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

Isreal Riehl's Unclaimed Laundry store looted

Sometime during the disorder, Lamter Jackson, a twenty-four-year-old Black man, allegedly threw a rock that shattered the window of a store selling unclaimed laundry at 1 West 131st Street, and then took a bag of laundry from the store, according to the report of his appearance in the Magistrates' Court published by the Home News. Patrolman C. Jackson of the 32nd Precinct arrested Jackson, according to the Magistrates Court docket book. There are no other details of those events in the sources. There is only one other looting in this area, two blocks south on 5th Avenue, and a fire reportedly set on the roof of the building next door, 5 West 131st Street. A block west, Lenox Avenue saw multiple lootings,  assaults, and three fires, but there were far more business on that street than on this area of 5th Avenue.

Although the store is identified as at 1 West 131st Street, the business is likely the white-owned unclaimed laundry store the MCCH Business survey identified at 3 West 131st Street (the survey includes no businesses at 1 West 131st Street). The building was on the northwest corner of 131st Street and 5th Avenue, photographed as 2140 5th Avenue by the Tax Department. On West 131st Street the next building is number 5, so 3 West 131st Street would be in that building. The awnings visible in the Tax Department photograph on the left side of the building would be over the store.

Jackson is listed among those charged with burglary in the Atlanta World, Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Gazette, and the New York Evening Journal. He appeared in the Washington Heights Magistrates Court on March 20, charged with petit larceny not burglary. That charge suggests a lack of evidence he had broken in and entered a store to take merchandise. Isreal Riehl was listed as the complainant, so was likely the owner of the store. Magistrate Ford sent him to the Court of Special Sessions and held him on $100 Bail. As Jackson was arrested north of 130th Street and processed by the 32nd Precinct, and sent directly to the Court of Special Sessions, there are no surviving police or legal records of the outcome of his prosecution.

The business seems likely to have survived the disorder, but there is no evidence that definitively links the store visited by investigators compiling the MCCH Business survey to that looted during the disorder.

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