Michael Lorenzini
At the River’s Edge, Maiden Lane and the ...
Cynthia Brenwall
Edith McAllister Alexander
Sarah Cuk
Remembering Willie Colón, El Malo del Bronx, ...
Rossy Mendez
Remembering Jesse Jackson
Andy Lanset
Black History Highlights of Municipal ...

At the River’s Edge, Maiden Lane and the Development of Lower Manhattan

Recently, the story of the “Leaning Tower of New York,” came to our attention. Also known as “1 Seaport,” the building is located at 161 Maiden Lane on the corner of South Street. In 2018, a contractor on the new 60-story residential tower noted that the structure had begun to lean. In 2020, construction on the site halted when it became apparent the building’s foundation was unstable.

161 Maiden Lane from 180 Maiden Lane, May 2025. Photograph by the author.

Taking a dive into the rich collections of the Municipal Archives and Municipal Library revealed a long history of failed development at this location. This week, For the Record peels back the layers of history that have made this such a problematic site.

This map from 1909 attempted to show the natural contours of Smith’s Vly and the location of Cornelius Clopper the blacksmith’s residence. “Amsterdam in New Netherland, 1653-1664.” Townsend MacCoun, 1909. Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, The New York Public Library.

In the early 1600s, Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam called Maiden Lane Maagde Paetje, a meandering path along a stream in Smit’s Vly. In the Dutch language, a Vly, or Vlaie, refers to a low-lying often marshy area next a stream. Later, English colonial settlers Anglicized the name to Smith’s Fly. Maagde Paetje or Maiden Lane (its meaning the same in Dutch as in English) may have come from the Dutch girls who washed their family’s clothes in the stream. In the Dutch colonial days Maagde Paetje would have ended at what we now call Pearl Street, which was then the river’s edge. Cornelius Clopper the Blacksmith had his forge there, the smith of Smith’s Fly. By the late 1600s English colonists had used landfill to extend the shoreline to Dock Street, now known as Water Street. Around this time the Common Council approved the construction of the Fly Market on Maiden Lane from Pearl Street (then called Queen Street) to Dock (Water) Street.

The Fly Market was established on Maiden Lane in the 1690s. “Fly Market,” 1816. George Hayward for Valentine’s Manual for 1857. NYC Municipal Library.

The 1754 Maerschalck Plan shows a further extension in the Maiden Lane area to Burnets Key, a boat slip and dock. Burnets Key would become Front Street, built out with fill on either side to become the new eastern edge of downtown.

The Maerschalck Plan of 1754 shows the expansion of the shoreline and the extension of Maiden Lane to a boat slip at Burnets Key. Burnets Key would become Front Street. Map courtesy The Library of Congress.

By 1810, the City had expanded even further to South Street, which became the main seaport of 19th Century New York. In 1822, the first Fulton Market was constructed further north, and the Fly Market was demolished. A few years later, the Great Fire of 1835 destroyed several blocks below Wall Street, but spared Maiden Lane.

South from Maiden Lane, 1828. George Hayward lithographer, for D.T. Valentine’s Manual of 1854. NYC Municipal Library. 

1885 Atlas of Manhattan. The Piers were later renumbered and Pier 18 became 14. NYC Municipal Archives.

The first buildings at Pearl Street and Maiden Lane may have been wooden. Although there was legislation requiring brick construction as early as 1766, until the Great Fire of 1835 buildings built on landfill were exempt because it was unknown if the new land could support them. But by the mid-1800s the area would have been four- or five-story brick buildings used as shops, counting houses, warehouses and sailor’s lodgings.

In 1916, five brick buildings were torn down at the corner of Maiden Lane and South Street to make way for a six-story concrete warehouse designed by architects Jonathan B. Snook & Sons. According to the Certificate of Occupancy from 1918, the first floor of 161 Maiden Lane was occupied as a “store,” the second as a “factory, printing,” the third for “storage,” fourth floor, “office and storage,” and the sixth floor, “sales.” A solid industrial loft building, typical of the era, as it appears in the Tax Photograph from 1939.

161-169 Maiden Lane, ca. 1939. 1940s Tax Department photographs. NYC Municipal Archives. This warehouse was built in 1919, replacing five smaller buildings. It was demolished in 2007.

Tracts and Farms with Street Changes, County of New York, Plate 2. Reindexing Department Map Division, 1917. NYC Municipal Archives.

By the 1930s the East River waterfront was on a downward trajectory although Piers 14 and 15 at the end of Maiden Lane were still in use at least until the 1960s. The piers handled small cargo ships, and the Fulton Fish Market still received fishing trawlers, but the larger ships coming into New York needed a deep-water port and favored the westside piers on the Hudson. A trend that began in the latter half of the 1800s. New ports in New Jersey and containerization pushed the area into further decline in the 20th Century.

A cargo ship can be seen docked next to Pier 14 at the foot of Maiden Lane in this aerial view of Lower Manhattan and the East River Piers, November 5, 1953. Department of Marine and Aviation Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

East River Piers—South Ferry to Pier 14, November 22, 1961. Department of Ports and Trade/Marine and Aviation photographs. By 1961 many of the East Side Piers had been abandoned although Piers 14 and 15 by Maiden Lane were still operational. Today only the helipad, and Piers 11, 15, 16, and 17 remain.

In the 1950s, new glass skyscrapers started to replace the old sailmaker lofts and push out the artists who had taken them over. Urban planners floated various schemes to revitalize the area. In 1960, the Downtown Lower Manhattan Association proposed a World Trade Center for the area. It would have stretched from Water Street to South Street from Fulton to Old Slip. If built, 161 Maiden Lane would have been razed. Eventually the World Trade Center site was moved to the west side, destroying the neighborhoods known as Little Syria and Radio Row.

World Trade Center: A Proposal for the Port of New York, 1960. Downtown Lower Manhattan Association, Inc. NYC Municipal Library, vertical files.

World Trade Center: A Proposal for the Port of New York, 1960. Downtown Lower Manhattan Association, Inc. NYC Municipal Library, vertical files.

World Trade Center: A Proposal for the Port of New York, 1960. Downtown Lower Manhattan Association, Inc. NYC Municipal Library, vertical files.

The Lower Manhattan Plan of 1966 saw the potential to expand Lower Manhattan once again in two “opportunity areas,” the West Side, which would become the World Trade Center and Battery Park City, and the East Side. Wallace, McHarg, Roberts and Todd. Office of Lower Manhattan Development.

In 1965 and 1966, the New York City Planning Commission developed new plans to expand Lower Manhattan once again in two “opportunity areas.” The West Side opportunity area became the World Trade Center and Battery Park City. The East Side development would have largely eliminated South Street with massive residential and commercial complexes stretching from the Battery Maritime Building up to the Brooklyn Bridge, from Water Street to a new bulkhead further into the East River. Park land would cover the shoreline encompassing the Manhattan tower of the Brooklyn Bridge. In January 1967, Mayor John V. Lindsay created the Office of Lower Manhattan Development “to coordinate and integrate projects in the Lower Manhattan area, including the World Trade Center and the Civic Center, into the general framework of the Lower Manhattan plan.”

The Lower Manhattan Plan, 1966. Whittlesey Conklin and Rossant, Alan M. Voorhees & Associates, and Wallace McHarg Roberts and Todd for the New York City Planning Commission. NYC Municipal Library. 

South Street and Maiden Lane sit at the center of this drawing. The Lower Manhattan Plan, 1966. Whittlesey Conklin and Rossant, Alan M. Voorhees & Associates, and Wallace McHarg Roberts and Todd for the New York City Planning Commission. NYC Municipal Library.

The building at 161 Maiden Lane was narrowly excluded from preservation. South Street Seaport Historic District Designation Report, 1977. Landmarks Preservation Commission. https://s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/0948.pdf

Preservationists started to push back against the massive developments, and in 1967 the founders of the South Street Seaport Museum convinced the City to spare many of the remaining 19th-Century buildings from the wrecking ball. In 1968, the lightship Ambrose was donated to the Museum, its first historic ship. In 1970, the tall ship Wavertree arrived to begin its long restoration.

In 1976, the Office of Lower Manhattan Development was consolidated along with three other offices to form the Mayor's Office of Development. In 1977 the Landmarks Preservation Commission formally designated the South Street Seaport Historic District, preserving a stretch of buildings along South Street below the Brooklyn Bridge. It stopped just short of Fletcher Street, the rear of 161 Maiden Lane. Piers 15, 16 and 17 were redeveloped as part of the South Street Seaport, but all the piers below them, with the exceptions of Pier 11 and the heliport, languished and were demolished. In 1980 the Seaport Museum and the Public Development Corporation (a predecessor agency to the NYC Economic Development Corporation) commissioned Beyer Blinder and Belle to create a master development plan for the Seaport Historic District as a dining and tourist destination.

Aerial view of the South Street Seaport, ca. 1974. Suzanne O’Keefe, Department of City Planning.

Growth of Manhattan Island, 1650-1980. The projected 1980 expansion never occurred on the east side. The Lower Manhattan Plan, 1966. Whittlesey Conklin and Rossant, Alan M. Voorhees & Associates, and Wallace McHarg Roberts and Todd for the New York City Planning Commission. NYC Municipal Library.

161-69 Maiden Lane, ca. 1985. 1980s Tax Department photos. NYC Municipal Archives.

In 1999 yet another proposal was floated to develop the area. Fresh off of the success of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation proposed another Frank Gehry designed curvilinear museum that would sit in the East River along South Street from Wall Street to Maiden Lane, replacing Piers 9, 13, and 14. Heated public debate ensued, but following the attacks of 9/11 in 2001 priorities shifted to rebuilding the World Trade Center and in 2002 the plans were scrapped.

Model of proposed Downtown Guggenheim Museum designed by Frank Gehry. Photo by David Heald. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Hurricane Sandy Surge Boundary Final, October 22, 2012. arcgis.com

Sometime around 2007, demolition began on 161-169 Maiden Lane according to permits issued by the Department of Buildings. The reasons for the demolition are unclear. Nothing new was built and the property became a parking lot.

On October 22, 2012, Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast. The resulting storm surge reached a high-water mark along Pearl Street and pushed up Maiden Lane as far as William Street, reminding New Yorkers where the true natural boundaries of their city are located. Despite this, a year later in 2013, the Fortis Property Group paid sixty-four million dollars for the parking lot at the corner of Maiden Lane and South Street. Their ambitious plan was to build a 60-story residential tower on a narrow lot that had still been the East River in the 1700s and had been under water just a year prior.

Edith McAllister Alexander

This week, For the Record celebrates Women’s History Month with the story of Edith Alexander. An extraordinary woman, Alexander’s work to end discrimination led to creation of the City’s Commission on Human Rights (CCHR). For the Record articles “New Project: Processing and Digitizing Records of the New York City Commission on Human Rights,” “Human Rights Day: How Human Rights Discourse has Impacted the New York City Government since the 1940s,” “Breaking the Color Line: Mayor LaGuardia and the Fight to Desegregate Baseball,” and “NYC Commission on Human Rights, project update,” describe the Municipal Archives’ project to process and digitize records of the CCHR.

Amsterdam News, December 19, 1942. In 1942, Alexander was a guest lecturer at the New York School of Social Work at Columbia University while working at the Department of Welfare. New York City Human Rights Commission, NYC Municipal Archives.

Born in Yonkers, N.Y. in 1901, Edith Alexander studied at the New York University School of Commerce earning a degree in business administration. The first fourteen years of her career, she served as a manager for the Philip Payton Company, a pioneering Harlem real estate business with progressive ideas that helped maintain Black home ownership.

With an established history of working professionally in Harlem, Alexander made her move to New York City service. From 1933-1944 she served as Director of the Division of Staff and Negro Community Relations at the Department of Welfare, precursor to the Human Resources Administration. In addition, she worked as the secretary of the Harlem Children’s Camp Fund and served on the Board of Directors of the Greater New York Urban League.

In 1944, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia established the Mayor’s Committee on Unity in response to growing concerns about race relations. City leaders recognized that concrete action was needed to address racial disparities. As in many cities across the country, New York, and Harlem in particular, experienced racial tension, police violence, with unrest flaring in 1935, and again in 1943. The Unity Committee was the first to be established in the country with a goal to “make New York City a place where people of all races and religions may work and live side by side in harmony and have mutual respect for each other, and where democracy is a living reality.”

In 1941, Alexander began working at the Department of Welfare in the Community Relations Division. Lester Granger of the National Urban League sent a congratulatory letter on her new position. New York City Human Rights Commission, NYC Municipal Archives.

Organizational chart of the Mayor’s Committee on Unity. New York City Human Rights Commission, NYC Municipal Archives.

Membership card for the National Council of Camp Fire Girls. As Executive Director, Edith Alexander maintained relationships with civic groups in the City and throughout the country, especially those relating to children. New York City Human Rights Commission, NYC Municipal Archives.

Composed of seventeen diverse volunteer members, the privately-funded Unity Committee had a wide-ranging mission: to investigate racial and religious tensions, propose solutions for neighborhood disputes, push for anti-discrimination laws, and tackle the everyday issues stemming from discrimination. The leadership team of the new organization reflected key racial and religious groups in New York City at the time. Among its first leaders were Executive Director Dan Dodson, a white Protestant man, and three associate directors—Edith Alexander, a Black woman, Bernard Lander, a white Jewish man, and Schuyler Warren, a white Catholic man. From this group Edith Alexander emerged as the Committee’s most influential figure.

Price gouging was a major issue in Harlem in the 1940s and the Mayor’s Commission worked with local civic groups to end the problem. When placed in a storefront window, this placard  indicated that the merchant was taking care to treat all customers equally. New York City Human Rights Commission, NYC Municipal Archives.

Alexander’s role was far-reaching. By 1949, she was named executive director and became the face of the organization. With no formal legal power, the group established subcommittees that researched all aspects of discrimination and made recommendations on how to alleviate tensions within the city. Alexander worked with outside groups, gave talks and lectures, organized national conferences, and conducted on-site visits to understand conditions in the City.

During the ten years of its existence, the Committee addressed citizen complaints and created reports regarding discrimination in higher education, housing, shopping and market pricing, police hiring practices, press treatment of Black citizens, and insurance coverage, to name a few. In a final project, the Committee published a directory on intergroup relations which helped other urban areas establish local and federal commissions against discrimination.

Statement on segregation. The committee prepared this statement which states that residential segregation is, “the most cruel manifestation of the moral travesty of discrimination.” New York City Human Rights Commission, NYC Municipal Archives.

1951 Activity Report.  Each year the Mayor’s Committee on Unity produced an activity report which highlighted the work of the committee throughout the previous year. New York City Human Rights Commission, NYC Municipal Archives.

1951 Activity Report. Each year the Mayor’s Committee on Unity produced an activity report which highlighted the work of the committee throughout the previous year. New York City Human Rights Commission, NYC Municipal Archives.

One aspect of Edith Alexander’s role as executive director was to engage the community at public speaking events. During her tenure she gave speeches to civic groups, attended luncheons, and organized public events. In 1952, she was one of the two designated speakers for the St. George Association at the Department of Welfare. New York City Human Rights Commission, NYC Municipal Archives.

By 1954, it was clear that the committee needed required legal authority to address issues rather than just suggesting ways to alleviate discrimination. It was at this point that the committee transitioned into the Commission on Intergroup Relations, empowered to take legal action against discrimination. It also marked the end of Edith Alexander’s tenure with the committee.

In addition to her Committee work, in 1948, Raymond Jones, the Deputy Commissioner of Housing, designated Alexander as a presidential elector from the Twenty-second Congressional district. Jones said that the selection of a Black woman by the Democratic party for this honor was “possibly without precedent in the entire country.” After she left the Mayor’s Community on Unity, Alexander took on the role of Associate Executive Director of the Mayor’s Advisory Council until her retirement in 1959. In 1961 she received a citation from then Mayor Robert Wagner for her “distinguished and exceptional service to all New York.”

The New York Times ran this article showing Acting Mayor Impellitteri with the leaders of the Mayor’s Committee on Unity in 1948. Impellitteri stated that the committee had, “made real strides in recommending and supporting legislation to eliminate discrimination of any type and discrimination from the face of the city.” New York City Human Rights Commission, NYC Municipal Archives.

The story doesn’t end there. While her work ended, her son, Clifford Alexander, Jr. followed closely in her footsteps. He served as chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under President Lyndon Johnson and became the nation’s first Black Secretary of the Army under President Jimmy Carter. Edith McAllister Alexander died on June 27, 1965, at Harlem Hospital.

A brochure created by the New York State Executive Department. Many city, state and national organizations followed New York City’s lead in creating organizations to fight discrimination in all forms. New York City Human Rights Commission, NYC Municipal Archives.

 

Federal support for Documenting Democracy was provided by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission of the National Archives.

 

Remembering Willie Colón, El Malo del Bronx, 1950-2026

“The rhythms protected us...”

“The rhythms gave us... faces”

—Willie Colón in Low Rent: A Decade of Prose and Photographs From the Portable Lower East Side, Kurt Hollander, 1994, p. 90.

Willie Colón and Héctor Lavoe (1969 Fania Records publicity photo), Public Domain.

1950 Census Record showing Willie’s parents, William and Aracelis Colón.

695 East 139th Street, where Colón grew up, 1940s Tax Photos. NYC Municipal Archives.

Willie Colón, the King of Salsa, was born on 139th Street in the South Bronx on April 28th, 1950. Born William Anthony Colón Román, he was later known as El Malo Del Bronx (based on his debut album title) and referred to as El Maestro. Colón always recalled his Abuela (Grandmother), Antonia Pintorette, originally from Manatí, Puerto Rico, as being his primary caregiver.

Inspired by the street rhythms emanating from congas, bottles, and tin cans that he described as lullabies, Colón picked up the trumpet at age twelve. Two years later, he switched to trombone, which became his instrument of choice. Colón released his first album, El Malo, at age 17 in 1967 on Fania Records newly formed by Johnny Pacheco and Jerry Masucci. From there, he went on to help define the genre of salsa that took New York City and the world by storm. He collaborated with icons like Celia Cruz, Rubén Blades, Héctor Lavoe, and many others. He played in the Fania All Stars Band, became director of the Latin Jazz All Stars, and won multiple awards and accolades for his music.

The 1973 Fania All Stars concert at Yankee Stadium, recorded August 23rd, brought 40,000 salsa fans to see Celia Cruz, Héctor Lavoe, and Willie Colón.

Along with an abundance of Latin American artistic talent arising from the South Bronx, Colón helped compose the soundtrack of the area in the late 20th century—decades that saw political, economic, and social turmoil and change. Confronted with a “burning Bronx,” massive recession, redlining policies and diversifying neighborhoods, Latin American musicians from Puerto Rico, Colombia, Cuba, Panama, and more expressed stories, experiences, joy, and struggles through music, like salsa. Later, Colón wrote,

“We easily turned 139th Street into a tropical barriada. All the stores in the area had Spanish signs in front. In the mornings you could hear the radios blaring those Latin rhythms in an eerie but reassuring echoey unison—and the smell of hundreds of pots of Cafe Bustelo filling the air.”

Aerial photo of South Bronx showing Yankee Stadium, from New York (N.Y.). Police Department. Aviation Unit. NYC Municipal Archives.

Salsa music and the South Bronx go hand in hand. With an influx of migrants from Latin America and Puerto Rico to New York City in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, many neighborhoods turned into hubs for Latin and Nuyorican culture. The sounds of the islands, mixtures of Afro-Caribbean, Taíno Indigenous, Latin Jazz, merged with cutting edge beats and vocals of R&B and Hip-Hop. Bronx legends like Tito Puente, Ray Barretto, Rubén Blades, Joe Bataan, and La India took the area by storm. One could not travel far down The Hub or Southern Boulevard without hearing congas, claves, and chants thundering from cars, windows, and boomboxes.

Tito Puente, contemporary of Colón, performing at City Hall, from WNYC, New York Hotline: Episode 401 - El Fieston de Nueva York, a Latin cultural festival, May 13, 1992.

Willie Colón distinguished his music from other salsa at the time with songs that brought to the forefront issues around identity, discrimination, and Colonization particular to Latin American experiences. Songs like Todo Tiene Su Finale (written by Héctor Lavoe in 1973), Pedro Navaja (written by Rubén Blades in 1978), and El Gran Varón (written by Omar Alfanno in 1986), told complex stories of love, life, and death.

Willie Colón featuring Héctor Lavoe & Yomo Toro - Aires de Navidad - Live/En Vivo, Fania Records, circa 1971. 

Throughout his career, Colón studied composition, orchestration, and arrangement, constantly revising his writing and performance practices. Many describe his songs as helping to connect Nuyoricans back to the island, as they inspired affection, celebration, and pride in Puerto Rican identity. Following news of Colón’s passing, his manager Pietro Carlos wrote:

“Willie didn’t just change salsa; he expanded it, politicized it, clothed it in urban chronicles, and took it to stages where it hadn’t been heard before. His trombone was the voice of the people, an echo of the Caribbean in New York, a bridge between cultures.” (FB)

Héctor Lavoe y Willie Colón - Presentación en los PBS Studios, NYC (1972).

Eventually, Willie Colón’s political interests influenced other aspects of his life. He advocated for social justice, most notably HIV/AIDS, Hispanic and Latin American representation in the U.S., and local political institutions. He was part of the Hispanic Arts Association, the Latino Commission on AIDS, the Arturo Schomburg Coalition for a Better New York, and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. In 1995, Colón became the first person of color to serve on the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers’ (ASCAP) national board.

In the early 1990s, Colón served as a special advisor to Democratic Mayor David Dinkins, appearing with him in numerous events, parades, and press conferences.

Mayor David Dinkins and Willie Colón, City Hall, November 16, 1990. Mayor David Dinkins Photograph Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

A New York Times article in June of 1994 describes Willie’s transition into full-time politics owing to his observance of “disturbing trends.” He identified “a regression in race relations, misplaced government priorities like cutting back schools and social programs while spending billions in foreign aid” (NY Times, 1994). As result, Colón tried his own hand at electoral politics. In 1994 he unsuccessfully ran as a Democratic candidate for New York Congress. He tried and lost again in the 2001 election for New York Public Advocate. In 2014, Colón graduated from Westchester County Police Academy and was sworn in as a Deputy Sheriff for the Department of Public Safety.

Mayor David Dinkins presents the Certificate of Recognition to Willie Colón, City Hall, November 16, 1990. Mayor David Dinkins Photograph Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Later in his life, Colón switched from endorsing Democratic candidates like Hillary Clinton to voting for Donald Trump in 2016. He remained a vocal Republican until his passing in Bronxville, New York, on February 21, 2026. He was 75 years old.

Willie Colón was a New Yorker through and through. This blog illuminates the numerous examples of his legacy found in the NYC Municipal Archives; one can only assume that there is far more to discover about the ways he influenced New York City and the world.

Willie Colón & Hector Lavoe – “Che Che Cole” Live/En Vivo, Fania Records, circa 1971.

“Salsa is not a rhythm. Salsa is a concept. It’s an inclusion and a reconciliation of all the things that we are, here in the Bronx and the music that we make together.”

—Willie Colón

Remembering Jesse Jackson

Although Jesse Jackson is best known for his activism in the Jim Crow South and Chicago, he also left an indelible mark on New York City’s civil rights movement and political landscape. 

The records of Mayor David Dinkins’ Administration show Jackson’s notable influence on politics and his relationship with the mayor. Jackson was a close friend of Mayor Dinkins, and the two supported each other’s political campaigns. Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition organization mobilized thousands of voters, helping Dinkins become New York City’s first Black mayor in 1990. In turn, Dinkins served as a co-chair of New Yorkers for Jesse Jackson during Jackson’s 1988 presidential run.

Jesse Jackson and Mayor David Dinkins, 1990. Mayor David Dinkins Photograph Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Jesse Jackson appears alongside Mayor Dinkins in numerous photographs taken at mayoral events. These include Dinkins’ inauguration, the ceremony where the Mayor received the Brotherhood Award from One Hundred Black Men, and a reception held by the New York State Council of Black Elected Democrats. Mr. Jackson is referenced in conversations the Mayor had about issues affecting Black NYC residents, including housing initiatives, issues related to drug convictions and use, and the need for more economic relief in Black neighborhoods. 

Mayor David Dinkins, Charlie Rangel (center), Jesse Jackson, 1991. Mayor David Dinkins Photograph Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Jesse Jackson’s relationship with Dinkins stood in stark contrast to his interactions with Dinkins’ predecessor, Mayor Ed Koch. Documents in the mayoral series indicate that Koch did not consider Jackson a viable presidential candidate. Koch endorsed Democrat Michael Dukakis and viewed some of Jackson’s remarks about Jews as inappropriate and polarizing. He also disapproved of Jackson’s association with Louis Farrakhan. In a letter from June 11, 1984, Koch wrote to his speechwriter Clark Whelton, “This is not a Jewish matter or whites against blacks but rather what is acceptable for someone who runs at the highest levels.” Despite their differences, Koch and Jackson met to discuss voter registration and strategies to increase turnout. Koch acknowledged Jackson’s considerable influence among Black voters and respect from other city officials. In fact, Jackson did have significant support in his campaign from many important people. On June 24, 1988, for example, Gloria Steinem and Shirley Chisholm hosted a reception attended by Bill Cosby and Helen Abbott.

Index, NYPD Intelligence Unit Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Records from the New York Police Department Intelligence Division also shed light on Jackson’s civil rights activism, including his work with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the Poor People’s Campaign and his leadership as Director of Operation Breadbasket, an initiative of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. As head of Operation Breadbasket, Jackson successfully coordinated boycotts against companies like the A & P Supermarket chain and the Coca-Cola Bottling Company. The goal was to address economic disparities in Black communities by leveraging boycotts to secure better representation, employment, and fair business practices. Other records document Jackson’s founding of People United to Save Humanity (PUSH) in 1971, following his suspension from Operation Breadbasket. PUSH broadened Jackson’s mission to improve economic conditions for Black Americans nationwide.

Memorandum, page 1, 1970. NYPD Intelligence Unit Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Memorandum, page 2, 1970. NYPD Intelligence Unit Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Correspondence, 1971. NYPD Intelligence Unit Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Clipping, 1971. NYPD Intelligence Unit Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Jackson’s leadership in the civil rights movement is most shockingly evident in a 1971 letter from the City of Chicago Police Department to Thomas Lyons, Director of the New York City Police Intelligence Division. The letter refers to an alleged plot to assassinate Jackson for potential economic advantages. Other correspondence also shows Jackson’s affiliation not only with political figures but also with other influential Black people. While opinions about Jackson vary, his activism, engagement with the New York City government, and presidential campaigns left a lasting impact on both the city and the nation.

Black History Highlights of Municipal Broadcasting’s First 25 Years - Part 2

The 1940s 

The wartime decade placed WNYC firmly in the vanguard of American broadcasting where Black producers and Black-centered programming were concerned. This leadership emerged early in the decade with calypso music on Henrietta Yurchenco’s Adventures in Music. A notable example is the July 28 broadcast featuring Cecil Anderson—better known as The Duke of Iron—who paid tribute to the municipal station in song with “The Ballad of WNYC.” 

Station WNYC. Yes, WNYC, it is owned by the people of N.Y.C. 
My friends, I’m known as the Duke of Iron, 
And I sing to people throughout the land. 
I came from Trinidad, maybe you have heard 
Of the glorious land of the humming bird. 
I highly appreciate your loyalty 
And the grand privilege that’s offered me 
By the nice people of New York City 
And the station WNYC… 

The Duke of Iron (Cecil Anderson) publicity photo, Wikimedia Commons.

In the song, Anderson also praised Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, crediting him as the station’s “godfather” and acknowledging his tireless efforts to ensure WNYC’s survival during its early years—although it’s worth noting that La Guardia originally ran for Mayor on a platform calling for the abolition of the station given its cost to the taxpayer.

Producer Yurchenco also brought Huddie Ledbetter—Lead Belly, the king of the twelve-string guitar—to WNYC’s air in 1940. This appearance marked the first of four regular series he would host during the decade, along with frequent guest spots on other programs, including the annual American Music Festival. In a 2001 interview with WNYC, Yurchenco recalled his professionalism, punctuality, and meticulous dress, as well as the collaborative way they shaped his broadcasts. She emphasized that Lead Belly’s commentary drew directly from his own life and described it as “colorful and magnificent,” noting that he remains one of the great blues singers of all time. Here is Lead Belly from his program, Folksongs of America, on February 27, 1941. 

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Among the other programs on which Lead Belly appeared was Ralph Berton’s Metropolitan Review, radio’s first serious jazz music program, and its companion series, Jazz Institute on the Air. Together, these broadcasts introduced New York audiences to a wide range of African-American jazz, blues, boogie-woogie and swing artists in the early 1940s. In November 1941, Berton devoted a full week of programming to Louis Armstrong—whom he dubbed “the Beethoven of hot jazz”—in celebration of Armstrong’s twenty-fifth year in show business. Berton also hosted a segment of WNYC’s American Music Festival in February 1941 featuring Lead Belly, Albert Ammons, Sam Price, Meade Lux Lewis, and the Golden Gate Singers. 

(Audio from the Municipal Archives WNYC Collection) 

Paul Robeson by Gordon Parks for the OWI, June 1942/Library of Congress.

Paul Robeson’s powerful baritone graced WNYC’s airwaves on at least two occasions during the 1940s. The first occurred on June 24, 1940, when he performed “Ballad for Americans” at Lewisohn Stadium with the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra conducted by Artur Rodziński. Written by Earl Robinson and John Latouche, the cantata was conducted by Mark Warnow and featured a chorus of fifty voices drawn from the Schola Cantorum and the Wen Talbert Negro Choir, with African-American contralto Louise Burge joining the ensemble. The concert also included the premiere of William Grant Still’s And They Lynched Him on a Tree, based on a poem by Katherine Garrison Chapin. Robeson’s second live WNYC broadcast was a Central Park bandshell concert of contemporary Russian music on September 1, 1942, conducted by noted African-American conductor Dean Dixon.

From May through July 1941, WNYC aired the pioneering thirteen-week dramatic series Native Sons, which portrayed the lives of significant historical Black figures. The biographical sketches were groundbreaking not only in content but in authorship: they were written by African Americans Kirk Lord and Frank D. Griffin at a time when few Black writers worked in radio beyond menial roles. Writing for the Baltimore Afro-American in August 1941, Griffin charged that commercial radio would not hire Black writers, arguing that as radio became a big business, Jim Crow practices had become entrenched in both studios and control rooms. Two years later, The New York Age noted Griffin’s hiring by the  Congress of Industrial Organizations to write NBC’s Labor for Victory series, observing that he was “the only Negro at present writing for a network program.”  

Headline from the August 1, 1941 radio listings in the Daily Worker.

Native Sons also broke new ground by presenting profiles of insurgent figures such as Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey—subjects rarely, if ever, discussed on the air. Alongside these were portraits of figures including Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Crispus Attucks, George Washington Carver, Benjamin Banneker, Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, Paul Robeson, Marian Anderson, Roland Hayes, Dorothy Maynor, Ira Aldridge, Robert Smalls, Toussaint L’Ouverture, and the Moroccan explorer Estevanico. The series featured an all-Black cast that included Canada Lee, Jessie Zackerey, P. J. Sidney, Jimmy Wright, Rose Poindexter, and Eric Boroughs, with musical segments provided by the Juanita Hall Choir. Author Richard Wright delivered commentary following the final broadcast.

Clifford Burdette/NAACP Collection – Library of Congress.

May 1941 also marked the debut of Those Who Have Made Good, an interview program sponsored by the NAACP and designed to spotlight “the most outstanding race figures in contemporary life, from all fields of endeavor.” Hosted and produced weekly by Clifford Burdette for more than a year, the program fulfilled that mission, beginning with actor Canada Lee and continuing with guests such as Paul Robeson, W.C. Handy, Josh White, Noble Sissle, Mercedes Gilbert, Dean Dixon, Count Basie, the Reverend Adam Clayton Powell, Hazel Scott, Max Yergan, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, and many others. The sole surviving recording of the series features Harlem poet Countee Cullen. 

(Audio courtesy of the Amistad Research Center, Tulane University) 

Duke Ellington’s first Carnegie Hall concert on January 23, 1943 featured his expansive jazz composition Black, Brown and Beige, a work he described as “a parallel to the history of the Negro in America.” Recorded on location, the performance was broadcast over WNYC nine days later. Unfortunately, critics initially received the work poorly, and Ellington never revisited it in full. Half a century later, however, Scott DeVeaux of the University of Virginia described it as “an intriguing piece of music, well worth reexamining” and “a celebration of Black artistic achievement” that “confronted both the cultural snobbery that excluded jazz musicians from the musical establishment and the pervasive racism that excluded African Americans from their share of citizenship.” 

Judge Jane Bolin, first Black female to occupy a court bench/U.S. Office of War Information Photo/Wikimedia Commons.

On March 18, 1943, Justice Jane M. Bolin—the first African-American judge in New York and the first Black woman to graduate from Yale Law School—came to the municipal radio studio to deliver the address Womenpower is Vital to Victory. Bolin was speaking as part of the Eleventh Vocational Opportunity Campaign of the National Urban League. She called for employment of African-American women and condemned discrimination as antithetical to the nation’s democratic war aims.

WNYC revisited the African-American docudrama with the Great Americans series May 19 through June 23, 1943. Sponsored by the City’s Juvenile Welfare Council, the program included profiles of inventor George Washington Carver, champion fighter Joe Louis, contralto Marian Anderson, sculptor Richmond Barthe, police officer Samuel Battle, activist James Weldon Johnson, and heard here, ship captain Hugh Mulzac.  

(Audio from the Municipal Archives WNYC Collection) 

Compared to Native Sons, the series was more conventional and corny in tone. Variety commented that it “ducked the fundamental racial issues” and was “slanted for juves and strictly inspirational,” with episodes often concluding with exhortations about self-improvement. 

The year 1943 was marked by unrest tied to racial and ethnic tensions across the United States. Violent clashes erupted in Mobile, Alabama, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Beaumont, Texas, undermining morale on the home front as the nation fought a global war. Mayor La Guardia—also the national head of the Office of Civilian Defense—was deeply concerned that similar disturbances might erupt in New York, particularly given the reliance on minority soldiers in a segregated military. 

Seeking to defuse rising tensions, La Guardia pressed for a radio series titled Unity at Home – Victory Abroad and wrote poet, activist, and playwright Langston Hughes for assistance. Slated to air on WNYC and seven other New York stations in August and September, the series featured figures such as contralto Marian Anderson, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and former governor Al Smith. Tragically, the effort came too late to prevent the Harlem riot of August 1, although WNYC played a critical role in calming the situation through its broadcasts and sound trucks. 

(Audio from the Municipal Archives WNYC Collection)

Page one of a four-page WNYC press release on the 1943 disturbances in Harlem. NYC Municipal Library vertical files.

Excerpt from Behind the Mike, September/October 1943 Masterwork Bulletin/WNYC Archive Collections.

According to Hughes biographer Arnold Rampersad, Hughes was also contacted by the Writers’ War Board, which sought radio programming to promote unity and prevent further racial violence. Hughes responded with some songs and two short plays, In the Service of My Country and Private Jim Crow. While the former was broadcast on WNYC and praised, the latter—more critical in its depiction of discrimination faced by Black soldiers—was never aired anywhere. Hughes himself acknowledged the difficulty of such material, noting radio’s persistent censorship of dramatic treatments of Black life. 

Hughes returned to WNYC in 1944 as a guest on mezzo-soprano Lola Hayes’s weekly program Tone Pictures of the Negro in Music, which highlighted African-American composers and their work. The November 29 broadcast focused on musical settings of Hughes’s poetry, and he read from his opera Troubled Island. Other guests during the program’s run included Abbie Mitchell, Will Marion Cook, Hall Johnson, and Clarence Cameron White. 

Portrait of Lola Hayes in 1941 by James L. Allen/Courtesy of The New York Times.

NAEB Newsletter April 1, 1944. Excerpt courtesy of Unlocking the Airwaves/University of Maryland. 

In February 1944, Billie Holiday made a late addition to WNYC’s annual American Music Festival, appearing in a swing session alongside Hot Lips Page and Coleman Hawkins. The following month, WNYC also began airing spots against bigotry as part of director Morris Novik’s vision of public radio to educate for democracy. 

NAEB Newsletter April 1, 1944. Excerpt courtesy of Unlocking the Airwaves/University of Maryland. 

Script for a spot on tolerance from 1944. WNYC Archive Collections. 

On April 2, 1944, Mayor La Guardia welcomed composer and baritone Harry T. Burleigh to City Hall for a broadcast of Talk to the People, continuing the station’s engagement with African-American cultural leadership during the war years. 

(Audio from the Municipal Archives WNYC Collection) 

1936 portrait of Harry T. Burleigh by Maud Cuney-Hare, 1874-1936/Wikimedia Commons. 

The year 1944 saw the municipal station move away from biodramas toward short-lived serial dramas that aimed to portray African Americans as everyday Americans who happened to be Black. On Saturday evenings in June, an all-Black cast appeared in I’m Your Next Door Neighbor, which followed the business and home life of a “typical” New York family living in Harlem. Station director Morris Novik explained that “tolerance and prejudice were not the theme of the series, but during the course of normal events it brought home to the listener that there were certain evils that perhaps he was not aware of previously.” 

In an article about the “falling color bar” in radio, The Chicago Defender called the program “the most advanced program artistically.” The paper also quoted producer Barbara M. Watson, who said, “It is most important that young Negroes look to radio as the future. There are inroads to be made now. It will be tougher later.” Watson went on to have a distinguished career, becoming the first African American and the first woman appointed Assistant Secretary of State. 

Josh White at Café Society circa 1946 by William P. Gottlieb/Library of Congress. 

The second serial drama was Henry Allen—American. Airing on Sundays from October into November 1944, the program was a takeoff on Henry Aldrich, the popular white protagonist of NBC’s The Aldrich Family. Like I’m Your Next Door Neighbor, the series sought to normalize Black domestic life. An announcement in The Brooklyn Eagle said the program would “try to give us an understanding glimpse into the homes and hearts of 14,000,000 fellow citizens.” 

Folksinger Josh White performed at the February 1945 American Music Festival. The announcer described his repertoire as “music that is rooted in the soil and the heart of the American people,” and quoted Langston Hughes, who called White “a fine singer of anybody’s songs—Southern Negro, Southern white, plantation work songs, modern union songs, English or Irish ballads—any songs that come from the heart of a people.” 

(Audio courtesy of Smithsonian Moe Asch Collection.)

The following month, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died, and the NAACP mounted an extensive tribute over the municipal station. On April 15, listeners heard from attorney Herman Taylor, Roy Wilkins, NAACP president Arthur B. Spingarn, and Maude Turner of the New York City NAACP branch. Spingarn said, “The death of President Roosevelt is a tragic loss to mankind. But to minority peoples of the world—particularly the minority groups in this country—it is an irreparable calamity.” 

Returning from Army service, producer and host Clifford Burdette launched Freedom’s Ladder in July 1946. The weekly program blended music and civil rights advocacy and was described as “the only weekly program battling discrimination and prejudice.” Echoing the mission of his earlier WNYC series Those Who Have Made Good, Burdette told the Baltimore Afro-American, “Our show aims to entertain and to promote the idea that everyone has a chance to climb freedom’s ladder. You’ve got to be good, and you’ve got to work at it.” 

The program ran for a year and featured some nationally known performers, including Nat King Cole and Sarah Vaughan, but largely relied on entertainers from Harlem nightclubs and other local venues, along with frequent appearances by members of the New York State Commission Against Discrimination. Unlike Burdette’s earlier program, the high-powered roster of Harlem Renaissance celebrities was largely absent. New York Amsterdam News columnist and radio host Bill Chase was a regular presence and shared hosting duties.   

(Audio from the Municipal Archives WNYC Collection.)

On April 16, 1946, municipal radio listeners heard NYU sociologist Dr. Dan Dodson moderate a panel discussion titled “How Can We Work for Interracial Understanding?” Panelists included pioneering African-American psychologist Dr. Kenneth B. Clark, Judge and civil-rights attorney Hubert Delany, and journalist and social historian Dr. Albert Deutsch. Later that spring, on June 3, listeners may also have caught a live broadcast of Billie Holiday performing at Jazz at the Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall. 

Kenneth B. Clark, Judge Hubert T. Delaney, Dr. Dan Dodson, and Mr. Albert Deutsch during broadcast of WNYC radio show, “How can we work for interracial understanding?” Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress. 

One More River producers Bill Chase and Ken Joseph in front of the microphone circa 1947.  WNYC Archive Collections. 

From January 10 to April 6, 1947, One More River was billed as “the only radio show in the country produced by a Negro–White team” dedicated to improving race relations. The Sunday broadcast was produced by New York Amsterdam News columnist Bill Chase and WNYC staff announcer Ken Joseph, who said the program was “dedicated to the equality and dignity of all men” and sought to expose prejudice in both the North and the South. The series combined dramatizations and music, with guests including Teddy Wilson, Kenneth Spencer, Jenny Powell, Mildred Bailey, Lillette Thomas, Melba Allen, the Ellis Larkins Trio, and the Al Casey Trio. The Nameless Choir appeared regularly under the direction of Charles King. This is the April 6, 1947 program from the Municipal Archives WNYC collection. 

African-American conductor Dean Dixon led the American Youth Symphony in February 1947 for the eleventh WNYC American Music Festival concert. The program featured contralto Carol Brice, with pianist Vivian Rivkin, and included works by William Schuman, Johan Franco, Norman Dello Joio, and Richard J. Newman. The concert concluded with Newman’s United Nations Cantata for Chorus and Orchestra, performed by the David Randolph Chamber Chorus. 

On June 29, 1947, WNYC carried President Harry S. Truman’s address to the NAACP at its thirty-eighth annual conference. The Lincoln Memorial speech was the first time a sitting U.S. president spoke to the organization’s annual meeting.

(Audio from the Municipal Archive WNYC Collection.)

President Truman delivering remarks to the NAACP at the Lincoln Memorial, June 29, 1947. Photo courtesy of the Truman Library. 

The Thelonius Monk Quartet performed at the ninth American Music Festival on February 16, 1948. Monk was joined on piano by trumpeter Idrees Sulieman, bassist Curly Russell, and drummer Art Blakey. Their set included the standard All the Things You Are. 

(Audio from the WNYC Archive Collections.)

Jazz Classroom of the Air premiered on October 9, 1948. The thirty-minute broadcast accompanied an NYU jazz course taught by John Hammond of Mercury Records and George Avakian of Columbia Records. Designed as both public educational entertainment and a supplement to the university course, the program paired Saturday evening broadcasts with Monday classroom lectures. The inaugural episode traced the origins of jazz and featured several early recordings, including one by a young Louis Armstrong.

(Audio from the WNYC Archive Collections.)

Civil rights leader Walter White spoke at the Cooper Union Forum on December 18, 1949. His address, “The Race Problem in the United States,” examined the relationship between race and foreign policy and was carried live from the Great Hall over WNYC. 

(Audio from the Municipal Archives WNYC Collection.)

Conclusion 

Taken together, these early decades of New York’s municipal broadcasting reveal WNYC as an imperfect but often pioneering civic platform for Black cultural expression, political debate, and historical self-representation. At a time when commercial radio routinely excluded African-American voices—or confined them to caricatures—the city-owned station repeatedly created space for Black artists, intellectuals, activists, and institutions to speak in their own voices and on their own terms. These efforts unfolded unevenly, shaped by the limits of the era, wartime pressures, censorship, and persistent racial inequities. Yet they also reflected a sustained belief that public broadcasting could serve democratic ends by broadening who was heard and what was heard. 

From early policy decisions banning racial epithets, to landmark series such as Native Sons and Those Who Have Made Good, to wartime appeals for unity and postwar explorations of everyday Black life, WNYC’s programming documented—and at times anticipated—larger national conversations about race, citizenship, and cultural authority. The station’s airwaves carried music, drama, and debate that challenged prevailing stereotypes and introduced audiences to a fuller, more complex vision of African-American life in the United States. 

As WNYC moved beyond its first quarter-century, these broadcasts formed a foundation on which later generations would build. The preserved recordings remain vital historical evidence of how New York City’s municipal radio, at its best, functioned as a forum for inclusion, education, and civic responsibility—an aspiration that continues to resonate during Black History Month and beyond. 

Anti-bigotry spot from 1946. WNYC Archive Collections. 

Black History Highlights of Municipal Broadcasting’s First 25 Years - Part 1

For 73 years, WNYC was owned and operated by the City of New York. Detailing its African-American-focused programing over this period is no small task—indeed, it could easily serve as a master’s thesis in broadcast history. Within the limits of this essay, however, I have highlighted some of the most significant early moments and broadcasts that merit reflection during Black History Month. 

Reverend Dr. Henry Hugh Proctor. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons. 

Among the earliest African American speakers on WNYC—if not the first—was the Reverend Dr. Henry Hugh Proctor, an early civil-rights leader who addressed listeners on the evening of October 11, 1924. He opened the broadcast with a prayer, followed by the Nazarene Chorus, based at his Brooklyn church, the Nazarene Congregational Church. Proctor is recognized as a key figure in the Social-Gospel movement, a significant precursor to the modern civil-rights movement. 

The municipal station was only eight months old in March 1925—and radio itself was still very much a toddler—when WNYC banned the use of racial epithets on the air. The action came at a moment of peak Ku Klux Klan membership nationwide and three years before NBC would launch the enormously popular, and racially charged, Amos ’n’ Andy. The ban followed a broadcast in which a city official told “a harmless watermelon story,” unaware that he had caused offense by using  a slur related to skin color.” Department of Plant and Structures Commissioner William Wirt Mills, whose agency oversaw the station, issued an apology and ordered corrective action in response to a complaint from The Baltimore Afro-American newspaper.

Excerpt from WNYC Engineering Log for October 11, 1924. WNYC Archive Collections.

The Baltimore Afro-American, March 7, 1925, pg.6. 

Seen in this light, it is notable that by 1946—likely earlier—the station’s operations manual extended its prohibition on racial and ethnic epithets to Jews, Irish Americans, and other maligned groups. The guide also instructed staff that “there is no need, for example, in crime news to refer repeatedly to a man's color unless there is a specific news reason, such as a police description of a missing person.” It further cautioned against repeating derogatory remarks about any individual, even when accurately attributed, unless the quotation itself had specific news value, such as forming the basis of a lawsuit. 

Black participation on WNYC and other broadcast outlets during the 1920s remained limited, largely confined to occasional gospel performances and dance band appearances. That changed in 1929, when both the New York Urban League and the NAACP secured regular weekly time slots—among the earliest sustained programming by and for African Americans in the nation. These broadcasts featured prominent voices including scholar and activist W.E.B. Du Bois, labor leader A. Philip Randolph, writer and civil rights advocate James Weldon Johnson, and actress Rose McClendon. 

Between 1930 and 1933, the U.S. government sponsored trips to Europe for surviving mothers of deceased World War I soldiers and for widows who had not remarried, allowing them to visit the American cemeteries where their loved ones were buried. The program was initially praised in Black newspapers, which encouraged all eligible women to participate. That support shifted, however, when the War Department announced that the pilgrimages would be segregated. 

Mrs. Willie Rush, whose son died in France, spoke over WNYC on behalf of Gold Star mothers during a City Hall protest broadcast on July 11, 1930. An Atlanta native, she condemned the segregation of the Black and white delegations. She and other protesters were joined in the Aldermanic Chamber by Acting Mayor Joseph V. McKee and city officials. 

The NAACP attempted to persuade the federal government to integrate the excursions but was unsuccessful. The organization subsequently called for a boycott, prompting roughly two dozen mothers and widows to cancel their trips. Ultimately, however, 279 African-American women chose to make the journey. 

Planting ceremony of the Tree of Hope, Seventh Avenue and 131 Street, where out-of-work black entertainers traded gossip and tips on jobs, November 1934. Mayor LaGuardia collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

November 17, 1934 edition of Literary Digest courtesy of the Internet Archive.

An unusual event celebrating legend, myth, and collective hope brought WNYC microphones to Harlem on November 4, 1934. The occasion was the replanting and dedication of the community’s “Wishing Tree” at 131st Street and Seventh Avenue, with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson presiding before public officials and a crowd of thousands. Also known as the “Tree of Hope,” the elm was believed to possess magical powers, according to reports in The Literary Digest.

Shortly thereafter, newly hired assistant program director Seymour Siegel moved quickly to bring government-subsidized musicians into the municipal studios through the Federal Music Project. Although the program remained segregated and Black musicians were paid less than their white counterparts, African-American performers were nonetheless employed under the WPA. The ensembles were broadcast nationally via 16-inch transcription discs mailed from Washington, D.C.—a pre-satellite distribution system. These groups included the Juanita Hall Choir, the Negro Melody Singers, the Negro Art Singers, the Los Angeles Colored Chorus, and the Los Angeles Negro Choir. 

The WNYC Archives compiled this mixtape of 26 performances selected from the Municipal Archives WNYC Collection of WPA music transcriptions. 

Singer and actress Juanita Hall, with back turned, conducting the Negro Melody Singers, circa late 1930s. Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations / New York Public Library.

Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia’s second term in 1938 marked another turning point with the appointment of Morris Novik as station director and head of the Municipal Broadcasting System, a communications agency reporting directly to the Mayor rather than the Department of Plant and Structures. This reorganization ushered in a new era of inclusiveness at WNYC, beginning with an on-air discussion and debate over the federal Anti-Lynching Bill featuring NAACP executive secretary Walter White. The period also included a notable studio performance by actor Alvin Childress, who portrayed an enslaved person in a dramatic sketch titled Two Faces. 

Portrait of author Richard Wright (PM Photo/A. Lanset Collection).

In April of that year, author Richard Wright appeared on a Federal Writers’ Project roundtable broadcast and addressed the persistence of racial stereotyping and reflected on his work for The WPA Guide to New York City. “The most amazing thing about these stories, to my way of thinking, is that they were never done before… the average American's conception of Negro culture and life as it exists in New York is probably derived from not very accurate novels, or Hollywood representations of the urban Negro as either shabby and comical or exceedingly prosperous as the conductor of a popular swing orchestra.”

The following month, the National Urban League launched Negro News & Views, a new weekly program intended, in its words, “to awaken the general public to the realization of the importance of the Negro’s cultural contribution to American life.” Two weeks after the funeral of James Weldon Johnson in June, WNYC broadcast an on-air remembrance of the author of Lift Every Voice and Sing, often referred to as the Black national anthem. Listeners heard tributes from Mayor La Guardia and leaders of the NAACP, underscoring the station’s growing role as a civic platform for Black cultural and political life. 

In 1939, African-American actor Gordon Heath came to WNYC through the WPA’s National Youth Administration via its NYA Varieties radio program. He produced a biographical series titled Music and Youth, which he later recalled in his memoirs as a stream of “15-minute potted sketches from the lives of great musicians of the past.” One such vignette featured Beethoven in conversation with his landlord, declaring, “Ah, Herr Sturch—the wages of sin, they have not been paid.” 

 

Part Two of the blog will continue documenting WNYC’s role as a leading producer of programs focusing on Black civic and cultural leadership in the 1940s.