LaGuardia and Wagner Archives at LaGuardia Community College/ CUNY

Activists Daniel Dromm and Maritza Martinez co-founded the Queens Lesbian and Gay Pride Committee in 1992. Under their leadership, the committee organized and raised funds for the inaugural Queens Pride Parade and Festival in 1993. Martinez, a Cuban-American originally from Miami, was one of the first lesbian Latinas to speak openly to the Hispanic community in Jackson Heights about “coming out of the closet” and “being proud of who you are.”  In the following clip, she reflects about coming out very publicly on Univision, the American Spanish language broadcast television network.

In this 2-minute clip Council Member Daniel Dromm talks about fundraising for the first Queens Pride Parade.

Stephen Joseph was commissioner of health of New York City from 1986-1990. Already considered one of the most challenging public health jobs in the United States, Joseph took the position when New York City was at the epicenter of the AIDS crisis. While Joseph was supported by the Koch Administration, he faced opposition from the public and activists over issues such as disease reporting, contract tracing, education, and the needle exchange. In this podcast, Joseph discusses his support of the needle exchange as a means to stem the spread of AIDS amongst intravenous drug users and the subsequent public resistance to the program. ​   This oral history with Dr. Joseph was conducted by students at LaGuardia Community College as a part of the Koch Scholars program run by the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives. You can read the transcript in its entirety here: http://www.laguardiawagnerarchive.lagcc.cuny.edu/FILES_DOC/Koch_FILES/ORAL_HISTORY/08.100.0039V0039.PDF  

Stephen Joseph was commissioner of health of New York City from 1986-1990. Already considered one of the most challenging public health jobs in the United States, Joseph took the position when New York City was at the epicenter of the AIDS crisis. While Joseph was supported by the Koch Administration, he faced opposition from the public and activists over issues such as disease reporting, contract tracing, education, and the needle exchange. In this podcast, Joseph discusses the differences between the New York and the San Francisco models and the political implications of estimating the numbers of people infected with the AIDS virus. Joseph details what he considers the pivotal moment in the rupture between the gay community and the Koch Administration.     This oral history with Dr. Joseph was conducted by students at LaGuardia Community College as a part of the Koch Scholars program run by the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives. You can read the transcript in its entirety here:  http://www.laguardiawagnerarchive.lagcc.cuny.edu/FILES_DOC/Koch_FILES/ORAL_HISTORY/08.100.0039V0039.PDF

In what TheNew York Times today has labeled, “one of the most significant roundups ofpolice supervisors in the recent history of the police department,” the U.S.Attorney for the Southern District has arrested 3 NYPD commanders on federalcorruption charges. The commanders are accused of accepting free overseas anddomestic trips, expensive gifts and sending security business to a privatecompany in exchange for acting as chauffeur, bodyguard and concierge to twobusinessmen. Theseallegations echo those uncovered by the Knapp Commission in 1970, whichrevealed a far broader and enduring corruption scandal by the policedepartment.  Listen to the recentlyrecorded podcast by The LaGuardia and Wagner Archives with Michael Armstrong,Chief Counsel to the Commission, and Jay Kriegel, Chief of Staff and SpecialCounsel to Mayor John V. Lindsay as they discuss their own memorable roles inthe Commission.  Moreover, they discussthe political climate surrounding the Commission, the roles of PoliceCommissioner Murphy and Leary, and the oftentimes bizarre, even violent, natureof police corruption itself.

Sam Roberts of the New York Times speaks on labor history at the unveiling of the 2016 Working People calendar, outlining important labor milestones from the Tompkins Square Blood or Bread Riot of 1874 and the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 to the more recent Occupy Wall Street movement and formation of the Working Families Party.  Roberts notes the steep decline in unionization and the importance of labor unions in NY history and political culture.  The 2016 Working People calendar is produced in partnership between the City University of New York, the New York Times in Education program and the New York City Central Labor Council, and is designed by the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives of the LaGuardia Community College.

At the launch party of CUNY's 2011 Health in America calendar, Professor Richard K. Lieberman, director of the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, described the horrible details of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire that killed 146 mostly Italian and Jewish young females. This fire sparked public outrage over unsafe working conditions and led New York State to establish a Factory Investigating Commission, which toured factories throughout the state and recommended dozens of new laws to safeguard workers, 36 of which were ultimately passed.

Dr.June Jackson Christmas, a psychiatrist, was the first African-American womanappointed Commissioner of the New York City Department Health and MentalRetardation Services by Mayor Lindsay in 1972. She was re-appointed by MayorsBeame and Koch, and sat on the Board of the Health and Hospitals Corporation,the city agency that operates Municipal Hospitals and neighborhood family carecenters.   Inthis podcast, Dr. Christmas discusses the symbolic importance of Sydenham Hospitalas the first integrated not-for-profit hospital in the city to the blackcommunity in Harlem. Dr. Christmas was forced to support the controversial closingof the hospital in 1980 saying “I had orders to support the closing becausethat was the city policy.” However, she offered alternatives for the hospital’sfuture that were rejected.   Openedin 1925 as a private hospital, Sydenham was the only place black doctors hadadmitting privileges. By the time Sydenham was taken over by the city in 1949, whenit went into bankruptcy, black doctors were slowly able to admit patients inmore hospitals across the city.   Duringthe 1970s New York City fiscal crisis, Sydenham was one of the four hospitals designatedto close in order to save the newer hospitals in the Health and HospitalsCorporation system. New York State cited Sydenham, high maintenance costs and itsdifficulty complying with newer hospital codes. Protestorsopposed the closing of Sydenham citing a public health concern that the nearesthospital, Harlem Hospital was 12 blocks away and often operated at full capacity.Much opposition came from union members over the loss of jobs, although anagreement between the City and Federal Government stipulated that workers wouldbe moved to other health facilities across the city. Todaythe former Sydenham hospital is a 10- story building housing the elderly andhandicapped. Mayor Koch has since admitted that he was wrong to close thehospital and failed to see the symbolism for the Harlem community.

Sid Davidoff was administrative assistant to Mayor John V. Lindsay for seven years.  Jay Kriegel was Lindsay’s Chief of Staff and Special Counsel.  They were widely considered two of the Mayor’s top personal aides.  In this oral history, Davidoff and Kriegel reveal the inside story of the great snowstorm of 1969.  It was one of the biggest snowfalls of the 20th century in New York City.  When Mayor Lindsay went to visit Queens after the snowfall he was confronted with impassable streets and angry residents.  The city’s failure to clear the streets in Queens convinced many middle class white New Yorkers in the outer boroughs that the mayor was not interested in them or their problems.  Davidoff explains that sanitation workers (who are also responsible for clearing the snow in New York), still angry with Mayor Lindsay over the sanitation strike the year before, purposefully left the snow unplowed in parts of Queens.  Kriegel explores practical failures of the city’s response and how the storm transformed snow from a weather event to a political issue for mayors of New York ever since.  

Alice and Bill Havlena talk about their experiences with health, healthcare, and access to food during the Great Depression. This oral history was conducted in 1987.

Mayor John Lindsay faced an uphill climb in his campaign for reelection in 1969 after losing the Republican primary to John Marchi, forcing him to run with the backing of only the Liberal Party. The Democratic Party nominee Comptroller Mario Procaccino failed to attract broad Democratic support because of his conservative views and verbal gaffes, but Lindsay desperately needed support from Jewish voters in the outer boroughs to win. Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir's trip to the U.S. in September proved the right opportunity for Lindsay to regain his standing with the Jewish community in Brooklyn and Queens. In this audio, Jay Kriegal (Lindsay Chief of Staff) and Sid Davidoff (Mayoral Assistant) recount how the city came to build a sukkah, a structure of branches and leaves which Jews traditionally eat in during the harvest festival Sukkoth, in the Brooklyn Museum parking lot as the site for a formal dinner in Meir's honor. This event captured the city's attention and helped Lindsay win reelection.The sukkah and the Meir visit hlped Lindsay increase his support among liberal Jews who could not pull the lever for Procaccino. In the general election, Lindsay and Procaccino split the Jewish vote with Lindsay getting support from the more liberal, better-educated, and affluent Jews, and Procaccino doing better among working and lower middle class Jews in the outer boroughs. 

Mayor Fiorello La Guardia was committed to excising corruption from New York City. He battled Tammany Hall (New York’s Democratic machine) with fierce idealism and relentlessly pursued racketeers and gamblers who often targeted poor immigrants.

In the 1920s, the United States enjoyed unprecedented prosperity, and many people assumed that poverty would be eliminated entirely. However, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia noticed that as the stock market boomed so did unemployment. After the 1929 stock market crash, La Guardia called for federal aid and made public assistance a reality in New York City. 

Tuberculosis claimed both Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia’s wife and daughter in 1921. His devastation over this loss coupled with the grim conditions—poor sanitation and overcrowding—that afflicted most of the city’s impoverished citizens lead the mayor to expand public health efforts and to construct public housing projects. 

This recording explores Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia’s lifelong enthusiasm for aviation—from his service as a bombardier in WWI to his support of the Kelly Bill as a congressman to his absolute dedication to getting New York an airport.

From the time he took office on January 1, 1934, until American entry into World War II, Fiorello H. La Guardia's public works brought about in New York the greatest government-sponsored municipal transformation in America since Washington, D.C. was created out of Potomac marshlands. The vast physical transformations under La Guardia began with the Triborough Bridge. Robert Moses, the parks commissioner, was instrumental in La Guardia’s massive physical changes to the city. As a result of their often-contentious partnership, gigantic swimming pools, parks, freeways, and other public works would characterize the La Guardia Administration. 

Professor Richard K. Lieberman, director of the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, describes the rich history of the Steinway & Sons piano company from its origins in the mid-nineteenth century through its rise to becoming one of the foremost piano makers in the world. A CUNY-TV presentation for Admission Services (March, 2004).

Dr. Richard K. Lieberman, Director of the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, discusses public higher education's history-- the creation of the G.I. Bill after WWII, the resulting surge in college attendance, and the racial inequalities that veterans of color faced in education.  (New York Times building, November 11, 2009)

Until his death in March 2009, Dr. John Hope Franklin was one of the most renowned historians of his time and the author of many books, including the landmark "From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African-Americans." An activist as well as scholar, he worked with Thurgood Marshall to strike down segregation in the Brown v. Board of Education case and marched with the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. His writing helped to overturn earlier histories which rationalized Jim Crow, slavery, and white supremacy. He became the first African-American to chair a history department at Brooklyn College, and the first African-American president of the American Historical Association. President Bill Clinton awarded the Medal of Freddom to Franklin and appointed him to the Advisory Board to the President's Initiative on Race. His writing was a harbinger and agent of change in the continuing struggle for equality in the United States. In this podcast, esteemed historian, Dr. John Hope Franklin discusses intercollegiate athletics, race, and higher education (December 5, 1989).

Gran Fury was was an artists’ collective that emerged from ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) in 1988 and was devoted to AIDS activism through agitprop art. Gran Fury used public space and and advertising space to bring attention to the AIDS crisis and the lack of government support for people suffering from the disease. Most of their work borrowed the language and rhetoric of advertising as well as radical feminist artists. Tom Kalin was one of the 11 members of the collective. In this oral history, he discusses the origins of Gran Fury, their aesthetics, the collective's artistic process, the representation of people with AIDS, and his own feelings of urgency and fear.

Sid Davidoff was administrative assistant to Mayor John V. Lindsay for seven years. He was widely considered one of the Mayor’s top personal aides. In this oral history, Davidoff tells the story of the 1968 Columbia University riots and the Lindsay Administration’s involvement in trying to resolve the crisis. Members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a student activist group that helped define New Left politics in the 1960s, called for the university to sever ties from a think tank involved in weapons research for the Vietnam War. At the same time, SDS, black and Puerto Rican students, and community activists opposed Columbia’s construction of a university gym in Morningside Park, arguing the project appropriated public property for the elite students while offering only limited access to Harlem neighborhood residents. Students and Harlem community activists tore down some of the fencing surrounding the gym construction site, marched to campus and occupied Low Library, the university’s main administrative building. Davidoff explains how the administration attempted and failed to facilitate a peaceful solution, revealing the tensions between the different protest groups, the university administration, and the police. 

Bella Abzug, a Hunter College alumna, discusses women's involvement in government, the contradictory nature of democracy, and feminism. She raises the issues of climate change, gender inequality, and women as agents of social change (CUNY Graduate Center, December 3, 1992). Bella Abzug stands with Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan, and Gloria Steinem as one of the most important figures in the women's rights movement of the 1970s. Throughout her life, Abzug was known for her loud voice, flamboyant style, and large hats. She began her professional career as a lawyer in the 1940s and was a noted advocate for numerous leftist causes. These included civil rights cases in the South and cases related to the advancement of women's rights. By the late 1960s she had become a vocal critic of the Vietnam War. In 1971, she was elected to serve New York's 19th District in the House of Representatives where she served until 1977. Her tenure in Congress was notable for her unflinching support of women's rights, and she was one of the loudest and most visible supporters of reproductive rights and the Equal Rights Ammendment. In 1977, she competed in the contentious primary for the Democratic nomination for Mayor of New York City, eventually losing to future mayor Ed Koch. After several failed bids for various Congressional seats, Abzug retired from elected office. Though she never again held elected office after 1977, she remained an important figure in politics, women's rights, and social justice causes until her death in 1988. 

Roger Wilkins-- noted civil rights activist, lawyer, professor, and journalist-- discusses the legacy of the civil rights movement, the challenges facing African Americans in post-segregation America, and the lack of white leadership advocating for racial equality. (CUNY Graduate Center, November 13, 1993)Roger Wilkins began his career working for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He later worked as a lawyer in Ohio. At age 33, he was appointed assistant attorney general during the Lyndon Johnson Administration. He left government in 1969 and joined the editorial page staff of the Washington Post. He won a Pulitzer Prize, along with Carl Bernstein, Herbert Block, and Bob Woodward for their work exposing the Watergate burglary. He left the Washington Post in 1974 but continued his journalisitic career working for several major news outlets around the country. He was also a Clarence J. Robinson Professor of History and American Culture at George Mason University until his retirement in 2007.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE LA GUARDIA RADIO PROGRAM SERIES: LA GUARDIA RADIO PROGRAMS: THE DREAMER AND THE DOER - THE LIFE AND WORK OF FIORELLO H. LA GUARDIA

LA GUARDIA AND ORGANIZED LABOR: LA GUARDIA RADIO PROGRAMS: THE DREAMER AND THE DOER - THE LIFE AND WORK OF FIORELLO H. LA GUARDIA:  Organized labor leaders praised him as friend and inspiration. As a congressman, Fiorello H. La Guardia was one of labor's best friends, but as New York City mayor he opposed unionization of city workers both as a threat to the city budget and to his authority.

THE LAST DAYS / WORLD WAR TWO: LA GUARDIA RADIO PROGRAMS: THE DREAMER AND THE DOER- THE LIFE AND WORK OF FIORELLO H. LA GUARDIA:  Fiorello H. La Guardia's third term as Mayor of the City of New York was not his finest hour, but to many it will be his best remembered. The reason? He achieves fame as a radio personality with a weekly program on WNYC. The freewheeling mayor runs a radio grab-bag featuring everything from recipes to the Sunday comics.