Andy Lanset
Poetry On the Air: WNYC and the Sound of Verse ...

During the seven decades of municipal ownership, both celebrated and obscure poets found their way to WNYC’s microphone. Some programs introduced listeners to canonical voices such as Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, and W.H. Auden. Others opened the airwaves to aspiring writers who might otherwise never have been heard beyond their own neighborhoods. Still others explored the relationship between poetry and radio itself, asking whether the medium might reshape how verse was written, performed, and experienced.

The result was an extraordinary range of programming: educational broadcasts from the station’s early Air College lectures; dedicated poetry series and readings; experimental verse drama; tributes to major poets; and discussions linking poetry to theater, politics, therapy, and everyday life. Together these broadcasts reveal how a municipal station—often overlooked in the larger history of American radio—played a meaningful role in sustaining the oral tradition of poetry.

Katie Ehrlich
Dr. Leona Baumgartner’s Health Commissioner ...

Dr. Leona Baumgartner was the first woman to serve as Commissioner of the Department of Health for New York City. She held that office from 1954 to 1962 under Mayor Robert F. Wagner, who was the first mayor to appoint women agency heads in nearly 40 years. Baumgartner worked her way up at the Department of Health, starting as a child hygiene instructor in 1937. By 1949 she was assistant commissioner, the position she served in, until being elevated to commissioner.

Michael Lorenzini
At the River’s Edge, Maiden Lane and the ...

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.

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.

Cynthia Brenwall
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.

Sarah Cuk
Remembering Willie Colón, El Malo del Bronx, ...

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.

Socialists on the City Airwaves

The recent election and swearing-in of Zohran Mamdani a member of the Democratic Socialist Party was not the first socialist or progressive—of one persuasion or another—to run for elected office in the city. Mayor David Dinkins, for example, was also a member of the Democratic Socialist Party. Mayor Mamdani’s victory, however, offers an opportunity to look back at some of the socialist voices New Yorkers have heard over WNYC, the City’s municipal radio station, across the decades.

Before 1938, many candidates, would have found it difficult to gain access to the City’s airwaves at all. WNYC’s director at the time, Christie Bohnsack, largely followed the lead of the Tammany Hall political machine, which tended to lump progressive movements together under a broad—and pejorative—“red” label.

Welcoming Home the Troops, 1945

Recently, Municipal Archives conservators began treating an oversize scrapbook of photographs taken in 1945. Located in the Grover Whalen papers, the evocative pictures capture the spontaneous joy expressed by New Yorkers as they welcomed home their sons and daughters and victorious war-time leaders.  

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Thousands of spectators lined the streets as General Dwight D. Eisenhower and his motorcade traveled through the City, June 19, 1945.  Grover Whalen Papers, NYC Municipal Archives.

Known as the City’s “Official Greeter,” Whelan led the Mayor’s Office for Receptions to Distinguished Guests, a.k.a. the Mayor’s Reception Committee, from 1918 to 1953.  

On June 19, 1945, just six weeks after hostilities in Europe ceased, Whalen and Reception Committee staff organized a reception for General Dwight D. Eisenhower.

New Visions of Old New York

At the end of December, the agency will close an exhibit that has been on display for the past year, New Visions of Old New York. The collaboration between the New Amsterdam History Center and the New York City Department of Records & Information Services has been the most well-attended exhibit that the agency has hosted. Those who missed the in-person display can view it at our online exhibit on archives.nyc.

Archives Conservation Teams Up with the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Municipal Archives’ Conservation staff recently completed a major project to conserve the Brooklyn Bridge drawings collection, which consists of more than 11,000 drawing plans. With the support of a three-year Save America’s Treasures grant from IMLS and a one-year grant from the New York State Library, conservators worked diligently over a nearly five-year period to stabilize and photograph the collection. As part of the project, the Archives’ Conservation Unit collaborated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Scientific Research Department to conduct scientific analysis of selected drawings to determine the composition of media and paper, causes of degradation, and to use infrared imaging techniques to enhance faded writing and drawing in graphite.

On Mayors and the Counting Thereof

This past August, historian Paul Hortenstine noticed that the “Official” list of Mayors failed to include the second term of Mayor Matthias Nicolls (Nicoll). He had served two non-consecutive terms, the first from 1671-1672, and the second from 1674-1675. Hortenstine was not the first to notice this discrepancy. In 1989, the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society published an article by Peter Christoph revealing that every mayor after #7 had been misnumbered. As Christoph pointed out, if a Mayor had two non-consecutive terms the practice was to assign them two numbers, starting with Thomas Willett, who was Mayor #1 and #3. He noted four other early Mayors credited with two terms.

We thought the error might have been due to a little-known hiccup in mayoral history. In July 1673, the Dutch (who had established the colony of New Amsterdam in 1625 and lost it in 1664), invaded and took it back. For fifteen months the colony (renamed “New Orange”) was under a Dutch “Council of War,” that restored the Dutch-style government of a council of Burgomasters and Schepens. As a result, there was not a “Mayor of New York” between July 1673 and November 1674, when the English Governor, Edmund Andros, reappointed Nicolls. Moreover, Nicolls had not been Mayor when the Dutch invaded, his successor, John Lawrence, had assumed that role. So, by all rights, Nicolls served two non-consecutive terms with another Mayor in the middle, making him Mayor #6 and #8. Thereby moving everyone else one place down the line. Lawrence was appointed Deputy Mayor in 1674, but also served another non-consecutive term as Mayor, the 2nd time in 1691, making him both #7 and #20 (under the corrected numbering system).

Human Rights Day: How Human Rights Discourse has Impacted the New York City Government since the 1940s

This past May For the Record introduced a new project Processing and Digitizing Records of the New York City Commission on Human Rights. Supported by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission of the National Archives as part of their Documenting Democracy initiative, the project will enhance public access to records created by the New York City Commission on Human Rights. Key activities of the project include rehousing and processing 268 cubic feet of records, digitizing the earliest 53 cubic feet, publishing digitized materials, an online finding aid, social media content and blog posts, and curating a digital exhibit that showcases both the collection and the project’s progress.