This page was created by Anonymous. 

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

Louis Levy's dry goods store looted

Around 11.00 PM Louis Levy locked up his dry goods store at 374 Lenox Avenue and left for the night, likely going to his home at 636 West 174th Street. When he returned to the store around 3.00 AM, he found the window broken and $10,000 worth of textiles, clothing and sundries stolen, the store "entirely cleaned out of its stock," according to the Daily Mirror. The owner of the jewelry store next door at 372 Lenox Avenue, Benjamin Zelvin, locked up his store around 30 minutes later, so the store was likely attacked soon after that time. The Magistrates Court affidavit records Levy closing the store on March 18, the night before the disorder, and returning on March 22, two days after the disorder; it seems likely that those dates are mistakes, and that he closed the store on March 19 and returned in the midst of the disorder, as several storeowners did on hearing what was happening in Harlem. But it is possible that Levy had been away from the store for some reason, as the two men charged with looting his store did not appear in court until March 22, among the last of those arrested to do so. Both Clifford Mitchell, a forty-six-year-old Black laborer, and Daughty Shavos, a twenty-one-year-old Black peddler, had been arrested the previous evening, a day after the disorder, at two different locations, in possession of "wearing apparel" with a combined value of $50 that Levy identified as part of his stock. How police found the men is not mentioned in the sources.

Levy appeared in Harlem Magistrates Court on March 22 to charge Mitchell and Shavos with burglary. The Magistrate sent both to the grand jury, which dismissed the charges against Mitchell and sent Shavos to the Court of Special Sessions to be charged with a misdemeanor. There is no evidence of the outcome of that case.

The only newspaper coverage of the looting are stories in the New York Evening Journal, Daily Mirror and New York Daily News reporting Mitchell and Shavos' appearance in the Magistrates Court. The story in the Daily Mirror identified Levy and the store, and the value of the goods stolen; the other two stories simply noted that the men had been held for the grand jury.

Despite the scale of the damages claimed, Levy appears to have continued to operate the dry goods store. In the second half of 1935, a white-owned dry goods store is recorded at 374 Lenox Avenue in the MCCH Business survey. "L. Levy" is also visible on the signage for the storefront in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941.

This page has tags:

This page references: