Metropolitan Council on Housing Records
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Abstract
The Metropolitan Council on Housing Records (dates 1949-2014) contain correspondence, board meeting minutes, press releases, reports, printed ephemera, government documents, and audio and video recording related to the organizing efforts of the Metropolitan Council on Housing (MCH). The Metropolitan Council on Housing is a membership organization for New York City tenants that focuses on expanding affordable housing and protecting tenants' rights. The organization was formed in 1959 by several labor and housing rights activists, including longtime MCH leaders Jane Benedict and Esther Rand. The collection contains internal records and published materials documenting lobbying campaigns and demonstrations organized by the MCH to promote affordable housing in New York City.
Historical Note
The Metropolitan Council on Housing is non-profit tenant organization that focuses on expanding affordable housing in New York City. The organization was formed in 1959 by a group of labor and housing rights activists, including longtime MCH leaders Jane Benedict and Esther Rand. MCH has fought for increased public housing, the maintenance of rent control, and other housing priorities, using a variety of tactics, including rent strikes and lobbying. MCH is a membership organization, and also has chapters based on buildings. MCH publishes The Tenant/Inquilinoand hosts a radio program on WBAI, "Listen to Housing Notebook." The organization's website is: http://www.metcouncil.net/ (accessed June 18, 2007).
Sources:
Ronald Lawson, ed. The Tenant Movement in New York City, 1904-1984(New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1986).
Arrangement
The collection is divided into seven series by record type or date of accretion.
Series I: Administrative Files and Series II: Subject Files have grouped records by file type and arranged materials within series alphabetically. Materials in Series III: 2002 through 2007 Accretions, Series V: 2014 Accretion, and Series VI: Audio have received either folder or box-level description and have not been arranged. Materials in Series IV: 2008 Accretion are described at the folder-level and arranged alphabetically within each box. Series V: 2014 Accretion Series VI: Audio, 1978-1982 Series VII: Archived Websites, August 2009-ongoing
Scope and Content Note
The Metropolitan Council on Housing Records (dates 1949-2014) contain correspondence, board meeting minutes, press releases, reports, printed ephemera, government documents, and audio and video recording related to the organizing efforts of the Metropolitan Council on Housing (MCR). The first two series of the collection consist of subject and administrative files created by the organization. Administrative files include executive board minutes, programs and ephemera from annual conferences, and records related to MCH's involvement in rent law reforms. Subject files contain records related to specific lobbying campaigns of MCH including rent control and stabilization, public housing, and the Mitchell-Lama housing program.
Subsequent accretions donated between 2002 and 2014 include additional administrative files, ephemera, photographs, newspaper clippings, and periodicals. These files primarily relate to MCH lobbying campaigns and tenants' rights demonstrations. They include correspondence and administrative files related to MCH's work with other housing rights organizations in the city including the Cooper Square Committee, East Side Tenants Council, and the Riverside Edgecombe Neighborhood Association. The collection contains several boxes of audio recordings including, which predominantly consist of recordings for MCH's radio program on WBLS Radio, "Tenants' Fight for Survival." Also included among these materials are copies of MCH's newspaper Tenant, from 1971 to 2014.
The collection also includes captures of the Metropolitan Council on Housing's website beginning in 2009.
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Conditions Governing Access
Materials are open without restrictions.
Conditions Governing Use
Any rights (including copyright and related rights to publicity and privacy) held by the Metropolitan Council on Housing, the creator of this collection, were relinquished and transferred to the public domain in 2014 by the Jaron Benjamin. These materials are governed by a Creative Commons CC0 license, which permits publication and reproduction of materials accompanied by full attribution. See, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.
Preferred Citation
Published citations should take the following form:
Identification of item, date; Metropolitan Council on Housing Records; TAM 173; box number; folder number;
Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012, New York University Libraries.
To cite the archived website in this collection: Identification of item, date; Metropolitan Council on Housing Records; TAM 173; Wayback URL; Repository Name, New York University.
Location of Materials
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated by Metropolitan Council on Housing in 1995. Additional materials were donated in 2002, 2008, and 2014. The accession numbers related to these gifts are 1995.013 and 2014.151.
http://www.metcouncil.net/ was initially selected by curators and captured through the use of The California Digital Library's Web Archiving Service in 2009 as part of the Other Left Activism Web Archive. In 2012, the website URL changed, crawling was discontinued, and http://metcouncilonhousing.org/ was added as part of the Housing Web Archive. In 2015, these websites were migrated to Archive-It. Archive-It uses web crawling technology to capture websites at a scheduled time and displays only an archived copy, from the resulting WARC file, of the website. In 2020, https://thetenant.org/ was added to the web archive. The accession number associated with this website is 2020.031.
Audiovisual Access Policies and Procedures
Access to some audiovisual materials in this collection is available through digitized access copies. Researchers may view an item's original container, but the media themselves are not available for playback because of preservation concerns. Materials that have already been digitized are noted in the collection's finding aid and can be requested in our reading room.
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 tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. A staff member will respond to you with further information. 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 tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. A staff member will respond to you with further information.
Take Down Policy
Archived websites are made accessible for purposes of education and research. NYU Libraries have given attribution to rights holders when possible; however, due to the nature of archival collections, we are not always able to identify this information.
If you hold the rights to materials in our archived websites that are unattributed, please let us know so that we may maintain accurate information about these materials.
If you are a rights holder and are concerned that you have found material on this website for which you have not granted permission (or is not covered by a copyright exception under US copyright laws), you may request the removal of the material from our site by submitting a notice, with the elements described below, to the special.collections@nyu.edu.
Please include the following in your notice: Identification of the material that you believe to be infringing and information sufficient to permit us to locate the material; your contact information, such as an address, telephone number, and email address; a statement that you are the owner, or authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed and that you have a good-faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; a statement that the information in the notification is accurate and made under penalty of perjury; and your physical or electronic signature. Upon receiving a notice that includes the details listed above, we will remove the allegedly infringing material from public view while we assess the issues identified in your notice.
About this Guide
Processing Information
Materials were donated by the Metropolitan Council on Housing in 1995, 2002, and 2008. Preliminary inventories were drafted in 2002 and 2008, which served as the basis for an online guide published in 2009. Sometime before 2007, some audio materials were separated from the collection. In 2013, the separated audio materials were returned to the collection, rehoused, and described. Four unrelated cassettes, including dubbed versions of commercial music recordings, were deaccessioned. In 2014, the archived websites were added as Series VI. In 2015, boxes 47 through 61 were removed and incorporated with the Cooper Square Committee Records (TAM 356) collection as its boxes 1 through 15. In 2016, Series V: 2014 Accretion was added to the collection. Additionally, the numbers of boxes in Series IV: 2008 and Series VI: Audio were updated to reflect the removal of materials transferred to the Cooper Square Committee Records.
In September 2024, Preservation flattened and rehoused newspapers in boxes 66-68 and 71; they were placed in appropriate sized flat boxes. Materials in box 65 were moved to a manuscript box.
