New York City Department of Records – Municipal Archives

This review is only for the archives staff, not the archives itself. If you are going here to research your genealogy be sure you know exactly what info you will be looking up beforehand. The staff here is extremely rude and unhelpful. Ask simple questions expecting to get just a little bit of help and be prepared to be scolded and hollered at. I grew up in NYC so you can expect some rudeness but this is beyond anything to be tolerated especially from city employees.

Love this place. I would do genealogy for free just to get to go here. Expect to be here for a while and do your research before looking for the files. I came with exactly the info the librarians needed in order to help me and it was a pleasure. I was able to figure out the system very easily. Just to have access to these files is a blessing!

I should’ve known when I arrived and City employees enthusiastically threw stuff at me that this would be painful. The maps and other sketches in the back were quite interesting, but I wouldn’t recommend a trip unless you’re in the Night at the Museums mood.

The Municipal Archives has many resources for researchers and lots of items of interest to anyone who wants to know more about New York and its history, including over 1 million photographs and amazing historical records dating back to the 1600s.
The Municipal Archives is a family history researcher’s dream come true. They make access to pre-​1949 birth, death, and marriage records easy and relatively inexpensive (you can view them for free, if you want an ordinary copy, it’s usually $ 11 per document). Credit cards are accepted. I found the staff helpful and friendly. They patiently guided me through the process, which is not complicated.
If you are going there for family history records, you may want to get as many certificate numbers online as you can before you get there. That will speed the process of locating them and looking them up. You can access those databases on websites such as this one
It takes awhile for the microfilm reels to be taken for copying and printing, so allow time for that. There is no wifi in the building. Use of cameras and portable scanners is not allowed.
The Beaux Arts building in which the archives are housed, the Surrogate’s Courthouse (also known as the Hall of Records), is astoundingly beautiful, one of the creations of John R Thomas, and after his death, Horgan and Slattery. It is a designated landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places. Photography is not allowed inside the building, but plan to spend some time admiring the mosaics of ceiling (by muralist William DeLeftwich Dodge), the grand marble staircase, ornate doorways and other features of the first floor rotunda. There are 54 sculptures on the exterior alone.
You can reach the Municipal Archives by subway lines 4, 5, 6 or J and Z lines. A, C, and E, or 1, 2, and 3 lines are also close. Exit at Brooklyn Bridge/​City Hall. (The Chambers Street exit itself is one of the most beautiful in the city — see #4 here:
). The archives are across the street from City Hall Park, at the northwest corner of Chambers and Centre Street. You’ll probably pass a fenced statue of Horace Greeley — this was also once a famous newspaper district.
One other note, you must present a photo ID and pass through magnetometers to enter the building.

I don’t know what that says about my expectations of government, but upon entering this building, I felt so grateful. I’ve lived in the suburbs my whole life, and most of my ancestors lived in the five boroughs, but entering this building reminded me of civics are so far removed from daily activity (while influencing the totality of daily activity). I went to night court in lower Manhattan a few months ago, which was an equally wonderful experience. Night court and visiting this building are uneventful and mundane as events, but so symbol-​rich and tremendous in experience.
I’m not really aware as to what the rest of 31 Chambers is for, but the building is beautiful and dilapidated (active metaphor). From the ventilation system to the skinny faucets in the skins to the sound the elevator doors made while closing, this building is incredibly majestic, but inviting where it could have easily gone cold and hallow under the crushing weight of bureaucracy.
The archives are on the first floor, to the right. The lady with the metal detector was really friendly (I credit some of this to their policies considerably more lax than the TSA’s). The handle on the big door to the room doesn’t work. It turns on its axis infinitely until you push it, and there are lots of people (why?) sitting at these Xerox Alto-​esque machines. I don’t remember ever seeing so many microfilm machines before. It was quite like stepping into the past.
The desk help was not helpful. (NB: I didn’t get to meet the older lady. Is she Doris?) I thought she’d be interested in that I was interested to learn the procedure, or at least interested in me not screwing up the archives, but she didn’t care much. She pointed to the computers for lookup and to the file cabinets for the archives. The computer terminals didn’t seem that old, but the software on it was ancient. Upon selecting the archive to search for lookup, it opens as a Microsoft Access file (you click Run/​Save, etc.) – kind of antiquated. Why aren’t these records completely digitized? Has no one tried? Does no one care? Is it just not cost-​effective? My surname has lots of arbitrary consonants, so it’s very much possible that a digitization of the files will pull up more of my ancestors than I anticipate. Anyway, it’d be better to be able to search from home if it’s just an Access file, or even a website, if it isn’t a security issue. Isn’t the idea that the files are 50+ years old so they’re completely open to the public anyway?
Finding the rolls and using the machines was actually a lot of fun. Maybe fun isn’t the objective, but I bet young kids would get a kick out of retrieving the rolls from the cabinets and feeding them into the machines, especially if they’re reading primary source documents that interest them. (I imagine they don’t give kids free reign anywhere near these rolls.)
The room was kind of sweltering, possibly the sun baking the room, and it wasn’t even a particularly warm mid-​March day outside. The co-​researchers were friendly enough. I suppose it takes a certain kind of drive to visit the archives and spend your day digging through old pictures of documents.
This room only archives certain documents. It varies between types of vital documents, too (death vs. birth vs. marriage certificates). Be sure to check whether the documents you want are even in this archive. But definitely come and see the building, and ask for help and possibly get rejected and find a part of your past. It’s a great place for an introvert to kill a few hours.

I love Doris, i.e. the Department of Records and Information Services. You see, there are three different departments you have to deal with for New York vital records:
*New York records outside New York City
New York State Department of Health
*New York City records before 1949
NYC Department of Records and Information Services
*New York City records from 1949 to present
The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
Doris is the best of these. She lets you order online and she has a reasonable turnaround time. I have dropped hundreds of dollars on Doris’ goods, and she is still pleasing me.