Rose Yndigoyen
Managing the Records of New York City
Nicole Rivas
The “49 Little Ladies” of the French Gratitude ...
Andy Lanset
Poetry On the Air: WNYC and the Sound of Verse ...
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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.” 

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. 

The LaGuardia-Pyke Bomb Carrier and the 1940 World’s Fair Bombing That Inspired It

July 4th, 1940 - Detective Joseph J. Lynch of the NYPD Bomb & Forgery Squad was at his Bronx home with his family, but on call, when the phone rang. A suspicious bag had been found at the World’s Fair. An electrician noticed it the previous day in a ventilation room of the British Pavilion and assumed it belonged to another worker. When he saw it again on the 4th he picked it up and brought it to his supervisor’s office. Hearing a ticking noise coming from it they alerted police officers assigned to the Fair. The officers picked up the bag and brought it to an empty area behind the Polish Pavillion.