NYC Municipal Archives
Find of the Week: Central Park Topographical ...
Kenneth Cobb
We Shall All Be There: Dedicating Shea ...
Cynthia Brenwall
The Curious Case of the Lighting of the ...
Israt Abedin
Recovering Women’s Names in DORIS’ Digital ...
Robert Garber
The New York City Civil War Draft Riot Claims ...

The Central Park: Original Designs for New York’s Greatest Treasure, a conversation with author Cynthia Brenwall

The Department of Records & Information Services is pleased to announce The Central Park: Original Designs for New York’s Greatest Treasure, will be in bookstores beginning Tuesday, April 16. We asked author Cynthia Brenwall, conservator at the Municipal Archives, to share her favorite stories about the park and to highlight some of the beautiful drawings from the collection that are featured in the book.

Kenneth Cobb: One of the most striking drawings in the collection, the gilded bird cage, is on the cover of the book. Is it true that the cages contained live birds in the early years of the park?

Ornamental birdcage on a blue stone pedestal, 1864.

Attributed to Jacob Wrey Mould, architect.

Black ink and watercolor with pencil on paper, 18 ½ x 13 ¼ inches

Cynthia Brenwall: Yes, they put live birds in the cages for the enjoyment of visitors promenading on the mall near the Terrace. We do not know when they removed the cages, but their bases are still in the park today, used to hold large floral planters.

KC: It must have been difficult to choose from the more than 1,500 drawings of the park in the collection. Can you describe how you came up with the overall organization of the book?

CB: With so many amazing drawings in our collection, my hardest task was selecting items that best represented different areas of the park. The creators of the park, Olmsted and Vaux, felt that the view and the scenic landscape that they devised were the most important aspect of the park. I wanted to find a way to convey how they made sure a visitor would experience a “respite for the eye and the soul,” as I put it, from any point in the park. In the southern end of the park they installed a formal landscape with linear views and features such as distinctive bridges, natural looking bodies of water and pathways for pedestrians, horses and carriages. Moving northward in the park, the view becomes more rugged featuring the natural landscape of rock outcroppings, rolling hills and long vistas. Finally, there is the ceremonial and architecturally detailed Bethesda Terrace and Mall—the heart of the park.

Map of Central Park, c. 1875. Black ink on linen, 24 x 74 inches.

This map shows work both planned and completed as of the mid-1870s. It includes Drives, Rides, Walks, bridges, named gates, and major structures as well as several building that were being planned at the time but were never completed.

In the early stages of shaping how I would display the drawings in the book, I found a very detailed map of the park from 1872. As I began identifying all the places on the map that corresponded to the drawings I realized I could organize the book as though the visitor were strolling through the park, enjoying these ever-changing, but always pastoral, views.

Huddlestone Arch, plan showing the southern elevation and a schematic sketch of the north side, 1864.

Black ink with pencil on graph paper, 13 ¼ x 16 ½ inches

KC: We often say that along with the Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park was one of the greatest public works achievements of the 19th century. What were some innovative features of the park that you found illustrated in the drawings?

CB: Probably the best known feature is the transverse roads. Again, it was all about the views. The designers knew they had to accommodate vehicular traffic across the park but did not want to spoil the views, or the visitors’ sense of being in a natural landscape. The below-grade transverse roads brilliantly solved the problem. This design feature contributed to Vaux and Olmsted’s submission, “The Greensward” being selected as the winning entry in the contest to design the Park

Another of my favorite innovative designs is the Huddlestone Arch in the northern section of the park. It is constructed completely out of stones excavated during park construction. It uses only gravity (no mortar or other binding materials) to hold it together and it is still today a load-bearing (cars and trucks instead of horse drawn carriages) roadway carrying the East Drive over the Loch. The largest stone is estimated to weigh two tons.

Plan of Terrace drainage, showing drains and basin, 1863. Black and red ink colored washes and pencil on graph paper, 16 x 13 inches

Some of the most fascinating drawings are those pertaining to the unseen, but very necessary drainage system devised for the swampy areas of what became the park. George E. Waring, Jr., age 23, was the original drainage engineer. He developed a spider web of clay drains that carried water in and out of the park lands, and the collection contains stunning drawings of the wells and how the system worked.

Another new technology illustrated by the drawings were tree grates—probably not something that park visitors give much thought to. They were first developed in Paris as a way to allow trees to root deeper in the earth along walkways, and to prevent people from trampling on new plantings. The first use of tree grates in America was our Central Park.

Ornamental tree gratings, ironmonger’s details, c. 1872. Ink and watercolor on paper, 18 x 20 inches

KC: What are some of the other hidden secrets of the park that you discovered during your research for the book?

Drinking fountain on the Esplanade, elevation, stonecutter’s and ironmonger’s contract, 1865. Jacob Wrey Mould, architect.

Black and colored inks with colored washes on paper, 14 x 10 inches

CB: Drinking fountains! The park planners knew how important water would be for park visitors, both human and animal. And speaking of water for animals, the design for the drinking trough for horses is a lovely example of their attention to the smallest detail. We have two drawing that show drinking fountains for horses, one of which is still in the park today at Cherry Hill near the Lake. It features Minton Tiles and bird baths above the drinking trough.

The drinking fountains for people are placed throughout the park. Several near the Terrace included a hidden luxury—water would pass over blocks of ice providing chilled water on hot summer days. During the early years of the park, the drinking fountains featured a shared common cup attached with a chain to the fountain. Fears of communicable diseases, such as cholera and yellow fever, led to the end of the common cup practice after 1910.

KC: I expect that many readers will enjoy the drawings of the Paleozoic Museum and the rendering of what they thought a dinosaur would look like.

CB: There was to be a Paleozoic Museum on the west side of the park. They built the foundation for the museum, and plaster models of the dinosaurs, but the City’s political leaders at that time, ca. 1871, preferred lighthearted entertainment rather than educational or cultural institutions within the park.

Paleozoic Museum, transverse view with specimens, 1870. Ink and watercolor on paper, 19 x 26 inches.

This side view shows an example of an interior scene proposed for the museum, which was to include aquariums, geological specimens as well as reconstruction of dinosaurs in the main exhibition hall.

KC: Have you thought of a name for your dinosaur?

CB: No, not yet. Maybe we should make that into a contest… name the dinosaur??!!

KC: Are all the features of the park that we enjoy today included in the original design?

Swedish Schoolhouse (Svenska Skolhauset), perspective view and ground plan. Magnus Isaeus, architect, 1876. Black ink and pencil on paper, 21 x 14 inches.

The Swedish Schoolhouse is the only structure in park that was originally designed for something other than Central Park

CB: The Swedish Schoolhouse (now the marionette theater and called the Swedish Cottage) is the only building that was not designed specifically for the park. It had been built as the Swedish entry into the Philadelphia World Exhibition of 1876 and was later transplanted to Central Park. Over the years it has served as a bike shelter, an entomological laboratory, a library and even a Civil Defense headquarters during WWII.

And of course legendary Park Commissioner Robert Moses made numerous changes to the park. The original park plan did not include playgrounds as we know them, but rather large open areas for “healthful recreation.” Moses installed nearly forty “pocket playgrounds” throughout the park in the 1930s and early 40s.

KC: I know that you conducted a great deal of research to provide context for the illustrations in the book. What were some of the most useful resources?

CB: I made extensive use of Parks Commission and Department annual reports here in our Municipal Library, as well as the minutes and reports of the City’s legislative bodies—the Common Council, Board of Aldermen, etc. in the Municipal Archives. These government records helped me follow how changes in the city’s political landscape translated into changes in our park landscape. They also provided good factual data about payments, work timelines and specific projects that were completed during a given time period.

KC: What is your favorite place in the Park?

Drinking fountain for horses, bronze details, 1871. Black and red ink with colored washes on paper, 17 x 25 inches

CB: I love the more wild and untamed landscapes of the north end of the park. There are many hidden features to discover near the Loch and it feels like you are wandering through the country-side.

KC: Favorite drawing?

CB: There are so many amazing drawings in our collection. I love the tilework designs within the Bethesda Terrace Arcade. I spent a lot of time on the conservation treatment of that drawing and the tiles are stunning. But my absolute favorite drawing is the simple temporary enclosure post that I used at the end of the book. It is minimal and elegant and represented to me that no detail was too small to be overlooked in the design of the park. That, and the fact that it is one of the few drawings to include the names of the architects Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould as well as Frederick Law Olmsted who was serving as the president and treasurer of the Board of Commissioners.

Temporary enclosure posts for Central Park, 1872.

Ink and watercolor on paper, 19 x 12 inches

This preliminary study was prepared by Vaux and Mould and was approved by Olmsted, who was serving as the president and treasurer of the Board of Commissioners at the time.

Remembering Neighborhood Voices, Part I

In 1985, New York City’s municipal broadcast television station WNYC-TV produced Neighborhood Voices, a limited series on unique and changing city neighborhoods.  Comprised mostly of interviews with longtime residents and prominent local figures, this series provided a vivid and personal window into the ever-changing City, its residents, and the communities they created.

One such neighborhood was San Juan Hill. Located in Manhattan from 59th to 65th Streets, between Amsterdam and West End Avenues, it had been site of the first affordable housing units in the country, the childhood home of jazz legend Thelonious Sphere Monk, and the inspiration for the musical West Side Story.

Beginning in the 1890s, Afro-Caribbean emigres and African-Americans migrating from the American South began populating the neighborhood along with churches and community organizations. The community also attracted veterans returning from the Spanish-American War of 1898, possibly giving the area its nickname—from the Battle of San Juan Hill. In the 1910s, philanthropist Henry Phipps, Jr. constructed the Phipps Houses on 63rd Street. These buildings constitute the country’s oldest affordable housing units and provided a quality of living that working-class people of color rarely had access to at the time. In 1940, Robert Moses, Chairman of the Mayor’s Committee on Slum Clearance declared the neighborhood a slum, displaced its inhabitants, demolished the buildings and constructed what stands there today—Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

Roseanna Weston, one of the last living residents of the Phipps Houses, remembered the neighborhood before Lincoln Center. She recalled that prior to moving into the Phipps Houses in 1917, her family had been living in a tenement with wooden stairs and toilets shared by the entire building. Roseanna’s family was vetted and approved for the Phipps Houses after her father’s boss, a wealthy businessman, personally vouched for him as a reliable worker and good man. Rent was set at $6 a week, making it equivalent to roughly $475 a month in 2019 dollars—less than a quarter of even the cheapest rents in the area today.

Roseanna Weston sits in the same Phipps Houses apartment she grew up in, the last of her family to live there.

Thelonious Sphere Monk, jazz legend and New York City icon grew up in the Phipps houses alongside the Weston family. Monk passed away in 1983 following years of ill health. Neighborhood Voices interviewed Monk’s son, Thelonious Monk Jr. about his father, his relationship to San Juan Hill and how it had changed since his childhood. Monk Jr. recounted how personally involved his father was in the San Juan Hill area and how the character of the neighborhood informed his musical development. Following his death, Monk’s family established the Thelonious Monk Foundation to improve music education across the country. One of their first projects was starting a jazz dance and music class for students in Martin Luther King Jr. High School at 122 Amsterdam Avenue. Students in this class learned how to play and breakdance to Monk’s music.

Thelonious Monk Jr. weighs the impact of urban renewal (or urban removal) on his childhood neighborhood. Neighborhood Voices, WNYC Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Nina Garland, a member of the Thelonious Monk Foundation as well as a long-time choreographer and dance instructor assisted Monk Jr. in this effort. Garland, still a dance educator today, admired how teenagers in 1985 adapted modern break dancing techniques to the unfamiliar beat of Monk’s jazz. Classes like these were part of a larger push to make the lessons taught in City schools reflect the lives and experiences of their students. In another interview, school Principal Nellie Jordan explained how the class was originally planned as an after-school activity, but thanks to its popularity, became part of the regular school schedule.

Nina Garland marvels at the impact many famous African American artists and performers who first rose to prominence in San Juan Hill made on American culture. Neighborhood Voices, WNYC Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

In the 1980s, Neighborhood Voices was meant to empower members of rapidly changing and sometimes disappearing neighborhoods. In addition to the artists in San Juan Hill, the series also highlighted the departure of the fur and shipping industries from Chelsea, socialist cooperatives based in the Allerton Coops, community gardens in the South Bronx and much more. These programs are now being digitized. Recorded on ¾” u-matic tapes, these videos were some of the most degraded in the WNYC-TV collection. Many required special treatments prior to digitization. The tapes themselves will continue to degrade, but the personal oral histories of New Yorkers contained within them have been preserved for future generations.

Iron Gall Ink

Archivists and conservators at the Municipal Archives face many challenges in their work to preserve and provide access to the City’s historical records. This week’s blog discusses the effects of the iron gall ink used to create some of the earliest documents in the Archives collection.

Example of "burn through" in an untreated page with iron gall ink.

Iron gall ink was the ink of choice in the Western world for well over a millennium. Its indelibility and rich dark tone were desirable traits for artists, scribes, letter-writers, bookkeepers, i.e. virtually anyone documenting something on paper. While other types of inks were also available, such as carbon black and lamp-black ink, iron gall made up a significant proportion of the inks used up to the early 19th century, tapering off rapidly after that time. Iron gall ink, however, also has the unfortunate trait of damaging the paper it is written on. Over time and depending on certain conditions, the ink can fade to a light brown, create a haloing effect around letters, or “sink” through the paper. The ink in extreme cases will corrode the paper support, leaving areas of losses resembling burn marks in the paper. The effects can be seen in drawings by Leonardo Da Vinci, early drafts of the U.S. Constitution, and manuscripts of Victor Hugo, to name a few. The ink poses a formidable challenge for institutions with pre-19th-century manuscripts in their collections, including the Municipal Archives.

Oak galls.

The effects of iron gall ink have long been known to conservators but are still not fully understood. The ink is composed of four main ingredients: tannins, which come from oak galls—a growth triggered by parasitic insects that attack oak trees; iron sulfate in the form of bluish-green salt crystals; a binder, usually gum arabic from the acacia tree, added to improve the flow of the ink; and lastly, water or wine. The ink achieves its rich bluish tone after the solution is exposed to air while writing.

Iron sulfate

Research has shown that the two main ingredients in the ink, iron salts and tannic acid, each pose separate risks to paper, risks that are exacerbated by certain environmental conditions. The concentrations of the ingredients, the preparation method, the presence of other contaminates in the ink such as copper or zinc, the amount of ink that is absorbed into the paper, and even the type of writing instrument used, all influence and further complicate the degradation process. As a result documents that are produced at roughly the same time may exhibit a wide range of condition levels.

This variability is easily seen in the pages of manuscripts in which one page appears stable, while the adjacent page may show signs of severe degradation. In these cases it’s possible that the writer used a new batch of ink on the adjacent page or a new writing instrument, or even perhaps a new writer with a much heavier hand stepped in on the following page. It’s often impossible to say. These numerous factors, of course, complicate the role of the conservator, who must determine the best approach to treating and preserving collections.

Book of 17th-century land conveyance records showing the variability in condition of different pages. NYC Municipal Archives Collections.

In some of the Archives’ original Dutch and English records, which document the founding of New York City by Dutch colonialists in the mid-17th century and the subsequent English takeover, the wide-ranging effects of iron gall ink are on full display. Some of the Dutch records were treated by Archives conservators in the late 1980s by a process called leaf casting. The treatment involves filling in losses on a damaged sheet via a water bath with new paper pulp. The water is slowly pumped out, allowing the pulp to fill in any missing gaps in the original document and create a more stable structure. The treatment also washes away water soluble iron II ions and acidic elements in the paper that contribute to its deterioration.

Dutch records that were treated by leaf casting in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives Collections.

The documents that underwent this treatment more than 30 years ago are in markedly better condition today than those that have undergone no treatment. While leaf casting does not address the full range of issues that iron gall ink brings—a near impossible task for conservators racing against time and often less than ideal storage conditions—it has certainly proven to have been a worthwhile approach that likely prevented significant future losses.

The treatments available for collections with iron gall ink continue to evolve, as more research is conducted. And, additional options have been developed since these collections were treated years ago, such as a calcium phytate/calcium bicarbonate treatment. Municipal Archives conservators will continue to monitor the remedies for these important materials.

The Birth, Life and—Maybe—Death of Rikers Island

MAC 1928: Model of new penitentiary on Rikers Island “to be completed in 1933.” Photo taken in front of the Blackwell’s Island Prison, ca. 1932. Edwin Levick, NYC Municipal Archives Collection.

Rikers Island once called—“The City’s Island of the Damned” —was born in tragedy and scandal.

Severe overcrowding and a spate of riots and legal battles across the jail’s first 45 years of existence led the city to try to get rid it and replace it with eight smaller detention centers across the boroughs in the late 1970s and 1980s. That highly touted, but controversial effort ultimately failed, and, despite its well-earned notoriety, the 413-acre island jail continued to grow, fester and become increasingly dangerous for the inmates as well as the correctional officers who worked there.

Now, 85 years after it officially opened, the city wants to shutter it for once and for all and replace it—again with several smaller jails across Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Bronx and Queens.

With that in mind, a trip through the city’s Municipal Archives reveals a harrowing, but by no means complete, tale of how Rikers grew into a sprawling, horrific and riot-torn lockup that once housed over 20,000 inmates—and points to problems the city may once again face trying to close it.

Named after Abraham Rycken, whose Dutch family once owned the island, Rikers was home to a military training ground during the Civil War. It was sold to the city for $180,000 in 1884 and became a garbage dump.

The city first considered using it as a workhouse. Nothing happened until the late 1920s, when officials announced plans to build a modern jail to replace the crumbling Blackwell’s Island complex of badly deteriorating jails and asylums that had held prisoners and mental patients for over 100 years.

Construction of 26 buildings consisting of seven cellblocks for 2,600 inmates, an administration building, receiving center, mess hall, shops, a chapel and homes for the warden and deputy warden began in 1932—and disaster struck almost immediately.

On the Friday after Labor Day 1932, the steamboat Observation, ferrying 150 construction workers to the island, exploded in the East River, killing 72 people. Investigations ensued, but construction went on and Rikers Island soon began taking inmates.

MAC_1935: Aerial view of unfinished Rikers Island penitentiary buildings, ca. 1936. Department of Corrections, NYC Municipal Archives Collection.

Scandal quickly followed. In a January 18, 1934, report to Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, the city’s Commission of Accounts found “many irregularities and abuses in the construction of Rikers Island Penitentiary,” largely due to “Tammany Hall Corruption.” For starters, the report noted that the architects had been awarded a no-bid contract and that multi-million-dollar construction contracts have “clearly been violated in a number of particulars with a probable loss to taxpayers of more than $100,000,” or nearly $2 million in today’s dollars.

The report found “serious cracks” in some of the newly constructed buildings and violations in plumbing and roofing contracts, all of which “constitutes an illustration of the reckless way in which the city’s money has been spent with the approval of the Finance Department of the prior administration.”

MAC_1058: Department of Sanitation tractor at Rikers Island Dump, ca. 1936. NYC Municipal Archives.

Two years later, another report to LaGuardia noted garbage was still being burned on Rikers and critics feared the smoke and stench would make the 1939 World’s Fair in Queens unattractive to visitors. “It is inconceivable that the City of New York can tolerate (this) unsightly and unsavory nuisance,” the report harrumphed. Modifications were made to the garbage-burning process, and the show went on.

Despite steady overcrowding—press reports in 1954 show that the city’s jails held 7,900 inmates in spaces designed for 4,200 prisoners—no new buildings were added until the mid-1950s. That’s when additions and alterations were made to buildings housing adults and adolescents to accommodate another 1,900 inmates. In addition to cellblocks, kitchens and enlarged mess halls, the city built a 107,000-square-foot industrial building to house a new bakery, print shop, shoe shop, garage and diagnostic center. New buildings for adult males, women and adolescents, were added in the mid-1960s and early 1970s.

dpw_0975: Rikers Island Laundry Site, cell blocks, September 20, 1939. Joseph Shelderfer, Department of Public Works Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Still, overcrowding continued to worsen; in 1969, the city held 14,000 prisoners in spaces designed for 8,000.

 A spiraling crime rate and raging heroin epidemic made conditions so bad in the early 1970s that a headline in the New York Times called Rikers “The City’s Island of the Damned,” and a prescient New York Post story screamed: “Pressure Cooker Ready to Blow at Rikers?” In November 1975, rioting inmates seized two cell blocks at the Men’s House of Detention and 318 inmates were transferred to other buildings as a result. A few days later, 350 corrections officers refused to take their posts during a six-hour protest over budget cuts, overcrowding and inmate violence.

dpw_0974 Rikers Island Laundry Site, Chapel Building and Mess Hall, September 20, 1939. Joseph Shelderfer, Department of Public Works Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

At least six lawsuits were filed in Manhattan Federal Court in the early 1970s, alleging inhumane conditions, Draconian rules and policies that the inmates and their lawyers said violated the prisoners’ civil rights. Press reports and archival records show that Federal Judge Morris Lasker found overcrowding and stench in the old Tombs prison and vermin and unsanitary conditions on Rikers Island, where thousands of prisoners waited months for trial, and where an estimated 25 percent of the inmates suffered from mental health problems.

The city cited budget restrictions and asked for more time to correct conditions, but Lasker eventually ordered the Tombs closed in 1974; it reopened nearly a decade later after a $42 million makeover. Lasker also found conditions at Rikers and other city jails to be unconstitutional. He ordered the transfers of sentenced inmates to state prisons and told officials to come up with a new classification system, expand visiting hours and allow contact visits.

Then city officials came up with a bright idea: Lease the island to the state for $200 million and use the money to build eight smaller city jails in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and The Bronx. Under the proposed 99-year lease, the state would also spend $100 million to upgrade Rikers.

eik_08.010.0469: Mayor Edward I. Koch at Rikers Island filming a commercial on gun legislation, August 5, 1980. Mayor Koch Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

An October 1, 1979, report called the Rikers Island Project Working Document explained the original prison building “is now in a decrepit condition which creates a potentially dangerous environment for both staff and inmates,” and noted that 25 percent of the existing buildings were erected in the 1950s and needed “substantial upgrading.” The document estimated the city’s capital costs at $351 million.

The city’s Board of Correction held two days of hearings on the plan in early October 1979. Herb Sturz, the city’s criminal justice coordinator, recounted the court battles and riots of the mid-1970s and told the board there had been “an alarming number of suicides” on Rikers Island. He said there were “two basic things wrong with our corrections system: It is in the wrong place,” and would need $100 million in repairs to make it safe. Sturz said the lease deal would allow the city to rid itself of Rikers Island and “make a fresh start” to “build the best system in the nation.” Corrections Commissioner Ben Ward said a system of smaller jails would be more secure and easier to control. Archibald Murray, executive director of the city’s Legal Aid Society, told the board “Rikers Island was a mistake; it never should have happened.”

MAC_1926: “The Tombs” (Men’s House of Detention): Centre to Lafayette Street, Leonard to Franklin Street, ca. 1941. Courtesy of Jail Association Journal, NYC Municipal Archives Collection.

But Diane Gordon, of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, testified that the plan was ill-conceived and would not accomplish its goals. She said the plan would not reduce the jail’s population and urged the board to “develop a more careful plan based on a sounder analysis.” Mary Ann Gangi from the Queens chapter of St. Francis of Assisi said area residents were fearful of increased traffic and a greater risk from hardened state inmates. She vowed that community area residents would “organize and mobilize... to oppose the state takeover of Rikers Island.” Phil Seelig, president of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, called the hearings a “sham” and refused to even take questions from the board.

Opposition from the community and city corrections officers continued to grow and then, in January 1980, a report from the city’s Office of Budget Review showed that the city’s cost estimates for constructing the new jails were way off. The report said the actual capital costs would be upward of $433 million—rather than the $351 million estimate in the Rikers Island Project Working Document and that other costs related to the lease would be as much as $126 million, rather than the Working Document’s estimate of $81.5 million.

That was the beginning of the end. Soon afterward, Mayor Ed Koch quietly dropped the idea and in mid-1981, Commissioner Ward told the City Council the grand plan was “dead and buried.”

To Be Continued

Rikers Island Dump: Guard on horseback looks at Administration and other buildings across graded area, June 1937. NYC Municipal Archives Collection.

Jury Census Records Digitized

The Municipal Archives recently received a request for research assistance from Craig LaBan, Restaurant Critic and Drink Columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer. His story concerned “Hercules,” George Washington’s enslaved master chef. Sold as a teenager to Washington, Hercules became renowned for his culinary skills. He escaped from Mount Vernon in 1797 and was never captured. Following-up on a lead, LaBan asked if we could confirm the death of one Hercules Posey in New York City in 1812. The archivists searched the 1812 death records, and reported to LaBan that they had indeed found Hercules Posey, age 64, a “black,” born in Virginia and residing at Orange Street. He died of consumption on May 15, 1812 and was buried at the Second African Burial Ground in lower Manhattan. The information matched known facts about Posey including the name of the slaveowner preceding George Washington: John Posey. An 1812 City Directory provided a more precise address for Hercules Posey—33 Orange Street.

Cover of the 6th Ward Jury Census from 1819. NYC Municipal Archives.

Mr. LaBan then asked if the Archives had records that could help him learn the names of the other residents of 33 Orange Street and further information about the house and neighborhood. And that is when the recently digitized jury census series came to the rescue. Although the earliest jury census dates from 1816, four years after Hercules Posey died, the archivists suggested that the census records might contain information relevant to LaBan’s inquiry.

The jury census collection consists of 21 bound volumes containing tally sheets of returns for the City and County of New York, organized by ward. There are tallies for 1816, 1819, and 1821. The tallies were taken to determine if residents were eligible for jury duty and include varying degrees of descriptive detail. For example, for 1816 and 1819 the returns are given in a double-page tabular format with column headings for the following categories: names of inhabitants, number of houses, name of street, occupation, freeholds of $150, age, reason for exemption from jury, total number of jurors, the number of male and female white inhabitants, aliens, colored inhabitants not slaves, slaves, freeholders of £100 and upwards, freeholds of £20 and under £100, tenants renting $5 per annum, total number of inhabitants, plus a column for remarks. For the 1821 census, the returns, in similar format, include data in these categories: name of the head of each family, number and street of residence, number of male inhabitants of the same family age 21 or upwards in four classifications according to value of freeholds and debts, military service and tax exemption or commutation. Other data includes: number of acres of improved land occupied by each person, as well as tallies of cattle, horses, sheep, and yards of various types of cloth manufactured by each family, and a count of mills, factories, distilleries, asheries (a place where potash is made), and machinery. Each tally is identified with this description: “RETURN, made pursuant to the Act, entitled, ‘An Act to provide for taking a Census, and for other purposes,’ passed March 16, 1821, from the City and County of New-York.”

Using a ward atlas, the archivists determined that 33 Orange Street had been located in the Sixth Ward of the City. [Orange Street was re-named Baxter Street in 1854]. Unfortunately, one of the few ledgers missing from the collection is the Sixth Ward tally for 1816. However, the 1819 ledger survived. With an index by street name on the first page, the archivists quickly located the entry for 33 Orange Street.

Spread from the 6th Ward Census showing residents on Orange Street in 1819. New York County Jury Census, NYC Municipal Archives.

According to the 1819 jury census, Jacob Hudson, a laborer, lived at 33 Orange Street along with six other male and five female “coloured inhabitants, not slaves.” Varying numbers of “coloured inhabitants not slaves” also occupied nos. 35, 37, 39, 41, and 43 Orange Street. Their occupations included tobacconist, laborer, waiter and coachman. “Coloured” persons lived on the other side of Orange Street, at nos. 40, 42 and 44 with occupations of sailor, mason, sawyer, laborer, waiter and boot cleaner. Given the specific mention of “boarding house” at no. 40, the implication is that 33 had not been a boarding establishment, but with 11 inhabitants, it was either one very large family or multiple families lived in the house.

Several aspects of the census records make them a valuable research resource. At the very least, they provide a fascinating glimpse of life in New York City in the early 19th century. Of particular demographic interest is the inclusion of women with identification by name, residence, age, and occupation or social status, during a time when women were ineligible to serve as jurors. Other reasons that could exempt a person from jury service included age (over 60), clergy member, alien (i.e. not a citizen), and speaking only the Dutch language.

Another feature of New York City life that quickly becomes apparent in reviewing the census records is the wide variety of occupations. On just one page, in a series of houses along Water Street in the First Ward tally of 1816, the occupation list includes: mariner, teacher, printer, musical instrument maker, boat man, watch maker, auctioneer, grocer, brush maker, merchant, saddler, attorney, shoemaker, book store, tobacconist, and copper smith. Scanning ahead a few more pages reveals a baker, hairdresser, sail maker cartman, auctioneer, and wood sawyer.

The census records also show that slavery was still a fact of life in New York City during the early years of the new republic. Although legislation passed in 1799 called for the gradual emancipation of slaves in the State, it was not until 1827 that slavery was completely abolished. The census of the first ward in 1816 is illustrative: several of the households along lower Broadway, then as now, the center of finance in the City, included one or two enslaved people. Among them was John Delafield, a broker, residing at 10 Broadway, had one male slave in his household.

The 1st Ward Census of 1816 shows downtown households with slaves. New York County Jury Census, NYC Municipal Archives.

Journalist LaBan appreciated the assistance provided by the archivists. Thanks to the amazing resources in the Archives, we can say that in the early 19th century, the Orange Street neighborhood was the home to a number African-Americans—quite possibly including George Washington’s master chef “Hercules.”

Researchers are welcome to explore the newly digitized census here: New York County Jury Census

 

Prohibition

Next year marks the 100th anniversary of the start of one of the biggest boondoggles in American history – Prohibition. The Volstead Act, which took effect on July 17, 1920 triggered a lawless 13-year era that effectively bankrolled organized crime, put mobsters like Al Capone, Meyer Lansky, Lucky Luciano and Bugs Moran on the map, led to vicious gang wars in New York and Chicago and put the “Roaring” in “The Roaring 20s.”

When most people think of that era and its speakeasies, they imagine glamorous and romanticized F. Scott Fitzgerald-like establishments like “21,” The Players Club, the Cotton Club and Chumley’s, where good booze flowed, “flappers” flapped and celebrities, mobsters and the rich and famous rubbed elbows and drank in a fun-filled atmosphere.

NYPD 8226b: Photo scenes of shooting at speakeasy at 127 West 33rd St, where 12 men were shot, May 16, 1926. C.A. Carlstrom, NYPD Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

But a trip through the Municipal Archives largely tells a story of the underbelly of that era -- the seamy, down-market “blind tiger” clubs that served up bad booze, deadly fights, murders, scams and robberies. Estimates of the number of speakeasies in New York City range from 30,000 to 100,000 and the overwhelming majority were anything but glamorous.

The archives hold some 446 pictures of gruesome speakeasy murders, dilapidated clubs and decrepit halls, bullet-riddled cars, raids on basement still operations as well as mayoral letters and police records that put Prohibition in a decidedly dim light.

NYPD 8529a: Automobile, showing bullet holes taken on East 25th Street pier for Insp. Noonon, October 27, 1926. E. Tobin, NYPD Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

The Municipal Library also housed perhaps the most definitive book on Prohibition, The Night Club Era, by Stanley Walker, city editor of the old New York Herald Tribune. In the almost poetic prose of that era, Walker told a tale that encompassed the good, bad and worst of Prohibition in what has long been considered one of the most accurate accounts of that time.

“These people and these places filled a need which, however silly and anti-social it might have been at bottom, seemed real enough at the time …,” Walker wrote. “… While they lasted, the clubs contributed more than anything else to the mad house that was New York. If some of the night club owners were pretty bad, some of the customers were worse …. The wonder of it is that there were not more killings, beatings, stabbings and robberies.”

NYPD 8926a: Homicide of Thomas Reddington, found dead at 474 Brook Ave., Bronx (a speakeasy), April 9, 1927. George B. Nolan, NYPD Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

New York was never a big fan of Prohibition. In a November 23, 1920 proclamation, Mayor John F. Hylan noted the U.S. Supreme Court had struck down a New York State statute legalizing the sale of 2.75 beer, saying the states “lacked the power to pass such legislation with respect to alcoholic content.” Hylan lamented that despite his preference for a referendum on the Prohibition question, the City Corporation Counsel issued an opinion that said local police were required to enforce the Volstead Act.

An April 13, 1932 raid on a speakeasy at 115th St. and Second Ave. housed in a store called Baker’s Exchange. NYC Municipal Archives.

In the proclamation, he declared: “All patriotic people, whether they agree with the policy … should cooperate to enforce them, and if the state Act and the federal Act does not meet with the approval of the majority of the people they should, by lawful means, procure the repeal or amendment of either or both.”

Archival folders are filled with typed and hand-written letters and petitions from ministers, church-goers and women’s temperance organizations calling on the mayor and Police Department to ban the “wet element” from holding annual “anti-Prohibition parades on The Fourth of July, which, they said, would “attract the lawless and seditious.” But it was too late – not to mention a violation of the First Amendment.

Two men entering a “Café” speakeasy at 11 E. 115th St. at 12:45 p.m. The building had circus posters in the window. NYC Municipal Archives.

In the 1923 edition of the annual report from the New York Police Department (NYPD) to the Mayor, Police Commissioner Richard Enright wrote: “The federal prohibition laws have neither the support nor the respect of the public and the efforts of the Police Department to enforce them were met with obstruction on every hand.”

Enright declared that speakeasies were home to “the vicious elements, bootleggers, gamblers and their friends in all walks of life” cooperating to “evade the law, escape punishment for their crimes, or to deter the police from doing their duty.” And he wasn’t done yet, calling speakeasies, “resorts, dives, brothels and bawdy houses of every description,” as well as “the rendezvous of the criminal and vicious element of the city.”

The Archives’ collection is replete with crime scene photos of murders in low-class speakeasies with cheap furniture, peeling paint, walls decorated with pennants and cheap prints, well-worn pool tables and hodge-podge collections of liquor bottles.

One of the most notorious speakeasy murders was the December 26, 1925 murder of Irish gang tough Richard (Peg Leg) Lonergan in the Adonis Social Club at 154 20th St., in Brooklyn, allegedly at the hands of Al Capone and others who were still celebrating Christmas in the early morning hours.

NYPD 7890c: Homicide at speakeasy at 154 20th Street, Brooklyn. Shooting of Richard (Peg Leg) Lonegan, Aaron Haines and Neil Ferry, December 26, 1925. George B. Nolan, NYPD Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

The December 27 edition of the Brooklyn Eagle breathlessly reported that detectives were investigating the murders of “Richard ‘Peg Leg’ Lonergan, gang leader, and two of his pals as the aftermath of free gunplay that followed a Christmas night revelry in a dilapidated ‘speakeasy club’…” The paper reported that Lonergan and fellow “White Hand” gang members Aaron Heins and Neils “Needles” Ferry “met quick deaths after the revolvers started blazing.” Capone and a few accomplices were arrested but never charged.

NYPD 8051c: Also photo showing speakeasy where John Daly shooting took place at Hicks and Amity St., February 5, 1926. Det. Gilligan, NYPD Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Six weeks later, the Archives show a man named John Daly was found shot and killed at a speakeasy at Irving Place and Van Brunt St. in Brooklyn and on May 16, 1926, 12 men were shot in a wild gun battle in a speakeasy at 127 W. 33rd St in Brooklyn (nypd_08226).

In 1926, Fiorello LaGuardia, who would not become mayor for another eight years and who was adamantly opposed to Prohibition, declared in a radio speech that “Prohibition cannot be enforced for the simple reason that the majority of the American people do not want it to be enforced and are resisting its enforcement.”

NYPD 9127a: Photos of 2 stills at #2097 Bergen St., Brooklyn, July 2, 1927. M.W. Butler, NYPD Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

NYPD 9159 Photo of still at 163 Attorney St., July 19, 1927. Det. Gilligan, NYPD Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Yet, the Archives detail the rising violence it wrought.

NYPD 8734e: Photo of stick up and possible homicide of James Masterson at 214 W. 103rd St., 1928. Engbert, NYPD Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Police officers were not immune to the speakeasy violence. In the 1928 annual report to the mayor, the NYPD said Patrolman James Masterson was shot and killed during an armed robbery at a speakeasy at 214 W. 103rd St. Police arrested Peter Seiler, Walter Tipping and Jerry Cohalen for Masterson’s murder. Seiler was convicted and went to the electric chair in Sing Sing; Tipping was shot to death by police when they tried to arrest him, and Cohalen was committed to the Mattewan Asylum for the insane.

In 1929 Police Commissioner Grover Whalen, a fierce Prohibition proponent issued the NYPD report , to Mayor Jimmy Walker, who never hid his taste for drinking, partying and going to upscale speakeasies. Whalen wrote that the “illegal nature” of the liquor business and speakeasies “attracts to it the stickup thug, the gangster, the degenerate, the racketeer and the gunman … during the past year, particular attention has been given to all places in which it was suspected that the Prohibition Law was being violated, particularly to speakeasies, night clubs, cabarets and like resorts catering to gangsters, gunmen, racketeers and those of that ilk.”

Former Mayor Jimmy Walker’s Drinking Set in pawn shop, includes 3 sterling silver quart flasks, May 1935. Associated Press, NYC Municipal Archives.

That annual report detailed two 1929 murders: On March 20, 1929, James Donofrio was killed while leaving a club at 103 Christopher St. His killer, Anthony Ferrara, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 20-to-25 years in prison. On April 28, 1929, Thomas Colby aka Joseph Shields, and John Collins were shot dead in the rear of a speakeasy at 31- E. 32nd St., Manhattan. Killer James Keely was sentenced to 35-to-life.

Stanley Walker’s The Night Club Era recounts one of the more notorious speakeasy murders. It was in the summer of 1929 in the Hotsy Totsy Club on Broadway, controlled by flamboyant and hothead gangster Jack (Legs) Diamond. As Walker told it, Diamond and his partner, Charles Entratta aka Charles Green, were tending bar when three waterfront toughs named Simon Walker, William (Red) Cassidy and Peter Cassidy walked in and soon got into an argument with Diamond and Entratta.

NYPD 9348b: Photo of body and scene where Jacob Orgen, alias Little Augie, was shot and killed in front of 103 Norfolk St., Manhattan while in the company of Jack Diamond, October 15, 1927. George B. Nolan, NYPD Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

“Diamond and Entratta pulled their guns,” Walker wrote. “Red Cassidy fell with a bullet in his chest and Diamond, leaning over him, emptied his gun into him. Peter Cassidy was badly wounded but not killed. Simon Walker … was shot and killed by either Diamond or Entratta.” Entratta was acquitted at trial – after two witnesses were killed and a third went missing forever. Diamond was not charged.

By the end of 1929 – the year of the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago – Americans were totally fed up with Prohibition and the end seemed near. It came on December 5, 1933, when Congress finally repealed the 18th Amendment – ending a foolish law that spawned violence and gave rise to organized crime. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers celebrated with a drink or two.