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

Mario Pravia's candy store, 1953 Seventh Avenue, c. 1939-1941.

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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.
Mario Pravia's candy store looted Around 11:30 PM, Mario Pravia and his wife Gertrude were in their candy store at 1953 7th Avenue when a group of around five people on the street outside began throwing stones at the store window. Crowds had started to move down 7th Avenue from 125th Street around 10:00 PM, reportedly attacking whites and stores before and and they continued to do so after the stones were thrown at the store window. Why the Pravias were in their store was not mentioned in the sources. The store was unlikely to have been open that late, but they may have remained inside after closing the store when they saw the crowds begin to gather.

When the store window shattered, members of the crowd began to take goods from the window display. Officer Harmon of the 18th Division witnessed the attack on the store, and reported seeing Amie Taylor, a twenty-one-year-old Black butcher, throw a stone and reach into the window to take something. Taylor lived south of the store, at 1800 7th Avenue, so may not have been part of the crowd that came from 125th Street. He was the only member of the group in front of the store arrested, despite at least one other police officer being at the scene, Detective Harry Wolf of the 28th Precinct, listed as a witness on the Magistrates Court affidavit and an arresting officer with Harmon on Taylor's criminal record. The New York Evening Journal identified a different officer as making the arrest, Deputy Chief Inspector John Ryan. In a vignette within the paper’s narrative of the disorder, that senior officer observed the attack on the store while driving to 125th Street. He pulled over and attempted to round up the thieves in “a terrific battle” from which “Ryan emerged...with Amie Taylor, 21, as his prisoner.” No other sources supported that account.

Harmon allegedly found eighteen packets of chewing gum, valued at three cents each, in Taylor’s possession. Struck out information on the Magistrates Court affidavit suggested $200 worth of merchandise was stolen from Pravia’s store. Pravia appeared to have remained in business despite those losses, perhaps because he had insurance, although that would have been unusual for such a small-scale business. The MCCH business survey identified a white-owned business operating at 1953 7th Avenue in the second half of 1935, although it was categorized as a stationery store.

Pravia, born in Uruguay in 1899, had arrived in New York City from Chile in 1925, and married his German-born wife Gertrude in 1929. His naturalization petition identified him as white. While the building had Black residents, it was located just a block north of an area populated by Spanish speaking residents. A business advertising candy and other merchandise also appeared in the tax photograph of the building taken sometime between 1939 and 1941. But by 1942, whatever business was at 1953 7th Avenue, Pravia was not its owner. When Pravia registered for the draft, they lived nearby at 126 West 119th Street, but he no longer worked at the store. He was working as a butcher, according to his naturalization petition, and his draft registration records his place of employment as a hotel in East Orange, New Jersey.

Taylor appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, when Magistrate Renaud remanded him until March 22. When he appeared in court again, Renaud sent him to the grand jury. They transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions. The police blotter recorded that the judges in that court acquitted Taylor. The sources are silent on what alternative account of events Taylor offered, but others arrested in the disorder claimed to have been bystanders mistakenly grabbed by police trying to pick offenders out of crowds.