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

Radio City Meat Market looted

The Radio City Meat Market at 313 Lenox Avenue was looted during the disorder. There were no details of those events other than the amount of the owner's claim for damages: $759.58. The store was on the block immediately north of the intersection of West 125th Street and Lenox Avenue, an area that was the site of multiple acts of violence and attacks on businesses during the disorder. Crowds would have first broken windows in the store sometime after 10:30 PM, when a group of men robbed Toby’s Men’s shop on the northwest corner of 125th Street and Lenox Avenue and before 11:20 PM, when a patrolman arrived at the shoe store a block to the north to find smashed windows and merchandise missing from the display. Groups continued to sporadically break windows, take merchandise, and occasionally attack whites they encountered on the streets for the next three hours. No one arrested for looting was identified as having taken goods from this market.

The only evidence of the looting was the store's appearance in a list of the first twenty white business owners suing the city for damages based on the failure of police to protect their stores published in the New York Sun and New York Amsterdam News. The meat market was one of three business where the business name was identified rather than the owner's name. The only other information provided was the address and the amount of the claim. By the time the city comptroller heard testimony from those bringing suit, 106 owners had sought damages. The meat market was not mentioned in newspaper stories about that proceeding, nor was it the subject of any of the trials to resolve claims.

The claim for $759.58 in losses was close to the median claim of $733, in line with claims of significant damage made by other business owners in the immediate area: $14,000 at George Chronis' restaurant at 319 Lenox Avenue; and $14,125 at Harry Piskin's laundry at 100 West 125th Street. The city lost the court cases, so the store owner likely was awarded some amount of damages, but based on those cases, it was only a small proportion. Whatever the award, the store appeared to have been able to remain in business. The MCCH business survey included the Radio City Meat Market at 313 Lenox Avenue in the second half of 1935. The business also appeared in the Tax Department photograph from 1939–1941.

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