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

"NUMEROSOS ESTABLECIMIENTOS HISPANOS APEDREADOS Y SAQUEADOS POR LA TURBA," La Prensa, March 21, 1935, 1.

Thanks to Lorrin Thomas for sharing her copy of this story.

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Jack Garmise's cigar shop looted Around 12.30 AM, Jack Garmise, a twenty-two-year-old white clerk, locked the cigar store his father Emmanuel owned at 1916 7th Avenue, in the Regent Theatre building, according to the Probation Department Investigation, and likely went across town to the family home at 1274 5th Avenue. Most businesses were already closed by that time; the cigar store may have remained open to cater to movie-goers leaving the theater. By the time Garmise left, crowds and disorder had been spreading from 125th Street ten blocks to the north for at least two to three hours, although may not yet have reached as far south as the store, which was near the corner of West 116th Street. Lyman Quarterman was shot while part of a crowd at 121st Street and 7th Avenue, five blocks north of the store, at 10.30 PM. Alice Gordon had allegedly been assaulted a block north at 11.20 PM, and a candy store looted a block further north at 11.45 PM. Around the time Garmise left, Fred Campbell drove up 7th Avenue, and reported attacks on stores around 121st Street, despite the presence of unusual numbers of police. He did not report noticing similar disorder around the Garmises’ store at 116th Street. However, Garmise would not have encountered those crowds when he left the store as his route home was in the opposite direction, to the southeast.

Both crowds and police arrived in the area of the cigar store not long after Garmise closed it. Store windows were broken on the opposite corner, and along West 116th Street to the east, and Giles Jackson was injured by flying glass in the area of the intersection. Around 1.45 AM the cigar store became a target. Patrolmen Kalsky and Holland of the 28th Precinct saw a group of people around the store, and then a milk can thrown through the plate glass windows. In the Magistrate Court affidavit, Kalsky alleged that he saw Thomas Jackson, a thirty-four-year-old Black driver throw the milkcan. Jackson denied thowing anything at the store, or being part of an attack on it, when question by a Probation officer. Instead, he claimed he had been walking along the street to visit a friend on West 116th Street when he had become caught in a crowd moving toward the store, and someone in the crowd had been pushed him through the smashed window. Throwing an object would have been more difficult for Jackson than most in the crowd; after an accident in 1930, his left arm had been amputated above the elbow. Kalsky also alleged he saw Jackson reach his hand through the smashed window and take merchandise from the display. Garmise reported pipes, clocks, watches, razors and other goods worth about $100 were stolen. Neither the affidavit nor the Probation Department Investigation specify what, if any, of that merchandise was found on Jackson. Kalsky told a Probation officer that as he approached, Jackson threw “some of the merchandise” back in the window. That phrasing suggests Jackson may not have had any merchandise on him when Kalsky arrested him, as does his later agreement to plead guilty to unlawful entry, rather than petit larceny, as others arrested for looting who made plea bargains did. However, the New York Daily News report of Jackson's appearance in the Court of General Sessions to plead guilty, and the New York Times report of his sentencing, attributed all $100 of the stolen goods to Jackson. (The only other newspaper story to include details, the report of the sentencing in the New York Age, mentioned only that Jackson had admitted throwing a milk bottle through the store window).

The other officer, Holland, arrested a second man, Raymond Easley, a twenty-one-year-old Black man. He allegedly took cigars from the store window, according to a report in the Home News, wording that suggests the officers reported seeing him reaching into the window and found cigars in his possession. Holland also found that Easley was carrying a razor. (Easley is not mentioned in the affidavit in the District Attorney’s case file in which he and Jackson are co-defendants, nor is there an examination of him. The only document in the case file referring to Easley is a criminal record; he had no previous prosecutions). Two arrests at the same incident of alleged looting was unusual during the disorder, suggesting that the officers were closer to the store than in other instances, perhaps only having to cross West 116th Street rather than 7th Avenue.

While the appearance of the two patrolmen clearly stopped the group attacking the store, the broken window made it easier for others to take more merchandise. (A reporter for La Prensa who walked by the store the day after the disorder recorded that all its windows were demolished). Police guarded only a small number of damaged businesses during the disorder, but the Garmises’ store had the advantage of being near a major intersection, close to the commercial blocks of West 116th Street, an obvious place for police to be stationed. At 3:00 AM, just over an hour after the arrests of Thompson and Easley, when the level of disorder was diminishing, Officer Charles Necas allegedly saw Robert Tanner, a seventeen-year-old Black student, put his hand through the broken window and take a pipe, according to the Magistrates Court affidavit. Necas then arrested Tanner. That Tanner allegedly took a single pipe suggests that there was little merchandise in the window at that time, that most of the looting had occurred earlier. Tanner lived on West 116th Street only three buildings west of 7th Avenue, at 218 West 116th Street. There is no mention of a crowd.

The Garmises’ total loss of $100 of merchandise is well below the damage in stores whose interiors were looted, suggesting that only the window displays may have been looted. The Garmises are not among those identified as suing the city for damages for failing to protect their business. Unlike many other businesses, they did not have insurance for their store windows, they told a Probation officer, but as part of the United Cigar chain, they did have burglary insurance. However, they could collect that insurance only if the disorder was not a “riot,” an unlikely determination after the city lost in the civil courts. Nonetheless, the Garmises were able to remain in business. The MCCH business survey found a United Cigar Store in the same building (although it misidentified the address as 1910 not 1916 7th Avenue). In 1940, Jack Garmise listed the store as his place of employment in his draft registration. The Garmises had opened the store and moved to Manhattan sometime after 1930; the family appeared in the 1930 and 1920 censuses living in the Bronx, with Russian-born Emmanuel working in linen supply and as a laundry salesman. They were still at 1974 5th Avenue in the 1940 census.

Thomas Jackson (whose name was technically Thomas Dean, but who used his stepfather's last name), Raymond Easley and Robert Tanner all appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20. Magistrate Renaud sent all three to the Grand Jury on the charge of burglary, and Easley also to the Court of Special Sessions charged with carrying a dangerous weapon, a misdemeanor. While Jackson and Tanner were indicted, and then agreed to plead guilty, Easley had the charges against him dismissed. There is no evidence to explain that decision. Neither the 28th Precinct Police Blotter or the District Attorney’s case file recorded the outcome of his prosecution for carrying a razor. Judge Donellan sentenced Jackson to six months in the workhouse; and Judge Nott sentenced Tanner to the New York City Reformatory, in line with his age.
Regal Shoes looted Edward Wittleder, the assistant manager, closed Regal Shoes, on the corner of West 125th Street and 7th Avenue, at 10 PM, according to his Magistrate's Court affidavit. By that time store windows had been smashed the length of the block of 125th Street to the west, between 7th and 8th Avenues. Police trying to clear people from the street had pushed them toward the intersection on which Regal Shoes sat, creating large crowds, as well as concentrating the officers and riot control trucks there. After 10 PM, small groups had begun to attack businesses north and south of the intersection on 7th Avenue and further east on 125th Street. By 11 PM the store window had been smashed (a reporter from La Prensa included Regal Shoes among the businesses he saw with broken windows the next day). Around that time, Officer Peter Naton of the 28th Precinct claimed he saw John Vivien, a twenty-seven-year-old Black laborer, reach through the window and take a pair of shows from the display. Naton then arrested Vivien, who he said still had the shoes in his possession. Wittleder identified them as coming from the store and being worth $5.50.

Vivien lived at 483 Manhattan Avenue, two blocks west of Regal Shoes, near the corner of West 120th Street. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, where Magistrate Renaud held him for the grand jury on bail of $1000. The Home News reported those proceedings; the remainder of his prosecution is recorded only in legal records and police records. Vivien appeared before the grand jury on April 4, according to his District Attorney's case file; they sent him to the Court of Special Sessions rather than indicting him, indicating a lack of the evidence that he had broken into the store required for a charge of burglary. A charge of larceny was likely the alternative, with the items valued well below the $100 required for a felony charge. The judges in that court then convicted him and suspended his sentence, an outcome recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter.

Regal Shoes continued in business after the disorder. The MCCH Business Survey from the second half of 1935 includes the store, whose address it gives as 2097 7th Avenue rather than 166 West 125th Street as in the reports of the looting. The store also appears in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941, of the building labeled 2901 7th Avenue.
Mediaville Liquor store looted Around 2:25 AM, stones were thrown through the front windows of the Mediaville Liquor store at 1 West 116th Street, on the northwest corner of 5th Avenue. There is no entrance visible on West 116th Street, so the front window likely faced 5th Avenue. Some bottles of spirits in the window were taken, according to an employee who spoke with a reporter from La Prensa, the Spanish-language daily newspaper published in New York. Although the employee somehow knew when the attack took place, they did not know who was responsible. No one was arrested for attacking or looting the store.

A reporter for the paper appears to have walked around the Puerto Rican areas of West 116th and Lenox Avenue the day after the disorder looking for damaged businesses. Most of those identified in the story are west of the liquor store, on Lenox Avenue and West 116th Street between Lenox and 7th Avenues, and most had broken windows without reported looting. As with most of those attacks, La Prensa provides the only evidence of the looting of the liquor store.

The Mediaville Liquor Store does not appear in the MCCH Business survey, nor does any other business located on that corner, but is visible in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941, indicating that it continued to operate after the disorder.
San Antonio market looted Sometime after midnight, a group of Black people ["un grupo de personas de color"] took the trash cans in front of the San Antonio Market at 71 West 116th Street and threw them at the window on the right side of the store front, according to accounts circulating at the store reported by a La Prensa reporter. Staff discovered the damage when they arrived to open the store, owned by Delfino Rosete. There had been no attacks on the market when they had closed the previous evening. An employee estimated that food valued at $10-$12 had been taken. No one arrested for looting is identified as having stolen goods from the store.

A reporter for La Prensa visited damaged businesses in the Puerto Rican areas of West 116th and Lenox Avenue the day after the disorder. Most of those identified in the story are west of the market, on Lenox Avenue and West 116th Street between Lenox and 7th Avenues, and most had broken windows without reported looting. The Mediaville Liquor store is the only damaged business located east of the market, at the other end of the block of West 116th Street. As with most of those attacks, La Prensa provides the only evidence of the looting of the market.

Given the limited damage and lost merchandise, the San Antonio market likely continued to operate after the disorder, but there is no clear evidence. A Hispanic-owned grocery store located at 71 West 116th Street is included in the MCCH Business survey, but the owner is listed as Gregorio Troche not Delfino Rosete. The investigators did sometimes record the name of the store manager rather than the owner. In this case, it is possible the men were related: the 1930 census records a household living at 122 West 115th Street headed by Defino Rosete, a twenty-four-year-old Mexican immigrant that included his father-in-law, a forty-nine-year-old Puerto Rican immigrant named Gregorio Troche. (At that time Rosete worked as a handyman in a metal factory, and his father-in-law as a dishwasher, so there is no direct link between those men and the San Antonio market). The nature of the business at that location when the Tax Department photograph was taken between 1939 and 1941 is not visible in the image.
Danbury Hat store windows broken The Danbury Hat store at 2334 8th Avenue is one of the businesses with broken windows identified by the reporter for La Prensa who walked along West 125th Street, as well as along West 116th Street and the adjacent blocks of Lenox Avenue, the day after the disorder. The MCCH business survey gave the address of the white-owned store as 2336 8th Avenue (a report of a looting at 2334 8th Avenue appears to refer to the Liggett's Drug Store on the corner of 8th Avenue and West 125th Street, as the item allegedly taken was a baseball bat). Both addresses for the Danbury Hat store place it north of the drug store, in one of the two store fronts visible in the same building, under the elevated railroad tracks, on the left of the Tax Department photograph. The MCCH business survey listed a barber as the other business at 2336 8th Avenue in the second half of 1935.

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.
Menswear store windows broken The menswear store at 112 Lenox Avenue is one of the businesses with broken windows identified by a reporter for La Prensa who walked along the stores on Lenox Avenue adjacent to West 116th Street, and along West 116th Street, as well as along West 125th Street, the day after the disorder. The front windows of the store were broken, the reporter noted. The MCCH business survey recorded the Hispanic-owned Axton Clothes Company at that address. No other sources mention this store, and no one arrested during the disorder is identified as breaking the store's windows.
Mario Gonzalez's Menswear store windows broken Mario Gonzalez's Menswear Store at 86 Lenox Avenue is one of the businesses with broken windows identified by a reporter for La Prensa who walked along the stores on Lenox Avenue adjacent to West 116th Street, and along West 116th Street, as well as along West 125th Street, the day after the disorder. The reporter apparently spoke to a staff member, who told him that "the store was closed on Wednesday night at ten o'clock and that nothing had happened until then; but that in the morning they learned that a group of people had broken one of the windows in the front windows. The perpetrators did not steal the men's clothing that was on display in the window." Although the identity of the group responsible is not mentioned in that statement, the previous sentence of the La Prensa story described the store as "the victim of the unleashed fury of a group of individuals of color [también fué victima de al desencadenada furia de un grupo de individuos de color]." La Prensa's stories on the disorder insisted that Spanish-speaking residents of the blocks around West 116th Street did not participate in the violence, which they attributed to Harlem's Black population.

No other sources mention this store, and no one arrested during the disorder is identified as breaking the store's windows. The MCCH business survey did not include a menswear store at 86 Lenox Avenue in the months after the disorder; a drug store and a laundry are listed at that address. Neither the menswear store nor either of those businesses appear in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941.
Liggett Drug store windows broken The Liggett drug store at 1919 7th Avenue, on the southeast corner of West 116th Street, is one of the businesses with broken windows identified by a reporter for La Prensa who walked along West 116th Street, as well as along West 125th Street, the day after the disorder. Four of the store's windows were "completely demolished," the reporter noted. So too were all the the window's of Jack Garmise's United Cigar store directly across 7th Avenue. That store had also been looted, which the story did not mention. The reporter appears to have identified stores as having been looted only when someone told him goods had been taken, as happened at the San Antonio Market and Mediaville liquor store. Given the scale of damage, it seems likely that the drug store had also been looted, as at least four others had been. However, police officers appear to have been stationed at the intersection after midnight, perhaps near enough to the drug store to prevent looting. Police arrested Thomas Jackson and Raymond Easley, and an hour later, Robert Tanner, for allegedly looting the cigar store.

No other sources mention the drug store, and no one arrested during the disorder is identified as breaking the store's windows.

The white-owned branch of the chain store appears in the MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935, and is visible in the Tax Department photograph of the address taken between 1939 and 1941.
Radio store windows broken The radio store at 136 West 116th Street is one of the businesses with broken windows identified by a reporter for La Prensa who walked along West 116th Street, as well as along West 125th Street, the day after the disorder. All the store's windows were broken. So too were four of those in the Liggett's drug store five buildings west, on the corner of 7th Avenue, and all those in the United Cigar store on the other side of 7th Avenue. The cigar store had also been looted, which the story did not mention. The reporter appears to have identified stores as having been looted only when someone told him goods had been taken, as happened at the San Antonio Market and Mediaville liquor store. Given the scale of damage, it seems likely that the radio store had also been looted. However, police officers appear to have been stationed at 7th Avenue and West 116th Street after midnight, perhaps near enough to the radio store to prevent looting. Police arrested Thomas Jackson and Raymond Easley, and an hour later, Robert Tanner, for allegedly looting the cigar store.

A white-owned radio store is recorded in the MCCH business survey at 136 West 116th Street between June and December 1935. There is no Tax Department photograph of the building.