Remembering Rosalynn Carter

Mayor Edward I. Koch with First Lady Rosalynn Carter, 1979. Mayor Edward I. Koch collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Following her death on November 19, 2023, many news stories, obituaries, and reminiscences about former first lady Rosalynn Carter remarked on her exceptional role as confidant and advisor to Jimmy Carter throughout their more than seven decades of married life. “Serving as an equal partner to her husband, the president,” wrote New York Times reporter Azadeh Moaveni, “. . . she frequently attended Mr. Carter’s cabinet meetings and traveled abroad to meet with heads of state in visits labeled substantive, not ceremonial. She often sat in on the daily National Security Council briefings held for the President and senior staff.” [“Before Hillary Clinton, There Was Rosalynn Carter.” November 21, 2023.] Given her important role it should not be a surprise that there are photographs of Rosalynn Carter in the Mayor Koch photograph collection in the Municipal Archives.   

View fullsize

(L-R) First Lady Rosalynn Carter, New York State Governor Hugh Carey, President Jimmy Carter, Mayor Edward I. Koch, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, House Speaker Tip O’Neil, Treasury Secretary W. Michael Blumenthal, and Representative Mario Biaggi, August 8, 1978. Mayor Edward I. Koch photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives. 

On a hot summer day, President Jimmy and First Lady Rosalynn Carter stood before a cheering crowd in front of City Hall after a bill-signing ceremony that gave New York City $1.65 billion in Federal loan guarantees as part of the effort to avoid bankruptcy. The Times story reporting on the event noted that “Mr. Carter signed the measure on a mahogany desk that had been used by George Washington when he was President, and as Mr. Carter pointed out, New York was the nation’s capital and Washington was a swamp.” [“Carter Signs Aid Bill for New York at Gala Celebration at City Hall,” August 9, 1978.] 

(Left to Right) Maureen Connelly (Press Secretary to Mayor Koch), President Jimmy Carter, First Lady Rosalynn Carter, and Mayor Edward I. Koch, Washington, D.C., June 1979. Mayor Edward I. Koch collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Letter to Mayor Koch from Jack H. Watson, Jr., at the time, Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs, but who would become White House Chief of Staff to President Carter, August 14, 1979. Mayor Edward I. Koch Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Joan Mondale, Vice President Walter Mondale, President Jimmy Carter, First Lady Rosalynn Carter, Amy Carter, and Senator Ted Kennedy, on the stage at the Democratic National Convention, Madison Square Garden, New York City, August 1980. Mayor Edward I. Koch photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives. 

Smiling faces on the dais belie drama behind the scenes. Earlier that summer, Mayor Koch’s request for additional federal support from the Carter Administration had not achieved the desired result. The President’s attempt to rescue the fifty-two Americans held hostage in Iran had stalled, and Senator Ted Kennedy’s presidential-run threatened to upend the convention. In the end, Carter prevailed, won the nomination, but lost to Ronald Reagan in the general election.  

View fullsize

Correspondence, Jimmy Carter to Mayor Edward I. Koch, May 16, 1984 on behalf of Habitat for Humanity, regarding a building at 742-44 East 6th Street. Mayor Edward I. Koch Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

View fullsize

Correspondence, Mayor Edward I. Koch to Jimmy Carter, June 18, 1984, regarding the building at 742-44 East 6th Street. Mayor Edward I. Koch Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter continued their close collaboration during their post-White House years. The Habitat for Humanity organization was one of their most enduring endeavors. In 1984, they wrote to Mayor Koch and asked for his assistance with their work to rehabilitate a building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

View fullsize

President Jimmy Carter with Commissioner Anthony Gliedman of HPD, at a Habitat for Humanity project at 742 East 6th Street, Manhattan, July 1985. Photographer Leonard Boykin, HPD Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

View fullsize

Commissioner Anthony Gliedman of HPD, talking to Rosalynn Carter at a Habitat for Humanity project at 742 East 6th Street, Manhattan, July 1985. Photographer Leonard Boykin, HPD Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Women’s Equality Day 2023: Embrace Equity

“After I decided to write this tribute, I was beset with feeling inadequate to the task of expressing what Ketriana has meant to so many people, including me. What adjectives are adequate to describe the full range of Ketriana’s multi-talented, multi-faceted lived experience that has uplifted the lives of her friends, neighbors, colleagues and co-workers, even acquaintances. She approaches and interacts with all folks with a generous, compassionate, and caring spirit that says I salute and encourage the best in you.”

Thus begins the tribute Charles Yates has written to his friend Ketriana Yvonne on WomensActivism.NYC, a moving dedication that captures Ketriana’s energy and creativity—from her challenge for him to write a poem each day of National Poetry Month to her own artistic work. Ketriana’s story is part of an initiative to write women into history by sharing stories of everyday, extraordinary women launched by the NYC Department of Records & Information Services (DORIS) on Women’s Equality Day on August 26, 2015.

WomensActivism.NYC is a public, searchable site showcasing brief descriptions of inspiring women from around the world. Entries include women—both well-known and not—with roles as diverse as sisters, great-grandmothers, celebrities, next-door neighbors, elected officials, teachers, professional athletes, artists, and more. Diverse representation is important, and the only requirements are: 1) they must be woman-identified, and 2) they must have contributed to making change in some way.

With more than 9,000 stories already archived, DORIS is currently soliciting 700 more stories to complete the project with 10,000 stories of inspiring and empowering women. This collection will be preserved and made available in perpetuity through the Municipal Archives, where the stories will be freely and readily accessible for all.

———————

“On May 2, 1963, nine-year old Audrey Faye Hendricks became the youngest known person arrested during the Civil Rights Movement. She was one of hundreds of children who took part in marches against segregation in the city of Birmingham, Alabama.”

–Preston F. on Audrey Hendricks 

———————

Women’s Equality Day

Born Bella Savitsky on July 24, 1920, in New York City, Bella Abzug was a leading liberal activist and politician in the 1960s and 1970s who became especially well-known for her work for women’s rights. To promote women’s issues and to lobby for reform, she helped establish the National Women’s Political Caucus (NWPC) with Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisholm, and Gloria Steinem. To have an even greater impact on the political process, she served in the House of Representatives from 1971 to 1977.

At the behest of Representative Bella Abzug (D-NY), in 1971, the U.S. Congress designated August 26 as Women’s Equality Day in 1973. This date was selected to commemorate the 1920 certification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution—a key piece of legislation granting women the right to vote. This was the culmination of the Women’s Suffrage Movement, a massive, peaceful civil rights movement by women that had its formal beginnings in 1848 at the world’s first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York.

The annual observance of Women’s Equality Day on August 26 not only commemorates the passage of the 19th Amendment, but also calls attention to women’s continuing efforts toward full equality in our society. Many workplaces, libraries, organizations and public institutions now participate in Women’s Equality Day with programs, displays, or other activities, all with the intention of bringing awareness and attention to the important matter of gender equity. For 2023, the theme of Women’s Equality Day is “Embrace Equity,” a global recognition of the ongoing struggle for equal rights and opportunities for women of all backgrounds.

———————

“On May 28, 1969, NY City Mayor John V. Lindsay appointed Dr. Mary McLaughlin as Commissioner of the Department of Health. She was the second woman to hold the post. Under McLaughlin’s leadership, the Health Department launched initiatives that addressed narcotics addiction, mental health, and lead poisoning.”

———————

Women’s Equality Week

Rep. Bella Abzug (D-NY), who had applied to Harvard Law School but was rejected because of her gender, graciously accepts a copy of the mayoral proclamation. Bella Abzug with Mayor Edward I. Koch, City Hall, August 20, 1980. Mayor Edward I. Koch photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

On August 20, 1980, Mayor Edward Koch issued a proclamation declaring the week of August 20–26, 1980, as “Women’s Equality Week” in New York City, “in order to emphasize the importance of full rights and opportunities for women in our society.”

The proclamation went on to recall the struggles the recognized leaders of the Women’s Suffrage Movement had endured mere decades earlier in their struggles to bring about women’s rights for future generations:

THE MILESTONES IN WOMEN’S STRUGGLE TO ACHIEVE EQUALITY ARE MANIFOLD.

THE FIRST SIGNIFICANT EVENT OCCURRED IN SENECA FALLS, NEW YORK, IN 1848, WHEN LUCRETIA MOTT AND ELIZABETH CADY STANTON LED THE FIRST WOMEN’S RIGHTS CONVENTION.

THIS WAS FOLLOWED BY SUSAN B. ANTHONY BEING CONVICTED FOR VOTING ILLEGALLY; HARRIET TUBMAN, BORN A SLAVE, LEADING 300 SLAVES TO FREEDOM; AND MARGARET SANGER ESTABLISHING THE FIRST CLINIC FOR CONSULTATION ON BIRTH CONTROL, TO NAME BUT A FEW.

IT IS FITTING THAT WE RECALL THESE TURNING POINTS IN THE HISTORY OF THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT, AND THAT TODAY, IN 1980, WE CELEBRATE THE 60TH ANNIVERARY OF SUFFRAGE, RECOGNIZING ANEW THAT ALL MEN AND WOMEN ARE EQUAL BEFORE THE LAW.

———————

“As you lose your memory, your words, and yourself, I want you to know that I still see you. I still see the strong woman who didn’t have a choice but to be strong in a country that was brutal and unforgiving. I see the woman who managed to provide opportunities to her own daughters that she didn’t have as a young, immigrant, black woman in either her country of birth or choice.”

–Dr. Christiana Best on her mother, Pearl Mavis Munro 

———————

Women’s Rights in 2023

“Catherine Harry is a Cambodian influencer. She founded a vlog channel called A Dose of Cath and uses it as a platform to discuss topics that are usually not talked about enough in Cambodia because they are often deemed taboo. The topics she tackles include safe sex, masturbation, rape, abortion, divorce, etcetera. Harry aims to empower women.” 

Since the creation of Women’s Equality Day in 1973 and Mayor Koch’s proclamation of Women’s Equality Week in 1980, efforts have continued toward realizing women’s full equality and recognition in our society. Women such as Catherine Harry are giving voice to subjects not previously acknowledged, while raising conversations around women’s needs and gender equity for all.

One part of bringing about gender equity is publicly recognizing the hard work, contributions, and accomplishments that women have made and continue to make toward improving society. Celebrate the women you know who are making positive change by joining the thousands of people who have contributed stories to WomensActivism.NYC. From historic figures who were left out of yesterday’s history books to today’s family and neighborhood role models, we all know women who deserve to be written about and remembered for generations to come. They are exceptional, everyday, extraordinary, important, and they matter to us.

As Charles concludes in his dedication to Ketriana, “Yes, truly inspirational.” 

The Congressional Records of Mayor Edward I. Koch

The records of New York City Mayors are one of the most-researched collections in the Municipal Archives. Dating from 1826 through 2021, the materials document the highs and lows of the City and its government. In addition, mayoral papers pre-dating 1826 may be found in the Common Council collection because the Office of the Mayor was part of the Council.

View fullsize

Edward I. Koch, campaigning, n.d. Edward I. Koch Congressional Papers, NYC Municipal Archives.

The Mayor Edward I. Koch collection totals more than 800 cubic feet and consist of correspondence, memos, briefing papers, photos, videos, scrapbooks and more. Much like Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, Koch seemed to read every document, and several contain scrawled responses or comments. Serving as Mayor from 1978 through 1989, Koch presided over the city’s recovery from the fiscal crises. The voluminous collection offers insight into the strategies to bring the City back, including massive cuts to services, and the eventual financial stability that led to further investment in government operations.

In an interesting twist, the Municipal Archives also holds the records from Koch’s Congressional service which immediately predated his election to the mayoralty. The 373 boxes containing the records of Congressman Ed Koch were transferred to the Municipal Archives where they have remained, untouched and unprocessed since 1982. The records went directly from the National Records Center to the Municipal Archives at the Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS), at that time headed by Mayor Koch’s close friend and supporter, Eugene Bockman.

Beginning with a January 24, 1968 media release titled, “KOCH TO RUN FOR CONGRESS FROM ‘SILK STOCKING’ DISTRICT” and concluding with images and notes documenting his successful run for Mayor in 1977, the records offer insight into the work of one of New York’s most unique and productive government officials.

A brief review of the Koch Congressional Collection by the Municipal Archives, conducted in August 2018, shows that the collection contains photographs, negatives and slides; audio and video tape, brochures and printed materials; correspondence files; subject files; campaign materials; issue mail; scrapbooks; press clippings and personal material.

View fullsize

Press Release, 1968. Edward I. Koch Congressional Papers, NYC Municipal Archives.

The Koch Congressional records document the actions of a very involved member of Congress during a critical period in our nation’s history and have direct relevance to issues being debated and legislated today. Highlights include correspondence related to war in Vietnam, the crises faced by urban areas, and the pending impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon.

View fullsize

Constituent Correspondence, 1977. Edward I. Koch Congressional Papers, NYC Municipal Archives.

The Congressional records complement the Mayoral collection, showing both the evolution and consistency of Congressman and Mayor Ed Koch’s views on such issues as housing, gun control, foreign aid, food insecurity and immigrant rights.

The New York Archival Society, a non-profit that supports the work of the Municipal Archives, has launched a project to raise funds to process and digitize this vital collection in order to make these records publicly available. New York Archival Society - Ed. Koch Congressional Project  

A Flashback to the 1980s Tax Photographs

View fullsize

The Sunshine Movie Theater on Houston Street, which was being used as a warehouse in the mid-1980s. Note the graffiti: “Stop Gentrification.” If they only knew. DOF Tax Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

The recent digitization of the Municipal Archives collection of 1940s tax photographs, and the subsequent interest by the New York Times in the 1980s Tax Photographs, got us thinking about the truly weird history of the 1980s Tax Photographs.

Let’s start with the 1940s pictures. The Department of Taxation (as the City’s Department of Finance was then called) had started the photograph project in 1939 with help from the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Only part of Manhattan was shot in late 1939; most of the rest of the city was shot in 1940 and in early 1941. Work continued on the project until 1943, at which point WPA support ended, and the Department of Taxation took full control of the project. During the post-war boom, from 1946 to 1951, Taxation shot over 50,000 new photographs. The Municipal Archives has most of those negatives, but after 1951 the only records of the reshoots are the prints attached to the property assessment cards. These are dutifully stamped with the year, 1966, 1971, and so on. In some instances in the late 1970s color Polaroids of the property were attached.

View fullsize

3247 Richmond Avenue, Staten Island, ca. 1983. DOF Tax Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

View fullsize

A 12-inch Laser Video Disk containing photographs of Manhattan from the 1980s Tax Photo project.

This all worked out well for a time, but by 1979 the city had changed dramatically since 1939. The renamed Department of Finance realized that the time had come to completely redo the tax photographs. This updating of the 1940 photos took place from late 1982 to 1987 with some reshoots done in 1988. Using color 35mm film, the photographers captured every lot in the five Boroughs, including vacant property. And frustratingly, if the building was a condominium, they took as many identical photographs as there were apartments (each apartment in a condominium is assigned an individual lot number). Staten Island was the first borough photographed, because it had been transformed after the construction of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in 1964. However, it was undergoing such rapid development in the 1980s that there were even more changes by 1987. Consequently much of Staten Island had to be reshot at the end of the project.

One of the questions we most often get about the 1980s Tax Photos is why do they look so murky online? Here is the answer. In order to provide the public with a state-of-the-art user experience, the Department of Finance made 4x6 mini-lab prints of the photographs, recorded them frame-by frame using a video camera, and transferred the frames to Laser Video Disks (LVD). The Laser Video Disk was introduced in 1978 as the first commercially available optical media. The 12-inch-wide platters look like CDs on steroids, but only held 30 to 60 minutes of video. Not only that, but the signal encoded on them is analog not digital—at what we would consider today to be low-resolution.

View fullsize

672 8th Avenue, Times Square, as it appears captured from the LVD screen. DOF Tax Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

View fullsize

672 8th Avenue, Times Square, as it appears scanned from the negative. DOF Tax Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

The system was not unique, and in fact multiple companies were selling similar technology in the mid-1980s to governments around the country and to real estate agencies interested in a system that could quickly pull up photographs of any property. Harvard even sponsored a conference on computer-assisted valuations. One of the few advantages of the LVD system is that it can skip to a direct frame input. When connected to a computer database it provided a searchable image bank. The NYC Department of Finance was interested in this system as part of their larger initiative of Computer-Assisted Mass Appraisal (CAMA). The director of both the CAMA initiative and the photographing project was James Rheingrover. The company that produced the LVD system was Landisc Systems of Dayton, Ohio (Cole, Layer, Trumble). Landisc had installed similar systems for other jurisdictions, but New York, with 900,000 photographs was the largest.

In 2009, Jim Rheingrover provided me with a lot of the project’s background. At its peak, they had 60 people in the field, working in teams of two, as photographers and data-collectors. The first photographers were originally data-collectors and then a photo component was added to the project. They tried not to hire photographers because photographers wanted to take “good” photographs and Finance wanted fast photographs. Many of the original data-collectors were highly-educated though, with a few PhDs in the bunch. They were not well paid, he recalled, but it was a recession. The photographers had to go through some tough neighborhoods in the 80s. He pointed out that there generally aren’t any people in these photographs because the photographers tried to wait until no one was in frame to avoid incidents. Often people were suspicious that the teams were undercover cops so the photographers always “wore their dorky DOF badges prominently displayed.”

View fullsize

Department of Finance staff demonstrating the laser video disc system to Mayor Edward Koch during a press conference, December 15, 1988. The image on the screen is City Hall. Mayor Edward I Koch Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

View fullsize

311 Roebling Street, South Williamsburg, ca. 1985. DOF Tax Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

He recalled only a couple of thefts (although the Times reported in 1987 that there were none), one camera stolen during a mugging and another one “supposedly” stolen from the trunk of the photographer’s car. The photographers were responsible for their own cameras and if any went missing the replacement cost came out of everyone’s salary. One of the staff developed the metal arm that attached to each camera so that the block and lot number would be in focus with the aperture stopped down. They never used tripods for the cameras. The film was 400 ASA Kodak film bought in bulk from Focus Electronics in Borough Park, Brooklyn.

The “Sanborn Team” would sit with a Sanborn map and the photograph and fill out a form for every property. He said condos have always caused a problem with data-collection and they probably should have kept the original lot number and assigned them a sub-number. The decision to take a photograph for every condo apartment was ultimately Jim’s since everyone reported to him. He said in retrospect it was a stupid idea, but it was done because they needed an image to attach to their data-collection forms.

In 2006 the Municipal Archives retrieved the 1980s tax photographs from the basement of the Municipal Building. They had been languishing in file cabinets in a cramped storeroom near the boiler and the abandoned northern entrance to the JMZ line. The archivists discovered that no one had the keys to the file cabinets and were forced to drill out the locks and pry them open. Grants from the New York State Library supported processing of the massive collection of negatives and 4x6 prints, and supplies—e.g. 250,000 negative sleeves.

View fullsize

528 E. 148th Street, South Bronx, ca. 1985. DOF Tax Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

But how would people access the collection? In 2009 we turned to the LVD system. Could we download the files from it? No. It was an analog system. Hmm, could we do screen captures? Yes, but how would we capture and name some 850,000 frames? A former intern who had become a software programmer discovered that code to operate a computer-controlled LVD player was readily available online. The same technology was the basis of the classic arcade game Dragon’s Lair, which was a sort of Choose Your Own Adventure animation more than a video game, but relied on an internal LVD player for content.

The system we rigged up played one frame of the LVD, paused it, and then saved a screen capture. Repeat. The whole process took over 8 hours for a single side of a disk and there were 21 sides to complete. For months I would start a disk in the morning, and if I worked a long day I could start another one in the evening. Sometimes we found that the player stuck and one frame might be saved multiple times and that session had to be scrapped. The original player acquired from the Department of Finance had a defective computer interface card, but the one we found on e-Bay had a faulty pause mechanism. So I took the interface card from it and put it in the original machine. Voila, a functioning player!

View fullsize

The LVD player during screen capture of the 1980s Tax Photos at the Municipal Archives.

This highlights one of the problems with any sophisticated technology… external dependencies. The Times had gushingly reported in 1987 that the LVDs would last 300 years and provide what the chairman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission called “an archive of this civilization.” But just over two decades later we were struggling to find a working LVD player. The next challenge was finding the corresponding data that would identify these screen captures. After several failed attempts, the Department of Finance was able to find a back-up tape of their RPAD (Real Property Assessment Data) from 1990. It required several months to edit the coded database into something a human could read and link it to the LVD frames. From start to finish the whole project took about a year.

We recognize that the final chapter of the tax photo project is to go back and digitize the original negatives, but without those weird clunky LVDs there was no way users could preview the properties, which they’ve done now for ten years.

View fullsize

2803 Third Avenue, South Bronx, ca. 1985. Fashion Moda was an important artist space in the birth of Hip Hop and Graffiti culture. DOF Tax Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.