New York City’s Library and Archives have benefited from the work of dedicated record-keepers for more than two centuries. Recently, For the Record featured David T. Valentine, Clerk of the Common Council (1830-1866), in Valentine’s Manuals. Rebecca Rankin profiled the career of the long-time Municipal Librarian (1919-1952), and Honoring and Welcoming Idilio Gracia-Pena highlighted the Municipal Archives Director (1976-1989), and DORIS Commissioner (1990-1995). 

This week’s article features Eugene J. Bockman, Municipal Reference Library Director (1958-1975), and DORIS’ first Commissioner (1977-1989). Born on July 23, 1923, Bockman served in the United States Army Air Force during World War II, flying 29 missions in the Pacific Theater of Operations, and winning the Distinguished Flying Cross. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Social Science at City College, and a Bachelor of Library Science at Pratt Institute in 1950.  

Bockman began his career as a part-time librarian at the New York Public Library in 1946 and became Assistant Branch Librarian at the NYPL’s Woodstock Branch in 1952. The NYPL named Bockman as head of the Municipal Reference Library (then a branch of the NYPL) in September 1958. He continued in that role through 1969 when the Library separated from NYPL and came under the jurisdiction of the Municipal Services Administration (predecessor to Department of Citywide Administrative Services). From 1969 to 1977 he continued as Director of the Library, then called the Municipal Reference and Research Center.

On September 29, 1977, Mayor Abraham Beame appointed Eugene J. Bockman as Commissioner of the newly created (July 1977) Department of Records and Information Services. One year later, on September 28, 1978, Mayor Edward Koch re-appointed Bockman as DORIS Commissioner; he retired on December 29, 1989. In his letter of resignation, Bockman highlighted some of his career accomplishments. These included establishment of DORIS and relocating the Municipal Records Center from an inadequate warehouse in Brooklyn to the then-new Municipal Records Center in Middle Village, Queens. He presided over renovation of the Surrogate’s Court Building at 31 Chambers Street for DORIS’ administrative offices, and for the Municipal Archives’ public rooms, conservation laboratory and climate-controlled storage. Bockman also cited the work of the Municipal Records Management Division which won the Olsten Award for excellence in 1988, and the successful transfer of the Brooklyn Bridge drawings collection to the Municipal Archives.  

In the list of his achievements Bockman also included establishment of the Municipal Archives Reference and Research Fund (MARRF) and noted that it had distributed more than $500,000 in grants from the interest generated by the Fund to improve preservation of archival collections. He concluded his letter to Koch by citing the words of the Ephebic Oath: “I hope this agency will be transmitted greater and better than it was transmitted to me.” Eugene Bockman died in Manhattan on November 8, 1999. 

Eugene Bockman’s records are maintained as a collection in the Municipal Archives. Among the holdings is an article he wrote in 1976 for the Public Works Historical Society, Records – Who Needs Them. The following are excerpts from the article.

“Before explaining who uses records in New York City, it would be best to describe the peculiar state of records management in this greatest of all American Cities. In 1948 a Mayor’s Municipal Archives Committee was appointed by Mayor O’Dwyer and chaired by the Director of the Municipal Reference Library—the successor agency to the previously mentioned Library of the Corporation of the City of New York. 

In 1952 the Municipal Archives and Records Center was split from the Municipal Reference Library and established as a separate agency. These two agencies were reunited again in 1975 when the Municipal Reference and Research Center, successor agency to the Municipal Reference Library, was joined with the Municipal Archives and Records under a single Director.  

Looking back at the continuing need for this kind of facility and operation which has provided services for a variety of people and governmental bodies during the last three centuries. The Minutes of the Common Council dated December 20, 1844 state: “The Common Council orders that the Committee on Public Offices and Repairs cause the room in City Hall, formerly called the Tea Room, to be fitted with shelves and glass cases and hereafter be used as a library and place of deposit for the archives, presents, valuable books, and other property of the Common Council of a similar description.”

 This appears to be the first time the word “archives” is mentioned in official New York City documents.

Most of the materials reposing in the Municipal Archives today are derived from the administrative, legal, and fiscal holdings of the city’s agencies and, this is important, from the records of predecessor political or civic subdivisions of what now constitutes the City of New York. For example, the Archives’ collection includes the records of the Improvement Commission of Long Island City, an independent entity prior to the 1896 Act of Consolidation of New York City. As an example of how our records are used, not too long ago, engineers from a major construction firm approached us on the matter of natural springs on the island of Manhattan. The site at which they were working appeared to have either natural spring or surface water activity. If it was a natural spring with adequate and sustained flow, they wanted to tap it for the central air conditioning in the building they were constructing. They wanted to know if we had any maps, reports or documents showing natural spring activity in Manhattan. We were able to locate several maps and reports on all known natural springs on this island.

When Robert Moses held multiple city and state offices in New York it was not uncommon for his secretary to call us and read from our monthly accession lists, “Mr. Moses would like to see such and such on, or Mr. Moses wants to borrow, or have a copy made of such and such…”

Who needs the records in Municipal Archives and Records Center?

The answer is that we all need them. We need our personnel files when pension claims arise, we need our local tax files when attendant problems develop, we need our birth, death and marriage certificates in many situations, we need our old building plans and our engineering drawings, our courts need their records for obvious reasons, and, as Municipal Archives and Records Center hold your birth, marriage and death records, and the records of the Chief Medical Examiner (reports on suspicious deaths), we also hold your records of probate as filed in our county Surrogates Court.