Harlem

The Closing of Sydenham Hospital

At the start of 2018, the Municipal Archives began digitizing its vast and varied audiovisual collections, including lacquer discs, films and tapes from municipal broadcasters WNYC Radio and TV, surveillance films created by the New York Police Department (NYPD) and early cable television programming from the City’s Channel L Working Group. Now, almost six years later, the Archives has made thousands of hours of this visual material available online, with even more being added in the next few months.

These four collections, WNYC Radio (REC0078), WNYC-TV (REC0047), the NYPD Surveillance Films (REC0063) and Channel L (REC0072) together provide uniquely detailed and multifaceted perspectives on the City of New York during one of its most difficult eras since the Great Depression. These municipal entities often covered the same issues facing New Yorkers, but through different lenses and motivated by different public interests. While WNYC Radio and TV mostly showed the City through a lens of journalism and culture, the NYPD had its eye on the safety and security of its inhabitants. Meanwhile, Channel L gave cable subscribers a window into the minutia of City government with a variety of call-in talk show programs, many hosted by City officials trying to explain their legislative efforts and amplifying the voices of activists and average New Yorkers invited on the air.

Sydenham Hospital, ca. 1940. Tax Photo Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

One issue that WNYC, the NYPD and Channel L all covered was the 1980 closure of Sydenham Hospital in Harlem. As discussed in a previous blog post, Sydenham Hospital was the first fully integrated hospital in the United States. It also served one of the most medically deprived areas of the country, with health outcomes for Harlem residents far below those of other New Yorkers. Still, the dire budgetary constraints of 1970s New York ultimately led Mayor Ed Koch to close the hospital.

WNYC-TV was on the scene documenting protests at the hospital over the years. The television journalists also covered official statements regarding the fate of the public hospital system from both Mayors Abe Beame and Ed Koch, as well as City Council President Carol Bellamy. This newly preserved and freely available footage shows the day-to-day news coverage from WNYC-TV that New Yorkers depended on to keep abreast of current events. Over the years, WNYC-TV employed journalists like Brian Lehrer, Maria Hinojosa, Bob Herbert, and Ti-Hua Chang to host talk shows like NY Hotline, and to critically investigate current events.

Like WNYC-TV, Channel L covered major metro-area developments, but rather than employing a cadre of journalists, Channel L gave hosting duties directly to the political figures that WNYC reporters often interviewed. City Council member Fred Samuels represented Harlem during the 1970s and 80s. He often hosted Channel L talk shows featuring doctors from Sydenham Hospital who expressed the importance of their healthcare facility to the people of Harlem. Samuels also featured other residents and professionals from Harlem on his repeat appearances, using the new format of cable television to highlight an array of issues confronting the community he represented, and his efforts to address the challenges of his constituents.

At the same time, the New York Police Department was also creating audiovisual records of social and political protest movements, including the ten-day occupation of Sydenham Hospital. Unlike Channel L and WNYC-TV, the NYPD never intended the footage to be released to the public. These films were created to further the efforts of the NYPD’s Bureau of Special Services (BOSS) to maintain the safety and security of New Yorkers during an increasingly tumultuous and physically dangerous time. Because of this different motive and method, the footage from this collection offers a totally different perspective on the same events covered by the journalists of WNYC-TV and the politicians of Channel L.

Through the work of archivists at the Municipal Archives, the perspectives of the City’s journalists, politicians, activists, police, and average New Yorkers come together to create a rich vision of one of the greatest cities in the world on the closure of Sydenham Hospital and countless other historical events and movements. The fight for LGBTQ+ rights, Caribbean migration, the rise of modern environmentalism, the Civil Rights movement, the Cold War, second wave feminism, the birth of hip-hop, the space race and so many other developments in the second half of the twentieth century are revealed in new ways through the sounds and visions of these never-before available collections. With holdings that dwarf every other city in the United States, the NYC Municipal Archives and its audiovisual collections serve a vital function of providing a communal memory of American culture, identity, and history, reminding us of our values as a society and the lessons our predecessors learned for our benefit. 


This is the last blog post by archivist Chris Nicols. After more than five-years of work dedicated to preserving the visual resources of the Municipal Archives, Chris is moving on to new challenges. We will miss both his technical know-how and the always intelligent perspective he provided on the content he worked so hard to preserve. 

The Mayor’s Commission on Conditions in Harlem – 1935

The Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia collection contains several folders detailing the work of the Mayor’s Commission on Conditions in Harlem after the 1935 one-day riot.

256 West 125 Street, ca. 1939. The 1935 riot was sparked by an incident at this Kress department store. Department of Finance Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

On March 19, 1935 a young man was temporarily detained at a Harlem store for shoplifting a knife. A small crowd gathered. Rumors spread that he had been beaten to death in a back room, although in truth he was released out a side door. Communist organizers gave out leaflets tying the incident to broader discrimination against Harlem residents. The crowd grew. A hearse passed by. Rumors flew. One window was broken, then another and soon a melee ensued that continued for most of the evening. Three black men were killed, including another young man who was returning from the movies. More than 100 men were arrested; at least 100 people suffered wounds, chiefly from falling glass and thrown objects; and 250 stores sustained damage.

The next day numerous organizations—many affiliated with the Communist Party—the Fur Workers Industrial Union, Industrial Labor Defense, Branch 41 of the United Councils of Working Class Women, the Alteration Painters Union, the Office Workers Union, the Working People of Amboy and Pitkin—sent sent telegrams denouncing the violence. The telegram below is only one of several sent on behalf of groups of workers gathered at intersections and apparently participating in marches against the violence.

Telegram sent by protesters from the Needle Thread Workers. (The NRA stamp is for the Federal National Recovery Act, not the National Rifle Association.) Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Walter White, the Secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) sent a telegram with a different message. He urged the Mayor to “appoint immediately a biracial commission to make an investigation of rioting in Harlem last night.… We suggest commission be chosen with due regard for fact that last night’s trouble and possible future trouble are rooted in economic distress of Negroes…”

Telegram from Walter White of the NAACP urging the forming of a citizens committee to investigate conditions in Harlem in order to prevent further trouble. Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Some played the blame game citing communist incitement and invoking racial and ethnic stereotypes. On the other hand, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia appeared to have heeded White’s recommendation and established a high-level commission to explore the events, examine conditions that contributed to the violence and recommend strategies that might prevent another occurrence. He made a radio appeal to the People of New York City and issued a handout.

Mayor LaGuardia’s appeal to “the People of New York City” the day after the 1935 Harlem Riot. Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Letter from Walter White of the NAACP laying out the proposed investigation questions the committee should follow. Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Walter White, praised the Mayor’s action. He quickly submitted a five-page list of possible research topics for the commission and suggested that prominent sociologist E. Franklin Frazier be retained to conduct the research. White’s questions offer a roadmap to the final report, which was researched and largely written by Frazier. Concluding the list, he wrote, “Done properly this study may not only be of inestimable service to New York City now and in the years to come but to the entire country.”

A description of the Commission stated that it “was composed of persons who either had experience in the community or special interest in the problems involved.” That’s true. Another feature was the ground-breaking backgrounds of several members. One was prominent in the Harlem Renaissance, another was the first black Alderman, and another the first black woman attorney at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Several had founded the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). All in all, a stellar group. Lester Stone, Secretary to the Mayor described the group as “predominantly negro, and the white members are intelligent, liberal, and sympathetic.”

Members included:

  • Charles H. Roberts who served as the Chair and had been the first black member of the Board of Alderman

  • Oswald Garrison Villard, publisher of the Evening Post and one of the NAACPs founders

  • Eunice Hunton Carter, the first African-American woman to work as a prosecutor for the Manhattan District Attorney

  • Countee Cullen, a poet, playwright and novelist who was part of the Harlem Renaissance

  • Hubert. T Delaney, Commissioner of Taxes and Assessments

  • Morris Ernst, a prominent attorney and co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

  • John C. Grimley, former hospital director and commanding officer of the 369th Infantry

  • Arthur Garfield Hays, founding member and general counsel of the ACLU

  • A. Phillip Randolph, labor leader and head of the International Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters

  • John W. Robinson, prominent minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church

  • William J. Schieffelin, social reformer and trustee of Tuskegee Institute

  • Charles E. Toney, Municipal Judge and NAACP Board Member

  • Reverend W. R. McCann, Roman Catholic pastor of St. Charles Borremeo Church

The Commission established six subcommittees: Crime and the Police, Education, Housing, Discrimination in Employment, Health and Hospitalization and Relief. The subcommittees held hearings, gathered personal testimony, analyzed budgets, and tracked employment statistics. Their work was complicated by the refusal of several officials to participate. For many, the Commission offered an opportunity to present grievances and suggest solutions, as shown by correspondence in the files.

One hundred and sixty witnesses testified at the 21 public and four closed hearings. The Commission invited “persons representing all stratas of the population of Harlem. Anyone who had a complaint against any public official… any laborer at the most menial occupation, etc., was given the same opportunity to express himself… as was the most powerful representatives of private or public interest.

The historically black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha, founded in 1908, circulated a resolution that was submitted by several organizations opposing discrimination against black student nurses and dieticians. The two largest, best-equipped training hospitals, Bellevue and Kings County hospital, denied admission to black student nurses. The black trainees were only admitted to Harlem and Lincoln Hospitals and then, upon graduation, were employed at only four of the twenty-nine City hospitals.

The Police Department Commissioner Lewis J. Valentine refused to meet with the members or testify before them. New York County District Attorney M.C. Dodge complicated the commission’s review by directing the police officers who made arrests during the riots not to participate. In a letter to Valentine he wrote, “Under no circumstances should any police officer who has any case pending, whether in the Magistrate’s Court or Special Sessions, be required to reveal at a public hearing any of his evidence. Will you please, therefore, be good enough to direct your commanding officers to instruct all officers who may have cases pending, not to reveal any of their testimony at any public hearing.”

Letter from Adam Clayton Powell to the commission. Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

That did not stop the commission. When a grand jury failed to return an indictment for the killing of Lloyd Hobbs, the young man shot by officers when he was returning from the movies, ACLU founder Hays questioned whether the eye witnesses in the matter had been asked to testify in the proceeding. He wrote that it was important for all of the facts to be presented to the public in order to determine “if there was any justification for the shooting, the public may know it.” In conclusion he noted that “one of the most ominous features which emerges from the evidence we have taken appears to be a lack of confidence the people of Harlem have in the police, and their feeling that Negroes cannot expect justice”

Pastor Adam Clayton Powell of the Abyssinian Baptist Church wrote Hays a letter describing another violent incident between a police officer and a black man standing on a breadline.

Approximately one year after the riot, the Commission submitted its report to the Mayor. And then? Sections were circulated to department heads for comments. Comments were received. Various people asked for copies. The New York Post (then with a different editorial view than today) and The Daily Worker, issued by the Communist Party, both published sections of the report.

Chapter 4, “The Problem of Making a Living,” described employment discrimination by many public utilities that either refused to hire black people or slotted them into the lowest-paying positions. Chapter 5 detailed how the Home Relief Bureau used race as a factor in determining which employment opportunities would be offered to black applicants. The Housing chapter considered the 800% growth in black Harlem residents, making it one of the most densely-populated areas of the City. The housing stock was decrepit and families were substantially overcharged, paying $30-$50 per month while Lower East Side residents paid less than $20. Chapter 6 detailed the deficiencies in Harlem schools. “Since Poverty is the problem of primary importance to the Negro of Harlem, it is surely responsible for many of the problems of the schools of the community. Many of the children stay away from school simply because they lack food, and are in special need of clothing.” And for those who sought advancement, “In the special courses which prepare girls for the outstanding women colleges, not a single Negro girl was enrolled for the term of 1935.”

Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Every chapter presented an indictment of how the City was serving the 200,000 black residents of Harlem. The report also listed dozens of steps that could help remedy the conditions.

City government never issued the report. Some recommendations were partially implemented—new schools and a federally-funded health center. LaGuardia appointed black judges and executive staff.

In 1946, riots again broke out in Harlem, with the underlying causes very similar to the events of 1935. Overcrowded housing, unequal employment opportunities, a strong sense that justice was lacking. There was greater destruction. More people were killed and wounded. If the recommendations issued a decade earlier had been fully, or even more completely implemented, what would have happened?

In 1969, during another period of urban unrest, Arno Press published the full text of the report. The Municipal Archives has now digitized the report. It is available at the pop-up exhibit at 31 Chambers this week and will be available to readers online in the near future.