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US Census, 1930, Enumeration District 31-920, Sheet 10A-B, Manhattan, New York, New York (Ancestry.com)
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2021-05-24T20:00:20+00:00
William Gindin's shoe store looted
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2021-12-08T21:51:40+00:00
Around 9.45 PM William Gindin locked up his business, William's Shoe Store at 333 Lenox Avenue, according to the Magistrate's Court affidavit, and presumably went home, to an apartment at 346 Lenox Avenue, across the street a block to the north. Crowds gathered on Lenox Avenue north of West 125th Street and began to smash store windows around 10.30 PM, when a group of men looted Towbin's haberdashery at Lenox Avenue and West 125th Street. Gindin's store was targeted sometime earlier; one display window was already smashed and a large quantity of merchandise stolen by 11.20 P.M according to Patrolman Nador Herrman. At that time he allegedly saw Julian Rogers, a thirty-seven-year-old Black auto washer, kick in the other display window, take three odd women's shoes worth $1 each and put them under his jacket. Herrman arrested Rogers about 100 feet from the store, and recovered the shoes, according to the Magistrates Court affidavit.
Just over an hour later, at 12.30 AM, a crowd gathered in front of the shoe store and throw stones and other objects at the windows, breaking more of the glass, after which a police officer arrested John Kennedy Jones for allegedly both inciting the group and throwing stones. The multiple attacks combined to do significant damage to William's Shoe Store. Both display windows are smashed and emptied of their contents in the photograph of the store published in the New York World Telegram. Merchandise scattered on the street is also visible. Gindin told a Probation Department investigator that shoes valued at $1200 were stolen during the disorder.
Gindin was one of the twenty white businessowners that the New York Sun identified as suing the city for failing to protect their stores; he claimed $1273.89 in damages, well above the median reported claim of $733. By the time the city Comptroller heard testimony from those bringing suit, 106 owners had sought damages. Gindin is not among those whose testimony appears in newspaper stories about that proceeding, and he is not one of those whose cases went to trial to test the claims. The city lost the test cases, so Gindin likely was awarded some amount of damages. Whatever the award, Gindin was able to remain in business. William's Shoe Store appears in the MCCH business survey from the second half of 1935, and Gindin still owned and operated the store when he registered for the draft in 1942.
Born in Russia in 1894, Ginden was resident in New York City at least by 1917, when he registered for the draft. By 1930, Gindin owned the shoe store, and was one of a small number of white businessowners who resided in Harlem. According to the federal census schedule he lived a block north of his store, at 363 Lenox Avenue. Unusually, all six of the other apartments in that building had white residents, including three households headed by men who owned stores in Harlem later looted during the disorder who joined Gindin in suing the city, Irving Stetkin, Jacob Saloway and Michael D'Agostino. In 1935 Gindin lived at 346 Lenox Avenue, where he would have been a neighbor of Herman Young, who lived above a hardware he owned at that address that was also looted during the disorder. While Young and his wife went to his store when they heard glass smashing and witnessed the looting, Gindin apparently did not head to his store during the disorder. The Magistrates Court affidavit specified that no one was in the store when Rogers stole the shoes. By 1942, while still in business in Harlem, Gindin had moved to the Upper West Side, according to his draft registration.
Rogers was arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, charged with burglary. Magistrate Renaud held him for the grand jury and set bail at $1000. He appears in the lists of those arrested published in Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, and in the New York Evening Journal. None of Rogers' other appearances in court are reported in the press. After being indicted by the grand jury on April 5, the District Attorney's case file indicates that he agreed to plead guilty to petit larceny, and appeared in the Court of General Sessions to do so on April 16. Returned to court for sentencing on April 25, Judge Allen gave Rogers a suspended sentence, recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter. -
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2021-05-04T21:48:40+00:00
Irving Stetkin's grocery store looted
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2021-11-21T19:59:58+00:00
When someone on Lenox Avenue threw "the first stone" at the windows of Irving Stetkin's grocery store at 371 Lenox Avenue, he called police, according to the New York Sun report of his suit against the city. There is no mention in the newspaper stories that report Stekin's account of when that stone was thrown, but crowds appear to have been on the avenue by sometime after 10.30 PM. He waited two hours before a police car containing two officers arrived in response to his call, a detail reported in the New York Sun, New York Post and New York World-Telegram. There is no mention of what Stetkin did in the interim; but he could have done little to prevent people damaging and looting his store given the size of the crowds, so most likely retreated to the rear rooms to avoid injury. When they arrived, the police officers fared no better. Stetkin told the city Comptroller that "The police didn't do anything. They couldn't do anything. The mob was too big for them," according to a report in the New York World-Telegram. He had joined other white merchants in suing the city for damages on the basis that police had not protected businesses, so he had an incentive to emphasize police failures. Nonetheless, the extent of the attacks on businesses and violence in this area, and the small number of arrests, most of which came several hours after crowds first arrived on the avenue, add weight to his complaint. No one among those arrested for looting was identified as taking goods from this store.
The Pathe newsreel included footage of 371 Lenox Avenue taken the day after the disorder that shows the sign identifying it as a "Cut Rate Grocery," as the New York Post reported, not a stationary store as the New York Sun and New York World-Telegram had labeled Stetkin's business. Both windows and the door have been block off with large planks of wood, and appeared to have been completely smashed. It is not possible to see the extent of damage within the store. A white man smoking a cigarette stands in front of the door, perhaps Stetkin, facing the crowd walking along the sidewalk. The only details of the damage to Stetkin's store was in newspaper stories about the civil suits against the city brought by white merchants. Stetkin is not part of the group of twenty men who brought the first suits, but is mentioned in stories published at the end of July, by which time 106 merchants had filed suits. He appears as an example because of the large damages he sought, $2068, as a result of which, the New York Sun reported, Stetkin "is not in business anymore." Or at least not at that location. He also sued for damages to a second unspecified business, at 363 Lenox Avenue, four buildings to the south of the grocery store, according to the New York Times, where he was still in business in 1942. In 1930, the federal census records that Stetkin had lived above the store at 363 Lenox Avenue, a building anomalous in this area of Harlem in being home to only white residents. The six other households included three headed by men who owned stores in Harlem later looted during the disorder who joined Stetkin in suing the city, William Gindin, Jacob Saloway and Michael D'Agostino. There is no evidence of whether Stetkin still lived there in 1935; Gindin at least had relocated to another building on Lenox Avenue by the time of the disorder.
After the city lost the civil case that went to trial to test the merchants' case, Stetkin's actions for damages were one of seven cases taken to the Supreme Court to determine the city's liability. The damages claimed in those cases totaled $20,000, according to a report in the New York Times; Justice Shientag awarded a total of only $1200. Stetkin received the largest award, although newspaper stories disagreed on the amount. The New York Times identified the award as $550 for damages to both the stationary store and the business at 363 Lenox Avenue that he had valued at more than $2000, while the New York Amsterdam News identified the award as $700. While the New York Times reported that the city would appeal the decisions, there is no evidence that happened. Consistent with the New York Sun report that Stetkin was no longer in business at 371 Lenox Avenue after the disorder, the MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935 recorded a Black-owned "Stationery Store & Religious Supplies" business at that address. That store too appears to have gone out of business, as the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941 shows a grocery store at 371 Lenox Avenue. -
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2021-05-18T20:55:45+00:00
Michael D'Agostino's market looted
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2021-10-04T21:16:09+00:00
Michael D'Agostino's food market at 348 Lenox Avenue was looted during the disorder. There are no details of those events other than the amount of the owner's claim for losses: $146.75. No one among those arrested for looting was identified as taking goods from this store, but two unidentified men arrested for looting are both carrying full shopping bags labelled Rex Food Market, 348 Lenox Avenue visible in the Getty Images version of an image taken by a New York Evening News photographer embedded below. Those bags suggest that two of the sixteen men arrested for looting unidentified locations had taken merchandise from D'Agostino's market. Two other businesses at the same address were also looted and appear among those whose owners made claims for losses, stores owned by Sam Apuzzo and Jack Stern. The business in the neighboring building to the south, Young's Hardware at 346 Lenox Avenue was also looted, although Young was not among those identified as suing for damages.
Embed from Getty Images
D'Agostino appears twice in a list of the first twenty white business-owners suing the city for damages based on the failure of police to protect their stores published in the New York Sun, with a second business at 361 Lenox Avenue. In 1930, the federal census records that D'Agostino lived above at 363 Lenox Avenue, a building anomalous in this area of Harlem in being home to only white residents. The six other households included three headed by men who owned stores in Harlem later looted during the disorder who joined D'Agostino in suing the city, William Gindin, Jacob Saloway and Irving Stetkin. There is no evidence of whether D'Agostino still lived there in 1935; Gindin at least had relocated to another building on Lenox Avenue by the time of the disorder. By the time the city Comptroller heard testimony from those bringing suit, 106 owners had sought damages. D'Agostino is not among those whose testimony appeared in newspaper stories about that proceeding. However, he was one of seven store owners in the test case before the Supreme Court in March 1936, identified as having received the lowest award. The two newspaper stories on these decisions differed on the details of the award; the New York Amsterdam News reported D'Agostino received $24 for the losses he claimed at 348 Lenox Avenue, whereas the New York Times reported he received $70, for claims at "248-261 Lenox Avenue," likely a misrecording of 348 and 361 Lenox Avenue, for which he had claimed a total of $343 in losses.
The claim for $146.75 in losses is one of the smaller claims reported in the press, well below the median claim of $733. However, D'Agostino does appear to have been able to remain in business. The New York Times identified D'Agostino as a fruit dealer, so he is likely the owner of the white-owned food market at 348 Lenox Avenue identified in the MCCH business survey in the second half of 1935. The Tax Department photograph of the address in 1939-1941 also shows the Rex Food Market. -
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2021-05-06T22:52:51+00:00
Jacob Saloway's store looted
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2022-01-14T21:24:54+00:00
Jacob Saloway's store at 381 Lenox Avenue was looted during the disorder. There are no details of those events. That section of Lenox Avenue was one in which businesses suffered extensive damage and looting, based on the claims for damages made by owners. Saloway appears only in a list of white business owners who brought the first twenty suits for damages against the city for the failure of police to protect their stores, published in the New York Sun. The list includes only a name, business address, and the amount of damages sought. By the time the city Comptroller heard testimony from those bringing suit, 106 owners had sought damages. Saloway is not among those whose testimony appears in newspaper stories about that proceeding, and he is not one of those whose cases went to trial to test the claims. No one among those arrested for looting was identified as taking goods from this store.
The Daily News published a photograph of the clean-up on the section of Lenox Avenue containing Saloway's store the morning after the disorder.
Saloway's store can be glimpsed on the far left of the image, with signs visible indicating it sold cigars. The windows appear to be missing and the displays emptied of stock. The angle does not show the interior of the store. The two businesses to the right of the store, in the foreground of the picture also have no windows and empty displays and shelves. Both Anthony Vitable, who owned the grocery store, and Manny Zipp, who owned the Savoy Food Market, also sued the city for damages.
Saloway sued for $676 in losses, one of the larger claims. The city lost the test cases, so Saloway likely was awarded some amount of damages, but based on those case it was likely only a small proportion. Whatever the award, it is possible Saloway was able to remain in business. The MCCH business survey includes a white-owned stationary store (a type of store that sold cigars) at 381 Lenox Avenue in the second half of 1935, but no details to confirm that it is the same store there on the night of the disorder. A business also appears in the Tax Department photograph from 1939-1941, but the signage is not visible. In 1930, the federal census records that Saloway had lived at 363 Lenox Avenue, a building anomalous in this area of Harlem in being home to only white residents. The six other households included three headed by men who owned stores in Harlem later looted during the disorder who joined Saloway in suing the city, William Gindin, Irving Stetkin and Michael D'Agostino. There is no evidence of whether Saloway still lived there in 1935; Gindin at least had relocated to another building on Lenox Avenue by the time of the disorder. -
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2021-05-04T22:34:38+00:00
Irving Stetkin's store looted
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2021-11-20T20:03:59+00:00
Irving Stetkin's store at 363 Lenox Avenue was looted during the disorder. Stetkin also owned a grocery store in the same block, at 371 Lenox Avenue, that was also looted. He was in that second store when a stone was thrown through its window, and seems likely to have fruitlessly waited there for police to protect the business. In 1930, the federal census records that Stetkin lived above the store at 363 Lenox Avenue, a building anomalous in this area of Harlem in then being home to only white residents. The six other households included three headed by men who owned stores in Harlem later looted during the disorder who joined Stetkin in suing the city, William Gindin, Jacob Saloway and Michael D'Agostino. There is no evidence of whether Stetkin still lived there in 1935; Gindin at least had relocated to another building on Lenox Avenue by the time of the disorder. Stekin's business at 363 Lenox Avenue may have been a stationary store. The New York Sun and New York World-Telegram mistakenly identified his store at 371 Lenox Avenue as a stationary store, perhaps as a result of confusing which of his two businesses operated at which address. The MCCH business survey found two white-owned businesses at 363 Lenox Avenue in the second half of 1935, a stationary store and a delicatessan.
The looting of 363 Lenox Avenue is not mentioned in the newspaper stories about business owners suing the city published at the end of July, in which Stetkin described the attack on his grocery store and the failure of police to protect his business. After the city lost the civil case that went to trial to test the merchants' case, Stetkin's actions for damages were one of seven cases taken to the Supreme Court to determine the city's liability. Stories on the case identify Stetkin because he received the largest award, for damages to both his stores, although newspaper stories disagreed on the amount. The New York Times identified the award as $550 for damages to both the grocery store and the business at 363 Lenox Avenue, while the New York Amsterdam News identified the award as $700. While the New York Times reported that the city would appeal the decisions, there is no evidence that happened. No one among those arrested for looting was identified as taking goods from this store.
Stetkin had sought $2068 for damage to the grocery store and an unspecified amount for 363 Lenox Avenue. The New York Sun reported he was "not in business anymore" in describing the damage to the grocery store; that statement does not appear to have applied to the store at 363 Lenox Avenue. When Stetkin registered for the draft in 1942 he still owned and worked at that store, identifying it as a grocery store in the 1940 federal census (which is what appears in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941). He may have changed the nature of that store after his grocery store at 371 Lenox Avenue went out of business. By 1940 he had moved to the edge of Harlem; the census enumerator found him living at 400 West 128th Street, on the west side of St Nicholas Park. By 1942 Stetkin had moved further from the neighborhood, to 621 West 169th Street in Washington Heights. -
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2021-05-18T21:26:57+00:00
Michael D'Agostino's store looted
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2021-05-25T20:48:28+00:00
Michael D'Agostino's store at 361 Lenox Avenue was looted during the disorder. There are no details of those events other than the amount of the owner's claim for losses: $196.25. No one among those arrested for looting was identified as taking goods from this store. The store next door at 363 Lenox Avenue was also looted, as was another further up the block at 371 Lenox Avenue, both owned by Irving Stetkin. In 1930, the federal census records that D'Agostino lived at 363 Lenox Avenue, a building anomalous in this area of Harlem in being home to only white residents. The six other households included three headed by men who owned stores in Harlem later looted during the disorder who joined Stetkin in suing the city, William Gindin, Jacob Saloway and Irving Stetkin. There is no evidence of whether D'Agostino still lived there in 1935; Gindin at least had relocated to another building on Lenox Avenue by the time of the disorder.
D'Agostino appears twice in a list of the first twenty white business-owners suing the city for damages based on the failure of police to protect their stores published in the New York Sun, with a second business at 348 Lenox Avenue. By the time the city Comptroller heard testimony from those bringing suit, 106 owners had sought damages. D'Agostino is not among those whose testimony appeared in newspaper stories about that proceeding. However, he was one of seven store owners in the test case before the Supreme Court in March 1936, identified as having received the lowest award. The two newspaper stories on these decisions differed on the details of the award; the New York Amsterdam News reported D'Agostino received $24 for the losses he claimed at 348 Lenox Avenue, whereas the New York Times reported he received $70, for claims at "248-261 Lenox Avenue," likely a misrecording of 348 and 361 Lenox Avenue, for which he had claimed a total of $343 in losses.
The claim for $196.25 in losses is one of the smaller claims reported in the press, well below the median claim of $733. However, it is not clear if D'Agostino was able to remain in business. The New York Times identified D'Agostino as a fruit dealer, and the MCCH business survey records a white-owned grocery store at 361 Lenox Avenue in the second half of 1935. The Tax Department photograph of the address in 1939-1941 does show a vegetable market at the address. -
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2021-12-08T21:40:57+00:00
William Gindin's shoe store windows broken
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2021-12-08T21:55:12+00:00
At 12:30 A.M. Patrolman James Lamattina saw a "large number" of people gathered in front of William's Shoe store at at 333 Lenox Avenue. Then John Kennedy Jones "motioning with his hand, said to the others "come on," and threw a rock that "broke the plate glass window" of the store, Lamattina alleged in his Magistrates Court affidavit. Other people in the crowd also threw "stones and sticks" at the window. Lamattina arrested Jones, a twenty-four-year-old Black laborer, likely after having to pursue him. No other members of the crowd were arrested. Groups of people broke windows in at least two other nearby stores in the preceding half hour. About fifteen minutes before this alleged attack on the shoe store, a group of about thirty people had broken windows in a restaurant at 317 Lenox Avenue, a block to the south, where a police officer arrested one man. Ten minutes before that arrest, about 12:05 A.M., another group had broken windows in the store across the street at 318 Lenox Avenue, where a police officer arrested two men.
Just over an hour earlier, at 11.20 PM, Patrolman Nador Herrman allegedly saw Julian Rogers, a thirty-seven-year-old Black auto washer, kick in one of the store's display window, take three odd women's shoes worth $1 each and put them under his jacket. Herrman arrested Rogers about 100 feet from the store. William's Shoe store had been a target before Roger's arrest. One display window was already smashed and a large quantity of merchandise stolen, according to Patrolman Herrman. The multiple attacks combined to do significant damage. Both display windows are smashed and emptied of their contents in the photograph of the store published in the New York World Telegram. Merchandise scattered on the street is also visible. Gindin told a Probation Department investigator that shoes valued at $1200 were stolen during the disorder.
Gindin was one of the twenty white businessowners that the New York Sun identified as suing the city for failing to protect their stores; he claimed $1273.89 in damages, well above the median reported claim of $733. By the time the city Comptroller heard testimony from those bringing suit, 106 owners had sought damages. Gindin is not among those whose testimony appears in newspaper stories about that proceeding, and he is not one of those whose cases went to trial to test the claims. The city lost the test cases, so Gindin likely was awarded some amount of damages. Whatever the award, Gindin was able to remain in business. William's Shoe Store appears in the MCCH business survey from the second half of 1935, and Gindin still owned and operated the store when he registered for the draft in 1942.
Born in Russia in 1894, Ginden was resident in New York City at least by 1917, when he registered for the draft. By 1930, Gindin owned the shoe store, and was one of a small number of white businessowners who resided in Harlem. According to the federal census schedule he lived a block north of his store, at 363 Lenox Avenue. Unusually, all six of the other apartments in that building had white residents, including three households headed by men who owned stores in Harlem later looted during the disorder who joined Gindin in suing the city, Irving Stetkin, Jacob Saloway and Michael D'Agostino. In 1935 Gindin lived at 346 Lenox Avenue, where he would have been a neighbor of Herman Young, who lived above a hardware he owned at that address that was also looted during the disorder. While Young and his wife went to his store when they heard glass smashing and witnessed the looting, Gindin apparently did not head to his store during the disorder. The Magistrates Court affidavit specified that no one was in the store when Rogers stole the shoes. By 1942, while still in business in Harlem, Gindin had moved to the Upper West Side, according to his draft registration.
Jones was also arraigned in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, charged with riot according to the docket book, for leading others in the crowd to attack the store. Crossed out is an additional charge of malicious mischief, for damage to the store window; that charge does appear on the Magistrate Court affidavit, in a handwritten note that also lists the forms of riot being charged. Magistrate Renaud held Jones for the grand jury and set bail at $1000. On March 27, when he appeared before the grand jury, they transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions for trial on misdemeanor forms of the charges. The judges convicted Jones on April 1 and gave him a suspended sentence, recorded in the 28th Precinct Police Blotter.