Stephen Mass Papers
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Abstract
Stephen Mass is an entrepreneur who co-founded the Mudd Club located at 77 White Street in downtown New York City in 1978 along with art curator Diego Cortez and Anya Phillips. The venue became a focal point of the downtown music, art, and cultural scene in the late 20th century, showcasing the intersections of popular and avant-garde performance culture, gender and sexuality, celebrity culture, music, visual art, fashion, film, and nightlife. The Stephen Mass Papers (inclusive dates 1940-2019, bulk dates 1978-2009) documents the founding and operation of the Mudd Club in New York City, Mass's other entrepreneurial ventures in New York, and his nightclubs and restaurants in Berlin, as well as his personal life and family history. Consisting of both paper and electronic formats, the collection includes extensive notebooks and notes containing the planning and working notes for Mass's various endeavors, financial and legal documents, promotional materials for events (such as posters, flyers, and newsletters), ephemera (differentiated from promotional material, as promotional material Mass collected from other clubs or organizations), press coverage, and photographic materials such as prints, negatives, and slides.
Biographical Note
Stephen Mass is an entrepreneur who co-founded the Mudd Club located at 77 White Street in downtown New York City in 1978 along with art curator Diego Cortez and Anya Phillips. The venue became a focal point of the downtown music, art, and cultural scene in the late 20th century, showcasing the intersections of popular and avant-garde performance culture, gender and sexuality, celebrity culture, music, visual art, fashion, film, and nightlife. The Mudd Club closed in 1983, after which Mass embarked on other endeavors in New York and Berlin, such as founding Mudd Club Berlin in 2001, restaurant ownership, nonprofit work, teaching, and writing.
Arrangement
The Stephen Mass Papers is arranged into four series:
Series I. Mudd Club
Series II. Mudd Club Berlin
Series III. Other Enterprises
Series IV. Personal
Scope and Contents
The Stephen Mass Papers (inclusive dates 1940-2019, bulk dates 1978-2009) documents the founding and operation of the Mudd Club in New York City, Mass's other entrepreneurial ventures in New York, and his nightclubs and restaurants in Berlin, as well as his personal life and family history. The bulk of the materials are dated 1978-2009, which is when the majority of these entrepreneurial ventures took place. The more inclusive dates of 1940 to 2019 include materials from his youth, retrospective articles, press, and ephemera regarding the Mudd Club, and manuscript drafts of his unpublished memoir.
Consisting of both paper and electronic formats, the collection includes extensive notebooks and notes containing the planning and working notes for Mass's various endeavors, financial and legal documents, promotional materials for events (such as posters, flyers, and newsletters), ephemera (differentiated from promotional material, as promo material Mass collected from other clubs or organizations), press coverage, and photographic materials such as prints, negatives, and slides. The majority of the collection pertains to the management and operation of the Mudd Club in New York City and the various nightclubs and restaurants that Mass owned and operated in Berlin, Germany, including the Mudd Club Berlin. The large number of photographic prints, negatives, and slides in the collection document Mass's work as a nightclub entrepreneur and photographer, with images documenting the condition of venue spaces (particularly in Berlin), parties and events (particularly at the Mudd Club), and images of his own personal travel and photographic subjects. The collection also includes handwritten notes, diary entries, and typescript manuscript drafts for Mass's unpublished memoir, and interview transcripts and correspondence with Tim Lawrence regarding the Mudd Club.
Subjects
Donors
Conditions Governing Access
Materials are open without restrictions.
Conditions Governing Use
This collection is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use materials in the collection in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date; Stephen Mass Papers; MSS 592; box number; folder number or item identifier; Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University.
Location of Materials
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Purchased from Stephen Mass in November 2019; the accession number associated with this gift is 2019.066.
Born-Digital Access Policies and Procedures
Advance notice is required for the use of computer records. An access terminal for born-digital materials in the collection is available by appointment for reading room viewing and listening only. Researchers may view an item's original container and/or carrier, but the physical carriers themselves are not available for use because of preservation concerns.
Audiovisual Access Policies and Procedures
Audiovisual materials have not been preserved and may not be available to researchers. Materials not yet digitized will need to have access copies made before they can be used. To request an access copy, or if you are unsure if an item has been digitized, please contact Fales Library and Special Collections, special.collections@nyu.edu, 212-998-2596, with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. A staff member will respond to you with further information.
Appraisal
During processing in 2021, out-of-scope materials were deaccessioned. These materials include roadmaps of Berlin and London, 1950s German ephemera, personal materials (passport, stamp book, and certificates) from other people, copies and originals of Mass's identification documents, payslips, empty CD and EP cases, and a phonodisc.
About this Guide
Processing Information
During processing in 2021, original folders were retained whenever possible. Where appropriate, materials were rehoused in new acid-free archival folders. Loose photographic prints and negatives were rehoused in sleeves. Photographic slides were rehoused in sleeves and folders. If original descriptions or titles were available, they were transcribed onto the new folder or sleeve. Otherwise, titles were designated by the archivist. Loose paper materials were placed in archival folders with descriptive titles by the archivist.
Ten audiocassette tapes and one ¼-inch sound tape reel were assigned archivist-designated identifiers. These identifiers were also physically attached to the cases, and housed in new containers or shared housing. Six film reels, one ¼-inch open sound reel, and one u-matic tape were sent to the preservation lab for examination and rehousing.
Fourteen 3.5" floppy disks, one zip disk, and one optical disc were identified and inventoried. They have also been forensically imaged, analyzed, and arranged in Forensic Toolkit.
New York University Libraries follow professional standards and best practices when imaging, ingesting, and processing born-digital material in order to maintain the integrity of the content.
