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Estelle Cohen's clothing store looted
What Cohen wanted, she wrote La Guardia was "police protection at all times. I have my sons in that store, and am a widow; business is very hard besides and I don't wish them to lose their lives." Lacking that protection during the disorder, Cohen had the storefront boarded up, perhaps sending her sons. However, the boarded-up window failed to protect the inside of the store, Cohen wrote:
...they came back and broke through the windows again and smashed the cases and took the goods out. The shirts were taken off the forms, which showed that they had ample time to work. The floors were scattered with glass and goods all trampled up.
No one arrested for looting is identified as having stolen goods from the store. Cohen estimated her losses as at least $800. A little over a month later, when the New York Sun reported that she had joined nineteen other merchants in filing suit against the city government, she claimed $1219.77 in damages (the New York Times, Home News and Brooklyn Daily Eagle did not name any of the claimants; the New York American did not name Cohen). Unlike some other storeowners, Cohen did not have burglary insurance, "on account of not being able to get it up in that section." Given that the city lost the civil actions reported in the press, it is likely that Cohen received some compensation for the losses. She does seem to have been able to remain in business. The Toggery shop is included in the MCCH business survey, with the investigator recording that the store had been there for three years, managed by "Mr Thomas and a friend," and had "a neat display of ties, hats and shirts in window." The store also appears in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941.
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This page references:
- Estelle Cohen to Mayor La Guardia, March 21, 1935, Harlem Riot Response (1), Subject Files, Box 179, Folder 12 (Roll 86), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945
- "Harlem Merchants File Riot Claims," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 23, 1935, 2.
- "Claim $38,000 Riot Damages," New York Sun, April 23, 1935 [clipping]
- "Harlem Asks City to Pay $38,000 Riot Damages," New York Times, April 24, 1935.
- "Harlem Stores Start Suing City for Riot Damages," Home News, April 24, 1935 [clipping].
- "Harlem Riot Claims," New York American, April 24, 1935 [clipping].
- "2d Damage Suit Lost by City in Harlem Rioting," New York Herald Tribune, October 16, 1935 [clipping]
- "Harlem: Survey - Census Tracts #225-226 (30)," 1935, Roll 81, Subject Files, Office of the Mayor, Fiorello H. La Guardia records (New York City Municipal Archives).
- Feinstein v. City of New York, 157 Misc 157 (1935)