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

"Two More Victims of Harlem Riot Die," New York Daily News, March 23, 1935, 15.

In the Daily News

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Andrew Lyons killed Andrew Lyons, a thirty-seven-year-old Black man, died as a result of injuries "sustained during the thick of a melee at 125th Street and Seventh Avenue," according to a story in the New York Amsterdam News. Stories in two white newspapers reported the circumstances of Lyons' injury in similar, slightly more specific terms as the result of having been "beaten over the head with a blunt instrument," according to the Times Union. The New York Herald Tribune added that "rioters" had delivered the beating. However, the white newspapers located the assault a block to the east, at 125th Street and Lenox Avenue. None of the stories provided information on when Lyons was injured. Both the white newspapers incorrectly gave Lyons' home address as 210 Lenox Avenue. Only the New York Amsterdam News published the correct address, 147 West 117th Street.

There was no indication of the source of the information reported in the New York Amsterdam News, New York Herald Tribune, and Times Union. No evidence of the circumstances in which Lyons was injured was produced for the MCCH. One of Communist Party-affiliated lawyers who questioned Captain Rothengast during a MCCH hearing did claim that "Andrew Lyons died of injuries inflicted by clubs of the police." Rothengast replied, "I'd have to consult records to be exact." The MCCH had its investigators gather information on those killed during the disorder. In Lyons' case, the only material in their files were the death and autopsy records.

The medical records showed that Lyons did not receive medical attention until the evening after the disorder. An ambulance was called to his home, 147 West 117th Street, at 5:10 PM on March 20, by a friend, George Harris, according to the death record issued by Harlem Hospital. When Lyons arrived at the hospital, he was was described as "stuporous," too groggy to tell doctors what had happened to him. The doctor who completed the death record, Emanuel Hauer, wrote that Lyons was "said to have been hit on the head during riot on 3-19-35." He told a MCCH hearing that it was Harris who told him that Lyons "came home [on the night of March 19] stuporous" and had gone to bed. Harris also said he did not know what had happened to Lyons. The ambulance man's report, which Hauer read to the MCCH hearing, simply recorded that Lyons had been "Struck over the head" not that he had been hit during the disorder. Nor did the autopsy report completed on March 24. It recorded that Lyons had been "injured in some unknown manner." Lyons died three days after being admitted to hospital, on March 23rd; the recorded cause of death was a "fractured skull, laceration of the brain, terminal pneumonia." His brother James, a resident of Stem, North Carolina, identified his body on March 25, according to the autopsy. Although the autopsy also noted "Detectives investigating" the death, there were no avenues for investigation in the records. Likely as a result, Lyons' death appeared to have remained unexplained.

Given that their was no evidence of clashes between "rioters" and Black men on the streets during the disorder, the ILD lawyer who questioned Rothengast was likely correct that Lyons' injuries came from a police baton. The intersection of 125th Street and 7th Avenue saw the most sustained clashes between police and crowds on the street, so the beating probably occurred where it was reported by the New York Amsterdam News. Clashes between police and people on the street occurred there from 8:00 PM until around 10:30 PM. The Black newspaper also correctly reported Lyons' address, which the white newspapers that reported the alternative location did not.

Lyons' delayed admission to hospital explained why he was not in any lists of the injured published in newspapers on March 20 and March 21. The first mentions of Lyons in the press were reports of his death in the New York Post and Daily News on March 23, in the New York Herald Tribune, Times Union, New York Times, and an AP story on March 24, and in the Atlanta World on March 27. Lyons also appeared in lists of those killed published in the weekly Black newspapers, the New York Age, Pittsburgh Courier, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, as well as the New York Amsterdam News, on March 30.
In Harlem court on March 22 (18) Only the stories in the New York Times and Daily News described the scene at the courtroom on March 22. Police searched several who entered courtroom for weapons, according to the former story, and turned away those who “bore indications of connection with the Young Liberators, the Communist organization which fomented the disorder” according to Daily News. Neither of those stories indicated that police had to control a crowd like that which had gathered two days earlier. However, the Daily Mirror reported that "several hundred Colored persons" "thronged" outside the court. That story was discounted given that reporters from other publications had noted the presence of crowds earlier in the week, so it was likely that they would have again on this day if they had been present.

The Daily Mirror story did provide a context for the day's proceedings, that "Magistrate Renaud began yesterday the work of cleaning his calendar of the remainder of 85 cases growing out of the Harlem riots." Only the New York Times explicitly offered a similar framing, that Renaud had "disposed of the cases of Negroes accused in the rioting and looting Tuesday night and Wednesday morning." The number of cases in the Daily Mirror story does not fit the legal records. No newspaper story identified all those who appeared in the court. The Home News, as it did on other dates, mentioned the largest number, ten of the seventeen. Its story described the charges against three of those convicted, Elizabeth Tai, Arthur Davis, and Herbert Hunter and reported testimony by the storeowner whose business Daughty Shavos and Clifford Mitchell had allegedly looted. Tai, Davis, and Hunter's convictions were the hearings reported most widely and in the most detail, also mentioned in the New York Evening Journal, Daily News, and Daily Worker. Mitchell and Shavos, appearing in the Magistrates Court for the first time and sent to the grand jury, were also mentioned in the New York Evening Journal, Daily News, and Daily Mirror.

The three men discharged and rearrested as they had been indicted by Dodge's grand jury, James Hughes, Charles Saunders, and Isaac Daniels, are identified in the Home News and are the only individuals whose appearance was reported by the New York Post. Only Hughes and Saunders are mentioned by the Daily Worker, which describes them simply as held for the grand jury, omitting any reference to their discharge. Of the five additional men Renaud sent to the grand jury, Amie Taylor and Arthur Merritt are mentioned in the Home News, New York Evening Journal Daily News, and Daily Worker. No newspaper mentioned the appearances of the other three men sent to the grand jury, James Williams, John Henry, and Oscar Leacock (although the Home News had reported that morning that Henry and Leacock would appear, they were not in its story on the hearings published the next day, March 23).

Nor did any publication mention the four men sent to the Court of Special Sessions, William Jones, Henry Goodwin, Frederick Harwell, and Jackie Ford. Ford, the third man to appear in court for the first time on March 22, with Shavos and Mitchell, was not mentioned in any of the stories on the day's hearings, although his arrest that day was reported by the New York Post, New York World-Telegram, and La Prensa. Paul Boyett, remanded a second time, also did not appear in stories about the day's hearings.

According to stories in the Daily Mirror and the Home News, police also brought Daniel Miller and the three Young Liberators to Harlem court on March 22. They did not appear before the magistrate, according to the Home News, because just before the hearing began, police found out that they had been indicted by Dodge's grand jury. The Daily Mirror reported only the consequence of that news, that they waited for a bench warrant to be served that would allow them to be discharged and rearrested as Hughes, Saunders, and Daniels had been. By the next day, March 23, several newspapers reported that process would occur at a later hearing, on March 25.

The uneven coverage of these hearings is a further example of the incomplete and unreliable nature of newspaper stories about legal proceedings. That the mix of cases the stories reported included convictions and referrals of those charged with felonies but not any of those sent to the Court of Special Sessions suggests newspapers focused only on the more serious allegations. That focus is also evident in how the Home News emphasized the charges against Tai, Davis, and Hunter, notwithstanding that the outcome of the prosecution and short sentence indicated that they had been involved in less serious acts. The story reported their arrest for "stealing groceries" and that they had been found guilty of disorderly conduct and sentenced to five and ten days in the Workhouse, before noting that the original charge of burglary had been reduced by the court without addressing the implications of that change.
Elizabeth Tai arrested Sometime during the disorder, Detective Phillips of the 28th Precinct arrested Elizabeth Tai, a twenty-eight-year-old Black resident of 1654 3rd Avenue, for allegedly stealing groceries from a store at 340 Lenox Avenue. She may have reached into an already broken window, as a story in the Home News specified that Tai's alleged offense occurred "after the windows had been smashed." The store's address was mentioned only in that story. Both the story in the Home News and one in the Daily Worker reported that Tai had allegedly taken groceries. At the same time, Detective Phillips also arrested Arthur Davis, a thirty-six-year-old Black man, for allegedly taking groceries from the store. The arrests likely occurred around 12:30 AM.

Tai appeared in the list of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the list published in the New York Evening Journal. The 28th Precinct police blotter also recorded the charge against Tai as burglary, with the note "Burglarised store during riot." Her home was some way from Harlem, on the east side of Central Park between 92nd and 93rd Streets.

Tai was arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 with Arthur Davis and another individual arrested by Detective Phillips, Herbert Hunter, also charged with burglary and arrested with them, according to the Home News. However, that story did not directly state that Hunter was charged with looting the same store. Magistrate Renaud remanded all three to appear again in court (he sent two others arrested by Phillips who appeared at the same time charged with malicious mischief, Charles Wright and William Norris, to the Court of Special Sessions). The docket book recorded only Phillips' name and precinct; the stories in the Home News and Daily Worker identified him as a detective.

When Tai appeared in court again, on March 22, the docket book recorded that the charge had been reduced to disorderly conduct, the original charge crossed out. The "court" reduced the charge, according to the Home News, doing the same in the cases of Davis and Hunter. Had the police presented evidence Tai had stolen merchandise, she would have been charged with either burglary or larceny; had they presented evidence that she had broken windows, the charge would have been malicious mischief. The charge of disorderly conduct suggested that she may only have been part of a crowd near the store. Magistrate Renaud found Tai guilty, an outcome reported in the stories in the Daily Worker, Daily News, and New York Evening Journal as well as the Home News. He also found Davis and Hunter guilty. Tai was one of only three women charged with looting in the disorder.

Renaud sentenced Tai to pay a fine of $25 or serve five days in the Workhouse, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, as he did Davis. The magistrate gave Hunter a longer sentence of ten days without the alternative of a fine. Tai was unable to pay the fine, according to the Home News, so was sent to the Workhouse, a sentence also recorded in the 28th Precinct police blotter and stories in the Daily News, New York Evening Journal, and Daily Worker.

Tai was the name recorded in the docket book, and in the lists published in Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the New York Evening Journal. It was recorded differently in other sources less reliable than the legal record: as Tae in the Home News and 28th Precinct police blotter, as Pae in the Daily News and New York Evening Journal, and as Cay in the Daily Worker. If it was recorded correctly by the court clerk, Tai was a common last name among Chinese living overseas, suggesting that Elizabeth was married to a Chinese man. Given it was an unusual last name for a resident of Harlem, the arrested woman may be the Elizabeth Tai who died in Harlem Hospital on April 20, 1945. She had been born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1905, and was a widow at the time of her death, with her husband's name transcribed as "Hawley Tai." That Elizabeth Tai had been a domestic worker, who lived at 124 West 135th Street at the time of her death.
In court on March 22 While Dodge had promised more dramatic action from the grand jury on its second day of hearings on the disorder, the number of indictments it voted failed to even match the results of the first session. After eight witnesses testified, the grand jury indicted just four individuals, all for burglary. Moreover, the seriousness of what Dodge had presented the previous day was undercut when he announced that the five men indicted for riot, including the four alleged Communists, would no longer be tried in the Court of General Sessions, but instead for lesser, misdemeanor offenses in the Court of Special Sessions. Dodge did return to the grand jury room in the afternoon with a typewriter and a mimeograph machine seized from the offices of organizations affiliated with the Communist Party, the ILD and Nurses and Hospital League, and two unnamed witnesses. He apparently claimed the equipment had been used to produce the leaflet circulated in the early hours of the disorder. No indictments resulted from that evidence; the grand jury instead adjourned for the weekend.

As the anti-Communist investigation lost momentum, Magistrates Renaud and Ford continued to move those arrested in the disorder through the legal process. Four men, three arrested after the disorder, appeared in court for the first time, one in the Washington Heights court, three in the Harlem court, joined there by fourteen others returning after being investigated. Although additional police were stationed at the Harlem court, around forty officers the Daily News and New York Times reported, those hearings did not draw the crowds who attended on March 20 even as reporters again filled the courtroom. Nonetheless, police searched several of those who entered the courtroom for weapons, and turned away those who “bore indications of connection with the Young Liberators, the Communist organization which fomented the disorder” according to the Daily News.

The outcomes of the hearings were mixed, revealing again both the varied nature of the events of the disorder and how few of those responsible for the violence had been apprehended by police in their indiscriminate response to the disorder. The three men appearing for the first time in the Harlem court had been arrested after the disorder, Daughty Shavos and Clifford Mitchell the previous evening, and Jackie Ford the same day. Police arrested Shavos and Mitchell in their homes on West 119th Street and on Lenox Avenue, respectively, with merchandise allegedly taken from Louis Levy’s store and charged them with burglary. Just how police knew to go to the men’s home was not mentioned. Merchants had called for police to search for stolen merchandise, but these were the only arrests of this kind made after the disorder. In 1943, when the legal response to disorder in Harlem was more narrowly focused on looting than in 1935, one in five of the individuals arrested would be charged with receiving stolen goods. Renaud sent Mitchell and Shavos to the grand jury. Jackie Ford’s arrest came after Julia Cureti identified him as one of those who broke windows in her restaurant, although there is no evidence of where the identification or arrest occurred. Unlike those men, Hashi Mohammed, the only person arrested in the disorder who appeared in the Washington Heights court on March 22, had been arrested on March 20. He had been treated for “internal injuries” so likely had been in Harlem Hospital until this time. Mohammed was one of only four men charged with possession of a weapon but given that he would later be acquitted of that charge, police may have made that allegation to justify the violence that led to his injuries. Police had allegedly found either a knife or a gun after arresting Mohammed for breaking windows. They could not substantiate that second charge, as on March 22 he was instead charged with disorderly conduct. Magistrate Ford found Mohammed guilty, as he had nineteen others arrested during the disorder two days earlier.

Magistrate Renaud also convicted three of those returned to his court, Elizabeth Tai, Arthur Davis, and Herbert Hunter, of disorderly conduct. The three had been arrested by the same police detective for allegedly breaking into a grocery store on Lenox Avenue and taking merchandise. Evidence to substantiate that allegation had clearly not been found as the charge against all three was reduced from burglary to disorderly conduct. That change effectively removed Tai, Davis, and Hunter from those who had acted to target property and returned them to the crowds on the street. Police offered some evidence that the three had not simply been spectators, as Renaud convicted them all, but there is no indication of just what they did that fell within the "offensive, disorderly, threatening, abusive or insulting language, conduct or behavior" the law encompassed. Renaud did not judge it to be very serious, as he sentenced Tai and Hunter to only five days in the Workhouse and Hunter to ten days.

Two other men charged with burglary, Henry Goodwin and Frederick Harwell, also had the charges against them reduced, but to petit larceny, not disorderly conduct. In their case police were able to produce evidence they had taken merchandise, if not broken into a store to do so. However, what they had taken did not have a value of $100 or more so did not warrant a felony charge. Renaud consequently sent Goodwin and Harwell for trial in the Court of Special Sessions, joining Jackie Ford and another man who allegedly broke windows, William Jones. By contrast, police presented sufficient evidence against five other men arrested for looting and charged with burglary, John Henry, Oscar Leacock, James Williams, Arthur Merritt, and Amie Taylor, for Renaud to send their cases sent to the grand jury along with those of Shavos and Mitchell. Nonetheless, police investigations had failed to find enough support to sustain the charges of burglary they had made against half of those who appeared in court on this date.

Paul Boyett was alone among those who appeared in not having his case decided. The need for continued investigation likely resulted from the efforts to find witnesses to confirm Patrolman Conn’s claim that Boyett had been one of those who assaulted Timothy Murphy rather than being among the spectators drawn to the attack on the white man as he claimed. Even with fewer cases, the press reported only some of those appearances, as had happened on March 20, with no mentions of Boyett, those sent to the Court of Special Sessions, and three of those sent to the grand jury.

Dodge’s investigation intersected with the regular legal process both in the Harlem Magistrates Court and in the grand jury. Police served warrants for the arrest of three of the men who returned to the court, James Hughes, Charles Saunders, and Isaac Daniels, as they had already been indicted by the grand jury. In doing so they identified the three as among the unnamed individuals whose indictment Dodge had announced over the previous two days, Hughes and Daniels the two men indicted for assault and Saunders one of the five indicted for burglary. Renaud discharged the men, and police then took them into custody. (Daniel Miller and the three Young Liberators may also have been brought back to the court as the Home News and Daily Mirror both reported the men were present but did not appear as police awaited warrants based on their indictments.) In the grand jury, out of the public eye, cases referred by the magistrates on March 20 began to be heard alongside those based on witnesses gathered by Dodge. The grand jury indicted all six of the men referred by magistrates, voting charges of burglary against Arnold Ford, Joseph Moore, Robert Tanner, Joseph Wade, and Hezekiah Wright.

The first of those arrested during the disorder appeared in the Court of Special Sessions for trial. Both the men, Earl Davis, sent by Magistrate Ford from the Washington Heights court, and Thomas Babbitt, sent by Magistrate Renaud from the Harlem court, faced a charge of petit larceny. While the magistrates in the Court of Special Sessions convicted both men, they sentenced them to only ten days in the Workhouse — the same short term that Renaud gave to those he convicted of disorderly conduct on the same day. For all the willingness of police to shoot at looters, those sentences showed that judges treated small scale looting — two cases of soap in Babbitt’s case, unspecified merchandise from a tailor in Davis’ case — no more punitively than being part of crowds in the streets. Neither proceeding was mentioned in the press.
Arthur Davis arrested Sometime during the disorder, Detective Phillips of the 28th Precinct arrested Arthur Davis, a thirty-six-year-old Black resident of 42 West 126th Street, for allegedly stealing groceries from a grocery store at 340 Lenox Avenue. Davis may not have broken the store windows, as a story in the Home News specified that Davis' alleged offense occurred "after the windows had been smashed." The store's address was mentioned only in that story. Both the Home News and the Daily Worker reported the Davis had allegedly taken groceries. At the same time, Detective Phillips also arrested Elizabeth Tai, a twenty-eight-year-old Black women, for allegedly taking groceries from the store. The arrests likely occurred around 12:30 AM.

Davis appeared in the list of those charged with burglary published in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the list published in the New York Evening Journal. The 28th Precinct police blotter also recorded the charge against Davis as burglary, with the note "Burglarised store during riot."

Davis was arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 with Tai and another individual arrested by Detective Phillips, Herbert Hunter, also charged with burglary, and arrested with them according to the Home News. However, that story did not directly state that Hunter was charged with looting the same store. Magistrate Renaud remanded all three to appear again in court. (He sent two others arrested by Phillips who appeared at the same time charged with malicious mischief, Charles Wright and William Norris, to the Court of Special Sessions). The docket book recorded only Phillips' name and precinct; the stories in the Home News and Daily Worker identified him as a detective. Both the docket book and 28th Precinct police blotter gave Davis' age as thirty-six years; both lists and all the newspaper stories gave his age as thirty-two-years.

When Davis appeared in court again, on March 22, the docket book recorded no change in the charge against him, but a story in the Home News reported that "the Court" had reduced the charge from burglary to disorderly conduct, as it had for both Tai and Hunter. In Tai's case, the docket book did record that the charge had been reduced to disorderly conduct. Had the police presented evidence Davis had stolen merchandise, he would have been charged with either burglary or larceny; had they presented evidence that he had broken windows, the charge would have been malicious mischief. The charge of disorderly conduct suggested he may only have been part of a crowd near the store. Magistrate Renaud found Davis guilty, an outcome reported in the stories in the Daily News and New York Evening Journal as well as the Home News. He also found Tai and Hunter guilty.

Renaud sentenced Davis to pay a fine of $25 or serve five days in the Workhouse, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, the same sentence he gave Tai. He gave Hunter a longer sentence of ten days without the alternative of a fine. Davis was unable to pay the fine, according to the Home News, so was sent to the Workhouse. The sentence also recorded in the 28th Precinct police blotter and stories in the Daily News, New York Evening Journal, and Daily Worker.
Arthur Merritt arrested At about 1:30 AM, Officer George Nelson of the 15th Precinct was “on duty” near Sol Weit and Isaac Popiel's grocery store at 343 Lenox Avenue when he saw a group of about five people gathered around the store, he later told a Probation officer. As he watched, Arthur Merritt, a forty-two-year-old Black painter, allegedly broke the store window with a hammer. The group then climbed through the windows and took groceries — although likely not all 126 pounds of butter, 90 dozen eggs, eight cartons of cigarettes, a ham, and other food products, as well as $14 from the cash register, the owners reported had been taken. By the time Nelson got to the store, the group had run back out, according to the Magistrate's Court affidavit; he told a Probation officer he arrested Merritt “a short distance away.” He found two cans of beans, a can of milk, and a can of tuna in Merritt's possession, as well as a hammer. Those details of what was allegedly found on Merritt are not included in the affidavit, although that evidence is crucial to the charge made against him. Notes on the affidavit did record the total stock lost, with calculations that seem to be an effort to establish the value of that stock.

Merritt denied looting the store or participating in the disorder, telling a Probation officer he was on his way home after visiting his sister, Pauline. She lived at 108 West 130th Street; he lived at 134 West 121st Street. Both address were between 7th and Lenox Avenues, so his route home could have taken him down Lenox Avenue. He would been walking through the blocks north of 125th street that saw the most extensive reported looting of the disorder, much of which occurred around the time Nelson arrested him. As Merritt was the only one of the group Officer Nelson claimed he saw who was arrested, it was likely he was on his own or with another officer. That Nelson saw the attack on the store without being able to prevent it suggests he was some distance away, most likely on one of the corners of Lenox Avenue and West 127th Street, allowing some possibility that he misidentified Merritt among the crowds milling about.

Arthur Merritt appeared in the Harlem Magistrate’s Court on March 20. A lawyer, Albert Halperin, represented him; only seventeen others arrested in the disorder had lawyers appear for them. No information could be found on the lawyer. Merritt was in the list of those arrested in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the list in the New York Evening Journal. His criminal record showed an arrest for grand larceny in 1920, which resulted in a suspended sentence, so Magistrate Renaud ordered him held without bail. Returned to the court on March 22, Merritt was sent to the grand jury, an appearance reported in the Home News, Daily Worker, Daily News, and New York Evening Journal. After the grand jury indicted him on April 9, he agreed to plead guilty to petit larceny on April 12. Ten days later, Judge James Garrett Wallace sentenced him to three months in the workhouse, an outcome recorded in the 28th Precinct police blotter as well as the Probation Department case file.

Born in New Jersey, Merritt had lived in Harlem for fifteen years, likely arriving after his discharge from the US Army in 1919. His Probation Department case file provides fragmentary information on his life. He had married twenty-one-year-old Blanche Morris two months before arriving in the city, in Newport News, Virginia, where he was stationed. Blanche had a six-year-old son, Charles. At the beginning of 1920, Merritt started work as a porter for Weingarten Bros., at 151 West 30th Street, living at 434 Lenox Avenue. After nine months, he lost that job when he was caught stealing dresses from his employers; twenty-four dresses worth $700 were found in a trunk in his apartment, but he allegedly stole clothing worth $2,000. No other details of the alleged theft are recorded by the probation officer, but Merritt and his wife pled guilty to petit larceny and received a suspended sentence, a lenient punishment for a theft of that scale. The probation investigation recorded May 1922 as the date of arrest, but based on the criminal record, that appears to be the date the couple were discharged from probation. There was no mention that they had jobs during those years, but their first daughter was born in 1922.

Around 1923, Merritt began working as a painter and as a janitor at 1027 Avenue St. John in the Bronx until 1926, living in the building, according to the Probation Department case file. However, the family appeared in the 1925 New York State census living at 906 Intervale Avenue, in a large household that now included three children, as well as Arthur's sister and brother-in-law, and two of Blanche's brothers, aged nineteen and twenty years. After the janitorial job ended, Merritt and his wife and children relocated first to 200 West 128th Street, and then to 109 West 144th Street, where a census enumerator found them in 1930.

Later in 1930, Arthur and Blanche separated, a result of his heavy drinking, according to the Probation Department investigation. For three years, the three children lived with Merritt, in apartments at 2170 7th Avenue for two years and then 34 West 132nd Street. He worked sporadically as a painter for a contractor based at 160 East 116th Street. However, in 1932 he was discharged as they had insufficient work for him. Several months later, Merritt found work for a real estate agent, but it was seasonal. By the beginning of 1934 he was evicted from his apartment after falling two months behind in the rent, and became unable to support his children. Found to be neglected children, they were put in their mother's care, after which Merritt appeared to have had limited contact with them and did not contribute to their support. He moved to a furnished room at 112 West 113th Street, leaving after a year for the room at 134 West 121st where he lived at the time of the disorder. Merritt remained in Harlem, and estranged from his family, after the disorder. When he registered for the draft, he gave his sister's address as his home, and an employer in the Bronx.
Clifford Mitchell arrested At 5:40 PM a day after the disorder, March 21, Detective Mark Redmond arrested Clifford Mitchell, a forty-six-year-old Black laborer, in 363 Lenox Avenue. He allegedly found "wearing apparel" worth "about $20" in Mitchell's possession, goods identified by Louis Levy as having been stolen from his dry goods store at 374 Lenox Avenue. There is no mention in the affidavit of why Redmond went to that address, or why Mitchell was there. Mitchell lived across the street, in an apartment in 362 Lenox Avenue, the building next to the one in which Levy's store was located. It would seem more likely that he was arrested at that address, rather than at 363 Lenox Ave, with the clerk mistakenly recording the building number. The other man charged with looting Levy's store, Daughty Shavos, was arrested at his home ten blocks to the south, at 40 West 119th Street around an hour later by another detective. There was also no mention of how police found him.

A note on the Magistrate's Court affidavit recorded the value of the goods found on the men as $50; the typewritten narrative on the form noted that the goods found on Mitchell were worth "around $20," so those found on Shavos would have been worth around $30.

Mitchell and Shavos are two of only nine men identified in the sources as having been arrested away from the stores they allegedly looted, a group making up one third (9 of 27) of the arrests for which that information is known (27 of 60).

Mitchell and Shavos were charged with burglary in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 22, the last individuals arrested during the disorder to be arraigned in that court. The magistrate sent both to the grand jury, which on April 4 dismissed the charges against Mitchell and sent Shavos to the Court of Special Sessions to be charged with a misdemeanor. That outcome indicated that the grand jury had declined to charge Shavos with burglary, a felony, likely because of a lack of evidence he had broken into the store. Given that goods had been found in his possession, the charge against him would have been petit larceny, a misdemeanor, as the goods allegedly found in his possession had a value less than $100. There is no evidence of the outcome of that prosecution. Shavos' criminal record included an arrest as a disorderly person in Jersey City in June 1932, with no recorded disposition, while Mitchell had no record. While his record could conceivably have influenced how Shavos was treated, it would not explain the charges against Mitchell being dismissed. That outcome likely indicated a problem linking the clothing allegedly found with Mitchell either to him or to Levy's store.

The only newspaper coverage of the looting are stories in the Home News, New York Evening Journal, Daily Mirror, and Daily News reporting Mitchell and Shavos' appearance in the Magistrates Court. The stories in the Home News and Daily Mirror identified Levy and the store; the other two stories simply noted that the men had been held for the grand jury.
Louis Levy's dry goods store looted Around 11:00 PM, Louis Levy locked up his dry goods store at 374 Lenox Avenue and left for the night, likely going to his home at 636 West 174th Street. When he returned to the store around 3:00 AM, he found the window broken and $10,000 worth of textiles, clothing, and sundries stolen, the store "entirely cleaned out of its stock," according to the Daily Mirror. The owner of the jewelry store next door at 372 Lenox Avenue, Benjamin Zelvin, locked up his store around thirty minutes after Levy, so the store was likely attacked soon after that time. The Magistrates Court affidavit recorded Levy closing the store on March 18, the night before the disorder, and returning on March 22, two days after the disorder. It was likely that those dates are mistakes, and that he closed the store on March 19 and returned in the midst of the disorder, as several storeowners did on hearing what was happening in Harlem. But it was possible that Levy had been away from the store for some reason, as the two men charged with looting his store did not appear in court until March 22, among the last of those arrested to do so. Both Clifford Mitchell, a forty-six-year-old Black laborer, and Daughty Shavos, a twenty-one-year-old Black peddler, had been arrested the previous evening, a day after the disorder, at two different locations, in possession of "wearing apparel" with a combined value of $50 that Levy identified as part of his stock. How police found the men was not mentioned in the sources.

Levy appeared in Harlem Magistrates Court on March 22 to charge Mitchell and Shavos with burglary. The Magistrate sent both men to the grand jury. They dismissed the charges against Mitchell and sent Shavos to the Court of Special Sessions to be charged with a misdemeanor. There was no evidence of the outcome of that case.

The only mention of the looting in the press were stories in the New York Evening Journal, Daily Mirror, and Daily News that reported the appearance of the two men in the Magistrates Court. The story in the Daily Mirror identified Levy and the store and the value of the goods stolen; the other two stories simply noted that the men had been held for the grand jury.

Despite the scale of the damages claimed, Levy appeared to have continued to operate the dry goods store. In the second half of 1935, a white-owned dry goods store was recorded at 374 Lenox Avenue in the MCCH business survey. "L. Levy" was also visible on the signage for the storefront in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941.
Amie Taylor arrested Officer Harmon of the 18th Division arrested Amie Taylor, a twenty-one-year-old Black butcher, near Mario Pravia's candy store at 1953 7th Avenue around 11:30 PM. Harmon and at least one other police officer, Detective Harry Wolf of the 28th Precinct, reported seeing Taylor throw a stone at the store window and take merchandise from the window display. Wolf appeared as a witness on the Magistrates Court affidavit and an arresting officer with Harmon on Taylor's criminal record. Taylor was also not alone. "About 5 others" threw stones at the store and took merchandise at the same time, while Pravia and his wife watched from inside, but police managed to arrest only Taylor. Harmon allegedly found eighteen packets of chewing gum, valued at three cents each, in his possession. The Home News reported that a total of $200 of merchandise was taken from the store.

The New York Evening Journal identified a different officer as making the arrest, Deputy Chief Inspector John Ryan, in a vignette within the paper’s narrative of the disorder:
Deputy Chief Inspector John Ryan, in charge of all Manhattan detectives, figured in another incident in which police were forced to draw their revolvers, although no shot was fired. While speeding to the trouble zone, Ryan saw a group of men looting a store at 1952 Seventh ave. The detective chief, with his chauffeur, swung into action and attempted to round up the thieves. there was a terrific battle, but Ryan emerged from it with Amie Taylor, 21, as his prisoner.
No other sources support that account. The story's framing of the incident in relation to the force used by police did direct attention to the unremarked upon means by which police made arrests. The New York Evening Journal was one of several white newspapers that claimed that police showed restraint in responding to the disorder, and did not shoot at crowds until the after midnight, when looting became widespread. If police drew their revolvers but did not fire them in this "terrific battle," they likely used the gun butts as clubs, as they are in several photographs taken during the disorder.

Crowds had moved down 7th Avenue from West 125th Street around 10 PM. This event was the first this far south on the avenue. Taylor may have come from the opposite direction. He lived south of the store, at 1800 7th Avenue, next to Central Park, in an area home to Black, white, and Spanish speaking residents. Taylor's first name caused confusion about his identity. In the 28th Precinct police blotter, the name is "Annie," and he is identified as female, information likely responsible for Annie also being used in the list of those arrested in the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the list in the New York Evening Journal. While the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book identifies Taylor as male, the clerk recorded the name as Annie on his examination, and on the back of the Magistrates Court affidavit, where it is struck out and Amie written underneath.

When Taylor appeared in Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 charged with burglary, Magistrate Renaud remanded him to appear again on March 22. Reporters from the Home News, New York Daily News, New York Evening Journal, and Daily Worker were in court when Taylor appeared again; the Daily Worker somehow misreported his name as Annie. Renaud sent Taylor to the grand jury, who on April 3 transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions, which as it adjudicated misdemeanors, means they must have reduced the charge from burglary to an offense such as unlawful entry or petit larceny. Two weeks later, on April 17, the judges acquitted Taylor, according to the police blotter. Given the low value of what Taylor allegedly stole — a total of 54c — it would not have been surprising to see him receive a minor punishment; but to acquit him the judges would have had to find fault with the evidence against him provided by Officer Harmon and Detective Wolf. The sources are silent on what alternative account of events Taylor offered, but others arrested in the disorder claimed to have been bystanders mistakenly grabbed by police trying to pick offenders out of crowds. It could also be that prosecutors could not prove that the chewing gum found on Taylor had been taken from the store; it was a common enough item, in a large but not inexplicable quantity, that he could have obtained it legitimately elsewhere.
Dodge grand jury hearing, March 22 (4) Despite Dodge’s statements that the grand jury investigation of the disorder would be as extensive on March 22 as it had been the previous day, it heard only eight witnesses give evidence, less than a third of the number who had appeared earlier. Neither Dodge nor Price presented those witnesses, leaving the task to a group of assistant district attorneys, a further suggestion that their evidence did not relate to the DA’s claim of Communist responsibility. The three indictments charging four people voted by the grand jury were for the offense of burglary, looting in the context of the disorder, not for the incitement of riot and violence that Dodge had invoked the previous day. In addition, Dodge had to announce that he had sent the men indicted for inciting riot the previous day for trial on lesser misdemeanor charges not they felony offense with which they had initially been charged. In the afternoon, Dodge returned to the grand jury to present evidence seized that day in raids on the offices of organizations affiliated with the Communist Party, the ILD, and the Nurses and Hospital League. He took a typewriter and a mimeograph machine into the grand jury room, together with two unnamed witnesses. No indictments resulted from that evidence; the grand jury instead adjourned for the weekend.

Only the New York Sun and Times Union reported the number of witnesses, while the Daily Mirror mentioned that most were police officers. The assistant district attorneys presenting the witnesses were also identified by the New York Sun and Times Union, while the New York Times gave their number. The number of indictments, the number of people charged in them and the offense with which they were charged were widely reported, in the New York Evening Journal, New York Sun, Times Union, New York American, New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, New York World-Telegram, Daily News, and Daily Mirror. Only the Home News, New York Post, and New York Herald Tribune did not report the indictments. That Dodge had to reduce the inciting riot charges the grand jury voted the previous day was only mentioned in the New York World-Telegram, New York Sun, and Times Union, none of which commented on that decision.

The grand jury voted those indictments in the morning, before adjourning for lunch. Reporters from most newspapers appeared not to have returned in the afternoon. Only the New York American, New York World-Telegram, and New York Herald Tribune included the typewriter taken from the ILD offices at 415 Lenox Avenue and the mimeograph machine from the offices of the Nurses and Hospital League at 780 Broadway in their stories. The New York World-Telegram led with those details, that the typewriter had “type faces which seemed to correspond with those of allegedly inflammatory circulars distributed before the Harlem riot Tuesday night.” It attributed that information to police, who likely also provided the information that one of the two unnamed witnesses who appeared before the grand jury after the machines had to be threatened with removal to the House of Detention, reported in both the New York World-Telegram and New York American. The New York Herald Tribune quoted Dodge as saying “experts would testify” that the circulars had been produced on the machines. The New York Post mentioned only that the typewriter was believed to be in the district attorney's possession (it did not report the grand jury hearings).
Herbert Hunter arrested Sometime during the disorder, Detective Phillips of the 28th Precinct arrested Herbert Hunter, an eighteen-year-old Black resident of 56 West 126th Street. At the same time Phillips arrested Elizabeth Tai and Arthur Davis for taking groceries from a store at 340 Lenox Avenue, according to a story in the Home News. However, that story did not directly state that Hunter was charged with looting the same store, so that was not identified here as the location he alleged looted. The arrests likely occurred around 12:30 AM. Hunter was not included in the lists of those arrested published in the Afro-American, Atlanta World, and Norfolk Journal and Guide and in the New York Evening Journal. It is not clear why he was omitted.

The 28th Precinct police blotter also recorded the charge against Hunter as burglary, with the note "Burglarised store during riot." The Daily Worker more precisely described his alleged offense as "stealing groceries." Hunter did not appear in the lists of those arrested published in the press.

Hunter was arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20 with Elizabeth Tai and Arthur Davis, all charged with burglary. Magistrate Renaud remanded all three to appear again in court (he sent two others arrested by Phillips who appeared at the same time charged with malicious mischief, Charles Wright and William Norris, to the Court of Special Sessions). The docket book recorded only Phillips' name and precinct; the story in the Daily Worker identified him as a detective.

When Hunter appeared in court again, on March 22, the docket book recorded no change in the charge against him, but a story in the Home News reported that "the Court" had reduced the charge from burglary to disorderly conduct, as happened to both Tai and Davis. In Tai's case, the docket book did record that the charge had been reduced to disorderly conduct. Had the police presented evidence Hunter had stolen merchandise, he would have been charged with either burglary or larceny; had they presented evidence that he had broken windows, the charge would have been malicious mischief. The charge of disorderly conduct suggested that he may only have been part of a crowd near the store. Magistrate Renaud found Hunter guilty, an outcome reported in the stories in the Daily News and New York Evening Journal as well as the Home News and Daily Worker. He also found Tai and Davis guilty.

Renaud sentenced Hunter to serve ten days in the Workhouse, according to the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, 28th Precinct police blotter and stories in the Home News, Daily News, New York Evening Journal, and Daily Worker. Renaud gave Tai and Davis a lesser sentence, a fine of $25 or five days in the Workhouse. Unable to pay the fine, according to a story in the Home News, both were sent to the Workhouse.
Daughty Shavos arrested At 7:00 PM a day after the disorder, March 21, Detective Frank McKenna arrested Daughty Shavos, a twenty-one-year-old Black peddler, at his home at 40 West 119th Street. He allegedly found "wearing apparel" in Shavos' possession, goods identified by Louis Levy as having been stolen from his dry goods store at 374 Lenox Avenue. There is no mention in the affidavit of why Detective McKenna went to Shavos' address. He had lived at the address, in an area with a mix of Black and Puerto-Rican residents, for about four months. The other man charged with looting Levy's store, Clifford Mitchell, was arrested just over an hour earlier ten blocks to the north, at 363 Lenox Avenue, across the street from Levy's store (or perhaps the clerk misrecorded the address and Mitchell was in his home, 362 Lenox Avenue, in the building next to the store). There is also no mention of how police found him.

A note on the Magistrate's Court affidavit recorded the value of the goods found on the men as $50; the typewritten narrative on the form noted that the goods found on Mitchell were worth "around $20," so those found on Shavos would have been worth around $30.

Mitchell and Shavos are two of only nine men identified in the sources as having been arrested away from the stores they allegedly looted, a group making up one third (9 of 27) of the arrests for which that information is known (27 of 60).

Mitchell and Shavos appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 22, the last individuals arrested during the disorder to be arraigned in that court. The Magistrate sent both to the grand jury, which on April 4 dismissed the charges against Mitchell and sent Shavos to the Court of Special Sessions to be charged with a misdemeanor. There is no evidence of the outcome of that case. There is no difference between the two cases in the district attorney's case file that would explain those different outcomes. Shavos' criminal record included an arrest as a disorderly person in Jersey City in June 1932, with no recorded disposition, while Mitchell had no record. However, while that could conceivably influence how Shavos was treated, it would not explain the charges against Mitchell being dismissed.

The only newspaper coverage of the looting are stories in the Home News, New York Evening Journal, Daily Mirror, and Daily News reporting Mitchell and Shavos' appearance in the Magistrates Court. The stories in the Home News and Daily Mirror identified Levy and the store; the other two stories simply noted that the men had been held for the grand jury.