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

Mario Gonzalez's menswear store windows broken

Mario Gonzalez's menswear store at 86 Lenox Avenue was one of the businesses with broken windows identified by a reporter for La Prensa who walked along Lenox Avenue near and north of West 116th Street, and along West 116th Street and West 125th Street, the day after the disorder. The reporter apparently spoke to a staff member, who told him that "the store was closed on Wednesday night at ten o'clock and that nothing had happened until then. However, in the morning staff learned that a group of people had broken one of the windows in the front windows. The perpetrators did not steal the men's clothing that was on display in the window." Although the identity of the group responsible was not mentioned in that statement, the previous sentence of the La Prensa story described the store as "the victim of the unleashed fury of a group of individuals of color [también fué victima de al desencadenada furia de un grupo de individuos de color]." La Prensa's stories on the disorder insisted that Spanish-speaking residents of the blocks around West 116th Street did not participate in the violence, which they attributed to Harlem's Black population. A window was smashed in the San Antonio Market two blocks north, just off Lenox Avenue, after midnight. The menswear store may have been targeted at the same time, although around $10 of groceries were taken from the market.

Additional businesses on West 116th Street east of 7th Avenue, Lenox Avenue north of West 116th Street and on West 125th Street likely had broken windows as the La Prensa reporter concluded his list by noting he had not included others as they had only suffered minor damage ("y otras mas que por ser los danos ocasionados relativamente pequeños no creimus de interes catalogar entre los establecimientos ya mencionados").

No other sources mentioned this store, and no one arrested during the disorder was identified as breaking the store's windows. The MCCH business survey did not include a menswear store at 86 Lenox Avenue in the months after the disorder; a drug store and a laundry are listed at that address. Neither the menswear store nor either of those businesses appeared in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941.

 

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