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

Ralph Sirico's shoe repair shop window broken

Between 11:30 PM and midnight, Mr C. T. Berkeley, the superintendent of the apartments above 1985 7th Avenue, reported two men smashed the window of the shoe repair shop in the building. The business was operated by Ralph Sirico, a forty-one-year-old Italian immigrant, according to a Probation Department investigation report. Around that time, 11:30 PM to 12:30 AM, there were reported incidents of violence the length of 7th Avenue below 125th Street, with Alice Gordon allegedly assaulted and Mario Pravia's candy store looted south of Sirico's store, and Sarah Refkin's delicatessan looted, stones thrown at Fred Campbell's car and other vehicles, and James Pringle arrested for allegedly urging crowds to attack police in the blocks to the north. Berkeley likely prevented more damage to the shoe repair store given that he got close enough that he thought he could identify the men if he saw them again. No one arrested during the disorder was charged with breaking windows in Sirico's store; however, soon after police did arrest one man for looting the store. Around midnight, the sound of breaking glass drew the attention of Detective Jeremiah Duross of the 6th Division to a group of people in front of the store as he drove a police car on 7th Avenue. As he pulled over, Duross claimed he saw Charles Saunders, a twenty-four-year-old Black unemployed elevator operator, jump out of the store window and run down the street. Duross gave chase and arrested Saunders. The detective allegedly found several pairs of shoes in the Saunders' possession.



The only mention of the store windows being broken was in the report of the Probation Department investigation of Charles Saunders. That report also recorded that Sirico had insurance that paid the $38 cost of replacing his store windows. The shoe repair store was included in the MCCH business survey in the second half of 1935, and Sirico was still operating the business 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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