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Shoe store windows broken
Businesses on the other corners had windows broken during the disorder; Regal Shoes on the southeast corner was also reported looted, while Herbert's Blue Diamond Jewelry store and the branch of the Chock Full O'Nuts restaurant chain on the southwest corner only had windows broken. Police trying to clear people from West 125th Street around Kress' store to the west had pushed the crowd toward this intersection, creating large crowds, some of who broke away and threw objects at the windows of stores on 7th Avenue. After 9.00 PM, emergency trucks were stationed at the intersection, as part of the perimeter Inspector McAuliffe ordered police to establish around the main business blocks of the street, from 8th to Lenox Avenues, from 124th to 126th Streets, according to stories in the New York Times, Daily Mirror, New York Herald Tribune and Pittsburgh Courier. The presence of such large numbers of police does appear to have resulted in only isolated looting of stores on the corners even if it came too late to protect store windows.
No other sources mention the shoe store, and no one arrested during the disorder is identified as breaking the business' windows. It does appear as a white-owned business in the MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935, but is not visible in the Tax department photograph.
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This page references:
- "1 Dead, 7 shot, 100 Hurt as Harlem Crowds Riot over Boy, 16, and Hearse," New York Herald Tribune, March 20, 1935, 1.
- "Police Shoot Into Rioters; Kill Negro in Harlem Mob. 3,000 Storm Store After Boy Knife Thief, 16, Is Reported Lynched-Several Shot - Many Felled by Stones," New York Times, March 20, 1935, 1.
- "Numerosos Establecimientos Hispanos Apedreados y Saqueados por la Turba," La Prensa, March 21, 1935, 1.
- "Harlem: Survey - Census Tract #222 (27)," 1935, Roll 80, Subject Files, Office of the Mayor, Fiorello H. La Guardia records (New York City Municipal Archives).
- "False Report Held Cause of Harlem Race Riot," Pittsburgh Courier, March 23, 1935, 1.
- Robert Campbell, "8000 in Harlem Riot. Fight 1,000 Police Over Killing Hoax," Daily Mirror, March 20, 1935 [clipping]