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

Philip Jaross' Tailor's shop looted

Sometime during the disorder, Philip Jaross' Tailor's shop at 531 Lenox Avenue, between West 136th and West 137th Street, was looted. Jaross was recorded as the complainant in the prosecution of Earl Davis, a twenty-six-year-old Black man, for Petit Larceny in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court. There was no mention of this event in any other sources. It was the northernmost reported incident of looting of the disorder, one of a small number of events north of West 135th Street. A charge of petit larceny suggested that Davis was not alleged to have broken the store window or otherwise gained entry to the building, only to have stolen merchandise of low value. The business was likely attacked after midnight when looting became more widespread. Police would not have arrested Davis until some time after that as they were occupied with groups in the blocks around West 132nd Street and further south around midnight.

When Davis appeared in court on March 20, Magistrate Ford held him for the Court of Special Sessions. There was no record of the outcome of that prosecution.

The investigator for the MCCH Business survey noted that Jaross' Merchant Tailors was a "Store operated by two Jewish men. Carry a cheap line of tailor made clothes. Been here 3 1/2 years." Its presence in the survey indicated that it continued to operate after the disorder and it was still doing so when the Tax Department photographed the building between 1939 and 1941.

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