Blog - For The Record — NYC Department of Records & Information Services

Iron Gall Ink

Archivists and conservators at the Municipal Archives face many challenges in their work to preserve and provide access to the City’s historical records. This week’s blog discusses the effects of the iron gall ink used to create some of the earliest documents in the Archives collection.

Example of "burn through" in an untreated page with iron gall ink.

Iron gall ink was the ink of choice in the Western world for well over a millennium. Its indelibility and rich dark tone were desirable traits for artists, scribes, letter-writers, bookkeepers, i.e. virtually anyone documenting something on paper. While other types of inks were also available, such as carbon black and lamp-black ink, iron gall made up a significant proportion of the inks used up to the early 19th century, tapering off rapidly after that time. Iron gall ink, however, also has the unfortunate trait of damaging the paper it is written on. Over time and depending on certain conditions, the ink can fade to a light brown, create a haloing effect around letters, or “sink” through the paper. The ink in extreme cases will corrode the paper support, leaving areas of losses resembling burn marks in the paper. The effects can be seen in drawings by Leonardo Da Vinci, early drafts of the U.S. Constitution, and manuscripts of Victor Hugo, to name a few. The ink poses a formidable challenge for institutions with pre-19th-century manuscripts in their collections, including the Municipal Archives.

Oak galls.

The effects of iron gall ink have long been known to conservators but are still not fully understood. The ink is composed of four main ingredients: tannins, which come from oak galls—a growth triggered by parasitic insects that attack oak trees; iron sulfate in the form of bluish-green salt crystals; a binder, usually gum arabic from the acacia tree, added to improve the flow of the ink; and lastly, water or wine. The ink achieves its rich bluish tone after the solution is exposed to air while writing.

Iron sulfate

Research has shown that the two main ingredients in the ink, iron salts and tannic acid, each pose separate risks to paper, risks that are exacerbated by certain environmental conditions. The concentrations of the ingredients, the preparation method, the presence of other contaminates in the ink such as copper or zinc, the amount of ink that is absorbed into the paper, and even the type of writing instrument used, all influence and further complicate the degradation process. As a result documents that are produced at roughly the same time may exhibit a wide range of condition levels.

This variability is easily seen in the pages of manuscripts in which one page appears stable, while the adjacent page may show signs of severe degradation. In these cases it’s possible that the writer used a new batch of ink on the adjacent page or a new writing instrument, or even perhaps a new writer with a much heavier hand stepped in on the following page. It’s often impossible to say. These numerous factors, of course, complicate the role of the conservator, who must determine the best approach to treating and preserving collections.

Book of 17th-century land conveyance records showing the variability in condition of different pages. NYC Municipal Archives Collections.

In some of the Archives’ original Dutch and English records, which document the founding of New York City by Dutch colonialists in the mid-17th century and the subsequent English takeover, the wide-ranging effects of iron gall ink are on full display. Some of the Dutch records were treated by Archives conservators in the late 1980s by a process called leaf casting. The treatment involves filling in losses on a damaged sheet via a water bath with new paper pulp. The water is slowly pumped out, allowing the pulp to fill in any missing gaps in the original document and create a more stable structure. The treatment also washes away water soluble iron II ions and acidic elements in the paper that contribute to its deterioration.

Dutch records that were treated by leaf casting in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives Collections.

The documents that underwent this treatment more than 30 years ago are in markedly better condition today than those that have undergone no treatment. While leaf casting does not address the full range of issues that iron gall ink brings—a near impossible task for conservators racing against time and often less than ideal storage conditions—it has certainly proven to have been a worthwhile approach that likely prevented significant future losses.

The treatments available for collections with iron gall ink continue to evolve, as more research is conducted. And, additional options have been developed since these collections were treated years ago, such as a calcium phytate/calcium bicarbonate treatment. Municipal Archives conservators will continue to monitor the remedies for these important materials.

The Birth, Life and—Maybe—Death of Rikers Island

MAC 1928: Model of new penitentiary on Rikers Island “to be completed in 1933.” Photo taken in front of the Blackwell’s Island Prison, ca. 1932. Edwin Levick, NYC Municipal Archives Collection.

Rikers Island once called—“The City’s Island of the Damned” —was born in tragedy and scandal.

Severe overcrowding and a spate of riots and legal battles across the jail’s first 45 years of existence led the city to try to get rid it and replace it with eight smaller detention centers across the boroughs in the late 1970s and 1980s. That highly touted, but controversial effort ultimately failed, and, despite its well-earned notoriety, the 413-acre island jail continued to grow, fester and become increasingly dangerous for the inmates as well as the correctional officers who worked there.

Now, 85 years after it officially opened, the city wants to shutter it for once and for all and replace it—again with several smaller jails across Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Bronx and Queens.

With that in mind, a trip through the city’s Municipal Archives reveals a harrowing, but by no means complete, tale of how Rikers grew into a sprawling, horrific and riot-torn lockup that once housed over 20,000 inmates—and points to problems the city may once again face trying to close it.

Named after Abraham Rycken, whose Dutch family once owned the island, Rikers was home to a military training ground during the Civil War. It was sold to the city for $180,000 in 1884 and became a garbage dump.

The city first considered using it as a workhouse. Nothing happened until the late 1920s, when officials announced plans to build a modern jail to replace the crumbling Blackwell’s Island complex of badly deteriorating jails and asylums that had held prisoners and mental patients for over 100 years.

Construction of 26 buildings consisting of seven cellblocks for 2,600 inmates, an administration building, receiving center, mess hall, shops, a chapel and homes for the warden and deputy warden began in 1932—and disaster struck almost immediately.

On the Friday after Labor Day 1932, the steamboat Observation, ferrying 150 construction workers to the island, exploded in the East River, killing 72 people. Investigations ensued, but construction went on and Rikers Island soon began taking inmates.

MAC_1935: Aerial view of unfinished Rikers Island penitentiary buildings, ca. 1936. Department of Corrections, NYC Municipal Archives Collection.

Scandal quickly followed. In a January 18, 1934, report to Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, the city’s Commission of Accounts found “many irregularities and abuses in the construction of Rikers Island Penitentiary,” largely due to “Tammany Hall Corruption.” For starters, the report noted that the architects had been awarded a no-bid contract and that multi-million-dollar construction contracts have “clearly been violated in a number of particulars with a probable loss to taxpayers of more than $100,000,” or nearly $2 million in today’s dollars.

The report found “serious cracks” in some of the newly constructed buildings and violations in plumbing and roofing contracts, all of which “constitutes an illustration of the reckless way in which the city’s money has been spent with the approval of the Finance Department of the prior administration.”

MAC_1058: Department of Sanitation tractor at Rikers Island Dump, ca. 1936. NYC Municipal Archives.

Two years later, another report to LaGuardia noted garbage was still being burned on Rikers and critics feared the smoke and stench would make the 1939 World’s Fair in Queens unattractive to visitors. “It is inconceivable that the City of New York can tolerate (this) unsightly and unsavory nuisance,” the report harrumphed. Modifications were made to the garbage-burning process, and the show went on.

Despite steady overcrowding—press reports in 1954 show that the city’s jails held 7,900 inmates in spaces designed for 4,200 prisoners—no new buildings were added until the mid-1950s. That’s when additions and alterations were made to buildings housing adults and adolescents to accommodate another 1,900 inmates. In addition to cellblocks, kitchens and enlarged mess halls, the city built a 107,000-square-foot industrial building to house a new bakery, print shop, shoe shop, garage and diagnostic center. New buildings for adult males, women and adolescents, were added in the mid-1960s and early 1970s.

dpw_0975: Rikers Island Laundry Site, cell blocks, September 20, 1939. Joseph Shelderfer, Department of Public Works Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Still, overcrowding continued to worsen; in 1969, the city held 14,000 prisoners in spaces designed for 8,000.

 A spiraling crime rate and raging heroin epidemic made conditions so bad in the early 1970s that a headline in the New York Times called Rikers “The City’s Island of the Damned,” and a prescient New York Post story screamed: “Pressure Cooker Ready to Blow at Rikers?” In November 1975, rioting inmates seized two cell blocks at the Men’s House of Detention and 318 inmates were transferred to other buildings as a result. A few days later, 350 corrections officers refused to take their posts during a six-hour protest over budget cuts, overcrowding and inmate violence.

dpw_0974 Rikers Island Laundry Site, Chapel Building and Mess Hall, September 20, 1939. Joseph Shelderfer, Department of Public Works Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

At least six lawsuits were filed in Manhattan Federal Court in the early 1970s, alleging inhumane conditions, Draconian rules and policies that the inmates and their lawyers said violated the prisoners’ civil rights. Press reports and archival records show that Federal Judge Morris Lasker found overcrowding and stench in the old Tombs prison and vermin and unsanitary conditions on Rikers Island, where thousands of prisoners waited months for trial, and where an estimated 25 percent of the inmates suffered from mental health problems.

The city cited budget restrictions and asked for more time to correct conditions, but Lasker eventually ordered the Tombs closed in 1974; it reopened nearly a decade later after a $42 million makeover. Lasker also found conditions at Rikers and other city jails to be unconstitutional. He ordered the transfers of sentenced inmates to state prisons and told officials to come up with a new classification system, expand visiting hours and allow contact visits.

Then city officials came up with a bright idea: Lease the island to the state for $200 million and use the money to build eight smaller city jails in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and The Bronx. Under the proposed 99-year lease, the state would also spend $100 million to upgrade Rikers.

eik_08.010.0469: Mayor Edward I. Koch at Rikers Island filming a commercial on gun legislation, August 5, 1980. Mayor Koch Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

An October 1, 1979, report called the Rikers Island Project Working Document explained the original prison building “is now in a decrepit condition which creates a potentially dangerous environment for both staff and inmates,” and noted that 25 percent of the existing buildings were erected in the 1950s and needed “substantial upgrading.” The document estimated the city’s capital costs at $351 million.

The city’s Board of Correction held two days of hearings on the plan in early October 1979. Herb Sturz, the city’s criminal justice coordinator, recounted the court battles and riots of the mid-1970s and told the board there had been “an alarming number of suicides” on Rikers Island. He said there were “two basic things wrong with our corrections system: It is in the wrong place,” and would need $100 million in repairs to make it safe. Sturz said the lease deal would allow the city to rid itself of Rikers Island and “make a fresh start” to “build the best system in the nation.” Corrections Commissioner Ben Ward said a system of smaller jails would be more secure and easier to control. Archibald Murray, executive director of the city’s Legal Aid Society, told the board “Rikers Island was a mistake; it never should have happened.”

MAC_1926: “The Tombs” (Men’s House of Detention): Centre to Lafayette Street, Leonard to Franklin Street, ca. 1941. Courtesy of Jail Association Journal, NYC Municipal Archives Collection.

But Diane Gordon, of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, testified that the plan was ill-conceived and would not accomplish its goals. She said the plan would not reduce the jail’s population and urged the board to “develop a more careful plan based on a sounder analysis.” Mary Ann Gangi from the Queens chapter of St. Francis of Assisi said area residents were fearful of increased traffic and a greater risk from hardened state inmates. She vowed that community area residents would “organize and mobilize... to oppose the state takeover of Rikers Island.” Phil Seelig, president of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, called the hearings a “sham” and refused to even take questions from the board.

Opposition from the community and city corrections officers continued to grow and then, in January 1980, a report from the city’s Office of Budget Review showed that the city’s cost estimates for constructing the new jails were way off. The report said the actual capital costs would be upward of $433 million—rather than the $351 million estimate in the Rikers Island Project Working Document and that other costs related to the lease would be as much as $126 million, rather than the Working Document’s estimate of $81.5 million.

That was the beginning of the end. Soon afterward, Mayor Ed Koch quietly dropped the idea and in mid-1981, Commissioner Ward told the City Council the grand plan was “dead and buried.”

To Be Continued

Rikers Island Dump: Guard on horseback looks at Administration and other buildings across graded area, June 1937. NYC Municipal Archives Collection.

Jury Census Records Digitized

The Municipal Archives recently received a request for research assistance from Craig LaBan, Restaurant Critic and Drink Columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer. His story concerned “Hercules,” George Washington’s enslaved master chef. Sold as a teenager to Washington, Hercules became renowned for his culinary skills. He escaped from Mount Vernon in 1797 and was never captured. Following-up on a lead, LaBan asked if we could confirm the death of one Hercules Posey in New York City in 1812. The archivists searched the 1812 death records, and reported to LaBan that they had indeed found Hercules Posey, age 64, a “black,” born in Virginia and residing at Orange Street. He died of consumption on May 15, 1812 and was buried at the Second African Burial Ground in lower Manhattan. The information matched known facts about Posey including the name of the slaveowner preceding George Washington: John Posey. An 1812 City Directory provided a more precise address for Hercules Posey—33 Orange Street.

Cover of the 6th Ward Jury Census from 1819. NYC Municipal Archives.

Mr. LaBan then asked if the Archives had records that could help him learn the names of the other residents of 33 Orange Street and further information about the house and neighborhood. And that is when the recently digitized jury census series came to the rescue. Although the earliest jury census dates from 1816, four years after Hercules Posey died, the archivists suggested that the census records might contain information relevant to LaBan’s inquiry.

The jury census collection consists of 21 bound volumes containing tally sheets of returns for the City and County of New York, organized by ward. There are tallies for 1816, 1819, and 1821. The tallies were taken to determine if residents were eligible for jury duty and include varying degrees of descriptive detail. For example, for 1816 and 1819 the returns are given in a double-page tabular format with column headings for the following categories: names of inhabitants, number of houses, name of street, occupation, freeholds of $150, age, reason for exemption from jury, total number of jurors, the number of male and female white inhabitants, aliens, colored inhabitants not slaves, slaves, freeholders of £100 and upwards, freeholds of £20 and under £100, tenants renting $5 per annum, total number of inhabitants, plus a column for remarks. For the 1821 census, the returns, in similar format, include data in these categories: name of the head of each family, number and street of residence, number of male inhabitants of the same family age 21 or upwards in four classifications according to value of freeholds and debts, military service and tax exemption or commutation. Other data includes: number of acres of improved land occupied by each person, as well as tallies of cattle, horses, sheep, and yards of various types of cloth manufactured by each family, and a count of mills, factories, distilleries, asheries (a place where potash is made), and machinery. Each tally is identified with this description: “RETURN, made pursuant to the Act, entitled, ‘An Act to provide for taking a Census, and for other purposes,’ passed March 16, 1821, from the City and County of New-York.”

Using a ward atlas, the archivists determined that 33 Orange Street had been located in the Sixth Ward of the City. [Orange Street was re-named Baxter Street in 1854]. Unfortunately, one of the few ledgers missing from the collection is the Sixth Ward tally for 1816. However, the 1819 ledger survived. With an index by street name on the first page, the archivists quickly located the entry for 33 Orange Street.

Spread from the 6th Ward Census showing residents on Orange Street in 1819. New York County Jury Census, NYC Municipal Archives.

According to the 1819 jury census, Jacob Hudson, a laborer, lived at 33 Orange Street along with six other male and five female “coloured inhabitants, not slaves.” Varying numbers of “coloured inhabitants not slaves” also occupied nos. 35, 37, 39, 41, and 43 Orange Street. Their occupations included tobacconist, laborer, waiter and coachman. “Coloured” persons lived on the other side of Orange Street, at nos. 40, 42 and 44 with occupations of sailor, mason, sawyer, laborer, waiter and boot cleaner. Given the specific mention of “boarding house” at no. 40, the implication is that 33 had not been a boarding establishment, but with 11 inhabitants, it was either one very large family or multiple families lived in the house.

Several aspects of the census records make them a valuable research resource. At the very least, they provide a fascinating glimpse of life in New York City in the early 19th century. Of particular demographic interest is the inclusion of women with identification by name, residence, age, and occupation or social status, during a time when women were ineligible to serve as jurors. Other reasons that could exempt a person from jury service included age (over 60), clergy member, alien (i.e. not a citizen), and speaking only the Dutch language.

Another feature of New York City life that quickly becomes apparent in reviewing the census records is the wide variety of occupations. On just one page, in a series of houses along Water Street in the First Ward tally of 1816, the occupation list includes: mariner, teacher, printer, musical instrument maker, boat man, watch maker, auctioneer, grocer, brush maker, merchant, saddler, attorney, shoemaker, book store, tobacconist, and copper smith. Scanning ahead a few more pages reveals a baker, hairdresser, sail maker cartman, auctioneer, and wood sawyer.

The census records also show that slavery was still a fact of life in New York City during the early years of the new republic. Although legislation passed in 1799 called for the gradual emancipation of slaves in the State, it was not until 1827 that slavery was completely abolished. The census of the first ward in 1816 is illustrative: several of the households along lower Broadway, then as now, the center of finance in the City, included one or two enslaved people. Among them was John Delafield, a broker, residing at 10 Broadway, had one male slave in his household.

The 1st Ward Census of 1816 shows downtown households with slaves. New York County Jury Census, NYC Municipal Archives.

Journalist LaBan appreciated the assistance provided by the archivists. Thanks to the amazing resources in the Archives, we can say that in the early 19th century, the Orange Street neighborhood was the home to a number African-Americans—quite possibly including George Washington’s master chef “Hercules.”

Researchers are welcome to explore the newly digitized census here: New York County Jury Census

 

Prohibition

Next year marks the 100th anniversary of the start of one of the biggest boondoggles in American history – Prohibition. The Volstead Act, which took effect on July 17, 1920 triggered a lawless 13-year era that effectively bankrolled organized crime, put mobsters like Al Capone, Meyer Lansky, Lucky Luciano and Bugs Moran on the map, led to vicious gang wars in New York and Chicago and put the “Roaring” in “The Roaring 20s.”

When most people think of that era and its speakeasies, they imagine glamorous and romanticized F. Scott Fitzgerald-like establishments like “21,” The Players Club, the Cotton Club and Chumley’s, where good booze flowed, “flappers” flapped and celebrities, mobsters and the rich and famous rubbed elbows and drank in a fun-filled atmosphere.

NYPD 8226b: Photo scenes of shooting at speakeasy at 127 West 33rd St, where 12 men were shot, May 16, 1926. C.A. Carlstrom, NYPD Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

But a trip through the Municipal Archives largely tells a story of the underbelly of that era -- the seamy, down-market “blind tiger” clubs that served up bad booze, deadly fights, murders, scams and robberies. Estimates of the number of speakeasies in New York City range from 30,000 to 100,000 and the overwhelming majority were anything but glamorous.

The archives hold some 446 pictures of gruesome speakeasy murders, dilapidated clubs and decrepit halls, bullet-riddled cars, raids on basement still operations as well as mayoral letters and police records that put Prohibition in a decidedly dim light.

NYPD 8529a: Automobile, showing bullet holes taken on East 25th Street pier for Insp. Noonon, October 27, 1926. E. Tobin, NYPD Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

The Municipal Library also housed perhaps the most definitive book on Prohibition, The Night Club Era, by Stanley Walker, city editor of the old New York Herald Tribune. In the almost poetic prose of that era, Walker told a tale that encompassed the good, bad and worst of Prohibition in what has long been considered one of the most accurate accounts of that time.

“These people and these places filled a need which, however silly and anti-social it might have been at bottom, seemed real enough at the time …,” Walker wrote. “… While they lasted, the clubs contributed more than anything else to the mad house that was New York. If some of the night club owners were pretty bad, some of the customers were worse …. The wonder of it is that there were not more killings, beatings, stabbings and robberies.”

NYPD 8926a: Homicide of Thomas Reddington, found dead at 474 Brook Ave., Bronx (a speakeasy), April 9, 1927. George B. Nolan, NYPD Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

New York was never a big fan of Prohibition. In a November 23, 1920 proclamation, Mayor John F. Hylan noted the U.S. Supreme Court had struck down a New York State statute legalizing the sale of 2.75 beer, saying the states “lacked the power to pass such legislation with respect to alcoholic content.” Hylan lamented that despite his preference for a referendum on the Prohibition question, the City Corporation Counsel issued an opinion that said local police were required to enforce the Volstead Act.

An April 13, 1932 raid on a speakeasy at 115th St. and Second Ave. housed in a store called Baker’s Exchange. NYC Municipal Archives.

In the proclamation, he declared: “All patriotic people, whether they agree with the policy … should cooperate to enforce them, and if the state Act and the federal Act does not meet with the approval of the majority of the people they should, by lawful means, procure the repeal or amendment of either or both.”

Archival folders are filled with typed and hand-written letters and petitions from ministers, church-goers and women’s temperance organizations calling on the mayor and Police Department to ban the “wet element” from holding annual “anti-Prohibition parades on The Fourth of July, which, they said, would “attract the lawless and seditious.” But it was too late – not to mention a violation of the First Amendment.

Two men entering a “Café” speakeasy at 11 E. 115th St. at 12:45 p.m. The building had circus posters in the window. NYC Municipal Archives.

In the 1923 edition of the annual report from the New York Police Department (NYPD) to the Mayor, Police Commissioner Richard Enright wrote: “The federal prohibition laws have neither the support nor the respect of the public and the efforts of the Police Department to enforce them were met with obstruction on every hand.”

Enright declared that speakeasies were home to “the vicious elements, bootleggers, gamblers and their friends in all walks of life” cooperating to “evade the law, escape punishment for their crimes, or to deter the police from doing their duty.” And he wasn’t done yet, calling speakeasies, “resorts, dives, brothels and bawdy houses of every description,” as well as “the rendezvous of the criminal and vicious element of the city.”

The Archives’ collection is replete with crime scene photos of murders in low-class speakeasies with cheap furniture, peeling paint, walls decorated with pennants and cheap prints, well-worn pool tables and hodge-podge collections of liquor bottles.

One of the most notorious speakeasy murders was the December 26, 1925 murder of Irish gang tough Richard (Peg Leg) Lonergan in the Adonis Social Club at 154 20th St., in Brooklyn, allegedly at the hands of Al Capone and others who were still celebrating Christmas in the early morning hours.

NYPD 7890c: Homicide at speakeasy at 154 20th Street, Brooklyn. Shooting of Richard (Peg Leg) Lonegan, Aaron Haines and Neil Ferry, December 26, 1925. George B. Nolan, NYPD Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

The December 27 edition of the Brooklyn Eagle breathlessly reported that detectives were investigating the murders of “Richard ‘Peg Leg’ Lonergan, gang leader, and two of his pals as the aftermath of free gunplay that followed a Christmas night revelry in a dilapidated ‘speakeasy club’…” The paper reported that Lonergan and fellow “White Hand” gang members Aaron Heins and Neils “Needles” Ferry “met quick deaths after the revolvers started blazing.” Capone and a few accomplices were arrested but never charged.

NYPD 8051c: Also photo showing speakeasy where John Daly shooting took place at Hicks and Amity St., February 5, 1926. Det. Gilligan, NYPD Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Six weeks later, the Archives show a man named John Daly was found shot and killed at a speakeasy at Irving Place and Van Brunt St. in Brooklyn and on May 16, 1926, 12 men were shot in a wild gun battle in a speakeasy at 127 W. 33rd St in Brooklyn (nypd_08226).

In 1926, Fiorello LaGuardia, who would not become mayor for another eight years and who was adamantly opposed to Prohibition, declared in a radio speech that “Prohibition cannot be enforced for the simple reason that the majority of the American people do not want it to be enforced and are resisting its enforcement.”

NYPD 9127a: Photos of 2 stills at #2097 Bergen St., Brooklyn, July 2, 1927. M.W. Butler, NYPD Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

NYPD 9159 Photo of still at 163 Attorney St., July 19, 1927. Det. Gilligan, NYPD Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Yet, the Archives detail the rising violence it wrought.

NYPD 8734e: Photo of stick up and possible homicide of James Masterson at 214 W. 103rd St., 1928. Engbert, NYPD Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Police officers were not immune to the speakeasy violence. In the 1928 annual report to the mayor, the NYPD said Patrolman James Masterson was shot and killed during an armed robbery at a speakeasy at 214 W. 103rd St. Police arrested Peter Seiler, Walter Tipping and Jerry Cohalen for Masterson’s murder. Seiler was convicted and went to the electric chair in Sing Sing; Tipping was shot to death by police when they tried to arrest him, and Cohalen was committed to the Mattewan Asylum for the insane.

In 1929 Police Commissioner Grover Whalen, a fierce Prohibition proponent issued the NYPD report , to Mayor Jimmy Walker, who never hid his taste for drinking, partying and going to upscale speakeasies. Whalen wrote that the “illegal nature” of the liquor business and speakeasies “attracts to it the stickup thug, the gangster, the degenerate, the racketeer and the gunman … during the past year, particular attention has been given to all places in which it was suspected that the Prohibition Law was being violated, particularly to speakeasies, night clubs, cabarets and like resorts catering to gangsters, gunmen, racketeers and those of that ilk.”

Former Mayor Jimmy Walker’s Drinking Set in pawn shop, includes 3 sterling silver quart flasks, May 1935. Associated Press, NYC Municipal Archives.

That annual report detailed two 1929 murders: On March 20, 1929, James Donofrio was killed while leaving a club at 103 Christopher St. His killer, Anthony Ferrara, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 20-to-25 years in prison. On April 28, 1929, Thomas Colby aka Joseph Shields, and John Collins were shot dead in the rear of a speakeasy at 31- E. 32nd St., Manhattan. Killer James Keely was sentenced to 35-to-life.

Stanley Walker’s The Night Club Era recounts one of the more notorious speakeasy murders. It was in the summer of 1929 in the Hotsy Totsy Club on Broadway, controlled by flamboyant and hothead gangster Jack (Legs) Diamond. As Walker told it, Diamond and his partner, Charles Entratta aka Charles Green, were tending bar when three waterfront toughs named Simon Walker, William (Red) Cassidy and Peter Cassidy walked in and soon got into an argument with Diamond and Entratta.

NYPD 9348b: Photo of body and scene where Jacob Orgen, alias Little Augie, was shot and killed in front of 103 Norfolk St., Manhattan while in the company of Jack Diamond, October 15, 1927. George B. Nolan, NYPD Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

“Diamond and Entratta pulled their guns,” Walker wrote. “Red Cassidy fell with a bullet in his chest and Diamond, leaning over him, emptied his gun into him. Peter Cassidy was badly wounded but not killed. Simon Walker … was shot and killed by either Diamond or Entratta.” Entratta was acquitted at trial – after two witnesses were killed and a third went missing forever. Diamond was not charged.

By the end of 1929 – the year of the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago – Americans were totally fed up with Prohibition and the end seemed near. It came on December 5, 1933, when Congress finally repealed the 18th Amendment – ending a foolish law that spawned violence and gave rise to organized crime. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers celebrated with a drink or two.

The Mayor’s Commission on Conditions in Harlem – 1935

The Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia collection contains several folders detailing the work of the Mayor’s Commission on Conditions in Harlem after the 1935 one-day riot.

256 West 125 Street, ca. 1939. The 1935 riot was sparked by an incident at this Kress department store. Department of Finance Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

On March 19, 1935 a young man was temporarily detained at a Harlem store for shoplifting a knife. A small crowd gathered. Rumors spread that he had been beaten to death in a back room, although in truth he was released out a side door. Communist organizers gave out leaflets tying the incident to broader discrimination against Harlem residents. The crowd grew. A hearse passed by. Rumors flew. One window was broken, then another and soon a melee ensued that continued for most of the evening. Three black men were killed, including another young man who was returning from the movies. More than 100 men were arrested; at least 100 people suffered wounds, chiefly from falling glass and thrown objects; and 250 stores sustained damage.

The next day numerous organizations—many affiliated with the Communist Party—the Fur Workers Industrial Union, Industrial Labor Defense, Branch 41 of the United Councils of Working Class Women, the Alteration Painters Union, the Office Workers Union, the Working People of Amboy and Pitkin—sent sent telegrams denouncing the violence. The telegram below is only one of several sent on behalf of groups of workers gathered at intersections and apparently participating in marches against the violence.

Telegram sent by protesters from the Needle Thread Workers. (The NRA stamp is for the Federal National Recovery Act, not the National Rifle Association.) Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Walter White, the Secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) sent a telegram with a different message. He urged the Mayor to “appoint immediately a biracial commission to make an investigation of rioting in Harlem last night.… We suggest commission be chosen with due regard for fact that last night’s trouble and possible future trouble are rooted in economic distress of Negroes…”

Telegram from Walter White of the NAACP urging the forming of a citizens committee to investigate conditions in Harlem in order to prevent further trouble. Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Some played the blame game citing communist incitement and invoking racial and ethnic stereotypes. On the other hand, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia appeared to have heeded White’s recommendation and established a high-level commission to explore the events, examine conditions that contributed to the violence and recommend strategies that might prevent another occurrence. He made a radio appeal to the People of New York City and issued a handout.

Mayor LaGuardia’s appeal to “the People of New York City” the day after the 1935 Harlem Riot. Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Letter from Walter White of the NAACP laying out the proposed investigation questions the committee should follow. Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Walter White, praised the Mayor’s action. He quickly submitted a five-page list of possible research topics for the commission and suggested that prominent sociologist E. Franklin Frazier be retained to conduct the research. White’s questions offer a roadmap to the final report, which was researched and largely written by Frazier. Concluding the list, he wrote, “Done properly this study may not only be of inestimable service to New York City now and in the years to come but to the entire country.”

A description of the Commission stated that it “was composed of persons who either had experience in the community or special interest in the problems involved.” That’s true. Another feature was the ground-breaking backgrounds of several members. One was prominent in the Harlem Renaissance, another was the first black Alderman, and another the first black woman attorney at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Several had founded the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). All in all, a stellar group. Lester Stone, Secretary to the Mayor described the group as “predominantly negro, and the white members are intelligent, liberal, and sympathetic.”

Members included:

  • Charles H. Roberts who served as the Chair and had been the first black member of the Board of Alderman

  • Oswald Garrison Villard, publisher of the Evening Post and one of the NAACPs founders

  • Eunice Hunton Carter, the first African-American woman to work as a prosecutor for the Manhattan District Attorney

  • Countee Cullen, a poet, playwright and novelist who was part of the Harlem Renaissance

  • Hubert. T Delaney, Commissioner of Taxes and Assessments

  • Morris Ernst, a prominent attorney and co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

  • John C. Grimley, former hospital director and commanding officer of the 369th Infantry

  • Arthur Garfield Hays, founding member and general counsel of the ACLU

  • A. Phillip Randolph, labor leader and head of the International Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters

  • John W. Robinson, prominent minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church

  • William J. Schieffelin, social reformer and trustee of Tuskegee Institute

  • Charles E. Toney, Municipal Judge and NAACP Board Member

  • Reverend W. R. McCann, Roman Catholic pastor of St. Charles Borremeo Church

The Commission established six subcommittees: Crime and the Police, Education, Housing, Discrimination in Employment, Health and Hospitalization and Relief. The subcommittees held hearings, gathered personal testimony, analyzed budgets, and tracked employment statistics. Their work was complicated by the refusal of several officials to participate. For many, the Commission offered an opportunity to present grievances and suggest solutions, as shown by correspondence in the files.

One hundred and sixty witnesses testified at the 21 public and four closed hearings. The Commission invited “persons representing all stratas of the population of Harlem. Anyone who had a complaint against any public official… any laborer at the most menial occupation, etc., was given the same opportunity to express himself… as was the most powerful representatives of private or public interest.

The historically black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha, founded in 1908, circulated a resolution that was submitted by several organizations opposing discrimination against black student nurses and dieticians. The two largest, best-equipped training hospitals, Bellevue and Kings County hospital, denied admission to black student nurses. The black trainees were only admitted to Harlem and Lincoln Hospitals and then, upon graduation, were employed at only four of the twenty-nine City hospitals.

The Police Department Commissioner Lewis J. Valentine refused to meet with the members or testify before them. New York County District Attorney M.C. Dodge complicated the commission’s review by directing the police officers who made arrests during the riots not to participate. In a letter to Valentine he wrote, “Under no circumstances should any police officer who has any case pending, whether in the Magistrate’s Court or Special Sessions, be required to reveal at a public hearing any of his evidence. Will you please, therefore, be good enough to direct your commanding officers to instruct all officers who may have cases pending, not to reveal any of their testimony at any public hearing.”

Letter from Adam Clayton Powell to the commission. Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

That did not stop the commission. When a grand jury failed to return an indictment for the killing of Lloyd Hobbs, the young man shot by officers when he was returning from the movies, ACLU founder Hays questioned whether the eye witnesses in the matter had been asked to testify in the proceeding. He wrote that it was important for all of the facts to be presented to the public in order to determine “if there was any justification for the shooting, the public may know it.” In conclusion he noted that “one of the most ominous features which emerges from the evidence we have taken appears to be a lack of confidence the people of Harlem have in the police, and their feeling that Negroes cannot expect justice”

Pastor Adam Clayton Powell of the Abyssinian Baptist Church wrote Hays a letter describing another violent incident between a police officer and a black man standing on a breadline.

Approximately one year after the riot, the Commission submitted its report to the Mayor. And then? Sections were circulated to department heads for comments. Comments were received. Various people asked for copies. The New York Post (then with a different editorial view than today) and The Daily Worker, issued by the Communist Party, both published sections of the report.

Chapter 4, “The Problem of Making a Living,” described employment discrimination by many public utilities that either refused to hire black people or slotted them into the lowest-paying positions. Chapter 5 detailed how the Home Relief Bureau used race as a factor in determining which employment opportunities would be offered to black applicants. The Housing chapter considered the 800% growth in black Harlem residents, making it one of the most densely-populated areas of the City. The housing stock was decrepit and families were substantially overcharged, paying $30-$50 per month while Lower East Side residents paid less than $20. Chapter 6 detailed the deficiencies in Harlem schools. “Since Poverty is the problem of primary importance to the Negro of Harlem, it is surely responsible for many of the problems of the schools of the community. Many of the children stay away from school simply because they lack food, and are in special need of clothing.” And for those who sought advancement, “In the special courses which prepare girls for the outstanding women colleges, not a single Negro girl was enrolled for the term of 1935.”

Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Every chapter presented an indictment of how the City was serving the 200,000 black residents of Harlem. The report also listed dozens of steps that could help remedy the conditions.

City government never issued the report. Some recommendations were partially implemented—new schools and a federally-funded health center. LaGuardia appointed black judges and executive staff.

In 1946, riots again broke out in Harlem, with the underlying causes very similar to the events of 1935. Overcrowded housing, unequal employment opportunities, a strong sense that justice was lacking. There was greater destruction. More people were killed and wounded. If the recommendations issued a decade earlier had been fully, or even more completely implemented, what would have happened?

In 1969, during another period of urban unrest, Arno Press published the full text of the report. The Municipal Archives has now digitized the report. It is available at the pop-up exhibit at 31 Chambers this week and will be available to readers online in the near future.

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