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

Romanoff Drug store looted

Sometime during the disorder the Romanoff Drug Store at 375 Lenox Avenue, on the northwest corner of West 129th Street, was looted. J. Romanoff is recorded as the complainant when Oscar Austin, a twenty-nine-year-old black man, and Jacob Bonaparte, a twenty-four-year-old Black man, were arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court. The docket book entry is the only source that mentions the drug store.  It was located on a block that saw multiple stores reported looted; in only one case is their information on the timing of the attack, just before midnight. Bonparte lived nearby, in the block of West 128th Street between Lenox and 7th Avenues. Austin lived on the same street, just west of 7th Avenue.

The same officer from the 28th Precinct arrested both men, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book; the clerk's handwriting is too messy to decipher his name. Austin and Bonapart are among those listed as being arrested for burglary, the charge used in cases of alleged looting, in the lists published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and in the New York Evening Journal. However, the 28th Precinct Police blotter records the charge as Attempted Burglary, suggesting that they were not arrested with any merchandise in their possession. In the Magistrate's Court both men were charged with Disorderly Conduct, an offense not used in cases of alleged looting, suggesting the men may have broken the store windows but not attempted to take any merchandise. When the men appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, Magistrate Renaud acquitted them. This outcome might explain why neither man appears in any of the stories about those arraigned in the Magistrates Court after the disorder. While the acquittals indicate that there was no compelling evidence linking Austin or Bonaparte to damage done to the store, the initial charges do suggest that the store was looted.

Whatever damage the Romanoff Drug Store suffered did not prevent it continuing to operate. It appears in the MCCH Business survey in the second half of 1935, and is visible in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941.

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