Spring 2020

New Yorkers look forward to the first day of Spring. Sometimes the weather cooperates, but even if it does not, it marks a period of beginnings, new growth and hope. 

But this is not an ordinary year. Like all New Yorkers at this time, everyone at the Municipal Archives is doing their best to stay safe and healthy.  Closing the public reading rooms was a regrettable, but necessary, step to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. During this hiatus, many Municipal Archives staff are ‘teleworking’ and using this time to improve intellectual control over our vast collections. They are transcribing inventories, editing descriptive information, and writing finding guides. This important work will greatly add to the usefulness of ArchivesSpace, the on-line tool we will be launching in 2020 to provide on-line information about dozens of important collections.   

In the meantime, we can take this opportunity to remind our patrons and friends that there is already a great deal of content readily accessible on our website. In the online gallery there are now more than 1.5 million photographs, moving images, maps, architectural plans, and ledgers to view (and order if one catches your fancy). Patrons are also invited to visit Archives.NYC to read through our blogs, catch up on our prior exhibits and review the shared histories developed jointly by the Amsterdam Archives and the Municipal Archives.

The Central Park Lake, ca. 1936. WPA FWP Collection. NYC Municipal Archives

Here are more evocative images taken by City and WPA photographers early in the spring season, many decades ago.

On an early spring day in 1938 WPA photographer, E. M. Bofinger traveled around the City documenting parks, people and iconic venues. Fort Tryon Park was one stop on his journey. The Cloisters are in the background. E. M. Bofinger, April 17, 1938. WPA FWP Collection. NYC Municipal Archives

A view of the Hudson River from Fort Tryon Park, with the George Washington Bridge in the background. E. M. Bofinger, April 17, 1938. WPA FWP Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Drinking Fountain, Prospect Park, Brooklyn, April 17, 1938, E. M. Bofinger. WPA-FWP Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

Bowling Green Park, from the steps of the Customs House, Lower Broadway, Manhattan. E. M. Bofinger, April 17, 1938. WPA FWP Collection. NYC Municipal Archives

Times Square, April 17, 1938. E. M. Bofinger, WPA FWP Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

As we said, spring weather is unpredictable. On March 19, 1940, the temperatures jumped up to summer-time levels and everyone headed to the beach. Orchard Beach, Pelham Bay Park, Department of Parks Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

The City and the Census

It’s census time. Once every ten years, the United States Bureau of the Census tries to count every person in the United States. The census is mandated by the U.S. Constitution and has occurred every 10 years since 1790. It is vitally important for all New Yorkers to be counted. Census information is used to determine the City’s fair share of billions of dollars in federal funds for public education, affordable housing, infrastructure, and more—as well as the number of seats we have in Congress. In the 2010 Census, the City’s self-response rate was less than 62%, compared to the national average of 76%. Let’s do better this time!  For the first time, the census can be filled out online. Here is the link to the census site: https://my2020census.gov/

In the past, New Yorkers loved a census. The Municipal Library and Municipal Archives holdings include information about several State and local census dating from the first decades after Independence. The earliest reference to a census can be found in Article 5 of the New York State Constitution of 1777: 

“That as soon after the expiration of seven years (subsequent to the termination of the present war) as may be a census of the electors and inhabitants in this state be taken, under the direction of this legislature.”  Subsequently, electoral censuses were conducted in 1795, 1801, 1807, 1814, and 1821 “in compliance with this law.”

This requirement was only to count those eligible to vote—white men who had achieved full age and who possessed between 40 shillings and had paid taxes (to vote for Assembly members) and 100 pounds (to vote for Senators).  In addition, the Constitution provided that men in Albany and New York City who had been designated “free men” before October 14, 1775 were allowed to vote in Assembly elections. 

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1786 New York Census. Common Council Records, NYC Municipal Archives.

New York City was counting all of its voters. The summary schedule from 1786, submitted by the sheriff, totaled 23,614 residents including four “Indians who pay Taxes.” The census was broken down by ward and categorized by “Citizens and Inhabitants” and “Slaves” and further enumerated by gender and age. The count shows 2103 enslaved people lived in the City. Among the interesting facts about this census is the inclusion of non-enslaved African Americans in the “Citizens and Inhabitants” categories. At this point the wards of the City also were named, not numbered including Montgommery Ward, Dock Ward, and Out Ward along with the East, West North an South Wards.

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1806 New York Census. Common Council Records, NYC Municipal Archives.

By 1806 the City had renamed the wards more prosaically—one through ten. The format of the census document also changed to include multiple new categories including People of Color, Free Negros, and Slaves in the population total of 75,770 residents. It also showed out-migration from the City due to the “prevalence of the malignant fever of 1805.” And it included the number of Aliens (immigrants) residing in the City but who were not yet included in the population count. Written on the back of the document is the note, Increase of population in 5 years at the rate of 25 percent or 15,201 people.

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1813 New York Census. Common Council Records, NYC Municipal Archives.

The Census of the total Population of the City and County of New York dated December 1813 includes information about those who conducted the count in each ward. Abel W. Hardenbrook was a tinner, Abraham Booker a cooper, John Anderson a carpenter and John Kiser a gentleman as well as several others. There also is what is akin to a draft, and then a more polished final version. The City’s population was 92,448. The number of enslaved people dropped to 1076 residents while the number of “colored inhabitants” increased to 7786 people.

On April 15, 1814, the New York State Legislature passed “An Act for Taking a Census of Electors and Inhabitants of this State,” which mandated that all areas of the State follow the City’s lead and include information about all inhabitants—women, children, slaves and all other free persons, not just the electors.

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The Municipal Library collection includes the printed Sessions of the Legislature. NYC Municipal Library.

In 1816 New York City conducted yet another census, generally referred to as the Jury Census. Newly-elected Assistant Alderman Elisha W. King presented a resolution at a meeting of the Common Council on January 29th, for a “census of inhabitants and an accurate list of Jurors qualified to serve in the different Courts…” which was agreed upon by the Council. A committee was formed that included Asst. Alderman King, Alderman Augustine H. Lawrence, and Richard Riker, Recorder “to carry the same into effect.”

On May 17, 1819, the Council established a committee to again conduct a census to create a “Jury and Census list.” The census results were published in the Minutes of the Common Council on November 15, 1819. 

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Account of Census of Population of City of New York from 1756 to 1819. Common Council Records, NYC Municipal Archives.

A document dated June, 1821 is a scrawled “Account of Census of Population of City of New York from 1756 to 1819. Penmanship makes the author’s name difficult to decipher. Even without the detail from the census reports, the document chronicles the City’s growth from a population of “15,000 souls” (10,468 whites and 2276 Negros) in 1756 to 119,657 residents in 1819. The New York State census of 1821 was also an electoral census (as had been in 1814), however, it introduced additional questions regarding agriculture and manufacturing. There was a special meeting of the Common Council on June 4, 1821 “for the purpose of Complying with the provisions of the Late act of the Legislature… by appointing Persons in each Ward to take the Census of said Ward.” In the meeting of June 11, 1821 there is discussion and resolutions made with the Finance Committee regarding compensation for the census takers.

Based upon the information in the Minutes of the Common Council both the 1816 and 1819 Jury Censuses were mandated by the Council. The 1821 Census was mandated by an act of the NY State Legislature and the Council complied with the directive from the state.

The extant census records created under the direction of these Common Council resolutions are in the Municipal Archives. They have been digitized and can be viewed in the Archives gallery.

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1819 Census for the 6th Ward, Manhattan. NYC Municipal Archives

The collection consists of 21 bound volumes containing tally sheets of returns for the City and County of New York, organized by ward. There are tallies for 1816, 1819, and 1821. The tallies were taken to determine if residents were eligible for jury duty and include varying degrees of descriptive detail. For example, for 1816 and 1819 the returns are given in a double-page tabular format with column headings for the following categories: names of inhabitants, number of houses, name of street, occupation, freeholds of $150, age, reason for exemption from jury, total number of jurors, the number of male and female white inhabitants, aliens, colored inhabitants not slaves, slaves, freeholders of £100 and upwards, freeholds of £20 and under £100, tenants renting $5 per annum, total number of inhabitants, plus a column for remarks. For the 1821 census, the returns, in similar format, include data in these categories: name of the head of each family, number and street of residence, number of male inhabitants of the same family age 21 or upwards in four classifications according to value of freeholds and debts, military service and tax exemption or commutation. Other data includes: number of acres of improved land occupied by each person, as well as tallies of cattle, horses, sheep, and yards of various types of cloth manufactured by each family, and a count of mills, factories, distilleries, asheries (a place where potash is made), and machinery. Each tally is identified with this description: “RETURN, made pursuant to the Act, entitled, ‘An Act to provide for taking a Census, and for other purposes,’ passed March 16, 1821, from the City and County of New-York.

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1819 Census, 6th Ward. NYC Municipal Archives.

Dirty Water

The Museum of American Finance (MOAF) and the Municipal Archives have opened a new exhibit: “Ebb & Flow: Tapping into the History of New York City’s Water,” in the 31 Chambers Street gallery.

New Croton Dam Spillway, 1907. Photographer P. P. Pullis, Bureau of Water Supply Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

The exhibit explores the more than 200-year history of the city’s effort to build one of the world’s finest water supply systems.  As part of the exhibit, co-curators, Maura Ferguson, Director of Exhibits, MOAF, and Sarah Poole, Collections Manager, MOAF tell the fascinating story of how a private water company, founded by Aaron Burr in 1799, evolved into the largest bank in the United States today.

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1784-1834

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Certificate dated November 13, 1789 appointing Seth Greeland as a New York City fireman. Collection of the Museum of American Finance.

After the Revolutionary War, New York City, growing in population and industry, languished without fresh water. Fires, drought, and deforestation had a large impact on groundwater. Sanitation and well maintenance declined, and a famed tea water pump lost popularity. The Fresh Water Pond (often called the Collect Pond), used for drinking water, began filling up with dead animals and waste from laundries, furnaces, potteries, and tanneries.

Epidemics returned, and while exactly how diseases such as yellow fever and cholera spread was yet unknown, it soon became clear that clean water was vital for good health. The death toll and tensions ran high. New Yorkers pressed government to bring clean water to the city as a first priority. When it seemed delivering fresh water from Manhattan was no longer a viable option, the Common Council, the city’s authority on water matters, received a proposal to bring in water from farther afield.

Broad Street looking toward Federal Hall, 1797. Two water pumps are depicted on either side of the street. Courtesy Library of Congress

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Browne & Burr

Joseph Browne, a doctor from Westchester, believed availability of fresh water was vital to the health of the city. In July 1798, he proposed piping in fresh water from “the River Bronx.” This plan was priced at $200,000 (over $5.5 million today). Dr. Browne proposed that a private enterprise operating in the best interest of the public might be the best way to quickly bring in the much-needed clean water supply, while accommodating the city’s inability to cover such costs.

In his proposal, Browne recommended a company that would issue 2,000 shares of stock at $100 per share with no individual owning more than one share. In return, the company would provide 300,000 gallons of water each day in a way that permitted all the water to be diverted to any location for use in firefighting. Unused water from the daily allotment could be used to clean the streets. Households would be charged $10 per year in exchange for 30 gallons of water piped directly into each house per day; or households could pay $2 per year to forgo hooking into the water system but retain protection from fire. The return on investment of the shareholders was expected to be 13% after 10 years.

The Common Council continued to accept plans for delivering clean water to the city, but made no decision until the summer’s bout with Yellow Fever came to an end in November. Ultimately, the Common Council decided to move forward with a variation on Browne’s proposal. Opposed to a private company taking on the project, as it feared the company would gain while the city suffered, the Council proposed state legislation that authorized taxes, loans or auction sales to fund the project. Aaron Burr—attorney, war officer, and politician—having previously held the positions of State Attorney General and US Senator, was newly elected to head the New York State Assembly with a wave of fellow anti-Federalists in the spring of 1797. Burr was also Browne’s brother-in-law.

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An Act

As the head of the New York State Assembly in 1799, Burr was responsible for seeing the bill through the legislative process. Newspapers published conflicting opinions on the quantity and quality of water in the Bronx, as well as the costs of bringing water to New York City. Burr’s New York Assembly delegation found it difficult to prepare the bill for a full vote. He pressured other committeemen to allow a private company to run the project as Dr. Browne suggested. He reportedly even intercepted correspondence and excluded delegates from meetings to press his case.

Portrait of Mayor Richard Varick, Public Design Commission

Burr was granted a 10-day leave to return to Manhattan from Albany to get a better sense of the opinions of the Common Council and the public. On February 22, 1799, he visited Mayor Richard Varick with five other notable citizens, including his political rival, Alexander Hamilton (former US Secretary of the Treasury and founder of the Bank of New York). This group convinced the Mayor and Council to endorse Burr’s plan. Hamilton, in particular, made the case for a private water company, fearing the city and state would be unable to pay for the venture. The proposed plan was for a private company, incorporated by the state, to be “capitalized at $1 million in $50 shares,” of which the city would be entitled to a third. Those shares could be purchased through taxes, loans, or state auctions. Seven directors would manage the company, six of whom would be elected plus one city official. This proposal won over the city officials, but Burr had a different idea about who would manage the company.

Meanwhile, Burr gathered public petitions to send back to the Assembly in support of the private company. James Fairlie introduced Burr’s petitions in the Assembly on March 27, 1799, along with a draft bill: “An act for supplying the city of New-York with pure and wholesome water.” Instead of the typical debate and full vote, Burr arranged for Fairlie’s bill to go to a special committee of three, who approved it the next morning. The bill moved to the State Senate, and on March 30, Burr met with his friend Thomas Morris to help get the bill passed through a similar committee process. The bill officially became law on April 2, 1799.

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Burr’s Bank

The Causes of Pestilence, Common Council Report, 1799. NYC Municipal Archives

The company the State Legislature authorized was not what the city had agreed to, and it was unlike any other company in America. The Manhattan Company would be capitalized at $2 million, double what Hamilton had proposed and only a small fraction of its shares would be available to the city. The number of elected directors increased from six to 12, diminishing the power of the city officials. This “water company” was not required to repair streets after laying pipe, it could set rates for service as it saw fit, and it was not obliged to provide free water for firefighting. Furthermore, it was granted a perpetual charter if it succeeded in delivering fresh water for the citizens of New York within 10 years.

What made this company most unique, however, was a small clause in the ninth paragraph of the charter:

And it be further enacted, That it shall and may be lawful for the said company to employ all such surplus capital as may belong or accrue to the said company in the purchase of public or other stock, or in any monied transactions or operations not inconsistent with the constitution and laws of this state or of the United States, for the sole benefit of the said company.

This clause allowed the company to invest its surplus capital and engage in lawful financial transactions of its choosing. Shortly after the water company’s founding, it opened an office of discount and deposit to direct the use of the company’s surplus capital and perform banking functions, including taking deposits and lending money. Ultimately, the company used only $100,000 of the authorized $2 million for the water system. The rest was diverted to start what would become the Bank of the Manhattan Company, which opened at 40 Wall Street in September 1799. In effect, it provided Burr with a Republican bank to rival Hamilton’s Federalist Bank of New York.

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The Manhattan Company

The Manhattan Company wasted no time in getting started. Its charter was delivered to the Common Council on April 10, 1799, a week after the bill was signed into law, and the company convened its first meeting the next day. Officers decided against Dr. Browne’s costly Bronx River plan, which had already been approved by the city. Instead, because it would be fastest (and cheapest), the Board voted to use the already-polluted Collect Pond as the water supply. The Manhattan Company existed because of the outcry for clean water in the face of epidemics and fires, but it did not prioritize and thereby did not ultimately fulfill its purpose of providing fresh water.

Manhattan Company Reservoir on Chambers Street, 1825. Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York, 1855. NYC Municipal Library

The company used ground wells within the city, rather than bringing water from the Bronx. It placed ground wells in unsanitary locations and risked mixing sewage with fresh water. It built a waterworks next to the Collect Pond and used horses to work the pumps until they were replaced by a steam engine in 1803. The 100,000-gallon reservoir the company built instead of the planned million-gallon reservoir ensured it would never meet the needs of the growing city. Crudely hollowed out pine logs were used. The logs did not insulate well, and water froze in the winter. They were also easily pierced by tree roots, which caused backups in the system.

Only a small number of households participated. During the height of a yellow fever outbreak in the summer of 1803, the company suspended water service for two weeks for well repairs, with some reporting outages of nine weeks. The number of households drinking Manhattan Company water dwindled.

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Tapped Out

Embroiled in a three-year legal battle with the city over payment for the Manhattan Company’s damage to the streets after laying pipes, Hamilton defended the company until he died in 1804 in a duel at the hands of the company’s creator (and sitting Vice President), Aaron Burr. Burr’s deception about his intentions to start a competitor bank with the Manhattan Company was one of the many disagreements between the two that eventually led to the duel. Burr’s career, in politics and otherwise, was all but over after that day. The company settled for $5,000 on a $6,881.14 bill. Burr’s relationship with the company had already been severed, as he was ousted in 1802 after his $48,000 loan from the company bank (to pay off old debts) grew to $120,000.

Account of Aaron Burr’s debt to the Manhattan Company, 1802. Collection of the Museum of American Finance.

With exclusive water rights, the Manhattan Company continued as the only supplier of water until the 1840s. During this period, New York City suffered two major cholera epidemics. In 1832, cholera killed more than 3,500 people, and another 5,000 in 1849.

In the 1820s, the Common Council attempted once again to create a system to bring fresh water from the Bronx River. Civil engineer Canvass White completed a detailed feasibility survey in 1824, and the New York Water Works Company was created to build the system. The new company never began construction, as its plans conflicted with those of the New-York and Sharon Canal Company, which was chartered a year earlier to construct a canal between Connecticut and New York, and provide drinking water to New York City. The canal company later determined that bringing water from anywhere farther than the Croton River was too expensive. Many other surveys funded by the city came to the same conclusion. Finally, in the 1830s the city embarked on creating a reliable municipal water system, the Croton System.

After the Croton system opened, the Manhattan Company waterworks emptied out and was torn down in the early 20th century. To maintain its state charter, water was pumped at the site everyday by a bank employee until 1923. The Bank of the Manhattan Company is the earliest predecessor of today’s JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States. In 1965, Chase Manhattan was granted a federal charter that was no longer dependent on providing clean and wholesome water.

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“Ebb & Flow: Tapping into the History of New York City’s Water,” will be on display through September 1, 2020 in the Department of Records & Information Services gallery in the Surrogate’s Court building, 31 Chambers Street.  It can be viewed Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Thursdays to 6 p.m.).  It is also open from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the following Saturdays: March 14, March 28, April 11, April 25, May 9, May 30, June 13, June 27, July 11, July 25, August 8, and August 22.

Honoring Black History Month, 1990

New York City municipal broadcasters like Channel L and WNYC-TV provided access to video technology that under-served communities were often denied or excluded from. Operating from 1977 to 1991, Channel L produced a large number of programs that focused on issues that affected the lives of black Americans, with titles like “Black Leadership in NYC,” “Black Folk Art,” “AIDS in the Black Community” and many more.

On February 21st, 1990, Channel L aired a call-in talk show hosted by then State Senator David Paterson, titled “Honoring Black History Month.” Now, 30 years later, the Municipal Archives is digitizing tape from the Channel L collection, including this Black History Month tape. This is part of an ongoing effort to preserve and make available the Archives’ large audio/visual holdings. Program guests included community activist Elombe Brath, Hunter College philosophy professor Frank Kirkland, artist Glenn Bolton AKA Daddy-O and music producer Robert A. Celestin. Together with calls from the New York City public, they discussed the legacy of Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the freeing of Nelson Mandela, the impact of rap music on American culture and Black History Month in general.

Honoring Black History Month, February 21st, 1990. Channel L collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated February 21st, 1965 and April 4th, 1968, respectively. For decades since, the content of their lives and the ideals they died for have shaped the basic way in which we discuss and remember the Civil Rights movement that came to define the 1960s. For these commentators in 1990, only a single generation had come to adulthood since the death of Dr. King. Now, another 30 years later, the conversations recorded in this video are no less relevant.

Honoring Black History Month, February 21st, 1990. Channel L collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Callers did not need to look to the past to find inspirational leaders fighting for racial justice, though. On February 11th, 1990, only 10 days before this program aired, Nelson Mandela was freed from his 27-year imprisonment in South Africa as the Apartheid system began to dissolve. Mandela would go on to make a pan-African tour before meeting other leaders around the world, including President George H.W. Bush, Pope John Paul II and the first black mayor of New York City, David N. Dinkins. The time span from Mandela’s release to today is roughly the same as the time span from Malcolm X’s death in 1965 to 1990 when this video was made.

Honoring Black History Month, February 21st, 1990. Channel L collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

By 1990, rap music had grown from block parties in The Bronx to a rapidly expanding cultural phenomenon, but was still seen by some as inflammatory and controversial. Although it now is one of the most financially successful and appreciated musical genres in the world, many people in 1990 viewed groups and artists like NWA, Public Enemy and Ice-T as emblematic of problems with black culture in America. Yet many others, like Robert A. Celestin, saw rap for what it was- the voice of a new generation of black Americans, unwilling and incapable of tolerating an unjust system any longer.

In addition to the WNYC-TV and Channel L collections, the NYPD surveillance film collection at the Municipal Archives has rarely seen films of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and The Black Panthers available for viewing online now on the NYCMA website. http://nycma.lunaimaging.com/luna/servlet/NYCMA~3~3

Incorrigibles — Bearing Witness to the Incarcerated Girls of New York

The Municipal Archives has opened a new exhibit at 31 Chambers Street featuring images and information about “incorrigible” girls confined in the New York State Training School for Girls (1904–1975) in Hudson, New York. Artist Alison Cornyn is the director of a transmedia project that tells the stories of the “incorrigible” girls. Kathleen Hulser is the public historian for the project.

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The “Incorrigibles” exhibit at the Surrogate’s Court building, 31 Chambers Street.

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The box of documents that launched the Incorrigibles project.

In 2013, the owner of a thrift store in Hudson, New York, was parsing her way through a local yard sale for items to sell in her store. She stumbled upon a small cardboard box which contained documents from the 1920’s and 30’s—personal photos and letters, news clippings, medical records, intake forms, and parole paperwork. She purchased the box for five dollars and shared with me its contents. The stories and lives contained in this box were the impetus for Incorrigibles. These found documents all pertained to girls—as young as 12 and as old as 16—who had been incarcerated at the New York State Training School for Girls, an institution that today we would call a youth prison.

By bringing together documents from the box, archival research, artworks, and materials collaboratively developed with different communities, Incorrigibles offers a bridge from the past to the present of girls’ incarceration; a means for us to emotionally and intellectually engage with what has and has not changed in juvenile justice and girls’ detention over the last 100 years. Furthermore, the intimate nature of the source documents and firsthand accounts from women who are still alive today offer clear and uninterrupted insight.

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Girl on Bench. Spread in artist book.

Unidentified girl poses for a photo on a bench at the Training School.

“Our chief task and aim, then, with delinquent girls is to protect them from the natural consequences of being girls.” Quote from Training School manager Annie Allen, from her treatise, How To Save Girls Who Have Fallen (1910).

The New York State Training School for Girls, originally known as the Women’s House of Refuge, dates from 1887. It was located on a green hill overlooking the Hudson River. Founder and social reformer Josephine Shaw Lowell imagined a gender-separated prison intended to cure “vice” through virtuous country living.

In the early years of the 20th century, such reformers advocated for special women’s courts, then for similar separate courts for families, young men and women. The Wayward Minors Court from the 1930s and 1940s featured in the exhibition tried to apply an “adjustment” approach, rather than criminalizing the young women brought to it, an approach that resonates with the “trauma-informed” and child-centered approaches of today.

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Jewell Ward I. Pigment print on archival paper.

Jewell Ward and an unnamed girl pose for a photo at the Training School. Jewell was born in San Marcos, Texas, and sentenced to the Training School in 1921 for being a “disorderly child.” In 1923, she was discharged and sent to live with her mother in Manhattan.

The term “incorrigible,” which means “incapable of being corrected or amended,” was often used to describe girls who came into contact with the criminal justice system. This exhibition questions the language of stigmatization applied to girls who came before the courts, then and now. Close scrutiny of municipal sources on youth reveals a great fear of young women’s sexuality, a preoccupation with sexually transmitted diseases, and a long-standing de facto form of racial discrimination that largely consigned African-American girls to the harshest forms of imprisonment. Teenagers were frequently prosecuted in adult courts and convicted of crimes such as “pick-up,” prostitution, larceny, con games, “dishonest employee,” and shoplifting.

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Language Sampler. Muslin and cotton thread wall hanging. Embroidery by Diana Weymar.

In the 20s and 30s girls at the Training School were trained in ‘Decorative Hand-work’ and ‘Cottage Home-Making’ among other things.This embroidery charts the ebbs and flows of words in culture (between 1800 and 2008) according to Google’s n-grams. While the label of being incorrigible is still used in NY as a subcategory of PINS (person in need of supervision) its overall popularity has decreased. In the current DSM we now have oppositional defiant disorder.

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Mayor’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency, 1944. NYC Municipal Library.

Girls have long been criminalized for “incorrigible” or “defiant” behaviors—running away, fighting at home, or staying out late. These actions are often triggered by underlying problems, including physical or sexual abuse, commercial sexual exploitation and survival sex, and neglect.

As the country engages in a national dialogue around racism, sexism, and misogyny—and the convergence of these harsh realities in the lives of girls of color and LGBT/GNC youth—we must review with new urgency why girls were—and are—being pushed into the justice system.

The exhibit is part of an overall project that records and shares accounts of women alive today who were in the Training School. The records of confinement reveal the roots of today’s policies on juvenile justice and pose larger questions about society’s treatment of young women.

The “Incorrigibles” exhibit will be open through April 2020. It is located in an alcove off the lobby of the Surrogate’s Court building, 31 Chambers Street. It can be viewed during the building opening hours—Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Thursdays to 6 p.m.).

It is also open from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the following Saturdays: February 29, March 14, March 28, and April 11.

“The Heart of Chinatown,” 70 Mulberry Street

The recent fire at 70 Mulberry Street, home of many social service organizations and the research center for the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) destroyed a 130-year old building. Called the Heart of Chinatown not only because of the services provided there but because as a neighborhood school it had served the community for decades. When we stood outside the building in the aftermath of the fire, numerous older residents remarked to us, “I went to school there.”

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PS 23 Manhattan, July 22, 1929. BOE 3276, NYC Board of Education Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

As the home of New York City Government’s historical records, it seemed possible that the Municipal Archives held records depicting the neighborhood and the school. Indeed we do.

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Bayard Street Elevation, 1891. Architect CBJ Snyder, NYC Board of Education Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

The oldest record in the Municipal Archives pertaining to the building is the “Application for Erection of Buildings,” filed with the Department of Buildings in 1891. Submitted by prolific school architect Charles B. J. Snyder, the building was designed to serve as an elementary school, through grade 8, with 31 classrooms and a capacity of 1,694 students. The total cost of construction was $130,000. During his tenure from 1891 to 1922, Snyder designed more than 400 schools for New York City, the greatest expansion of public schools in American history. Snyder schools are noted for the abundance of natural light flowing into the classrooms through oversize windows.

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Kindergarten Painter, PS 23, Manhattan, June 3, 1935. BOE 5489, NYC Board of Education Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

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Kindergarten Art Class, PS 23, Manhattan, June 3, 1935. BOE 5491, NYC Board of Education Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

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Arts and Crafts, PS 23, Manhattan, June 11, 1947. BOE 13010, NYC Board of Education Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Board of Education officials designated the building as Public School (P.S.) no. 23. In 1915, the Board decided to add “distinctive” names to many of the numbered schools. P.S. 23 became “The Columbus School,” in recognition of the then-predominantly Italian-American population it served at that time. By the 1930s, increased immigration from China was reflected in the student body. In the late 1940s, the school also served as a venue for adult-education programs designed to assist the many newcomers to the city.

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Overcrowded class in English for Foreigners, PS 23, Manhattan, October 1, 1946. BOE 12294, NYC Board of Education Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

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English class with Chinese interpreter, PS 23, Manhattan, October 1, 1946. BOE 12293, NYC Board of Education Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

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Adult class in English, PS 23, Manhattan, May 13, 1952. BOE 20636, NYC Board of Education Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

In June 1976, the building was de-commissioned as a school. The city maintained ownership however, and the building became the home for several community groups, including the Chinatown Manpower Project, which offers vocational training, employment services and educational programs; H.T. Chen and Dancers, a modern dance company; and the Chinese American Planning Council. It also houses collections and research materials from the Museum of Chinese in America.

The photographs illustrating this blog are part of the Municipal Archives’ Board of Education collection. Although the images are dated, the names of those depicted in the pictures were not recorded. If anyone recognizes a parent or grandparent or older neighbor in the photographs, please let us know so we can include their names in the historical record.