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William Gindin's shoe store looted
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. After they indicted him Rogers agreed to plead guilty to petit larceny. Judge Allen gave Rogers a suspended sentence.
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This page references:
- Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration, 1942, New York, Records of the Selective Service System, Record Group Number 147, National Archives and Records Administration. (Ancestry.com)
- Harlem Magistrates Court docket book
- US Census, 1930, Enumeration District 31-920, Sheet 10A-B, Manhattan, New York, New York (Ancestry.com)
- Probation Department Case File, 26544 (1935) (New York City Municipal Archives)
- "Claim $38,000 Riot Damages," New York Sun, April 23, 1935 [clipping]
- District Attorney's Closed Case Files, 203988 (1935) (New York City Municipal Archives)
- [Photograph] "This is how the front of a shoe store at 333 Lenox Ave. appears today," New York World-Telegram, March 20, 1935, 3.