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

William Holland injured

William Holland, a forty-six-year-old man of unknown, was “struck by an unknown object” at 125th Street and Lenox Avenue, according to a hospital admission record. Dr. Payne attended Holland at Harlem Hospital, eleven blocks north on Lenox Avenue, at 1:40 AM, so he was likely injured sometime after 1:00 AM. At that time the blocks of Lenox Avenue above 125th Street saw assaults, injuries from flying glass, and attacks on stores as far north as West 134th Street with limited police intervention. James Connel was injured "in some unknown manner" at the same corner around the same time. Both men's injuries could have come from a police baton or a stone intended for a store window. If Holland were a white man, he might have been the intended target of the object that hit him.

The hospital record described Holland's injury as a "laceration of scalp." He did not appear in any of the lists of those injured published by the press. The injury was not severe enough to require Holland be admitted to hospital, so he left for his home. The hospital record did not include information on Holland's race. He lived four blocks to the south, at 175 West 121st Street. As that area had a mix of Black and white residents, his residence did not provide clear evidence of his racial identity.

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"Hospital Admissions, 19-20 March 1935," Subject Files, Box 167, Folder 5 (Roll 76), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).