Series I houses photographs of the earliest coaches, including the horse-drawn omnibuses, in addition to all of the various models produced through the late 1920s. Photographs are arranged alphabetically by bus type or numerically by bus number when the type is not specified. Within each type, the items are arranged in the following order: exterior, interior, chassis and axles, and engine and parts. Interior bus views often show passengers, as well as the advertisements lining the upper walls. The series ends with miscellaneous and unidentified vehicles and automotive parts, arranged alphabetically.

Views of type J include photographs of buses produced for the Grand Rapids Railways, the Capitol Traction Company (Washington, DC), the Milwaukee Electric Railway Company, and the Kansas Electric Power Company. Views of type 7J include buses manufactured for Detroit and for the Toronto Transportation Commission, and views of type L include a coach manufactured for Baltimore. Bus 701 is shown in both New York and Chicago, with a repainted exterior. The exterior of bus 914, a cooperative project of the New York Automobile Club and the Board of Education, is covered with signs exhorting safety, such as "Hurry leads to worry," and "Why take chances? Odds are against you."

Views of miscellaneous buses include four images of an upper deck containing several couples evidently posed in romantic poses. According to a 1954 New York Times article, these so-called "spooners" favored the open-air upper decks in use from 1907 to 1936. As a result, certain strait-laced riders led a campaign against the open-air coaches as "instruments of evil." At around the same time these photographs were taken, John A. Ritchie, the head of the Fifth Avenue Coach Company in the 1920's, wrote a letter defending open-air spooning.

Series II is divided into four subseries. The subseries "Activities" contains the menu for the testimonial dinner honoring company executive Captain G. A. Green, who went off to war in his native England in 1917. Also present is a photograph of a staff Baby Contest (1922) in the office of Dr. C. Sangfree, the staff doctor. There are of portraits of Captain Green and Dr. Sangfree, as well as the managerial staff at weekly meetings in Captain Green's office. In addition, photographs of the drivers' and conductors' winter and spring uniforms (1921-1923) have survived.

Series III consists of images of the employees at work and at leisure in the various buildings in use by the company. Photographs are arranged numerically by street number and alphabetically by place name, and thereunder alphabetically by caption. The series ends with unidentified locations. The work and recreation areas of two facilities are exceptionally well documented: the company headquarters on 102nd Street and the second garage on 132nd Street. Work scenes include views of the offices, assembly floor, machine shop, and repair pits. Scenes of recreation and leisure, which emphasize the benefits and amenities provided to employees by the company, include views of the barbershop, restaurant, tailor shop, and reading room.

Series IV contains views of Manhattan dating primarily from the 1910s and 1920s, arranged numerically by street and avenue, and alphabetically by place name, according to the first-named element in the caption provided by the company. Three 1899 photographs document the construction of the Third Avenue Railway on upper Broadway. Three undated images from the 1910s offer views of Washington Square Park, the lower terminus of the Fifth Avenue line. Two photographs, also undated, show an Easter Parade along Fifth Avenue. A series of nine photographs taken the morning of 2 December 1915 depicts various Manhattan intersections from 14th Street to Times Square. Nine images dated 29 July 1921 show excavations underway along Fifth Avenue from 14th Street to 86th Street.

Series V is divided into two subseries. Within each subseries, items are arranged alphabetically by caption. The first subseries contains images of employees adjusting, installing, operating, or assembling various vehicles and automotive parts. The second is a series of staged, didactic photographs depicting correct and incorrect practices for drivers and conductors. Examples of improper behaviors include smoking, reading the newspaper, miscalculating distances, stopping short, and leaving the bus unprotected. Images of model conduct show the proper way to make turns, usher passengers to the upper deck, and warn passengers before going under elevated structures.

Housed in Series VI are images related to the company's public relations endeavors during World War I. Present are photographs of the buses loaned to the American Red Cross in 1917, and to the Scotch Kilties for a recruiting tour that same year. One photograph depicts volunteers from the Woman's Motor Corps of America decorating the exterior of a bus, while another shows the same bus at the Fourth Liberty Loan Demonstration.

Series VII contains the following subseries: Types J and L, Graphs, and Miscellaneous. The images in the first subseries are photographs of sectional diagrams of types J and L coaches and schematic drawings of their component parts. The curves plotted along the graphs in the second subseries record such variables as the speed, engine performance, and acceleration of various types of coaches.

Series IX is divided into six subseries. Within each subseries, the items are arranged in an approximate chronological fashion. The cyanotypes primarily document the 146th Street station house and the 9th Avenue and 54th Street car house from 1897 to 1910. The small format bus views contain some replicas of the mounted images, as well as several supplementary views from the 1920s, including seven additional photographs of Bus 914 in front of City Hall on 23 December 1926. Later views from the 1930s onward include the buses of the Fifth Avenue Coach Lines. The earliest 8 x 10 bus views duplicate several of the mounted images, though the bulk of the images depict coaches from the 1930s through the 1960s. Many of the photographs from the 1930s and 40s represent the buses of the Madison Avenue Coach Lines, the Eighth Avenue Coach Lines, the Chicago Motor Coach Lines, and the New York City Omnibus Corporation, all under common control by 1936. The latest photographs from the 1960s depict coaches from the Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority, the entity that took control of the Fifth Avenue Coach Lines and its affiliates in 1962. Photographs of employees include two 1946 portraits of Operator Norman Peer, Badge 841, and two 1950s group snapshots of employees in the new locker room. Other views from the 1950s and 60s consist of executives giving speeches, attending at a ribbon-cutting ceremony, and celebrating at a banquet.

Series X, Albums and Scrapbooks, shows the ways in which this photographic archive was used for public relations and advertising purposes by the Fifth Avenue Coach Company in the 1910s and 20s. The large scrapbook contains items dated from 1911 to 1922 arranged with an internal alphabetical index supplied by its creator. It houses a variety of types of materials, including maps, route guides, fare schedules, passes, advertisements, advertising contracts, announcements, employee bulletins, public pamphlets, annual reports, letters to stockholders, and invitations to company events. It also contains the March 1917 and January-February 1922 issues of Bus Lines, the in-house newsletter published by the company for its employees, and the 1917 booklet Motor Bus Relief for New York's Transit Needs, which explained and supported the company's application to the city for new routes. Pamphlets for employees promoting courtesy, safety, and civility complement the contemporary photographs of the type A buses with civility signs in Series I and Series IV.

The March 1917 issue of Bus Lines reproduces an image from Series V, "Cutting Rubber from Tires," to illustrate an article entitled "Paddy's Scheme and the Lesson it Teaches," about an employee's cost-saving suggestion to remove and sell the rubber from old tires. An October 1917 advertisement in British Empire Rally contains the image of the Scotch Kilties' recruiting tour, and a company postcard pictures the bus camouflaged by the Women's War Work Effort.

The advertisements, which are clipped from a number of different publications and are directed either at riders, potential advertisers, or potential purchasers of coaches, make liberal use of the exterior and interior views of coaches found in Series I. In most cases, the price the company paid for each ad is penciled at the top.

Everybody's Motor Car, the photographs and clippings album, was most likely compiled in the late 1910s. It contains photographs with extensive typed and handwritten captions that promote a positive image of the company, touting its fine facilities and the excellent construction of its buses, the high rates of employee and customer satisfaction, its impressive safety record, and its patriotic endeavors in wartime. It is divided into the following sections: Company History, The Company and Its Employees, and The Company and the Public. The photographs in this album are for the most part duplicates of items found in Series I, Series III, and Series VI, picturing coaches, employees at work and at leisure, and wartime activities. Together with the photographs are printed materials, including the February 1917 issue of Bus Lines, the Fifth Avenue Coach Association Membership Book, an instruction book for employees, another copy of Motor Bus Relief for New York's Transit Needs, a Central Park Guide, maps, and advertisements clipped from other publications.

The photographs in the small album feature several views from the 1920s of the interior, exterior, chassis, and engine parts of types J, L, and 2L coaches, as well as curves charting their horse power, engine performance, and speed. The majority of these images are duplicates of items found in Series I and VII. Though it contains no captions, this album may have been used to visually demonstrate the features and craftsmanship of these particular coaches to potential purchasers.