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

Sav-On Drug Store looted

The Sav-on Drug Store at 327 Lenox Avenue was looted during the disorder. There are no details of those events other than the amount of the owner's claim for losses: $572. The intersection of West 125th Street and Lenox Avenue, and the blocks of the avenue to the north were the site of multiple acts of violence and attacks on businesses during the disorder, but there is no clear evidence of when crowds would have first arrived at the drug store other than the report that looting of a store one block south, at the intersection of West 125th Street and Lenox Avenue, started around 10.30 PM

The only evidence of the looting is the store's appearance in a list of the first twenty white business-owners suing the city for damages based on the failure of police to protect their stores published in the New York Sun. The drug store was one of three business where the business name was included rather than the owner's name. The only other information provided was the address and the amount of the claim. By the time the city Comptroller heard testimony from those bringing suit, 106 owners had sought damages. The drug store is not among those whose owner's testimony appeared in newspaper stories about that proceeding, nor is it the subject of any of the trials to test the claims. No one among those arrested for looting was identified as taking goods from this business.

The claim for $572 in losses is one of the smaller claims detailed in the newspaper stories, less than the median claim of $733. The city lost the test cases, so the store owner likely was awarded some amount of damages, but based on those case it was likely only a small proportion. Whatever the award, the store appears to have been able to remain in business. The MCCH business survey includes a white-owned Sav-on drug store at 327 Lenox Avenue in the second half of 1935. The business also appears in the Tax Department photograph from 1939-1941.

 

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