The holidays are here. Right after Thanksgiving, mini-pine forests appear on City streets. Lights are strung throughout business districts adding a touch of cheer. Passersby smile more. Tree lighting ceremonies dot the landscape (thank you Jacob Riis who popularized the custom). There are a spate of holidays…the Solstice, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanza, New Year’s strung together over two weeks in late December. New Yorkers will celebrate a variety of holidays with friends and families.
How have New Yorkers celebrated the holidays in the past and how is this reflected in the collections of the Archives and Library?
A review of the “Invitations” folders of several of the early Mayors did not contain any holiday-themed notes although Mayor Abram Hewitt (1887-1888) did receive an invitation to a farewell ball by the Vermont Sons of Neptune with music by Professor Conterno. Not even the collection of the bon vivant Mayor, Jimmy Walker, yielded holiday invitations. There was, however, an invitation to Mrs. Walker from the Greenpoint Peoples Regular Democratic Organization requesting a photo of the mayor that could be raffled to raise funds to provide “Xmas baskets to the needy in the district.” (Let the record reflect that this usage predates the so-called war on Christmas that has lately been a topic.)
Flash forward forty-four years and in the Congressional papers of Mayor Ed Koch there are very cute invitations.
The Park East Democratic Club sent a cheerful Santa card inviting the then-congressman to a party.
And “The LoCiceros” sent a colorful- rhombus shaped invitation to an open house. That, of course, being John LoCicero who went on to become Special Advisor to Mayor Koch.
The Library’s Vertical Files yielded one hanging folder titled NYC Holidays containing five subfolders starting with 1960s and earlier through folder 2000-. A 1966 New York Times story related the origin of the Rockefeller Center tree which actually went up before the Center was built. Workers who were demolishing brownstones put up a 12-foot tree “paid and decorated not by a corporation but by ordinary workmen fortunate enough to have jobs in the holiday season of that Depression year….decorated with paper, tinsel and even a few tin cans.”
A clip from the Daily News in 1967 was chock full of little-known Christmas tidbits such as:
Where did the story of Santa Claus (with all of his many names) originate?
-4th Century Turkey where the Bishop of Myra left presents for well-behaved children.
What government banned the sale of holiday candies to children?
-Dutch West Indies in New Amsterdam
Who created the story of the modern Santa?
-Professor Clement Clark Moore, whose farm consisted of most of present-day Chelsea.
- or, Henry Livingston of Dutchess County who was an expert in light verse.
Who drew the first picture of the jolly, red-robed, character we associate with Santa?
-Thomas Nast, famed political cartoonist who also drew the zoo of Republican Elephants, Democratic Donkeys and the now-forgotten Tammany Tiger.
This brings us to another news clip, also from The Daily News written by the estimable Pete Hamill who began the piece, “Every time I see an image of Santa Claus, I think of Boss Tweed.” The reason, of course, is that cartoonist Nast drew images depicting the Tweed Ring’s theft that shaped public opinion. As Hamill reported Tweed said, “My constituents don’t know how to read. But they can’t help seeing those damned pictures.” Nast first drew a Santa for Harper’s in 1863 in which the character wore striped pants and a star-bedazzled shirt—more like Uncle Sam than the jolly old elf. Nast drew a Santa figure at year’s end for the subsequent 25 years. Eventually prose and image came together and Nast illustrated “The Night Before Christmas.” According to Hamill, the figure of Santa as imaged by Nast, “made it easier to remove religion from Christmas and turn it into an annual orgy of consumerism….the plump little man sells everything else, too. And that evolution surely would have brought a twinkle to the eyes of Boss Tweed.”
This year, thousands of viewers lined the streets and plaza around Rockefeller Center for the lighting of a 77-foot Norway spruce that originated in the Orange County N.Y. town of Florida. Hundreds of thousands will flock to the area before year’s end. It is commercial and it is a celebration of the City.
Mayor William O’Dwyer and Santa host children at City Hall, December, 1948. New York City Municipal Archives.