Michael Lorenzini
Herman Melville’s New York
NYC Municipal Archives
WNYC celebrates
NYC Municipal Archives
Labor Day, 1968
NYC Municipal Archives
The Handschu Collection
Kenneth Cobb
Bring the $5M with you. Two Eagles and a Post ...

It’s Christmas in the City

The holidays are here. Right after Thanksgiving, mini-pine forests appear on City streets.  Lights are strung throughout business districts adding a touch of cheer.  Passersby smile more.  Tree lighting ceremonies dot the landscape (thank you Jacob Riis who popularized the custom). There are a spate of holidays…the Solstice, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanza, New Year’s strung together over two weeks in late December.  New Yorkers will celebrate a variety of holidays with friends and families. 

How have New Yorkers celebrated the holidays in the past and how is this reflected in the collections of the Archives and Library? 

A review of the “Invitations” folders of several of the early Mayors did not contain any holiday-themed notes although Mayor Abram Hewitt (1887-1888) did receive an invitation to a farewell ball by the Vermont Sons of Neptune with music by Professor Conterno.  Not even the collection of the bon vivant Mayor, Jimmy Walker, yielded holiday invitations.  There was, however, an invitation to Mrs. Walker from the Greenpoint Peoples Regular Democratic Organization requesting a photo of the mayor that could be raffled to raise funds to provide “Xmas baskets to the needy in the district.”  (Let the record reflect that this usage predates the so-called war on Christmas that has lately been a topic.)

Flash forward forty-four years and in the Congressional papers of Mayor Ed Koch there are very cute invitations. 

The Park East Democratic Club sent a cheerful Santa card inviting the then-congressman to a party.

The Park East Democratic Club sent a cheerful Santa card inviting the then-congressman to a party.

Locicero open house invite cropped.jpg


Locicero open house card invite interior cropped.jpg

And “The LoCiceros” sent a colorful- rhombus shaped invitation to an open house.  That, of course, being John LoCicero who went on to become Special Advisor to Mayor Koch.

The Library’s Vertical Files yielded one hanging folder titled NYC Holidays containing five subfolders starting with 1960s and earlier through folder 2000-.   A 1966 New York Times story related the origin of the Rockefeller Center tree which actually went up before the Center was built.  Workers who were demolishing brownstones put up a 12-foot tree “paid and decorated not by a corporation but by ordinary workmen fortunate enough to have jobs in the holiday season of that Depression year….decorated with paper, tinsel and even a few tin cans.”

A clip from the Daily News in 1967 was chock full of little-known Christmas tidbits such as:

Where did the story of Santa Claus (with all of his many names) originate?

-4th Century Turkey where the Bishop of Myra left presents for well-behaved children. 

What government banned the sale of holiday candies to children?

-Dutch West Indies in New Amsterdam

Who created the story of the modern Santa?

  -Professor Clement Clark Moore, whose farm consisted of most of present-day Chelsea.

- or, Henry Livingston of Dutchess County who was an expert in light verse.

Who drew the first picture of the jolly, red-robed, character we associate with Santa?

-Thomas Nast, famed political cartoonist who also drew the zoo of Republican Elephants, Democratic Donkeys and the now-forgotten Tammany Tiger.

This brings us to another news clip, also from The Daily News written by the estimable Pete Hamill who began the piece, “Every time I see an image of Santa Claus, I think of Boss Tweed.”   The reason, of course, is that cartoonist Nast drew images depicting the Tweed Ring’s theft that shaped public opinion.  As Hamill reported Tweed said, “My constituents don’t know how to read.  But they can’t help seeing those damned pictures.”  Nast first drew a Santa for Harper’s in 1863 in which the character wore striped pants and a star-bedazzled shirt—more like Uncle Sam than the jolly old elf.  Nast drew a Santa figure at year’s end for the subsequent 25 years.  Eventually prose and image came together and Nast illustrated “The Night Before Christmas.”  According to Hamill, the figure of Santa as imaged by Nast, “made it easier to remove religion from Christmas and turn it into an annual orgy of consumerism….the plump little man sells everything else, too. And that evolution surely would have brought a twinkle to the eyes of Boss Tweed.”

This year, thousands of viewers lined the streets and plaza around Rockefeller Center for the lighting of a 77-foot Norway spruce that originated in the Orange County N.Y. town of Florida.  Hundreds of thousands will flock to the area before year’s end.   It is commercial and it is a celebration of the City.

Mayor William O’Dwyer and Santa host children at City Hall, December, 1948. New York City Municipal Archives.

Mayor William O’Dwyer and Santa host children at City Hall, December, 1948. New York City Municipal Archives.

 

 

The Seer of Bayside

The Municipal Archives recently began streaming 140 hours of historical films created by the New York City Police Department’s photography unit between 1960 and 1980. The films vividly illustrate a tumultuous eras in American history and provide rich documentation depicting activists, parades, and famous visitors in the City. Some of the most unusual footage in the collection dates from 1975 when the police began filming crowds in Queens gathered in support of Veronica McDonald Lueken, the “Seer of Bayside.”  

The story begins on the night of April 7th, 1970, when a 47-year-old Queens homemaker received her first of many claimed visitations from the Virgin Mary. She soon began holding vigils for thousands of worshippers that earned a denunciation from Catholic leaders, and eventually, the attention of the NYPD’s surveillance unit.

Born Veronica McDonald, by the time of her death in 1995 she had become something more: Veronica of the Cross and the Seer of Bayside, Queens. By all accounts, Veronica lived a relatively traditional life before her visions began. Married to her husband Arthur Lueken in 1945, their five children were raised as Catholics, receiving baptisms, first communions and confirmations. But many traditions that had formed the bedrock of Catholic life for centuries were about to change. In 1958 the Pope convened the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) and during seven years, more than 3,000 church leaders examined the doctrine and practices of the Church. Some of the many reforms adopted by Vatican included non-Latin Mass, lay people performing more rites and a greater dialogue with observers of other faiths. These changes, along with the assassinations of the first Catholic President, John F. Kennedy and later New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy, made the 1960s a tumultuous time for American Catholics.

While Veronica claimed a great number of revelations, many of them focused specifically on the reforms introduced by Vatican II. Veronica was not alone in her rejection of Vatican II, as the 1970s saw the rise of traditionalist Catholic groups. One such organization called the Pilgrims of St. Michael heard about Veronica’s message and began gathering to worship at her home in the neighborhood of Bayside. However, not all of the attention Veronica received was positive. Her neighbors in Bayside viewed her as a charlatan and worried about the hundreds of new people appearing in their community.

Here we see dozens of protesters appearing outside the St. Bellarmine church in Bayside, appearing to demonstrate against Veronica Lueken’s vigils. Many of Veronica’s visions and prophecies featured St. Bellarmine. NYPD Film Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

By 1975, this tension eventually led to the NYPD surveillance of Veronica’s vigils. As seen in the footage, the processions of the faithful who came to see Veronica were significant not only in size, but in dedication and organization. A few months after this surveillance started, Veronica said she received messages from the Virgin Mary about what she called ‘the deception of the century.’ This deception was that Pope Paul VI had been imprisoned by corrupt Cardinals in the Vatican and secretly replaced by a man who had undergone extensive plastic surgery in order to serve Satan. Over time, Veronica’s prophecies would grow to describe a single grand conspiracy she referred to as ‘the octopus of evil.’

Here at another vigil outside Veronica’s home, the Pilgrims of St. Michael appear opposite the protesters, necessitating a large police presence. NYPD Film Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

The enduring local popularity of the Bayside prophecies also brought opposition from Bishop Francis Mugavero, head of the Brooklyn Diocese. In a 1986 statement titled “Declaration Concerning the Bayside Movement,” Bishop Mugavero charged that there could be no credibility to the so-called “apparitions,” and that Lueken’s statements were contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church. He advised the faithful to refrain from participating in the “vigils” and disseminating any propaganda related to the “Bayside apparitions.”

After Veronica Lueken died in 1995, her husband Arthur continued to spread her message until his death in 2002. Since then there has been a schism in the Bayside prophecies followers. Two groups claim that they are the true devotees of Veronica’s locutions from the Virgin Mary. Both groups still hold regular meetings to this day, just not with each other. Neither group is recognized by the Vatican, which views them as antithetical to the work of the Church.

Although Veronica does not appear in any of the footage, the response her visions engendered was clearly impassioned and had a real impact on Bayside residents. NYPD Film Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Throughout the 1960s and 70s, the NYPD’s Bureau of Special Services conducted surveillance on a broad range of subjects, groups and individuals. In addition to the Seer of Bayside, they filmed groups like the Congress of Racial Equality, public figures like Richard Nixon, protests against cuts to public services, and much more. All of these nearly 1,500 films are now available for viewing on the New York City Municipal Archives’ online portal, here.

Death From the Skies Over Brooklyn

Disaster visited New York City on a cold, snowy, gray morning nine days before Christmas in 1960.

Minutes earlier, people were going about their business, shopping for the holidays, working in stores and grabbing coffee from a deli. A man on the corner was hawking Christmas trees.

Suddenly, at about 10:30 a.m., on December 16, 1960, United Airlines Flight 826 out of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport bound for Idlewild (now JFK) plunged from the sky near the corner of Seventh Avenue and Sterling Place in Park Slope, Brooklyn. It broke into jagged pieces after slamming into the street with an ear-splitting thud and exploded several times, killing all 84 people aboard and six others on the street, including a customer in the deli and the man selling Christmas trees.

Remains of United DC-8 at Sterling Place and Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn, December 16, 1960. Department of Sanitation Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Most of the plane landed a block off Flatbush Avenue, not far from Eastern Parkway, destroying and setting ablaze a church—ironically named Pillar of Fire—several businesses and brownstones. The resulting fires—caused by a dark stream of leaked jet fuel—also ignited parked and moving cars and turned the quiet neighborhood into the scene of what was then the nation's worst air disaster.

Crash site of TWA Lockheed L-1049, Miller Field, New Dorp, Staten Island, December 16, 1960. NYPD Aerial Unit Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

What was not immediately known was that the airliner had been involved in a spectacular mid-air crash with a TWA Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation about 10 miles away over Staten Island. That plane, TWA Flight 266, traveling from Dayton, Ohio to LaGuardia Airport carried 44 souls and crashed in a remote corner of Miller Field on Staten Island. All aboard were killed. No one on the ground was injured.

The city’s Municipal Archives holds a half-dozen photographs from that fateful day as well as 16 minutes of sometimes frantic radio reports from the scene in Brooklyn that tell the story.

The radio dispatches describe the chaotic scene that covered several blocks of what was then a thickly populated middle-class neighborhood in brownstone Brooklyn. They include reporters phoning in original reports and updates, and interviews with police and fire officials, a Catholic priest, and several witnesses. The reports noted that the plane narrowly missed two nearby gas stations, which would have made the fires much worse, and a nearby Catholic school holding about 1,000 students, which would have made it an even deadlier tragedy.

Aerial view of the crash site at Sterling Place and Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn, December 16, 1960. NYPD Aerial Unit Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Here are some transcripts of the reports, which began shortly after the crash and continued throughout the day. The first reports are from a highly-excited and somewhat frantic WNYC Radio reporter describing the scene in staccato-like tones.

Remains of United DC-8 at Sterling Place and Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn, December 16, 1960. Borough President Brooklyn Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

“Some time ago, a large Voyager plane, apparently a United Airline plane, fell from the sky into an area of three-family houses in this vicinity at this moment” in an area whose size “is impossible to (quickly) estimate,” he reported, noting that hundreds of firefighters, police officers, hospital and ambulance workers and other rescue workers had responded almost immediately. Some 200 off-duty firefighters rushed in to help as well.

Firefighters battling the blaze at Sterling Place and Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn, December 16, 1960. NYPD Aerial Unit Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

“Flames are now coming out of buildings and due to the cold and wind, the flames are being whipped up. Several bodies have already been taken away from the scene. Automobiles standing in the middle of the street have been burned and are being towed away,” he said. “It is impossible to estimate at this time how many people were involved, how many people were aboard the plane or were in houses in the area who have lost their lives or were injured by this holocaust.... We will bring you further reports from the scene of this plane crash as soon as they are available.”

The reports soon continued with an update from an emergency official at the scene on the number of rescue personnel frantically working. The reporter then asked the official, who he addressed as General: “Would you say this is a major disaster?” The official demurred, saying it would be up to “the governor or the mayor” to declare an emergency. “Is this one of the worst air crashes you’ve seen,” the reporter asked gamely. The official responded: “Yes, it’s one of the worst I’ve seen.”

Remains of United DC-8 at Sterling Place and Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn, December 16, 1960. Department of Sanitation Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

The reporter then cut away. A few moments later, he resumed with an excited update, noting that police were trying to keep the gathering crowd orderly. Firefighters were pouring “tons and tons of water onto the burning structures” and he noted there were “charred bodies” lying in the street. “Dozens of cameramen are out there shooting this fantastic scene. It certainly is a major disaster at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Sterling Place... thick, swirling, choking smoke, which is so much in evidence in the area. Downtown Brooklyn indeed is the scene of a major holocaust.” He then signed off for the moment as “Jay Levy.”

He soon returned with an interview of a local priest who had witnessed the disaster. “I was about to go into the rectory. I looked up and saw something that looked very silvery coming down... Then there was a loud report. I ran around the corner and the whole street was in flames,” the clergyman said. The reporter then asked: “Father, was there a tremendous explosion?” “There was,” the priest answered. “At one time, the flames were shooting about 50 feet in the air.... People were running around. There was pandemonium.... Obviously there were people in the houses on both sides of the street who were killed.... It crashed into an automobile that was passing by, killing the driver, I understand.” He said he saw rescue crews take six bodies “from the plane itself.”

Soon after, came another report from a different newsman, who was much calmer and identified himself as being with the WNYC Mobile Unit. “We’re talking to you from the scene of the plane crash in Brooklyn at Seventh Avenue and Sterling Place. At least 200 people live in that area. A United Airlines four-engine plane fell from the sky into a church and several other buildings. The church was demolished. Several other buildings are completely afire and heavy smoke is blanketing the area.

Remains of United DC-8 at Sterling Place and Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn, December 16, 1960. Borough President Brooklyn Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

“There are unconfirmed reports that there were 77 passengers aboard the plane. We have seen charred bodies taken away from the area and put into a tent.... We’ve also seen people taken from houses in the area. The plane barely missed two gasoline garages in the area and plunged into the church, demolishing it. Ironically, the name of the church is Pillar of Fire.” He said police were keeping the crowds and reporters from the scene, but he could see the tail of the plane and other debris down the block. He noted that Mayor Robert Wagner, Police Commissioner Steven Kennedy and Fire Commissioner Edward Cavanaugh were at the scene monitoring the situation.

He said it was “hard to imagine” how anyone survived the crash, but a witness told him that an 11-year-old boy who had been a passenger on the plane had fallen to the ground and landed in a snowbank—and miraculously was still alive. He was badly burned and in shock and was rushed to Kings County Hospital in serious condition. The boy, later identified as Steven Baltz from Wilmette, Illinois, died the next day from his burns and complications from pneumonia.

Remains of United DC-8 at Sterling Place and Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn, December 16, 1960. Department of Sanitation Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

“The scene on this street is quite a familiar one to anyone who has seen wartime destruction. We have seen charred bodies taken away. We have seen people in houses surrounding the area in shock being taken away.”

In the final report in the Archives, about 20 minutes later, the reporter noted that investigators from the Civil Aeronautics Board were on the scene and were planning to block off the complete area for a few days. Bodies were removed to Kings County Morgue and there was no danger of the five-alarm fire spreading any further.

Remains of United DC-8 at Sterling Place and Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn, December 16, 1960. Department of Sanitation Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Reporters on the scene in Brooklyn, including a young Gabe Pressman, were unaware that another plane was involved—since this was many decades before the Internet and cell phones. The next day’s newspapers told that part of the story.

A three-deck headline in The New York Times exclaimed:

127 DIE AS 2 AIRLINES COLLIDE OVER CITY

JET SETS BROOKLYN FIRE KILLING FIVE OTHERS

SECOND PLANE CRASHES ON STATEN ISLAND

Crash site of TWA Lockheed L-1049, Miller Field, New Dorp, Staten Island, December 16, 1960. NYPD Aerial Unit Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Officials reported that the collision took place over Staten Island about 10 miles away. While the smaller Lockheed plane went down directly, the United aircraft managed to stay aloft for about 90 seconds before plunging down in Park Slope. Investigators determined that the United plane was going too fast—about 350 miles per hour or about 100 mph faster than he should have been—and was about 12 miles off course, causing the accident that left blocks of Park Slope scarred for decades.

Crash site of TWA Lockheed L-1049, Miller Field, New Dorp, Staten Island, December 16, 1960. NYPD Aerial Unit Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Coffee

Brochure for Colombian coffee, ca. 1940. WPA Federal Writers’ Project collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

New York City runs on coffee, a fact that all of the java-toting subway riders prove every day.  That’s not a new custom. 

The opening of a 1940s article on coffee written by Parker Tyler for the Federal Writers’ Project ‘s (FWP) Feeding the City touted the City’s reliance on coffee.  “Every citizen of New York knows that the smell of morning coffee sets him up for a day of honest effort and things accomplished.” 

Coffee was imported, chiefly from Brazil, Columbia, Venezuela, and El Salvador. Facts assembled by FWP staff writers show that imports of coffee grew from 66,666 bags weighing 132 pounds apiece in 1800 to 15,259,693 such bags in 1939—over 2 billion pounds of coffee!  It was estimated that New Yorkers consumed 1,000 cups of coffee annually, half of it at breakfast, or nearly three cups daily. In 1939, the average price per pound of Colombian coffee was $11.84 in New York City. 

Brochure for El Salvador coffee, ca. 1940. WPA Federal Writers’ Project collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

According to the FWP, coffee consumption began early in New York:  “The Dutch in New York stopped drinking beer for breakfast and changed to coffee about 1668.  They added honey and cinnamon to the beverage. A pound of coffee cost eighteen shillings, nine pence.  As in London, coffee houses sprang up, the Kings Arms and the Merchants’ being two of the best known.”

Unloading cargo of Brazilian coffee at Gowanus Bay pier, Brooklyn, ca. 1940. WPA Federal Writers’ Project collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

The largest coffee processing plant in the world opened across the Hudson in Hoboken NJ in October, 1939. More than 400 workers handled the production of Maxwell House Coffee and Sanka, bringing 50 years of experience to provide the “good to the last drop” brand of coffee to households around the country. The particular blend was created in the 1880s for the Maxwell House Hotel in Nashville, TN.  Its sister brand—Sanka—was described as, “The Immigrant that Brightened Millions of Lives.” Created in 1928 for the New York market, it initially was a luxury item retailing at $1 per pound.  By 1939 the price had dropped, providing relief for people who wanted to both sleep and drink their coffee.

Maxwell House Coffee canning factory, ca. 1940. WPA Federal Writers’ Project collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

A news article from 1940 reported that the Quartermaster Depot based at the Brooklyn Army Terminal was planning to purchase 40 million pounds of coffee annually, up from 10 million pounds. And, that would only fulfill half of the Army’s needs. This is the first indication of possible difficulty ahead for coffee consumers.

The FWP wrote about substitute foods in July 1941 stated that the rationing procedures adopted in England provided a clue to the foods likely to be scarce in the United States. These foods included tea, but not coffee. “Moreover, what England may be deprived of in the present emergency is not necessarily a guide to what we may be in America, as for example, coffee, which is not rationed there, chiefly the British, as a people are not great coffee drinkers.”

Early in November, 1942 Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia tackled the topic of coffee rationing on his radio program, with the goal of explaining why coffee was facing restrictions.  He acknowledged that coffee was ample but mostly in South America and the Caribbean. “The supply is plentiful, but the rub is shipping it. We are losing ships and besides that we require all the ships that we have for carrying supplies, ammunition, and troops to various parts of the world where we are fighting for our very existence.”

A&P warehouse loading cases of coffee, ca. 1940. WPA Federal Writers’ Project collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

He went on to chide New Yorkers. “Please don’t be silly about this and start chiseling and buying more coffee than you need. A great many people have done that and that just isn’t nice, it isn’t patriotic and it shouldn’t be done….Let’s take the rationing in stride, be sensible in the making of coffee, let’s not be wasteful, and I’m sure there will be no hardship.”

On November 29, 1942, the Office of Price Administration (OPA), which was responsible for setting prices and rationing food and other items to ensure there were sufficient supplies for the armed forces, announced the coffee rations. Basically permissible purchases were cut in half from 20 pounds to ten pounds annually. 

During the rationing period, people who wished to stretch their coffee allotments pursued a few strategies including re-using coffee grounds and supplementing with another substance. One of the chief supplements was chicory roots that were roasted, ground and blended with the coffee.  Some people used acorns. Others just consumed less.

Men being fed coffee and bread at Tom Noonan's Mission (Rescue Society) in Chinatown, ca. 1940. Photo by Treistman, WPA Federal Writers’ Project collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Mayor LaGuardia suggested: “I wouldn’t throw the grounds away if anyone in the family is accustomed to having coffee for their midday or evening meal, just adding a sprinkle on the top of the old grounds will make a very good cup of coffee for the evening.”

WPA Federal Writers’ Project collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

He also suggested changes to the method of making coffee. “Perhaps we will have to put our percolator away for the duration and use coffee just as people of my generation used to. I strongly recommend the brewing of coffee. Just take a spoonful to a cup, that’s pretty strong, and then brew it. Let it come to a boil for a very short time, then set it aside and let it settle and also strain the coffee in serving it.”

Apparently he received some pushback because in his November 29, 1942 radio address he told the audience to “take the recipe I gave you and stick it away someplace because we’ll need it before long. We’ll have to go back to the old style method of cooking coffee as our mothers did and not be silly about this whole thing. There’s enough coffee to go round if we use it wisely.”

Recently New York was rated the Number One coffee city in the country with more coffee shops here per capita than elsewhere in the country. And apparently NYC residents consume seven times as much coffee as other people. What would we do in a coffee shortage? Let’s hope we don’t find out. 

 

Turkeys

Turkey feed brochure. WPA Federal Writers’ Project Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Turkeys

By Parker Tyler

Boston Poultry Show, Grand Champion White Turkey, ca. 1939. WPA Federal Writers’ Project Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

In the summer more than 30,000,000 turkeys are being fattened up on 600,000 farms in the United States.  They are for Thanksgiving Day, and there is one for every four persons in the country. Any holiday season, the markets of the City are crammed with these sculptural birds, breast up in their crates, long-keeled, full-meated, and plucked clean.

            The Pilgrim Fathers, discovering the deliciousness of the roasted wild turkey, decided, like the Aztecs, that eating them should be ceremonial. Turkeys are natives of America, their genealogy going back to prehistoric times. They were the only domesticated livestock of the Aztecs, who raised them by the thousands for religious feasts. Spanish explorers carried them first to England, and then reintroduced them to the American continent.

            In Colonial times, a 55-pound turkey was not a rarity, but today, for the consumption of the smaller American family and for the smaller modern oven, the large bird has given way to one smaller in size but improved in quality. Now there is more white meat for the carver, and turkey breeders hope that a bird may be raised small enough to be sold as cheaply as pork or beef. Until they mature and take on fat, turkeys are more bones than meat.

Growth

West Washington Market, Manhattan, October 1938. Photograph by Libsohn, WPA Federal Writers’ Project Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

There are six standard varieties of turkey bred in the United States: the Bronze—the largest and most like the wild turkey of yore; the Narragansett; the White Holland; the Bourbon Red; the Black; and the Slate. The plumage of the tom turkey in some varieties is very beautiful.

            From a 2 x 2 ½ -inch egg, baby turkeys kick themselves loose from the shell in the spring. Six to eight months later they are plump and ready for the market. By careful breeding, some growers now hatch out their crop about the first of the year and send prime turkeys to market in midsummer. The raiser of turkeys must face definite hazards before the money for the bird in the egg finally reaches his hand.

            Turkeys are temperamental, complaining, and quarrelsome.  Not only are they susceptible to pneumonia, but they smother if the weather is too hot. The noise of an airplane motor, or loud thunder, panics a flock; when they run as fast as they can, they make greater speed than a horse. Flocks may range widely during the day but always return to the poultry yard for the evening meal. Old tom turkeys, deprived of their consorts, travel in flocks by themselves. Turkeys are more curious than cats, and seem to be lonesome when no one is around.

The Municipal Archives recently presented Feeding the City, an exhibit that featured vintage recipes and photographs, advertising brochures, and excerpts from the manuscripts of the NYC Unit of the Works Progress Administration Federal Writers’ Project unpublished book Feeding the City. Revisiting the collection in search of information the Project staff collected or wrote about Thanksgiving Day meals, revealed a draft manuscript, Turkeys, dated December 18, 1940, written by Parker Tyler and edited by Diana Hunter. It is reprinted in its entirety below.

Dressed Turkey, ca. 1939. US Dept of Agriculture, WPA Federal Writers’ Project Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

            Unpredictable maladies may carry these birds off by the thousands. They were almost exterminated in the last decade of the 19th century by the dreaded turkey disease, blackhead. By cleaning the eggs, hatching them in an incubator and segregating the poults (young turkeys) from other fowls, breeders have made great strides against this disease. Turkeys grow more rapidly and convert feed into meat more easily than any other farm animal.

Marketing   

Texas now accounts for the greatest number, nearly 4,000,000; California is next with 3,000,000, while Minnesota, Iowa, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Oregon, and Ohio all produce them in millions. Most turkeys are brought alive to central plants where they are killed, dressed, and packed by modern factory methods, including an electrical killer. The killed birds go through a semi-scalder to the roughers, and from these though a waxer to the pickers.

“Here are turkeys, grown to tender plumpness in the Pacific Northwest, undergoing a rigid inspection in one of A&P’s great New York City warehouses. The keen eyes and educated hands of this practiced inspector will detect any possible flaw in the bird, and condemn it for delivery to the store if any flaw shows up…” Photograph from A&P, WPA Federal Writers’ Project Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

            Freight, truck and boat bring turkeys to the markets of New York City, where their largest sale is during November and December; in other months they are second to chicken. Live turkeys, transferred in baskets accommodating 15 to 22 birds, are sold only to licensed slaughter-houses in New York City.

            Young tom turkeys weight from 13 to 19 pounds, young hens 8 to 11 ½ pounds with little difference in their taste. Young hens and toms are birds less than a year old, having soft meat and a flexible breastbone; mature birds have hardened breastbones and less tender meat. Within these classifications are four grades fixed by the U.S. Government; Special, Prime, Choice, and Commercial. On the whole, a turkey hen is preferable, being fatter with smaller bones. A young turkey has black feet; pink feet denote the turkey is from one to three years old; grey feet more than three years old. A live turkey shrinks about 10 per cent when it is bled and plucked and 20 per cent more when dressed, drawn, and ready to roast.

            Turkey prices are fairly steady throughout the year, usually varying not more than 5 cents a pound.  The City housewife pays from 29 cents a pound to 32 cents. Smoked turkey, a recent delectable addition to the holiday menu, prepared in pickling brine and smoked like pork, is an expensive dish at $1.25 a pound.

The draft manuscript was accompanied by ephemera such as a pamphlet of turkey recipes prepared by the New York State Department of Agriculture.