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  • Home
  • Meet your guide
    • Testimonials – please add yours!
    • From the Press
    • Radio and TV Interviews and other videos
  • Enjoy a tour/lecture
    • List of upcoming public programs
    • Book a tour or lecture
      • Tours
        • Downtown
        • Grand Central Terminal
        • Midtown
        • Uptown
        • Art Deco
        • Underground
        • Beyond Manhattan
      • Lectures
    • Take a course
  • ASK ME ABOUT YOUR BUILDING
  • Read
    • Blog
    • Books
      • Grand Central Terminal
      • New York Art Deco: A Guide to Gotham’s Jazz Age Architecture
      • Subway Style
      • World Trade Center
    • Other publications (no charge, just click and download)
  • Learn
    • Art Deco Metropolis
      • Art Deco – Books
      • Art Deco Landmarks – Reports
      • The Architects Speak
      • Art Deco – Links
    • Grand Central and Terminal City
    • Subway Art and Architecture
    • Urban Genealogy
      • Urban Genealogy Handbook (in progress)
      • Online Resources
      • Urban Genealogy
        at the M.A.S.
    • Woolworth Building
    • World Trade Center Archive
      • Early plans
      • West Side Project
      • Architects
      • Chronologies and “Fact Sheets”
      • Politics
      • Engineering
      • Leasing
  • CONTACT

Center for Jewish History – Resources for attendees of “urban genealogy” talk 5-15-19

The following are the links demonstrated at the May 15th presentation at the Center for Jewish History:

Municipal Art Society (sponsors annual seminar on researching buildings in NYC, generally in February/March)

DON’T RE-INVENT THE WHEEL

Landmarks Preservation Commission interactive map

LPC site – designation reports

Brown Building (Triangle Fire) the LPC designation report

Neighborhood Preservation Center site – designation report database – searchable

National Register of Historic Places “nominations” in New York State – complete list, and searchable

NB: There are three National Register historic districts that cover enormous swaths of the Lower East Side – if you’re researching a LES tenement, it might well be included in one of these: “Lower East Side Historic District,” “Lower East Side Historic District Boundary Increase,” “Two Bridges Historic District”

To use it:

  1. Agree to terms
  2. Best to “Proceed as Guest” for now.
  3. On the at the top of the page, click on “Search”
  4. Select “National Register”
  5. Fill in the “listing name” and choose the appropriate county (Manhattan=New York County, Brooklyn=Kings County, Staten Island=Richmond County, Bronx=Bronx County, Queens=Queens County).
  6. At the bottom left, click on “Search”
  7. On the new screen, at “Results” click on the “View” icon
  8. To see the nomination, DO NOT click on the “Nomination” tab (that would be too simple!)
  9. Instead, click on “Atts.” (“Attachments”)
  10. Click on “Legacy NR Nomination Form” or “Legacy NR Photo” – whichever you’re interested in.
  11. Save it to your desktop as a pdf

Two things to remember:

  1. This is very new – still has bugs
  2. Play around with the site – go exploring, there’s a lot of stuff here.

ON-LINE INSTRUCTIONS ON RESEARCHING BUILDINGS

Chris Gray’s article

National Register Bulletin No. 39

Avery Library:

Avery: Art & Architecture guides

NYC buildings

Andrew Dolkart: Hints on Researching New York City Buildings

Others:

Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts Guide to Research

New York Public Library, “Who Lived in a House Like This? A Brief Guide…”

Apartment Building Histories

BASIC RESOURCES

Property Shark (pay service)

NYCityMap

BIS  – Building Information System, NYC Department of Buildings

Office for Metropolitan History New Building search – New Building database

ACRIS – Finance Department property database

 

PERIODICALS

ProQuest – available at major libraries, otherwise it’s a subscription service. Includes the New York Times and many, many other resources

Brooklyn Eagle – through 1902

Fulton History – thousands of newspapers (including later years of the Brooklyn Eagle)

Real Estate Record and Guide
PHOTOS ON-LINE: NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

Historic photos of NYC

Apartment photos

Early Real Estate Insurance Maps

Berenice Abbott, “Changing New York”

Streetscape and Townscape of Metropolitan New York City, 1860-1942

Staten Island in Vintage Postcards

Fairchild Aerial photos 
OTHER PHOTO RESOURCES

1930s tax photos (order on-line)

Gottscho Schleisner Archive of Architectural Photos:

Library of Congress set 

Museum City of NY set 

Avery Library (Columbia) set
FINDING AIDS

Municipal Archives

City Hall Library catalog (NB: currently off-line because of IT issues…)

New York Public Library catalog

New York Public Library on-line resources – some available only at the library

New-York Historical Society catalog (via BOBCAT)

Avery Library periodical index – available at Columbia, or at New York Public Library 42nd Street – art and architecture room

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