Directed by archivist Andy Lanset, the department provides a central repository for thousands of audio recordings, photographs, memorabilia, reports, news items, program guides, institutional records, and promotional materials.
Among its holdings are more than 50,000 recordings in a variety of formats, from early lacquer and acetate discs, to reel-to-reel tapes, to digital audio tapes and compact discs.
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For more than 90 years, WNYC has been a witness to the news, politics and cultural events of New York City. We've combed our archives to bring you some of the most notable highlights from our rich broadcast heritage.
Credit: NYC Municipal Archives
Recently in Archives and Preservation
Thursday, October 30, 2014
By
John Passmore
Galway Kinnell reads Whitman on the eve of the 2003 Iraq War. Kinnell died this week at the age of 87.
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Thursday, October 30, 2014
By
Andy Lanset : Director of Archives, New York Public Radio
During World War II, WNYC was cranking out war-related programming on a full-time basis. In this classic radio play, a G.I. falls in love with the "smooth, straight lines" of his Jeep.
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Monday, October 27, 2014
By
Andy Lanset : Director of Archives, New York Public Radio
WNYC gets a new facility and wins a Peabody. A lot of change for WNYC in 6 years.
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Monday, October 27, 2014
By
Andy Lanset : Director of Archives, New York Public Radio
In 1979, when the city owned WNYC, then-Mayor Ed Koch demanded the station air the names of men who patronized prostitutes, and it cost director Mary Perot Nichols a fortune in funding.
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Thursday, October 23, 2014
By
John Passmore
And Spanish and Yiddish are struggling to be called the official language of the Lower East Side. That's according to this 1970 Pan Am audio tour of New York City's neighborhoods.
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Thursday, October 16, 2014
By
John Passmore
Talking skulls, demonic wolves, and killer vampires—kids told us tell their favorite spooky tales during WNYC's 1979 Storytelling Festival.
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Wednesday, October 15, 2014
By
Andy Lanset : Director of Archives, New York Public Radio
Ring around the rosey, a pocket full of posies.
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Saturday, October 11, 2014
By
Marcos Sueiro Bal
In the 1940s and '50s comics were considered pernicious by many. This Brooklyn mom spoke her moderate mind on WNYC.
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Thursday, October 09, 2014
By
Andy Lanset : Director of Archives, New York Public Radio
She broke into the Boy's Club here in 1966, but she'd already distinguished herself as a community activist—thanks to her, there's no four-lane highway through Washington Square Park.
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Tuesday, October 07, 2014
By
Marcos Sueiro Bal /
Lyndon B. Johnson
50 years ago, presidential aide Walter Jenkins was arrested for having sex with a man in a YMCA bathroom, just weeks before the 1964 presidential election. Hear a clip of LBJ's reaction.
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Monday, October 06, 2014
By
Sarah Davis
The Jefferson Market Clock was almost destroyed at several points in its history. Listen to the 1960s interview with the woman who saved it every time.
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Friday, October 03, 2014
By
Marcos Sueiro Bal /
John Passmore
Tomorrow is Siri's birthday, and to test her skills, we played her a 1962 recording of an IBM 704 computer singing "Daisy Bell." Will Siri recognize her own voice-sythesized forebears?
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Thursday, September 18, 2014
By
John Epstein
It’s not embalmed in a time capsule of amber as though it was not meant to change over time.
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Thursday, September 11, 2014
By
John Passmore
How a turn of the century lute player came to influence an entire generation of club VJs and video artists.
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Friday, September 05, 2014
By
Sheryl Woodruff : Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation
Homosexuality. Mixed-race couples. Narcotics on MacDougal Street. This archived conversation from a WNYC broadcast gives an incredible sense of what's changed--and what hasn't.
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What is more rare, an Edison wax cylinder, or an engineer who can write? This observation goes beyond the literal: ...