Anthony W. Robins
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        at the M.A.S.
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  • CONTACT
  • 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

MAS – building research – links from week 1

General sources

COPAR’s web site

Municipal Archives

Department of Records and Information Services (sometimes called DORIS)

New digital archive

NYC Green Book on-line

Buy Green Book on-line

Locations of CityStore

Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York (ART):

ART home page

ART Archive Guide (NB: This guide is no longer maintained by the ART, but they gave me permission to share the files with you. Some of the information may be out of date.)

Property Shark

Anthony Robins’ article on archives

On-line tutorials

Chris Grey’s copyrighted article, “A Guide to Researching the History of a New York City Building”

Avery Library:

Avery: Art & Architecture guides

NYC buildings

Andrew Dolkart: Hints on Researching New York City Buildings

Other:

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

Don’t reinvent the wheel

Landmarks Preservation Commission:

Home page

Interactive map and historic district maps

Designation reports

Records access form

Formal LPC letter about landmark status and other contact information

Neighborhood Preservation Center (NPC) web site:

Home page

New York State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO):

National Register of Historic Places (NR)

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.

Buildings information

NYCityMap 

Digital tax maps

Building Department web site including location of borough branches – go to “Contact Buildings” and select your borough

B.I.S. search page

Chris Gray’s Metropolitan History site – NB search page

Also of interest:

ZOLA – Zoning and Land Use Maps:

Be sure to play around with some of these sites – especially the amazing NYC map which is a portal to all city on-line resources. See if you can find the NB for your building (or any other building you’re interested in). And then see if you can locate and download the Landmarks Commission report on the Look Building, from both the LPC and the Neighborhood Preservation Center web sites (to familiarize yourself with their use), and then the National Register nomination for that building.

Two articles of interest:

New-York Historical Society Quarterly Bulletin (1937) – article on street numbering changes

Harry Macy, Jr., Before the Five-Borough City: The old Cities, Towns and Villages….

For fun:

Oldest video footage of New York City (I’m not responsible for whatever ad plays first…)

Back to MAS Course 2020 – resources.

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