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

370-378 Lenox Avenue & 60 West 129th Street, c. 1939-1940.

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Benjamin Zelvin's jewelry store looted Benjamin Zelvin locked his jewelry store at 372 Lenox Avenue around 11:30 PM on March 19. The forty-eight-year-old Russian-born resident of Brooklyn may also have boarded up the windows, as a Home News story mentioned boards later being pulled away when the store was attacked. Although there were no reports of looting in this area at that time, there apparently were crowds or other activity that led Zelvin to seek police protection for his store before leaving it. Across the street at 371 Lenox Avenue, Irving Stekin had also called police after a window in his grocery store was broken, likely around this time. The New York World-Telegram reported that Zelvin told a representative of the city comptroller's office that he waited more than half an hour after calling the station house before police reached his store (Stekin reported waiting two hours). Those officers apparently did not remain at Zelvin's store, as it was later looted, probably starting around midnight; police told Zelvin "they didn't know anything about it." However, Officer Astel of the 25th Precinct arrested two men, John Henry, a sixteen-year-old Black student, and Oscar Leacock, a twenty-year-old Brazilian laborer around 2:15 AM at Lenox Avenue and 126th Street. He allegedly found a quantity of jewelry in the men's possession, which they admitted to taking from Zelvin's store. A Home News story reported that they had "pushed away one of the boards" in order to take "several articles of merchandise." The officer then had the men take him to the store, which was only three blocks north, where he found all the windows broken. Zelvin later identified the jewelry found on the men as coming from his store. In the charge against Henry and Leacock, the value of the jewelry was initially typed as $100, but then struck out and $75 handwritten in its place. Zelvin later assessed his total losses as far greater. When he joined other merchants in filing claims for damages suffered in the disorder, the New York World-Telegram reported that he asked for $2,685. The New York Evening Journal reported Zelvin told the comptroller that his losses were "because of the lack of police protection."

There were no newspaper stories about the looting. Henry and Leacock appeared only in the four most comprehensive lists of those arrested published in Black newspapers and in the New York Evening Journal. The District Attorney's case file contained some details; as the grand jury sent the cases to the Court of Special Sessions, the only information was from the Magistrate Court affidavit. The 28th Precinct police blotter recorded that the judges convicted both men.

Zelvin appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 21 to charge an additional man, a thirty-one-year-old Black man named Henry Goodwin, with burglary (the only other individual charged for an offense related to the disorder in the court that day was John Henry, although Zelvin was not listed as the complainant in that case). Goodwin appeared only in the docket book and the 28th Precinct Police Blotter; there were no details of his alleged crime. If he did take goods from 372 Lenox Avenue, they were worth less than $100. When Goodwin appeared again, the charge was reduced to petit larceny and the Magistrate transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions. Like Henry and Leacock, the police blotter recorded that the judges convicted him.

Zelvin had started his own business soon after arriving in the city in 1904. By 1918 at the latest, when he registered for the draft, his business was located at 372 Lenox Avenue. By that time Zelvin was also living in Harlem, at 327 Lenox Avenue, where he still resided at the time of the 1920 federal census. Sometime before the state census in 1925, he relocated to a house he bought on 83rd Street in Brooklyn, which is where he lived at the time of the disorder, according to the 1940 census. It was possible that Zelvin did not reopen his jewelry store in Harlem after the disorder. It did not appear in the MCCH Business survey in the second half of 1935, which recorded no business at 372 Lenox Avenue. The Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941 was from an angle that did not offer a clear view of the business at that address. By the time the fifty-six year old Zelvin registered for the draft in 1942, he listed his place of business as 4116 8th Avenue in Brooklyn.
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 thirty minutes after Levy, so the store was likely attacked soon after that time. The Magistrates Court affidavit recorded Levy closing the store on March 18, the night before the disorder, and returning on March 22, two days after the disorder. It was 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 was 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 was 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 men to the grand jury. They dismissed the charges against Mitchell and sent Shavos to the Court of Special Sessions to be charged with a misdemeanor. There was no evidence of the outcome of that case.

The only mention of the looting in the press were stories in the New York Evening Journal, Daily Mirror, and Daily News that reported the appearance of the two men 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 appeared to have continued to operate the dry goods store. In the second half of 1935, a white-owned dry goods store was recorded at 374 Lenox Avenue in the MCCH business survey. "L. Levy" was also visible on the signage for the storefront in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941.
3:00 AM to 3:30 AM

The apparent ebb in violence in the areas where the disorder had become concentrated lasted only until around 3:00 AM. While police made only one arrest, injuries suffered by several men indicated that they clashed with groups on Lenox Avenue around West 129th Street and West 128th Street as well as on 7th Avenue around West 116th Street. Lt. Samuel Battle would later tell his biographer, Langston Hughes, that he cautioned the patrolmen and detectives on the streets that “there were to be no wholesale clubbings of Negroes.” His account seems more a product of the criticism Battle would face for police brutality against Harlem residents in the aftermath of the disorder than a description of his actions at the time. The mostly white officers deployed in Harlem during the disorder, many from outside the district so without experience of serving under a Black officer, would likely have reacted dismissively if not with hostility to such advice.

Lenox Avenue around West 129th Street appeared to have been the site of the largest outbreak of violence. James White, a twenty-nine-year-old Black man, had an “altercation” with a white man, likely a detective in plainclothes, that left him with cuts to his head. Forty-year-old Jack Ponder received cuts to his ear and twenty-year-old Thomas Brown cuts to his forehead in unspecified circumstances. None of the men lived nearby. The most likely cause of their injuries were batons swung by police seeking to clear crowds off the street. There were no reported arrests. Had the police been responding to looting, officers were present in the area to have made an arrest. Louis Levy, who returned to the dry goods store he owned at 374 Lenox Avenue around this time, made no mention of seeing any looting or attacks on businesses. Rather, he had found his store “entirely cleaned out of its stock,” suggesting few opportunities for such attacks remained. Police efforts to clear the streets extended down Lenox Avenue toward West 128th Street. Just off that intersection, Benjamin Bell was shot in the thigh. The thirty-two-year-old man was standing in front of his home so might have been hit by a stray bullet fired by police on Lenox Avenue or by gunshots aimed at people on the street.

In the area around West 116th Street and 7th Avenue, businesses were still being attacked and looted despite the presence of police at the intersection. Officer Necas saw Robert Tanner reach through the broken windows of Garmise’s cigar store on the southwest corner of West 116th Street and take a pipe. The store windows had first been broken a little over an hour earlier. The seventeen-year-old Black student lived nearby so may have been among those on 7th Avenue watching what was happening for some time before looking to take advantage of the damage done to the store, as had been the case with Joseph Wade half an hour or so earlier.
Samuel Mestetzky's store looted Samuel Mestetzky's store looted at 60 West 129th Street was looted during the disorder. There are no details of those events other than the amount of the owner's claim for losses: $5,860.50. A second business at the same address, owned by Irving Guberman, was also looted, with losses claimed of $3,967. The address is part of a seven-story building that occupied the southeast corner of Lenox Avenue and West 129th Street. The block of Lenox Avenue to the south saw extensive attacks on white-owned businesses. That violence likely started around 11:30 PM.

The only evidence of the looting is the store's appearance in a list of the first twenty white business-owners who sued the city for damages based on the failure of police to protect their stores published in the New York Sun, New York World-Telegram, New York American, and New York Amsterdam News. By the time the city comptroller heard testimony from those bringing suit, 106 owners had sought damages. Mestetzky was not among those whose testimony appeared in newspaper stories about that proceeding, nor did he appear in any of the trials to test the claims. No one among those arrested for looting was identified as taking goods from this business.

Mestetzky's claim for $5,860.50 in damages was the third largest detailed in the newspaper stories, well above the median claim of $733. The city lost the court cases, so Mestetzky likely was awarded some amount of damages, but based on those case it was likely only a small proportion. It is not clear if he was able to remain in business. The MCCH business survey includes three operating at 60 West 129th Street in the second half of 1935, a white-owned stationery store, and black-owned barber and tailor's shop. Either Mestetzky or Guberman could have owned the stationery store; the newspaper stories did not identify their businesses. The Tax Department photograph was taken from too far away to identify the businesses at the address in 1939–1941.
William Ken assaulted William Ken, a white employee of the Blue Heaven Restaurant, was attacked by a group as he went to enter the business at 378 Lenox Avenue, near 129th Street. He was hit several times before two Black coworkers dragged him into the store and convinced the crowd to move on. Ken was not injured enough to seek medical attention.

When this alleged assault took place was not reported. Crowds had arrived on this block of Lenox Avenue north of 125th Street by 11:30 PM and remained for several hours. Four other assaults allegedly occurred in the area between midnight and 2:00 AM, suggesting crowds on the street that could have targeted Ken in that period. The MCCH business survey undertaken after the disorder described the business as a bar and grill, so Ken may have been arriving to start a night shift. If so, the alleged assault most likely took place around midnight. Ken lived in East Harlem, at 2085 Lexington Avenue, so would not have encountered signs of the disorder until he reached the vicinity of Lenox Avenue.

The only evidence of this attack wa a brief account in the New York Evening Journal, a publication that focused more of its reporting on violence against whites than any other newspaper. In all, the New York Evening Journal and New York Post reported six assaults on whites that appeared in no other sources. The story presented Ken as an example of a particular group of white victims of violence, “those regularly employed in Harlem establishments.” The label implied indiscriminate racial violence. To the contrary, given the grievances of residents regarding the failure of white businesses to hire Black staff, whites who worked in Harlem like Ken seemed to be the very likely targets of violence.
Irving Guberman's store looted Irving Guberman's store at 60 West 129th Street was looted during the disorder. There are no details of those events other than the amount of the owner's claim for damages: $3,967. A second business at the same address, owned by Samuel Mestetzky, was also looted, with losses claimed of $5,860.50. The address is part of a seven-story building that occupied the southeast corner of Lenox Avenue and West 129th Street. The block of Lenox Avenue to the south saw extensive attacks on white-owned businesses. That violence likely started around 11:30 PM.

The only evidence of the looting was the store's appearance in lists of the first twenty white business owners suing the city for damages published in the New York Sun, New York World-Telegram, New York American, and New York Amsterdam News. By the time the city comptroller heard testimony from those bringing suit, 106 owners had sought damages. Guberman was not among those whose testimony appeared in newspaper stories about that proceeding, nor did he appear in any of the trials to test the claims. No one among those arrested for looting was identified as taking goods from this store.

The claim for $3,967 in losses is the fifth largest detailed in the newspaper stories, well above the median claim of $733. The city lost the test cases, so Guberman likely was awarded some amount of damages, but based on those cases, it was likely only a small proportion. It is not clear if he was able to remain in business. The MCCH business survey included three stores operating at 60 West 129th Street in the second half of 1935, a white-owned stationary store, and two Black-owned businesses, a barber and a tailor's shop. Either Guberman or Mestetzky could have owned the stationary store; the newspaper stories did not identify their businesses. The Tax Department photograph was taken from too far away to identify the businesses at the address in 1939-1941.