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 […]

What gems we find in our Newman Library Archives! (No, not this quaint Stereoscopic view of our Baruch neighborhood in 1925, which comes from the New York Public Library and is featured here just for atmosphere.) I’m talking about this slender, black-covered book, “The Cost of Living in New York City, 1926”, that turns up […]

*(Hat tip to barber/crooner Perry Cuomo and his “Letters” song…) Today, Luther Halsey Gulick 3d would undoubtedly be firing off emails and posting on Facebook, Instagram — maybe even dancing on TikTok. But in his heyday, Gulick (who, remember, died in 1993 at almost 101) had only his trusty typewriter and telephone. He was especially […]

  The Supreme Court that President Roosevelt failed to pack with 6 additions in 1937, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, center front. It was FDR’s worst defeat but he salvaged a victory when the Court started upholding New Deal programs. On Friday, Sept. 17, 2021, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde […]

  Carl Spielvogel, 1928-2021 After a long Covid interruption, we resume with this salute to a sturdy son of City College and Baruch, my friend Carl Spielvogel, who left us on April 21, 2021. Spielvogel, New York Timesman, prototype of advertising’s swashbuckling Mad Men (“It’s Miller Time”), diplomat, and philanthropist, died in a Manhattan hospital […]