This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Please enable Javascript and reload the page.

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

319 Lenox Avenue & 100 West 126th Street, c. 1939-1940.

This page has tags:

Contents of this tag:

This page is referenced by:

11:30 PM to 12:00 AM While violence continued on 8th Avenue and 7th Avenue north of 125th Street, it appeared to intensify on Lenox Avenue and on 7th Avenue south of 125th Street. When Deputy Chief Inspector McAuliffe, in charge of uniformed police in the borough of Manhattan, was driven through Harlem just before midnight, he saw “thousands of persons were staying in the streets late,” although he judged that “most of them appeared to be spectators.”

As an ambulance from Knickerbocker Hospital traveling down 7th Avenue arrived at 117th Street to treat Alice Gordon, groups in the area continued to attack white individuals they encountered on the street and turned their violence against white businesses. Around 11:30 PM, William Burkhard, a forty-three-year-old white man, alleged a group of Black men assaulted him around a block north of where Gordon had been attacked. He too suffered lacerations to his face before apparently escaping east along West 118th Street. It was midway along that block that the crew of an ambulance from Bellevue Hospital treated him. Burkhard, like Gordon, was a long way from home, which in his case was 533 East 12th Street at the opposite end of Manhattan. Police were in the area but evidently not in the vicinity of the attack as they made no arrests. Some officers did intervene as groups in the area turned their attention to white-owned businesses. However, police found it difficult to — or perhaps were not concerned to — distinguish those attacking stores from residents watching events on the street. Five or so people who threw objects at the windows of Mario Pravia’s candy store near the corner of West 118th Street were among those beginning to seek merchandise rather than targeting businesses with violence. As the Uruguayan-born Pravia and his German wife Gertrude watched from inside the store, the window shattered and some of those outside reached in and took merchandise. Officer Harmon and Detective Harry Wolf also saw the windows broken and arrived at the store in time to arrest Amie Taylor, a twenty-one-year-old Black butcher. The officers claimed to have seen Taylor throw a stone and reach into the window and take something. They found eighteen packets of chewing gum, valued at 3 cents each, in his possession. However, Taylor was likely part of the crowds on 7th Avenue into which those who had been attacking the candy store fled when police approached, as he was ultimately acquitted of the charges Harmon and Wolf made against him. He may have come from his home eight blocks to the south at 1800 7th Avenue to investigate the noise and disorder rather than from 125th Street.

Windows were also broken in Ralph Sirico’s shoe repair store a block north at 1985 7th Avenue. Among those on the street near the store was C. T. Berkeley, the superintendent of the apartments above the business. He did not recognize those who threw objects at the store. Soon after, two men climbed through the broken windows and began to throw merchandise out on to the street. In all, “18 or 20 hats which had been cleaned and blocked by [Sirico]; 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” were taken. Attacks likely also began on the branch of the Butler grocery store chain in the block between Pravia’s candy store and Sirico’s shoe store that was also looted during the disorder. Not until later, around midnight when observers recognized the outbreak of looting, would merchandise likely begin to be taken from the stores whose windows were broken in the blocks between West 118th Street and West 125th Street.

Across 125th Street, crowds were moving up 7th Avenue, watched by residents, like Marshall Pfifer, gathered on the sidewalks and by police radio cars patrolling the avenues. Groups likely continued to break windows in white businesses, but police made no arrests and details of exactly what was happening are lacking. The situation on 8th Avenue was even less clear. Some of the looting in the blocks immediately north of 125th Street may have occurred around this time, and police may have made arrests in response, although more likely that would not happen until after midnight as part of the outbreak of looting noted by observers. Julius Narditch, a thirty-four-year-old white man did report being “jumped” by three black men on 8th Avenue near 147th Street. While such an attack was in keeping with the violence of the disorder, the location was well beyond the area where crowds were on the street at this time. In fact, there was no evidence of any other incidents related to the disorder north of 145th Street. Narditch reported the alleged assault to police, so it was in the records they shared with journalists. However, there was no indication that police limited the cases they included to incidents that they could link to the disorder. Rather than an element of the disorder, the assault on Narditch is better seen as a reminder that attacks on whites visiting Harlem were not limited to the disorder.

While there were crowds on 7th and 8th Avenues north of 125th Street, it was on Lenox Avenue that the violence was centered by this time, likely drawing a greater police presence that contributed to the lack of information about what was happening elsewhere. The group around 131st and 132nd Streets increased the violence of their attacks on white-owned businesses. With windows broken, some of those on the street began taking merchandise from the displays. Some went further, setting fire to Anna Rosenberg’s notion shop at 429 Lenox Avenue and the adjacent hardware store. Those efforts were somewhat at odds with the attempts of others to get items that they needed but lacked the money to buy, contradictory endeavors that highlighted the variety of people now on the streets. While the fires could have been lit only after the businesses had been emptied of merchandise, the episodic nature of most looting in the disorder made it unlikely the stores had been ransacked so quickly. More likely, they had been set on fire as an extension of efforts to destroy white-owned property. Once started, the fires drew crowds, with more residents coming on to the street when the response of the Fire Department added another set of sirens to the noise. While the closest fire company was at 180 West 137th Street, near the intersection with 7th Avenue, fire trucks likely also came from companies outside Harlem as white journalists and photographers were also at the scene of the fire. Uniformed police and detectives converged to manage the crowd. Spectators pressing forward to see the fire got in the way of firefighters, encounters sensationalized in the New York Evening Journal and New York Herald Tribune as efforts to prevent them from putting out the fire were accompanied by chants of “Let them burn.” While the fires were extinguished, the attention they drew let other groups attack and loot surrounding businesses with less interference from police arriving in the area. David Schmoockler, the manager of William Feinstein’s liquor store, watched as police drove groups attacking stores from one side of the street only to have them rush to the other side and continue to break windows in Estelle Cohen’s clothing store, the Gonzales jewelry store, and likely other businesses in the block.

Two blocks south on Lenox Avenue between 128th and 129th Streets, the situation had changed such that forty-eight-year-old Russian-born Benjamin Zelvin was unwilling to close and leave his jewelry business as his neighbor Louis Levy had done only half an hour earlier. Instead, he boarded up the windows to protect them and the stock inside, called the police station, and waited half an hour for officers to arrive, before he left his store at 372 Lenox Avenue. Such precautions indicated Zelvin likely had seen more people than usual on the streets, at least some of whom attacked white men and women they encountered. A group attacked William Ken, a white man going into the bar and grill where he worked, the Blue Heaven Restaurant, just two storefronts north of Zelvin’s business. Two unnamed Black coworkers intervened, pulling Ken inside before he was injured, and convincing the group to move on. Zelvin had likely also seen or heard windows being broken in nearby businesses. It was likely around this time that a window was broken in the grocery store across the street at 371 Lenox Avenue, leading the thirty-six-year-old Russian-born owner Irving Stekin to also call police (he waited two hours for officers to respond). The Peace Food Market south of Zelvin's jewelry store and the South Harlem Rotisserie and a laundry on the other side of Lenox Avenue would suffer damage. Michael D’Agostino’s business at 361 Lenox Avenue, Irving Stekin’s second business at 363 Lenox Avenue, and the Romanoff Drug store on that side of the street would also be looted, as would businesses owned by Samuel Mestetzky and Irving Guberman just around the corner on West 129th Street, although efforts to take merchandise likely had not yet begun. It was likely that the four Black-owned businesses on this block were not targeted. That the Chinese owners of the laundry at 367 Lenox Avenue reportedly put a sign in their windows that read "Me Colored Too," emulating those displayed by some Black businesses, suggests that they saw Black-owned businesses being spared from attacks.

Benjamin Zelvin could also have heard glass shattering in the block south of his store between 127th and 128th Streets. Groups coming from 125th Street and residents on the street could have moved into this block to avoid the police officers who had recently arrested Julian Rogers a block further south at 333 Lenox Avenue between 126th and 127th Street. Detective Perretti likely arrested two twenty-eight-year-old Black men on the northwest corner of 127th Street around this time. He allegedly had seen Arthur Bennett and James Bright throw stones through the window of a drug store at 339 Lenox Avenue. Other officers must have been with the detective for both men to have been arrested at the same time. On the block north of the drug store, businesses at 348 Lenox Avenue owned by Michael D’Agostino, Jack Stern and Sam Apuzzo, a grocery store at 340 Lenox Avenue, the cleaners across the street at 347 Lenox Avenue, an unknown store at 345 Lenox, Louis Levy’s store, and Harry Schwartz's laundry just off the avenue on West 128th Street, at least, would have windows broken during the disorder. It likely took until later for the windows to be damaged enough for some of those on the street to begin to reach into the displays and enter the stores to take merchandise.

Although beyond earshot of Zelvin, attacks on businesses close to 125th Street continued. Objects thrown at George’s Lunch and Harry Piskin’s laundry on 126th Street did further damage to their windows even as more police began to arrive on Lenox Avenue. Windows likely also continued to be targeted in the blocks of Lenox Avenue south of 125th Street. With few businesses in the blocks below 123rd Street, and few police apparently present, the groups in this area may have continued to focus their violence in the blocks immediately south of 125th Street. Bricks did continue to be thrown through the windows of Mrs. Salefas' delicatessen on the corner of 123rd Street, given that she spent some time in the rear of her shop taking shelter. Even if those attacks had started around 11:00 PM, they could still have been occurring around 11:30 PM.
Harry Piskin's laundry looted Harry Piskin's laundry at 100 West 126th Street, just off Lenox Avenue, was first the target of stones, according to testimony he gave to the city comptroller reported by the New York Sun. The intersection of West 125th Street and Lenox Avenue, and the blocks of the avenue to the north were the site of multiple acts of violence and attacks on businesses during the disorder, but there is no clear evidence of when crowds would have first arrived at the laundry other than the report that looting of a store at the intersection started around 10:30 PM. It was likely attacks on the laundry began not long after, around 11:00 PM. The stones were eventually followed by a bullet fired into the laundry's show window, Piskin testified, according to the New York Sun. The story quoted an exchange in which the comptroller asked Piskin if he had heard other pistol shots; he answered "plenty." There are no other mentions of guns being fired in attacks on businesses; shooting was instead associated with police responding to looting. As in other stories about the disorder, shooting signified a greater level of violence than stones being thrown. At issue in this case was the police response: the comptroller's next question in the exchange reported by the New York Sun was, "Did [the police] send protection?" Piskin answered, "they did not."

Instead, after the shot at the window, Piskin testified that "they looted his laundry, broke all of his machinery and drove him out of business." George's Lunch, the neighboring business on the corner of West 126th Street and Lenox Avenue, suffered similarly extensive damage. At some point he sought help. He first found a police officer a block away at the intersection of West 125th Street and Lenox Avenue: "Report it--I can't leave my post," the officer told him, according to the New York Post. He continued across town to the police station on West 123rd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues: "Oh we know all about it," was the response there. Later, a police officer responded to Piskin's complaints about the lack of police protection by telling him, "My life is more important to me than your business is to you," testimony reported in the New York Post and New York World-Telegram. Piskin had joined other white merchants in suing the city for damages, so he had an incentive to emphasize police failures. Nonetheless, the extent of the attacks on businesses and violence in this area, and the small number of arrests, most of which came several hours after crowds first arrived on the avenue, add weight to his complaint. No one arrested for looting was identified as taking goods from the laundry.

The only mention of the damage to Piskin's laundry was in newspaper stories about the claims against the city made by white business owners. Piskin was part of the group of twenty who filed the first claims identified by the New York Sun, New York World-Telegram, New York American, and New York Amsterdam News in April and was mentioned again in stories published by the New York Evening Journal, New York Sun, New York Post, New York World-Telegram, and New York Amsterdam News at the end of July, by which time 106 merchants had filed suits. He appeared as an example in those stories likely because he claimed the largest sum for damages, $14,125 (the next largest claim was from the adjacent business, George's Lunch), well above the median reported claim of $733. The city lost the cases that went to trial to resolve the merchants' claims, so it was likely that Piskin received some compensation. Surprisingly, his was not among the seven claims in the first trial in the Supreme Court in March 1936, which involved others from the group identified in April, all represented by the same attorney, Barney Rosenstein. However, the sums the jury awarded in that trial were only a small proportion of the claims, so any award Piskin received was likely insufficient for him to remain in business. The MCCH business survey taken from June to December 1935 did not record a laundry at 100 West 126th Street. The Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941 did not offer a clear view of what business was operating at that address.
George Chronis' restaurant looted George's Lunch, the lunchroom at 319 Lenox Avenue, on the southwest corner of West 126th Street, owned by George Chronis, was open for business when crowds appeared on the street. The intersection of West 125th Street and Lenox Avenue, and the blocks of the avenue to the north were the site of multiple acts of violence and attacks on businesses during the disorder. Crowds likely first broke windows around 11:00 PM, after a group of men robbed Toby’s Men’s shop on the northwest corner of 125th Street and Lenox Avenue at 10:30 PM and before 11:20 PM, when a patrolman arrived at the shoe store a block to the north to find smashed windows and merchandise missing from the display. Chronis told the city comptroller that the lunchroom was staffed by one white and two Black workers that evening, according to a story in the New York Post. The Black men reacted to the disorder by leaving the restaurant, while the white man called the police station house and then locked himself in a washroom. No police responded to his call. Groups continued to sporadically break windows, take merchandise, and occasionally attack whites they encountered on the streets on the blocks of Lenox Avenue north of 125th Street for the next three hours.

Chronis heard about the disorder and tried to get to his business. However, police prevented him from doing so for several hours, the New York Post reported he told the comptroller. It was 1:00 AM by the time that Chronis got to the restaurant. He found his white staff member still locked in the washroom, and the lunchroom "completely demolished," according to the story in the New York World-Telegram. The business next door, Piskin's laundry, was also destroyed. The only mention of the damage to George's Lunch was in newspaper stories about the claims for damages from the city made by white merchants. Chronis was not part of the group of twenty who brought the first suits, but was mentioned in stories published in the New York Post, New York World-Telegram, and New York Amsterdam News at the end of July about hearings before the city comptroller, by which time 106 merchants had filed suits. He appeared as an example in those stories because of the large damages he sought, $14,000, since, as the New York Sun put it, his business was "completely wiped out by looters." Those damages were also likely why Chronis was one of seven claimants in the first trial in the New York Supreme Court in March 1936, identified in the New York Herald Tribune.

Police did make arrests in the vicinity of George's Lunch around the time that they allowed Chronis access, indicating the presence of officers, although not in sufficient numbers to prevent ongoing attacks on businesses. But by then the damage to the restaurant had been done, and no one was arrested for those attacks. The jury awarded damages to all the claimants in the March 1936 trial, but no newspaper stories mentioned the amount awarded to Chronis. It would have been a small fraction of his claim of $14,000, as the largest reported amount was $550 to Irving Stekin. Even if the award to Chronis was close to what Stekin received, it was a dramatically smaller proportion than awarded to any other plaintiff. Surprisingly, it went unmentioned in the newspaper stories about the trial. It was no surprise then that Chronis appeared not to have reopened his business. It was missing from the MCCH business survey in late 1935 and replaced by another store in the Tax Department photograph from 1939–1941.