Joyce Matz papers
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Abstract
Papers of public relations consultant and historic preservationist Joyce Matz (1925–2017), who represented such varied clients as Congressman Mario Biaggi, the Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association, and the Armenian Church of America. In her role of chair or co-chair of the Landmarks Committee of Manhattan Community Board 5, she fought to protect iconic New York City structures like Lever House, Town Hall, and St. Bartholomew's Church from alteration or demolition. She often provided pro bono publicity for the various coalitions, committees, and friends groups that lobbied to oppose outsized developments like Donald Trump's "Television City" complex proposed for the 60th Street Rail Yard. Includes press releases, publicity materials, newspaper clippings, notes, research, some correspondence, photographs, and a small amount of audiovisual material (restricted).
Biographical/Historical Note
"The Woman Who Likes Buildings" is the succinct title one newspaper bestowed on Joyce Matz (1925–2017), whose four-decade career in historic preservation led her everywhere at once in Manhattan. Her strong voice could be heard in virtually every fight to save a threatened landmark; her public relations expertise lent validity to the cause of every coalition formed to protect a neighborhood from outsized development.
A child of the city, Matz was born in Manhattan on 20 May 1925 to Harold and Elsie (Corday) Arnstam. She grew up on West 77th Street, next door to the New-York Historical Society, which she passed each day on her way to and from the Ethical Culture School on Central Park West. Matz graduated from Ethical Culture's Fieldston School in 1943. She took a bachelor's degree in English from Mount Holyoke College and would later do graduate work at Smith College and Columbia University. In 1947 she married Mortimer Matz, with whom she would have three children: John, Linda, and Suzanne.
With her husband, a lawyer and one-time reporter for the Daily News, Joyce Matz began her career as a public relations consultant. Starting around 1960, she worked with him as vice president and partner of Mortimer Matz Associates (later called Matz & Matz Associates). Then, after her 1979 divorce and until her death in 2017, she worked for herself as Joyce Matz Associates. She provided publicity to metropolitan, national, and foreign newspapers, as well as radio and television, for a varied client list that included individuals (like John Zervas, "Hot Dog King of Central Park"), politicians (Congressman Mario Biaggi), businesses (Gallery Passport, an art tour service), religious organizations (Armenian Church of America), and charitable groups (Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association). For fuller descriptions, see the Series II container list.
Matz credited a story in National Geographic about the sinking of Venice (which she had never seen) with awakening the sense of panicked urgency she applied to saving the historic fabric of New York. Its buildings were not sinking, but nevertheless they were under attack from greedy property owners and developers with plans inappropriate to the neighborhoods they would affect. In 1977 Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton appointed Matz to Community Board 5 (bounded roughly by 59th Street, Lexington Avenue, 14th Street, Sixth Avenue, 26th Street, and Eighth Avenue). She would chair or co-chair the CB5's Landmarks Committee for 15 years, overseeing iconic structures and neighborhoods in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, such as the Flatiron Building and the Ladies' Mile Historic District. Any application to demolish or alter a landmarked structure, or any proposal for a new designation, came to Matz's committee for rejection or approval. Occasionally she would recuse herself from voting because she was also providing publicity (sometimes pro bono) for the committees, coalitions, and friends groups that lobbied for or against the proposals.
The myriad campaigns in which Matz played a role is long and best grasped by perusing the container list for Series I, but some of her successful fights include preserving St. Bartholomew's Church (which hoped to sell its community house site for an office tower), the Beacon Theatre (which would have been irreparably damaged by its conversion to a discotheque), Town Hall (landmarked in large part by Matz's efforts), and the City & Suburban Homes Company's Avenue A Estate (a complex of model tenements developer Peter Kalikow sought to demolish). She lost many battles, too, most poignantly, perhaps, the one to save the Cottages and Garden, a 1937 enclave of eight apartments that opened onto a private green space behind a Third Avenue commercial building; the complex failed to win landmark designation and was replaced by a condominium tower (see boxes 13–15).
In 2000 Joyce Matz received the Elliot Willensky Fund award for her campaign to secure landmark designation for a group of townhouses on East 54th and East 55th Streets (see box 7, folders 7–12). The following year she was named the Historic Districts Council's 2000 Landmarks Lion in recognition of her unusual devotion to historic districts and landmarks (see box 9, folders 4–6). Shortly before her death she was still at it, touring with a reporter the closed Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady Queen of Angels, which she fought to landmark (as yet undesignated). Joyce Matz died at home in Manhattan on 18 September 2017, aged 92.
[This note is based on various iterations of Joyce Matz's resume (see box 22, folder 7), two newspaper profiles--(1) Al Amateau, "The Woman Who Likes Buildings" from The Westsider (January 16-22, 1986) and (2) Edward-Isaac Dovere, "A Champion for Preservation" from Our Town (November 18, 2004)--as well as her New York Times obituary by Sam Roberts, "Joyce Matz, Fervid Voice for Historic Preservation, Dies at 92" (September 19, 2017). In 2007 Keenan Hughes, a graduate student at Pratt Institute, interviewed Matz for the New York Preservation Archive Project's Oral History Collection; their recorded conversation and a transcript are available at www.nypap.org/oral-history/joyce-matz/.]
Arrangement
The Joyce Matz Papers are organized in three series devised by the archivist:
- Series I.
- Historic Preservation and quality of life issues, 1978-2013.
- Series II.
- Public Relations, 1969-2009.
- Series III.
- General files, photographs, and audiovisual material, 1971-2017.
File names within Series I and II are derived or expanded from Matz's own (see the container list). The sheer number of newspaper clippings saved by Matz to document her work prohibited the archivist from arranging material in strictly chronological order. The researcher should, therefore, consult every folder listed under the same topic to catch items that may be out of place.
Scope and Contents
Virtually every file in the Joyce Matz Papers contains notes, research, press releases, and tear sheets stemming from her historic preservation activism or public relations work. Some include correspondence, ephemera, and photographs. The voluminous newspaper and magazine clippings Matz saved document the countless stories she fed to the press. Descriptions of her public relations campaigns and preservation issues appear at the folder level in the container list.
The researcher should be aware that Matz was in the habit of taking notes or printing out drafts of releases on stationery recycled from unrelated projects; see, for instance, the file for Friends of Hudson River Park (box 8, folder 2), which includes letterhead from the Brooklyn Historic Railway Association (see box 1, folder 5), and S.O.U.L. (Save Our Universalist Landmark; box 15, folder 3).
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Access Restrictions
Open to qualified researchers.
Materials are stored offsite and advance notice is required for use. Photocopying undertaken by staff only. Limited to twenty exposures of stable, unbound material per day. (Researchers may not accrue unused copy amounts from previous days.)
Note that the New-York Historical Society lacks playback equipment for the audiovisual material in box 22.
Use Restrictions
This collection is owned by the New-York Historical Society. The copyright law of the United States governs the making of photocopies and protects unpublished materials as well as published materials. Unpublished materials created before 1 January 1978 cannot be quoted in publication without permission of the copyright holder.
Preferred Citation Note
This collection should be cited as the Joyce Matz Papers, MS 3050, The New-York Historical Society.
Location of Materials
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Suzanne Matz, Linda Matz, and John Matz, children of Joyce Matz, September 2017.
About this Guide
Processing Information
Archivist Joseph Ditta processed this collection in March-May 2018.