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Freedman family papers and other documents

Call Number

MS 231

Date

1765–1968 (bulk, 1930–1950), inclusive

Creator

Extent

1.668 Linear feet in 4 document boxes plus 2 oversize folders.

Language of Materials

The documents in the collection are in English, with some instances of German and Hungarian.

Abstract

A small collection documenting members of the Freedman family, who lived during the 1940s at the Imperial Court Hotel on Manhattan's Upper West Side: Helen (Fox) Freedman, her son, William, a World War II fighter pilot, and her daughter, Nancy Ruth, who sang professionally under the stage name "Nancy Reed." The collection includes material from other residents of the Imperial Court during the 1930s–1950s: furniture dealer Samuel L. Kuklin, nurse and maid Margaret Matilda Tomlinson, and Broadway musical singer Virginia Vonne. Also present is an unrelated mixture of 18th–20th-century material, notably two large group photographs of attendees to the convention of the Verhovay Aid Society, a Hungarian national fraternal organization, at Passaic, New Jersey, in July 1914.

Historical note

Constructed in 1906–1907 as the Lasanno Court, the building at 307 West 79th Street on Manhattan's Upper West Side offered residents spacious six- to eight-room apartments. It attracted such tenants as the family of journalist A. J. Liebling and the violinist Jascha Heifetz. By the 1930s the Bi-Bro Realty Corporation purchased the building and renamed it the Imperial Court Hotel, converting its apartments to single room occupancy "studios" with semi-private baths and housekeeping services.

Arrangement

The collection is organized in three series:

Series I.
Freedman family, onetime residents of Imperial Court Hotel (307 West 79th Street, Manhattan), 1912–1948, undated
Series II.
Other residents of Imperial Court Hotel (307 West 79th Street, Manhattan), 1917–1956, undated
Series III.
Unrelated documents, 1765–1968, undated

Scope and Contents

Series I and II of this collection focus on onetime residents of the Imperial Court Hotel, at 307 West 79th Street, on Manhattan's Upper West Side, during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s: Helen (Fox) Freedman, her son, William "Bud" Freedman, a fighter pilot during World War II, and her daughter, Nancy Ruth Freedman, who sang professionally under the stage name "Nancy Reed" with a number of musical groups, most notably the Skitch Henderson Orchestra. Other residents of the Imperial Court were wholesale furniture dealer Samuel L. Kuklin, nurse and maid Margaret Matilda Tomlinson, and singer Virginia Vonne, who appeared in at least two Broadway musicals during the late 1930s. See the biographical notes in the container list for additional information.

Series III is a mixture of 18th, 19th, and 20-century documents unrelated to those in Series I and II or to each other. They were likely assembled by the donor from disparate sources. See the Immediate Source of Acquisition note for details.

Access Restrictions

Open to qualified researchers.

This collection is stored offsite and advance notice is required for use. Please contact manuscripts@nyhistory.org prior to your research visit to coordinate access. Keep in mind that it will take between two (2) and five (5) business days for collections to arrive, and you should plan your research accordingly.

Use Restrictions

Taking images of documents from the library collections for reference purposes by using hand-held cameras and in accordance with the library's photography guidelines is encouraged. As an alternative, patrons may request up to 20 images per day from staff. Application to use images from this collection for publication should be made in writing to: Department of Rights and Reproductions, The New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024-5194, rightsandrepro@nyhistory.org. Phone: (212) 873-3400 ext. 282.

Copyrights and other proprietary rights may subsist in individuals and entities other than the New-York Historical Society, in which case the patron is responsible for securing permission from those parties. For fuller information about rights and reproductions from N-YHS visit: https://www.nyhistory.org/about/rights-reproductions

Preferred Citation

This collection should be cited as: Freedman Family Papers and Other Documents, MS 231, New-York Historical Society.

Location of Materials

This collection is stored offsite and advance notice is required for use. Please contact manuscripts@nyhistory.org prior to your research visit to coordinate access. Keep in mind that it will take between two (2) and five (5) business days for collections to arrive, and you should plan your research accordingly.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of William Asadorian, 2006.

Mr. Asadorian, onetime assistant curator of manuscripts at the New-York Historical Society and later archivist in the Long Island Division (now called the Archives) at Queens Public Library, has also spent considerable time as an amateur urban archaeologist and rescuer of discarded documents, which he attempts to place in appropriate institutional custody. His activities have been profiled on multiple occasions by the New York Times, for instance: Diana Jean Schemo, "Have Archives, Will Travel," Wednesday, September 16, 1992. The lack of relationship among some of the materials in the present collection suggests Mr. Asadorian assembled them from disparate sources.

Collection processed by

Joseph Ditta (October 2021)

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-21 15:47:59 -0400.
Using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language: Finding aid written in English

Processing Information

Archivist Joseph Ditta arranged and described this collection in October 2021.

Repository

New-York Historical Society
New-York Historical Society
170 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024