In the second decade of the 20th century the Bureau of Municipal Research was riding high. The group had survived the attacks of Tammany Hall and its reputation was spreading throughout the United States. Local civic groups began creating their own Bureaus based on the New York model; however, lacking experience, they increasingly turned to […]

Luther Gulick was fittingly the star when the City University’s television show “Urban U” came to the Baruch Library Archives to record a segment on the great civic reformer (1892-1993) who devoted his distinguished government career to “making democracy work.” CUNY TV host Ari Goldberg and his camera toured our historic Institute of Public Administration […]

We know Robert Moses — Luther Gulick’s classmate in the nineteen-teens at the Training School School for Public Service — from his colossal public works that reshaped New York: Jones Beach, Lincoln Center, the bridges, the parkways, the Queens fairground. We know Moses, too, from Robert Caro’s sharp-edged portrait in “The Power Broker” and the […]

The following blogpost with illustrations was written by Aaron Horvath, a Stanford University doctoral candidate who visited Baruch College’s Newman Library Archives in November to research the early governmental reforms of the New York Bureau of Municipal Research and the Institute of Public Administration. We are grateful for his input and gratified he found the […]

In these days of cellphones and Skype, FaceTime, GoToMeeting and other virtual gatherings, it’s nostalgic to remember a time when people actually met face-to-face to transact business and socialize. So it was in 1921 when the Bureau of Municipal Research was ferreting out corruption and teaching New York and cities around the country how to […]