Hudson River Sloop Clearwater as Covered by WNYC-TV

During the last decade, whale sightings in New York Harbor and the Hudson River have risen dramatically, from five in 2011 to more than 300 in 2019, with the most recent sighting of a humpback whale as far north as Manhattan’s Pier 84 on December 9, 2020. Most experts believe that the surge in whale sightings is the result of decades of work to clean up industrial pollution in the Hudson River spurred by environmental activists. One of the most prominent activists dedicated to this cause was famed folk singer and songwriter Pete Seeger. In 1969, Seeger sailed his boat the sloop Clearwater up the Hudson to raise awareness of the dire state of the river.

For decades, General Electric, General Motors and Monsanto factories dumped thousands of tons of industrial waste directly into the Hudson River. Pollutants such as PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), lead, mercury, sewage waste and pesticides, to name just a few, were being discharged into the Hudson every day, harming the ecosystems dependent on the river, as well as anyone fishing from or swimming in the river. Some of the known health effects of PCBs include cancer, hormonal imbalance, memory loss, birth defects, diabetes and many more.

In 1966, Pete and Toshi Seeger founded Hudson River Sloop Clearwater Incorporated and began building an 18th century sloop replica named Clearwater to sail up the Hudson. Seeger hoped that the sight of the ship would help people appreciate the beauty of the river and rally popular sentiment to clean up the pollution. Seeger’s hopes paid off three years later on August 1st, 1969, when the sloop sailed into New York harbor. Mayor John Lindsay, a gaggle of reporters, and a camera crew from WNYC-TV joined Seeger aboard the ship. With the Statue of Liberty behind them, the crew of the Clearwater treated their guests to music, a trip around the harbor and a demonstration of traditional sailing techniques used at the beginning of New York’s modern history.

Sloop Clearwater maiden voyage to New York City, August 1, 1969. NYC Municipal Archives, WNYC-TV Collection, REC0047_01_2088. Selected footage from WNYC has been recently digitized and made available in the DORIS website gallery.

The following year, the United States celebrated its first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, and established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on December 2. Although the EPA started with limited authority, Congress soon passed a number of laws such as the 1972 Clean Water Act, expanding the Agency’s ability to enforce regulations and induce corporations like General Electric to pay for cleaning up toxic waste in the Hudson River. The Clean Water Act made it a criminal offense to dump any pollutants into navigable water ways without a permit from the government. But it wasn’t only corporations that came under the new Federal agency’s scrutiny.

On July 18, 1972, the Federal government sued the City of New York and several New Jersey organizations. The suits aimed to force the City into preventing the discharge of industrial waste into its sewer systems, and to treat sewage emptied into the harbor and its adjacent waters. Three days later, Mayor John Lindsay held a combative press conference covered by WNYC-TV. He announced the City would invest $61 million to upgrade the Hunts Point Water Pollution Control Plant to treat the City’s wastewater. Although the suits by the Federal government had earlier been ridiculed by Lindsay’s cabinet as absurd and political, they admitted at the press conference that the Hunts Point upgrades would do nothing to curb the presence of industrial waste in New York Harbor.

Mayor Lindsay Press Conference on wastewater discharge, July 21, 1972. WNYC-TV Collection, NYC Municipal Archives, REC0047_01_2708. Selected footage from WNYC has been recently digitized and made available in the DORIS website gallery.

Led by the Seegers, Hudson River Sloop Clearwater Inc. continued to advocate for the cleanup of the river for decades. In 1977, 180,000 cubic yards of the riverbed polluted with PCBS were removed from the Hudson, the first of many such efforts. In 1984, the EPA designated 200 miles of the river as an environmental Superfund site, one of the largest in the country. Since then, there have been repeated attempts to lower the PCB levels and other toxic pollutants by dredging the river. This has most often been paid for by General Electric, one of the worst polluters. As of today, over 5 million cubic yards of polluted riverbed have been dredged and removed, but the EPA still advises against swimming in or eating any fish caught from the Hudson.

Although progress has been slow, activists like Seeger were able to effect change due to sustained pressure on the government and the corporate bodies that polluted the river in the first place. Pushback from General Electric was also sustained, but the popular sentiment Seeger hoped to foster has overcome that opposition time and time again. Due to those efforts, songs like Seeger’s 1966 ‘My Dirty Stream (Hudson River Song)’ are slowly being replaced by a new Hudson River song, this time sung by a chorus of hundreds of humpback whales.

Building Histories, The Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital and the Rivington Street Bath

In last week’s blog, Amy Stecher adapted her “Lunch and Learn” presentation about the Manhattan Building Plan collection project. This week, co-presenter Alexandra Hilton highlights two architecturally significant buildings documented in the collection – the Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital and the Rivington Street Bath. Future blogs will feature the plans of other unique buildings that have been identified in the processing project.

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Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital

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Psychopathic Building, Bellevue and Allied Hospitals, architects’ rendering, 1927. Department of Public Charities and Hospitals Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

The Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital, as it was called at the time, was built in 1931 by Charles B. Meyers in the Italian Renaissance style. The building is still standing alongside the East River on First Avenue between 29th and 30th Streets, occupying an entire city block. When constructed, it joined the growing Bellevue hospital complex, and was intended to match the existing buildings, which were designed by architects McKim, Mead & White – same color brick, embellished with granite base course, limestone and terra cotta trimmings. By then, McKim, Mead & White was barely active; Meyers had just designed the Tammany Hall building and was a favorite of then-Mayor Jimmy Walker.

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Manhattan Block 958. Bromley Atlas, 1955. New York Public Library.

Prior to its construction, Bellevue’s mental-health facilities were part of the main hospital and included an 1879 “pavilion for the insane,” and an alcoholic ward was added in 1892. Dr. Menas Gregory, a well-known psychiatrist who spent his career working in Bellevue’s psychiatric division, is credited with the idea for a psychiatric building after a trip to inspect similar institutions in Europe – a “Temple of Mental Health,” as he called it. Wanting to create a very clean and stately environment for the new hospital was right on brand for Dr. Gregory. In his position, he had already changed the terminology – preferring “psychopathic” to the word “insane,” thinking this would help make the patients seem curable. He had also removed the iron bars from the old pavilion’s windows and had lessened the use of narcotics and physical restraints on the patients. Dr. Gregory was seen as a good guy in the field, at a time when most medical professionals were largely ignorant about mental illness.

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Psychopathic Hospital, Department of Hospitals, Charles B. Meyers, elevation, 1929, blueprint. Manhattan Building Plan Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Before the hospital was built, The New York Times said it would be “one of the finest hospitals in the world for the treatment of mental disorders” and “thoroughly modern” at a cost of $3,000,000. (Unsurprisingly, by the time it was finished, the cost would be $4,300,000 ($66,000,000 today). It was designed as a single building with three separate units: 1) 10-stories to house administrative services, doctors’ offices, labs and a library; 2) 8-stories, for mild cases; 3) 8-stories, for more advanced cases. There were facilities for recreation and occupational therapy; physio-, electro- and hydro-therapy; an out-patient clinic; teaching facilities for medical students, and a special research clinic for the study and treatment of delinquency, crime and behavior problems, in collaboration with the Department of Correction, Criminal Courts and Probation Bureau.

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Bellevue Hospital complex with new psychopathic building at right, October 31, 1934. Borough President Manhattan Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Rooms were designed to house either one, two or three patients at a time. In a Mental Hygiene Bulletin, it was written that “special consideration has been given in the plans to incorporate within the building the appearance and aspect of home or normal living conditions with simple decorations and color tones believed to have the most soothing effect upon the patient.” One hundred of the six hundred beds were dedicated for the study and treatment of children, under the supervision of the Department of Education. 

Completing the building was nothing short of dramatic and filled with accusations of corruption and mismanagement. Its lavish exterior juxtaposed against the great depression couldn’t have been more tone deaf to the city’s residents. When ground was broken on June 18, 1930, it was thought the building would be completed at the end of 1931. Almost a year later, in February 1931, the cornerstone was just being laid. Delays were plentiful. It reportedly took a year to choose the architect and another year to draw the plans, and then, according to the Acting Commissioner of Hospitals, “after the contractor had collected all the funds he could get, he left for Europe.” 

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Psychopathic Hospital, Department of Hospitals, Charles B. Meyers, first floor plan, 1929, blueprint. Manhattan Building Plan Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

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Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital, Manhattan Block 958, Lot 1, 1940. Tax Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

The hospital partially opened in May 1933 with the 600-bed facility only ready for 375 patients. A formal dedication occurred later that year in November, where tribute was paid to Dr. Gregory for his vision. Dr. Gregory resigned from his post in 1934, amid an investigation of his division by the Commissioner of Hospitals, Dr. S. S. Goldwater. This formed a spectacular tit-for-tat-type relationship between Dr. Gregory and Dr. Goldwater, which The New York Times covered extensively. Dr. Gregory died in 1941.

Over the years, the building went from temple of health to a scary place you didn’t want to go, and was the subject of many films, novels and exposes. The hospital saw many celebrity patients. Norman Mailer was sent there after stabbing his wife in a drunken rage. William Burroughs after he chopped off his own finger to impress someone. Eugene O’Neill had several stays in the alcoholic ward. Sylvia Plath came after a nervous breakdown. And infamous criminals like George Metesky the “Mad Bomber,” and John Lennon’s assassin, Mark David Chapman, were briefly committed to the hospital. 

In 1984, the city began transitioning the building into a homeless shelter and intake center, but much of it was left empty. Around 2008, a proposal to turn the building into a hotel surfaced. To developers, the building was naturally suited to such a use, given the H-shaped layout with long hallways and small rooms.

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Rivington Baths

The Rivington Street Bath House at 326 Rivington Street, later renamed the Baruch Bath House, was the first in the city to be built with public funds. The ground-breaking for the bathhouse took place in December 1897; it opened on March 23, 1901. 

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Public Bath Building, Rivington Street, Cady, Berg & See, South Elevation, 1897, ink on linen. Manhattan Building Plan Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Architects Cady, Berg & See designed the large, neoclassical building. They had become the go-to designers for municipal bath houses after the success of the People’s Bath, a public bath that had been privately funded by the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor (the AICP). The People’s Bath opened in 1891 at 9 Centre Market Place, near Broome Street, on the block where the old Police Headquarters building still stands. The architects and Dr. Simon Baruch, regarded as the “father of the public bath movement in the United States,” were keen on German design and their widespread use of showers – which, at the time, were referred to as rain baths or ring showers because of the circular shower head, designed to keep hair dry. The Germans were using showers for mass bathing situations, such as in military barracks. Showers were cheaper to build, easier to keep clean, used less water and could get people in and out faster, and became the staple of bathhouses.

Dr. Simon Baruch, who the Rivington Street Bathhouse was eventually named after, emigrated from Germany to South Carolina when he was a teenager. He studied medicine and joined the Civil War as a surgeon on the confederate side. Captured at the Battle of Gettysburg, he was held as a prisoner of war for the duration of the conflict. He made his way to New York City in 1881, served as a physician on the Lower East Side, and achieved prominence in the New York medical field.

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Manhattan Block 324, 1891, Bromley Atlas, New York Public Library

Dr. Baruch began advocating for public bathhouses in 1889. He was big on hydrotherapy, at the time a new concept in the United States, and this guided many of his endeavors. Municipal officials weren’t as sold on this concept that poor sanitation would equal poor physical health, but Baruch was tireless in promoting the utility of water and importance of a public bath system. For some reason, he was in the minority – even though in 1894, only 306 out of 255,000 tenements in New York City had bathtubs. “The people won’t bathe,” said then-Mayor Hugh Grant. But by 1895, Baruch finally convinced the State Legislature to pass a law that mandated cities with a population greater than 50,000 to establish and maintain free bath facilities.

Logistics around the new bath law and facilitation of public bathhouses caused some lag. One of the hiccups concerned their locations. Tompkins Square Park on the Lower East Side, then a predominantly German and Irish neighborhood, had been chosen as the location for the first bath. The residents couldn’t have been less thrilled by this prospect.  They did not want to be living in the community thought to be so poor that they needed a public bath. Essentially, they said it should go to the newer Jewish and Italian immigrant communities, located further south. And they did not want the bathhouse to take away from their already too-little park space. Their opposition was heard; Tompkins Square was no longer a contender. There was also a question of whether public baths even had to be located in parks; the mayor and his committee on public baths thought it did; Baruch said they did not. Somehow, they came over to Baruch’s side and the spot on Rivington Street, already owned by the city, was chosen.

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Public Bath Building, Rivington Street, Cady, Berg & See, First floor plan; showers and waiting area for men and women, 1897, ink on linen. Manhattan Building Plan Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

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Public Bath Building, Rivington Street, Cady, Berg & See, Longitudinal section, baths on upper floors, 1897, ink on linen.  Manhattan Building Plan Collection, NYC Municipal Archives. 

The style of the Rivington Street Bathhouse influenced the style of subsequently built baths in the city. William Paul Gerhard, author of Modern Baths and Bath Houses (1908), said that the exterior of a people’s bath – or public bath – should be easily recognizable so it would be easily found. But he also warned that it shouldn’t be so lavish that the poor wouldn’t want to come. The Rivington Street bath design wasn’t exactly modest and met criticism for its extravagance and cost—eventually totaling more than $95,000 ($2,995,000 in today’s dollars). Of course, after its immediate success, the AICP recommended that another 16 bathhouses be built to the same specifications, saying it was actually more economical to build (cost less per shower compartment) and to maintain for the long haul. They aimed for the ancient Roman public bath-look with classical pilasters, columns, arches and cornices, constructed with hefty materials like brick, terra cotta, stone marble and copper, and with ornamental iron work. Whatever its appearance, the bathing experience was pretty much the same throughout the city’s bathhouses. 

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Public Bath Building, Rivington Street, Cady, Berg & See, Plumbing plan, 1897, ink on linen. Manhattan Building Plan Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

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Public Bath Building, Rivington Street, Cady, Berg & See, Longitudinal section, 1897, ink on linen. Manhattan Building Plan Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

At Rivington Street, the three-and-a-half story building was divided into two spaces for a dedicated men’s and women’s area, each with a waiting room. The men’s area was about 2/3 of the building with 45 rain baths, or, showers; the women had 22. A handful of bathtubs were on the upper floors. Each bath cubicle was divided into two parts – a dressing area and a shower, separated by a curtain. When a patron entered the bathhouse, they were given a number, and then they would wait for their number to be called for the next available cubicle. They usually had 20 minutes to undress, bathe and redress – Rivington had the capacity to accommodate 3,000 bathers per day on this timetable. Attendants controlled the water temperature, which ranged between 73 to 105 degrees F, and the duration of the shower – I’m sure it will come to no surprise to learn that the attendants soon began running a scheme, where patrons could sneak them five cents for a limitless bath time. Eventually they got caught and were fired. Pools were later added to the complex in 1917.

Rivington Street Bath, Manhattan Block 324, Lot 36, 1940 Tax Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

In 1939, Bernard Baruch, Dr. Baruch’s son, donated the land around the bathhouse to the city, and jurisdiction of the building went to the Parks Department. They renovated the bathhouse as a recreation center and added Baruch Playground. In the 1950s, the New York City Housing Authority built Baruch Houses, Manhattan’s largest public housing complex adjacent to the bathhouse. By 1975, the city’s fiscal crisis forced the facility to close, and has pretty much sat unused

Inside the Manhattan Building Plan Collection

On March 30, 2021, archivists Amy Stecher and Alexandra Hilton conducted a virtual “behind the scenes” look at the Manhattan Building Plans project for DORIS’s “Lunch and Learn” program. In this week’s blog Amy Stecher has adapted her presentation which focused on the challenges and complexities in preserving and digitizing the architectural plans. Next week, Alexandra Hilton will discuss some of the architectural gems that have been identified in the collection. 

Fire of 1776. Library of Congress Collection.

The collection consists of architectural plans for most buildings on the 958 blocks of Manhattan below 34th Street. They date from establishment of the Department of Buildings (DOB) in 1866 through 1978.  The plans had been submitted to the DOB by builders, architects, plumbers, electricians, etc., as part of the process to receive a permit to build or alter any structure. 

Regulations concerning buildings pre-date the DOB.  In 1625, the Dutch West India Company imposed rules for the locations and types of houses that could be built in the colony.  Among the edicts were prohibitions on roofs made of reeds, and wooden or plaster chimneys.  Throughout the next 200 years, city leaders enacted an array of building regulations, mostly related to sanitation and public safety, particularly from the hazard of fire. There was good reason for this.  Fires devastated the city in 1776, 1835, and 1845.  The 1845 fire destroyed 345 buildings in the financial district and killed 40 people.  In 1816, the city banned new construction of  wood-frame structures below Canal Street and in 1849 the ban was extended to 32nd Street. By 1882, no wood-frame buildings were allowed below 155th Street.

Evolution of a tenement, from single-to-multiple-family structures, an illustration from the Tenement House Commission Report of 1895. NYC Municipal Library.

In addition to fire, the exponential growth of the city necessitated additional building regulations. The city’s population increased from 60,000 people in 1800, to 800,000 in 1860.  To accommodate this expansion, single-family homes were sub-divided, additional floors were added, and extensions were built into their already small yards, leaving little open space for light or ventilation. By 1865, more than 15,000 tenement-style houses had already been built.

During the 18th and 19th century the city experienced cholera, yellow fever, and typhoid epidemics. Overcrowding and close quarters with little ventilation and unsanitary conditions contributed to the spread of disease.

Caption:  The introduction of new technologies such as the elevator and steel-frame construction allowed ever-larger and taller buildings to rise in Lower Manhattan.  The collection includes an elaborate fire-escape for the building on Washington Place where the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire occurred.  DOB Collection.  NYC Municipal Archives.

In 1860 the New York State Legislature passed “An Act to provide against unsafe buildings in the City of New York…,” calling for the appointment of a Superintendent of Buildings and a staff of inspectors. Over the next 40 years, the city and state enacted new regulations, including establishment of the Bureau of Fire Escapes and Iron Work in 1874, and the Bureaus of Plumbing, Light, and Heat in 1892.

Other laws passed in 1867 and 1879 mandated fire escapes but failed to adequately address issues of light and ventilation.  This resulted in the Tenement Act of 1901, which imposed many more regulations, such as requiring new buildings to have outward-facing windows, indoor bathrooms, proper ventilation, and increased fire safeguards.  Population growth also meant that the City’s economy grew and became more complex, creating the need for larger and more versatile spaces.

Advances in the water supply system, sanitary engineering, access to gas and electricity for illumination and cooking, and central heating systems added to the complexity of building construction and to the variety of types of plans that needed to be filed.  New lighting fixtures in the District Attorney’s office on Centre Street.  DOB Collection.  NYC Municipal Archives.

Of the thousands of plumbing drawings, one of our favorites is a very artistic sink and toilet drawing for the Manhattan House of Detention.  DOB Collection.  NYC Municipal Archives.

Permit and application correspondence in block and lot folders, DOB Collection.  NYC Municipal Archives.

Permit applications and filed plans are arranged according to the Block and Lot number, a system that provides every city parcel of land with a unique identifying number.  Insurance atlases are a helpful tool in identifying historical block and lot numbers. 1897 Bromley Atlas. New York Public Library online resource.

Increasingly, trained architects and engineers, rather than tradespeople and builders, were needed to navigate the complexities of the system and to submit plans and application forms. The DOB retained the bulk of these materials until the early 1970s when it initiated a pilot project to save space by microfilming the building plans that had accumulated over the previous century. They employed an outside vendor for the microfilming, intending to dispose of the original materials after filming. The idea of disposing of the original material raised alarms among the city’s community of historians, architects, and preservationists, including the Landmarks Preservation Commission. They monitored the quality of the microfilm and it was determined that the film did not meet accepted standards. The project was discontinued after filming the surviving plans for all buildings on the 958 blocks of Lower Manhattan below 34th Street. At that point they transferred the plans to Municipal Archives.

Roll plans from the DOB in storage. NYC Municipal Archives.

In 1979, an initial group of 1,000 rolls of blueprints and plans were transferred to the Municipal Archives, and more kept coming. By 1984, the archives conducted an inventory of the accumulated rolled plans and concluded that they had acquired a total of 5,738 rolls of plans. Until 2018, these plans were in storage in the same state they arrived in, occasionally being pulled by archives staff for use by researchers if they knew they existed.

In 2018, the Municipal Archives received support from the New York State Library Conservation/Preservation Discretionary Grant Program to process and re-house a subset of the Manhattan Building plans that pertained to the neighborhoods of Tribeca and Soho. This allowed staff to be hired to begin to process the plans. After the approximately 140 blocks encompassing those two neighborhoods were completed in the fall of 2019, the archivists started working on the lowest blocks in Manhattan.

Poor storage conditions and improper handling during the microfilming process resulted in damage to the plans.  DOB Collection.  NYC Municipal Archives.

Less than ideal storage conditions have led to some daunting issues in processing the collection. The microfilm vendor haphazardly and messily rewrapped the plans in acidic wrapping paper tightly tied with damaging twine and labelled the “bundle” with minimal, and often insufficient, information. 

It’s a big task for our rolled plans processing team to process and rehouse these plans to reestablish intellectual control over the material and to create more optimal retrieval and storage conditions. Here is a look at some of the tasks we perform on each roll.

Plans separated by mylar and re-rolled.  DOB Collection.  NYC Municipal Archives.

The re-rolled plans are stored in archival containers. DOB Collection. NYC Municipal Archives. 

First, the dusty bundles are un-rolled and the plans are identified, sorted, flattened, repaired if damaged, counted and cataloged, and carefully and neatly re-rolled onto acid-free tubes, wrapped with protective Mylar, and stored in acid-free boxes. The method for organizing the plans is according to the building’s block and lot number; all the plans for all the buildings or structures built on a particular city lot, and all the changes and alterations made to an already existing building on that lot, are stored together. When sorting the plans, we verify the block and lot information and record it in a spreadsheet, as well as addresses, quantity of plans, dates, and notes on architects, important features, and major condition concerns that are passed on to our conservation department. 

A block can contain up to 70 or 80 lots, sometimes all rolled together. Over time, when buildings are expanded or torn down, and new larger buildings are built, or buildings are combined, the lot number can change. The lot numbers written on these plans (often written very boldly in horrifying black magic marker!!!!) are essentially only accurate for the location identification as it was in the 1970s. This mean that we do not know the contents of a bundle until it is unrolled.   

When we identify the plans, we record the block and lot number from when the plan was filed as well as the current identifying information listed in the DOB BIS (Building Information System). Our concern is that researchers might request materials based on numbers from the DOB BIS, or from insurance atlases, or old block and lot maps, which may not match up with 1970s labeling. Our goal is to provide multiple entry points.  

After unrolling, plans are under boards and light weights. DOB Collection.  NYC Municipal Archives.

The drawings span more than 100 years and many print types created by many different processes are represented in the collection. During processing they are sorted according to print type and separated by sheets of Mylar to avoid chemical migration between the different types of plans.

Plan types. Blueprint. DOB Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Plan types: Aniline print. DOB Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Plan types. Drawing on drafting linen. DOB Collection. NYC Municipal Archives. 

After processing, the containers and re-shelved. DOB Collection. NYC Municipal Archives. 

We have processed almost 30,000 drawings but there’s a lot more work to be done! Clearly, it is a really big, multi-year project, but it’s very worth it. Now, when we receive inquiries about plans from researchers, we can tell immediately whether we do or do not hold plans for a particular address or block and lot number, and can supply quantity and date information simply by checking the spreadsheet. Retrieval of the actual plans once they are processed takes minutes instead of hours and almost everything that has been processed is in a state that is now ready for scanning because the flattening and repair has already been performed. As of now we are scanning on demand for researchers as well as digitizing particularly interesting or beautiful plans so they can be part of our online gallery. 

It’s also worth doing the work because the collection has so much to offer that is now becoming more accessible to the public.  

Look for next week’s blog where we highlight some of the amazing plans that have been identified in the collection. 

New York Life Insurance Building, , elevation, McKim Mead & White, 1903.  Manhattan Building Plan collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Victory Gardens

As we pass the one-year mark of the pandemic, and head into another Spring season, our thoughts turn again to the outdoors and the natural world. For many, New York City parks are an oasis. But for some, gardens—in the backyard, or in a shared community plot—provide a refuge.

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The Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Spring Courses, 1942.  Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

A recent New York Times article about the unexpected popularity of a British television gardening show observed that “...with restaurants, bars and theaters shut down, and socializing at home (or anywhere else) risky, gardening was one of the few leisure activities the pandemic didn’t take away. Both Britain and the United Sates experienced a garden boom last year, with sales of seeds way up and nurseries overrun on weekends.” (New York Times, “Finding Refuge in Dirty Hands and Comfort TV,” March 14, 2021.)  The March 2021 issue of Gardner News similarly reported “Containers were purchased. Planting mediums were purchased. Annuals and perennials were purchased to fill the containers. Home Victory Gardens filled with vegetable, fruit, and herbs served as a successful means of easing stress and safeguarding against food shortages.” (Gardner News, “March Madness,” March 2021.)  

Victory Gardens? Wasn’t that a World War II phenomenon? Were there Victory Gardens in dense, paved-over New York City? The answer is yes, and yes—during World War II, thousands of New Yorkers planted “Victory Gardens” not so much for mental health but as a food source.

Do the collections of the Municipal Archives serve to document Victory Gardens in New York? The answer is again yes, and we turn to the always rewarding Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia collection (1934-1945) to tell the story. Searching the inventory brings up results in two series, the subject files, and the civil defense volunteer office records.   

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The Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Spring Radio Programs, 1942.  Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

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The New York Botanical Garden Spring Course Brochure. Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

“We must be out of it for the present.”

In February 1942, two months after President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared war against the Axis powers, Mayor LaGuardia wrote Claude R. Wickard, Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture.  He asked “...whether the Department was designing a program for large cities with respect to the establishment of Victory Gardens for the purpose of raising vegetables.”

Wickhard’s reply was discouraging. He explained that fertilizer would be scarce as the chemicals would be needed for munitions. He added that the supply of vegetable seeds, often imported from Europe, would be cut off. And finally, he stated, “It is ill-advised to plant a garden on poor soil such as will be found in many city back yards.” In forwarding a copy of Wickard’s letter to other City officials, LaGuardia concluded, “…as a general city proposition, we must be out of it for the present.

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Mayor LaGuardia to Secretary of Agriculture, Postal Telegraph, January 28, 1943. Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

“Little do they realize the amount of labor involved.”

One year later, correspondence in the subject file tells a different story. By 1943, there had been escalating calls for a Victory Garden program in the city. LaGuardia again contacted Agriculture Secretary Wickard. The reply, from Assistant Secretary Grover B. Hill, was much more promising: “The Department recommends that everyone who has access to open sunny garden space with fertile soil should have a Victory Garden. By doing this many families will be assured of a more adequate supply of vegetables near their homes, relieving the strain on transportation and making it possible to increase the supplies for our armed forces, our allies, and the civilian population.” Hill pointed to the example of Chicago where residents had planted 12,000 gardens within the city limits. He recommended that LaGuardia form a committee of people interested in gardening in New York City and develop a program. He helpfully enclosed a copy of the Department’s brochure “The Victory Gardens Campaign.”   

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Victory Gardens Leaflet No. 4 Garden Care, Cooperative Extension Work in Agriculture and Home Economics, State of New York. Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

LaGuardia still had reservations, however. In a letter dated February 5, 1943, Mary A. Smith, of Forest Hills, Queens, wrote to the Mayor, “...hearing rumors to the effect that Victory Gardens would be leased by the City to interested gardeners.” She added, “I live in Queens; am a good gardener; and can devote late afternoons and weekends to the task.”  LaGuardia replied “…the greater percentage of city-owned property, particularly in highly developed portions of our boroughs would not be suitable for gardening.” He also took the opportunity to comment that “…a great many people get the idea that all that is required to have a garden is a piece of land, make some furrows, plant some seeds, and nature will do the rest.  Little do they realize the amount of labor involved.”

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Victory Gardens Leaflet No. 1, Selecting and Ordering Seed, Cooperative Extension Work in Agriculture and Home Economics, State of New York.  Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Soon, LaGuardia rallied to the idea. The files include transcripts of his popular Sunday Radio Broadcasts where he spoke about the growing demand for and interest in Victory Gardens. According to the transcript of his March 19, 1943 program on radio station WEAF, LaGuardia remarked that “Planting a Victory Garden and caring for it properly requires a lot of hard work. I’m glad that there are so many New Yorkers who realize this but who are still willing, nevertheless, to devote themselves to this job.” He also announced that potential gardeners could visit designated Parks Department offices to request a soil analysis and receive advice on its suitability for gardening.

Which brings us to Parks Commissioner Robert Moses. Needless to say, he had an opinion on the Victory Garden program. His correspondence with LaGuardia made it clear that City park land would not be offered for “...conversion... [to] farm purposes.” In typical Moses fashion, he nipped the idea in the bud: “...it would just not work.”  

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Victory Garden Issue, Journal of the New York Botanical Garden, March 1943. Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

“A splendid contribution.”

The victory garden subject files include many fine examples of LaGuardia’s legendary attention to all matters of City administration, large and small. On March 27, 1943, Hazel Mac Dougall, from the Civilian Defense Volunteer Office (CDVO) in Queens wrote to LaGuardia informing him that there were many vacant lots in her Borough suitable for Victory Gardens, but determining ownership was difficult. She asked if he would intercede with the City Register to waive fees charged to search for the name of the property owner. LaGuardia promptly contacted the City Register who agreed to reduce the fee to fifty cents, and to assign a clerk in each Borough to assist with the process. The Register also took the opportunity to lecture the mayor about how much work was involved in searching property records.

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Victory Garden Leaflet No. 1, United States Department of Agriculture, Extension Service, 1942.  Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Then there was Frank R. Whipple, of Chicago. He wrote to Mayor LaGuardia on September 4, 1943. He explained that he grew up on a farm and “…never lost interest in the farm or in farm products. It seemed appropriate, therefore, to have corn as a hobby and to feature it in an exhibit in my store.” He went on to explain he was expanding his exhibit to include a special section devoted to samples of corn gown in Victory Gardens, and wouldn’t Mayor LaGuardia like to ship a sample from New York City? Sure, why not. LaGuardia contacted the Commissioner of the Department of Markets who procured an ear of corn from the garden of one Mr. Brown at 5609 Clarendon Road, Brooklyn. In sending the corn to the Mayor, the Commissioner had to admit that “corn is on its way out,” and the sample was “not a very husky product,” but “the kernels are not too bad looking.” LaGuardia’s secretary duly posted the product to Chicago.

In September of 1944, five self-described teen-aged boys wrote to the Mayor and asked if they could use a vacant lot on Midwood Street, Brooklyn, “...for the purpose of a victory garden. We have had success in gardens of our own, and wish to put our experience and labors into a larger garden.” They wanted “written permission to use this land” from the Mayor. LaGuardia dispatched the letter to the Bureau of Real Estate who advised the mayor to refer the boys to their local CDVO for assistance. LaGuardia replied to the boys with that information but took the time to add “…while I know you have had fun, I also know that you are making a splendid contribution to insure Victory to our beloved Country. I might also add that the knowledge you have gained could not be learned in any classroom, and the reward for your efforts [is] something invaluable that can never be taken from you.” 

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Seed Annual for 1945, Victory Garden Issue, Stumpp & Walter Co.  Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

“An amazing job.”

By 1945, the correspondence mostly concerned measuring the success of the Victory Garden program. In a letter dated March 13, 1945, Albert Hoefer, State 4-H Club Leader boasted: “One would never suspect that the territory embraced by Manhattan, the Bronx, Kings, Queens and Richmond Counties has very much suitable land for food production purposes, yet the people of these areas somehow contrived to find sufficient space for over 400,000 Victory Gardens in 1944.” In another March 1945 letter, C. F. Wedell, Victory Garden Specialist of the Cooperative Extension in the State of New York, urged LaGuardia to “speak to your great radio audience” on behalf of continuing the Victory Garden work through the 1945 growing season. “Since you with your accustomed vigor and understanding formally opened the Victory Garden Program in 1943, the gardeners of Greater New York have done an amazing job,” he concluded.

The Victory Garden story once again vividly demonstrates Mayor LaGuardia’s devotion and attention to the people and affairs of his city. His collection is one of the most engaging, entertaining, and informative of all the mayoral series in the Municipal Archives and we look forward to welcoming back researchers to explore this unique treasure in the coming months.