- physdesc
-
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"16.1 linear feet", "unit"=>"linear feet"}, {"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"13 boxes, 5 other items", "unit"=>"containers"}], "supress_display"=>true}
- unitid
-
{"value"=>"MssCol 2923", "type"=>"local_call"}
{"value"=>"2923", "type"=>"local_mss"}
- unitdate
-
{"value"=>"ca. 1906-1933", "type"=>"inclusive", "normal"=>"1906/1933", "certainty"=>"approximate"}
{"value"=>"1920-1930", "type"=>"bulk", "normal"=>"1920/1930"}
- date_inclusive_start
-
1906
- date_inclusive_end
-
1933
- keydate
-
1906
- unittitle
-
{"value"=>"John Francis Sullivan papers"}
- repository
-
{"value"=>"<span class=\"corpname\">The New York Public Library. <span class=\"subarea\">Manuscripts and Archives Division</span></span> <div class=\"address\"><span class=\"addressline\">New York, New York</span></div>"}
- abstract
-
{"value"=>"John Francis Sullivan (1878- ) was an engineer who worked on New York City municipal improvement projects from the 1900s through the 1920s. In 1930 he was appointed City Planner. From 1918 to 1920, as an Army Reserve officer, Sullivan directed construction of the United States Nitrate Plant No. 2 at Muscle Shoals, Alabama. He also served in 1927 as a consultant on the construction of the Cooper River Bridge in Charleston, South Carolina. Collection consists of correspondence, reports, minutes, transcripts, blueprints, maps, notes, sketches, photographs, and printed matter chiefly concerning the projects Sullivan worked on in New York City."}
- prefercite
-
{"value"=>"<p>John Francis Sullivan papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library</p>"}
- bioghist
-
{"value"=>"<p>John Francis Sullivan (1878-) was an engineer who worked on New York City municipal improvement projects from the 1900s through the 1920s. In 1930 he was appointed City Planner. From 1918 to 1920, as an Army Reserve officer, Sullivan directed construction of the United States Nitrate Plant No. 2 at Muscle Shoals, Alabama. He also served in 1927 as a consultant on the construction of the Cooper River Bridge in Charleston, South Carolina.</p> <p>Sullivan was born in Hendersonville, North Carolina in 1878, and graduated from Clemson College in South Carolina in 1900. From 1900 to 1904 Sullivan worked as a draftsman and engineer for the United States Army in Washington D.C. and in New York City. From 1906 to 1908 he was an assistant engineer with the Pennsylvania Railroad working on the New York/New Jersey Hudson River tunnels. From 1908 through the end of the 1920s, except for the nearly two years he spent in Muscle Shoals, and some private consulting work, Sullivan was employed by, or served as a consultant to, a number of New York City departments and agencies, including: Public Service Commission, Engineering Department; Board of Estimate and Apportionment; Borough of Manhattan, Bureau of Highways; and the Office of the Manhattan Borough President (Julius Miller). In New York City, Sullivan was also a consultant to the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and the New York State Transit Commission.</p> <p>There are obituaries for nine John Sullivans in the New York Times Obituaries Index, but this John Sullivan is the subject of none of them. Sullivan probably died after 1930, when he was appointed City Planner, and before 1937, the date these papers arrived at the New York Public Library.</p>"}
- scopecontent
-
{"value"=>"<p>Sullivan's papers, ca. 1902-1933, consist of: correspondence (including letters from engineer William J. Wilgus whose papers are also at the New York Public Library); telegrams; reports; minutes; hearing transcripts; blueprints; maps; charts; notes; sketches; photographs; specifications; cost estimates; contracts; printed material; and many clippings. The bulk of this material dates from the 1920s and chiefly concerns Sullivan's many projects in New York City. Pre-1920s papers (excluding United States Nitrate Plant No.2 files) fill approximately one half linear foot, and there are only a few inches of material dating from the 1930s.</p> <p>Specific New York City projects documented include (all dates are approximate): the West Side Improvement, 1909-1920s, including the plan to relocate the New York Central Railroad tracks which ran along Eleventh Avenue and a plan for an elevated highway on the West Side; sewers and New York Harbor pollution, 1912-1928; subways and bus routes, 1900s-1920s; New York/New Jersey port and harbor development, 1919-1920; a BronxManhattan tunnel at Spuyten Duyvil, 1920s (unrealized); various plans for avoiding or relieving traffic congestion in Manhattan, 1920s, including elevated roads and walkways, and a Thirty-eighth Street vehicular tunnel planned to originate at Twelfth Avenue, burrow under Manhattan, and emerge at Borden Avenue in Queens (the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, which fulfills a portion of this plan, was not completed until 1940); sites proposed in Manhattan and Brooklyn for a fruit and vegetable terminal market, late 1920s; construction of the Hudson River (George Washington) Bridge, 1926-1927; and Atlantic Avenue grade crossing elimination, 1930. Of note is John D. Rockefeller's original letter (June 5, 1930, with accompanying documents) to Mayor Walker offering the site for Fort Tryon Park in northern Manhattan, along with some additional land on the Upper East Side, to the city.</p> <p>Sullivan's work, 1926-1927, on the Cooper River Bridge in Charleston, South Carolina is also documented in these files, and some personal and miscellaneous material is included. Personal material consists of curriculum vitae, certificates and medals, some financial papers, material concerning Clemson College alumni activities, and papers documenting Sullivan's participation in New York City Democratic organizations, particularly the New York Engineer's Committee for Smith and Roosevelt, 1928, on whose board he served. A small amount of this material which was found unaccompanied by related documents is in a folder labeled \"personal\" in box 4, but the bulk of it is scattered throughout the files. Miscellaneous material, also in box 4, consists of a group of train timetables, BMT and IRT subway maps dating from the 1920s, travel brochures, invitations, various printed announcements, and a small group of notes and sketches found by themselves. Many more notes and sketches can be found scattered throughout the entire collection. Similarly, clippings and printed material concerning projects on which Sullivan worked, and a variety of other generally related topics, are found everywhere in the collection, but many large piles of these have been separated and are now in boxes 10-12.</p> <p>There is approximately one linear foot of Board of Estimate and Apportionment records, 1926-1929, chiefly copies of requests from city departments and other bodies funded by the city, and related Board resolutions.</p> <p>United States Nitrate Plant No.2 records, 1918-1921, consist of correspondence, reports, blueprints, tables, clippings, photographs, and lantern slides. These document the construction of the plant at Muscle Shoals, and the ensuing congressional investigation into allegations that money had been wasted on the work. Many of the photographs are rolled tightly and will not be available for use until they can be flattened. Among the usable photographs are a group of fourteen, undated, showing a visit of the Secretary of War to the plant.</p> <p>There are photographs scattered throughout the collection, but box 9 contains some that were found by themselves. These include: 17 8x10 prints of New York City roadway bridges under construction (at Greenpoint Ave., Myrtle Ave., Bronx Park, 174th Street, East 238th Street, and Ludlow Ave.); some group and individual portraits, mostly unidentified, 1900s-1920s, but including the Tonkawa Democratic Club dinner dance, New York, 1928, and the May 9, 1908 reunion of the 22nd Regiment, New York Volunteer Infantry; and a number of aerial photographs of New York. An outstanding, large (5.5 feet by 3.3 feet) aerial photograph made up of ten individual prints mounted on linen, undated, ca. late 1920s, centering on Manhattan and showing portions of Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, is in box 13.</p>"}
- arrangement
-
{"value"=>"<p>Arranged into six groups: chronological files, Board of Estimate files, U.S. Nitrate Plant No.2 files, Photographs, Clippings and printed material, and Oversized material.</p>"}
- acqinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Transfer from the Municipal Reference Library, 1937</p>"}
- relatedmaterial
-
{"value"=>"<span class=\"archref\">Robert Moses papers, 1912-1980. Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library.</span> <span class=\"archref\">William J. Wilgus papers, 1895-1947. Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library.</span>"}
- origination
-
{"value"=>"Sullivan, John Francis, 1878-", "type"=>"persname"}
- processinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Compiled by Julie Miller.</p>"}
- extent_statement
-
16.1 linear feet (13 boxes, 5 other items)
- date_start
-
1906
- date_end
-
1933
- date_bulk_start
-
1920
- date_bulk_end
-
1930