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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 is the only evidence that the store was looted. It mistakenly gives the address as 201 West 126th Street, but the MCCH business survey locates the store on 125th Street. Numerous stores at this intersection, and all those in the building along 125th Street towards 8th Avenue had their windows broken during the disorder, but 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 defended as they did the rest of West 125th Street. 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 moved the crowds 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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- "1 Dead, 7 shot, 100 Hurt as Harlem Crowds Riot over Boy, 16, and Hearse," New York Herald Tribune, March 20, 1935, 1.
- "1 Slain, 20 Injured in Harlem Rioting," New York American, March 20, 1935, 1.
- "Harlem Mob War. 1 Dies, 50 Hurt, 100 Arrested In Wild Night, Daily Mirror, March 20, 1935, 4.
- Joseph Mickler, "Harlem Shuffles Along, Blaming Reds for Riot. 'Sure Sumpin! Negroes Say of Shootings," New York Evening Journal, March 20, 1935, 3.