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New York Penal Law, § 1433: Malicious Mischief
1 2021-09-20T02:48:52+00:00 Anonymous 1 4 plain 2021-12-20T21:30:38+00:00 Anonymous"§ 1433 Injury to property, how punished. A per son who unlawfully and wilfully destroys or injures any real or personal property of another, or who without authority or permission from a person who has the right to give such authority or permission, loosens any brake or blocking of any car standing on any railroad track in this state, or without like authority or permission, puts upon or runs any hand car, or other car, on any railroad track in this state, or without like authority or permission, interferes or meddles with any brake or coupling of any car while standing or moving on any railroad track in this state, or takes any part therein, in a case where the punishment is not specially prescribed by statute, is punishable as follows:
- If the value of the property destroyed, or the diminution in the value of the property by the injury is more than twenty-five dollars, by imprisonment for not more than four years.
- In any other case, by imprisonment for not more than six months, or by a fine of not more than two hundred and fifty dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment.
- And in addition to the punishment prescribed therefor, he is liable in treble damages for the injury done, to be recovered in a civil action by the owner of such property, or the public officer having charge thereof."
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- 1 2021-09-20T01:44:08+00:00 Anonymous New York Penal Law Anonymous 2 plain 2021-09-20T01:44:46+00:00 Anonymous
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1
2020-02-25T19:43:45+00:00
Windows broken (69)
127
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2022-01-25T21:52:03+00:00
A window in the S. H. Kress 5 & 10c store being hit by an object and breaking, in combination with the arrest of four men picketing the store, began the disorder. Objects being thrown at the windows of stores, mostly those with white owners, was the most prevalent event in the following hours, with at least 300 businesses damaged. Such attacks were unfamiliar from the racial disorder of previous decades. Business and residential property had been the targets of violence, but that property had been Black-owned and damaged or destroyed by white crowds. However, white businesses in Harlem had been the focus of protests against their failure to hire Black workers in the years immediately prior to the disorder, culminating in a campaign by a coalition of Black organizations in 1934. Those efforts involved boycotts and pickets, not breaking store windows. A competing campaign by the Communist Party did extend to smashing windows in the Empire Cafeteria. The potential for picketing to lead to violence, and specifically to a “race riot” was one of the justifications given by the judge in the New York State Supreme Court who outlawed the tactic in 1934, effectively ending the campaign for the hiring of Black workers.
Historians Cheryl Greenberg and Larry Greene have argued that decision had the opposite effect to what the judge intended, shutting off an outlet for discontent and protest, and leaving Harlem’s residents with fewer alternatives to violence. The events in front of Kress’ store before someone threw the object that broke one of its windows replicated/recapitulated those tensions. Four men had been protesting the store employees’ treatment of Lino Rivera by walking in front of the store with banners – picketing – before stopping to try to speak to the crowd. Police officers arrested the group and a fifth man, shutting down that means of protest. On this occasion, unlike earlier protests, members of the crowd attacked the store.
The objects thrown at store windows were most often described as rocks or stones, and less often as bricks – the objects recovered from the windows of Herbert’s Blue Diamond jewelry store displayed by a clerk for a Daily News photographer the day after the disorder. All those objects could be found around Harlem. An employee of the Blackbird Inn told a reporter for the New York Post that much of that material came from the island that ran down the middle of 7th Avenue, where stones and debris left after the paving of the street had been dumped. Other larger objects found on the street were sometimes used: ashcans and trashcans. (The tailor’s dummy allegedly thrown through Sam Lefkowitz's store window likely came from another damaged store). In a handful of cases, the missiles were objects more likely brought from home -- bottles clubs, and hammers -- or items individuals happened to have with them, such as umbrellas (there was rain on the night of the disorder). At least two windows in looted stores were allegedly kicked in.
While newspaper reports routinely described store windows as “smashed,” the extent of the damage they suffered varied. A single object generally broke and created a hole in a window rather than shattering it entirely, as is evident in a photograph published in the Daily News that shows a white police officer and a white store manager speaking through a hole in an unidentified shoe store. To remove most or all of the glass from a display window took more than one object, which usually meant more than one person, depending obviously on the size of the window. Stores on West 125th Street, particularly the department stores and those that wrapped around the corners of the intersections with 8th, 7th and Lenox Avenues had far larger windows than the smaller businesses on the avenues themselves. More extensive damage to windows appears to have been associated with looting, and may have occurred when groups or individuals returned to stores with broken windows to take merchandise. A section of Lenox Avenue in a photograph published by the Daily News shows that variety of damage: closest to the camera is a rental agency with a hole in its window, which still contained the ashcan that created it, that does not appear to be looted; to its left are two grocery stores and a cigar store whose windows are almost entirely gone, and whose contents have been taken. The sources do not offer a clear picture of the extent of the damage to the stores identified as having broken windows but not as looted: the reporter for La Prensa who listed thirty-five businesses with broken windows on Lenox Avenue, West 125th Street and 8th Avenue, ended their list by alluding to an unspecified number of other stores not on the list that suffered relatively little damage compared with those listed. There are no details for just under half of those identified (33 of 69) in the sources; of the remainder, fragmentary information suggests fourteen businesses could have been suffered limited damage.
Efforts to damage stores may also have extended to destroying merchandise by throwing it into the street, on a night when it rained. The Afro-American most directly reported that practice, in which “the goods was dragged in the wet sidewalk and destroyed.” The New York Times and Atlanta World reported goods taken out of windows and “strewn” and “scattered” on the sidewalk without mention of the intention. So too did Betty Willcox, who told a New York Evening Journal that on West 125th Street, "I saw that the windows of all the stores around there had been shattered and the goods thrown all over the place." Merchandise on the street, however, could also have been a byproduct of looting rather than attacks on businesses, thrown or carried out of stores so they could be taken. The New York Sun implicitly presented that view, casting claims of the presence of goods on the street as an effort by those "admitted thefts from stores damaged during the riot" to diminish their responsibility by denying "breaking the store windows" and instead "insisting that they had picked the articles up from the street after others had thrown them out of the stores."
When objects broke windows, glass went flying, hitting individuals on at least five occasions. All those reported injuries came after 1 AM, so during the period when most of the reported looting took place, and in the areas where that looting was concentrated, on Lenox Avenue from 127th Street to 130th Street and on 7th Avenue and 116th Street. Evidence about the circumstances of those injuries is fragmentary, brief details in lists and hospital records rather than discussions in stories. One record explicitly linked the injuries to windows being broken in stores. In the 32nd Police Precinct book of aided cases Herbert Holderman was listed as “cut by flying glass when some unknown persons broke windows of stores.” "Flying glass” and “falling glass” were the reported causes of the four other injuries. That glass could have come from smashed windows in cars and buses driving on Harlem's streets, which also had objects thrown at them, although reported attacks occurred only on 7th Avenue. Those injuries could also have been the result of throwing objects at windows or climbing or reaching into broken windows to take merchandise. However, crowds of bystanders were on Harlem's streets throughout the disorder, on sidewalks close enough to stores to be hit by glass when someone broke store windows.
The sixty-nine businesses identified in the sources as having broken windows, and the additional sixty stores looted as well as damaged, amount to around 30% of the total number estimated to have had windows broken. Newspaper stories offered a range of initial assessments of the damage. By noon on March 20 the New York Plate Glass Service Bureau, “whose member companies do 98 per cent of the glass insurance business in the city,” told a reporter for the New York Post that 110 clients had reported broken glass, a fraction of the expected total damage. Other newspapers published totals for the number of windows broken, not stores effected: “at least 130 costly plate gas windows,” according to the New York American; 200 plate-glass store windows according to the New York Times, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Chicago Defender and Norfolk Journal and Guide; and “more than 250 windows” according to the New York Herald Tribune, 300 windows in the Afro-American, and “more than 1,000 panes of glass” in the New York Post. Inspector Di Martino offered an "approximate number of windows broken" that totaled 624 in his "Report on Disorder" to the Police Commissioner on March 20, with the disclaimer that the "extent of property damage cannot be estimated at this time." A later survey of forty-seven insurance companies by the National Bureau of Casualty and Surety Underwriters, reported by the New York Times and Pittsburgh Courier, combined the two counts, reporting claims for 697 plate glass windows in 300 businesses, amounting to two-thirds of the broken windows. With the uninsured glass included, the total damage would have been just over 1000 windows in around 450 businesses.
“Breakages were most numerous on 125th street, near Seventh avenue,” according to that survey, but also occurred in an area that extended “from 114th to 143rd streets, between Fifth and Eighth Avenues. Several thousand businesses were located in that area, the MCCH business survey found, so attacks away from 125th Street were clearly less extensive. The "approximate number of windows broken" Inspector Di Martino reported to the Police Commissioner on March 20 was broken down by precincts, with almost all (86%, 538 of 624) located in the 28th Precinct, south of 130th Street. Newspapers stories consistently identified West 125th Street as the most damaged area, with New York Age specifying the two blocks from 8th to Lenox Avenues, and the New York Herald Tribune identifying the block between 8th and 7th Avenues, on which Kress’ store was located. Those general descriptions are in line with the events which are reported in the sources, which are concentrated on that block, with fewer on the block between 7th and Lenox Avenues. Those blocks were where the disorder originated, and the largest crowds gathered; where Harlem’s largest stores were located; and where all the businesses were white-owned. Beyond 125th Street, newspaper stories presented different pictures of the extent of the area in which windows were broken. As neither the Police Department nor the MCCH appear to have collected details of the damage, as would happen after the racial disorder in Harlem in 1943, that variation might reflect the limits of what individual reporters investigated or, in the case of very wide areas, a lack of investigation. Only the Daily News identified an area as extensive as the insurance survey, from 110th to 145th Streets. The New York Evening Journal and New York Herald Tribune only encompassed as far south as 120th Street, and as far north as 138th Street. Two newspapers focused only on 7th Avenue, the Pittsburgh Courier reporting smashed windows from 116th to 140th Streets, and the Daily Mirror only from 120th to 125th Streets. The Black newspaper’s area fits the reported events, and suggests an investigation throughout Harlem; the white newspaper included only a portion of that area, the blocks closest to 125th Street. Eighth Avenue attracted special attention in the New York Herald Tribune, which reported “windows broken in virtually every other store and glass covering the sidewalk” from 124th Street to 130th Street, and less damage in the blocks further north. Lenox Avenue, where the reported events are concentrated, drew particular attention only from the Afro-American, which offered the only specific count, that “In the three blocks from 125th to 128th Street, west side Lenox Avenue, there were twenty-two windows broken.” The tendency to draw the boundaries at 120th Street, together with inattention to West 116th Street by both the Black and white press, effectively left Spanish-speaking areas of Harlem out of discussions of the disorder.
The businesses reported with windows broken differed from those reported as targets of looting. (Of the sixty nine stores with broken windows, five are unknown, three were vacant, and five were later looted, leaving fifty-six that are identified). Clothing stores of various types and businesses and businesses involving miscellaneous goods (which included department stores, which sold a variety of goods, including clothing but generally not food) were the largest groups; the food stores that made up the largest group of those looted was the smallest portion of those with broken windows. Those different patterns suggest that those who returned to damaged stores to take merchandise, or turned to looting, focused on what they needed, not on the wider range of stores that had been targets earlier in the disorder.
When objects were thrown at windows beyond Kress' store, their targets were initially other businesses on West 125th Street, where all the stores had white owners. As groups moved away from 125th Street, they continued to focus their attacks on white-owned businesses. Five Black-owned businesses were among those identified as having windows broken, a number far below their presence in the neighborhood. Posting signs that identified a business as Black-owned appears to have stopped attacks and prevented windows from being broken. No Black-owned businesses are among those later looted. In addition to Black businesses, there were two white-owned businesses specifically identified as not being damaged in the disorder. Koch's department store, was well-known for having hired Black staff. A group of Black boys reportedly protected the other store.
Arrests for allegedly breaking windows were reported for only 25% (17 of 69) of the businesses that suffered damage, a smaller proportion than for looted stores (as no one was arrested for the first broken window in Kress' store, the store appears among those cases in which no arrests were made even though an arrest was made for allegedly breaking a window after another attack over four hours later). The twenty-six individuals arrested for looting were identified either because they were charged with malicious mischief, an offense involving damage to property, or by details of what police alleged they had done in legal records or reported in the press. For five individuals arrested for breaking windows there is no information about their alleged targets; some of those four men and one woman may have been charged with breaking windows in stores for which there was no reported arrests. Three of those arrested were women, and one a white man, similar numbers as among those arrested for looting, but twice the proportion of those arrested. Police do not appear to have made arrests during the first hours of the disorder, when windows were broken on West 125th Street as they struggled to keep crowds from Kress' store and off the streets. The arrests that were made in that area came around 10:30 PM. Leroy Brown's arrest on 8th Avenue at 9.45 PM was during that early phase of violence. The handful of other arrests where the time is known occurred on 7th Avenue and Lenox Avenue when reported looting intensified, thirty minutes either side of midnight.
Courts treated breaking windows less severely than other activities during the disorder. Only the five men also charged with inciting others to violence were sent to the grand jury, just over a third of the proportion of those arrested for looting, and the grand jury sent all those men to the Court of Special Sessions to be prosecuted for misdemeanors. Similarly, Magistrates transferred nine men and one woman directly to the Court of Special Sessions and adjudicated eleven cases, discharging Viola Woods, and convicting nine men and one woman of disorderly conduct. -
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2021-04-28T20:40:49+00:00
Leroy Brown arrested
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2021-12-10T21:17:51+00:00
Around 9.45 PM, Officer Edward Doran watched a group assemble in front of Sam Lefkowitz's store at 2147 7th Avenue. In in his affidavit in the Harlem Magistrates Court, Doran alleged Leroy Brown threw a tailor's dummy through the window of the store, after which Doran heard him say to the rest of the group, "Go right along and get the other windows." As Doran arrested Brown, he saw the group continue north up 7th Avenue, and "heard the crash of glass and later observed other windows broken." The unclaimed laundry store at 2145 7th Avenue, on the south side of the Lefkowitz's store, also had its window broken.
Leroy Brown was a twenty-two-year-old Black man who identified himself as a bootblack in his examination in the Harlem Magistrates Court. He lived at 2493 8th Avenue, near West 133rd Street, some distance northwest of Lefkowitz's store, which was just north of West 127th Street. That address had been his home since 1932, he told the clerk in the Harlem Magistrates Court. Brown had been in the Magistrates Court once before 1935, charged with disorderly conduct in September 1934, and discharged by a Magistrate, according to his criminal record. When Brown appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, he was charged with both malicious mischief, for allegedly breaking the window, and inciting a riot, for his alleged call for the group to break other windows. He appeared in list of those arrested published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, as one of those charged with inciting a riot. That was the most serious of the charges Brown faced in the Magistrates Court, so likely the one that would have been emphasized in a list of those arrested. The charge against Brown in a list published in the New York Daily News was malicious mischief (like four other men in this list he was misidentified as white). In lists published in the New York Evening Journal and the New York American the charge against Brown is disorderly conduct (and his first name mistakenly recorded as Eli). That information is almost certainly a mistake, as it was a less serious offense than either of those charged in the Magistrates Court and would only make sense if there was no evidence of either breaking a window or inciting others. The two charges against Brown are reported in the Home News story about his appearance in the Magistrates Court.
Brown was held in custody by Magistrate Renaud on March 20, and then returned to the court on March 25, March 27, and again on April 1, appearances recorded only in the docket book. There is no information on why prosecutors needed this much time to investigate the case. On the last occasion, Magistrate Stern held Brown for the grand jury on the riot charge, and sent him to the Court of Special Sessions to be tried on the charge of malicious mischief. Two weeks later, on April 15, Brown was brought before the grand jury, who sent him to the Court of Special Sessions to be tried for the lesser, misdemeanor form of the offense of riot. The outcome of Brown's two trials in the Court of Special Sessions are unknown. As he was charged in the Harlem Magistrates Court, he should have been in the 28th Precinct Police blotter, but he does not appear in the transcript in the MCCH records. Bernard Smith was also charged with both riot and malicious mischief, alleged, like Brown to have both broken a store window and urged others to do the same. In Smith's case, the grand jury dismissed the riot charge, and the malicious mischief charge was reduced to one of disorderly conduct, of which the Magistrate found him guilty and sentenced him to five days in the Workhouse. -
1
2021-10-30T20:28:37+00:00
Danbury Hat store windows broken and looted
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2021-12-12T20:01:56+00:00
Some time during the disorder, the windows of the Danbury Hat store at 2334 8th Avenue were broken, likely allegedly by David Terry, a twenty-eight-year-old Black man, and, around the same time, James Hayes, a sixteen-year-old Black youth, allegedly took a baseball bat from the store window. There are no clear details of the circumstances of the damage to the store or the men's arrest. Hayes lived at 476 West 141st Street, on Black Harlem's northwest boundary, further from the location of his arrest than most of those caught in the disorder, most of whom lived south of 125th Street or near Lenox Avenue south of 135th Street. Terry had "no home." Police had pushed the crowds that gathered in front of Kress' store to the intersection of 125th Street and 8th Avenue early in the disorder, and groups of people remained in the area for several hours. Nearby stores on either side of the hat store had windows broken: the branch of the Liggett's drug store chain to the south, on the northeast corner of 125th Street; and a seafood restaurant to the north at 2338 8th Avenue. Neither of those stores was among those reported looted. Other isolated reports of looting and arrests on 8th Avenue occurred further north, around 127th and 128th Streets.
The Danbury Hat store was one of the businesses with broken windows identified by the reporter for La Prensa who walked along West 116th Street, up Lenox Avenue and across West 125th Street to 8th Avenue on the day after the disorder. The business is also likely the storefront that appears in a photograph published in the Decatur Review. Although the caption does not identify the business, hats are visible in the display window, together with the last few letters of the store name on an unbroken section of glass at the bottom of the window: "RY HAT CO.." (The only other hat store recorded as having been damaged or looted is Young's Hat store). Two white men pose in front of the damaged store; white bystanders are most likely to be found near West 125th Street, where the Danbury Hat store was located. A large basket sits inside the display window, perhaps a trash bin taken from the sidewalk. The stock just visible behind the basket suggest that the store was not looted.
Despite this damage, the Danbury Hat store was recorded as in business in the second half of 1935 in the MCCH business survey, mistakenly located at 2336 8th Avenue. The Tax Department photograph was taken from too far away to show the presence of the store when it was taken between 1939 and 1941.
Hayes taking a baseball bat from the store was reported in a story about his appearance in the Magistrates Court in the Home News, which gave only the address of the store. The name of the store is confirmed by the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, which recorded the complainant against Hughes as Wilbur Montgomery, living at 951 Woodycrest Avenue. Montgomery is identified in the 1933 City Directory as the manager of Danbury Shoes. He was also recorded as the complainant against David Terry. There are no sources with details of the circumstances of Terry's arrest, only the charges made against him.
Officer Balkin was recorded as the arresting officer of both Hayes and Terry in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, suggesting they were arrested at the same time. James Hayes appeared in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, his name misrecorded as Hazel, as charged with burglary, with the note "Broke store window, burglarized store." In line with that entry, he was among those charged with burglary in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. However, when Hayes appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, the charge was recorded as petit larceny not burglary. That charge did not require evidence of breaking in and entering a store as burglary did, indicating a reassessment of the information in the blotter by the time of his arraignment. Magistrate Renaud transferred Hayes to the Court of Special Sessions and held him on $500 bail.
Instead, it appears that it was Terry who was charged with breaking the store windows. In the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book the charge recorded against him when he appeared in March 20 was malicious mischief, an offense involving destruction of property used against the other individuals arrested during the disorder for allegedly breaking windows. Magistrate Renaud held Terry in custody so his case could be investigated. When he was returned to court on March 26, the charge against him was reduced to disorderly conduct, the previous charge crossed out in the docket book, "Red. to" written above it, and the new charge stamped in its place. It is that reduced charge of disorderly conduct that appeared as the charge against Terry in lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. A different charge recorded against him in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, inciting a riot, appears to have frequently been used by police as the initial charge against those arrested during the disorder, and was often replaced by other charges in the Magistrates Court.
As disorderly conduct was a charge that Magistrates had the power to try, Magistrate Ford tried and convicted Terry and fined him $500 or five days in the workhouse. Terry served the time in the workhouse, according to the 28th Precinct Police blotter. The blotter also recorded the outcome of the prosecution of Hayes, five days later, on April 1: tried and convicted by the judges in the Court of Special Sessions, he received a suspended sentence. -
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2021-08-12T23:53:03+00:00
James Pringle arrested
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2022-01-05T21:50:07+00:00
Around 11.15 PM, Detective Peter Naton of the 28th Precinct was watching a crowd of twenty-five to thirty people at West 123rd Street and 7th Avenue when that he allegedly heard James Pringle, a shout to the group, “Let's go cross the way and scale rocks at the cops, they are coming down our side of the street.” Naton's affidavit in the Harlem Magistrates Court then records that the detective arrested Pringle, a twenty-eight-year-old Black laborer, and found a rock in his right hip pocket. His statement held Pringle responsible for what the other members of the crowd did after his arrest, "acts of force and violence committed to several persons and the property of others, in said vicinity." A handwritten note below the typewritten charge presents a different narrative, in which "Deft led others who smashed windows." The windows of the grocery store on the northwest corner of West 123rd Street and 7th Avenue were broken sometime during the disorder. A patrolman from the 28th Precinct arrested David Bragg for breaking that window; he may have been part of the crowd on the corner around 11.15 PM. The shoe repair store directly across 7th Avenue from the grocery store was also looted sometime during the disorder. But that looting likely came an hour or more after Naton arrested Pringle, the time when two other looted stores near the intersection were looted, Sarah Refkin's delicatessen at 2067 7th Avenue at 12:30 AM, and then Nicholas Peet's tailors store at 2063 7th Avenue at 1:30 AM. (Naton made two other arrests around this time, of John Vivien fifteen minutes earlier, and John King, forty-five minutes earlier, at 10.30 PM, both at the intersection of 7th Avenue and West 125th Street).
Pringle's address was recorded in his examination in the Harlem Magistrates Court as 101 West 115th Street, southeast of where Naton arrested him, in an area with a mix of Hispanic and Black residents. The 28th Precinct Police blotter recorded the charge against Pringle as burglary, with the note "Burglarized store during riot." He appeared only in the list of those arrested published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, among those charged with riot. That was the charge recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book when Pringle appeared in court on March 20. Magistrate Renaud held until March 27, when he returned to court and was sent to the grand jury, on bail of $1000, by Magistrate Ford. That court appearance was mentioned in stories in the New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune, with the later newspaper reporting the charge against Pringle as malicious mischief. Although not recorded in the docket book, the handwritten note on the affidavit listed that charge, as well as riot, suggesting it was a secondary charge related to what the crowd did rather than what Pringle himself did, that he "led others who smashed windows." Almost two weeks later, on April 8, Pringle appeared before the grand jury, which transferred his case to the Court of Special Sessions, reducing the charges against him from felonies to misdemeanors. A week later the judges in that court convicted Pringle and suspended his sentence, according to the 28th Precinct Police blotter. -
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2021-12-05T22:48:45+00:00
Temple Grill & Restaurant windows broken
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2021-12-07T20:46:10+00:00
Just after midnight, windows in the Temple Grill & Restaurant at 317 Lenox Avenue were broken. Officer Alfred Tait of the 42nd Precinct testified in the Harlem Magistrates Court that he saw a group of about thirty people assemble in front of the business. Then, about 12:15 AM, he allegedly heard Bernard Smith, a thirty-nine-year-old Black man shout to the group, "We will get this two windows here," and saw him then throw two stones at the restaurant windows, breaking them. Smith then allegedly shouted to the others, "You fellows get the others." Tait presumably arrested Smith in front of the store, although his statement did not mention the circumstances, but according to the officer, members of the group in front of the restaurant acted on Smith's urging, as "thereafter there were several acts of force and violence committed in said vicinity to other persons and property of others."
Located in the block between 125th and 126th Streets, the restaurant was in an area where multiple stores were reported as looted or damaged, with particularly extensive damage to both George Chronis' restaurant a building further north on the southwest corner of West 126th Street and Harry Piskin's laundry next to it on West 126th Street. Across the street, ten minutes before Tait observed the attack on the restaurant, another officer had arrested two other men who, like Smith, had allegedly urged another group to attack a drug store. By the time Chronis arrived at his restaurant at 1 AM it had been "completely demolished," according to a story in the New York World-Telegram.
Bernard Smith was the last person to appear in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, where he was charged with both malicious mischief, for allegedly breaking the window, and inciting a riot, for his alleged call for the group to break other windows. Held in custody by Magistrate Renaud, Smith returned to court on March 25, when bail was set at $500 for the first charge and $1000 for the second, and then again on March 26, when Magistrate Ford sent him to grand jury on the charge of riot. Prosecutors reduced the charge of malicious mischief to disorderly conduct, of which Magistrate Ford found him guilty and sentenced him to five days in the Workhouse. A week later Smith appeared before the grand jury, which dismissed the riot charge.
Although the business Smith allegedly attacked is not named in the Magistrates Court affidavit or the Home News story on Smith's first appearance in the Harlem Magistrates Court, an advertisement for the "Temple Grill Bar and Restaurant" at 317 Lenox Avenue appeared in the New York Age on March 9, 1935, just ten days before the disorder. It was still in business when the MCCH business survey was taken in the second half of 1935, identified as a white-owned business (the advertisement in 1935 identified Phillip Portoghese as the proprietor). A storefront of the kind that would fit a bar and restaurant is visible in the Tax Department photograph but the signage is not legible, so whether the business survived until 1939-1941 is unknown. -
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2021-12-07T17:37:45+00:00
John Kennedy Jones arrested
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2021-12-08T21:57:50+00:00
Around 12.30 AM, Patrolman James Lamattina of the 66th Division allegedly saw "large number" of people gather in front of William's Shoe Store at 333 Lenox Avenue. Then John Kennedy Jones "motioning with his hand, said to the others "come on," and threw a rock that "broke the plate glass window" of the store. Other people in the crowd also threw "stones and sticks" at the window, Lamattina alleged in his Magistrates Court affidavit. At some point Lamattina arrested Jones, a twenty-four-year-old Black laborer; the affidavit made no mention of the circumstances of the arrest. No other members of the crowd were arrested. The shoe store had been attacked at least twice earlier in the disorder. A display window had been smashed and merchandise stolen sometime between 9.45 PM and 11.20 PM, and another window allegedly kicked in and three shoes taken at 11.20 PM, when a patrolman arrested Julian Rogers. In the half hour before Lamattina arrested Jones, other police officers arrested three men for breaking windows near West 126th Street and Lenox Avenue, Leon Mauraine and David Smith at 318 Lenox Avenue and Bernard Smith at 317 Lenox Avenue. Multiple arrests by different officers indicates that a number of police were stationed at the intersection at that time. All three of the arresting officers came from precincts outside Harlem.
Jones lived at 135 West 119th Street according to the information he gave in his examination in the Harlem Magistrates Court. Some distance from the shoe store, this block between Lenox and 7th Avenue was in an area south of 125th Street with a mix of Black and white residents.
Jones appears in the lists of those arrested and charged with "inciting to riot" published in Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. Similarly, the 28th Precinct Police Blotter recorded the charge against him as "inciting to riot. When Jones was arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, the docket book recorded the charge against him riot, for leading others in the crowd to attack the store. Crossed out is an additional charge of malicious mischief, for damage to the store window. That charge does appear on the Magistrate Court affidavit, in a handwritten note that also listed the forms of riot being charged. Reporting the proceeding in the Magistrates Court, a story in the Home News mixed the two charges together, describing Jones as having "urged the crowd to smash windows," but being held for the Grand Jury "on a charge of malicious mischief," an offense for which urging a crowd was not relevant. That garbled account likely indicates that Jones faced both charges, as did the six other men who allegedly both urged crowds to break windows and broke windows themselves, although only two of those men, Leroy Brown and Bernard Smith, had both charges recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book.
On March 20, Magistrate Renaud held Jones for the grand jury and set bail at $1000. A week later, Jones appeared before the grand jury, which transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions for trial on misdemeanor forms of the charges. The judges convicted Jones and on April 1 gave him a suspended sentence, recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter. -
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2021-12-02T19:10:37+00:00
Truss shop windows broken
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2022-01-12T16:44:58+00:00
Windows were broken in Fred Noble's Truss Shop at 2136 7th Avenue sometime during the disorder. Just south of the intersection with West 127th Street, the store was in the midst of the three-block section of 7th Avenue north of West 125th Street that saw multiple reported broken windows and looting, and three assaults on whites, including both James Wrigley and a Fifth Avenue Coach Company bus being hit by objects. Officer Platt's arrest of Arthur Killen for allegedly breaking windows in the Truss Shop was the only arrest that can be identified as having occurred in this area during the disorder. When police searched Killen they found an "open knife" in his possession, according to a Home News story.
A forty-three-year-old Black man, Killen lived at 277 West 127th Street, at the western end of the block that intersected with 7th Avenue near the Truss Shop. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, charged with both malicious mischief and possession of a knife. Magistrate Renaud transferred Killen to the Court of Special Sessions, and held him on bail of $500. The outcome of his prosecution is unknown.
A story in the Home News about his appearance in the Magistrates Court, for allegedly throwing a stone through a window, is the only evidence connecting Killen to 2136 7th Avenue, which it identified as a "surgical instrument store." The MCCH business survey taken in the second half of 1935 identified the business as a "Truss Shop;" a truss is a surgical appliance, typically used by hernia patients.
A white-owned "Truss Shop" is recorded at 2136 7th Avenue, with the owner identified as Noble, in the MCCH business survey. In the Tax Department photograph from sometime between 1939 and 1941 the name of the business at that address is not visible. -
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2021-09-07T21:35:13+00:00
Viola Woods arrested
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2022-01-18T20:18:18+00:00
Officer St. Louis of the 28th Precinct arrested Viola Woods, a twenty-eight-year-old Black woman, for allegedly smashing the window of a vacant store at 2314 8th Avenue with an umbrella sometime during the disorder. There is no information on when during the disorder the arrest took place. Only a New York Amsterdam News story identified the store as vacant; a list in the New York American and stories in the Home News and New York Times provided only the address. The vacant store was in the block between 125th and 124th Streets, where four other stores had windows broken, including two other empty stores at 2320 8th Avenue and 2324 8th Avenue, the Arrow Sales 5 & 10c store at 2318 8th Avenue and Andy's Florist on the southeast corner of 125th Street. Those other damaged stores were all included in a list of those with broken windows made by a reporter for La Prensa who walked west along 125th Street and and up and down 8th Avenue a block north and south of the intersection on the day after the disorder. It is possible the store whose window Woods allegedly broke was not on that list because it suffered only minor damage; the La Prensa reporter concluded their list by noting they had not included others as they had only suffered minor damage ("y otras mas que por ser los danos ocasionados relativamente pequeños no creimus de interes catalogar entre los establecimientos ya mencionados").
Woods name is misrecorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter as Viola Williams, a mistake repeated in the list of those arrested during the disorder published in in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the list in the New York Evening Journal. The New York American misreported Woods' name as Loyola Williams. Another woman named Loyola Williams was arrested during the disorder and charged with burglary. Both women were recorded as being twenty-eight-years of age and living at 301 West 130th Street. While these overlapping details might indicate the reports refer to a single woman, both Loyola Williams and Viola Williams [Woods] appear in the list published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the list in the New York Evening Journal, with Viola Williams [Woods] charged with malicious mischief, an offense involving the destruction of property used in the prosecution of those alleged to have broken windows during the disorder. That is the charge recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter, with a note reading "Broke window with umbrella." However, when that woman appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court, the docket book, and stories about her two appearances in court in the New York Amsterdam News, Home News and New York Times, recorded her name as Viola Woods.
When Woods appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 the charge against her was disorderly conduct, a lesser offense than malicious mischief, and one that could be adjudicated in the Magistrates Court. Woods was ordered held on bail of $100 by Magistrate Renaud, an appearance reported in the Home News. Unusually, she was represented by a lawyer, whose name recorded in the docket book is only partly legible, "Eushu Devcly" [?] of 207 West 125th Street. When Woods was returned to the court on March 28, Magistrate Ford discharged her, the New York Amsterdam News reporting that she "was freed for lack of evidence." The New York Times story simply reported that she had been discharged, the outcome recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter.
The woman arrested may be the Viola Woods a census enumerator found at 123 West 133rd Street on April 16, 1940. She was the same age and had been in Harlem in 1935. Born in South Carolina, in Hilton Head she gave birth to a son, William, in 1923, and a second son, Samuel, in 1925, according to their draft registrations. At that time her last name was Bligen. She arrived in Harlem sometime between 1925 and 1930, when she was recorded in the census living at 255 West 143rd Street, with a cousin, working as a domestic servant (both her sons are recorded as living with their father, William Bligen and his wife in Hilton Head until at least 1940). In 1931, she married Chester Woods, a West Indian longshoreman. At the time of the 1940 census, they had four children, aged between ten and two years. When her sons William and Samuel registered for the draft in 1942, Viola Woods was living at 49 West 133rd Street. -
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2021-12-20T20:08:38+00:00
Frank Wells arrested
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2021-12-21T19:25:46+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Officer Eppler of the 48th Precinct arrested Frank Wells, a twenty-six-year-old Black man, for allegedly "hurling an automobile hub through a cafeteria window on 125th Street," according to a story in the New York Herald Tribune. It is possible that it was windows in the Willow Cafeteria that Wells allegedly broke; it is the only one of the four businesses on West 125th Street identified as cafeterias in the MCCH business survey that was reported as having broken windows, with the other three also located on blocks east and west of those on which disorder was reported damaged. However, that is not certain enough evidence to link Wells to that location. Wells lived near 125th Street at 155 West 123rd Street, near the corner of 7th Avenue, so could have been drawn to the noise and crowds around Kress' store early in the disorder, when store windows on 125th Street were broken.
Wells was likely arrested in the early hours of the disorder; that was the time of the arrests of the handful of others mentioned with him in the New York Herald Tribune story. That story reported him "locked up at West 123rd Street station," the charge against him "to depend on value of the window." Malicious mischief, the offense involving damage to property that was the charge most often made against those alleged to have broken windows, was a felony if the damage was more than $25. Only the New York Daily News list of those arrested reported that charge against Wells. The charge was inciting a riot in the list published in the Afro-American, Atlanta World, Norfolk Journal and Guide, assault in the list published in the New York Evening Journal, and disorderly conduct in the list published in the New York American. Wells does not appear in the 28th Precinct Police blotter, perhaps because of how early in the disorder he was arrested. On March 20, when Wells appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court, one of the last arraigned after being one of the first arrested, the charge recorded in the docket book was disorderly conduct. He appears to have been one of a small number of those arrested to be represented by a lawyer: "Ed Kuntz, 100 5th Ave." is recorded in the docket book as his attorney. Edward Kuntz, a lawyer with the International Labor Defense, also represented Daniel Miller, Sam Jamison, Murray Samuels and Claudio Diabolo, the men arrested for picketing in front of Kress's store immediately before the disorder began, in the Court of Special Sessions, and questioned witnesses in hearings of the MCCH commission.
Investigating the case against Wells took an unusually long time. He returned to court on March 26, at which time his bail was set at $500. A note on the docket book appears to indicate that someone put up that bail, which did not happen with any of the others arrested during the disorder. Wells returned to court a further five times, according to the docket book, on April 9, 12, 17, 18, and finally on April 20, when he was convicted and sentenced to thirty days in the Workhouse. -
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2021-12-15T19:44:40+00:00
Grocery store window broken
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2021-12-15T21:49:29+00:00
Sometime during the disorder the windows of the grocery store at 2366 8th Avenue, on the southeast corner of 127th Street, were broken. Officer Libman of the 32nd Precinct arrested Rose Murrell, a nineteen-year-old Black woman, for allegedly having "stoned a store window," a story in the Home News reported. There is no information on the time or circumstances of the arrest. Libman also appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court as the arresting officer of another woman, Louise Brown and two men, Henry Stewart and Warren Johnson, who, with Murrell, had all been arrested at 8th Avenue and West 127th Street, according to a story in the Daily Mirror. The store was in the midst of the blocks of 8th Avenue on which there are reports of violence and police making arrests during the disorder: the arrest of James Hayes for allegedly looting the Danbury Hat store at 2334 8th Avenue near 125th Street; the arrest of Emmett Williams and Theodore Hughes for allegedly breaking windows and looting Frendel's meat market three buildings south at 2360 8th Avenue; the arrest of Thomas Babbitt for allegedly taking soap from Thomas Drug store at 2374 8th Avenue, just across 127th Street; and at the very end of the disorder, the arrest of Jean Jacquelin at 128th Street for allegedly looting and police shooting and killing James Thompson across 8th Avenue from the store.
Rose Murrell appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, charged with malicious mischief, an offense involving damage to property used in the prosecution of individuals arrested for allegedly breaking windows during the disorder. Magistrate Renaud transferred her to the Court of Special Sessions, and set bail at $500. Almost two weeks later, on April 1st, the judges in that court convicted Murrell, and sentenced her to one month in the Workhouse, according to the 28th Precinct Police blotter.
A white-owned grocery store was recorded at 2366 8th Avenue in the MCCH business survey taken in the second half of 1935. The Tax Department photograph from 1939-1941 shows a grocery store at that address. -
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2021-12-15T20:00:50+00:00
Rose Murrell arrested
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2021-12-22T01:07:21+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Officer Libman of the 32nd Precinct arrested Rose Murrell, a nineteen-year-old Black woman, for allegedly having "stoned a store window," in the grocery store at 2366 8th Avenue, a story in the Home News reported. There is no information on the time or circumstances of the arrest. Libman also appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court as the arresting officer of another woman, Louise Brown and two men, Henry Stewart and Warren Johnson, who, with Murrell, had all been arrested at 8th Avenue and West 127th Street, according to a story in the Daily Mirror. While the grocery store was located at this intersection, on the southeast corner of 127th Street, the location of Brown and Johnson's alleged offenses are not mentioned in any sources, and the store in which Stewart allegedly broke a window was two and half blocks north of where the story reported his arrest. It is possible that the intersection was where police were stationed, where those arrested were initially brought, rather than the site of their arrest.
The grocery store at 2336 8th Avenue was in the midst of the blocks of 8th Avenue on which there are reports of violence and police making arrests during the disorder: the arrest of James Hayes for allegedly looting the Danbury Hat store at 2334 8th Avenue near 125th Street; the arrest of Emmett Williams and Theodore Hughes for allegedly breaking windows and looting Frendel's meat market three buildings south at 2360 8th Avenue; the arrest of Thomas Babbitt for allegedly taking soap from Thomas Drug store at 2374 8th Avenue, across 127th Street; and at the very end of the disorder, the arrest of Jean Jacquelin at 128th Street for allegedly looting and police shooting and killing James Thompson across 8th Avenue from the store. Murrell lived at 260 West 126th Street, just east of 8th Avenue a block south of the grocery store, so may have been drawn to the noise and crowds on the avenue in the early evening of March 19. All six of the men and women arrested by police on 8th Avenue lived either west of the avenue or in the block between 8th and 7th Avenues.
Rose Murrell is recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter as charged with inciting a riot. That charge is reported in a list in the New York Daily News and a story in the Daily Mirror. However, the list of those arrested in the disorder published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the list published in the New York Evening Journal, include her among those charged with malicious mischief, an offense involving damage to property used in the prosecution of individuals arrested for allegedly breaking windows during the disorder. That was the charge recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book on March 20, when Murrell appeared in court, and reported in the Home News story about those proceedings. Police appear to have initially charged many of those arrested during the riot with inciting a riot, and then revised those charges to fit the specific act that an individual was alleged to have committed before their arraignment in court. Magistrate Renaud transferred Murrell to the Court of Special Sessions, and set bail at $500. Almost two weeks later, on April 1st, the judges in that court convicted Murrell, and sentenced her to one month in the Workhouse, according to the 28th Precinct Police blotter.
Murell's name is spelled in different ways in the sources: as Murrell in the 28th Precinct Police blotter and Harlem Magistrates Court docket, book, and the New York Daily News, New York Evening Journal; as Murelle in the Daily Mirror; as Murell in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide; and as Morrell in the Home News. -
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2021-09-06T19:34:04+00:00
Elizabeth Tai arrested
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2021-09-20T18:33:50+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Detective Phillips of the 28th Precinct arrested Elizabeth Tai, a twenty-eight-year-old Black resident of 1654 3rd Avenue. Tai appeared in the list of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the list published in the New York Evening Journal. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter also recorded the charge against Tai as burglary, with the note "Burglarised store during riot." The Daily Worker more precisely described her alleged offense as "stealing groceries," although that statement may have reflected the story being told by the paper, that the disorder had been an "upsurge of starving Negro workers," rather than details given when Tai appeared for sentencing. There is no complainant listed in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, or named in any of the newspaper stories about Tai's court appearances, so the location she allegedly looted is unknown. Her home was some way from Harlem, on the east side of Central Park between 92nd and 93rd Streets.
Tai was arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book on March 20 with two other individuals arrested by Detective Phillips, Arthur Davis and Herbert Hunter, also charged with burglary, perhaps arrested at the same time and place. Magistrate Renaud remanded all three to appear again in court (he sent two others arrested by Phillips who appeared at the same time charged with malicious mischief, Charles Wright and William Norris, to the Court of Special Sessions). The docket book recorded only Phillips name and precinct; the story in the Daily Worker identified him as a detective.
When Tai appeared in court again, on March 22, Magistrate Renaud convicted and sentenced her. The docket book recorded that the charge had been reduced to disorderly conduct, the original charge crossed out, and stories in the New York Daily News and New York Evening Journal reported she had been convicted of disorderly conduct, not burglary, as had Davis and Hunter. Only that lesser offense could have been dealt with in the Magistrates Court rather than as a misdemeanor in the Court of Special Sessions or a felony in the grand jury and Court of General Sessions. Had the prosecutor presented evidence Tai had stolen merchandise she would have been charged with either burglary or larceny; the charge of disorderly conduct suggests she may have allegedly broken store windows without taking anything. She is one of only three women charged with looting in the disorder.
Renaud sentenced Tai to pay a fine of $25 or serve five days in the Workhouse, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, as was Davis. He gave Hunter a longer sentence of ten days without the alternative of a fine. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter and stories in the New York Daily News, New York Evening Journal and Daily Worker record her sentence as five days in the Workhouse, making it likely that Tai was unable to pay the fine.
Tai is the name recorded in the docket book, and in the lists published in Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the New York Evening Journal. It is recorded differently in other sources less reliable than the legal record: as Tae in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, as Pae in the New York Daily News and New York Evening Journal and as Cay in the Daily Worker. If it was recorded correctly by the court clerk, Tai is a common last name among Chinese living overseas, suggesting that Elizabeth was married to a Chinese man. Given the unusual last name, the arrested woman may be the Elizabeth Tai who died in Harlem Hospital on April 20, 1945. She had been born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1905, and was a widow at the time of her death, with her husband's name transcribed as Hawley Tai. This Elizabeth Tai had been a domestic worker, and lived at 124 West 135th Street at the time of her death. -
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2021-12-02T20:47:06+00:00
Arthur Killen arrested
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2022-01-12T16:49:55+00:00
Officer Platt arrested Arthur Killen, a forty-three-year-old Black man, allegedly "after he threw a stone through the window" of the Truss Shop at 2136 7th Avenue, according to a Home News story. After the arrest, that story went on, police found an "open knife" in his possession. Just south of the intersection with West 127th Street, the store was in the midst of the three-block section of 7th Avenue north of West 125th Street that saw multiple reported broken windows and looting, and three assaults on whites, including both James Wrigley and a Fifth Avenue Coach Company bus being hit by objects, but no other arrests.
Killen lived at 277 West 127th Street, at the western end of the block that intersected with 7th Avenue near the Truss Shop. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, charged with both malicious mischief and possession of a knife. Magistrate Renaud transferred Killen to the Court of Special Sessions, and held him on bail of $500. The outcome of his prosecution is unknown.
A story in the Home News about Killen's appearance in the Magistrates Court is the only evidence connecting him to 2136 7th Avenue. Killen appeared in lists of those arrested during the disorder, with the charges against him variously recorded as inciting a riot in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, disorderly conduct in the New York American, "concealed weapons" in the New York Daily News, and disorderly conduct and possession of a weapon in the list in the New York Evening Journal. That Killen was one of a small number of those arrested charged with more than one offense likely produced that inconsistent reporting. Given that he appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court, Killen should have been in the 28th Precinct Police blotter, which would have included information on the outcome of his prosecution. However, Killen is missing from that record.
The New York Daily News identified Killen as a white man, but the Harlem Magistrate's Court docket book recorded him as a Black man. The New York Daily News misidentified several of those arrested as white. -
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2021-12-15T20:01:46+00:00
Henry Stewart arrested
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2021-12-22T01:17:14+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Officer Libman of the 32nd Precinct arrested Henry Stewart, a thirty-three-year-old Black man, for allegedly having thrown a bottle through a window in the meat market at 2422 8th Avenue, a story in the Home News reported. There is no information on the time or circumstances of the arrest. Libman also appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court as the arresting officer of another man, Warren Johnson, and two women, Louise Brown and Rose Murrell, who, with Stewart, had all been arrested at 8th Avenue and West 127th Street, according to a story in the Daily Mirror. The broken window in 2422 8th Avenue was the northern-most report of disorder on 8th Avenue, on the block between 130th and 131st Streets, two and half blocks north of where the story reported Stewart's arrest. While the grocery store whose window Murell allegedly broke was located at that intersection, on the southeast corner of 127th Street, the location of Brown and Johnson's alleged offenses are not mentioned in any sources. It is possible that the intersection was where police were stationed, where those arrested were initially brought, rather than the site of their arrest. The other reported broken windows and looting on 8th Avenue were south of 128th Street. Stewart lived at 268 West 132nd Street, east of 8th Avenue a block and a half north of the meat market, so may have been drawn to the noise and crowds on the avenue in the early evening of March 19. All six of the men and women arrested by police on 8th Avenue lived either west of the avenue or in the block between 8th and 7th Avenues.
Henry Stewart is recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter as charged with inciting a riot. That charge is reported in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, in the New York Evening Journal, and the New York Daily News and a story in the Daily Mirror. However, malicious mischief was the charge recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book on March 20, when Stewart appeared in court, and reported in the Home News story about those proceedings. Police appear to have initially charged many of those arrested during the riot with inciting a riot, and then revised those charges to fit the specific act that an individual was alleged to have committed before their arraignment in court. The others arrested by Libman were all charged with malicious mischief, although Brown and Johnson later had that charge reduced to disorderly conduct. Magistrate Renaud transferred Stewart to the Court of Special Sessions, and set bail at $500. On March 25, the judges in that court discharged Stewart, according to the 28th Precinct Police blotter. -
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2021-12-15T20:01:28+00:00
Louise Brown arrested
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2022-01-18T20:21:55+00:00
Sometime during the riot, Officer Libman of the 32nd Precinct arrested Louise Brown, a twenty-three-year-old Black woman. There is no information on Brown's alleged offense, or the time or circumstances of the arrest. Libman also appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court as the arresting officer of another woman, Rose Murrell, and two men, Henry Stewart and Warren Johnson, who, with Brown, had all been arrested at 8th Avenue and West 127th Street, according to a story in the Daily Mirror. Murrell and Stewart were alleged to have broken windows in two different stores, at 2366 8th Avenue and 2422 8th Avenue. Brown, and Johnson, likely also allegedly broke store windows, based on the charges made against them in the Harlem Magistrates Court. All four faced the charge of malicious mischief, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. An offense involving damage to property, malicious mischief was used by prosecutors after the disorder only against individuals arrested for allegedly breaking windows, so Brown has been treated as having been arrested on that charge, even though there are no details of her alleged act.
While the story in the Daily Mirror suggested Brown and Johnson had been arrested at the intersection, so likely were alleged to have broken windows nearby, the store in which Stewart allegedly broke a window was two and half blocks north of where the story reported his arrest. It is possible that the intersection was where police were stationed, where those arrested were initially brought, rather than the site of their arrest. Brown lived at 251 West 128th Street, just east of 8th Avenue, a block north of where she was reported arrested, so may have been drawn to the noise and crowds on the avenue in the early evening of March 19. All six of the men and women arrested by police on 8th Avenue lived either west of the avenue or in the block between 8th and 7th Avenues.
Louise Brown is recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter as charged with inciting a riot. That charge is reported in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, in the New York Evening Journal and in the Daily News, as well as in the story in the Daily Mirror. Police appear to have initially charged many of those arrested during the riot with inciting a riot, and then revised those charges to fit the specific act that an individual was alleged to have committed before their arraignment in court. Prosecutors had changed the charge against Brown to malicious mischief by the time she appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20. Magistrate Renaud held Brown in custody until March 25, on bail of $500. When she was returned to court, the charge against Brown was reduced to disorderly conduct, malicious mischief crossed out in the docket book, "Red." written above it, and "DISORDERLY CONDUCT" stamped in its place. That change, to a lesser offense that did not involve damage to property, likely indicated a lack of evidence that Brown had broken a window. Disorderly conduct was also an offense that could be adjudicated by a Magistrate. Magistrate Ford convicted Brown and gave her a suspended sentence. Warren Johnson, arrested with her and prosecuted in the same way, also received a suspended sentence. -
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2021-12-05T21:00:05+00:00
Bernard Smith arrested
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2021-12-08T21:20:59+00:00
Officer Alfred Tait of the 42nd Precinct testified in the Harlem Magistrates Court that he saw a group of about thirty people assemble in front of the Temple Grill & Restaurant at 317 Lenox Avenue. Then, about 12:15 AM, he allegedly heard Bernard Smith, a thirty-nine-year-old Black man shout to the group, "We will get this two windows here," and saw him then throw two stones at the restaurant windows, breaking them. Smith then allegedly shouted to the others, "You fellows get the others." Tait presumably arrested Smith in front of the store, although his statement did not mention the circumstances, but according to the officer, members of the group in front of the restaurant acted on Smith's urging, as "thereafter there were several acts of force and violence committed in said vicinity to other persons and property of others." In the minutes around when Tait arrested Smith, other police officers arrested three men near West 126th Street and Lenox Avenue, Leon Mauraine and David Smith at 318 Lenox Avenue ten minutes earlier, and John Kennedy Jones at 333 Lenox Avenue fifteen minutes later. Multiple arrests by different officers indicates that a number of police were stationed at the intersection at that time. All three of the arresting officers came from precincts outside Harlem.
Bernard Smith gave his occupation as interior decorator when examined in the Harlem Magistrates Court, and his home, for the last eight years, as 116 West 126th Street. That building was close to the bar and restaurant, around the nearby southwest corner of West 126th Street and four buildings west. Smith appeared in the lists of those arrested published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal as one of those charged with inciting a riot. The 28th Precinct Police Blotter also recorded the charge made against Smith as "Inciting riot."
The last person to appear in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, Smith was charged with both malicious mischief, for allegedly breaking the window, and inciting a riot, for his alleged call for the group to break other windows. Held in custody by Magistrate Renaud, Smith returned to court on March 25, when bail was set at $500 for the first charge and $1000 for the second, and then again on March 26, when Magistrate Ford held him for grand jury on the charge of riot. Prosecutors reduced the charge of malicious mischief to disorderly conduct, of which Magistrate Ford found him guilty and sentenced him to five days in the Workhouse. Misleadingly, the 28th Precinct Police Blotter also recorded that sentence, but neither the charges of malicious mischief or disorderly conduct, only the charge of riot.
A week later Smith appeared before the grand jury, which dismissed the riot charge. That outcome indicates a lack of evidence of the calls to others in the crowd alleged by Officer Tait. While the grand jury did not indict any of those arrested during the disorder charged with inciting a riot, it did send all the others who appeared before it to the Court of Special Sessions rather than dismissing the charges. -
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2021-12-21T20:46:19+00:00
William Jones arrested
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2021-12-22T01:20:02+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, Patrolman Murphy of the 28th Precinct arrested William Jones, a twenty-five-year-old Black man. There is no information on Jones' alleged offense, or the time or circumstances of the arrest. He was charged with malicious mischief, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. An offense involving damage to property, malicious mischief was used by prosecutors after the disorder only against individuals arrested for allegedly breaking windows, so Jones has been treated as having been arrested on that charge, even though there are no details of his alleged act.
William Jones is recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter as charged with inciting a riot. That charge is reported in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide. Police appear to have initially charged many of those arrested during the riot with inciting a riot, and then revised those charges to fit the specific act that an individual was alleged to have committed before their arraignment in court. Prosecutors had changed the charge against Jones to malicious mischief by the time he appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20. Magistrate Renaud held Brown in custody until March 22, on bail of $1000. When he was returned to court, the charge against Jones was reduced to a misdemeanor, "Red. to Misd." written above the original charge in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. That change would have reflected information on the value of the window that Jones allegedly broke: it had to be more than $25 for Jones to be charged with felony malicious mischief. Magistrate Ford then transferred Jones to the Court of Special Sessions for trial. On March 28 the three judges of that court convicted Jones, and gave him a suspended sentence, according to the 28th Precinct Police blotter. -
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2021-12-14T19:50:40+00:00
Jackie Ford arrested
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2021-12-14T20:49:19+00:00
Early on March 22, Officer Mckenna of the 28th Precinct arrested Jackie Ford, a twenty-eight-year-old Black man, for allegedly being one of a group who broke windows in Julia Cureti's restaurant at 142 Lenox Avenue. Where that arrest took place is unknown. While police made other arrests after the disorder at the homes of those they arrested, Ford is recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book as having "no home." Stories about Ford's appearance in court that same day in the New York Post, New York World-Telegram and La Prensa mention only that Cureti had identified Ford as one of those she saw break windows. There is no information on how she came to identify Ford.
As Ford was arrested two days after the disorder, he does not appear in the transcript of the 28th Precinct Police blotter or lists of those arrested published on March 20. In the Harlem Magistrates Court, Ford was charged with malicious mischief, the offense used in cases in which windows were broken. Magistrate Renaud transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions and held him on bail of $500. There is no information on the outcome of the prosecution. -
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2021-12-15T22:17:50+00:00
Meat market window broken
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2021-12-16T04:08:05+00:00
Sometime during the disorder, a store window in the meat market at 2422 8th Avenue was broken. Officer Libman of the 32nd Precinct arrested Henry Stewart, a thirty-three-year-old Black man, for allegedly having thrown a bottle through the window, a story in the Home News reported. There is no information on the time or circumstances of the arrest. Libman also appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court as the arresting officer of another man, Warren Johnson, and two women, Louise Brown and Rose Murrell , who, with Stewart, had all been arrested at 8th Avenue and West 127th Street, according to a story in the Daily Mirror. The broken window was the northern-most report of disorder on 8th Avenue, on the block between 130th and 131st Streets. The other reported broken windows and looting were south of 128th Street.
Henry Stewart appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, charged with malicious mischief, an offense involving damage to property used in the prosecution of individuals arrested for allegedly breaking windows during the disorder. Magistrate Renaud transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions, and set bail at $500. On March 25, the judges in that court discharged Stewart, according to the 28th Precinct Police blotter.
A white-owned meat market is recorded at 2422 8th Avenue in the MCCH business survey taken in the second half of 1935. The nature of the business is not visible in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941. -
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2021-12-12T03:19:41+00:00
David Terry arrested
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2022-01-24T21:50:44+00:00
Some time during the disorder, Detective Balkin of the 5th Division arrested David Terry, a twenty-four-year-old homeless Black man. Wilbur Montgomery, living at 951 Woodycrest Avenue, recorded as the complainant against Terry in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, was identified in the 1933 City Directory as the manager of Danbury Shoes, at 2334 8th Avenue. The nearby intersection of 8th Avenue and West 125th Street, only a few buildings from Kress' store, saw some of the earliest crowds and violence of the disorder, and a concentration of police, who sought to clear West 125th Street by pushing people on to the avenue. Windows were also broken in stores either side of Danbury shoes, the branch of the Liggett drug store chain on the corner of West 125th Street and a seafood restaurant at 2338 8th Avenue. Montgomery was also the complainant against another man arrested by Detective Balkin, likely at the same time, James Hayes. There are no details of the circumstances of Terry's arrest, but the charge against him in the Harlem Magistrates Court, malicious mischief, was made against those arrested in the disorder who had allegedly broken windows. Hayes had allegedly taken a baseball bat from the hat, according to a story about his appearance in the Magistrates Court in the Home News, which gave only the address of the store. Police appear to have initially charged Hayes with breaking a window as well as taking the bat. He appeared in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, his name misrecorded as Hazel, with the note "Broke store window, burglarized store." In line with that entry, Hayes was among those charged with burglary in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. However, when Hayes appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, the charge was recorded as petit larceny not burglary. That charge did not require evidence of breaking in and entering a store as burglary did, indicating a reassessment of the information in the blotter by the time of his arraignment.
Instead, it appears that it was Terry who police alleged had broken the hat store windows, as he was charged in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 with malicious mischief. Magistrate Renaud held Terry in custody so his case could be investigated. When he was returned to court on March 26, the charge against him was reduced to disorderly conduct, the previous charge crossed out in the docket book, "Red. to" written above it, and the new charge stamped in its place. It is that reduced charge of disorderly conduct that appeared as the charge against Terry in lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. A different charge recorded against him in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter, inciting a riot, appears to have frequently been used by police as the initial charge against those arrested during the disorder, and was often replaced by other charges in the Magistrates Court. As disorderly conduct was a charge that Magistrates had the power to adjudicate, Magistrate Ford tried and convicted Terry and fined him $500 or five days in the workhouse. Terry served the time in the workhouse, according to the 28th Precinct Police blotter.
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2021-12-03T21:46:41+00:00
Charles Wright arrested
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2021-12-03T22:22:55+00:00
Officer Phillips of the 28th Squad arrested Charles Wright, together with William Norris, for allegedly having "thrown an ashcan through the window" of the Lokos Clothes store at 2275 8th Avenue, according to a story in the Home News. Located just north of West 122nd Street, on the west side of 8th Avenue, the store was in an area with no other reported activity during the disorder other than rocks hitting Patrolman Harry Whittington as he traveled on an Emergency truck, and no other arrests. There are no details of the time or circumstances of the arrests.
Wright, a twenty-two-year-old Black man, is recorded as having "no home" in the 28th Precinct Police blotter and the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, but with an address in Philadelphia in the Home News. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 charged with malicious mischief. Magistrate Renaud transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions for trial, and held him on bail of $500. The judges convicted him, and on April 1st sentenced him to three months in the Workhouse. The prosecution of Norris followed the same process, with the same result.
Pauline Lokos of 2275 8th Avenue was identified as the owner of the store whose windows Wright allegedly broke in the Home News and recorded as the complainant in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book when he appeared in court on March 20. Wright appeared in the lists of those arrested during the disorder published in Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal, but the two lists differed in the charge made against him. The Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide included him among those charged with burglary, while the New York Evening Journal listed the charge against Wright as inciting a riot. The charge recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter was inciting a riot. In the Magistrates Court the charge made was malicious mischief, recorded in the docket book and reported in the Home News. That charge involved damage to property not required for the charge of riot, so the change in charge in effect shifted from treating the men as part of a crowd to as having attacked the store. There is no information on why that change was made. -
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2021-12-13T16:22:07+00:00
Julius Hightower arrested
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2021-12-13T17:12:35+00:00
Patrolman Carter of the 32nd Precinct arrested Julius Hightower, an eighteen-year-old Black man, for allegedly throwing a brick through the window of Moskowitz's tailor shop at 2310 7th Avenue, according to a story in the New York Herald Tribune. The complainant recorded in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court docket book is L. Hackner, with the address 2310 7th Avenue, confirming the location of Hightower's alleged offense published in the New York Herald Tribune. The tailor shop was operated by a father and son, so Hackner was likely a manager or staff member. Located between 135th and 136th Streets, the shop was one of the northernmost businesses damaged during the disorder, in an area where most of the other businesses had Black owners.
Hightower lived at 204 West 148th Street, more than ten blocks north of the tailor store. He appeared among those charged with disorderly conduct in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. However, when Hightower appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20 the charge recorded in the docket book was malicious mischief, an offense involving the destruction of property used in cases of individuals who allegedly broke windows during the disorder. During his arraignment, that charge was reduced to disorderly conduct, an offense that a Magistrate could adjudicate. Magistrate Ford convicted Hightower, and sentenced him to five days in the workhouse or a fine of $25. He served the time. That sentence was reported in the New York Herald Tribune, and the New York Age. -
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2021-12-03T21:46:21+00:00
William Norris arrested
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2021-12-04T17:13:59+00:00
Officer Phillips of the 28th Squad arrested William Norris, together with Charles Wright, for allegedly having "thrown an ashcan through the window" of the Lokos Clothes store at 2275 8th Avenue, according to a story in the Home News. Located just north of West 122nd Street, on the west side of 8th Avenue, the store was in an area with no other reported activity during the disorder other than rocks hitting Patrolman Harry Whittington as he traveled on an Emergency truck, and no other arrests. There are no details of the time or circumstances of the arrests.
Norris, a twenty-two-year-old Black man, is recorded as residing at 201 West 122nd Street in all the records of his arrest, only a block east of the clothing store. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 charged with malicious mischief. Magistrate Renaud transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions for trial, and held him on bail of $500. The judges convicted him, and on April 1st sentenced him to three months in the Workhouse. The prosecution of Wright followed the same process, with the same result.
Pauline Lokos of 2275 8th Avenue was identified as the owner of the store whose windows Norris allegedly broke in the Home News and recorded as the complainant in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book when he appeared in court on March 20. Norris appeared in the lists of those arrested during the disorder published in Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal, but the two lists differed in the charge made against him. The Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide included him among those charged with burglary, while the New York Evening Journal listed the charge against Norris as inciting a riot. The charge recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter was inciting a riot. In the Magistrates Court the charge made was malicious mischief, recorded in the docket book and reported in the Home News. That charge involved damage to property not required for the charge of riot, so the change in charge in effect shifted from treating the men as part of a crowd to as having attacked the store. There is no information on why that change was made. -
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2021-12-15T20:02:06+00:00
Warren Johnson arrested
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2021-12-21T20:44:28+00:00
Sometime during the riot, Officer Libman of the 32nd Precinct arrested Warren Johnson, an eighteen-year-old Black man. There is no information on Johnson's alleged offense, or the time or circumstances of the arrest. Libman also appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court as the arresting officer of two women, Rose Murrell and Louise Brown, and another man, Henry Stewart, who, with Johnson, had all been arrested at 8th Avenue and West 127th Street, according to a story in the Daily Mirror. Murrell and Stewart were alleged to have broken windows in two different stores, at 2366 8th Avenue and 2422 8th Avenue. Johnson, and Brown, likely also allegedly broke store windows, based on the charges made against them in the Harlem Magistrates Court. All four faced the charge of malicious mischief, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. An offense involving damage to property, malicious mischief was used by prosecutors after the disorder only against individuals arrested for allegedly breaking windows, so Johnson has been treated as having been arrested on that charge, even though there are no details of his alleged act.
While the story in the Daily Mirror suggested Johnson and Brown had been arrested at the intersection, so likely were alleged to have broken windows nearby, the store in which Henry Stewart allegedly broke a window was two and half blocks north of where the story reported his arrest. It is possible that the intersection was where police were stationed, where those arrested were initially brought, rather than the site of their arrest. Johnson lived at 206 West 121st Street, a block east of 8th Avenue and six blocks north of where he was reported arrested. All six of the men and women arrested by police on 8th Avenue lived either west of the avenue or in the block between 8th and 7th Avenues, but the others lived north of 125th Street, considerably closer than Johnson.
Warren Johnson is recorded in the 28th Precinct Police blotter as charged with inciting a riot. That charge is reported in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, in the New York Evening Journal and in the New York Daily News, as well as in the story in the Daily Mirror. Police appear to have initially charged many of those arrested during the riot with inciting a riot, and then revised those charges to fit the specific act that an individual was alleged to have committed before their arraignment in court. Prosecutors had changed the charge against Johnson to malicious mischief by the time he appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20. Magistrate Renaud held Johnson in custody until March 25, on bail of $500. When he was returned to court, the charge against Johnson was reduced to disorderly conduct, malicious mischief crossed out in the docket book, "Red." written above it, and "DISORDERLY CONDUCT" stamped in its place. That change, to a lesser offense that did not involve damage to property, likely indicated a lack of evidence that Johnson had broken a window. Disorderly conduct was also an offense that could be adjudicated by a Magistrate. Magistrate Ford convicted Johnson and gave him a suspended sentence. Louise Brown, arrested with him and prosecuted in the same way, also received a suspended sentence.
This page references:
- 1 2021-09-19T23:29:30+00:00 Consolidated Laws of the State of New York, Vol. 4. Penal law to real property law (Albany: J. B. Lyon, 1909) 5 plain 2021-09-20T01:55:38+00:00 New York State Library: https://nysl.ptfs.com/data/Library1/93317.PDF