Research Guide for Selected New York City
History-Related Resources in the Tamiment Library and Other Repositories

Finding Books on NYC History
Architecture
Archival Collections
Census Records
City Directories
Encyclopedias, Guides and Other Reference Sources
Ephemera
Libraries & Research Centers
Maps & Atlases
Other Research Guides and Sources
Serials
Visual Resources

Finding Books on NYC History

To find books at NYU on New York City history, search BobCat, NYU's library catalog, by author, title, or subject. To effectively search by subject use Library of Congress subject headings (abbreviated as LCSH). One way to find official subject headings for a topic is to search for a book on the topic in the catalog and then look at the subjects in the item's record. To find additional items cataloged under a subject heading, click on the subject.

You may also browse an alphabetical list of Library of Congress Subject Headings in BobCat Standard. Two of the main LCSH subject headings for researching New York City are:

New York (N.Y.)
Manhattan (New York, N.Y.)

As you browse the subject headings, you will see that main headings are subdivided. The following list is a sample of some of the subdivisions that may be added to subject searches for more specific results. You will see the subdivisions below in BobCat Standard or other library catalog when you do an alphabetical subject search on "New York (N.Y)" or other main heading.

Bibliography
Biography
Buildings, structures, etc. -- Pictorial works
Buildings, structures, etc.
Census
Commerce
Description and travel
Directories
Economic conditions
Emigration and immigration
Fiction
Genealogy
Guidebooks
History
In art
In literature
In motion pictures
Maps
Pictorial works
Social conditions
Social life and customs
Statistics

In 2008, Dr. Leo Hershkowitz, a long-time professor at Queens College, donated his vast collection of manuscripts, maps, atlases, pamphlets, books, serials, and ephemera relating to the history of New York City to the Tamiment Library. The book collection, with an estimated 20,000 volumes, describes life in New York from colonial times to the present in business, the arts, medicine, criminal justice, politics, architecture, immigrant life, and social institutions.

The Tamiment Library is in the process of cataloging the books from the Hershkowitz collection. Search BobCat, NYU's library catalog, on "Leo Hershkowitz" to find the books from Dr. Hershkowitz's collection that have been cataloged to date.

Architecture

Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals
Database offering a comprehensive listing of journal articles on architecture and design, including bibliographic descriptions on subjects such as the history and practice of architecture, landscape architecture, city planning, historic preservation, and interior design and decoration. Accessible to NYU-affiliated researchers from this link.

Building Permits Database, 1900-1986
The Office of Metropolitan History's searchable database of digitized building permits for all the new building applications filed in Manhattan for each year, from 1900 to 1986. Searchable by address, architect, owner and type of building.

"Classic 6": New York City Apartment Building Living, 1880s-1910s
A New York Public Library digital collection containing more than 1,300 digital images depict elevation views and floor plans for middle and upper class apartment buildings from New York City's pre-World War I residential building boom.

Digital Sanborn Maps - New York, 1867-1970
Subscription database available to NYU-affiliated researchers. Digital Sanborn Maps is a collection of large-scale landbook maps which includes information such as the outline of each building, the size and shape and construction materials, heights, and function of structures, location of windows and doors. The maps also give street names, street and sidewalk widths, property boundaries, building use, and house and block numbers. Textual information includes construction details, ownership and building use. Includes most of the fire insurance maps of New York State produced by the Sanborn Map Company from the mid-1880s to around 1950.

Printed Sanborn Maps are also available in the New-York Historical Society Library and in the Map Division of the New York Public Library.

Early Real Estate Atlases of New York
A New York Public Library digital collection of over 2,000 maps of New York City, including Manhattan and Brooklyn "fire insurance maps" from the 1850s-1860, showing streets, blocks, tax lots, natural and manmade features, buildings, neighborhoods, and more.

Researching Buildings Step-by-Step. Articles by Christopher Gray in The New York Times. "An Online Journey Through a House's History." New York Times (1857-Current file), 5 December, 2004, http://www.proquest.com/. "A Guide to Researching the History of a Building: Where to Go, Whom to Ask and What To Do if it's in Manhattan." By Christopher Gray. New York Times (1857-Current file), 2 July 1995; http://www.proquest.com/. Access to the articles in the ProQuest Historical Newspapers database from this page is available to NYU researchers.

New York City Buildings: Research Guide
Guide compiled by Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University Libraries.

New-York Historical Society Library's Architecture Research Guide

Archival Collections

Archival Collections in the Tamiment Library
Tamiment preserves the history of working-class New York, its neighborhood associations, fraternal and ethnic societies, political organizations, and the unions that shaped the social and economic structure of New York and thus is a rich source for researchers interested in the history of the city. Search BobCat or Finding Aids to identify collections.

Leo Hershkowitz Archival Collection, ca. 1700 – ca. 1940s (bulk 1860-1920)
The Leo Hershkowitz Collection of archival materials for the study of New York City and New York State history is unprocessed. Special permission is required; contact Gail Malmgreen for information.

New-York Historical Society Library Manuscript Collections
The New-York Historical Society Library collections contain approximately 2 million manuscripts (approximately 7,000 linear feet) relating to the political, military, legal, cultural, mercantile, infrastructural, domestic, and social history of the United States in general, and New York City and New York State in particular. The bulk of the manuscript collections is from the 18th and 19th centuries, but includes important materials from the 17th century as well as a small number of 20th and 21st century collections. The N-YHS Library collections are cataloged in BobCat and may also be found with a Finding Aids Search.

Municipal Archives of the City of New York
With records dating back to the earliest days of European colonial settlement in the seventeenth century, up to the present mayoral administration, the Municipal Archives houses 150,000 cubic feet of historical government records, including manuscripts, official correspondence, vital records, ledgers, several thousand feet of moving images, over one million photographs, sound recordings, maps, and architectural plans.

New York Public Library
The Manuscripts and Archives Division of the New York Public Library holds approximately 29,000 linear feet of archival material in over 3,000 collections dating from the 18th through the 20th centuries. Included are the papers and records of individuals, families, and organizations, primarily from the New York region, which support research in the political, economic, social, and cultural history of New York and the United States.

Finding Archival Collections Beyond NYU
To identify archival collections relating to the history of New York (and other subjects) beyond NYU's Bobst Library, search WorldCat, ArchiveGrid, National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC), Archive Finder, and Repositories of Primary Sources.

Census Records

Bobst Library - U.S. Government Documents

Visit the Reference Desk on the 6th Floor of Bobst Library for assistance with census data related to New York City. A selection of helpful resources available there includes:

Census Data With Maps for Small Areas of New York City, 1910-1960 [microform]
10 microfilm reels with printed guide
MF Reel Guide Call #: REF6 HA 730 .N5 B68

Census Tract Data on Population and Housing, New York City: 1940
Call #: REF6 HA 730 .N5 W3

Census Tract Data on Population and Housing, New York City: 1950
Call #: REF6 HA 730 .N5 U5

Greenwich Village: Statistical Trends and Observations
Call #: REF6 HA 730 .N5 C6

Population History of New York City
Call #: Tamiment Library F128.3 .R82
Call #: REF 6 F128.3 .R82

Population of the City of New York, 1890-1930... compiled and edited by Walter Laidlaw... New York City, Cities Census Committee, Inc., [1932]
Call #: REF 6 HA 730 .N5 C5

Statistical Sources for Demographic Studies of Greater New York, 1920
Call #: REF 6 Oversize HB 3527 .N7 L3

U.S. Census of Population
Available on Microfilm - Ask at the 6th Floor Reference Desk
N.B.: Reel 19 of the 1940 Census contains NYC Block Statistics and maps

National Archives - Census Records
Introduction and guide to using census records. Includes tips for deciphering the census records of 1790-1840 and 1850-1930. Does not link to the census records themselves. Use Ancestry Library or US Census Bureau to find records.

U.S. Census Bureau: Selected Historical Decennial Census Population and Housing Counts
PDFs of printed census data and other information. Includes links to historical abstract of the United States, from Colonial Times to Present.

Fact Finder for the Nation, May 2000
Information sheet on the first U.S. Census in 1790.

Ancestry Library
A subscription database available through NYU Libraries that includes immigration and emigration records.

Historical Census Browser - University of Virginia
Customizable data results.

New York City Department of Planning
Use the Interactive Census FactFinder to create population profiles from the 2000 census by census tract(s) or by community district. or find information on the Newest New Yorkers, Population and Housing Characteristics, Historical Population Information and more using the tools on the Department of Planning's website.

New York City Directories

Tamiment Library holdings: The Tamiment Library's collections include nearly 100 city directory volumes, including Doggett's New York City Directory, Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York, for the years..., Valentine's Manual, Manual of the Common Council of New-York, Trow's, Wilson's Business Directory of New York City and The New York Directory for various years.

The city directories, which were acquired in Leo Hershkowitz's 2007 donation to the library, span the years 1806 to 1928, with gaps. The volumes have been cataloged and may be requested with a call slip at the reference desk. Please note that the volumes are fragile and must be read in book cradles. To see records for the city directories in BobCat, NYU's library catalog, search on the phrase "New York (N.Y.) -- Directories" with limits set to "All items" and "that contain my phrase" in the "Subject" index. Then, to see just the Tamiment Library's holdings of NYC directories, select Tamiment from the list of libraries in the Refine My Results section on the right hand side of the page.

Digitized Directories: Among the resources in the Archive of Americana, a subscription database, are a number of digitized New York City directories. The Archive of Americana is a vast electronic resource that includes: (1) American Broadsides and Ephemera; (2) Early American Imprints I (1631-1800), consisting of books, pamphlets, broadsides and other imprints listed in the bibliography by Charles Evans; (3) Early American Imprints II (1801-1819), consisting of books, pamphlets, broadsides and other imprints listed in the bibliography by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker; (4) America's Historical Newspapers; (5) House and Senate Journals (1789-1817); and (6) Senate Executive Journals (1789-1866).

To locate digitized city directories in the Archive of Americana, choose the database titled "Early American Imprints, Series II: 1801-1819 (Shaw-Shoemaker Digital Collection)" from the "Articles via Databases" list accessible on the NYU Libraries home page. Choose the Advanced Search Option and search for the phrase "New York (N.Y.) -- directories" in the subject index to find them.

Digitized city directories are also included in the City Directories & Member Lists collection of the Ancestry Library subscription database. To search the directories online, choose the database titled "Ancestry Library" from the "Articles via Databases" list accessible on the NYU Libraries home page. Then, follow the link to "All Databases" under "More Collections" and select "City Directories & Member Lists" from the list and then browse through the list of individual titles in this category to select specific directories.

One additional source of digitized city directories is the Internet Archive, a digital library providing free web access at http://archive.org. Search for "New York City Directory" under Texts to find several editions of Trow's and Longworth's along with a number of other topical directories.

New York City Directories on Microfilm: Books, pamphlets, and serials in the Early American Imprints II (1801-1819) collection, including city directories, are also available on microfilm in the Bobst Library microforms center. To find them, conduct a subject search in BobCat on the phrase "New York (N.Y.) -- directories"; limit your results to Bobst Library holdings; then page through the results or select from the directory publishers such as Showmaker or Longworth under author/creator to see which volumes are available in print, electronically, and on microfilm.

NYPL and N-YHS Collections: The collections of The New York Public Library and New-York Historical Society Library include extensive holdings of various New York City directories. Consult their library catalogs for holdings.

Note that city directories are on open shelves in the reading room of the New-York Historical Society Library. The collection there is very easy to use. Consult the N-YHS Library's website for information on visiting the library before making a trip.

Research tips for using city directories and details on the kinds of information usually available in them are available from links in the Ancestry Library database search screens. Example: Information about the 1890 New York City Directory.

Encyclopedias, Guides, and other Useful Reference Sources

AIA Guide to New York City, 4th Ed. / Norval White & Elliot Willensky. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2000. Bobst Library Call #: Ref1 NA735.N5 A78 2000b.

Civic Bibliography for Greater New York / edited by James Bronson Reynolds. New York: Charities Publication Committee, 1911. Tamiment Library Call #: Z 7165 .U6 N5

Encyclopedia of New York City / edited by Kenneth T. Jackson. New Haven, Conn : Yale University Press; New York: New-York Historical Society, c1995. Tamiment Library Call #: Ref F128.3 .E75 1995.

The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909: Compiled from Original Sources and Illustrated by Photo-Intaglio Reproductions of Important Maps, Plans, Views and Documents in Public and Private Collections / by I. N. Phelps Stokes. New York: Arno Press, 1967, c1915.
Contents:
v. 1. The period of discovery (1524-1609); the Dutch period (1609-1664); The English period (1664-1763) The revolutionary period (1763-1783). Period of adjustment and reconstruction; New York as the state and federal capital (1783-1811);
v. 2. Cartography: An essay on the development of knowledge regarding the geography of the east coast of North America; Manhattan island and its environs on early maps and charts, by C. F. Wieder and I. N. Phelps Stokes. The Manutus maps, the first survey of Manhattan island (1639); The Castello plan, showing the city of New Amsterdam in ... 1660. The Dutchgrants. Early New York newspapers (1725-1811); Plan of Manhattan island in 1908;
v. 3. The War of 1812 (1812-1815); period of invention, prosperity, and progress (1815-1841); Period of industrial and educational development (1842-1860); The civil war (1861-1865); period of political and social development (1865-1876); The modern city and island (1876-1909);
v. 4. Chronology, 565-1776;
v. 5. Chronology, 1776-1909;
v. 6. Chronology: addenda. Original grants and farms.
Bibliography [by Victor H. Paltsits] Index.
Bobst Library Call #: Ref1 F128.3 .S776.

Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 By Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Tamiment Library Call #: F128.3 .B87 1998

The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America By Russell Shorto. New York: Random House, Inc., 2004. E-Book available to NYU researchers: F128.4 .S56 2004eb Electronic access

New York Labor Heritage: A Selected Bibliography of New York City Labor History, 1st ed. / Robert Wechsler. New York: Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, Tamiment Institute Library, New York University, 1981. NYC related entries arranged in three parts: time period; labor topics; and industries, occupations, unions. Z 7164 .L1 W38

The Street Book: An Encyclopedia of Manhattan's Street Names and Their Origins by Henry Moscow. Hagstrom Co., 1978. Bobst Library Call #: F128.67.A1 M6

George Templeton Strong's Diary; edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas. 4 v. New York: Macmillan, 1952. Bobst Library Call #: Ref1 E415.9.S86 A3.

Ephemera

American Broadsides and Ephemera from Readex
A subscription database available through NYU Libraries containing broadsides printed between 1820 and 1900 and ephemera printed between 1760 and 1900.

Vertical Files in the Tamiment Library's Collections
Collection consists of some 1 million pamphlets, leaflets, flyers, manifestoes, reports, serials and other internal documents from a wide variety of labor and left organizations, many based in New York City. The vast majority of the materials in the collection date from the 20th Century, though collecting continues and there are 21st Century materials as well. For tips on finding vertical files, see the Vertical Files Research Guide.

Maps & Atlases

Ancestry Library - U.S. Map Collection, 1513-1990
Subscription database available to NYU-affiliated researchers containing images of digitized maps.

Atlases in the Tamiment Library
Leo Herhskowitz's donation of NYC materials included a number of atlases covering Manhattan and the outer boroughs of New York City. These atlases are currently being processed. As they are preserved and cataloged, they will appear in BobCat, NYU's library catalog.

Charting North America: Maps from the Lawrence H. Slaughter Collection and Others
Digital Collection from the New York Public Library containing over 1,000 maps of North America from the earliest printed portrayals to the close of the 19th century; multiple versions and editions allow for historical comparisons.

Cities and Towns
Maps from American Memory Collections of the Library of Congress. The collection contains 215 digital maps of cities and towns in New York State, including all the boroughs of NYC.

Early Real Estate Atlases of New York
A New York Public Library Digital Collection of over 2,000 maps of New York City, including Manhattan and Brooklyn "fire insurance maps" from the 1850s-1860, showing streets, blocks, tax lots, natural and manmade features, buildings, neighborhoods, and more.

Historical Atlas of New York City: A Visual Celebration of Nearly 400 Years of New York City's History / Eric Homberger. Revised ed. New York: Henry Holt, c2005. Available in the reference collection on the first floor of Bobst Library as well as in the Tamiment Library. Call #: F128.3 H65 2005

Map Collection of the New-York Historical Society
Consult a searchable and browsable database to find records for the 10,000 printed and manuscript maps in the collections of The New-York Historical Society library dating from the seventeenth century through to the present.

Map Division of the New York Public Library
Established in 1898, the Map Division today holds some 431,000 maps, 16,000 atlases and books about cartography. The collection is international in scope, and dates from the 16th century to the present, with a focus on cities, especially New York City.

NYCityMap
New York City�s online map portal providing a wealth of information including the locations of schools, day care centers, senior centers, libraries, hospitals, subways, and more, as well as links to Web sites for these facilities. This page is also a single access point to many of the numerous location-based applications on NYC.gov such as online property, building, statistics, and census information. The maps can be navigated either by entering a specific address or simply using zoom and scroll tools, similar to other online map applications. Consult the User Guide for tips on using this dynamic online resource.

Other Research Guides and Sources

Gotham Center for New York City History

Locating Materials in the Tamiment Library

New York City History Web Resources from The New York Public Library

New-York Historical Society Library's Architecture Research Guide

Radical Press in New York City - Tamiment Library Guide

Selected Periodical Indexes in the Tamiment Library

Serials

The Tamiment Library holds approximately 250 current serial subscriptions and 15,000 non-current serials. The collection includes labor union convention proceedings, union journals, strike bulletins, underground newspapers, internal bulletins of radical organizations, and scholarly journals in labor and radical history in print, on microfilm, and on microfiche, many of which were published in New York. Holdings are particularly strong in titles indexed by the Alternative Press Index, Left Index, and Work-Related Abstracts.

Consult the Tamiment Library's Serials Research Guide for tips on identifying, locating, and using newspapers, journals, periodical guides, and indexes in the Tamiment Library's collections. The guide also includes information on notable sources of digitized serials and electronic indexes, including APS Online and America's Historical Newspapers by Readex, which are described below.

America's Historical Newspapers, 1690-1922
Features the images and full-text content from scores of historical publications from all 50 states. More than 125 of the titles included in the database were published in New York City. See the geographically arranged title list for details.

APS Online
Consists of digitized reproductions of more than 1,100 18th and 19th century newspapers and periodicals in the original microfilm reproduction series, American periodical series, I, II, and III. See the alphabetically arranged Title list for additional information.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1841-1902
Browsable and searchable. Free web resource.

New York Times from ProQuest Historical Newspapers
The Historical New York Times (1851-2006) with Index (1851-1993) provides search capability using subject terms and topics for focused and targeted results in combination with searchable full text, full page, and article-level images from the Historical New York Times (1851-2006). The database is limited to NYU-affiliated researchers from this link.

Visual Materials

Following are just a few of the myriad sources of images of New York City. For information on finding additional sources, consult the Bobst Library research guide Finding Art Reproductions, Illustrations, & Pictures.

Non-Print Collections in the Tamiment Library
Photographs, film, videotapes, posters and memorabilia provide a rich visual record of the history of labor and radical politics. Much of this visual material doesn't just supplement information in manuscript collections and papers--it can also provide evidence that is not available in written sources. For tips on finding nonprint materials, see the Locating Materials in the Tamiment Library research guide.

The Life of a City: Early Films of New York, 1898-1906
From the American Memory Collections of the Library of Congress, this collection contains forty-five films of New York dating from 1898 to 1906 from the Paper Print Collection of the Library of Congress. Of these, twenty-five were made by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, while the remaining twenty are Edison Company productions.

Photographic Views of New York City, 1870s-1970s
A New York Public Library Digital Collection containing more than 54,000 New York City archival photographs (and their captioned versos) from the 1870s-1970s arranged by borough and street; the majority are exterior building views and neighborhood scenes from the 1910s-1940s.

Municipal Archives of the City of New York: Tax Photographs Collection
During the 1930s, local governments began to use photography as a tool for appraising real property for taxation purposes. New York City was the largest municipality to adopt this technology. The result was 720,000 35mm black and white images of every property in the five Boroughs. These photographs were converted to microfilm and are accessible at the Municipal Archives

Updated 09/21/09

Research Guide for Selected New York City History-Related Resources in the Tamiment Library and Other Repositories