business dispute, gun, racist coverage

One hundred years ago today … The New York Age headline read: “Porto Rican Outwits Hebrew: latter uses .25-Cal. Automatic,” describing an incident at a cigar store

The incident was reported by The New York Age, whose commitment to racial equality did not mean it was free from racial prejudice in its language describing Latinx and Jewish people.

Ralph Rodriguez, of 2302 Seventh Avenue, is a Porto Rican and Israel Robbins of 18 East 105th street, is a Hebrew, but in the matter of financial acumen the brother from the isle in the South Atlantic put it all over the exile from Jerusalem. Robbins put $800 in the cigar business operated at 169 West 131st street, in the Lafayette Theatre building, and another financier of Hebraic persuasion, Benjamin Bloch, of 119 West 111th street, put up $700. Rodriguez put up his share of the capital in the form of "experience."

But although he put in no cash, it was the Porto Rican who controlled the business, as the two Jerusalemites signed over control of affairs to their swarthy partner.

Seeking for further power and emalument [sic], Rodriguez, it is alleged, conspired with Bloch to freeze out Robbins, notwithstanding that the latter had put up the larger share of cash. This did not suit Israel at all, and after a lengthy discussion with his partners, which lasted until 1:30 Tuesday morning, he lost control of his temper and proceeded to force a settlement with the aid of a dandy little 25-calibre automatic pistol.

When Officer Cannon, shield 4952, of the 38th Precinct, arrived on the scene, Robbins was stretched out on the floor under a table, apparently unconscious, while Bloch had commandeered an automobile and rushed Rodriguez to the hospital under the impression that two shots fired by the irate Robbins had penetrated the Porto Rican's anatomy.

But investigation by the police officer revealed that Robbins was feigning, in an attempt to shift responsibility for use of the firearm, while at the hospital the doctors and nurses discovered that Rodriguez had only a few slight abrasions on his face, caused, probably, by falling when he successfully dodged the bullets ejected from the gun in Israel's hand.

The cigar store in question, 169 West 131st Street, was on the ground floor of the Lafayette Theater, pictured above in 1937. We have featured the theater before, in posts here, here, and here.

Anyway, what could be more NYC than a story starring a Puerto Rican, two Jewish men, and a cop with an Irish surname, set in a tobacco business alongside a Black theater in Harlem?

– Jonathan Goldman, Oct. 14, 1922

TAGS: guns, race, ethnicity, business, tobacco, commerce