grant, a thirty-year-old Black man, likely near 1974 7th Avenue, on the southwest corner of West 119th Street. The charge Redmond made against Grant recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter is burglary, together with the note "Burglarized store during riot," indicating that he had allegedly looted a business. There are no details of circumstances of the arrest in the other sources. Redmond arrested two other Black men, Reginald Mills and Nelson Brock, in relation to the same location, also charging them with burglary, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. All three men are also identified as having been charged with burglary in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette (but not the list in the New York Evening Journal).

The address recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book for James Marshall, the complainant in the prosecutions against three Black men, is likely the location of the looted store. Although that column of the docket book is headed "Residence" clerks commonly put the address related to the charge in that space rather than the home of the complainant. A branch of the white-owned James Butler Food Market chain occupied that location at the time between 1939 and 1941 that the Tax Department photograph was taken, and was likely there at the time of the disorder as chain stores were an established part of the neighborhood's business landscape. (That side of the street is missing from the MCCH Business Survey conducted in the second half of 1935). Grant lived at 19 East 134th Street, some distance north and east of 1974 7th Avenue, unlike Brock and Mills, who lived nearby.

Grant, Mills and Brock appeared in Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, when Magistrate Renaud remanded them in custody. When they were returned to court on March 25, Magistrate Ford discharged them so they could be rearrested as they had been indicted by the grand jury, and then held them on $1000 bail. No further records mention the outcome of those prosecutions. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter recorded only the discharge on March 25.
Reginald Mills arrested Sometime during the disorder, Officer Redmond of the 28th Precinct arrested Reginald Mills, a nineteen-year-old Black man, likely near 1974 7th Avenue, on the southwest corner of West 119th Street. The charge Redmond made against Mills recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter is burglary, together with the note "Burglarized store during riot," indicating that he had allegedly looted a business. There are no details of circumstances of the arrest in the other sources. Redmond arrested two other Black men, Nelson Brock and William Grant, in relation to the same location, also charging them with burglary, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. Mills and Brock are also identified as having been charged with inciting a riot in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette (but not the list in the New York Evening Journal). That charge requires others to have been involved in the looting, and suggests that police alleged Mills and Brock had somehow contributed to the group attacking the store. However, burglary is the only charge brought against them in the Harlem Magistrates Court.

The address recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book for James Marshall, the complainant in the prosecutions against three Black men, is likely the location of the looted store. Although that column of the docket book is headed "Residence" clerks commonly put the address related to the charge in that space rather than the home of the complainant. A branch of the white-owned James Butler Food Market chain occupied that location at the time between 1939 and 1941 that the Tax Department photograph was taken, and was likely there at the time of the disorder as chain stores were an established part of the neighborhood's business landscape. (That side of the street is missing from the MCCH Business Survey conducted in the second half of 1935). Mills lived at 269 West 121st Street, west of 7th Avenue two blocks north of 1974 7th Avenue. He could have been drawn to the street by the noise and crowds on 7th Avenue after 10 PM.

Mills, Brock and Grant appeared in Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, when Magistrate Renaud remanded them in custody. When they were returned to court on March 25, Magistrate Ford discharged them so they could be rearrested as they had been indicted by the grand jury, and then held them on $1000 bail. No further records mention the outcome of those prosecutions. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter recorded only the discharge on March 25.
John Darby arrested Sometime during the disorder, John Darby was arrested and charged with Petit Larceny. Darby's name appears among those charged with Petit Larceny in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette. However, Darby does not appear in the list published in the New York Evening Journal (which included an person's age, race and address), the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, the docket book of either Magistrates Court or any newspaper stories, and there is no evidence of the location of the business that he allegedly looted.

That lack of information is also the case with eight other men who appear only in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, seven charged with Petit Larceny. The absence of this group from the blotter could mean they were arrested in the 32nd Precinct, whose blotter records do not appear to have been obtained by the MCCH. That they did not appear in court could mean that police questioned and released them the next day.
Alonzo Greenridge arrested Sometime during the disorder, Alonzo Greenridge was arrested and charged with Petit Larceny. Greenridge's name appears among those charged with Petit Larceny in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette. However, Greenridge does not appear in the list published in the New York Evening Journal (which included an person's age, race and address), the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, the docket book of either Magistrates Court or any newspaper stories, and there is no evidence of the location of the business that he allegedly looted.

That lack of information is also the case with eight other men who appear only in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, seven charged with Petit Larceny. The absence of this group from the blotter could mean they were arrested in the 32nd Precinct, whose blotter records do not appear to have been obtained by the MCCH. That they did not appear in court could mean that police questioned and released them the next day.
James Harris arrested Sometime during the disorder, James Harris was arrested and charged with Petit Larceny. Harris' name appears among those charged with Petit Larceny in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette. However, Harris does not appear in the list published in the New York Evening Journal (which included an person's age, race and address), the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, the docket book of either Magistrates Court or any newspaper stories, and there is no evidence of the location of the business that he allegedly looted.

That lack of information is also the case with eight other men who appear only in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, seven charged with Petit Larceny. The absence of this group from the blotter could mean they were arrested in the 32nd Precinct, whose blotter records do not appear to have been obtained by the MCCH. That they did not appear in court could mean that police questioned and released them the next day.
James Mason arrested Sometime during the disorder, James Mason was arrested and charged with Petit Larceny. Mason's name appears among those charged with Petit Larceny in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette. However, Mason does not appear in the list published in the New York Evening Journal (which included an person's age, race and address), the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, the docket book of either Magistrates Court or any newspaper stories, and there is no evidence of the location of the business that he allegedly looted.

That lack of information is also the case with eight other men who appear only in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, seven charged with Petit Larceny. The absence of this group from the blotter could mean they were arrested in the 32nd Precinct, whose blotter records do not appear to have been obtained by the MCCH. That they did not appear in court could mean that police questioned and released them the next day.
Merryman McAllister arrested Sometime during the disorder, Merryman McAllister was arrested and charged with Petit Larceny. McAllister's name appears among those charged with Petit Larceny in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette. However, McAllister does not appear in the list published in the New York Evening Journal (which included an person's age, race and address), the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, the docket book of either Magistrates Court or any newspaper stories, and there is no evidence of the location of the business that he allegedly looted.

That lack of information is also the case with eight other men who appear only in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, seven charged with Petit Larceny. The absence of this group from the blotter could mean they were arrested in the 32nd Precinct, whose blotter records do not appear to have been obtained by the MCCH. That they did not appear in court could mean that police questioned and released them the next day.
Archie Niles arrested Sometime during the disorder, Archie Niles was arrested and charged with Petit Larceny. Niles' name appears among those charged with Petit Larceny in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette. However, Niles does not appear in the list published in the New York Evening Journal (which included a person's age, race and address), the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, the docket book of either Magistrates Court or any newspaper stories, and there is no evidence of the location of the business that he allegedly looted.

That lack of information is also the case with eight other men who appear only in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, seven of who were charged with Petit Larceny. The absence of this group from the blotter could mean they were arrested in the 32nd Precinct, whose blotter records do not appear to have been obtained by the MCCH. That they did not appear in court could mean that police questioned and released them the next day.