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

Thomas Babbitt arrested

Some time during the disorder, Detective Balkin of the 5th Division arrested Thomas Babbitt, a forty-two-year-old Black man, for allegedly taking two cases of soap from the window of the Thomas Cut Rate Drug store at 2374 8th Avenue, on the northeast corner of West 127th Street. Babbitt is not alleged to have smashed the window. A Home News report of his appearance in the Magistrates Court described Babbitt as having "stolen two cases of soap from a drug store window;" the 28th Precinct Police Blotter focused on the means he allegedly used, that he "Put hand though Window. Stole merchandise." Balkin also appears in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book as the officer who arrested James Hayes for allegedly looting the Danbury Hat store two blocks to the south, near 125th Street, some time during the disorder. Babbitt lived at 321 West 136th Street, a block west of 8th Avenue, so may have been drawn to the noise and crowds on the avenue in the early evening of March 19. All six of the men and women arrested by police on 8th Avenue lived either west of the avenue or in the block between 8th and 7th Avenues.

Babbitt is among those listed as being charged with burglary in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. He appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, charged with petit larceny not burglary. That change was likely made because of a lack of evidence he had broken into the store and entered it to steal merchandise, and because the allegedly stolen merchandise had a value of less than $100, the requirement for a felony grand larceny charge. Magistrate Renaud transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions holding him on bail of $500. His trial and conviction occurred sooner than was the case with most of those arrested in the disorder sent to that court. On March 22 Babbitt was sentenced to ten days in the Workhouse, an outcome recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter.

The man arrested during the disorder may be the Thomas Babbitt who a census enumerator found at 108 West 133rd Street on April 8, 1940. That man was the same age, and had been in Harlem in 1935. Born in Massachusetts, he was working on a farm in Williamsburg, South Carolina in 1917 when he registered for the draft. After serving in France in World War One, he was transported back to Hoboken, New Jersey in 1919, after which he appears to have made his home in New York City. In 1940 he listed his occupation as junk dealer.

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