Moving the Archives, part II

“The City of New York is finally catching up with over two centuries of neglect in the care of its records.” Thus began an October 1953 article in the American Archivist touting the 1952 creation of the New York City Municipal Archives and its integration into a records management program. At the time, the Municipal Archives and Records Center was housed in the Rhinelander Building, and the Municipal Reference Library was still a branch of the New York Public Library (NYPL). As of December 1952, the Archives had an estimated 12,000 cubic feet of material, and “no standard storage or filing material.” The collection has grown significantly since then, by more than a factor of ten, and as the diversity of its collections has grown, the limitations of standard storage shelves has made preservation difficult.

This past January we described the construction of the Municipal Archives’ new off-site storage space in Industry City. A lot has happened to the world since then. However, we are happy to report that after a shutdown of several months, the project continues. We have had to adjust the schedule due to COVID-19 and, like a lot of construction projects, supply chain issues are still creating delays. But, our new custom shelving is going up, HVAC equipment is installed, and we are starting to see the shape of what will be.

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HVAC equipment being lifted to the roof of Building 20, Industry City.

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Rails being installed for the movable shelving.

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Shelving going in above the decking and rails for the compact movable storage system.

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The HVAC system required an enormous amount of ductwork.

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Insulated elevator vestibules will prevent energy loss and protect collections from dust intrusion.

In 1953 the Municipal Archives and Records Center installed a state-of-the-art microfilm laboratory. Now, almost 70-years later, we are building a state-of-the-art digitization lab in the new space, with workstations for digitizing motion picture films, magnetic video tapes, still film, and flat art. New high-speed scanners that are gentle on archival materials will allow the mass digitization of paper records.

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Floor plan for the new digitization lab at Industry City.

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The new research room for patrons taking shape.

In 1953 it was reported that “As yet relatively little reference use has been made of the archives. Reference services in 1952 averaged about 35 a month. Chairs and tables are available for use by researchers, but the supervisor has not as yet felt sufficiently prepared to cope with a heavy reference load and thus has not publicized the collection very much.” While the new Industry City space will have chairs and tables for researchers, our digitization programs have allowed us to reach far more researchers through our online portals than could ever visit our offices. An average of 740 people a day are visiting our nyc.gov site. Over the last several years the Archives has provided reference service to more than 50,000 patrons annually and the on-line gallery had over 200,000 users last year.

Not much had changed since 1952 for the “Typed guides and inventories… available as finding aids to help researchers,” but over the past few years archivists have been inputting all those inventories into ArchivesSpace, work that they were able to continue remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. A new integrated access portal now under way will allow researchers to search across all Library and Archives collections.

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Insulated walls being installed for the cold storage vault.

A new cold storage room will house the photographic and magnetic tape collections of the Municipal Archives, including thousands of original WNYC broadcast tapes recently accessioned from the NYPL.

By early next year, we will have moved 140,000 cubic feet of New York City government’s historical records into this new space, including mayoral records, maps, photographs, ledgers and other documents. These records will be available to researchers onsite instead of being trucked to Manhattan, thus making a contribution to a greener City. Seventy years hence there undoubtedly will be different preservation and storage solutions for the born-digital records of today’s government. But the foundational documents at our Industry City location will be safe, secure, and available.

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Source: Jason Horn, Municipal Archives and Records Center of the City of New York, American Archivist, volume 16, issue 4, 1953: https://americanarchivist.org/doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.16.4.h1335164g7567424

The Transcription Project, Early Mayors’ Collection

Two recent blogs described the work archivists have accomplished transcribing the original hand-written captions for the Brooklyn Grade Crossing Commission and Condemnation Proceeding photograph collections into searchable spreadsheets. The transcription projects began when the Municipal Archives closed to the public on March 16, 2020, and all staff began to work remotely from home. This week the blog describes the Early Mayors’ collection transcription project.

The Early Mayors’ collection includes correspondence and documents from New York City mayoral administrations from 1826 through 1897 and totals 157.5 cubic feet. The collection had originally been assembled by Rebecca Rankin during her 32-year tenure as the Director of the Municipal Library between 1920 and 1952. This was a core collection in the Municipal Archives when it opened in 1952 and remains one of the most important series documenting nineteenth-century government and policies.

Noteworthy stationery is one of the auxiliary benefits of researching 19th-century correspondence. Letter of recommendation, May 22, 1886. Early Mayor’s Collection, William R. Grace. NYC Municipal Archives.

In the early 2000s, the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded a grant to the Archives to microfilm the collection. Subsequently, the finding aid has been edited and made accessible on the agency website. More recently, the Archives began digitizing the microfilm edition to make it available for on-line research.

Typically, archivists catalog correspondence and office records to the ‘folder-level,’ meaning that descriptive information provided to a researcher includes only whatever had been written on the folder label by the record creator, e.g. “Mayor’s Correspondence, April – June 1897.”   What is unusual about the Early Mayors’ series is that the librarians and archivists who first cataloged the materials in the 1950s and ‘60s also typed brief descriptions of every letter or document in the collection. 

Archivist Alexandra Hilton, has been coordinating the work of the archival staff transcribing these descriptions while working remotely. Ms. Hilton explained how she stumbled across the typed description tucked away in one of the storage rooms in 2012:  “Back then, I was doing research for exhibits and events. Finding this was such a stroke of luck – I photocopied the whole thing, put it in binders, and read it cover-to-cover, marking it up with notes. It’s a great resource that depicts women and minorities, groups of people that are typically difficult to find in a collection of mid-to-late-19th century governmental records.

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Letter from Ella Wilson, aged 15, to Henry Bergh, asking whether something cannot be done for the relief of the poor dogs and the unjust proceedings of the dog catchers, February 14, 1886. Henry Bergh was the founder of the American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1866 and a co-founder of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in 1875. Early Mayor’s Collection, William R. Grace. NYC Municipal Archives.

Ms. Hilton added, “I never thought we’d get a chance to transcribe the descriptions so I’m pretty thrilled that we are because it is so dense that browsing it as a physical document is only practical if you have a lot of time. At the start of the project, based on the number of pages scanned, I estimated that the index was a little over 2,500 pages, and described over 27,000 items.”

Archivist Amy Stecher has been transcribing indices of correspondence in the collection that relate to both larger departments such as the Department of Buildings and the Department of Docks, and smaller ones such as the Bureau of Weights and Measures, and the Dog Pound and the Public Pound (for animals other than dogs).

Ms. Stecher describes her work,  “I’ve been surprised by the amount of big-picture information you can derive from the indices alone. Everything I’ve transcribed so far, regardless of subject, is really about the exponential growth of the city’s population and the need to get control over it. This is obvious with something like the creation of the Department of Buildings. But it can also be seen in correspondence related to smaller agencies such as the Bureau of Weights and Measures and the documents indexed under “Lamps and Gas.” These records show the expansion of lamp-lighting services to parts of the city that never needed lighting before.  It reveals a fascinating story of the battle among private companies to win gas-supply (and later, electricity) contracts. 

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Letter to Mayor Wickham from Theodore F. Little, of Summit, New Jersey, regarding a letter found in the street, exposing the sale of counterfeit money in New York City, January 22, 1876. Early Mayors’ Collection, Mayor William H. Wickham. NYC Municipal Archives.

Ms. Stecher noted a pervasive theme in the records—the amount of corruption evident in every department and at every level: “Political cronyism—Tammany Hall is mentioned across various indices—but also fake Weights and Measures Inspectors; drunken, thieving dog-catchers; complaints to the mayor about lottery and other scams; officials removed from office for taking bribes or stealing funds; dereliction of duty at the city-run asylums and hospitals. It is clear that many people took advantage of so much growth and too little oversight.”    

Ms. Stecher, continued, “There is also evidence of some remarkable parallels with the city today: the fascinating and timely Health Quarantines and measures the city took to deal with cholera and yellow fever epidemics, including the establishment of the Quarantine Islands. The Department of Charities and Corrections index lists voluminous correspondence among city officials, outside groups, and individual citizens trying to tackle the dual problems of the ever-increasing number of homeless and displaced persons, which resulted in the creation of the position of the Superintendent of Out-Door Poor. Increasing levels of poverty, despair, and mental and physical health issues highlighted the need for the perpetually-overwhelmed and continually-criticized city-run hospitals and asylums.”

Letter to Silas C. Croft, President of the Department of Public Charities, from Frederick E. Bauer, following-up on an inquiry about the whereabouts of orphaned children Mamie, Tessie, Sadie, and Washington Gleason, September 17, 1897. Early Mayor’s Collection, Mayor William L. Strong. NYC Municipal Archives.

“References to pandemics, the Civil War and its aftermath are evident as well as immigrants and displaced persons making their way to the city and needing help. Many people reach out personally to the mayors and sometimes get results in the form of inquiries and investigations. Reformers such as Henry Bergh turn up in more than one index.”

Based on the transcription work, Ms. Stecher concluded that “these documents make crystal clear that life in New York City was very hard for those with little money or few resources, and could be very rewarding for those with much and many.”

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Look for future blog posts describing Municipal Archives transcription projects.

A False Police Report on a Boy’s Arrest

This is the second selection from “Some of Mayor Gaynor’s Letters and Speeches,” a volume in the Municipal Library’s rare book collection. Published in 1913, it is a compendium of the Mayor’s writings on “…a wide range of topics . . . from lively to severe,” as noted in the introduction by W. B. Northrop. This letter, entitled “A False Police Report on a Boy’s Arrest,” had been sent to Rhinelander Waldo, Esq., Commissioner of Police, on December 19, 1911. Look for more of Mayor Gaynor’s literary output in future blogs.

Mayor William J. Gaynor, frontispiece, “Mayor Gaynor’s Letters and Speeches,” New York, Greaves Publishing Company, 1913. Municipal Reference Library

Mayor William J. Gaynor, portrait, frontispiece, “Mayor Gaynor’s Letters and Speeches,” New York, Greaves Publishing Company, 1913. Municipal Reference Library

Sir:  Some months ago I wrote to you of the case of the eighteen year old boy William Eagen, who called upon me in person and made his complaint. He had been well brought up, and has always lived at home with his parents at 53, 4th Avenue, Brooklyn. Detective Barry arrested him in the street near his home on August 24th last without a warrant. He had never before been arrested or accused of any offense. He was taken to the station house and locked up over night in a cell. The next morning the said officer arraigned him before a magistrate, and made a written complaint on oath that he was a vagrant, i.e., a person without a home, wandering about, and with no means of support. The officer knew that this was untrue. The boy lived at home and worked daily with his father who is a janitor of 17 buildings. When the case was called on August 28th for a hearing, the officer stated that he could l not prove the charge, and the boy was discharged. In my letter to you I asked for a full report of the matter. Later you sent to me the report of Inspector Hughes, chief of the detective bureau, concurred in by the Second Deputy Police Commissioner. That report disclosed that the real reason for the boy’s arrest was that a burglary of the apartments of C. W. Daniels, at 449, State Street, Brooklyn, had been committed, and that the boy was “suspected” of having committed the same. The things stolen were a watch, engraved with Mr. Daniels’ name, a locket, studded with diamonds, and engraved in the same way, and a double chain and fob. The reason for such suspicion given in the said report was that the father of the boy was janitor of the building in which Mr. Daniels had his apartments, that the bulldog did not arouse Mr. Daniels when the burglar entered, that therefor the burglary was committed by someone good terms with the bulldog, and that therefore the burglar was probably young Eagen. Such was the farfetched if not ridiculous theory. The report went on to state that after being arrested and on his way to the station house young Eagen told the officers who had him in charge that the locket lost by Mr. Daniels contained 17 diamonds, that it had been broken up, and that it was useful to look for it. The report also states that while young Eagen was locked up in the cell another officer heard him state to a prisoner in an adjoining cell, he had been arrested on suspicion of the same offense, “I think they have got it on us,” to which the other prisoner responded, “Shut up, some one might be listening.” The name of this other prisoner is Grant, hereinafter mentioned. To this report was attached a letter of the Second Deputy Commissioner to you stating that in his opinion the action of the officer who made the arrest and false charge of vagrancy was justifiable. I felt constrained to write to you that his conduct was unjustifiable.

10th Police Precinct at Bergen Street and Sixth Avenue, Brooklyn. 1940 Tax Photograph Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

The boy was not a vagrant, and the charge against him was false. The alleged confessions were stated to have taken place after the arrest, and were not revealed to the magistrate at all. I also expressed the view that the so-called evidence given in the report that the boy had committed the burglary was no evidence, and that the alleged confessions stated in the report were trumped up after the boy’s discharge, and after I had called for a report, for the purpose of trying to justify the arrest  Nothing further was done at that time, however, as the said chief of the detective bureau said that the investigation was still going on and that it was expected that sufficient evident would be obtained against the boy. But instead of any evidence being obtained against him, one Alexander Moore has since been arrested, indicted and convicted of the burglary and is now serving a term in State’s Prison therefore, as I have learned. Pawn tickets for the stolen articles were found in his pockets. The stolen articles were all obtained from the pawn shop. The diamonds had not been taken out of the locket.

The report also states that when the boy was discharged by the magistrate his mother who was present exclaimed: “I am going to write to Mayor Gaynor and give you fellows the same dose that Duffy gave the officers in his case”—alluding to young Duffy who was arrested time after time by the police and locked up, and his picture put in the Rogues’ Gallery, for no offense whatever. I have sufficiently ascertained that she had not up to that time ever heard of the Duffy case, and therefore could not have made such a remark. Also she is not a woman who would express herself in that manner.

The case calls for discipline of the officers engaged in it. It is also necessary that this matter be made public so this boy may be fully vindicated instead of being injured for life. It will never do for the police to treat boys in this way. I should also mention that another young fellow named Henry Grant was arrested on suspicion for the same crime. The chief reason for his arrest seems to have been that when a boy he had served a term in the Elmira Reformatory. He was discharged as reformed. The police should be very careful about arresting boys who have served a term in a reformatory. To follow them up and arrest them on sight, on the slightest suspicion, or on no suspicion, as is often the case, after they come out, and even follow them to the places where they are employed, and procure their discharge, is to leave no course open to them except to become habitual criminals. This boy Grant was employed as a chauffeur. I understand that he lost his place because of his arrest. I trust that this vindication of him will suffice to enable him to get other work to do. The police must be made to understand that they cannot arrest and lock people up as they like, but they must keep within the law. The only way to enforce the laws is the way prescribed by law. That which cannot be done lawfully must not be done at all by the police or any other public offices from the President of the United States down. This is a government of laws and not of men.

Thank you, Mayor Dinkins

For two weeks at the end of every summer, tennis fans around the world look to the Arthur Ashe Stadium in the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadow Park, Queens, for the annual US Open Tennis Tournament. And unlike most major sporting events that have been postponed, cancelled or drastically altered this year, the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament, will take place, just as it always does, with one big exception—there will be no fans in attendance at the stadium. In a normal year, up to 50,000 spectators pack the arena each day of the tournament and generate an estimated $750 million in economic activity. 

Often chided in the press for his devotion to the game, it is Mayor David N. Dinkins we must thank for a hard-fought and farsighted deal he negotiated with the United States Tennis Association in 1993 that ensured the prestigious US Open Tennis Tournament would stay in New York City for at least twenty-five and potentially ninety-nine years.  

Mayor Dinkins with tennis champion Jennifer Capriati and Parks Commissioner Betsy Gotbaum in Central Park, August 21, 1990. Photographer: Joan Vitale Strong. Mayor David N. Dinkins Photograph Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Tennis has a long history in New York City.  An English import, tennis courts first appeared in Staten Island 1874. By the early 1890s, tennis enthusiasts had 125 courts to choose from in Manhattan’s Central Park. The West Side Tennis Club which began in 1892 on Central Park West, migrated to 238th Street and Broadway in 1898, to 117th Street and Morningside Drive in 1902, and to Forest Hills, Queens in 1914. The West Side club in Forest Hills was the site of the United States Open tennis championships from 1915 to 1920 and again from 1924 to 1977. 

U.S. Open Tennis Tournament, men’s singles championship game, Forest Hills Stadium, Queens, N.Y., September 1937. WPA Federal Writers’ Project Photograph Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

By the 1970s, the USTA had tired of the lack of space and amenities at the exclusive Forest Hills club. In 1977 they moved a short distance in Queens to Flushing Meadow Park and agreed to reconfigure a 1964 World’s Fair-era arena that had been re-named for jazz legend and Queens resident Louis Armstrong in the early 1970s. Although the USTA continued to host the U.S. Open over the next decade there were rumblings of possibly moving the prestigious event out of New York City.

Soon after his inauguration as Mayor on January 1, 1990, Dinkins, a long-time tennis fan, along with Parks Department officials and the City’s Economic Development Corporation began negotiations with the USTA for a new deal. Formally announced in February 1991, it called for the USTA to build a new 23,500-seat stadium, renovate the existing Louis Armstrong Stadium, and create 38 new outdoor tennis courts. In return, the city would allow the association to enlarge its footprint in Flushing Meadow Park by an additional 21.6 acres to a total of 46.5 acres. The USTA would also create an $8 million endowment fund to finance improvements to the park.   

Tennis champions Arthur Ashe (left) and John McEnroe (right) join Mayor Dinkins to announce an agreement between the city and the United States Tennis Association that will keep the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament at the Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, April 22, 1992. Photographer: Joan Vitale Strong. Mayor David N. Dinkins Photograph Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Not surprisingly, the proposal met with opposition; the taking of city park land for a private enterprise seemed the most significant of the complaints. But Dinkins persevered, and after another year of negotiations, he announced an agreement that would guarantee the U.S. Open tournament would remain in New York for at least for at least twenty-five and potentially ninety-nine years. Plus, the city would receive $400,000 a month in rent and a percentage of the center’s gross revenue. The USTA upped their investment to $172 million for the new 23,500-seat stadium adjacent to the existing arena. Construction would be financed by bonds issued through the Industrial Development Agency.

By all accounts it was a complex agreement, but as Carl Weisbrod, president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation observed to the New York Post: “To me, this an extremely good deal for New York City.” It would be another year before Dinkins and his administration received the needed approvals from the City Council, the State Legislature, and local Community Boards in Queens so the deal could be finalized. 

Mayor Dinkins and Billie Jean King at the TeamTennis clinic in Central Park, New York, August 20, 1992. Photographer: Edward Reed. Mayor David N. Dinkins Photograph Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Finally, on December 22, 1993, within days of his departure from City Hall, Mayor Dinkins inked his signature on the agreement. By then, Mayor-elect Rudolph Giuliani had voiced disapproval and urged the Mayor not to sign the long-term pact. But Dinkins went ahead anyway, remarking at the signing ceremony, “There are those who would say I should wait for him [Giuliani] to sign a 99-year lease.” Why?  So he can sign a 98-year lease?”

The new stadium, named for the late Arthur Ashe, the first African-American U.S. Open champion, opened on August 25, 1997. Dozens of past U.S. Open champions, including Pete Sampras, Monica Seles, Chris Evert, Rod Laver and John McEnroe were serenaded by Whitney Houston at the gala dedication ceremony. Every local politician attended:  all but one—Mayor Giuliani.  Still piqued by Dinkins’ refusal to defer to his demand  not to sign the agreement, Giuliani refused the USTA’s invitation to speak at the dedication. “I’m not going,” the Mayor said, explaining that it was the only way he could protest the 1993 lease singed by Mayor Dinkins over his protests just before the change of administrations.    

Once again, the Municipal Library’s vertical files help tell this story of what proved to be significant victory for Mayor Dinkins during a troubled administration. As Dinkins biographer Chris McNickle wrote in The Power of the Mayor: “The agreement Dinkins struck at the very end of his term with the United States Tennis Association to keep the U.S. Open in New York has served the city and tennis fans everywhere to this day, bringing prestige, national television coverage, and tourist dollars to the city every fall.”

Thank you, Mayor Dinkins.

https://www.archives.nyc/dinkins-gallery