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

Williams' drug store windows broken

The Williams' Drug Store at 2161 7th Avenue, on the southeast corner of West 128th Street and 7th Avenue, had its front windows broken during the disorder. However, no further damage was done to the store because someone painted “Colored Store, Nix Jack” on the side windows, facing 128th Street, according to the Afro-American. The text on the windows appeared in newsreel footage from the day after the disorder. The phrase was painted in each of the two window panes, each word in its own row, so that it took up at least half the window. In the pane on the left, an exclamation mark was painted at the end of the phrase, which did not appear in the right pane. There was no information on the meaning of the phrase "Nix Jack." Roi Ottley, writing in his column in the New York Amsterdam News about the looting during the disorder as targeted at white-owned businesses, ended with an echo of that phrase: "THIS IS A COLORED COLUMN, NIX JACK!" Identifying the drug store as a black-owned business "saved" those side windows. The store windows were likely broken by some of the first groups that came up 7th Avenue from 125th Street after 8:30 PM, or those that followed them around 9:00 PM and 9:30 PM.

The Afro-American mentioned the drug store only because of the sign put up identifying it as a Black-owned; it was one of two examples, with the Monterey Luncheonette, of what the story reported as a widespread practice. The drug store was also identified as having broken windows in a story about Communist activity in Harlem published in the New York Evening Journal. That story mentioned two other nearby Black businesses with broken windows, Battle's Pharmacy across 7th Avenue on the northwest corner of 128th Street and Burmand Realty two stores to north of the pharmacy at 2164 7th Avenue. Those three businesses were included in the story as evidence that there was no racial dimension to the disorder: "Both of these stores were damaged by the rioters although virtually everyone in Harlem knows who operates them." Unmentioned by the reporter was the Cozy Shoppe restaurant directly across 7th Avenue from Williams drug store, on the southwest corner of 128th Street, which also had signs identifying it as Black-owned and suffered no damage to its windows. It appeared to have been the only business on the west side of that block without broken windows. Several businesses were also looted. All the businesses that were damaged were white-owned. Those businesses are not identified in any newspaper lists or stories. An MCCH investigator visited businesses on the west side of the street seeking information about the police shooting of Lloyd Hobbs that occurred on that side of the intersection of West 128th Street. Police arrested Leroy Gillard for allegedly looting a tailor's store near the southwest corner. On the east side, Sam Lefkowitz, the owner of a business at 2147 7th Avenue, was among those who sued the city for damages after the disorder.

No one arrested during the disorder was charged with breaking windows in the drug store. The Williams' drug store appears in the MCCH business survey taken between June and December 1935, and the owner was one of the Black businessowners interviewed by MCCH staff. The drug store had been open only three months at the time of that interview, so opened just prior to the disorder. The interviewer described it as "This is a typical soda-fountain, confectionery, & tobacco shop. It is somewhat larger than most, is quite neat & attractively arranged, & includes a newsstand. Carries a full line of cigars, cigarettes, & candy." Asked about his clientele, the owner said it was "Restricted largely to immediate neighborhood, though its location on a main thoroughfare draws some transient trade. Owner states he makes an effort to restrict clientele to those of "better type." For this reason he did not sell Frankfurters, certain groups, as he says, tending to "buy a hot-dog + sit around all day."  The owner employed only one staff member, a niece. The store was visible in the Tax Department photograph taken between 1939 and 1941.

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