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

William Gindin's shoe store windows broken and looted

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.

A little over an hour later, at 12:30 A.M. another police officer saw the store attacked again. A "large number" of people gathered in front of the store, Patrolman James Lamattina alleged in his Magistrates Court affidavit, 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. 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 as Patrolman Herrman did Rogers. No other members of the crowd were arrested. On this occasion, there is no mention of any merchandise being taken from the store. 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, with police arresting Bernard Smith. 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, with police making two arrests.

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.

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.

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