Apr 08, 2014 - Sale 2344

Sale 2344 - Lot 198

Price Realized: $ 750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(NEW YORK CITY.) Archive of Mayor James J. Walker's correspondence and papers relating to the housing issue. 131 items (0.4 linear feet), including 110 letters to and from the mayor's office, 6 speeches by Walker and others, 14 meeting minutes and draft legislation, and a mimeographed report, "General Outline of the Proposed Lower East Side Improvement Plan" by Robert W. A. Rodger; many letters still attached with original paper clips, some leaving rust marks, but most items with otherwise no more than minor wear. Vp, 1926-32
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New York City's housing stock was in transition in the 1920s, with blocks of crumbling rear tenements and cold-water flats co-existing with the more modern structures that still predominate today. The Lower East Side was a particular locus of problem buildings. When James J. Walker was elected mayor in 1926, housing policy was one of the major issues in the public discourse. Walker's administration was marred by corruption and ended with him fleeing to Paris to avoid prosecution, so his housing accomplishments were modest. However, this fascinating archive brings the issue to life, with letters from landlords, tenants, builders, labor unions, and anti-tax advocates, all arguing for their visions of a better city.
Highlights include: a July 1927 letter from James Middleton of the North Harlem Community Council, pleading for housing dollars to be spent in Harlem: "People are forced to live in coal bins and cellars with small children. . . . Some of these so called houses should be torned down, they are worst than the houses in the slums." A long February 1926 petition from the South Bronx Tenants' and Civil League in support of a low-cost housing tax exemption Typed transcript of a long private July 1927 meeting between Walker, child-welfare advocate Sophie Irene Loeb, philanthropist August Heckscher, and others and annotated transcripts of three speeches by Walker on the housing issue.
Many of these letters are addressed directly to Walker as mayor, interspersed with enclosures, retained draft responses from his secretary, and more. A few of the letters are addressed to Walker's staff, and a few 1932 letters are addressed to acting mayor Joseph McKee after Walker's resignation. Provenance: retained by Mayor Walker's legal advisor Reuben Lazarus; thence by descent to the consignor.