Cynthia Brenwall
Happy Birthday, Calvert Vaux!
Kenneth Cobb
Demonstrations, Disturbances, and a Papal ...
Robert Garber
Tracts, Farms, and the Great Reindexing Project ...
NYC Municipal Archives
Happy Thanksgiving
Kenneth Cobb
Birthday Greetings, Verrazano-Narrows Bridge!

Civil War Records, Orders for Relief of Soldier’s Families 

On April 29, 1864, under “Ordinance of the Common Council,” Mrs. Mary Connell, mother of William Connell, a soldier in the 39th Regiment of Company F, was entitled to receive one dollar and fifty cents, weekly, until otherwise ordered. Mrs. Connell resided at 121 Mulberry Street, rear, 3rd floor, in the Fourth Senatorial District within the Fourteenth Ward of Manhattan.   

Union Home & School for Soldier’s Children, lithograph, Valentine’s Manual, 1864. NYC Municipal Library.

The Civil War, the War Between the States, the War of Northern Aggression—whatever the label, the conflict had a profound impact on communities throughout the country. In New York City, numbers tell the story: 100,000 men joined the Union cause, more than from any other city and almost as many as any state.    

There are more than two dozen series in the Municipal Archives that document aspects of the Civil War, including The New York City Draft Riot Claims Collection featured in a recent For the Record post.    

This week’s article looks at another series, “Orders for Relief of Soldier’s Families.” Soon after soldier recruits departed for training and combat, City leaders recognized that military pay would not be sufficient to support family members. The Proceedings of the Board of Aldermen, available in the Municipal Library, records legislation introduced to address the hardship. Further research will be necessary to determine when the Board first proposed “Relief of Soldier’s Families,” but an entry from the Proceedings that took place on June 12, 1862, is a typical example. “An Ordinance” appropriating five hundred thousand dollars “for the purpose of aiding to support the families of the soldiers from this city who are now serving, or who may hereafter volunteer, or be ordered to serve, in the army of the United States engaged in defending the integrity of the National Union.”   

Sample Relief Cards, 17th Ward, 1865. Orders for Relief of Soldier’s Families Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

In sixteen sections, the Ordinance detailed how the money would be disbursed, amounts to be awarded, frequency of payments, how to verify dependent status, etc. It specified that a “Visitor” would be required to “ascertain by careful investigation,” all applicants at their residences. Subsequent Proceedings record amendments to the legislation, e.g. “No payments shall be made to or behalf of the families of commissioned officers, or of soldiers who have deserted.” (November 3, 1862.)   

Draft Ordinance for the Relief of Soldier’s Families, 1862, Approved Papers, Board of Aldermen Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

The scope of the aid effort and the City’s response is evident in a Department of Finance statement, dated May 5, 1862, incorporated into the Proceedings for May 12, 1862. Broken down by the twenty-two Wards in the City, disbursements totaled $138,574.50 provided to 31,954 adults and children.    

Other legislation addressed how the City financed the aid program by issuing bonds: “The Comptroller is hereby authorized to borrow on the credit of the Corporation of the City of New York . . . which shall be designated and known as Volunteer Family Aid Bonds . . . They shall bear interest at a rate not exceeding seven per cent, per annum, and shall be due and payable within three years.” (May 19, 1862.)  

Sample Relief Cards, 21st Ward, 1861. Orders for Relief of Soldier’s Families Collection. NYC Municipal Archives.

In the 1970s, city archivists discovered the “Orders for Relief of Soldier’s Families” and other Civil War-related records in the basement of the Municipal Building. The series had been originally maintained by the Office of the Comptroller. The “Orders” consist of double-sided 3x5 cards. Information recorded on the cards includes the name of the soldier, the regiment and company, the name of the soldiers’ spouse and number of children, or other dependents, e.g. mother. It indicates their residence, and the amount and frequency of disbursement. The reverse of the card provides the name of the “visitor” certifying their entitlement. “Soldier deceased” is noted on several cards.   

The cards date from 1861 to 1865. They are arranged by Senate District within each Ward. Given the numbers of persons provided with aid (see above) it is apparent that the cards in this series, approximately 4,000 items, represent only a very small fraction of the original total. There is no indication of why these particular cards survived. They have not been processed or reformatted.    

Look for future For the Record articles to learn about other series in the Archives’ Civil War collection.   

Enjoying and Researching City Parks

As summer 2024 draws to a conclusion, many New Yorkers will spend time in parks and park facilities throughout the city. Located on more than 30,000 acres of land—14 percent of the city—and comprising beaches, gardens, athletic fields, playgrounds, public pools, golf courses and historic house museums—the parks and related facilities are an integral and indispensable part of city life.    

Drawing no. 2009, City Hall Park, City Hall Park Fountain, Details of Bronze Candelabra and Finial, Bronze Contract, elevations and plan, January 12, 1871, Jacob Wrey Mould. Department of Parks Drawings Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Historical and contemporary records in the Municipal Archives and Library that document this vast infrastructure have been the subject of previous For the Record articles. Drives, Rides, and-Walks--Horses in Central Park and Conserving Central Park and Brooklyn Bridge Plans are two examples. Indeed, the more than 1,800 original drawings of Central Park are among the most beautiful items in the Municipal Archives. They have been loaned for exhibitions around the country, used for countless illustrations in books and other publications, and most recently, in 2019, featured in The Central Park: Original Designs for New York’s Greatest Treasure, authored by Municipal Archives conservator Cynthia Brenwall.    

What is less well known or acknowledged is that the Central Park drawings account for only about two-thirds of the Parks Drawings Collection. There are more than 1,500 items documenting fifty-six other parks, including Marine, Morningside, Forest, Fort Tryon, Riverside, Washington Square, Van Cortland and others throughout the city. Combined with the extensive correspondence files and photographs in the Department of Parks Record collection, particularly during the period when Robert Moses served as Parks Commissioner from 1934 to 1960, parks and park facilities are some of the most well-documented of all city infrastructure.     

This week, For the Record highlights several drawings of other parks. The collection includes design, presentation and working drawings; plans, elevations, perspectives and full-scale details, often in color, as well as bridges, roads, monuments, buildings and other structures located within the parks. The items in the collection represent a variety of mediums and supports including tracing paper, linen, and paper blueprints. Like the Central Park drawings, many date from the 1850s to the 1870s, and are of exhibit quality. 

Drawing no. 2209, Greeley Square, Outline Design of Pedestal for Horace Greeley Statue, August 25, 1891, Alexander Doyle. Department of Parks Drawings Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Drawing no. 2315, Morningside Park, revised general plan for park showing topography, landscaping, paths, and steps, September 28, 1887, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. Department of Parks Drawings Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Drawing no. 2640, Stuyvesant Square Park, Proposed Sketch for Improvement of Stuyvesant Square, layout showing walks, trees, fountains, and enlarged park area, 1871. Department of Parks Drawings Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Drawing no. 2705, Washington Square Park, Horse Trough for New York City, November 8, 1888, Walker Romaine & Augustus Tanner. Department of Parks Drawings Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Drawing no. 2832, Astoria Park, Proposed Plan Showing Improvement of Astoria Park, plan of athletic fields and courts, pool, beach, walks, and trees, August 1, 1914, Carl F. Pilat. Department of Parks Drawings Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Drawing no. 2898, Drinking fountains for public parks, elevation and plan, July 25, 1870, Jacob Wrey Mould. Department of Parks Drawings Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

For the Record readers are encouraged to consult the Department of Parks and Recreation website  to learn about activities in the parks. And perhaps when they return home, Record readers will take a few minutes to explore what historical information is available in the Municipal Archives and Library Library Collection Guides. 

Herman Melville’s New York

Map bounded by Bowling Green Row, Marketfield Street, Beaver Street, William Street, Old Slip, South Street, Whitehall Street, State Street, Plate 1, 1852. William Perris, civil engineer and surveyor. Courtesy New York Public Library.

The name Herman Melville may conjure visions of adventures on the high seas, the “watery part of the world” in the author’s parlance, but Melville was very much a New Yorker for most of his life. He was born Herman Melvill in 1819 in a rooming house at 6 Pearl Street, the third of eight children. The house is long gone, but an illustration of Pearl Street found in D.T. Valentine’s manuals shows the house in 1858. His mother, Maria Gansevoort, had him baptized in the Calvinist Dutch Reformed church she attended. The Gansevoorts were a long-established Dutch family and Maria’s father, Peter Gansevoort, had been a decorated colonel in the Continental Army. In 1777, Peter Gansevoort at the age of only 28, took command of Fort Stanwix and led it through a siege by British forces. It was the only American fort not to surrender to the British during the American Revolution. In 1812, a new fort was named in honor of him, at the foot of today’s Gansevoort Street.

View of Pearl Street looking from State Street, 1858. A. Weingartner’s Lithography, for D.T. Valentine's Manual of 1859. NYC Municipal Library. Herman Melville was born in a rooming house at 6 Pearl Street in 1819, the third of eight children. It still stood in 1858, the 2nd house from the right.

Meville’s father, Alvin Melvill (the family added the “e” after Alvin’s death), was a merchant in the bustling New York-to-Europe trade boom following the War of 1812. Mercantile New York offered great rewards and great risk, and the family fortunes soon rose and fell. Alvin borrowed money heavily from the Gansevoorts for his trading ventures and to raise the family’s standard of living. In quick succession he moved his family to their own house at 55 Cortlandt Street in 1821, then to 33 Bleecker Street in 1824, and then to the fashionable address of 675 Broadway in 1828. There is scant record of this house, but it probably resembled the Merchant’s House Museum, which still stands nearby on East 4th Street. It is hard to over-estimate the exclusiveness of the neighborhood at this time, centered around Lafayette Street, one block over. Their neighbors in the 9th Ward would have included Stuyvesants, Astors, Roosevelts, Delanos, and Vanderbilts.

Record of Assessments, 9th Ward, 1829. NYC Municipal Archives. This assessment (which incorrectly has Allen instead of Alvin Melvill) shows that Alvin did not own his house at 675 Broadway, it was his personal estate that was valued at $4,000. Alvin was living above his means to be close to New York’s gentry.

Melvill was very devoted to his children and especially concerned with giving the boys a good education, but he was financially over-extended—the household was lavish, and they employed many servants. In 1825 Herman attended the New York Male High School and then in 1829 he transferred to the more prestigious Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School. After the last of Herman’s seven siblings was born in 1830, the Gansevoorts cut off Melvill financially. He quickly went bankrupt and was briefly placed in a debtor’s prison. Going into the fur business, he relocated the family to Albany. Enrolled in the Albany Academy, Herman was praised as a bright scholar, but he withdrew in the fall of 1831, perhaps because of the family finances.

South from Maiden Lane, 1828. George Hayward lithographer, for D.T. Valentine’s Manual of 1854. NYC Municipal Library. 

“Added to these reminiscences my father, now dead, had several times crossed the Atlantic on business affairs, for he had been an importer in Broad-street. And of winter evenings in New York, by the well-remembered sea-coal fire in old Greenwich-street, he used to tell my brother and me of the monstrous waves at sea, mountain high; of the masts bending like twigs...”
— Herman Melville, Redburn

In December 1831, Alvin fell ill with a high fever after traveling in an open carriage during a winter storm and died on January 28, 1832. His death again threw the family into a desperate situation. Oldest son Gansevoort Melvill took over the fur business and Herman, age 14, found a job as a bank clerk. In 1834, Gansevoort took him from the bank to run his fur store, as he could not afford staff, but by 1835 Herman was again able to return to his studies of the classics. The Panic of 1837 shattered the family’s fortunes once again, and Gansevoort filed for bankruptcy. He moved back to New York City to study law and Herman took a job as a schoolteacher for a semester. By 1839, Herman, always entranced by his father’s tales of Europe and stories from relatives who had taken to the sea, decided to ship out. He signed on to the St. Lawrence, a merchant ship out of New York, as a “boy” (an untrained hand) for a voyage to Liverpool and back. This brief introduction to the sea and the experience of the slums of 19th-century England would become the basis of his fourth novel, Redburn: His First Voyage.

Coffee House Slip and New York Coffee House. George Hayward, lithographer for D.T. Valentine’s Manual of 1856. NYC Municipal Library. “...somewhere near ranges of grim-looking warehouses, with rusty iron doors and shutters, and tiled roofs; and old anchors and chain-cables piled on the walk. Old-fashioned coffee-houses, also, much abound in that neighborhood, with sun-burnt sea-captains going in and out, smoking cigars, and talking about Havana, London, and Calcutta.” -Herman Melville, Redburn

Upon his return, Herman again tried teaching but left when the school failed to pay his salary. His eyes turned to the sea once more. Gansevoort suggested he try his hand on a whaler and took him to New Bedford. There they found a whaling boat, the Acushnet, that would take him on as a green hand. They set sail on January 3, 1841, for what could be a four-year voyage. It was not entirely unusual for a young middle-class American man to go to sea and Melville might have been inspired by the memoir Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana, which was published in 1840. After hunting whales in the Bahamas and docking in Rio de Janeiro, they rounded Cape Horn and explored the South Pacific. Off the coast of Chile, they met up with a boat from Nantucket, where William Henry Chase gave Melville a copy of his father Owen’s account of the sinking of the ship Essex by a sperm whale.

Peck Slip, New York, 1850. George Hayward lithographer, for D.T. Valentine’s Manual of 1857. NYC Municipal Library. 

““Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see? – Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep.” ”
— Herman Melville, Moby Dick

By the summer of 1842, Melville had tired of the whaling life, and he jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands. For four weeks he lived with a tribe in the Typee Valley on the island of Nukahiva just as it was falling under French rule. The Nuka Hiva still practiced cannibalism, but they treated Melville warmly and he was fascinated by their customs including communal ownership of property. Melville left the island on another whaling boat out of Australia but was thrown in jail in Tahiti for his role in a mutiny. He escaped in short order and wandered the Tahitian islands as a beachcomber until climbing aboard another whaler for a six-month cruise that ended in the Hawaii Islands. There he signed onto a US Navy ship that rounded the Horn again and returned him to Boston in 1844.

He came home bubbling with stories and a changed man. An educated young man from New York’s genteel classes, he had lived and worked amongst common seamen, from all races and parts of the globe, had lived amongst the people of Polynesia and had seen what colonization was doing to their cultures. At the urging of his family, he started writing. He stretched his month on Nukahiva into Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life. Although presented as a true memoir, in his romantic retelling the narrator spends four months amongst the cannibals. Gansevoort Melville, by this time a successful orator and lawyer, was on his way to London in the diplomatic service. On the advice of a literary agent, he took Herman’s manuscript to London and arranged for the publication of simultaneous English and American editions of the book in early 1846. Herman Melville became an overnight literary sensation, but his success was soured by the sudden death of Gansevoort in London. Their brother Allen, who had worked with Gansevoort in their firm at 16 Pine Street, now took over as his literary agent.

Record of Assessments, 17th Ward, 1848. NYC Municipal Archives. Herman Melville was able to purchase his and Lizzie’s first house at 103 Fourth Avenue with the proceeds from his first two books. 

In 1847, Melville published a sequel, Omoo, which did well enough that he felt confident to marry Elizabeth Shaw, daughter of a prominent Massachusetts Judge, Lemuel Shaw. They started their marriage in New York City, in a house he purchased at 103 Fourth Avenue, valued at $6,000. But after a series of literary gatherings in Pittsfield, Massachusetts with Nathaniel Hawthorne and Oliver Wendell Holmes, amongst others, they borrowed money from Judge Shaw in 1850 to build their own house there, Arrowhead. By 1850, Melville was already at work on his magnum opus Moby Dick, which he finished at Arrowhead and published in 1851. Hawthorne thought the book showed depths to Melville’s writing not previously displayed, but most reviewers were unkind, and the book was a commercial failure. After his next book Pierre again left reviewers perplexed, some began to question his sanity. After more commercial and critical failures, he published his final book, The Confidence-Man, in 1857 and took off for a tour of Europe and the Holy Land. On his return he tried the lecture circuit and started writing poetry. Finally, in 1863 he swapped his Pittsfield house for his brother’s house at 104 East 26th Street and the Melvilles returned to New York for good.

Fort Gansevoort or old White Fort. George Hayward lithographer, for D.T. Valentine’s Manual of 1850. NYC Municipal Library. Fort Gansevoort, named after Melville’s maternal grand-father Peter Gansevoort, was located by the Hudson River where the Whitney Museum now sits.

In 1866 he found a government job as a customs inspector. Stationed at a dock at the end of Gansevoort Street, he stayed for 19 years, perhaps protected in his position by an admirer of his writing, future president Chester A. Arthur, then a customs official. Melville was honest in his job but suffered from both physical and mental ailments. He had nervous breakdowns, drank heavily, and may have been abusive to his wife Lizzie. In May 1867, Lizzie’s brother arranged for her to leave Melville, but she refused. In September, their son Malcolm, aged 18, went to his bedroom after quarreling with his father and shot himself in the head. Although some contemporaneous accounts reported the death as accidental, the coroner inquest ruled it a suicide. The Melvilles somehow moved on.

Death certificate for Malcolm Melville, 1867. NYC Municipal Archives.

Herman Melville outlived all but one of his siblings. His brother Allan died in 1872, but he would visit with his youngest brother Thomas, a retired ship captain who was now the Governor of the Seaman’s Snug Harbor in Staten Island. Thomas died in 1884, their sister Frances the following year. Around this time, Lizzie received enough of an inheritance that Herman was able finally to retire in 1886. That same year, their remaining son Stanwix died of tuberculosis in San Francisco.

1890 Police Census, 104 E. 26th Street, 11th AD, First ED. NYC Municipal Archives. Herman Melville is shown living with his daughter Elizabeth “Bessie” Melville, wife Elizabeth (curiously called here Emilie although she was known by Lizzie), and presumably an Irish maid, Mary Brennan. Even more curious are the ages given of the occupants, in 1890 Melville would have been 71, not 59 and the rest of the ages of the Melville household all seem to be from ca. 1880 too.

Melville may have found some kind of peace in his final years. He collected artwork, an interest since childhood, visited book shops and joined the New York Society Library. He remained somewhat detached from the world. He apparently never voted, there being no record of him in voter registration books in the Municipal Archives. He showed up in the 1890 census living at home with his wife and their daughter Elizabeth (Bessie), and a single maid. In July 1891, he saw a doctor for trouble with his heart. He died of a heart attack on September 28, 1891, and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. His wife was buried beside him in 1905.

Contrary to some popular belief, the New York Times obituary did not misspell his name, it misspelled the name of what became his most famous book. It reads in its entirety: “Herman Melville died yesterday at his residence, 104 East Twenty-sixth Street, this city, of heart failure, aged seventy-two. He was the author of Typee, Omoo, Mobie Dick, and other sea-faring tales, written in earlier years. He leaves a wife and two daughters, Mrs. M. B. Thomas and Miss Melville.” As embarrassingly brief as this September 29th notice was, it was followed up on October 2nd with a more appreciative article: “There has died and been buried in this city, during the current week, at an advanced age, a man who is so little known, even by name, to the generation now in the vigor of life that only one newspaper contained an obituary account of him, and this was but of three or four lines. Yet forty years ago the appearance of a new book by Herman Melville was esteemed a literary event, not only throughout his own country, but so far as the English-speaking race extended.”

Death certificate for Herman Melville, September 28, 1891. NYC Municipal Archives. He was 72 years old, and was listed as being a resident for 28 years at 104 E. 26th Street. Although for most of that time he made his living as a customs inspector, he retired in 1885 and returned to writing, his occupation was given as “Author.”

A century after his birth Melville’s works were rediscovered and in the 1920s a new work, Billy Budd, was published from a manuscript Lizzie had saved in a breadbox. By the 1930s he was part of the American literary canon. So much so that, in 1938, the WPA Federal Writers’ Project book New York Panorama called him a giant along with Walt Whitman: “These men—Whitman and Melville—were of another breed, another stature; and they proclaimed themselves men of Manhattan. They came from the same Dutch-English Stock, bred by that Empire State.... they were archetypes of the city’s character-to-be.”

WNYC celebrates

WNYC Greenpoint Radio Transmitter, ca. 1937. A.G. Lorimer artist. WNYC Archive Collections.

July 8, 2024, marked the 100th anniversary of municipal broadcasting for the City of New York. On September 9th, from 7-9pm, WNYC will celebrate with a live radio broadcast from SummerStage in Central Park. Hosted by Brian Lehrer, the event will include beloved voices from WNYC and a lineup of live music, storytelling, comedy, trivia and more.

Scheduled to appear are WNYC’s All Things Considered host Sean Carlson, Brooke Gladstone and Micah Loewinger from On the Media, Alison Stewart from All of It, Ira Glass from This American Life, John Schaefer of New Sounds, and The Moth storyteller Gabrielle Shea. Plus, performances by Nada Surf, Freestyle Love Supreme, Laurie Anderson with Sexmob, and mxmtoon; and a DJ set by Donwill.

This event is free to attend, no RSVP required, and will be broadcast live on WNYC at 93.9 FM, AM 820, wnyc.org or on the WNYC app.

https://www.wnyc.org/events/wnyc-events/2024/sep/09/central-park-summerstage/

NYC Life Specials: 100 Years of Municipal Broadcasting
Original Air Date: 07-08-2024

What began with WNYC, now the largest independent public radio station in the U.S., continues today with the city’s official broadcast network, NYC Media. They recently released a short documentary on the history of WNYC and NYC Media, which uses audio and video clips from collections now stored at the Municipal Archives.

The NYC Media documentary was inspired by the recent Municipal Archives exhibit 100 Years of WNYC, produced for Photoville 2024, which will soon be on display at the Municipal Archives headquarters at 31 Chambers Street.

Exhibit panel from 100 Years of WNYC.

Labor Day, 1968

For the Record readers are invited to take a virtual trip back to September 2, 1968, when New York Police Department photographers filmed the Labor Day parade. Nearly 100 floats with an eclectic array of unionized workers, including stage-hands, burlesque dancers, and a llama (union affiliation unclear) participated in what the New York Times described as “. . . just a nice sunny day for a parade.” [September 3, 1968].    

Last week For the Record highlighted the related NYPD Handschu Collection and featured NYPD footage in previous articles, NYPD Surveillance Films and NYPD Surveillance of Organized Labor.     

For the Record extends best wishes to everyone for an enjoyable Labor Day weekend.

The Handschu Collection

The Municipal Archives recently completed processing a significant portion of the New York Police Department Intelligence Unit records. Also known as the “Handschu” collection, the material totals 560 cubic feet and dates from 1930 to 2013. This exceptional material has already supported dozens of research projects. Processing and publication of the finding guide will expand its utility and encourage further exploration of important events and people during a significant period of American history. This week’s article will highlight the unusual origin of the collection and summarize series contents.

NYPD Intelligence Records, NYC Municipal Archives.

Most record collections are accessioned into the Municipal Archives in accordance with an official “retention schedule.” This document is created by DORIS record analysts. It specifies how long a series remains accessible to the record-creators in-house, and how long the records are maintained in an off-site storage facility (and retrieved by the record creators when needed). The schedule also indicates if the series has been designated as having long-term historical/archival value, and when it should be transferred to Municipal Archives for permanent preservation. If the record series does not have historical/archival value, it is disposed when it is no longer needed by the creating agency. Schedules are approved by the relevant agency Commissioner, DORIS Commissioner, and the Law Department.

Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) identification record, 1963. NYPD Intelligence Records, NYC Municipal Archives.

The Handschu collection, however, experienced a somewhat different trajectory to the Archives. The New York Police Department (NYPD) Intelligence Unit can be traced back to early decades of the twentieth century when police began investigating anarchists and other people and organizations thought to be a danger to public safety. During the 1950s, 60s and 70s, the NYPD Bureau of Special Services (BOSSI), called the Bureau of Special Services after 1971, investigated the Communist Party and organizations like the Black Panthers, Nation of Islam, and the Nazi Party. They monitored labor disputes, provided security detail for various dignitaries, secured information relating to political or social activities of individuals or groups seen as a threat, and cooperated with investigations conducted by the Immigration and Naturalization Services and other federal agencies. To support information gathering, the NYPD engaged in infiltration, wiretapping, and gathered information at events. Their tactics included overt and hidden photography, eavesdropping, and filming of various suspects and events.

In 1971, New York prosecutors tried members of the Black Panther Party for conspiring to blow up police stations and department stores. Evidence presented during the trial revealed the NYPD had infiltrated and kept dossiers on not only the Black Panthers but also on anti-war groups and other activists and civic organizations. The jury acquitted the Panthers after 90 minutes of deliberation.

Black Panther Party, free breakfast poster, n.d. NYPD Intelligence Records, NYC Municipal Archives.

Shortly after the acquittal, attorney Barbara Handschu, and others affiliated with various political organizations filed a lawsuit against the City of New York. The plaintiffs claimed that NYPD “informers and infiltrators provoked, solicited and induced members of lawful political and social groups to engage in unlawful activities.” They also alleged that the NYPD maintained files about “persons, places, and activities entirely unrelated to legitimate law enforcement purposes, such as those attending meetings of lawful organizations.” The case, known as Handschu v. Special Services Division was affirmed as a class action suit in 1979.

Environmental protest, 1967. NYPD Intelligence Records, NYC Municipal Archives.

In March 1985, federal judge Charles S. Haight, Jr. approved a settlement. It restricted surveillance of political activity by the NYPD. He agreed that  surveillance of political activity violated constitutional protections of free speech. His ruling resulted in a consent decree which prohibited the NYPD from engaging “in any investigation of political activity except through the … Intelligence Division [of the Police Department]” and then only in response to suspected criminal activity. The decree required that any investigations shall be conducted only in accordance with the Guidelines incorporated into the Decree.

“Files” is the important word in the above narrative. In September 1989, Judge Haight appointed Joseph Settani, a certified records manager, and former DORIS staff member, to audit records created by the NYPD’s Intelligence Division. Settani identified the records by series and created a retention schedule that designated the material as having permanent historical/archival value. In accordance with that schedule, the NYPD transferred the records to DORIS' Municipal Records Center in 2008-2009. In further accordance to the schedule, the Municipal Archives accessioned the collection in 2015. Archivists conducted surveys of the series in 2016, and formal processing began the following year and continued until February 2024.

The New York Police Department Intelligence Unit records is comprised of two groups of similar records: (ACC-2015-022) New York Police Department Intelligence Unit records, circa 1930-1990, and (ACC-2018-014) New York Police Department Intelligence Unit records (“Handschu, part 2”), circa 1960-2013.

Subgroup 1 is arranged into ten series.

Columbia University, student protests, 1968. NYPD Intelligence Records, NYC Municipal Archives.

1.1 Photograph files, 1961-1972, 16 c.f. Surveillance images of events and demonstrations, including the Columbia University protests in 1968, the first Earth Day celebration in 1970, civil rights rallies, and anti-war demonstrations. It also includes images of foreign dignitaries' visits and surveillance taken during covert operations. 

1.2 Numbered communication files, 1951-1972, 99 c.f. 

Numbered police reports addressed to the police commissioner. The reports detail surveillance and investigation activities. The files contain both drafts and final reports.

1.3 Columbia University disturbance files, 1968-1970, 2.75 c.f. 

Records related to the protests that took place at Columbia University during April and May 1968, including newspaper clippings, press releases, injury claims filed by students, letters received protesting police brutality, statistical data outlining arrests and injuries, and numerous photos and reports of areas affected by the protests. 

1.4 Small organizations files, 1955-1973, 24. 5 c.f. 

“Small Organizations” refers to the extent of material on a particular topic or organization rather than the size of that group.

1.5 Large organizations files, circa 1934-1990, bulk: 1955-1973 

“Large Organizations” refers to the extent of material on a particular topic or organization rather than the size of the group. Organizations documented include the Black Panther Party, Nation of Islam, International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and the East Coast Homophile Organization (ECHO). Events documented in this series include the Harlem “riots” of 1964 and the March on Washington (1963).

1.6 Individuals files, 1931-1973, 18.5 c.f. 

Documents pertaining to national and international personalities, Hollywood celebrities, politicians, and activists. Types of materials range from newspaper clippings to extensive surveillance and wiretaps.

1.7 Hard Hat demonstration files, 1968-1970, 1981-1985, 11 c.f. 

Hard Hat Riots, May 8, 1970. NYPD Intelligence Records, NYC Municipal Archives.

Records related to the May 8, 1970 riots in lower Manhattan during an anti-Vietnam War demonstration and memorial for the four students shot and killed at Kent State in Ohio. Consists of documents created in the months following the riots including reports, interviews, NYPD roll calls and rosters, forms, and newspaper clippings.

1.8 Index cards, 1960-1973, 200 c.f. 

Index cards of people and organizations surveilled by NYPD between 1960-1973.

1.9 Binder master lists, 1986-1987, 11 c.f. 

Binders contain name indexes of individuals, organizations, and events listed throughout the collection. The indexes were printed out on a dot matrix printer. There are three groups of binders; one group corresponds to Small Organizations Files otherwise known as Organization 1; Organization 2 corresponds to the Large Organizations Files; and the last grouping is a binder that serves as a master list for all organization names, photographs listed, and individuals in the collection. The indexes can include last name, first name, and page numbers the names are referenced in.

1.10 Audiovisual material, 1959-1971 3 c.f. 

There are two subseries:1.10.1 includes a/v material maintained by the New York Police Department (NYPD); and 1.10.2 consists of items separated from other series in the collection and removed for reformatting and preservation.

Sister Marlane, candidate for governor of New York, 1969. NYPD Intelligence Records, NYC Municipal Archives.

The second subgroup, ACC-2018-014) has content similar to the first group, but date from a later time period, generally 1960 through about 2013. There is documentation on organizations such as Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (FALN), Black Liberation Army (BLA), Jewish Defense League, Black Panther Party, Students for a Democratic Society, the Ku Klux Klan, and more. Many of the later records document the surveillance of Muslim individuals and communities in New York City. Other records concern surveillance of and NYPD preparation for significant events like the Republican National Convention (2004), Democratic National Convention (1992), the Presidential inauguration of George W. Bush, and the Million Youth March. There are also documents related to court cases concerning NYPD surveillance of private citizens and social/political organizations, including Raza v. City of New York (2013), the Matter of Fernandez v. The New York Police Department (2014), Handschu v. Special Services Division (1985), as well as the NYPD's role in the investigation, arrest, and federal criminal trial of Ahmad Wais Afzali. This material has not been processed.

For the Record has referenced the Handchu collection in several previous articles. Most recently, Finding Bayard Rustin, explored how records in the collection documented Rustin’s influence on some of the most successful demonstrations in civil rights history.  Finding Marsha P. Johnson celebrated gay rights activist Marsha P. Johnson’s influence on New York City history using materials from Handschu.  The Playboy Plot told the bizarre story of how Cuban Nationalists plotted to fire bazookas at the Playboy Club, based on records in the collection. NYPD Surveillance Films highlighted newly digitized film footage from the collection.

Researchers are encouraged to explore the newly processed materials.