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

On the Scene: Eugene de Salignac’s Photographs of Traffic Safety

BPS 8214: Williamsburg Bridge, view showing [electric] auto truck, south roadway between Bedford and Driggs Avenue, Brooklyn, June 5, 1923.

Eugene de Salignac served as Photographer for the Department of Plant & Structures (originally the Department of Bridges) from 1906 to 1934. During this time, the agency took on many of the functions that would later be taken over by the Department of Transportation and the MTA. When I wrote New York Rises: Photographs by Eugene de Salignac (Aperture 2007), I included a chapter “Accidents.” In it I wrote: “An important part of de Salignac’s job seems to have been photographing accidents that occurred on or under New York bridges or that involved city-operated bus lines. These were documents made for the City’s Corporation Counsel to use in possible legal cases or to show needed repairs to damaged property. Often de Salignac arrived at the scene within minutes of the incident before passengers had even been evacuated.” What I did not cover in the book were the ways that the Plant & Structures agency tried to address the growing problem of traffic safety. This week’s “For the Record” takes another look at these photos.

BPS 8215: Williamsburg Bridge, view showing [electric] auto truck, south roadway between Bedford and Driggs Avenue, Brooklyn, June 5, 1923.

BPS III 2022: Manhattan Bridge, view showing auto damaged by accident, February 23, 1924.

BPS 5880: Park Circle stage line accident 11:30 a.m., close view, December 6, 1919.

BPS 4974: Lenox Avenue Bridge 145th Street showing accident to auto, Bronx approach north side, July 10, 1917.

BPS 7226: Vernon Avenue Bridge view showing accident to auto truck, May 15, 1922.

BPS IV 1874: Queensboro Bridge, Queens view showing automobile accident, June 11, 1920.

BPS III 1848: Manhattan Bridge view showing auto [taxi] damaged by accident in roadway north side at point 51 looking east from roadway, main span, October 23, 1918.

BPS III 1295: Manhattan Bridge Brooklyn showing accident, J. Ruppert auto truck from subway wall, November 13, 1913. This strange looking vehicle is another electric delivery truck, which were quite common in the City in the early part of the 20th Century.

Nineteenth-century New York was not without traffic accidents. People were struck and killed by horse-drawn carriages and trolley cars with some regularity, and the first recorded automobile accident was on May 30, 1896. However, the early twentieth century saw all manner of new and faster vehicles on the streets of New York, both gas-powered and electric. The introduction of the Model T in 1908 made gas-powered cars ubiquitous and by the nineteen-teens they dominated the roadways. With little in the way of traffic signs or rules of the road, accidents were inevitable. Early cars were not equipped with safety features and accidents were often fatal. In 1913, The New York Times (in an article entitled “Death Harvest”) reported that from 1911 to 1912 the number of people killed from horse-drawn vehicles decreased from 211 to 177, and from streetcars from 148 to 134, but automobile fatalities had risen from 112 to 221. Almost all were pedestrians. In comparison, in January of this year, the Times reported that 2024 had experienced a surge in pedestrian deaths, which had jumped from 101 in 2023 to 119.

BPS IV 2577: Queensboro Bridge showing accident to auto, May 22, 1933.

BPS 7267: 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue view showing Plants & Structures Commissioner Grover Whalen at grand opening for new signal tower for Police Department, June 16, 1922.

BPS 7524: 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, erecting signal tower, Police Department, December 13, 1922. In the background can be seen the original 1920 signal tower. The new tower is flat on the truck.

BPS 7524: 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, erecting signal tower, Police Department, December 13, 1922. The new bronze signal tower, designed by Joseph H. Freedlander, being hoisted into place.

BPS 8435: Traffic Tower 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue view of tower, October 18, 1923.

BPS 8436: Traffic Tower 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue view of tower “close,” October 18, 1923.

The first electric traffic lights came about in the nineteen teens, but New York City did not get one until 1920. It was a tall tower with a wooden shed from which a police officer manually controlled the lights. It was installed at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, under the oversight of Dr. John F. Harriss, the City’s first traffic commissioner. A typed report from 1953 in the Municipal Library “vertical files” states that “The first traffic towers were in use March 11, 1920, at 34th, 38th, 42nd, 50th and 57th Streets and were painted white with black trim. These towers were replaced by more elaborate ones provided by the Fifth Avenue Association in 1922-3.” A police patrolman in each tower manually operated the signals, though in 1926, a system was installed so that one operator could control the signals in all the towers.

In 1924, the City started installing more towers, mostly at busy intersections in Brooklyn. The first independent traffic lights appeared in 1928, marking the end for the system of traffic towers. A 1928 City Record report by the Department of Plant & Structures notes extensive contracts for the installation of lights: 22 on 10th Avenue and Amsterdam Avenue, 17 on 4th Avenue in Brooklyn, 19 in Queens, 14 along 125th Street, and a smattering in the Bronx. Lights were not yet installed on Staten Island. A completely automated system for Manhattan went into operation on March 8, 1929, and on May 7th the demolition of the old towers began.

BPS 8949: Ceremony at opening of traffic towers Grant Square, Brooklyn, June 17, 1924.

BPS 9018: Police traffic light at Broadway and Vesey Street, July 9, 1924.

BPS 9019: [Crowd at opening of] Police traffic light at Broadway and Vesey Street, July 9, 1924.

Although they were short-lived, the traffic towers had been met with much fanfare when they opened. De Salignac seems to have dashed between many on the same night more than once. His photographs of these towers, all similar, but all different, bring to mind the images of water towers and other industrial structures taken by the conceptual German photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher in the 1960s and 1970s. Enjoy.

Above: Traffic towers along Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, May 16, 1924.

Above: Traffic Tower Lights, March 5, 1926. Location unknown.

BPS 10053: Traffic tower lights, March 5, 1926.

Above, left and center: Manhattan Bridge showing signal tower, January 15, 1924.

Right: Manhattan Bridge, view showing signal tower Manhattan end of new roadway where auto collided, February 23, 1924.

BPS 11860: Traffic lights, Ocean Avenue and Caton Avenue, August 4, 1928.

BPS 11741: Traffic light and post damaged at 34th Street and Lexington Avenue, May 17, 1928.

All photographs above by Eugene de Salignac, Department of Bridges/Plant & Structures Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Sources:

In 2014, Christopher Gray (a cherished and missed friend of this agency) wrote about the history of New York’s Traffic lights in his popular New York Times “Streetscapes” column:

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/realestate/a-history-of-new-york-traffic-lights.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/01/nyregion/walkable-new-york-city-became-deadlier-for-pedestrians-in-2024.html

For more on the Bechers: https://spruethmagers.com/artists/bernd-hilla-becher/

History of Reproductive Rights in New York City - Exhibit

This week, the Department of Records and Information Services opened a ‘pop-up’ exhibit on the history of reproductive rights in New York. It begins in 1828, when providing an abortion after quickening first became illegal, and traces the story to the present day, highlighting the city’s current reputation as a national leader in the fight to protect women’s reproductive rights.

1916 handbill in English, Yiddish, and Italian advertising Margaret Sanger’s first birth control clinic at 46 Amboy Street in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. Margaret Sanger, My Fight for Birth Control, NYC Municipal Library.

The new exhibit uses historical documents, photographs, and ephemera to depict the evolution of the laws governing abortion from criminality to full access. It begins with the 1828 New York State law that made it a misdemeanor for a provider to induce abortion after “quickening.”

March held during Abortion Action Week, May 6, 1972. New York Police Department Special Investigations Unit Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Bottle with cork. Exhibit in case: People vs. Elizabeth Klurk (Abortion), April 29, 1878. This bottle with its unknown residue, contained a solution intended to induce abortion. NY DA Indictment Papers, NYC Municipal Archives.

Items from Municipal Archives collections created by the criminal justice system illustrate how New York criminalized women who obtained abortions. The 1871 indictment against Jacob Rosenzweig is on view. The City prosecuted Rosenzweig, a former saloonkeeper, for murder after performing a botched abortion on Alice Augusta Bowlsby and stuffing the woman in a trunk, where she died. Other items in the display focus on the former seamstress Caroline Ann Trow Lohman, aka Madame Restell, also prosecuted for performing abortions. Documents about Margaret Sanger and her sister document her journey through the criminal justice system for sharing birth control information illustrate her story. 

Inquisition into the death of Alice Augusta Bowlsby, 1871. Jacob Rosenzweig, a former saloonkeeper, was prosecuted by the City for murder after performing a botched abortion on Bowlsby and stuffing her body in a trunk. NY DA Indictment Papers, NYC Municipal Archives.

The exhibit also includes photographs from the New York Police Department Crime Scene Photograph collection in the Municipal Archives that graphically illustrate the un-hygienic locations where illegal abortions were performed.

Scene of bedroom where a 20 year old woman received an illegal abortion and later died in Manhattan General Hospital, July 14, 1932. NYPD Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Charts from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene track how thousands of women from across the country relied on City health providers for safe, legal reproductive health care after 1970 when New York State decriminalized abortion and before the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

The exhibit uses pamphlets, buttons, and items from the mayoral collections to tell the story through the last decades of the 20th century as the City fought to protect women’s reproductive rights. The show concludes with a copy of the 2024 Sexual and Reproductive Health Bill of Rights further enshrined New York City’s commitment to protecting reproductive rights.

The exhibit is free to the public. It is located at the Municipal Archives, 31 Chambers Street, Manhattan, Room 103, New York, NY 10007. It is open from 9 a.m. to noon, and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Transcribing Records of Enslaved New Yorkers

New York City Mayor Eric Adams recently announced an ambitious project at the Department of Records and Information Services to make accessible historical records documenting thousands of formerly enslaved New Yorkers. The records in the Municipal Archives date from 1660 through 1827 when New York State abolished the practice of slavery.

Slave and School Records in Kings County, 1799-1819. Old Town Records, Gravesend, NYC Municipal Archives.

The records are part of the Old Town Records collection. This series includes records created by the towns and villages in Kings, Queens, Richmond, and Westchester Counties prior to consolidation in 1898. Recently processed and partially digitized during a project funded by the National Historical Publications & Records Commission, the records provide unique documentation of communities now part of the Greater City of New York. Over the course of the processing project, For the Record published several articles tracking progress and highlighting aspects of this collection. Processing the Old Town Records Collection, Oyster Boards in the Old Town Records and The Genealogical Possibilities of Manumissions in the Old Town Records are a few of the articles.

This week, For the Record interviewed Arafua Reed for information about the transcription project and how interested persons can volunteer to participate. Arafua is a City Service Corps volunteer with AmeriCorps and NYC Service, currently serving as DORIS’ DEIA Coordinator.

For The Record: Arafua, what are the records that are being transcribed?

Arafua Reed: It’s going to be a phased project. The focus of phase one is birth certificates and manumission documents, along with some court minutes from the Old Town Records collection. During the second phase we will transcribe information recorded in other collections such as the Records of New Amsterdam and the Common Council.  

FTR:  Can you tell us about the provenance of these records?

AR:  Most of these documents resulted from the Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery enacted by New York State in 1799. The law stated that children born to enslaved women after July 4, 1799, would be legally declared “free.” Since these children were still considered property with material value, this came with a loophole that their freedom would become valid only after a certain amount of time had elapsed—25 years of age for women, and 28 years for men—meanwhile these children were still required to work. Therefore, enslavers were required to record the children’s births on legal documents.

Certificate of Birth for Harry, a male child born on October 25, 1804, reported by John Vanderbilt on September 5 1805. Records of the Town of Flatbush, Old Town Records collection, NYC Municipal Archives..

Enslaved people born prior to July 4, 1799, were re-categorized as indentured servants; this language (using “servant” instead of “slave”) appears throughout the manumission documents. Typically, the document includes the enslavers statement reporting the birth, and a corresponding certification of its accuracy by the town clerk. In rare instances, there is text in a will document freeing an enslaved person.

FTR:  Do you know about how many individuals will be identified by the transcription project?

Birth records, ledger, 1826, Town of Flatlands, Old Town Records collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

AR: There are about 1,300 birth and manumission records in the books slated for transcription during this phase.

FTR:  Please describe the transcription process.

AR: The Municipal Archives is using an online service called From The Page for the transcription project. Once logged-in, volunteers will click on a book and select a page. Or, they can click “Start Transcribing” (just above the list of volumes) and will be taken to a random page that hasn’t been worked on yet. The format of volunteer submissions are split into two sections: there’s a text area field, where the entire page will be transcribed in full. Just below this text box is a spreadsheet, where volunteers will insert the information about children born to enslaved mothers.

We’re asking that volunteers type what they see and to keep in mind the transcription tips that sit in the middle of every page. It’s an easy process to get into; reading some of the handwriting is probably the most difficult part of it.

FTR:  Are transcribers provided any assistance with reading the hand-written records?

Birth records, 1810-1811, transcribed in ledger, Town of Flatlands, Old Town Records collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

AR: That’s my current responsibility. There’s a convenient Notes and Questions box under each transcription page, so if volunteers need help with some of the words, or if they want a review of something very specific on one of their pages, or even if they find something interesting, they can send that message there. These notes are public, so if volunteers want to engage with someone else’s comments, they can.

FTR:  How will you make sure that the transcribers do not make mistakes?

AR: That is another part of my responsibility. I don’t expect anyone to complete these pages to perfection and, when I see mistakes, I can easily correct them. I’m currently reviewing the submissions page by page, but there are ways for volunteers to note specific pages that they need help with. After a submission is all typed out, volunteers can check a box by the Preview and Save buttons that says, “Needs Review.” This lets me know that a transcriber would like someone to look over the work before it’s considered complete. These notes are very helpful for me to track progress. In some cases, I might need to adjust the transcription conventions to include things that people struggle with often.

Certificate of Birth for Henry Lynes, a male child, born on November 5, 1804, reported by Simeon Buck, November 26, 1804. Records of the Town of Flatbush, Old Town Records collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

FTR:  How will the transcribed information be made available?

The Archives will publish the birth records as a database in Collection Guides. In addition, the Archives has curated a sub-collection for birth records of enslaved people and a webpage on archives.nyc devoted to holdings featuring Records of Slavery and Emancipation.

FTR:  It looks like a significant impediment to using manumission records to trace ancestry is the lack of surnames. In the example below, we know that “Tom” was born on March 28, 1806, to “Bet,” but we do not know their surnames. Do you have any advice about how to overcome this impediment?

Certificate of Birth for Tom a male child born on March 28, 1806 to Bet, reported by George Lott on September 27, 1806. Records of the Town of Flatlands, Old Town Records collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

AR: We suggest that researchers try using vital record collections of the communities where enslaved persons resided. Given that we know the date of birth and a first name, and if the formerly enslaved person remained in the community, it might be possible to find additional demographic information in vital records. The Municipal Archives collection of vital records includes records of birth, death and marriage in many of the Old Town communities.

FTR:  What should a person do if interested in participating in the project?

AR:  To start working, a volunteer can visit the Records of Slavery page that lives on the website.

Daylight Savings Time

Unfortunately, it is time again for that semi-annual ritual: changing your timepieces to reflect Daylight Savings Time. 

Sundial, Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, September 1937. Photographer: E.M. Bofinger. WPA Federal Writers’ Project photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Spring forward. Fall back. Most have heard this axiom that reminds us of how to shift time. And on Sunday, March 9, we will be springing forward and, in many cases, grumbling about it and wondering, “When did this practice start and for what purpose?”

Interestingly, a folder in the collection of former Mayor John Purroy Mitchel (1914-1917), provides some context. Titled “Conventions-New York Daylight Savings Committee,” the folder contains various communications from 1916 and 1917.   

In May, 1916, Marcus M. Marks, President of the Borough of Manhattan announced a conference on “Turning the Clock Forward” to be held later in the month. He invited City merchants and organizations to participate. The announcement noted that Cleveland, Ohio was a leader in the practice of adjusting time, along with various European cities. New York was behind the times.  

New York Daylight Savings Committee, Invitation, 1917. Mayor John Purroy Mitchel Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

New York Daylight Savings Committee, Acceptance, 1917. Mayor John Purroy Mitchel Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Conference attendees recommended forming a committee (a time-honored manner of resolving matters). The New York Daylight Savings Committee, based in the Borough President’s office and chaired by Marks, consisted of leaders from civic organizations, law firms, financial trusts, unions, manufacturers, and academia.

In January 1917, the Committee launched the idea of a Convention that would be addressed by Senators, Governors, Mayors, and others. Marks authored a column, “Health and Wealth in Daylight” in the newspaper Evening Sun attributing the idea of daylight savings time to “the brain of Benjamin Franklin over 135 years ago.” He wrote that “In 1784, Franklin estimated that the city of Paris that year would save in its lighting bills the somewhat exaggerated sum of $19,000,000.”

The article also refuted opponents claims: “It has been suggested that all the advantages could be obtained without turning the clock ahead, by rising and retiring an hour earlier. The answer is that we would not do it; and if we tried it we would find ourselves out of harmony with our surroundings….  There is an element of psychology in this movement. It would be quite an effort for those accustomed to arise at seven o’clock to get up at six. But when the clock says seven, habit asserts itself, and in a few days no one remembers that the clock has been turned ahead.”

Daylight Saving, by Harold Jacoby, comparison chart. New York Daylight Savings Committee, 1917. Mayor John Purroy Mitchel Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Much of the rationale included in the column was pulled from a paper written by Harold Jacoby, the Rutherford Professor of Astronomy at Columbia University. He explained the value of changing the clocks instead of changing schedules. “It is almost certain that if the factory whistles that now blow at seven should be sounded at six instead, something like an insurrection would occur among the workers. Therefore, the new plan proposes to attain the result by changing the clocks instead of the whistles.”

Mayor Mitchel accepted the invitation to address the convention at a lunch to be held at the grand ballroom at the Hotel Astor on January 30, 1917. He also appointed the required ten delegates to consider the concept.      

National Daylight Saving Convention and Luncheon, agenda, January 30, 1917. Mayor John Purroy Mitchel Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

The impetus for changing the clocks originated in England but was first successfully implemented in Germany in 1916. Great Britain and France soon also adopted the system. The mayoral records fail to indicate that this occurred in the middle of World War I (1914-1918), when the goal was to reduce civilian energy use so those resources could be directed to the war effort. Adoption of the approach by both sides of the conflict is noteworthy.

The United States Congress passed legislation to create universal daylight savings time in 1918 and repealed the law in 1920. During World War II, Congress again established the program and again repealed it when the war ended. In 1966, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Uniform Time Act that standardized time zones in the country and brought back Daylight Savings Time. The start and end dates varied each time the law was revised. Currently, daylight savings runs from the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November (which usually is also the date of the New York City Marathon).      

New York Daylight Saving Committee to Mayor Mitchel, 1917. Mayor John Purroy Mitchel Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

The start and end days have always been Sundays, and the Mitchel folder contains an explanation. In 1883, the nation’s railroad companies introduced a standard system for railway timetables that established time zones and eliminated dozens of confusing locally set times. The new standard required uniformity in timetables. For travelers, the resulting schedule adjustments led to criticism. When daylight savings time was implemented in 1918, train travelers were a prime consideration: “Only continental through trains actually between stations on the critical Sunday nights near May 1 and September 30 might possibly offer some difficulty. It is for this reason that these dates are placed on Sunday, and at an hour after midnight, when few trains are in motion,” wrote Professor Jacoby.

So, in 2025, as we adjust our clocks, America’s long-lost (declined??) passenger railway system still runs the show.

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