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Ralph Sirico's shoe repair shop looted
Saunders offered a different account than Duross, according to the Probation Department investigation report. He lived nearby, in a furnished room at 1967 7th Avenue a block south of the store, with Anna Gregory. Around midnight, Saunders left home to buy cigarettes. Walking toward a crowd in front of Sirico's store, he saw shoes and hats being thrown through the broken window on to the street, where people in the crowd were picking them up. While there are few accounts of goods being thrown into the street, there are descriptions of merchandise spread over sidewalks and streets, suggesting that some of those who attacked goods destroyed or distributed goods in this manner rather than taking them themselves. Saunders claimed he followed the lead of those around him, and picked up a pair of shoes, cutting his hand on glass on the street in the process, and headed home. At that point Duross arrested him. Saunders denied having been drinking; the detective said Saunders did not have a pair of shoes in his hands when arrested. Berkeley supported Saunders' account to the extent that he said he was not "one of the two men who went through the broken window" of the store. The building superintendent said he could identify those men.
None of stolen goods were recovered, according to the Probation Department investigation report. Nonetheless, Saunders appears to have been charged with taking all the goods that Sirico said had been stolen: "18 or 20 hats which had been cleaned and blocked by him; about 25 pair of shoes which he had repaired; 5 or 6 pairs of unfinished shoes; one dozen leather soles; two and a half dozen rubber heels and a quantity of polish and shoe laces," with a total value he estimated as $66.75. While the District Attorney's case file is missing, the Probation Department investigation report summarizes the indictment against Saunders as accusing him of taking merchandise worth $66.75. The two newspaper reports of the case are less specific, with both the Home News and Daily Worker reporting the charge as stealing "several pairs of shoes." On April 1, Saunders pled guilty to petit larceny. In other cases after the disorder in which defendants did not have goods in their possession when arrested, a district attorney generally offered a plea bargain for a different charge, unlawful entry. On April 30, Judge Nott gave him a suspended sentence and placed him on "indefinite" probation on the condition he go to Savannah to live with his sister.
Sirico had insurance that paid the cost of replacing his store windows. The business was included in the MCCH Business survey in the second half of 1935. Sirico was still operating the store when he registered for the draft in April 1942, giving his first name as Raffaele. He had arrived in New York City in 1919. Sirico appeared likely to have been in business in Harlem by the time of the 1930 census, when the census enumerator recorded that he worked in a shop. At that time he lived at 293 East 155th Street in the Bronx, with his wife and four children aged between eight years and fifteen months.
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This page references:
- Probation Department Case File, 26458 (1935) (New York City Municipal Archives).
- New York Penal Law, § 1298-1299: Petit larceny
- Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration, 1942, New York, Records of the Selective Service System, Record Group Number 147, National Archives and Records Administration. (Ancestry.com).
- "'Red Scare' Aims To Hide Negro Misery," Daily Worker, March 23, 1935, 1, 2.
- US Census, 1930, Enumeration District 3-61, Sheet 5B, Bronx, New York, New York (Ancestry.com).
- New York Penal Law, § 405: Unlawfully entering building
- "Harlem: Survey - Census Tract #220 (25)," 1935, Roll 80, Subject Files, Office of the Mayor, Fiorello H. La Guardia records (New York City Municipal Archives).