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

Unclaimed laundry store windows broken

An unclaimed laundry store at 2145 7th Avenue had its windows broken during the disorder. Much of the bottom half of the window was shattered, but the intact glass featured the street number and most of the store name - "UNCLAIMED L...NDRY." Two smiling white woman pose behind the window, in the store, for a photographer crouched outside, in footage in the Universal newsreel from the day after the disorder. While no merchandise is visible in the window, there is no evidence of whether the store was looted. No other sources mention the damage to the unclaimed laundry store, and no one arrested during the disorder was charged with breaking the store windows.

Most of the stores across 7th Avenue on the west side of this block had windows broken around 9.00 PM, but the unclaimed laundry store's window was likely broken around 9.45 PM. That was when officer Edward Doran arrested Leroy Brown after allegedly seeing him throw a tailor's dummy through the window of the store next door, 2147 7th Avenue, and urge a group of other people to "Go right along and get the other windows." While Doran arrested Brown, the group continued north up 7th Avenue, breaking more store windows. That adjacent store was later looted, as were those on the other side of 7th Avenue.

The white-owned unclaimed laundry store was recorded at this address in the MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935. The Tax Department photograph of the building is taken from too far away to identify the business at the address between 1939 and 1941.

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