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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 southwerst corner of West 129th Street, was looted. J. Romanoff of 375 Lenox Avenue was recorded as the complainant when Oscar Austin, a twenty-nine-year-old Black man, Jacob Bonaparte, a twenty-four-year-old Black man, and Sam Nicholas, a twenty-four-year-old Black man, were arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court. The docket book entry was the only source that mentioned the drug store. The business was located on a block that saw multiple stores attacked Irving Stekin's grocery store at 371 Lenox Avenue and another business he owned  at 363 Lenox Avenue, Michael D'Agostino's business at 361 Lenox Avenue were all looted, as were stores at 372 and 374 Lenox Avenue across the street. The South Harlem Rotisserie at 365 Lenox Avenue and the laundry at 367 Lenox Avenue only had windows broken. Attacks on those stores likely began around 11:30 PM, with the three men arrested some time later.



The same officer from the 28th Precinct arrested all three men, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book; the clerk's handwriting is too messy to decipher his name. After being arrested for burglary, all three men were charged with disorderly conduct, an offense not used in cases of alleged looting or breaking windows. The changed charge suggested that they had been in crowds the vicinity of the store but police had no evidence that they participated in looting or attacking the store. The three men lived close enough to the store to have been among the groups of spectators watching events. Jacob Bonaparte lived in the block of West 128th Street between Lenox and 7th Avenues. Oscar Austin lived on the same street, just west of 7th Avenue, and Sam Nicholas lived four blocks south, on West 124th Street, also west of 7th Avenue. When the men appeared in the Harlem Magistrate's Court on March 20, Magistrate Renaud acquitted them. While the acquittals indicated that there was no evidence linking the men to any disorder, the initial charges do suggest that the store was looted.

The damage the drug store suffered was apparently enough for the owner to join other Harlem business owners in who sued the city seeking damages. While not identified in reporting of the progress of those actions, "Herbert M. Romanoff, pharmacist" was named as one of the seven claimants awarded damages in the New York Supreme Court on March 4, 1936, in a story published in the New York Herald Tribune. Whatever damage the Romanoff Drug Store suffered did not prevent it continuing to operate. It appeared in the MCCH business survey in the second half of 1935, and was visible in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941.

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