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

Savon Clothes store windows broken

A branch of the Savon Clothes chain at 203 West 125th Street is one of the businesses in a list of those with broken windows made by a reporter for La Prensa who walked along West 116th Street, Lenox Avenue and West 125th Street on the day after the disorder. After walking north on Lenox Avenue from West 116th Street, the reporter turned left on West 125th Street, walking west toward Kress' store where the disorder originated. The clothing store was in the building on the corner of 7th Avenue, on the block of West 125th Street, "two doors west of 7th Ave," according to an advertisement in 1934. All the businesses in that building facing West 125th Street had windows broken; to the east, Young's Hats, Minks Haberdashery and the United Cigar store on the corner; and to the west, General Stationery & Supplies and Willow Cafeteria. Only Young's Hats was reported looted.

Windows were broken in large numbers of businesses on this block of West 125th Street, where police clashed with crowds gathered in front of Kress' store. Two newspapers reported very extensive damage. "Practically every store window on the block had been shattered by 10 PM, according to the Home News; that damage was both less extensive and took longer in the New York Herald Tribune story:  "By midnight one or more windows had been smashed in almost every storefront" on that block between 7th and 8th Avenues (although in another mention of that damage in the story it had been done by 8 PM). The New York Herald Tribune also listed seven specific stores with broken windows, all of which were also identified by the New York American, and six of which were reported in the Daily Mirror. Another business was identified by both the New York American and the Daily Mirror. No reason is given in those stories for why that mix of businesses were singled out. The reporter for La Prensa identified a larger group of nineteen businesses with broken windows between 7th and 8th Avenues, not including four identified by the other newspapers.  It is possible that other stores in this block suffered only minor damage; the La Prensa reporter concluded his list by noting he had not included others as they had only suffered minor damage ("y otras mas que por ser los danos ocasionados relativamente pequeños no creimus de interes catalogar entre los establecimientos ya mencionados").

No other sources mention Savon Clothes, and no one arrested during the disorder is identified as breaking the business' windows. The MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935 records the white-owned business. The details of the business at that address when the Tax department photograph was taken between 1939 and 1941 are not visible.

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