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Young's Hat Store looted
About 9 o'clock last night the first gang began throwing ricks at my place and they broke the windows right out. Then they helped themselves to a new hat all around.
They laughed when they did it and were having a great time--but they meant business.
Mickler's story mistakenly gave the address as 201 West 126th Street, but the MCCH business survey located the store on 125th Street. The looting was later confirmed by a manager at the offices of the hat store chain, who told a MCCH investigator who visited on May 15, 1935 "that some stock was stolen from the window display." While numerous stores at this intersection, and all those in the building along 125th Street towards 8th Avenue had their windows broken during the disorder, only those on 7th Avenue were also looted — except Herbert's Blue Diamond jewelry store across 7th Avenue from Young's Hat Store, which police guarded. Police made only one arrest for looting in this area, at a shoe store on the southeast corner of the intersection diagonally across from the hat store. That arrest came around 11:00 PM, several hours after Krantz reported being attacked; in the interval more police had arrived and crowds had moved away from the area, providing an opportunity to make arrests lacking earlier.
Krantz did not put a value on the stock taken during the disorder, but losses the store suffered did not cause it to go out of business, perhaps because only goods from the window display were stolen. The white-owned store appears in the MCCH business survey (although the location cannot be clearly seen in the Tax Department photographs of the corner from 1939–1941).
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This page references:
- "1 Dead, 7 Shot, 100 Hurt as Harlem Crowds Riot over Boy, 16, and Hearse," New York Herald Tribune, March 20, 1935, 1.
- R. J. McBride, "Visit to Young's Hats, May 15, 1935," Harlem Survey: Part III, Chapter V, Box 131-124, Folder 18, E. Franklin Frazier Papers (Moorland Spingarn Research Center, Howard University).
- "1 Slain, 20 Injured in Harlem Rioting," New York American, March 20, 1935, 1.
- Joseph Mickler, "Harlem Shuffles Along, Blaming Reds for Riot. 'Sure Sumpin!' Negroes Say of Shootings," New York Evening Journal, March 20, 1935, 3.
- "Harlem Mob War. 1 Dies, 50 Hurt, 100 Arrested In Wild Night, Daily Mirror, March 20, 1935, 4.