July 18, 1964: The Harlem Race Riot

July 18, 1964, 60 years ago: A race riot begins in Harlem in Upper Manhattan, lasting 6 days. It begins "a chain reaction of riots" that would include, among others, North Philadelphia the next month, Watts in Los Angeles in 1965, Chicago and Cleveland in 1966, Newark and Detroit in 1967, and many American cities in 1968.

The riot began when a policeman, Lieutenant Thomas Gilligan, shot and killed 15-year-old James Powell. Gilligan said that Powell had a knife. Powell was hardly a threat to Gilligan. He turned out to be the only death in the riots, but 118 people were injured, and 465 were arrested.

There had previously been riots in Harlem, America's best-known mostly-black neighborhood, in 1900, 1935 and 1943. This time, however, there were television cameras, and people saw things they had previously only read about in the newspaper. And, depending on their political views, they "saw what they wanted to see."

The event helped to mark 1964 as a turning point in New York. It included what turned out to be the last Pennant of the old Yankee Dynasty, and the opening of Shea Stadium, the new home of the Mets and the Jets. A World's Fair opened in Flushing Meadow-Corona Park in Queens, across Roosevelt Avenue from Shea.

It was the year that The Beatles excited the country, especially New York, as they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in Midtown Manhattan. And it was one of the last great years of the Broadway stage, as Fiddler On the Roof, Funny Girl, Golden Boy, What Makes Sammy Run? and Hello, Dolly! premiered.

But it was also the year of the most notable, if not the most damaging, of the Harlem riots, and also of the murder of Kitty Genovese in the Kew Gardens section of Queens. Two weeks after her murder, The New York Times published an article claiming that 38 witnesses either saw her stabbing or heard her screams, and that none of them called the police or came to her aid.

The murder and the race riot raised the idea that New York was in a crime wave that was getting out of control, and that idea lasted 30 years, until the 1994 Crime Bill.