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

Max Newman assaulted

At 10.30pm, as Max Newman, a thirty-six-year-old white man, closed his grocer’s store, a group of Black men allegedly attacked him. They beat him around the head, leaving him with cuts and bruises on his forehead. An ambulance was called, and a doctor treated Newman’s injuries at the scene.

Newman was one of three white storeowners allegedly attacked by groups of Black men. Joseph Sarnelli was also closing his store, and his assailants tried to steal razors. Herman Young was hit by a rock thrown from a crowd during a period of looting. As reported, Newman’s assailants targeted him not his store.

Just where Newman was attacked is not clear. The list published in the New York Herald Tribune located his store at 2774 8th Avenue, “near 138th St", but that address was near 148th Street not 138th Street. As that was the most detailed account, the assault has been mapped at that location. However, the list in the New York American had the store at 2274 8th Avenue, which is near 122nd Street not 138th Street. The business survey identified both addresses as white-owned grocer’s stores. The northern most address is an outlier, with only one other event in the disorder nearby, and as crowds only having left 125th Street 30 minutes or so earlier, the disorder seems unlikely to have spread here so quickly. The event nearby did not occur until 11.30pm. The other address, 2274 8th Avenue, was on the edge of a cluster of events, and at the time Newman was assaulted crowds moving away from 125th and 8th Ave could have been in the area.

Newman appeared only in lists of the injured. Two lists included some details of the circumstances. The New York Herald Tribune provided the most information, that he was beaten by a group of eight black men, the timing and the ambulance. The New York American described a smaller group of five men, and did not mention the timing or ambulance. The reports in the Home News, New York Evening Journal and New York Post only listed Newman’s injuries, but the Home News and New York Evening Journal did add his home address, 3200 Rochambeau Avenue in the Bronx.
 

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