Harlem in Disorder: A Spatial History of How Racial Violence Changed in 1935Main MenuREAD ME: Help Navigating This BookIntroductionOn the StreetsIn the CourtsUnder InvestigationThe Mayor's Commission on Conditions in HarlemOver TimeEventsSourcesStephen Robertsona1bf8804093bc01e94a0485d9f3510bb8508e3bfStanford University Press
162 West 125th Street, c. 1939-1941.
1media/nynyma_rec0040_1_01909_0059_thumb.jpg2024-05-31T20:44:21+00:00Stephen Robertsona1bf8804093bc01e94a0485d9f3510bb8508e3bf12The storefront without visible signs on the right of the image is 162 West 125th Street. Source: DOF: Manhattan 1940s Tax Photos (New York City Municipal Archives).plain2024-05-31T20:47:14+00:00nynyma_rec0040_1_01909_005920180308112101+0000Stephen Robertsona1bf8804093bc01e94a0485d9f3510bb8508e3bf
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12024-05-31T20:46:51+00:00Stephen Robertsona1bf8804093bc01e94a0485d9f3510bb8508e3bfLocation of Sylvia Dress in 1935Stephen Robertson1plain2024-05-31T20:46:51+00:00Stephen Robertsona1bf8804093bc01e94a0485d9f3510bb8508e3bf
12021-11-10T20:13:25+00:00Sylvia Dress shop windows broken12plain2024-05-31T20:47:42+00:00Sylvia Dress shop at 162 West 125th Street is one of the businesses in a list of those with broken windows made by a reporter for La Prensa who walked along West 116th Street, Lenox Avenue, and West 125th Street on the day after the disorder. After walking north on Lenox Avenue from West 116th Street, the reporter turned left on West 125th Street, walking west toward Kress' store where the disorder originated. The dress shop is one building from the intersection with 7th Avenue. The reporter noted broken windows in the Regal Shoes store on the corner; that store was looted, according to other sources.
That the reporter recorded another dress store with broken windows just west of the dress shop at 150 West 125th Street, and only one other damaged business further west, the Busch Kredit jewelry store at 128 West 125th Street, suggested that fewer stores suffered damage in this block of West 125th Street than the block to the west. It is possible that some other stores in this block suffered minor damage; the La Prensareporter concluded his list by noting that 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"). That was likely due to the presence of police. Inspector McAuliffe did order police to establish a perimeter around the main business blocks of the street, from 8th to Lenox Avenues, from 124th to 126th Streets, after 9:00 PM, according to stories in the New York Times, Daily Mirror, and Pittsburgh Courier. Emergency trucks were stationed near the dress shop, at the intersection of West 125th Street and 7th Avenue, according to the New York Times, Daily Mirror, and Pittsburgh Courier. Each truck had a “crew of 40 men and [was] equipped with tear gas and riot guns,” the Daily Mirror reported.
No other sources mention this store, and no one arrested during the disorder is identified as breaking the business' windows. The MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935 did not record any business at the address, and the storefront appears vacant in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941.