Happy Birthday, Calvert Vaux!

Calvert Vaux, ca. 1880. Courtesy Historic New England.

This week For the Record celebrates the 200th birthday of Calvert Vaux, one of New York City’s most influential architects. If you are familiar with Vaux (pronounced Vox) at all, it is most likely as the co-designer of Central Park. Along with Fredrick Law Olmsted, Vaux created the pastoral designs, architectural highlights and thoughtful details that made the park unique and New York City’s greatest treasure. Despite his brilliant designs, it is more likely that you only know about Olmsted and not Vaux, whose importance has been lost to history.  

Vaux’s biographer, Francis Kowsky begins his book, Country, Park & City: The Architecture and Life of Calvert Vaux, by stating that Vaux “fervently advocated the power of art to refine and elevate the human spirit. An accomplished architect and landscape architect, he believed that well-planned, picturesque buildings and naturalistically laid-out parks and grounds enhanced the lives of all who used them.”  

Jefferson Market Courthouse, February 12, 1938. Department of Bridges/Plant & Structures Collection, NYC Municipal Archives. Designed by Vaux and Frederick Clark Withers in 1887, this landmarked building now serves as a branch of the New York Public Library. Done in the Victorian Gothic style, the building included civil and police courtrooms. The brick-arched basement was used as a holding area for prisoners on their way to jail or trial.

Born in London on December 20, 1824, Calvert Vaux trained as an architect. He became a skilled draftsman and accomplished artist. In 1850, he emigrated to Newburgh, New York, to work with Andrew Jackson Downing, one of America’s foremost landscape gardeners (the 19th-century term for a landscape architect) and one of the very early proponents, along with William Cullen Bryant, of reserving a space in New York City for a world-class park. Through connections he made during his time in Newburgh and as a way to honor Downing, who died in a riverboat accident in 1852, Vaux encouraged city officials to call for a competition to design the park—a competition which he and Olmsted eventually won. The Central Park: Original Designs for New York’s Greatest Treasure tells the complete story of the competition, Vaux’s architectural features, and hidden highlights in the park.

Huddlestone Arch, plan showing the southern elevation and a schematic sketch of the north side, 1864. Parks Drawings Collection, NYC Municipal Archives. Vaux designed all 34 Central Park bridges to be unique in order to “prevent monotony from dulling the pleasing effects that the landscape was to have on the spectator’s imagination.”  

Rustic Bridge built across the arm of the Ladies Skating Pond near Bridge No. 4, c. 1860. Pencil with black ink on cloth-backed paper. Parks Drawings Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

There has been considerable scholarship about Central Park and other New York City parks designed by Olmsted and Vaux such as the Prospect, Riverside and Tompkins Square parks. What is less well-known is that Vaux had a fruitful career outside of his partnership with Olmsted, which ended in 1872. Vaux worked with fellow Central Park architect Jacob Wrey Mould on projects such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Natural History. With Fredrick Clarke Withers and engineer George K. Radford he carried out plans for public buildings with the Romantic vision of intertwining nature and structure into one. For his many solo commissions, he designed charming buildings, laid out lush parks and cemeteries and developed elegant structures for urban living, not only for the wealthy but for lower and middle classes as well.  

American Museum of Natural History, floor tiles of principal and third floors, artificial stone and tile contract, c. 1873. Parks Drawings Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

American Museum of Natural History, side elevation of the central arm, 1872. Parks Drawings Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

New Building Application, Elevation, 1888. Manhattan Building Plan Collection, NYC Municipal Archives. The Fourteenth Ward Industrial School, also known as the Astor Memorial School was one of twelve Children’s Aid Society Buildings designed by Calvert Vaux and George Kent Radford. In partnership from 1876 until 1893, they developed buildings for the CAS that were intended to give a feeling of a “snug country inn.” The buildings usually displayed varied rooflines and included ornamental features that are reminiscent of Dutch architecture.

As a founding member of the American Institute of Architects, Vaux helped establish professional standards in the field that are still recognized today. In 1857, his book Villas and Cottages was published as a portfolio of his designs for homes. Here, Vaux explained how, together with modern comfort, it was important to establish a pleasing relationship between a dwelling and its surroundings. In addition, he often wrote for leading journals about American architecture and its influence on society. He was a champion for tenement house reform through the development of modern apartment buildings which he billed as “Parisian Buildings” to make them more socially acceptable across the classes.  

In his park designs, he brought to fruition Downing’s notion that well-designed public spaces could be a source of moral and educational enlightenment for all. Vaux felt that beautiful music venues, educational museums and comfortable restaurants could be included without intruding on natural surroundings.

The construction of Central Park marked the beginning of the public park movement in America. In his role as head designer Vaux implemented the pastoral vision that he and Olmsted created at the heart of the city. Nature first, nature second, and nature third. Then architecture. That was Calvert Vaux’s motto to live and work by.  

Ceiling design for the Terrace Arcade, 1860. Parks Drawings Collection, NYC Municipal Archives. The Minton Company in England produced the tiles. The brilliantly detailed Terrace is virtually hidden from the rest of the Park, revealing itself only when the visitor is upon it.

Bethesda Terrace and Mall, details of wall and parapet at south stair, ca. 1861. Parks Drawings Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Thirty years after he created the original plan for Central Park, Vaux found himself at the end of his career. With a declining architectural practice of his own, in 1887 he again returned to designing landscape plans for parks throughout the city. Working under Parks superintendent Samuel Parsons, Jr., the son of his longtime plantsman in Central Park, Vaux planned small squares and corner parks as well as larger undertakings like designing a new glass greenhouse that was installed in the northern section of the park near the Harlem Meer.

Old Mulberry Bend Park Pavilion, December 12, 1936. WPA Federal Writers’ Project Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives. Now known as Columbus Park, Vaux designed the Pavilion near the end of his career when he was once again working for the Parks Department. The structure features arches similar to those used in some of Vaux’s early bridge designs for Central Park. 

In 1889, Vaux and Olmsted returned to their partnership to design one last park together, Downing Park in Newburgh, New York. The two longtime partners agreed to donate their services to design a public park along the Hudson River in the memory of Andrew Jackson Downing. Sadly, Vaux did not live to see the park completed in 1897. He died in a drowning accident near his son’s home in Brooklyn in 1895. To his simple funeral, the Park Department commissioners sent plants taken from the park. Vaux’s son Bowyer explained “The idea of all the flowers and vines and leaves in profusion coming from Central Park seemed most appropriate.”

Death Certificate, Calvert Vaux, Brooklyn, 1895. NYC Municipal Archives.

Death Certificate, Calvert Vaux, page 2, Brooklyn, 1895. NYC Municipal Archives.

Demonstrations, Disturbances, and a Papal Visit

After many years of planning and effort, the Municipal Archives launched online Collection Guides in October 2021. The Guides provide researchers with essential information about the Archives holdings in an easily searchable format.

The Guides have allowed patrons to discover resources that are relevant to a great variety of research topics and queries. Thanks to the Guides, patrons are now able to access records long-held by the institution, but rarely, if ever, examined due to imperfect intellectual control.

News clipping, Daily News, July 16, 1963. NYPD Demonstrations and Disturbances Records. NYC Municipal Archives.

This week For the Record highlights a series originally accessioned in 1973, that has recently informed research by several patrons as a result of its listing in the Collection Guides. The collection is titled, “New York Police Department (NYPD) Demonstrations and Disturbances Records.” Although small in quantity, less than four cubic feet, the eclectic contents include NYPD memoranda and correspondence, as well as reports, maps, pamphlets, and assorted ephemera. The materials date from the mid-1960s. Accessioned from the NYPD’s Ninth Police Precinct in 1973, the collection had been only minimally described. Patron interest in this small series has prompted City archivists to inventory the material and publish a resource record.

Scanning the folder inventory quickly reveals why researchers have found the contents of value. Folder headings range from “Police Department Committee to Study the Report of the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice,” to “Watts Riots, 1965,” and “Papal Visit to City of New York, 1965.”

Ephemera, 1964. NYPD Demonstrations and Disturbances Records. NYC Municipal Archives.

In the first box there are nine folders of NYPD records about racial “disorder” in Harlem during 1963-1965. Several are specific to demonstrations staged by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). One example is an NYPD Memorandum, dated June 12, 1963, concerning an “Afro-Asian Bazaar” scheduled to take place at the 69th Regiment Armory. The memo states that Malcolm X, “leader of the Nation of Islam in this city,” had been interviewed about the Bazaar. The NYPD confirmed that the Nation of Islam had approval from the Adjutant General in Albany to use the Armory, but also noted, “This situation will receive continued attention and new developments reported as they occur.” In another document, dated June 7, 1965, the NYPD discussed “possible trouble this summer,” specifically referring to “…groups of youngsters [who] are very dangerous and could easily set off further riots and disorders.”  

Three folders in this box document NYPD preparations for anticipated anti-draft demonstrations in 1967. Among the items is a multi-page mimeographed document helpfully listing the “Laws Relating to Public Demonstrations” that police officers might invoke when arresting persons at the planned demonstrations.

Other documents are more general in nature. The series includes a nine-page Memo dated June 10, 1966, Subject: Resume of Certain Police Problems Associated with the Summer Season.” Among the problems addressed in the list are Panic Triggered by Sudden Storms, Throwing Bricks and Debris from Roof Tops, Drag Racing, Fireworks, and Prevention of Swimming at Unauthorized Locations. More ominously, it also lists, Automobile Larceny, Vandalism in Schools, Narcotics, and Youth Gangs and Juvenile Delinquency.

Papal Mass Pamphlet, 1965. NYPD Demonstrations and Disturbances Records. NYC Municipal Archives.

News clipping, Daily News, October 1965. NYPD Demonstrations and Disturbances Records. NYC Municipal Archives.

Similarly, in another summer-related communication, a memo from July 19, 1966, to “All Commands,” discusses “Emergency Distribution of Hydrant Spray Caps.” In six detailed paragraphs the document provides very specific guidance to police patrols who were apparently tasked to distribute hydrant spray caps in areas “where there have been many unauthorized openings of hydrants.”

Not all of the items in this collection pertain to riots and disorder. There are several folders documenting the visit of Pope Paul VI to New York City in October 1965. Not surprisingly the files contain numerous memos and correspondence describing NYPD preparations for the Papal visit as well as several folders of clippings about the event carefully clipped from many local newspapers.

Presidential motorcade route map, October 1965. NYPD Demonstrations and Disturbances Records. NYC Municipal Archives.

There are notably fewer documents in this series about the visit by President Lyndon Johnson to the City at the same time. However, there is one item that at first glance seemed odd. It is titled “Hospitals located in proximity of routes used by the President traveling to and from Queens Airports.” But after a little thought, its purpose becomes obvious.

Some of the items in this series may be duplicative of the several NYPD Intelligence Bureau series, a.k.a. the Handschu Collection, also described in the Collection Guides. Now, thanks to the Guides and awareness of these related series such as the “Demonstrations and Disturbances” material, patrons can more easily explore the diverse and vast holdings of the Municipal Archives. Look for future For the Record articles about previously little-known resources.

Tracts, Farms, and the Great Reindexing Project of 1911-1917

Introduction: why archive? 

Archives preserve materials for many reasons, some of which are not immediately obvious. It’s certainly true that some archived items have obvious historic importance, such as the Grand Jury indictments for the murder of Malcolm X.

Indictment, People v. Hagan, Butler, Johnson, 1965, NYDA Closed Case File Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Other items combine artistic merit with their historic significance, such as Calvert Vaux’s drawings for the design of Central Park.  

Danesmouth Arch, Central Park, Rendering, 1859, Department of Parks Drawings Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Inventory List, Frederick Johnson, 1863, Draft Riot Claim Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Most archival collections derive their value from larger social or political themes that scholars discern in studying otherwise humble-appearing documents, such as a payment claim for losses incurred in the notorious New York City Civil War Draft Riots of 1863.    

In three related collections at the New York City Municipal Archives, thousands of cryptic slips of paper bear witness to an enormous but now nearly-forgotten project where dozens of New York City employees labored for years in the service of—you guessed it—Manhattan real-estate records. This is the tale of how New York devoted more than a million person-hours (well, man-hours according to personnel lists) to achieve an apparently quotidian goal: making Manhattan’s property deeds more accessible, in an era where digital searches weren’t possible and using a typewriter to store data was considered technologically advanced. Let’s unpack the story.

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The Problem: 600,000 deeds and no single index

Real estate has always ruled Manhattan. By the late 19th century, it was clear that the remaining tracts of open property uptown would soon be developed, and the traditional system of describing property by “metes and bounds”—using descriptors such as a mark cut into the trunk of a large oak tree near the river—was obsolete. Real estate law relies on an unbroken list of transaction records, called a “chain of title,” to assure that someone selling a piece of property is its legitimate owner. The New York State Legislature passed a law in 1891 requiring all subsequent real estate transactions in New York City to use a new block-and-lot system to describe property—the same one used today—but it failed to reckon with 200 years of conveyance records. How to take the 600,000 accumulated deeds, called “conveyances” that were stored in 2,000 fat volumes in the office of the City Register, and convert them to the block-and-lot system?

Furthermore, those old records weren’t organized geographically: the volumes (called “libers”) had been filled sequentially as deeds were brought to the City Register for filing and were indexed volume-by-volume based on the names of the buyers and sellers. Searching through these thousands of volumes was the province of title searchers. Title companies, frustrated with the primitive and archaic system of deed indexing, created their own proprietary indexes which made their searches more efficient and reliable—but assured that access to these public records was for all practical purposes controlled by private firms!

Deed, 1804, Office of the City Register.

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The Solution: Reindex 

In 1910 the state legislature addressed the problem by directing the office of the City Register to create its own index of real estate “instruments” that filled the gap between 1891 and the earliest recorded land grants of the 17th century, and to establish trustworthy title chains. The law allocated $100,000 per year for the task, which was expected to take a decade to complete. The City Register created a dedicated Reindexing Department and hired nearly 80 men at salaries ranging from $1,000 to $1,320 per year. The team was put to work preparing summaries of each deed, called an abstract. Once an Abstractor made sense of the deed description and summarized it on a slip of paper, a Locator interpreted the description and attempted to superimpose it on a modern block plan of Manhattan. Once located, a Draftsman drew a map summarizing the work of the Abstractor and the Locator. The work was checked by Examiners and finally signed off by the Chief Surveyor. An elaborate system of review was implemented because the City Register recognized that this was an effort that would never be repeated—it had to be done right the first time. Old property deeds were notoriously difficult to interpret—and often were a challenge just to read!    

Abstracting slip from the Reindexing Department, NYC Municipal Archives.

And yet just three years after the work began in January 1911, outgoing Register Max S. Grifenhagen called reporters into his office and announced that the index, “more comprehensive, more perfect, more exact than is to be found in any other large city in the world,” was complete.(1) The new index was organized geographically and took the form of 12 x 17.5-inch pages (typists were paid 25 cents for each completed index page) filled with chronologically-ordered conveyance data. Manhattan was divided into “key blocks,” each encompassing several city blocks. Every key block featured its own conveyance index with verified liber citations as well as a map showing the names of early owners during the period when Manhattan land was still owned in large pieces called “tracts.”       

Key block map and page from a reindexed block on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, NYC Municipal Archives.

Between 1914 and 1917, the abstracting work was extended to hundreds of thousands of mortgage records. At the same time, the Reindexing Department turned its attention to working out the boundaries of approximately 200 old “farms and tracts” that had once made up most of the privately-owned property above 14th Street. Many of these bore familiar names from Manhattan history: Dyckman, Stuyvesant, Delancey, Astor, Roosevelt. The old conveyance deeds did not contain sufficient information for this task, so the team also drew upon “records on file in the various city departments, historical societies, libraries and in the offices of Trinity Church, Trustees of Columbia College, Sailor’s Snug Harbor and many other similar offices.”(2) As the data was gathered in the form of 6.5 x 10-inch slips organized into more than 1,000 “Tract Reports,” draftsmen distilled the information into 46 plates collectively called the General Map of Tracts and Farms, encompassing all of Manhattan. The draftsmen used an interesting system of lettering:  the names of owners were written in a mashup of styles and sizes designed to make it easier to distinguish overlapping names.    

Tract and Farm Plate 34, R.D. Map Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

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Job (almost) Done! 

The Reindexing team still wasn’t finished—they next converted data on each original farm or tract into a narrative document called a Farm History. A Farm History begins with narrative text from 2 to 22 pages long describing the extent of the original property and presenting an outline of the transactions that broke it into pieces. Many of the Farm Histories include one or two beautiful maps superimposing the farm onto a modern Manhattan block map, as well as a kind of descendancy chart akin to a family tree, with landowners’ names presented as if they were generations of children who bought or inherited pieces of the original farm. Each line of descent terminated in a reference to the city blocks that make up the land owned by the most recent names on the chart. In a 1917 summary of the work of this office, City Register John J. Hopper wrote that “a reference to the proper farm history is made in the front of each block,”(3) by which he meant in the conveyance index volumes. This was never done, nor do the farm histories appear to be complete: only about two dozen out of 120 bear approval dates, and many lack texts, maps, or descendancy charts. Genealogist and historian Aaron Goodwin has speculated that World War I may have interfered with the project’s completion.(4) 

James W. De Peyster Farm, Farm Histories Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Ownership Descendancy Chart for the Dutch colonial era farm of Jacobus Van Orden, Farm Histories Collection, NYC Municipal Archives. 

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So, How Much of this Stuff is in the Municipal Archives? 

This largest output from the Reindexing project were hundreds of index volumes.  Those remain in the City Register’s office in Jamaica, Queens, because after more than 100 years, they’re still in active use! The original conveyance libers through 1886 have been scanned and are available online.(5) The Municipal Archives holds three collections at its 31 Chambers Street location:

• ACC 1983-037, consisting of large original sheet maps that show the location and boundaries of old tracts and farms together with the names of their owners and Tract Report references. 

• ACC 1983-038, consisting of approximately 1,000 Tract Reports on slips of paper that were used to create ACC 1983-037 and ACC 1983-039. 

• ACC 1983-039, consisting of approximately 100 Farm Histories with text, maps and descendancy charts of ownership. The Farm Histories are available on a microfilm in the Reading Room of the Municipal Library at 31 Chambers Street.   Please consult the Municipal Archives Collection Guide for additional information about the Office of the City Register Reindexing Department maps, tract reports, and farm histories. 

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A Final Word 

Returning to the theme of modest-looking archival materials that bear witness to colossal efforts made by city employees performing tasks that must have been tedious at best, the efforts of the World War I-era Reindexing Department of the City Register have benefitted generations of property owners, local historians, and—yes—attorneys. The names and addresses of the Reindexing Department team members were published in The City Record along with their salaries and hire dates.(6) A handful were even photographed for a 1913 newspaper story about the department,(7) so let them be anonymous no more!  

Members of the Reindexing Department, July 1916, NYC Municipal Archives. 

The reindexing team at work in 1913, NYC Municipal Archives. 

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(1) “Title searching in N.Y. County Simplified.” NY Tribune 21 Dec 1913, page 34.

(2) John J Hopper 1917, Four Years Report Showing the improvements made during the years 1914-1917 in the Register’s Office, of New York County, with recommendations for its future growth and advancement, pages 43-44

(3) Hopper, loc. cit.

(4) Aaron Goodwin. 2016 New York City Municipal Archives: An Authorized Guide for Family Historians, page 104

(5) “United States, New York Land Records, 1630-1975.” https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/2078654

(6) The City Record 31 Jul 1916 Supplement 9, page 245.

(7) “Title Searching in N.Y. County Simplified,”loc. cit.

Happy Thanksgiving

We wish everyone a happy and safe Thanksgiving…

And share some archival footage from the 1968 Macy’s Parade:

Macy's Day Parade, raw footage, November 28, 1968. Recorded by Deluenthal. NYPD Photo Unit collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Birthday Greetings, Verrazano-Narrows Bridge!

Five hundred years ago, in a mission to find the Northwest Passage to Asia, Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazano sailed along the northeastern coast of North America. He voyaged from present day North Carolina, to Nova Scotia, and became the first European known to have sailed into New York Harbor. 

Aerial View Of Verrazano-Narrows Bridge with construction almost completed, from Brooklyn looking toward Staten Island, ca. 1964. Department of Ports & Trade photograph collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

More recently, on November 21, 1964, the Verrazano-Narrow Bridge, named in honor of the explorer, opened to traffic. New Yorkers like to describe features of their city as the tallest, the biggest, etc., but the Verrazano bridge is truly the embodiment of superlatives. The 693-foot towers are so tall that they are 1-5/8 inches farther apart at the top than the bottom because the 4,260-foot distance between them made it necessary to take the earth’s curvature into account. When completed in 1964 it was longest suspension bridge in the world. There is enough steel in the structure to build three Empire State Buildings. The wire in the four main cables would encircle the earth nearly six times.

Aerial View Of Verrazano-Narrows Bridge with construction almost completed, from Brooklyn looking toward Staten Island, ca. 1964. Department of Ports & Trade photograph collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Researchers will learn these facts, and many more, from resources in the Municipal Library. The vertical files, for example, contain an eclectic assortment of source materials. One such item, the Winter 2001-2002 edition of From the Archive, a publication of MTA Bridges and Tunnels, is especially informative and includes numerous historical photographs documenting construction of the bridge. According to the narrative, New York State authorized construction of a bridge across the narrows between Staten Island and Brooklyn in 1946. Nine years later, the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA), together with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, announced a proposal to build a 12-lane double deck suspension bridge. Ground was broken on August 13, 1959, and the $320 million structure opened to traffic on November 21, 1964.

Aerial View Of Verrazano-Narrows Bridge with construction almost completed, from Brooklyn looking toward Staten Island, ca. 1964. Department of Ports & Trade photograph collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

It should come as no surprise that master builder Robert Moses played a significant role in planning and construction of the bridge. As Chairman of the TBTA (now MTA Bridges and Tunnels), Moses saw the Verrazano as the last of the suspension bridges needed to complete his web of arterial highways connecting the five Boroughs with each other and the mainland.

Verrazano-Narrows Bridge Cable Spinning, March 7, 1963. Triborough, Bridge and Tunnel Authority. NYC Municipal Library.

Chart, Verrazano-Narrows Bridge Cable Spinning, March 7, 1963. Triborough, Bridge and Tunnel Authority. NYC Municipal Library

The vertical file contains a small pamphlet titled, “Remarks of Robert Moses . . . at the Cable Spinning Ceremony at the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge Thursday, March 7, 1964.”  In a short speech transcribed in the pamphlet, Moses said of the bridge, “You see here the buckle in the chain of metropolitan arterials devised and approved by federal, state and local agencies, departments and officials too numerous to mention individually, a framework of bypasses and through routes of the most modern design which still requires years to finish.”  In a not very subtle allusion to the considerable opposition voiced by residents of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, whose homes were demolished to make way for the bridge, Moses went on to say, “The obstacles in our way become more formidable, the opposition more vociferous, the support less steady and certain, the courage or, if you please, obstinacy of those in charge less durable and the cost immeasurably greater as time goes on.”

Aerial view of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Photo taken from a helicopter, July 15, 1965. HPD Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Moses persevered, as he did, and the bridge was completed just a few months later. According to clippings from the Staten Island Advance, “The day dawned blustery and cold, but no dampers were put on the spirit of the Verrazano-Narrows bridge opening...”  (November 23, 1964.)  Other Advance stories reported how the cold weather discouraged politicians from making long-winded speeches. Spectators cheered Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s announcement that “I think I’ll file my speech for the record.”  

Aerial view of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Photo taken from a helicopter, July 15, 1965. HPD Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

The Story of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Triborough, Bridge and Tunnel Authority. NYC Municipal Library.

Reading through the chronologically arranged vertical file, an article dated March 3, 1962, from the World-Telegram, hints at stories that would dominate later coverage: “Staten Island: Goodbye to a Way of Life—Verrazano Bridge, Now Building, Will Double Population, End Rural Refuge.” Indeed, clippings from 1984, on the occasion of the bridge’s twentieth anniversary, echo the earlier prediction: “The Bridge took a toll on the Island’s mores,” headlined the Advance on November 18, 1984.

During the 1980s and 90s, stories about the bridge tolls proliferate in the clipping files. On June 22, 1983, The New York Times reported “New Law Gives S.I. Drivers a 25-cent Discount on Verrazano.” And beginning in 1970, thanks to the annual New York marathon that kicks off on the Verrazano Bridge on the first Sunday in November, the great suspension bridge always receives lots of media attention. 

Verrazano Bridge - Aerial, March 29, 1966. Department of Ports and Trade photograph collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Giovanni da Verrazzano, The Discoverer of New York Bay, 1964. NYC Municipal Library.

Searching Municipal Library shelves revealed an illustrated pamphlet, Giovanni da Verrazzano, The Discoverer of New York Bay. Published in 1964, on the occasion of the inauguration of the bridge, it chronicles the life and history of the explorer. According to the introduction, “Here we wish to . . . help awaken interest in the daring, adventurous nobleman who gave New York its very first name of Angouleme, recorded its exact position on a map, and opened the path to the other voyagers who have come to these shores in ever-growing numbers from then on. Meet Giovanni da Verrazzano, the discoverer of New York Bay!” What the pamphlet apparently fails to mention is that he is believed to have been eaten by cannibals in the West Indies, according to the Encyclopedia of New York City. But there is a bronze statue of Verrazano in Battery Park and a beautiful suspension bridge to remind New Yorkers of his place in our history.      

Trivia Night at the Archives!

Question 1: 

Infamous NYC Parks Commissioner Robert Moses left an indelible mark upon the landscape of NYC including each of the following projects except:

1. 1964 World’s Fair

2. Queensboro Bridge 

3. Gowanus Expressway

4. Lincoln Center

Question 2: 

Designed by Central Park architects Olmsted & Vaux, 10,000 cyclists took to the road for the 1896 opening of the nation's first bike lane on this Brooklyn thoroughfare. What was this thoroughfare: 

1. Ocean Avenue 

2. Eastern Parkway 

3. Ocean Parkway 

4. Bedford Avenue 
   

Commissioner Pauline Toole welcomed trivia players to the Surrogate’s Court atrium. Trivia Night at the Archives, November 14, 2024. NYC Municipal Archives.

Chilly outdoor temperatures yesterday evening did not deter more than 90 trivia fans at DORIS’ first Trivia Night. Held in the grand atrium at the Surrogate’s Court building at 31 Chambers Street, the event tested participants’ knowledge of New York City-related trivia. Mr. Austin Rogers, a twelve-time Jeopardy champion presided over the fun evening. Rogers developed a program that enables multiple players to participate in-person or virtually. His app also tracked responses in real time, automatically calculating each team or individual players’ point total.

Austin Rogers mc’d the program. Trivia Night at the Archives, November14, 2024. NYC Municipal Archives.

City archivists Cynthia Brenwall and Katie Ehrlich developed fifty questions based on their knowledge of City history and Municipal Archives collections. The categories included sports and the City, the City in film and screen, and Name that Borough!   

Rogers called out the multiple-choice questions. Participants simultaneously viewed the questions on monitors in the atrium, and on their phones or other devices. With up to sixty seconds to deliberate, participants clicked on their responses.  

Deliberating the correct answer. Trivia Night at the Archives, November 14, 2024. NYC Municipal Archives.

Between trivia rounds, guests were treated to video clips of music performances from the Municipal Archives’ digital collection. Selections included Duke Ellington and his band performing at City Hall in 1969, Ray Santos and his orchestra “The Caribbean Music Experience” on WNYC-TV in 1995, performances by Princess Nokia and Sweet Honey in the Rock at Declaration of Sentiments: The Remix in 2015, and more.  

And the winner is....  

After fifty questions, challenging for even the most informed New Yorker, the audience cheered the winning team, “Naka.” The team “Flatlanders” took second place. “The Pizza Rats” took the honors for “Cool Team Name Winner.”  

“Naka,” the winning team stands to accept cheers from the audience. Trivia Night at the Archives, November 14, 2024. NYC Municipal Archives.

 Question 3.  

Which of the following is not in the time capsule installed in 1870 beneath the base of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s outdoor installation of the obelisk popularly known as “Cleopatra's Needle?”

1. Complete Works of Shakespeare 

2. Declaration of Independence 

3. 1870 NYC Census

4. Portrait of George Washington 

Question 4. 

This Brooklyn-born blonde bombshell spent time in the Blackwell’s Island Penitentiary for obscenity charges stemming from her 1927 play “Sex.” 

1. Fay Wray 

2. Mae West 

3. Greta Garbo 

4. Clara Bow 

Okay, here are the answers.  Question 1. - Queensboro Bridge; Question 2. - Ocean Parkway; Question 3. Portrait of George Washington; Question 4. - Mae West. 

How did you do?  Ready to join us for the next Trivia Night at the Archives? Stay tuned:  it will be in the spring!