The New York City Charter explicitly directs that mayoral records must be transferred to the Municipal Archives. Thanks to dedicated librarians and archivists over the past century, the Municipal Archives has become the repository of a significant quantity of records documenting the executive office of City government. The mayoral “collections” in the Archives have served as an essential resource for generations of researchers.

Letter to Mayor Ed Koch from Jackie Kennedy Onassis, 1983. Mayor Koch Papers, NYC Municipal Archives.

The Mayoral collections date to the mid-nineteenth century. They consist of correspondence between the mayor’s office and municipal agencies and departments as well as state and federal government entities. Beginning in the 1920s and 30s, Rebecca Rankin, Chief Librarian of the Municipal Reference Library, began acquiring and cataloging extant mayoral records she found in City offices. As a member of the Common Council prior to 1834, early mayoral records can found in the papers of the legislative body, also acquired by the Municipal Reference Library. Since establishment of the Municipal Archives in 1952, mayoral records have been transferred directly to the Archives.

There are a few instances, however, when mayoral correspondence took a more circuitous route to the Municipal Archives. Mayor Edward I. Koch provides an example. Koch served the city as Mayor for three terms, from January 1, 1978, through December 31, 1989. One unusual aspect of the Koch administration is that his clerks and/or assistants transferred records to the Municipal Archives on a rolling basis throughout his term in office. For most other administrations, the mayoral records have been transferred upon conclusion of the term in office.

The Mayor Koch records date from the pre-digital age. He, and his many deputies and assistants created a lot of paper documents. In terms of quantity, it far surpasses any other mayoral administration, totaling hundreds of cubic feet.

Mayor Koch returned to private life after his third term ended on December 31, 1989. He became a partner in a law firm, an adjunct professor at New York University, a visiting professor at Brandeis University, and served as a commentator and movie critic on multiple radio and television programs. He died on February 1, 2013, at age 88.

Letter to Mayor Ed Koch from Norman Mailer, 1986. Mayor Koch Papers, NYC Municipal Archives.

Several months later, the administrators of his estate discovered a trove of correspondence at his residence. The original signed items had been placed in folders labeled “good letters.” They dated from the 1970s through the early 2000s. The administrators intended to sell the collection at auction. The auctioneer selected for the sale divided the correspondence into nine “lots” labeled Political Figures, Entertainment and Literary Figures, Bill Clinton, Vice Presidents, Cardinal Joseph O’Connor, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Jimmy Carter.

When City archivists learned of the upcoming auction, they contacted the auction house and arranged to examine the items. They discovered that many of the letters were addressed to Koch as Mayor of the City of New York and dated from his term in office.

Letter to Mayor Ed Koch from Jeane Kirkpatrick, US Ambassador to the United Nations, 1982. Mayor Koch Papers, NYC Municipal Archives.

Which seemed odd. Mayor Koch had been a strong supporter of the Municipal Archives and certainly knew of his obligation to place his records at the institution. He took office shortly after establishment of the Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS) in 1977, and his administration helped build the Archives and the agency. His good friend and political supporter, Eugene Bockman was the first DORIS Commissioner. The conversion of space in the Surrogate’s Court at 31 Chambers Street to accommodate the Municipal Library and the Municipal Archives with climate-controlled storage, conservation, processing and microfilm laboratories all took place during his administration. Staffing in the Archives increased from three people during the fiscal crisis of the mid-seventies, to about two dozen during the Koch years. Mayor Koch also faithfully attended all the exhibits and special events staged by the Department during his tenure.

In other words, he should have known better. One likely scenario is that he wanted to refer to the letters for his autobiographies. Or, perhaps he thought that copies had been made for the Archives. We’ll never know. When representatives from DORIS contacted the auction house and informed them of the Archives’ charter-mandated responsibility, they agreed to pull the Mayoral-era items from the sale and relinquish them to the Archives.

Here are several examples of Mayor Koch’s “Good letters.”

Good Letters

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