Happy Thanksgiving! In honor of the annual feast day, readers are invited to try three recipes selected from the research files for Feeding the City, one of the unpublished manuscripts in the Municipal Archives’ WPA Federal Writers’ Project collection.
Turkey feed brochure. WPA Federal Writers’ Project Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Turkeys
By Parker Tyler
Boston Poultry Show, Grand Champion White Turkey, ca. 1939. WPA Federal Writers’ Project Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
In the summer more than 30,000,000 turkeys are being fattened up on 600,000 farms in the United States. They are for Thanksgiving Day, and there is one for every four persons in the country. Any holiday season, the markets of the City are crammed with these sculptural birds, breast up in their crates, long-keeled, full-meated, and plucked clean.
The Pilgrim Fathers, discovering the deliciousness of the roasted wild turkey, decided, like the Aztecs, that eating them should be ceremonial. Turkeys are natives of America, their genealogy going back to prehistoric times. They were the only domesticated livestock of the Aztecs, who raised them by the thousands for religious feasts. Spanish explorers carried them first to England, and then reintroduced them to the American continent.
In Colonial times, a 55-pound turkey was not a rarity, but today, for the consumption of the smaller American family and for the smaller modern oven, the large bird has given way to one smaller in size but improved in quality. Now there is more white meat for the carver, and turkey breeders hope that a bird may be raised small enough to be sold as cheaply as pork or beef. Until they mature and take on fat, turkeys are more bones than meat.
Growth
West Washington Market, Manhattan, October 1938. Photograph by Libsohn, WPA Federal Writers’ Project Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
There are six standard varieties of turkey bred in the United States: the Bronze—the largest and most like the wild turkey of yore; the Narragansett; the White Holland; the Bourbon Red; the Black; and the Slate. The plumage of the tom turkey in some varieties is very beautiful.
From a 2 x 2 ½ -inch egg, baby turkeys kick themselves loose from the shell in the spring. Six to eight months later they are plump and ready for the market. By careful breeding, some growers now hatch out their crop about the first of the year and send prime turkeys to market in midsummer. The raiser of turkeys must face definite hazards before the money for the bird in the egg finally reaches his hand.
Turkeys are temperamental, complaining, and quarrelsome. Not only are they susceptible to pneumonia, but they smother if the weather is too hot. The noise of an airplane motor, or loud thunder, panics a flock; when they run as fast as they can, they make greater speed than a horse. Flocks may range widely during the day but always return to the poultry yard for the evening meal. Old tom turkeys, deprived of their consorts, travel in flocks by themselves. Turkeys are more curious than cats, and seem to be lonesome when no one is around.
The Municipal Archives recently presented Feeding the City, an exhibit that featured vintage recipes and photographs, advertising brochures, and excerpts from the manuscripts of the NYC Unit of the Works Progress Administration Federal Writers’ Project unpublished book Feeding the City. Revisiting the collection in search of information the Project staff collected or wrote about Thanksgiving Day meals, revealed a draft manuscript, Turkeys, dated December 18, 1940, written by Parker Tyler and edited by Diana Hunter. It is reprinted in its entirety below.
Dressed Turkey, ca. 1939. US Dept of Agriculture, WPA Federal Writers’ Project Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Unpredictable maladies may carry these birds off by the thousands. They were almost exterminated in the last decade of the 19th century by the dreaded turkey disease, blackhead. By cleaning the eggs, hatching them in an incubator and segregating the poults (young turkeys) from other fowls, breeders have made great strides against this disease. Turkeys grow more rapidly and convert feed into meat more easily than any other farm animal.
Marketing
Texas now accounts for the greatest number, nearly 4,000,000; California is next with 3,000,000, while Minnesota, Iowa, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Oregon, and Ohio all produce them in millions. Most turkeys are brought alive to central plants where they are killed, dressed, and packed by modern factory methods, including an electrical killer. The killed birds go through a semi-scalder to the roughers, and from these though a waxer to the pickers.
“Here are turkeys, grown to tender plumpness in the Pacific Northwest, undergoing a rigid inspection in one of A&P’s great New York City warehouses. The keen eyes and educated hands of this practiced inspector will detect any possible flaw in the bird, and condemn it for delivery to the store if any flaw shows up…” Photograph from A&P, WPA Federal Writers’ Project Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Freight, truck and boat bring turkeys to the markets of New York City, where their largest sale is during November and December; in other months they are second to chicken. Live turkeys, transferred in baskets accommodating 15 to 22 birds, are sold only to licensed slaughter-houses in New York City.
Young tom turkeys weight from 13 to 19 pounds, young hens 8 to 11 ½ pounds with little difference in their taste. Young hens and toms are birds less than a year old, having soft meat and a flexible breastbone; mature birds have hardened breastbones and less tender meat. Within these classifications are four grades fixed by the U.S. Government; Special, Prime, Choice, and Commercial. On the whole, a turkey hen is preferable, being fatter with smaller bones. A young turkey has black feet; pink feet denote the turkey is from one to three years old; grey feet more than three years old. A live turkey shrinks about 10 per cent when it is bled and plucked and 20 per cent more when dressed, drawn, and ready to roast.
Turkey prices are fairly steady throughout the year, usually varying not more than 5 cents a pound. The City housewife pays from 29 cents a pound to 32 cents. Smoked turkey, a recent delectable addition to the holiday menu, prepared in pickling brine and smoked like pork, is an expensive dish at $1.25 a pound.
The draft manuscript was accompanied by ephemera such as a pamphlet of turkey recipes prepared by the New York State Department of Agriculture.
In somewhat of a hectoring October 11, 1942 radio address in which he addressed scrap metal collection, tin can collection, food prices and gambling, among other topics, Mayor LaGuardia officially kicked off Meatless Tuesdays.
Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
“There has been a great deal of talk about a meatless day. Let’s have less talk about this and let’s do something about it.… I now officially request hotels, restaurants and all eating places to make Tuesday the meatless day, and, of course, in the homes we will follow that too and then we’ll have a real saving in meat.”
In a game attempt to ward off resistance, he tackled the notion that Friday should be the official meatless day. “Now all this talk about having Friday as a meatless day really doesn’t sound as if it were on the level. Friday is a traditional fish day and to make Friday your official meatless day sort of smacks of the slicker, doesn’t it? Now let’s do things real here in New York City. We don’t want to be hypocritical about this, let us give the example to the rest of the country.”
Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Sounds simple. Fish Fridays. Meatless Tuesdays. But quickly there were requests for clarification—what was considered meat? There were complaints. And there was pushback.
First up on October 13, 1942: Harry Spector, from the Latin Quarter “would like some clarification on the Mayor’s Sunday speech… they of course want to cooperate to the fullest extent and want to know whether the Mayor wishes to include veal, lamb, poultry, etc. since they were under the impression that the shortage was merely with beef.”
On October 14th an anonymous restaurant owner wanted to know if Meatless Tuesdays includes poultry (chicken, ducks) as well as liver?
The President of Nedicks weighed in. The hotdog purveyor wrote that the company employed 1000 New Yorkers and sold four tons of frankfurters daily in the City. He was not pleased and suggested that the Mayor must not have meant to include the humble hot dog in Meatless Tuesdays.
The October 14th New York Mirror reported that representatives from the hotel and restaurant industries met with the Secretary of Agriculture. The Herald Tribune reported that the Department of Agriculture was not sponsoring meatless days. Meatless days, such as those in New York City were considered voluntary.
To clarify, the Mayor said hot dog and hamburger stands were part of the Meatless Tuesday effort and sent letters informing business owners they could serve fish, poultry, liver, kidneys, sweetbreads and heart on Tuesdays. Sausage was not permitted.
The clarification apparently proved insufficient because the Mayor addressed the proposed meatless days in the next two radio shows. On October 18, a week after the initial announcement, LaGuardia devoted a good portion of the radio address to meat rationing. Declaiming that the Secretary of Agriculture was enthusiastic about the hotel/restaurant response, the Mayor said, “We again are setting the pace for the rest of the country.”
Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Claiming that the listening public would be happy about the splendid response to the Meatless Tuesday appeal, the Mayor offered additional clarification on the hot dog situation. He had conferred with the Quartermaster General for the Army who reported that frankfurters “are served as meat in Army messes at least three times a month.” That led to somewhat of a compromise. Nedicks would not serve hamburgers on the meatless days. Stores that only sold hamburgers would do their best to substitute foods. Delicatessens were instructed “not to serve any of the meats that are now under ration on Tuesday. There is such a variety of things, Mr. Delicatessen Store Keeper, that you can serve on Tuesday, that I’m sure you will not feel the difference.”
He went on to provide details on the quantity of meat required by the armed forces (6.5 billion pounds) and civilians (21 billion pounds) for the year compared to the estimated meat production (24 billion pounds). The 3.5 billion pound deficit in meat production needed to be addressed. “In order to do this the formula is to ration meat, but all the necessary preliminary arrangements and the printing of the coupons cannot possibly be completed before January 1st. If we permit these 10 weeks to go by without doing anything about it, then the amount originally intended to be rationed must be reduced, and therefore, our government calls upon us voluntarily to put into action now the same formula that we will be required to meet when the rationing preparations are completed. Do I make that clear? We must reduce the amount and in order to reduce the amount, the meat must be rationed, but we cannot get our ration coupons until around January 1st.
Under the wartime rationing program that began six months later, adults would be allocated 2.5 pounds of meat weekly, children over age 6 would receive 1.5 pounds while those under age 6 would receive ¾ of a pound. Concerned that New Yorkers would complain about the quantities, the Mayor said, “Please don’t get the idea that this is a great sacrifice. Our formula allows 40 ounces per week for each adult. Britain has but 30 ounces per week, Italy 3 ½ to 4 ½ ounces per week, Holland 9 ounces per week, Belgium 5 ounces per week, Germany 5 ounces per week. You see, that after all, we haven’t very much of a cut to make and if properly managed, and with the meat not included in the rationed amount it is no effort at all to comply.”
And so began the compulsory voluntary Meatless Tuesday program.
The Association of Food Shop Owners pledged to recommend to all 152 member diners “that they comply voluntarily and concienciously (sic)” with the request for the duration of the war.
There were protests, to be sure. One mother of two enlisted sons wrote from Islip to urge that Friday’s be the meatless day, noting that Catholics were making a double sacrifice, “just as so many mothers have to sacrifice their sons while others are working in defense plants and getting deferred month after month.” Never mind that as an Islip resident she was not a bound by City’s program.
Catholics complained of discrimination for being required to forego meat twice weekly—three times during Lent. Kosher butchers complained that Tuesday was among their busiest days so a voluntary prohibition on sales was problematic. They suggested meatless Saturdays and Sundays.
The Daily News queried “What’s Happening to Our Democracy” in an editorial opposing meatless Tuesdays. Noting that this was not required by any law or regulation from the nation, city or state, it complained that “the Mayor pulled the notion out of his hat.” Instead the paper suggested that this be postponed until the enactment of uniform national regulations. “National meatless day regulations would produce real meat conservation; isolated local fish-and-chips gestures cannot.” The editorial also weighed in on Friday being a better day to go meatless due to the large Catholic population who would be deprived of meat twice weekly.
A letter to the Mayor from the proprietor of Prentzel and Arne, a meat broker and self-proclaimed “meat man,” wrote “it is rather interesting to me that I now find myself defending you in a meat matter, whereas in the past I have so often been in active opposition to some of your views pertaining to meat matters, i.e. grading.” The attachment to the letter, which was intended as a response to The Daily News, discussed issues with the distribution/transportation of meat and continued, “Now getting back to the “Meat” of your editorial, New York is the largest population center in the U.S. and a start here, if successful in voluntary rationing, should have considerable influence on the rest of the country.”
Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
The Department of Sanitation, which operated an employee cafeteria at its main 125 Worth Street office published a menu listing roast lamb with two vegetables for forty cents and a roast beef sandwich for twenty cents. A note at the bottom of the mimeographed menu stated, “In cooperation with the Mayor’s request—no meat will be served on Tuesdays—starting with Tuesday—October 20th, 1942. The files also contain a communique from the Commissioner of the Department of Corrections titled Dried Beans, Peas, Lentils, and Peanuts. It included recipes for bean loaf, bean soufflé, bean croquette, rice and lentil loaf. Another Corrections handout included cheese and egg recipes along with “timely suggestions” for stretching meat.
Not everyone was upset. One radio listener wrote that he thought it was “swell.”
The associate editor of The American Vegetarian sent the Mayor a copy of the paper and offered to have a staffer walk around with a sandwich board stating
Observe Meatless Days
Learn how by reading the
AMERICAN VEGETARIAN
Ask man for copy—10 cents
In his October 25 radio address, after discussing the prior week’s air raid drill, the Mayor returned to the topic of Meatless Tuesday. “Meatless Tuesday last week was most successful and attracted the admiration of the entire country. Citizens in other cities are asking why they can’t do as much. Oh, there’s been a little undercurrent around among certain individuals who are more anxious to sell meat and get big prices than they are to help the government. I’m not going to mention any names. I just want to say that the government expects full and complete cooperation.”
A letter from the Society of Restauranteurs informed the Mayor that the Governor of California designated Meatless Tuesdays for the duration of the war. A Connecticut official sent a telegram asking for information and the Mayor instructed Secretary Lester Stone to provide the full data.
Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Many people wrote the Mayor to report on stores and restaurants serving meat on Tuesdays. Someone reported the Hotel Taft restaurants were violating the ban. A note in the call folder instructs staff to call representatives from the Hotel Association. “Tell them to tell the Taft that they better obey the “Meatless Tuesdays” or else, violations, etc. Apparently the message got through because the Taft Hotel Manager wrote to assure the Mayor’s secretary of their cooperation and included menus showing the Meatless Tuesday offerings.
Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
The Ladies Club of the Kingslawn United Presbyterian Church wrote the Mayor for his opinion on whether their annual dinner scheduled for a Tuesday, for which tickets had been sold and food ordered should go ahead. The Mayor granted a dispensation for the annual dinner and suggested that the attendees should “refrain from eating meat on Wednesday” to compensate.
Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
The Interborough Delicatessen Dealers Association, based in Brooklyn resolved to close their Kosher Delicatessens on Tuesdays. Their attorney wrote to the Mayor that only two or three of the three hundred stores still opened on Tuesdays. This had led to picketing at one of the offending stores in Brooklyn. And, in turn, that led to the arrest of six picketers and an eventual review by The Police Commissioner of the City, Lewis Valentine.
By early November, Mayor LaGuardia’s exasperation with New Yorkers is evidenced in his reply to the proprietor of Ruppel’s Market in Elmhurst. “So many people have sent in letters suggesting different days of the week for a meatless day that were each of these letters taken into consideration, there would be no meatless day or every day would be a meatless day.”
LaGuardia’s attempt to quash demands for meatless Fridays fell flat. For the duration of the meatless days between October 1942 and September 1945, he received extensive pushback, particularly from Catholics. In 1943, the City Council enacted a bill to name either Wednesday or Friday the meatless day in order to spare Catholics from three meatless days. Each Holy Name Society in the Diocese of Brooklyn was asked to communicate with the Mayor to encourage him to sign the bill into law. The Mayor was unmoved, responding to the letter-writers that he had consulted the “highest Ecclesiastical officials” in setting meatless day on Tuesday. Despite the Council’s efforts, Meatless Tuesdays continued.
Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
In March, 1943, as LaGuardia had foretold six months earlier, the shortfall in meat production led to the national rationing of meat. The federal Office of Price Administration officially began issuing ration stamps for meat. Each family was required to register its size in order to obtain the appropriate quantity of ration stamps. To purchase meat, or other rationed products, the buyer presented the required number of stamps for the item which qualified the person to pay the asking price for it. Stamps were distributed on a monthly basis and were required to be used within the month.
The federal rationing program altered the City’s enforcement approach. In response to a letter from an attorney who reported roast beef sandwiches were being served at a restaurant, the Mayor replied that after the rationing system was deployed the City no longer required restaurants to comply with meatless Tuesdays. He went on to note, ‘the better number of restaurants have voluntarily continued their program of not serving meat on this day.”
There is a gap in the Meatless Tuesday files between mid-1943 and January 1945 presumably because the rationing program was functioning. But, on January 21, 1945 the Mayor again addressed WNYC radio listeners and noted the shortage of meat because the “Army needs more and the Army is going to get all that it needs.” He announced the only way to deal with the shortage was to return to the official meatless days in the City. And this time, there were to be two meatless days—Tuesday and Friday, beginning the next week. The Mayor listed ten restaurant associations and six food chains with which he had conferred, including the Café Owners Guild that operated night clubs, and praised all of them for being helpful. He then focused on un-named steak houses, calling them chiselers who “cater to the sort of gluttons and loud mouths, and fellows who are earning the big money now, who go there and brag about eating meat, black market meat, and paying $4 and $6 for a steak.” And he promised a crackdown in cooperation of the Office of Price Administration.
Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
In his radio address the next week, he tackled subjects that had bedeviled the initial roll out in 1942: hot dogs and poultry. “Tuesdays and Fridays are meatless days, and it means just that—meatless days—no meat or any meat that comes from four-legged animals. Nothing coming from a four-legged animal should be used on Tuesdays of Fridays. That means poultry, turkey, fish and game may be used… For the present we will compromise on frankfurters-dogs you know- on Tuesdays and Fridays.” The unstated compromise was that hot dogs were okay. The Mayor also ordered butcher shops to close on Mondays (Saturdays for Kosher shops) and to only operate five days a week. Enforcement was initially to be undertaken by the various restaurant and hotel associations. But, the OPA and City’s Department of Markets also were engaged in these efforts.
This go-round the Mayor’s Office forwarded all correspondence questioning what could be served to the Department of Markets. Was corn beef hash legit? Could liver be banned on Meatless Tuesdays? Could White Castle operate on the meatless days? Reporters from Room 9 (the press room) asked about the status of liverwurst. And more. New Yorkers’ reports of meat being served meatless days—Gramercy Tavern, Danbe’s Steakhouse, Tessie’s Old Vienna, Civic Square Foods (not very civic minded—all were referred to Commissioner Henry Brundage at Markets.
Reliably, the Catholics again wrote to urge Meatless Wednesdays, not Tuesdays. But that did not gain much traction.
World War II ended on September 2, 1945 as did the rationing of meat and other products. On September 16, Mayor LaGuardia went on the air to announce the end of the Meatless Days and praise the reputable hotels and restaurants for their cooperation during the crisis.
The only good thing about wars is that they end.
Because America and our allies were victorious in what some call our two “Good Wars” —World War I and World War II—ticker tape parades, elaborate welcome home events for our soldiers and the generals who led them, and often riotous celebrations followed.
To commemorate this year’s Veterans Day, we took a peek into the Municipal Archives, which holds pictures of the celebrations—from throngs of New Yorkers celebrating Armistice Day on Wall Street on November 11, 1918, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the Allied Commander in World War I, during a ticker tape parade in October 1921, raucous celebrations in Times Square and Central Park at the end of both wars and many proud, patriotic parades.
The Archives also holds letters, telegrams and memos to and from Mayor John Hylan at the end of WWI and correspondence from Mayor Fiorello La Guardia on the intricate planning for what he hoped would be respectful and prayerful celebrations.
This being New York, the correspondence is not without some political infighting, intrigue and squabbles about money, particularly at the end of WWI.
Parade of the 77th Division, Major General Alexander, commanding the Division, passing through the Victory Arch at Madison Square, at the head of the parade, May 6, 1919. Photograph by Underwood & Underwood, Mayors Reception Committee Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
On October 29, 1918, with victory at hand, a Manhattan lawyer named John J. Hetrick wrote a letter to Hylan asking him to “give thought to a memorial of the deeds and valor and patriotism of its citizens,” and urged him, as chief executive of New York City, to “lead the way and not allow the war work of New York to be immortalized in a fragmentary way.”
Hylan soon appointed Deputy Police Commissioner Rodman Wanamaker to oversee construction of a temporary Memorial Arch to “welcome home the demobilized troops.” The city undertook a competition for ideas, ranging from the Arch, to a Victory Monument at Madison Square to a “Liberty Bridge” connecting New York and New Jersey.
But trouble quickly erupted when the mayor appointed William Randolph Hearst, the king of “yellow journalism,” who had close ties to Germany before the war and opposed U.S. entry into the fighting. The mayor was soon deluged with letters from several hundred prominent New Yorkers, including Henry Morgenthau Sr., who refused to serve on the committee, largely because Hearst would be on it.
Letter to Mayor Hylan declining appointment to the Reception Committee due to the presence of Mr. Hearst. Mayor Hylan Papers, NYC Municipal Archives.
One letter, from Richard Henry Gatling, declared, that normally he would be honored to serve on the committee, but refused because, “His Honor the mayor has made the shameful mistake of appointing the unspeakable Hearst as a member."
Another, from lawyer Henry Clay, declared: “It was an insult to both the citizens of this city and the returning soldiers to give a prominent place on such a committee to a man of the character of Mr. Hearst.”
In any event, a Welcome Home Committee was formed, 50 memorials were eventually built and parades were held before crowds of up to 250,000 people, including ones for the 27th Infantry Division on March 25, 1919; for the 332nd Division on April 21, 1919 for the 332nd Division, and on May 6, 1919 for the 77th Infantry Division.
Parade of the 27th Division, Major General John F. O'Ryan and Brig. General Palmer E. Pierce reviewing the parade, 108th Infantry passing, March 25, 1919. Photograph by International Newsreel / Film Service, Inc., Mayors Reception Committee Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
332nd Infantry coming up Fifth Avenue on their way to the North Meadow in Central Park, April 21, 1919. Photograph by Underwood & Underwood, Mayors Reception Committee Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Later that year, on September 8, 1919, General John J. (Black Jack) Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force, arrived in New York on a confiscated German ship, the Leviathan, to be honored for his leadership. His motorcade went under that temporary Victory Arch at Madison Square at 24th Street and Fifth Avenue. And on September 10, he mounted his horse and led a parade of soldiers from the First Division to Central Park, where a crowd of 50,000 people greeted him. That evening, he was honored at a 1,600-guest banquet at the Waldorf Astoria.
General Pershing welcomed home (left to right: Police Commissioner Richard Enright, General Peyton C. Marsh, General John J. Pershing and Secretary of War Newton D. Baker), September 8, 1919. Photograph by International Newsreel / Film Service, Inc., Mayors Reception Committee Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
General John J. Pershing, passing the Official Reviewing Stand in front of the Museum of Art and saluting Secretary of War Newton Baker and General March, Chief of Staff, September 10, 1919. Photograph by Underwood & Underwood, Mayors Reception Committee Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
The city also sponsored and paid for a variety of welcome home dinners for the troops at prominent restaurants, including the Astor, the Netherland, the Yale Club and the Knickerbocker. The archives holds letters from some of the restaurants claiming the city short-changed them.
A DIFFERENT WAR, A DIFFERENT TONE
The greetings and welcome-home plans for the end of WWII, under Mayor LaGuardia, were decidedly different. For one thing, almost all of those invited as sponsors accepted, including prominent people from the worlds of art, music, business, politics and the press—even though Hearst's son, William Randolph Hearst Jr., was on the official committee planning festivities for VE Day.
Mayor La Guardia took a solemn tone in all letters regarding plans for V-E Day, starting as early as nine months before victory was declared.
In an August, 2, 1944 letter to the secretary of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the mayor said City Hall and police were “fretful of wild and unbridled celebrations” and wanted to avoid a repeat of the “riotous celebrations” on Wall Street and around the City on Armistice Day in 1918.
Ticker Tape Parade for General Eisenhower, June 19, 1945. Mayors Reception Committee Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
On August 22, Walter White, secretary of the NAACP, suggested that the City hold “the biggest prayer service of thanksgiving in Central Park and perhaps in Prospect Park, ever held ... to remind all citizens of New York that their joy should find expression in thanksgiving rather than in drunkenness and vandalism.”
Two weeks later, La Guardia called White’s idea “a very splendid one and suggested the mall in Central Park. On September 9, a New York Times editorial called for a “thoughtful celebration rather to have people riot in the streets, throwing confetti and getting drunk.”
As the fall of Germany approached the City made plans for a thankful celebration in Central Park patriotic songs and musical performance.
When V-E finally arrived on May 8, 1945, the City erupted in both kinds of celebrations —two million people jammed Times Square, singing, dancing and drinking as confetti rained down on them and a huge replica of the Statue of Liberty. There were similar scenes on Wall Street, in the Garment District and in Rockefeller Center.
That night, La Guardia had his prayerful event, launched with a benediction from Episcopal Bishop William T. Manning and featuring musical performances, dramatic readings and a stirring speech from the mayor, which is in the archives, complete with handwritten edits.
It reads, in part: “The war has ended in Europe. There was no doubt as to the ultimate outcome. It was only a matter of fixing the day. This is not exactly a day of rejoicing. It is a day of great satisfaction. But there is still work to be done; there is still a great deal of fighting and dying yet ahead ... (But) it means that the evil forces of Nazism and Fascism are destroyed.”
Ticker Tape Parade for General Eisenhower, General Eisenhower, standing, waves at crowd from car (Mayor La Guardia seated), June 19, 1945. Mayors Reception Committee Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
It was just the beginning of the celebrations. On June 19, 1945, four million people—and a ticker tape parade—greeted General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, who would be elected President a little more than six years later.
In January 1946, 13,000 men of the 82nd Airborne marched four miles up Fifth Avenue amid tanks and under flybys, and in March, 1946, Sir Winston Churchill got a ticker tape parade of his own.
Japan would fall three months after Europe, and similar celebrations were held in New York around the world. VJ Day would also yield perhaps the most famous of the time—Alfred Eisenstadt’s photograph of a Navy sailor kissing a woman in white in Times Square.
Over the last year, the Municipal Archives digitized more than 140 hours of 16mm surveillance-film footage created by the New York City Police Department (NYPD)’s photography unit between 1960 and 1980.
The entire collection is streaming on the Municipal Archives’ digital gallery. The Municipal Archives will host a special program to describe the process and offer a sampling of the films on November 7th, Public Safety Film: Digitized Content from the NYPD Surveillance Files.
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Brooklyn Board of Education; 110 Livingston Street [anti-segregation demonstration], June 18, 1963. New York Police Department surveillance films, NYC Municipal Archives.
The footage provides an extraordinary, never-before-seen visual record of one of the most tumultuous eras in American history. Among the highlights in the collection is footage of the first Earth Day march in 1970, a Nation of Islam rally, CORE and NAACP protests of segregation, Young Lords building occupations, early protests by gay-rights advocates, massive anti-war marches and demonstrations after the Kent State shootings in May 1970.
The Municipal Archives transferred the film from the NYPD photography unit in 2015 as part of a larger collection of photographic materials including glass, nitrate, acetate and polyester-base negatives and silver-gelatin prints. Many of these images are also available in the digital gallery.
The films were created by the NYPD photography unit. Staffed by police officers trained as both still and moving image photographers, the unit served all branches of the service. The film footage had been commissioned by the NYPD Bureau of Special Services and Investigations (BOSSI) to support their surveillance activities. Plainclothes police officers photographed some events clandestinely; others were filmed openly with movie-style cameras positioned next to police vehicles.
Anti-War Rally, 33rd Street and 7th Avenue, August 2, 1969. New York Police Department surveillance films, NYC Municipal Archives. By 1969, the Vietnam War had become a focal point for a wide array of social causes and concerns. Among the anti-war activists were supporters of the Black Panthers, the Gay Activists Alliance, Students for a Democratic Society, and more.
The NYPD’s surveillance of individuals and organizations perceived as enemies of the status quo dates back to early 1900s. At different periods, the focus was on anarchists, labor leaders, Nazi supporters, white supremacists, socialists, and communists. The film footage dates from the heyday of the BOSSI squad, during the 1960s and 1970s when they gathered intelligence on individuals and groups arrayed along the political spectrum, but particularly civil rights, anti-war and feminist activists. Their subjects included the Communist Party, Black Panthers, the Nation of Islam, the National Renaissance Party, and Youth Against War and Fascism. The footage captures the high point of the civil-rights movement and the diverse groups it inspired for black power and pride, the rights of women, gays and lesbians, and prisoners as well as the crusades against poverty, environmental degradation and the Vietnam War.
Not all of the footage is related to the NYPD’s surveillance activities. Some of the films provide straight-forward documentation of significant events. For example, the collection includes footage of President Richard Nixon walking behind Jacqueline Kennedy at the funeral for Robert F. Kennedy in June 1968.
This film footage is closely related to the historical paper records, often referred to as the “Handschu” files. That collection totals more than 500 cubic feet and spans 1955-1972. The hard copy files consist of materials created or acquired by Special Services during the infiltration and surveillance of individuals and groups. In a class-action federal suit, Barbara Handschu and other complainants sued the NYPD on the basis that the surveillance of their meetings and activities violated constitutionally-protected rights. In the 1985 resolution of the case the federal judge included guidelines for surveillance and investigations, and required that the Municipal Archives receive all of these records in order to determine if they have historical importance.
Digitization of the films was supported by a grant from the New York State Archives’ Local Government Records Management Improvement Fund. The films were scanned to create digital video files in .mov and .mp4 formats for master and access versions, respectively.
Wall Street [Union workers protest Mayor Lindsay's reaction to the “Hard Hat Riot”], May 11, 1970. New York Police Department surveillance films, NYC Municipal Archives. The Hard Hat Riots took place when 200 unionized construction workers violently broke up a Kent State shooting solidarity rally held by college and high school students in downtown Manhattan. This film depicts one of the many parades construction workers held in the days afterward, showing their support for President Nixon and their ire for Mayor Lindsay, who had condemned the actions of the rioters.
