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Windows not broken (7)
The official police account of the disorder, likely reflecting information shared with journalists, did not mention Black-owned businesses being attacked. Instead, in a “Report of Disorder” to the Police Commissioner, Inspector Di Martino, the commanding officer of the Sixth Division, described the “vandals who continued to break windows on 125th Street, Seventh Avenue, Lenox Avenue, 8th Avenue, Fifth Avenue” as targeting “stores occupied by whites.” However, the MCCH initially concluded that the violence against businesses was indiscriminate: the "Subcommittee which Investigated the Disturbances of March 19th" reported on May 29, 1935, "Nor is it true that stores owned by Negroes were spared. There is no evidence of any program or leadership of the rioters." The final MCCH Report was less definitive, but argued that any discrimination displayed by those on the streets faded over time. "While, of course, many motives were responsible for the actions of these crowds, it seems that as they grew more numerous and more active, the personality or racial Identity of the owners of the stores faded out and the property itself became the object of their fury. Stores owned by Negroes were not always spared if they happened to be in the path of those roving crowds, bent upon the destruction and the confiscation of property." That chronology is the reverse of the narrative in the stories in New York Post and Afro-American, in which the appearance of signs stopped attacks on Black-owned businesses.
Four of the businesses reported to have had windows not broken had signs identifying them as Black-owned in their windows, in line with the chronology offered in the press rather than that in the MCCH Report. The Monterey Luncheonette, Winnette’s Dresses and the Cozy Shoppe did not suffer any damage. In the case of the Cozy Shoppe, all five white businesses on the same block of 7th Avenue had windows broken and merchandise taken, evident in newsreel footage and information gathered by MCCH investigator James Tartar. Less detailed information is available on the block of Lenox Avenue where Winnette's Dresses was located, but there were two white-owned stores reported looted, and multiple other white businesses damaged or looted in the blocks to the north and south. There is only one reported attack near the Monterey Luncheonette, which was located further north than the other two businesses, among a larger number of Black-owned businesses.
The period of indiscriminate violence posited by the Report was also when looting became widespread, according to newspaper narratives of the disorder and reported events. However, no Black-owned businesses are among those identified as looted.
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- "Report of Subcommittee which Investigated the Disturbances of March 19th," (May 29, 1935), 5, Subject Files, Box 167, Folder 6 (Roll 76), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
- Inspector Di Martino (Commanding Officer, Sixth Division), "Report of Disorder," (March 20, 1935), 1, Subject Files, Box 179, Folder 10 (Roll 86), Office of the Mayor, Fiorello H. La Guardia records (New York City Municipal Archives).
- James Tartar, "Survey made of neighboring storekeepers of the Greenfield Tire and Supply Store," (April 20, 1935), "Harlem, Mayor's Commission on Conditions in," Box 25, Folder 19, Arthur Garfield Hays Papers (Princeton University)
- The Negro in Harlem. A Report on Social and Economic Conditions Responsible for the Outbreak of March 19, 1935 (1935), 5-6, Subject Files, Box 167, Folder 8 (Roll 76), Records of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, 1934-1945 (New York City Municipal Archives).
- C. C. Nicolet, "One Dead in Wake of Harlem Riots," New York Post, March 20, 1935 [clipping]
- Percy Gould, "20,000 Fight Police in Orgy of Looting," New York Evening Journal, March 20, 1935, 1.
- "Police Guard Against New Uprising as Mayor Acts to Probe Race Riot," Home News, March 21, 1935 [clipping]
- "Machine Guns Set Up in New York Streets. False Rumor Causes Death of One, Wounding of 50, and Looting of 300 Stores," Afro-American, March 23, 1935, 1.