NYNEWYOR-L Archives

From: "Elizabeth V Cardinal" <>
Subject: Here's Proof That New Yorkers Like to Complain
Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2006 15:30:09 -0400

July 8, 2006
Here's Proof That New Yorkers Like to Complain
By ANDY NEWMAN
New Yorkers, it has been said, like to complain.

Finally, there's proof.

It comes from the bowels of the municipal archives on Chambers Street, where
thousands of complaints to the mayor have been unearthed from more than
30,000 boxes of official correspondence going back to the 1700's.

The parade of squeaky wheels includes a merchant requesting money to make up
for income lost in a smallpox scare, a father angry that his 12-year-old son
was allowed into a vaudeville show, and a widow with a bloody knee and dirt
backing up into her drain.

To leaf through the letters is to see the city changing and unchanged, and
to hear the voices of New Yorkers past sounding not unlike the New Yorkers
of today, even if not all their problems still resonate.

Noise and smell seem to have been constant topics of concern. In 1797, some
Sixth Ward residents called the mayor's attention to a stagnant pond: "A
number of dead animals being thrown into it, now in a state of putrefaction,
together with a pernicious matter running from a glue manufactory, causes
your petitioners to be apprehensive that if left as at present during the
hot season it may prove fatal to the health of the inhabitants that live
near the same."

Indecency and the lack thereof are also lamented. In 1935, a correspondent
asked Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, "Would it be possible to amend the law
so that girls in the burlesque shows in New York would be allowed to display
their charms more without interference of the police?" In an indication of
the conflicting pressures placed on public officials, the mayor's office
received a letter not long after that began, "Please, Please, Please put an
embargo on the new mesh swimsuit!"

These letters and several dozen of others have been compiled by a conceptual
artist named Matthew Bakkom into a tabloid-size booklet called "The New York
City Museum of Complaint," which he will hand out in parks in Lower
Manhattan in the next week.

In the view of Mr. Bakkom, complaint forms the very foundation of civic
life.

"The point of complaining is not necessarily that it's going to change
things," he said. "It's more kind of an existential act that is essential to
democracy."

The booklet is also available free at the Miguel Abreu gallery on Orchard
Street in the Lower East Side.

Some urban nuisances have barely changed over the years. Blasting is
conducted carelessly. Neighbors play the radio or make love too loudly.
Sidewalks are dirty; stuff falls off buildings. Public servants are
unhelpful or worse.

In 1839, a Mrs. Keeler asked two city watchmen, the forerunners of the
police, to remove two strange men, and a woman they were assaulting, from
her house. Instead, her husband wrote, the watchmen "seized the person of
Mrs. Keeler and were proceeding to drag her from her domicile."

When Mr. Keeler's friends protested to the watchmen, he wrote, "surly and
desperate threats were uttered and oaths taken that his friends for his
interference should be put in prison."

Other communiqués bear the stamp of antique controversy. In 1906, the Bronx
Zoo's director bemoaned a stir that arose after The New York Times wrote
about his decision to display a pygmy tribesman from Africa in a cage.

"Excepting the notoriety-seeking ministers, and the Times reporter himself,"
William T. Hornaday wrote, "we have not yet heard of a single person who has
in any manner criticized my action in placing Dr. Verner's very interesting
little African where the people of New York may see him without annoyance or
discomfort to him."

Dead livestock caused trouble for decades. In the summer of 1888, Albert
Oelzer informed the mayor, "A dead horse is waiting to be taken away for the
last 24 hours in front of 41 Henry Street. The stench is unbearable, and
people in the neighborhood, of which I am one, were forced to sleep with
closed windows last night. Not a pleasant thing, I assure you."

Though people complain to public officials everywhere, New York's renown as
a hotbed of grievance prompted malcontents nationwide to aim their petitions
at Gracie Mansion, like children sending letters to Santa Claus.

"Labor ought to have at least 50 percent of the gross profit on capital," L.
H. Potter of Chattanooga, Tenn., wrote Mayor La Guardia in 1931. "But it
would be better for our peace if we abandoned the capitalistic system at
once, and forever."

In 1949, a man from Arkansas lamented to Mayor William O'Dwyer, "I am lonely
and blue because I don't have a wife and a baby or two. And I am sad because
I don't have any farmland to make a living on."

Then there are the folks who would never make it to the microphone at a Town
Hall meeting. In 1935, one J. P. C. fired off the following missive to Mayor
La Guardia from the Times Square Hotel: "With this letter to you I am also
resigning from my position buying a gun and starting a good fight — I have
no criminal record — I do not mix with the cheap ladies or criminals."

The author explained the source of his annoyance. "Your restaurants and
other business institutions are going just a little too strong," he wrote.
"Three slices of tomato on 2 leafs of lettuce in the Automat cost 15 cents
or 5 cents a slice for tomatoes which cost 25 cents a peck." He added, for
good measure, "The dirty rats have not seen the blood of women and children
in the gutter."

Before signing off, J. P. C. made sure his letter followed the conventions
of civil discourse. "Sincerely," he typed above his initials.

Elizabeth V. Cardinal

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