Beginning in the 1970s, the City Council debated a bill banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. This PDF contains the bill that passed in 1986, letters for and against, and LGBT photos.

After the Stonewall Uprising in 1969, the gay rights movement gathered strength in New York. One of its key goals was legislation banning discrimination based on "sexual orientation and affectionate preference"

Baseball images from our collection.

Joel Motley recounts the courage of his mother, Constance Baker Motley, as an NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorney in the early 1960s.

Mayor Fiorello La Guardia's sister, Gemma, was in Budapest during World War II. Because of her Jewish ancestry, she became a victim of the Holocaust.

Highlights from the Archives' 2013 Calendar

Memorial to the Victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, March 25, 1911

The La Guardia and Wagner Archives is proud to present the Council of the City of New York: Women’s Collection. Archives’ staff began working on this collection in 2005 and have since preserved and indexed almost 350 cubic feet of material.

"She was more than a great lady, more than a great personality, more than a great humanitarian. She was a great phenomenon in a phenomenal age.” Mayor Robert. F. Wagner, 1963

“George McGovern is a man of tender and responsive conscience . . . of strong loyalties, high principles and fierce convictions.“ Mayor Robert F. Wagner

In 1964 Democrats debated whether to seat the the segregationist Mississippi Democrats or the Mississipi Freedom Democrats. President Johnson and Mayor Wagner discuss this on the telephone.

Senator Wagner's radio speech on WEVD May 3, 1935 in favor of "The Economic Security Bill" (aka Social Security Act).

Spanning the Harlem River, the Bronx Kill and the Hell Gate, its 3 main bridges connect Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx. This is part of a film celebrating the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority's 30th anniversary in 1964.

In 1940 Congress created "I Am An American Day" to honor Americans who had reached voting age and immigrants who had become citizens. The Central Park event in 1945 attracted one million people.

Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic on May 20-21, 1927 is seen as one of the most important events of the 20th century, but memories have dimmed and, in an age when jet airplanes routinely cross the Atlantic Ocean with hundreds of passengers, we have lost sight of its significance. Accompanied by film footage of Lindbergh's flight, Professor Emerita Janet Lieberman of La Guardia Community College/CUNY gives her childhood recollections of the event and a Brooklyn parade celebrating Lindbergh, which she attended with her family.

The 1939 New York World's Fair offered a vision of a utopian city of tomorrow—one in which life was going to be easy thanks to new technology that would revolutionize transportation, household work and daily life. Yet, the Fair made no mention of war, no sense of a troubled present, in spite of the looming world nightmare.

Roger Wilkins on the challenges facing African-Americans in post-segregation America.

Joel Motley discusses how his mother, civil rights attorney Constance Baker Motley, was appointed a federal judge directly by President Lyndon Johnson.

LaGuardia Community College's Terry Parker talks to us about his high school experience during the time of desegregation of schools in North Carolina. He discusses the process of desegregation in the two high schools he attended.

Senator Maltese is a former Republican New York State Senator representing New York's 15th State Senate District, located in southern and central Queens from 1988 to 2008. He also was the chairman of the Conservative Party of New York from 1986 to 1988. This scrapbook was donated to the La Guardia and Wagner Archives by Senator Serphin R. Maltese in 2011. See the Queens/Local History Collection for additional Senator Maltese materials.

Dr. John Hope Franklin speaking on the topic of intercollegiate athletics and a misplaced value system in higher education. CUNY Graduate Center – December 5, 1989

Video collage documenting the history of Long Island City, Queens compiled for an immigration research project by LaGuardia Community College student Sohyun Park.

This video photo essay was created by and is now dedicated to Joe Margolis. This video takes us on a guided tour of New York City before the NYC Housing Authority razed large swaths of run-down neighborhoods to build public housing projects. These arresting photographs of a long-vanished New York City owe their astonishing detail to the 4x5 inch negatives captured by the NYCHA photographers. Photos are from the NYC Housing Authority collection housed at the La Guardia and Wagner Archives.

This video photo essay was created by and is now dedicated to Joe Margolis. This video takes us on a guided tour of New York City before the NYC Housing Authority razed large swaths of run-down neighborhoods to build public housing projects. These arresting photographs of a long-vanished New York City owe their astonishing detail to the 4x5 inch negatives captured by the NYCHA photographers. Photos are from the NYC Housing Authority collection housed at the La Guardia and Wagner Archives.