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Find of the Week: Central Park Topographical Maps

City records convey data, instructions, or information, generally without embellishment.  But there are exceptions, and this Find of the Week is an outstanding example.    

Topographical Maps in the Matter of Opening Central Park, New York, July 1855, Title Page. NYC Municipal Archives.

The image depicted is the title page of a ledger “Topographical Maps in the Matter of Opening Central Park, New York, July 1855.” Created by City surveyor Roswell Graves, the ledger contains 40 plates depicting the topographical features of the land that would become Central Park.   

Topographical Maps in the Matter of Opening Central Park, New York, July 1855, sample plate. NYC Municipal Archives.

Beginning in 1807, surveyor John Randel, Jr., produced a map for the Commissioners Plan of 1811, which imposed a grid of streets and avenues creating uniform blocks from Houston Street north to 155th Street. By the time Graves surveyed the land for Central Park, the blocks had been divided into lots to facilitate development. Each plate of the Graves ledger displays three blocks in what would become the park—from 59th to 106th Streets, between Fifth and Eighth Avenues.   

Topographical Maps in the Matter of Opening Central Park, New York, July 1855, sample plate. NYC Municipal Archives.

The ledger is currently being appraised in the Conservation Laboratory to determine treatment and re-housing measures that will ensure its long-term preservation. Look for future articles for updates and information about the provenance of this significant item.     

This Find of the Week is apropos of the upcoming annual Earth Day celebration (April 22), given that it pertains to one of the more popular places on earth – New York’s Central Park.   

The Phony and the Crackpot at City Hall, by Stanley H. Howe

The For the Record  blog has frequently commented on the serendipitous nature of archival research. Thanks to imperfect descriptions and the sometimes haphazard filing practices of record-creators, researchers are often rewarded with seemingly random items. The typescript featured this week turned up in Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia’s subject files, in a folder labeled “Speeches, 1936.”  

Henry Modell, to Hon. Stanley H. Howe, Secretary to the Mayor, January 8, 1936. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

The five-page typescript is titled “Cheese Club 1/13/36.”  It appears to be a transcript of remarks that Stanley H. Howe, Secretary to the Mayor, gave to members of the Club. The exact nature of this organization is not entirely clear, but a reference in a description of Sardi’s restaurant seems plausible:  “. . . a group of newspapermen, press agents, and drama critics who met for lunch regularly at Sardi's and referred to themselves as the Cheese Club.”  It is possible that the Club dates back to James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) who founded the literary “Bread and Cheese,” according to a New York City Encyclopedia entry under literature. 

Howe began his remarks: “It occurred to me that the members of the Cheese Club would be interested in hearing some of the interesting human incidents that occur at the City Hall. There are times when it seems that everyone of the seven million people of the City of New York is trying to see the Mayor.” 

Take a few minutes to read Howe’s account of a day at City Hall. In his words:  “Every day we have we have to deal with the phony and with the crackpot as well as with the serious and well-intentioned.”  

Transcript, remarks to Cheese Club, by Stanley H. Howe, Secretary to the Mayor, January 13, 1936. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Langston Hughes, The Writer’s Position in America

20 East 127 Street, Langston Hughes’ house, 1940. Tax Photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Continuing our celebration of WNYC’s 100th Anniversary and in honor of Black History Month, we present this 1957 recording of Langston Hughes discussing the challenges faced by Black writers from a National Association of Authors panel discussion “The Writer’s Position in America.” The themes he discusses: representation, pigeonholing and lack of intellectual freedom, seem as salient today as they were in 1957.

Langston Hughes was an icon of the Harlem Renaissance, and although best known as a poet and novelist, was also a journalist, a composer and an activist. He was a frequent guest on WNYC radio.

On July 8, 1924, radio station WNYC made its inaugural broadcast from a studio at the top of the Municipal Building. During 2024, For the Record will celebrate the centennial of one of the nation’s first municipally-owned radio station with a series of articles featuring historical audio recordings from the WNYC collection in the Municipal Archives. 

In 1986 the Municipal Archives acquired a large collection of original WNYC lacquer phono discs and tapes dating back to 1937. These unique audio recordings capture the sounds of a city and a nation through decades of transformations, tribulations, and triumphs in the voices of presidents, dignitaries, world leaders, artistic revolutionaries, musical geniuses, luminaries of the literati, and cultural icons. Outside of the federal government, the WNYC Collection is the largest non-commercial collection of archival audio recordings and ephemera from an individual radio broadcaster. 

The Archives has collaborated with WNYC on a series of projects to reformat this material. Most recently, funding from the Leon Levy Foundation enabled digitization of thousands of hours of audio content that documented political, historical, scientific, and cultural events—both large and small.

Stables and Auction Marts - Building Plans with Horses

A recent For the Record article, Horsepower the City and the Horse introduced the topic of the horse and its profound influence on virtually all aspects of city life. Expanding on this theme, For the Record looked at how the horse informed many of the design elements of Central Park in Drives Rides and Walks -Horses in Central Park.

This week’s post continues exploring the subject of horses and focuses on collections in the Municipal Archives and Municipal Library that document structures built in the city to house, buy and sell horses. 

Fiss, Doerr & Carroll Horse Auction Market, front elevation. Located at 147-51 East 24th Street and 144-148 East 25th Street between Lexington and Third Avenues the auction market was designed by Horgan & Slattery in the grandest style. The building mixed Roman classicism and Beaux-Arts grandeur, with a façade that featured a full-size sculpture of a horse and trainer above the entrance. Manhattan Building Plans Collection, Block 880, Lot 34. NYC Municipal Archives.

The former Fiss, Doerr & Carroll Horse Auction Market, 1940. Tax Photo Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Fiss, Doerr & Carroll Horse Auction Market, detail. While the market still had the required utilitarian aspects with stalls and manure pits, it was fitted with elaborate chandeliers and ornate decoration which led Architects’ & Builders’ Magazine to write that Horgan & Slattery had decided '“to abandon all former conventions” in its design. In 1928, the auction mart was sold to the R&T Garage Company, which installed two intermediate floors for parking and removed the balcony and ornate ceiling. Manhattan Building Plans Collection, Block 880, Lot 34. NYC Municipal Archives.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission Designation report for the VanTassel and Kearney Auction Mart, located between East 12th and 13th Streets, Manhattan, one of few horse-related buildings still standing (although long-since re-purposed), provides some context: “A century ago, the streets of American cities were crowded with horses. Mainly used for transportation, these animals pulled private carriages, stage coaches, and streetcars. To accommodate the estimated 75,000 horses in New York City, about 4,500 stables were built. Wealthy families commissioned their own distinctive structures where horses, carriages, and attendants (grooms and coachmen) were quartered.” 

The Manhattan Building Plans collection and the related permit files in Municipal Archives are a rich resource documenting horse-related infrastructure. For the last several years, City archivists have been processing the Plans collection with support from the New York State Archives’ Local Government Records Management Improvement Fund and the New York State Library’s Conservation/Preservation Program. For the Record blogs, most recently Loews Canal Street Theater, have tracked progress and highlighted some of the exceptional items discovered during processing. The agency’s Lunch and Learn programs, available online, provide an overview of the project.

Fiss, Doerr & Carroll Horse Auction Market, second story plan. The auction space enclosed a huge interior rink 65 feet by 197 feet, where animals for sale were exercised for crowds of up to 1,000 people in a suspended gallery. The roof was supported by a steel arch, with a suspended, coffered ceiling and the mezzanine level included office and living quarters for the staff. Manhattan Building Plans Collection, Block 880, Lot 34. NYC Municipal Archives

Horse auction venues, much like auto dealerships in later years, were an essential component of the horse culture in the city. Several of the most visually appealing items in the Plans collection are the blueprints submitted to the Department of Buildings in 1906 by architects Horgan & Slattery for construction of the Fiss, Doerr & Carroll horse auction market at located at 147-51 East 24th Street and 144-48 East 25th Street. Although no longer extant, the elevations and details depict what had been an elegant chandelier-lit space.

Front elevation and longitudinal section, submitted with application 1568 of 1899 by architects Schneider & Herter for stables and auction market at 49 Orchard Street. The facade of the building was decorated with sculptural elements including a horse head detail. The longitudinal section depicts the ramps used to move the horses from one floor to the next as well as a horse wash and a hoist system for the animals. The building was converted to a storefront and tenement units by 1927 with the ornamentation removed and windows changed. Manhattan Building Plans Collection, Block 308,Lot 23. NYC Municipal Archives.

The collection also includes plans submitted in 1903 by architects Jardine Kent & Jardine for the Van Tassel and Kearney Auction Mart. As noted above, the building has been designated by the Landmarks Preservation Commission for its significance. “In terms of architectural design and specialized purpose, the former Van Tassell & Kearney auction mart recalls the era when New York City was a leading auction center and horse sales were a common activity.” Information in the designation report (available in the Municipal Library), adds considerably to the history of the building: “Edward W. Kearney, son of the firm’s founder, commissioned this elegant building to attract the type of wealthy clientele that purchased horses for competition and leisure. Weekly auctions took place in the ‘commodious sales ring,’ a shed-like space with mezzanine. Van Tassell & Kearney were active on East 13th Street for more than fifty years. Originally general auctioneers, after 1904 ‘high class’ show horses and ponies dominated sales. By the 1920s, the firm was mainly involved in automobile sales and the building would be leased to a candy manufacturer, and later, the Delehanty Institute, a vocational school that trained women for the defense industry during the Second World War. In 1978, the structure was acquired by the painter, printmaker and sculptor Frank Stella, who used it as his studio until 2005.”

Elevation and section, from New Building Application 323 of 1903, by Jardine Kent & Jardine for the Van Tassel & Kearney stables, 126-128 East 13th Street and 123 East 12th Street. Manhattan Building Plans Collection, Block 558, Lot 43. NYC Municipal Archives.

126-128 East 13th Street, former Van Tassel & Kearney stables, ca. 1985 when it was Frank Stella’s studio. 1980s Tax Photograph Collection, Block 558, Lot 43. NYC Municipal Archives.

Eldridge Street elevation submitted with New Building Application 1656 of 1887 for stables. Owner: Edward and Ridley & Sons Department Store, 59-63 Allen Street and 88 Eldridge Street. Manhattan Building Plans Collection, Block 307, Lot 24. NYC Municipal Archives.

Not all of the horse-related structures were as grand as the auction houses.  Perhaps more typical of the genre is the blacksmith shop at 33 Cornelia Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan. The related Manhattan Building Permits collection provides good documentation for this modest building, The permit folder includes the new building application (no. 331) submitted on July 3, 1913, by architect Nicholas Serracino on behalf of building owner Mary P. Brescianni. Additional applications in the permit folder trace the subsequent history of the building. An Alteration Application filed on December 15, 1954 requested conversion of the space into a “grocery, fruit & vegetable store” 

Similarly, the permit folder for the stables constructed at 59 Allen Street (B. 307, Lot 24) help trace the evolution of the building. The folder contains new building application no. 1646 of 1887 submitted by Edward Ridley and Sons for a “stable & wagon house” designed by architect William Shears. In 1916, according to alteration application 3284, “It is proposed to use the first, second and third floors for garage purposes.” Conversion to automobile storage proved a popular re-use for stable structures in the early part of the twentieth century.

The Village blacksmith 33 Cornelia Street, Manhattan, August 6, 1937. Photographer: E.M. Bofinger. WPA Federal Writers’ Project Photograph Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Other useful resources can be found in the Municipal Library’s collection of published materials. The 1866 [Manhattan] Bureau of Buildings Annual Report indicates that builders submitted 131 applications for stable construction, out of a total of 1,507 new building permit requests. In 1900, after the City’s consolidation when the Bureau’s activities covered construction in all five Boroughs, the report listed 199 stable applications (out of more than 6,000 structures in total). Ten years later, that number diminished to 59 applications out of 778 in total. In the next year, 1911, with automobiles increasingly present in the city, the Annual Report recorded 64 plans filed for “Stables and Garages,” out of 771 total applications. By 1935, the category recorded only “Garage” applications; 17 in that Great Depression year (out of 98 total).

New Building Application 1056 of 1887, page 1 of 2. Manhattan Building Permits Collection, Block 307, Lot 24. NYC Municipal Archives.

New Building Application 1056 of 1887, page 1 of 2. Manhattan Building Permits Collection, Block 307, Lot 24. NYC Municipal Archives.

The New York City Guide, published by the Works Progress Administration in 1939 (the manuscript and research for the Guide can be found in the Archives collection; the printed book is available in the Library), has a brief narrative in the section about the Middle and Upper East Side of Manhattan, describing Twenty-fourth Street, between Second and Lexington Avenues as “Old Stable Row.” According to the Guide, “Here, before the advent of the automobile, a horse mart flourished.” The text continued: “The street was littered with straw, oats, and manure. On auction days, the strength of draft horses was demonstrated by hitching the animals to wagons with locked wheels and then whipping them up the block and back.”

The apparent cruelty of this practice points to other important themes related to horses in the city that future For the Record articles will explore using records available in the Archives and Library.

Front elevation and longitudinal section, detail, submitted with application 1568 of 1899 by architects Schneider & Herter for stables and auction market at 49 Orchard Street. Manhattan Building Plans Collection, Block 308,Lot 23. NYC Municipal Archives.

Remembering Rosalynn Carter

Mayor Edward I. Koch with First Lady Rosalynn Carter, 1979. Mayor Edward I. Koch collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Following her death on November 19, 2023, many news stories, obituaries, and reminiscences about former first lady Rosalynn Carter remarked on her exceptional role as confidant and advisor to Jimmy Carter throughout their more than seven decades of married life. “Serving as an equal partner to her husband, the president,” wrote New York Times reporter Azadeh Moaveni, “. . . she frequently attended Mr. Carter’s cabinet meetings and traveled abroad to meet with heads of state in visits labeled substantive, not ceremonial. She often sat in on the daily National Security Council briefings held for the President and senior staff.” [“Before Hillary Clinton, There Was Rosalynn Carter.” November 21, 2023.] Given her important role it should not be a surprise that there are photographs of Rosalynn Carter in the Mayor Koch photograph collection in the Municipal Archives.   

(L-R) First Lady Rosalynn Carter, New York State Governor Hugh Carey, President Jimmy Carter, Mayor Edward I. Koch, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, House Speaker Tip O’Neil, Treasury Secretary W. Michael Blumenthal, and Representative Mario Biaggi, August 8, 1978. Mayor Edward I. Koch photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives. 

On a hot summer day, President Jimmy and First Lady Rosalynn Carter stood before a cheering crowd in front of City Hall after a bill-signing ceremony that gave New York City $1.65 billion in Federal loan guarantees as part of the effort to avoid bankruptcy. The Times story reporting on the event noted that “Mr. Carter signed the measure on a mahogany desk that had been used by George Washington when he was President, and as Mr. Carter pointed out, New York was the nation’s capital and Washington was a swamp.” [“Carter Signs Aid Bill for New York at Gala Celebration at City Hall,” August 9, 1978.] 

(Left to Right) Maureen Connelly (Press Secretary to Mayor Koch), President Jimmy Carter, First Lady Rosalynn Carter, and Mayor Edward I. Koch, Washington, D.C., June 1979. Mayor Edward I. Koch collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Letter to Mayor Koch from Jack H. Watson, Jr., at the time, Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs, but who would become White House Chief of Staff to President Carter, August 14, 1979. Mayor Edward I. Koch Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Joan Mondale, Vice President Walter Mondale, President Jimmy Carter, First Lady Rosalynn Carter, Amy Carter, and Senator Ted Kennedy, on the stage at the Democratic National Convention, Madison Square Garden, New York City, August 1980. Mayor Edward I. Koch photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives. 

Smiling faces on the dais belie drama behind the scenes. Earlier that summer, Mayor Koch’s request for additional federal support from the Carter Administration had not achieved the desired result. The President’s attempt to rescue the fifty-two Americans held hostage in Iran had stalled, and Senator Ted Kennedy’s presidential-run threatened to upend the convention. In the end, Carter prevailed, won the nomination, but lost to Ronald Reagan in the general election.  

Correspondence, Jimmy Carter to Mayor Edward I. Koch, May 16, 1984 on behalf of Habitat for Humanity, regarding a building at 742-44 East 6th Street. Mayor Edward I. Koch Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Correspondence, Mayor Edward I. Koch to Jimmy Carter, June 18, 1984, regarding the building at 742-44 East 6th Street. Mayor Edward I. Koch Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter continued their close collaboration during their post-White House years. The Habitat for Humanity organization was one of their most enduring endeavors. In 1984, they wrote to Mayor Koch and asked for his assistance with their work to rehabilitate a building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

President Jimmy Carter with Commissioner Anthony Gliedman of HPD, at a Habitat for Humanity project at 742 East 6th Street, Manhattan, July 1985. Photographer Leonard Boykin, HPD Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Commissioner Anthony Gliedman of HPD, talking to Rosalynn Carter at a Habitat for Humanity project at 742 East 6th Street, Manhattan, July 1985. Photographer Leonard Boykin, HPD Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

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