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

"Medical Attendances, 19-20 March 1935," Harlem: Mayor's Commission on Conditions (1), Subject Files, Box 167, Folder 5 (Roll 76), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).

As part of related categories:

Hospital records (1/2)

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Lyman Quarterman shot At around 10.30 PM, Lyman Quarterman, a thirty-four-year-old Black man, was part of a crowd at 121st Street and 7th Avenue that police were struggling to disperse when he was shot in the abdomen. Around the same time, Anthony Cados, a thirty-four-year-old white man reported being assaulted nearby by "some unknown colored person or persons." While Cados lived approximately ten blocks to the south, Quarterman lived at the other end of Black Harlem, at 306 West 146th Street (in the same area as two of the other Black men shot, Clarence London and Wilmont Hendricks)

It is clear from the newspaper reports that police fired their guns as part of their efforts to disperse the crowd, raising the possibility that an officer shot Quarterman. White newspaper reports discounted that possibility in various ways. Hospital records of the ambulance called to attend Quarterman simply recorded he had a "gunshot wound of the abdomen received when shot by some unknown person at the scene of riot." The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, New York American, Brooklyn Citizen and Daily Mirror, and the Associated Press reported on March 20, and the Chicago Defender on March 23, that Quarterman had died, a mistake the Home News attributed to "many conflicting reports during the night," and the New York Evening News attributed more specifically to a "report having been sent out on the police teletype." By late on March 20 the New York Evening Journal, New York Post and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle listed Quarterman among the injured, as did the Atlanta World on March 27 and the Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette on March 30. He was one of eight men still in hospital on March 21, the New York Herald Tribune reported, and still there as late as April 8 according to the New York Age, but there are no reports that he died.

The New York Herald Tribune, reported that no policeman in the vicinity could remember discharging his revolver, whereas the Times Union said many had, but “only into the air to frighten the mob.” The New York Evening Journal made an oblique reference to shots being fired into the crowd, as the culmination of a narrative justifying police actions as a response to escalating violence, in which officers from the 123rd Street station surrounded by a crowd, first drew their nightsticks “to save their own lives,” and when the crowd armed themselves with baseball bats and clubs, drew their guns and exchanged shots with the crowd. No other newspapers reproduced this narrative.

The New York American simply said Quarterman had been shot by an unknown assailant, the Daily Mirror by a “stray bullet,” and the New York Daily News reported his assailant had escaped, stories which all implicitly assumed the police were not responsible for his death. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle explicitly expressed such an assumption in reporting Quarterman had been shot “presumably by rioters.” The New York Times offered the more open-ended report that “police launched an investigation to determine who fired the fatal shot.” There are no records of such an investigation. Only the Brooklyn Citizen stated directly that “Whether he had been shot by police or other rioters could not be determined.”

Four of the six others shot and wounded during the disorder were Black men like Quarterman, one of unknown race, and one white police officer. As in his case, no one was arrested for any of those shootings (the man with who the police officer struggled, James Thompson, was shot and killed by police).
Timothy Murphy assaulted & Paul Boyett shot Around 9 p.m, as police reinforcements tried to disperse the large crowds that had gathered on 7th and 8th Avenues around 125th Street, a few blocks northwest on West 127th Street between 8th Avenue and St Nicholas Avenue, a group of around ten Black men attacked Timothy Murphy, a twenty-nine-year-old white rock driller on his way home.

The men knocked Murphy to the ground and then hit and kicked him. The Daily Mirror reported Murphy said that men told him “they were beating me because I was a white man.” Their actual words, according to Murphy’s affidavit in the District Attorney's case file, were “You white son-of-a-bitch, take it now.” As a result of the beating Murphy suffered “lacerations, contusions [about his head, face and body], a broken nose and loss of hearing in his left ear.” Press reports simply said he received a broken nose.

The men beating Murphy attracted the attention of Patrolman George Conn and some onlookers. As Conn ran toward Murphy, he fired a shot in the air, causing the crowd to scatter. Conn then fired again, this time at the crowd, hitting Paul Boyett in the shoulder. A twenty-year-old Black garage worker, Boyett lived only a few buildings away from the scene of the beating, at 310 West 127th Street. According to one press report, Conn shot Boyett as he was about to hit Murphy. Most papers reported that Conn called on Boyett to halt before shooting him, as police practice required him to do, and only shot at him when he kept moving. At his trial on the charge of assaulting Murphy, the New York Amsterdam News reported that Boyett testified he had been “an innocent onlooker” drawn to the “disturbance,” and “struck no one at that time.” In the confusion as the crowd rushed to leave as police appeared, a bullet hit him. Boyett continued running back to his home, apparently pursued by Conn, who arrested him in the hallway of his building. Taken to the 30 Precinct, hospital records indicate that Boyett received treatment for his wound from a doctor from Knickerbocker Hospital before being placed in a cell. Both Murphy and Boyett appear in lists of the injured published in the New York Evening Journal, New York Post, New York Daily News, New York American. Only Murphy appears in the list of injured published in the Home News, and only Boyett, in a group of those shot, in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and New York Herald Tribune.

Black groups targeted at least three other white men around this time, all east of the attack on Murphy. William Kitlitz reported being attacked by James Smithies in front of Kress’ store, Maurice Spellman at 125th St and 8th Avenue, and Morris Werner at 125th Street and 7th Avenue. All these men lived west of Harlem, relatively close to where they were attacked, so were likely regular visitors to 125th Street, to shop, seek entertainment or access public transport, on this evening caught up in the disorder. The area around 125th St and 7th Avenue would continue to be the location of assaults on white men and women for at least the next three hours, with three men and two women targeted. However, the assault on Murphy represented the western boundary of the disorder, the only event beyond 8th Avenue. That section of Harlem was still part of the Black neighborhood.

Murphy was one of four white men and women rescued from assaults by the intervention of police officers (with some press reports suggesting that this happened more frequently). Only in this case did police also make an arrest. In one of those other cases, an officer also fired shots at the crowd, but in that instance no one was reported as being hit. Police did shoot and kill two individuals, Lloyd Hobbs and James Thompson, in the later case also hitting two white bystanders.

The trial jury acquitted Boyett, the New York Amsterdam News reported, an outcome that indicates the evidence presented to them did not clearly support the press accounts of him being involved in beating Murphy (and even perhaps that witnesses did not confirm Conn called on Boyett to halt). Even in cases where groups beat individuals, the presence of crowds on Harlem’s streets could produce the same difficulty identifying and apprehending assailants faced in cases where objects hit people
Detective Henry Roge assaulted Just before 10 pm police on 125th Street succeeded in dispersing the crowd in front of Kress’ store, moving them across the street and west on to 8th Avenue. Detective Henry Roge of the West 123rd St Precinct and his partner Raymond Gill were among the police standing in front of the store, watching the crowd, backlit by the lighted store. A rock thrown from the crowd then struck Roge in the head, causing deep cuts to his eye and face. Gill claimed he saw a man appear from behind the cars parked on the street, look around, and throw the rock that hit Roge. At that moment there were no other objects being thrown at stores or police, so Gill was certain that it was that rock that hit his partner, and he was able to keep his eyes on the man who threw it. After chasing him through the crowd, he trapped him among the parked cars. Gill frisked the man, twenty-four-year-old James Hughes, and found five stones in his pockets; Hughes insisted the stones were to defend himself, and he had not thrown the rock that struck Roge.

According to Hughes, he had been caught up in the crowd on 8th Avenue as he tried to return to his furnished room on 7th Avenue near 115th Street from 126th St and 8th Avenue. He’d begun his evening with a trip to a barber’s shop on 7th Avenue, before returning home for supper, and then heading out again at 9.30pm to go drinking. When he set out for home, and saw the broken glass and stones on the streets, and heard people calling out “Let’s break windows,” he picked up some rocks for protection. Hughes knew 125th Street well. He worked in Koch’s Department store, a block east of Kress’, as a show repairer, a trade he had learned in Atlanta. He told the Probation officer who interviewed him that he followed the crowd to 125th Street to prevent them breaking the windows in the store in which he worked.

As Hughes was being arrested, Roge was dealing with his injuries, which were bleeding profusely. A call for medical assistance brought Dr Fabian of the Joint Disease Hospital to attend to the detective. A New York Evening Journal photographer captured several images of a uniformed officer helping a bleeding Roge from the scene (the only images of an injured police officer published). According to the record of medical attendances, Roge remained on duty after being attended by the doctor, but other sources reported that his injury required two stitches, which involved Roge being taken to Harlem Hospital. Probation report records that Roge was on sick leave for 10 days after his injury, making it more likely his injury required him to leave the scene for treatment.

Hughes was tried and convicted of misdemeanor assault. The prosecutor’s notes on the trial suggest that Gill’s testimony stressed that he was certain of his identification of Hughes as the man who threw the rock, against which Hughes could offer only his denial and a series of character witnesses. In response, the prosecutor argued that Hughes “saw plenty of trouble – went right into it.” At the sentencing hearing, the judge expressed belief that Hughes had thrown the rock at the store window, not Roge, so sentenced him to term of only three months in the workhouse.

As with other assaults, the press coverage of this case was fragmented. Roge appeared on the lists of those injured published by white newspapers the New York American (on both March 20 & 21), New York Evening Journal, Home News, New York Daily News, New York Herald Tribune, and New York Post, and in stories in the Daily Mirror. Hughes appeared in lists of those arrested published in the Black newspapers the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the white New York Evening Journal. The two were linked in only three stories, in the New York Times, Home News and Daily Worker. Even when Hughes was tried, producing additional coverage, only two of the five stories mentioned Roge. But that legal process did generate case files in both the DA’s office and the Probation Department which provided details that are available for only a handful of the events of the disorder.
Paul Boyett arrested Patrolman George Conn arrested Paul Boyett, a twenty-eight-year-old Black garage worker, for assaulting Timothy Murphy, a twenty-nine-year-old white rock driller. Conn had come upon a crowd attacking Murphy on West 127th Street between 8th Avenue and St Nicholas Avenue around 9 PM. After firing his pistol into the air to scatter the crowd, then shooting into the crowd, hitting Boyett, Conn pursued the injured man until he caught up with him in the hallway of his home at 310 West 127th Street.

Taken to the 30th Precinct Station, Boyett received treatment for his wound from a doctor from Knickerbocker Hospital, according to hospital records, before being placed in a cell.

Boyett appears in lists of the injured published in the New York Evening Journal , New York Post, New York Daily News, New York American. and in in a group of those shot reported in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and New York Herald Tribune. He also appears in lists of the arrested published in the Afro-American, Atlanta World, Norfolk Journal and Gazette, New York Daily News, New York American, and New York Evening Journal, and in the 28th Precinct Police blotter.

Boyett appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, charged with felonious assault. The docket book indicates that he was remanded until March 22. Boyett did not appear before the grand jury until April 23, according to the District Attorney's case file records; they indicted him for first degree assault. His trial occurred on May 29. Boyett testified he had been “an innocent onlooker” drawn to the “disturbance," the New York Amsterdam News reported, and “struck no one at that time.” In the confusion as the crowd rushed to leave as police appeared, a bullet hit him. The jury acquitted Boyett, an outcome that indicates they likely found his account persuasive.
William Kitlitz assaulted & James Smitten injured Around 8.30PM, as police struggled to control crowds on 125th Street that had begun to smash store windows, William Kitlitz , a white mail clerk standing in front of Kress’ store, was allegedly “beaten on the head” by a black man named James Smitten. Attacks by individuals such as this represented a very small proportion of both the assaults reported in the riot (7/53) and the assaults on whites (3/29).

Both men lived only a few blocks from the site of the assault – Smitten on 123rd Street between 7th and Lenox, southeast of Kress, and Kitlitz on St Nicholas Ave between 125th and 124th just a block west. The proximity of their homes to 125th Street likely contributed to them being present early in the disorder. This was the first reported assault on a white, occurring as clashes between black crowds and white police and attacks by blacks on white stores began, intertwining all those forms of racial violence. Blacks targeted at least three other white men shortly after this assault. Morris Spellman reported being attacked by group of men a few buildings to the west at 125th Street and 8th Avenue at 9pm and Timothy Murphy a few blocks further west by a group of men at around the same time. Half an hour later, another group attacked Morris Werner at 125th St and 7th Avenue, the eastern end of the block on which Kress’ stood. All these men lived west of Harlem, relatively close to where they were attacked, so were likely regular visitors to 125th Street, to shop, seek entertainment or access public transport, on this evening caught up in the disorder.

With police concentrated on 125th Street, and on protecting the store, it is not surprising that Kitlitz’s alleged assailant was one of only nine men arrested for assault, with 83% (44/53) of reports not producing an arrest. Patrolman Gross of the 23rd Precinct made the arrest, and took Smitten back to the station house. At 8.45PM a doctor from Harlem Hospital attended Smitten in the precinct to treat lacerations of scalp “which he received in some unknown manner,” according to the hospital records. Those injuries could have come in a struggle with Kitlitz, or at the hands of police, as was the case with a number of those arrested during the course of the disorder. Kitlitz is listed as injured in the press but there is no record of him receiving medical treatment. A report in the New York American described him as ‘beaten on head, while the New York Daily News reported he had “bruises on face.”

Smitten’s arrest occurred early enough on March 19 that he was arraigned that evening, in the Night Court, one of only three of those arrested who appeared in court prior to March 20 (the two others were Claude Jones and Leo Smith). The New York Herald Tribune reported Magistrate Capshaw remanded him for investigation until Saturday, but there is no record of the outcome of his legal proceedings.

Only two sources connect Smitten and Kitlitz. A hospital record for a call-out to treat Smitten at the 28th Precinct identifies him as having been arrested for assaulting Kitlitz. Only one newspaper report describes the assault, but mistakenly identifies Smitten as Smith. In addition, Smitten appears in four lists of those arrested for assault during the disorder, while Kitlitz appears in four lists of the injured (New York Evening Journal; New York Daily News; New York American (March 20 only); and Home News). (Another man named James Smith was arrested during the disorder, for robbery. Smith lived at a different address than Smitten, and is younger, but is confused with Smitten in reports in the Am and NYDN, given Smitten’s address)
Detective Charles Foley assaulted Detective Charles Foley, a thirty-two-year-old white resident of Jackson Heights in Queens, was hit on the left shoulder by a stone, possibly suffering a fracture, shortly after 7 PM, at the rear of Kress’ store on 124th Street. He was the third officer injured in the disorder, and one of six attacked during the efforts of police to control the crowds around 125th Street prior to 10PM. Like all those officers he was stationed in the 28th Precinct on West 123rd Street. The second officer assaulted, Patrolman Michael Kelly, had also been hit by an object behind Kress’ store, where police had followed a crowd drawn to 124th Street by the appearance of a hearse they assumed had come for the body of the boy rumored to have been killed in the store.

Like most (6/9) of the officers assaulted, Foley was hit by a missile. However, the clash in which the assault occurred was the only time police and crowds clashed off a major thoroughfare, on a narrower cross street that exposed officers to objects thrown from roofs as well as the street level. So while in other cases there is some possibility police could have been hit by objects thrown at store windows they guarded, Foley was almost certainly the target of the object that injured him.

According to the hospital record of the ambulance call-out, Foley had an injured shoulder. Five newspapers listed this injury (Home News, New York Herald Tribune, New York Daily News, New York Evening Journal, New York Times). Three other papers listed instead a head injury (New York American (March 20 & 21), Daily Mirror, New York Post), the most common injury resulting from being hit by objects. According to the New York Times, Foley refused medical attention. Given that an ambulance attended him that claim is likely a misstatement of the fact that he was not taken back to Harlem Hospital, but treated at the scene.

No one was arrested for assaulting Foley, as was the case in seven of the nine assaults on police.
Benjamin Bell shot Around 3.55 AM, Benjamin Bell, a thirty-two-year old man of unknown race, was shot “when fired upon by some unknown person” outside his home at 73 West 128th Street. The shooting occurred near the end of the disorder, just east of an area of Lenox Avenue that not long before had seen two assaults on black men, the shooting of Wilmont Hendricks nearly two hours earlier at the intersection and an assault on James White by a white man a block north less than thirty minutes earlier. Those assaults came during a period of significant looting on Lenox Ave, which began around 1.30 AM and attracted police. Officers arrested one looter a block south of Bell’s address an hour before he was shot.

Shot in front of his home, Bell was likely a bystander, watching the events on Lenox Avenue. Police responded to the outbreak of looting by firing their weapons. Given the evidence of both looting and police responding to it at the time, and the lack of any evidence that blacks on the streets during the disorder used guns, Bell was likely hit by shots fired by police – as were the others reported as shot and wounded.

Other than a white police officer, the five other men shot and wounded in the disorder were black. None of the sources that record the assault on Bell identify his race. His address does not help identify him. The block on which Bell lived included white as well as black residents. While the hospital records did not record the race of any of those treated, the two papers that included Bell in their lists of the injured typically did. As was common at the time, the New York American and the New York Post identified the race of the black individuals in their lists, but not the whites, making it likely that Bell was white. If Bell was white, it is surprising that his shooting did not attract more attention from the white press.

The hospital record described Bell’s injury as a “gunshot wound in the left thigh,” serious enough to warrant the ambulance called to treat him taking him back to Harlem Hospital. The New York American and New York Evening Journal reported simply that he had been shot in the leg, while the New York Post more dismissively listed the gunshot wound as “superficial.”

No one was arrested for shooting Bell, as was the case with all of those shot and wounded (Detective Campo’s alleged assailant was shot and killed).
Clara Crowder injured Around 5PM, during the struggles between police and customers who remained in Kress Store after Patrolman Raymond Donahue took Lino Rivera into the manager’s office, Clara Crowder, a twenty-year-old white woman employed as a clerk in the store fainted. According to the hospital record, she had been aiding another store employee at the time.

Crowds of black women customers had remained in Kress’ store after Rivera was led away, concerned about what had become of the boy. Some wanted the boy to be produced to show he had not been harmed; others simply wanted some explanation of where he was. Store staff and police offered no information. After several hours, sometime after 5PM, when some reports put the size of the crowd at around 500 women, police appeared and began to clear the store, still refusing to respond to questions about Rivera. Louise Thompson, who had arrived in the store around 5PM, told the MCCH that the women became disorderly only in reaction to being moved out by police, knocking over displays of pots and pans knocked over, and smashing dishes and glasses as they left. By contrast, the New York Times reported that police arrived in response to the customers going “on the rampage, strewing merchandise on the floor and shouting.” Once police had emptied the store, they blocked the store entrance. Soon after an ambulance arrived to attend to Crowder; many in the crowd reacted to its appearance as a sign that Rivera was injured or dead.

Standing outside the store, Louise Thompson had no way of knowing that Crowder had fainted. In fact, only three narratives of the events in Kress store mention Crowder. The HT included her in its account of the store being cleared, reporting “As police beat the crowd back it was discovered that Miss Clara Browder, twenty, a clerk, of 473 West 158th Street, had fainted.” The story went on to say she was attended by the same ambulance as attended the two store employees bitten by Rivera. The Medical Attendances records indicate it was a second ambulance, carrying a different intern physician, that attended Crowder. The NYDN did report that a second ambulance came to Kress, but offered a vaguer account of the circumstances, noting only that Crowder “fainted after the boy had been released.” The DM mentioned Crowder without making clear whether she was in the store or on the street outside, but did sensationalize the circumstances, reporting she “fainted in that crush and was trampled upon until rescued, by a football wedge of police.”

While not including Crowder in their narratives, the New York American (March 20 only), New York Evening Journal and New York Post did list her among the injured. As in the narratives and the hospital record, her injury is recording as fainting, other than by the New York Evening Journal, which listed her as “treated for shock,” which is also her injury in the New York Daily News list. Crowder, one of three women among the injured (33%) is the only individual reported as having fainted. After being attended by the physician, Crowder left for home, 473 West 158th Street, beyond Harlem to the north, an address emblematic of the disconnect between Kress’ largely white staff and its largely black customers.
Anthony Cados assaulted
Anthony Cados was twice treated for lacerations of his scalp by Dr Sayet of Harlem Hospital, who attended him in front of 2022 7th Avenue, first at 10pm on March 19, and then again at 3.30am on March 20. The thirty-four year old white man, who gave his address as 116 West 109th Street, reported that he been "assaulted by some unknown colored person or persons." Around the time of the first alleged assault, there had been a clash between police and a crowd at the nearby intersection of 7th Avenue and 121st Street, in the midst of which Lyman Quarterman was shot. On each occasion after being treated Cados left for home.

The hospital record is the only source that mentions Cados.
James Smitten arrested Around 8.30PM, police arrested James Smitten, a twenty-five-year-old Black man, for allegedly beating William Kitlitz, a white mail clerk, in front of Kress' store as police struggled to control crowds on 125th Street that had begun to smash store windows.

At 8.45PM a doctor from Harlem Hospital attended Smitten in the 28th Precinct station house to treat lacerations of scalp “which he received in some unknown manner,” according to the hospital records. Those injuries could have come in a struggle with Kitlitz, or at the hands of police, as was the case with a number of those arrested during the course of the disorder. Smitten remained at the precinct after treatment. Other than that hospital record, there is no other evidence of Smitten's injury; he does not appear in any newspaper's list of the injured.

Smitten’s arrest occurred early enough on March 19 that he was charged with assault and arraigned that evening, in the Night Court, one of only three of those arrested who appeared in court prior to March 20 (the two others were Claude Jones and Leo Smith). The New York Herald Tribune reported Magistrate Capshaw remanded him for investigation until Saturday, but there is no record of the outcome of his legal proceedings.

Only two sources connect Smitten and Kitlitz. The hospital record identifies Smitten as having been arrested for assaulting Kitlitz. Only the story in the New York Herald Tribune describes the assault, but mistakenly identifies Smitten as Smith. In addition, Smitten appears in lists of those arrested for assault in the Afro-American, Atlanta World, Norfolk Journal and Gazette, New York Evening Journal, and New York Daily News (Another man named James Smith was arrested during the disorder, for robbery. Smith lived at a different address than Smitten, and is younger, but is confused with Smitten and given Smitten’s address in reports in the New York American and New York Daily News).
Wilmont Hendricks shot Around 1.30 AM, Wilmont Hendricks, a twenty-five-year-old Black man, was shot on Lenox Avenue near 128th Street. He was some distance from his home, which was almost twenty blocks to the north on 146th Street. No details survive of the circumstances of Hendricks’ injury: the hospital record noted that he had been shot in “in some unknown manner,” while newspapers only reported he had been shot. There was considerable disorder on the blocks of Lenox Avenue north of 125th Street around this time, including other assaults and looting. The outbreak of looting led police to begin shooting more indiscriminately than earlier in the disorder, and it is likely that Hendricks was shot by police.

An ambulance attended Hendricks, whose injury was sufficiently serious for him to be taken to the hospital, and to still be there a day later, according to the New York Herald Tribune. While the hospital recorded his wound as being in his left shoulder, only the list of injured in the Home News echoed that report, with the lists in the New York American, New York Post, Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Gazette instead locating the gunshot in his chest, and the lists in the New York Daily News, New York Evening Journal, and story in the New York Times reporting it was in in his back.

The hospital record did not identify Hendricks' race, but the newspaper lists in the New York Post, Home News, New York American and New York Evening Journal did. Four of the six other men shot and wounded in the disorder were black, one of unknown race, and one white police officer.

No one was arrested for shooting Hendricks, as was the case with all of those shot and wounded (Detective Campo’s alleged assailant was shot and killed).
Patrolman Michael Kelly assaulted Around 7 PM, Patrolman Michael Kelly was hit on the right leg by rock at the rear of Kress’ store on 124th Street. A thirty-year-old white officer from the West 123rd station assigned to a radio car, he was the second of six officers assaulted in efforts to control the crowds around the store at the beginning of the disorder. Although police had struggled with crowds earlier on 125th Street, where Patrolman Irwin Young was assaulted making an arrest at the very beginning of the disorder, more assaults did not come until the crowd moved to 124th Street in response to the appearance of a hearse they assumed had come for the body of the boy rumored to have been killed in the store. This street had a narrower roadway and pavements than 125th Street, making officers easier to target with objects thrown from roofs as well as the street level. At least one other officer, Detective Charles Foley, was hit by objects on 124th Street around this time, and three other officers would be assaulted in the area around 125th Street before 10.30 PM, all but one hit by objects.

According to the hospital report of the ambulance call-out, the injury to Kelly’s leg was serious enough that he was taken to Harlem Hospital for an x-ray and observation. The list of the injured in the New York American (March 20 & 21) and New York Herald Tribune, and the story in the New York Times followed that information, while the lists in the Home News and New York Evening Journal reported the injury as a sprain without noting that he was taken to the hospital. The Daily Mirror, and lists in the New York Daily News and New York Post replaced the injury to the leg with a more dramatic head injury. Only the hospital record specified the location of the assault, although stories in the New York Times and New York Age associated the assault with events at the rear of Kress’ store.

No one was arrested for assaulting Kelly, as was the case in seven of the nine assaults on police.
Detective William Boyle assaulted Around 9 PM, Detective William Boyle, a twenty-nine-year-old white officer based at the 28th Precinct on West 123rd Street, was hit on the left ankle by a rock. Hospital records report that an ambulance treated Boyle for injuries “received while attempting to rescue an unknown white man being assaulted at scene of riot.” Four white men reported being assaulted near 125th Street before crowds moved away from this area after 10 PM, with police intervening in two instances, echoing the scenario Boyle presented.

He appears in the New York Times alongside other officers assaulted at the front and rear of Kress’ store on West 124th Street, where police had pursued crowds from 125th Street, offering a possible location for the assault. However, ambulances treated those officers, Patrolman Michael Kelly and Detective Charles Foley, and almost two hours before Boyle was treated, although they received treatment at the scene, while Boyle was attended at the 28th Precinct.

Boyle appeared on lists of the injured published by the New York American, New York Daily News, New York Post, New York Herald Tribune and New York Evening Journal, in addition to the story in the New York Times. Unusually, they all reported his injury as cuts to the left ankle from being hit with a rock. It seems likely given that injury that the unknown white man that Boyle intervened to protect was the target of missiles rather than being beaten. According to the hospital record of the ambulance callout, Boyle remained on duty.
Victor Fain shot At 2.30 AM Victor Fain, a nineteen-year-old Black man born in South Carolina, was shot in “some unknown manner during [the] disorder” at 128th Street & 7th Avenue. The shooting was the last assault on 7th Avenue, and one of last of the disorder. After midnight violence had moved up 7th Avenue from 125th Street, including the shooting of Clarence London at 125th Street, but switched to Lenox Ave after 1 AM.

As this shooting is not part of a cluster, and there is no information on the circumstances, it is likely Fain was shot by police patrolling the streets in radio cars and emergency trucks seeking to control looting – as was Lloyd Hobbs at the same corner an hour and a half earlier, and James Thompson on 8th Avenue three hours later. Fain was shot some distance from his home: he lived fifteen blocks to the south, in a section on the southern margins of Harlem mostly occupied by whites and Puerto Ricans (although some time later in 1935 he relocated to the heart of the neighborhood, lodging at 208 West 141st Street, where he still resided at the time of the 1940 Census).

An ambulance attended Fain, according to hospital records, who had been shot in the left ankle, taking him to Harlem Hospital. All the sources agree on his injury, an unusual consistency that likely reflects that he stayed in the hospital after being treated.

The hospital record does not identify Fain’s race, but newspapers do. The lists of the injured in the New York American, Home News and and the story in the New York Times include his race; the lists of injured in the New York Daily News, New York Post and New York Evening Journal do not. Four of the six other men shot and wounded in the disorder were black, one of unknown race, and one white police officer.

No one was arrested for shooting Fain, as was the case with all of those shot and wounded (Detective Campo’s alleged assailant was shot and killed).
Patrolman Charles Robins assaulted Around 10PM, Patrolman Charles Robbins was assaulted “by some unknown person.” He was one of nine officers assaulted during the disorder; like all but three, he was attacked during the efforts of police to control the crowds on 125th Street prior to 10PM. At 9 PM, after additional reinforcements arrived, police tried to further extend their cordon around 125th Street and disperse crowds on 7th Avenue and 8th Avenue. At least one other officer was injured in these efforts. Robins was treated at 124th Street and 7th Avenue at 10.15PM, likely once the crowd had begun to break up and spread along the avenues.

Robbins was of only two officers assaulted by an individual, in his case either struck over the head with an iron bar or hit over the head with a brick. He appears only in lists of the injured, four of which provide details of the circumstances. The New York Herald Tribune and Brooklyn Daily Eagle, which listed the injured policemen separately, included the detail that he had been hit by a brick in their listing. The Home News, New York American on March 20, and the hospital record referenced the iron bar. An iron bar was not a typical weapon during the disorder; bricks were frequently used as weapons. Although injured by a blow by an individual, the hospital record locates the attack “at scene of riot,” suggesting the assault occurred in an encounter between a group of police and a crowd rather than two isolated individuals.

The New York Evening Journal, New York Post, New York American (on March 21),and New York Daily News all listed Robbins among the injured without details of the circumstances. His injury was listed as a “possible fractured skull,” but the hospital record of Robbins treatment at the scene by a doctor from Harlem Hospital recorded only a lacerated scalp.

Robbins was not based in one of Harlem’s two police precincts, but had come to the neighborhood from the 43rd precinct as part of the 6th Emergency Squad, a riot squad.

No one was arrested for assaulting Robins, as was the case in seven of the nine assaults on police.
Michael Krim Shamhal assaulted Michael Krim-Shamhal, a fifty-four-year-old white man, reported being assaulted as he walked west on West 122nd Street near 7th Avenue at 11pm. He described his assailants as “some unknown persons.” An ambulance brought Dr. Harris from Harlem Hospital to treat the cuts on Krim-Shamhal’s forehead. When the doctor was finished, the injured man left for home, an apartment where he and his wife lodged at 140 West 119th Street, in the opposite direction to where he had been heading when assaulted.

Krim-Shamhal was assaulted on the edge of a cluster of assaults and attacks on stores on 7th Avenue from 121st to 125th Streets, suggesting the presence of crowds on the street. Other white residents of the blocks south of 125th Street were among those assaulted, likely after being drawn to the streets by the disorder – where they became targets. The timing of that violence is mostly unknown, but the assaults appears to have come before much of the other violence, and not long after crowds began to spread from 125th Street.

The hospital record of the ambulance call-out is the only evidence of the assault. Krim-Shamhal’s race is not made clear in that record, but he appears in the 1930 census residing at the same address on 119th Street. Born in Russia, he had arrived in the US in 1923.
Henry Blackwell assaulted At around 1:30 AM, Henry Blackwell, a forty-one-year-old Black man born in Tennessee, was “struck by object thrown by some unknown person” while at Lenox Avenue and 126th Street. Beginning around 1AM, multiple outbreaks of looting occurred on Lenox Avenue north of 125th Street. Bricks, rocks and bottles were thrown at stores as part of those events, so Blackwell may not have been the intended target of the object that struck him. As he lived nearby, at 126 West 126th Street, nine buildings and about one third of a block to the west of where he was injured, Blackwell may have been drawn to the avenue by the noise.

Blackwell suffered a lacerated scalp. The injury was serious enough that someone called an ambulance, but not so bad that the physician who attended him took him back to Harlem Hospital. After treatment Blackwell instead returned home. Although he consequently appeared in the hospital records, newspaper reports did not include him in any lists of the assaulted or injured. As with all the Black men assaulted during the disorder, no one was arrested or charged for assaulting Blackwell.

Henry Blackwell still lived at the same address five years later, when the census enumerator called, in an apartment with at least eight other lodgers, working as a WPA laborer for the Parks Department. His situation had been very different when recorded by another enumerator for the 1930 census. Then Blackwell had lived several blocks further north at 201 West 132nd Street, with his wife of eighteen years and a thirteen-year-old daughter, and worked as a driver for a family while his wife worked as a hairdresser. There is no record of what became of his family between 1930 and 1935.
Fred Bain injured Fred Bain, a forty-four-year-old man of unknown race suffered lacerations of his forehead at some point in the disorder, one of six of those injured with wounds to the head (30%). He appears only in hospital records, which describe the injury as having been received “during riot.”

A physician from Harlem Hospital attended Bain at his home, 227 West 127th Street, at 2.47AM. He lived closer to Sydenham Hospital, but few of those hurt in the disorder received treatment there. It is not clear where or when he was injured, but Bain lived in an area of black residences only two blocks north of where the disorder began and close to many outbreaks of violence. Bain remained at home after the physician attended him, his injury evidently not serious enough for him to be taken to the hospital.
William Burkhard assaulted At around 11.30pm, William Burkhard, a forty-three-year-old white man was assaulted by a group of black men on West 118th Street between Lenox and 7th Avenues. This block likely still had white residents in 1935, and perhaps Puerto Rican residents, rather than the African Americans and West Indians who lived on the blocks further north. An ambulance from Bellevue Hospital arrived at 11.45pm, and Dr. Solomon proceeded to treat cuts and bruises on his right cheek. Burkhard then left for his home, 533 East 12th Street, at the opposite end of Manhattan.

The assault on Burkhard was the first in a cluster of attacks on or near 7th Avenue north of 116th Street and later up around 125th Street by 1am, suggesting the presence of crowds in this area in the hours immediately after the disorder spread from 125th Street. He was one of only two individuals assaulted off the avenues, although it seems likely the attack originated on 7th Avenue.

Burkhard appears in the record of hospital attendances, and in lists of the injured in four papers. The New York Herald Tribune unusually provided the same details as the hospital records, that Burkhard had been “assaulted by some unknown colored persons.” The New York Daily News, New York Evening Journal and New York Post listed only his injuries to his cheek.