Mark Swartz, who was a supporter of the downtown scene of the 1980's, collected over that period a significant number of flyers and invitations that were assembled into what became this collection. It gives a glimpse into how the scene was promoted and what was happening in music and the arts of the period.

The Downtown Flyers and Invitations Collection is a part of the Downtown Collection at Fales Library, New York University. The Fales Library is the primary special collections division of the NYU libraries, housing over 200,000 volumes of English and American literature from 1700 to the present. Strengths of the collection include the development of the English and American novel, with an emphasis on the Gothic and the Victorian novel. The Downtown Collection comprises printed materials, archives, audio and video materials, manuscripts, and other materials related to the downtown New York City art, literary, and performance art "scenes" from the 1970s through the 1990s.

The bulk of the Downtown Flyers and Invitations Collection consists of material relating to downtown galleries, alternative art spaces, performance spaces, and nightclubs. The collection is particularly strong with regard to material from Performing Space 122, The Alternative Space at the West Broadway Gallery, The Kitchen, and La Mama. Also, there is a sparse, but nice, collection of nightclub flyers from the Limelight, the Palladium, and Area.

Folders are arranged alphabetically by venue and then chronologically within each heading.

The files are grouped into three manuscript boxes and one oversize box.

There is no information about materials that are associated by provenance to the described materials that have been physically separated or removed.

Donated by Mr. Mark Swartz in the fall of 2001, the Downtown Flyers and Invitations Collection consists of flyers and invitations sent to Mr. Swartz over the greater part of the 1980s. In 2007 additional materials were donated by the Museum of Modern Art Library (Box 1 Folders 117a - 177c and Box 4 Folder 2), The Keith Haring Foundation (Box 2 Folder 236a) and Lynn Gumpert (Box 4 Folder 3). Johan Kugelberg donated additional materials in 2008.

Published citations should take the following form:

Identification of item, date (if known); collection name; MSS number; box number; folder number; Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University Libraries.