This collection consists of bound volumes containing tally sheets of jury census returns for the city and county of New York. The tallies were taken to determine the eligibility of jurors and list persons and property by ward number for the years 1816, 1819, and 1821. Of particular demographic interest in these three censuses is the inclusion of women with identification by name, residence, age, and occupation or social status, during a time period when women were ineligible to serve as jurors.
New York County jury census records
The Aviation Unit of the NYPD is an advanced air-and-sea rescue and law enforcement unit that provides tactical support to police officers on the ground, fast rope deployments, fire suppression, maritime security operations, high-rise and roof-top insertions, and hoist operations, as well as serving as an air ambulance. The images include equipment, events, and staff of the Aviation Unit.
New York Police Department Aviation Unit
Criminal identification cards, complete with photos, fingerprints, age, height, weight, and Bertillon Measurements
New York Police Department bertillon cards
Throughout the 20th century, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) conducted overt and covert surveillance on groups and individuals identified as potential security threats to the City. This collection comprises black and white 16mm silent surveillance films. They were shot by the NYPD Photo Unit for Manhattan (PUM) for the Bureau of Special Services and Investigations (BOSSI). The subjects include a broad range of political activist groups and events from 1960 to 1980. The films are generally 100 feet in length and up to three minutes in duration. Guide to the New York Police Department surveillance films, 1960-1980.
New York Police Department surveillance films
The Official Mayoral Photograph collection serves as an almost daily photographic record of the Impelliteri administration. The official staff photographer tradition continued through Robert F. Wagner’s three terms as mayor, until December 30, 1965, his last day in office.
Official Mayors photograph collection
Before the creation of Greater New York on January 1, 1898, the counties bordering New York County —Kings, Queens, Richmond, and Westchester Counties—were comprised of municipalities (villages, towns, cities), some of which date back to the early days of Dutch and English colonization of Lenapehoking (Lënapehòkink in Unami), the ancestral homeland of the Lenape. This collection includes records created and/or maintained by these municipalities before they were dissolved, annexed, or consolidated into what is now modern-day New York City. This vast collection, commonly known as the "Old Town records," contains administrative records, court records, financial records, land records, voting records, tax records, military records, records documenting enslaved people, and municipal infrastructure records, among other record types, circa 1630-1943.
This digital collection of the Queens Annual Record of Assessed Valuations of Real Estate records consists of approximately 260 bound ledgers that contain the assessed value of Queens properties from 1936-1937 completed by the New York City Department of Finance.
Queens Annual Record of Assessed Valuations of Real Estate records
The Office of the Borough President was created in 1898 to compensate the formerly independent communities in the four counties of New York, Kings, Queens and Richmond for the loss of governmental power to the consolidated Greater City of New York. They operated as “local mayors,” with substantial control over construction and maintenance of streets, sidewalks, highways, sewers and public buildings. The Queens series includes photographs of Rockaway and other beaches as well as an unusual collection of lantern slides depicting a Civil War Veterans’ reunion, parades, Spanish-American War troops, and sample markings to identify World War II-era aircraft.
Queens Borough President Topographical Bureau
This digital collection of the Staten Island Annual Record of Assessed Valuations of Real Estate records consists of approximately 56 bound ledgers that contain the assessed value of Staten Island properties in 1937 completed by the New York City Department of Finance.
Staten Island Annual Record of Assessed Valuations of Real Estate Records
Exploring historic connections between Knicks and City Hall. GO KNICKS!
Grover Whalen, Commissioner of the Department of Plant & Structures, launched WNYC Radio in 1924. Through original programming and recordings made at City Hall events and press conferences, WNYC Radio reporters, engineers and producers captured a wide range of important cultural and political personalities. The Archives collection of sound recordings comprises lacquer phono-discs and audio tapes from 1937 to 1970.
Dating from 1949 to 1996, the WNYC TV moving image collection includes mayoral press conferences, dignitaries visiting City Hall, and educational films about city government.
In 1943, when the Works Progress Administration (WPA) ceased operation, the Municipal Archives acquired the manuscript records of the NYC Unit of the Federal Writers’ Project, including the photographs assembled to illustrate the publications; most notably the Guide to New York City and New York Panorama. The WPA staff acquired the photographs from their colleagues on the WPA Federal Art Project, commercial sources, and their own staff photographers. Caption information is generally the description originally recorded by WPA staff and date 1935-1943.
WPA Federal Writers' Project and Historical Records Survey records
