Sav-On Drug Store, 327 Lenox Avenue, c. 1939-1941.
1 media/nynyma_rec0040_1_01911_0032_thumb.jpg 2024-06-01T03:46:26+00:00 Stephen Robertson a1bf8804093bc01e94a0485d9f3510bb8508e3bf 1 2 Source: DOF: Manhattan 1940s Tax Photos (New York City Municipal Archives). plain 2024-06-01T03:47:01+00:00 nynyma_rec0040_1_01911_0032 20180308 112537+0000 Stephen Robertson a1bf8804093bc01e94a0485d9f3510bb8508e3bfThis page has tags:
- 1 2023-12-13T11:08:36+00:00 Anonymous Department of Finance, Manhattan 1940s Tax Photos: Lenox Avenue Anonymous 4 plain 2023-12-13T16:17:17+00:00 Anonymous
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Sav-on Drug Store looted
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plain
2024-06-01T03:48:15+00:00
The Sav-on Drug Store at 327 Lenox Avenue was looted during the disorder. There were no details of those events other than the amount of the owner's claim for damages: $572. 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 would have first broken windows in the drug store sometime after 10:30 PM, when a group of men robbed Toby’s Men’s shop on the northwest corner of 125th Street and Lenox Avenue and before 11:20 PM, when a patrolman arrived at the shoe store a few buildings to the north to find smashed windows and merchandise missing from the display. Groups continued to sporadically break windows, take merchandise, and occasionally attack whites they encountered on the streets for the next three hours.
The only evidence of the looting was the store's appearance in a list of the first twenty white business-owners suing the city for damages based on the failure of police to protect their stores published in the New York Sun and New York Amsterdam News. The drug store was one of three businesses where the store name was included rather than the owner's name. The only other information provided was the address and the amount of the claim. By the time the city comptroller heard testimony from those bringing suit, 106 owners had sought damages. The drug store was not among those whose owner's testimony appeared in newspaper stories about that proceeding, nor was it the subject of any of the trials to resolve claims. No one among those arrested for looting was identified as taking goods from this business.
The claim for $572 in losses was one of the smaller claims detailed in the newspaper stories, less than the median reported claim of $733. The city lost the court cases, so the store owner likely was awarded some amount of damages, but based on those case it was only a small proportion. Whatever the award, the store appeared to have been able to remain in business. The MCCH business survey included a white-owned Sav-on Drug Store at 327 Lenox Avenue in the second half of 1935. The business also appeared in the Tax Department photograph from 1939–1941.
