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

Probation Department Case File, 26557 (1935) (New York City Municipal Archives)

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Looting of food and drink (24) Business stocking food and drink make up the largest group of those who had goods stolen (24 of 55). There are also photographs of a meat market, a grocery store and a liquor store that have been looted whose location is unknown, which be additional looted locations or images of already identified looting. Some of the looting of businesses categorized as selling miscellaneous consumer goods may also have involved taking food and drink. Both stationary stores and drug stores sometimes sold meals and drinks. So too apparently did 5 & 10c stores; among the items Arnold Ford allegedly took from Lash’s store was three packets of tea (but that business is not included as one looted for food and drink, but as one looted for miscellaneous goods, as those items made up the bulk of what was taken). The number of these types of business looted reflected in part that they comprised a large proportion of the stores in Black Harlem, with grocery stores the most frequently found business, and restaurants nearly as numerous. Food and drink being taken also fitted the portrayal of the disorder as motivated by economic grievances.

Newspaper accounts of the merchandise taken from businesses featured food and drink featured alongside clothing. "The large grocery stores were looted," the Afro-American's correspondent reported, "and persons denied relief and discriminated against by the relief bureau authorities seized food fro their starving families." The Daily Worker offered a similar picture: “When the shop windows were broken and wares of all sorts displayed, the starving and penniless Negroes in the crowd seized the opportunity to carry off food, clothes, articles of all sorts.” In his "Hectic Harlem" column in the New York Amsterdam News, Roi Ottley highlighted food in his description of looting, writing “As Negroes snatched choice hams from butchers stores…lifted suits from tailor shops…and carried out bags of rice and other edables…the feeling, “here’s our chance to have some of the things we should have,” was often evidenced.” So too did J. A. Rogers in his "Ruminations" column, also in the New York Amsterdam News, writing "From the ravenous manner in which I saw some of the rioters eating the looted food, it was clear that they hadn't had a decent meal in months." The New York Post, like Ottley, imputed motives while identifying food as a target, describing looting as “the glamorous opportunity of snatching food and coats and liquor and tobacco from behind the broken panes.” Food also featured in Louise Thompson’s memoir of what she saw during the disorder, as “People on the street were tossing up to [people...on the second floor of apartment buildings] groceries – flour – anything they could toss up.” She offered more detail writing in New Masses: "Many grocery stores windows were smashed; hungry Negroes scooped armloads of canned goods, loaves of bread, sacks of flour, vegetables, running to their homes with the food.

Adam Clayton Powell described what he saw in the form of vignettes rather than a general picture of looting, in the first of three articles published by the New York Post; two of the three scenes involved food: “Witness a man, tall, strong and well built, carrying through the murkiness of the Harlem morning two pieces of the twelve-cents-a-pound salt pork that he had taken from a butcher's broken window. Witness two young lads one of them just finished high schools-furtively sneaking home as the noise of March 19 subsided, lugging two sacks of rice and sugar.” The Daily Worker also published a story by an “Eye Witness” that recounted police violence against a “young Negro boy” arrested with two cans of vegetables in his possession.

Food also featured in stories about the police line-up the morning after the disorder. The New York Herald Tribune and New York Sun noted in general terms that many of those paraded before police and reporters admitted to stealing groceries. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle singled out one Black woman who “still had in her possession five milk bottles.” In addition, two men arrested for looting who appear in a New York Evening Journal photograph are carrying shopping bags labeled as coming from Rex Food Market at 348 Lenox Avenue.

Legal records offer a similar mix of broad and individual pictures of the merchandise taken. Nine business-owners selling food and drink are among those identified who sued the city for damages, with losses of $14,000 for George Chronis’ restaurant,$2068 for Irving Stetkin's grocery store, $759.58 for Radio City Meat Market, $745 for Frank Dethomas' candy store, $721 for Manny Zipp's grocery store, $630 for William Feinstein's liquor store, $537 for Alfonso Avitable's Savoy Food Market, $453.90 for Alfonso Principe's saloon, and $146.75 for Michael D’Agostino’s market. Those losses, other than for Chronis, are lower than those claimed by the owners of stores selling clothing and miscellaneous other merchandise. (The nature of eleven of twenty-seven businesses identified in suits against city are unknown, so could include additional stores selling food and drink). Details of the losses of an additional eight businesses are identified in legal proceedings. The value of the merchandise in those cases is less than the losses of those who sued the city: $200 for Mario Pravia's candy store; $200 for J. P. Bulluroff's grocery store; $167.86 for Sol Weit and Isaac Popiel's grocery store, $100 for Jacob Solomon's grocery store; $50-75 for Sarah Refkin's delicatessen; $10-$12 for the San Antonio Market, and several bottle of liquor from the Mediavilla Liquor store. An indication of what items made up those totals is provided by the details Sol Weit gave to a Probation officer: the $167.86 of goods taken from the store he co-owned consisted of “126 pounds of butter, 90 dozen eggs, eight cartons of cigarettes, a ham and other food products, as well as $14 from the cash register.”

The individuals arrested for looting food and drink allegedly only had a small proportion of that merchandise in their possession, as the vignettes offered by Powell and the Daily Worker’s eye witness suggest. The man charged with looting Weit’s store, Arthur Merritt, allegedly had only "two cans of beans, a can of milk and a can of tuna.” There are only records of what police claimed five of the other ten men arrested for looting businesses selling food and drink had in their possession. Lawrence Humphrey had a 50lb bag of rice, Amie Taylor eighteen packets of gum, Louis Cobb two bottles of whiskey, Theodore Hughes two pieces of pork, and Hezekiel Wright four lamps and two jars of food.
Looting (66)
Arthur Merritt arrested About 1.30 AM, Officer George Nelson of the 15th Precinct was “on duty” near Sol Weit and Isaac Popiel's grocery store at 343 Lenox Avenue when he saw a group of about five people gathered around the store, he later told a Probation officer. As he watched, Arthur Merritt, a forty-two-year-old Black painter, allegedly broke the store window with a hammer. The group then climbed through the windows and took 126 pounds of butter, 90 dozen eggs, eight cartons of cigarettes, a ham and other food products, as well as $14 from the cash register. By the time Nelson got to the store, the group had run back out, according to the Magistrate's Court affidavit; he told a Probation officer he arrested Merritt “a short distance away.” He found two cans of beans, a can of mile and a can of tuna in Merritt's possession, as well as a hammer. Those details of what was allegedly found on Merritt are not included in the affidavit, although that evidence is crucial to the charge made against him. Notes on the affidavit do record the total stock lost, with calculations that seem to be an effort to establish the value of that stock.

Merritt denied looting the store or participating in the disorder, telling a Probation officer he was on his way home after visiting his sister, Pauline. She lived at 108 West 130th Street; he lived at 134 West 121st Street. Both address were between 7th and Lenox Avenues, so his route home could have taken him down Lenox Avenue. He would been walking through the blocks north of 125th street that saw the most extensive reported looting of the disorder, much of which occurred around the time Nelson arrested him. As Merritt was the only one of the group Officer Nelson claimed he saw that was arrested, it is likely he was on his own or with another officer. That Nelson saw the attack on the store without being able to prevent it suggests he was some distance away, most likely on one of the corners of Lenox Avenue and West 127th Street, allowing some possibility that he misidentified Merritt among the crowds milling about.

Arthur Merritt appeared in the Harlem Magistrate’s Court on March 20. He appears in the list of those arrested in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the list in the New York Evening Journal. His criminal record showed an arrest for grand larceny in 1920, which resulted in a suspended sentence, so he was held without bail. Returned to the court on March 22, he was held for the grand jury, an appearance reported in the Home News, Daily Worker, New York Daily News, and New York Evening Journal. After being indicted on April 9, he agreed to plead guilty to Petit Larceny on April 12. Ten days later, Judge James Garrett Wallace sentenced him to three months in the workhouse, an outcome recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter as well as the Probation Department case file.

Born in New Jersey, Merritt had lived in Harlem for fifteen years, likely arriving after his discharge from the US Army in 1919. His Probation Department case file provides fragmentary information on his life. He had married twenty-one-year-old Blanche Morris two months before arriving in the city, in Newport News, Virginia, where he was stationed. Blanche had a six-year-old son, Charles. At the beginning of 1920, Merritt started work as a porter for Weingarten Bros., at 151 West 30th Street, living at 434 Lenox Avenue. After nine months he lost that job after being caught stealing dresses from his employers; twenty-four dresses worth $700 were found in a trunk in his apartment, but he allegedly stole clothing worth $2000. No other details of the circumstances are recorded by the Probation officer, but Merritt and his wife pled guilty to Petit Larceny and received a suspended sentence, a lenient punishment for a theft of that scale. The Probation Investigation records May 1922 as the date of arrest, but based on the criminal record that appears to be the date the couple were discharged from Probation. There is no mention that they had jobs during those years, but their first daughter was born in 1922.

Around 1923, Merritt began working as a painter, and as a janitor at 1027 Avenue St John in the Bronx until 1926, living in the building, according to the Probation Department case file. However, the family appears in the 1925 New York State census living at 906 Intervale Avenue, in a large household that now included three children, and also Arthur's sister and brother-in-law, and two of Blanche's brothers, aged nineteen and twenty years. After the janitorial job ended, Merritt, his wife and children relocated first to 200 West 128th Street, and then to 109 West 144th Street, where a census enumerator found them in 1930.

Later in 1930, Arthur and Blanche separated, a result of his heavy drinking, according to the Probation Department investigation. For three years, the three children lived with Merritt, in apartments at 2170 7th Avenue for two years and then 34 West 132nd Street. He worked sporadically as a painter for a contractor based at 160 East 116th Street. However, in 1932 he was discharged as they had insufficient work for him. Several months later Merritt found work for a real estate agent, but it was seasonal. By the beginning of 1934 he was evicted from his apartment after falling two months behind in the rent, and became unable to support his children. Found to be neglected children, they were put in their mother's care, after which Merritt appears to have had limited contact with them and did not contribute to their support. He moved to a furnished room at 112 West 113th Street, leaving after a year for the room at 134 West 121st where he lived at the time of the disorder. Merritt remained in Harlem, and estranged from his family, after the disorder. When he registered for the draft, he gave his sister's address as his home, and an employer in the Bronx.
Sol Weit and Isaac Popiel's grocery store looted At about 10:00 PM, Sol Weit closed the grocery store at 343 Lenox Avenue that he co-owned with Isaac Popiel, according to a Probation Department investigation. About 1.30 AM, Officer George Nelson of the 15th Precinct was “on duty” nearby when he saw a group of about five people gathered around the store. Then Arthur Merritt, a forty-two-year-old Black painter, allegedly broke the store window with a hammer. The group climbed through the windows and stole 126 pounds of butter, 90 dozen eggs, eight cartons of cigarettes, a ham and other food products, as well as $14 from the cash register. By the time Nelson got to the store, the group had run back out, according to the Magistrate's Court affidavit; he told a Probation officer he arrested Merritt “a short distance away.” He found two cans of beans, a can of milk and a can of tuna in Merritt's possession, as well as a hammer. (The details of what was allegedly found on Merritt are not included in the affidavit; the Probation officer included them in the report of his investigation). Merritt denied looting the store or participating in the disorder, telling a Probation officer he was on his way home after visiting his sister, Pauline. She lived at 108 West 130th Street; he lived at 134 West 121st Street. Both address were between 7th and Lenox Avenues, so his route home could have taken him down Lenox Avenue.

Weit and Popiel’s store was in the area of Lenox Avenue north of 125th street that saw the most extensive reported looting of the disorder, most of which occurred around the time the store was looted. That was late enough in the disorder, and at least an hour and a half after widespread looting began, that police were on the street, but not in sufficient numbers to protect stores or make arrests on a significant scale. As Merritt was the only one of the group Officer Nelson saw that was arrested, it is likely Nelson was on his own or with another officer. Weit lived in Harlem, on 5th Avenue between 118th and 119th streets, ten blocks south and east of store, according to the Magistrate's Court affidavit, but apparently did not return to the store during the disorder.

Appearing in the Magistrate’s Court, Weit put the value of the stolen stock at $100. When he appeared before the grand jury three weeks later, he offered the more precise total of $126.02, according to the Probation Department investigation. Questioned by a Probation officer a week or so after that testimony he revised the total again, to $167.86. Unusually, neither the Magistrate’s Court affidavit nor the Probation Department investigation placed a value on the goods found on Merritt, but they were clearly a small fraction of that loss. Insurance paid $48.69 to replace three broken windows, according to the Probation Department investigation. Weit and Popiel are not among the storeowners identified as suing the city for failing to protect their business, so there is no indication if they received any award of damages. Nonetheless, the store remained in business. The MCCH business survey found a white-owned grocery store at the address in the second half of 1935, and the store is visible in the Tax Department photograph taken in 1939-1941. In 1942, Isaac Popiel identified himself as still the owner of the store in his draft registration, by which time he was living at 1047 Faile Street in the Bronx. Sometime soon after the disorder Weit also made the Bronx his home. A census enumerator found him at 1976 Vyse Avenue, which he said was also his address on April 1, 1935.

Arthur Merritt appeared in the Harlem Magistrate’s Court on March 20. He appears in the list of those arrested in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the list in the New York Evening Journal. His criminal record showed an arrest for grand larceny in 1920, which resulted in a suspended sentence, so he was held without bail. Returned to the court on March 22, he was held for the grand jury, an appearance reported in the Daily Worker, New York Daily News, and New York Evening Journal. After being indicted on April 9, he agreed to plead guilty to Petit Larceny on April 12. Ten days later, Judge James Garrett Wallace sentenced him to three months in the workhouse, an outcome recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter as well as the Probation Department case file.