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 […]

But first… If this architectural drawing looks familiar, it should. Does the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum ring a bell? Frank Lloyd Wright took the design for his iconic spiral museum from an auto road tourist attraction he designed in 1924 for the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain in Frederick County, Md. https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/flw/flw02.html http://www.jstor.org/stable/989974?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents The project […]

What treasures our Gulick collection yields! (I know, we’ve said this before.) But in going through three cartons of letters and memorabilia recently gifted to our Library Archives by Luther’s granddaughter Lisa Gulick https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/ipaprocessing/2022/03/donor-gulick/ we found this leather wallet embossed with its evocative dedication: “Christmas, 1942, from F.D.R.” Among items retrieved from Gulick’s longtime summer […]

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 […]

Of all Luther Gulick’s memorable contributions to the life of the nation — leading the first training school for professional public servants, streamlining FDR’s chaotic executive branch, masterminding relief for up to half a billion war refugees, spearheading the campaign to fluoridate New York City’s water, besides much else — one of the most historic […]